Abraxus

Yup. It's been tried before, by different teams, using different approaches...ALL under NDA mind you, so we never got any of the details. Not even when the efforts failed. So, quite the frustrating experience each time, until enough time passed for folks to just presume it dead, and a little more hope died with it. Then, last April, news broke of the shadow server, and everything literally exploded from there, to where we are right now. I don't know what might be going on behind the scenes, but I'm playing my game again, and as long as that isn't being threatened in any meaningful way, I am content to let these things go on as they will, until we have a permanent solution.

I have 12 heroes, and 2 villains. They range from level 1 to 40. I love playing them all, but there is one (the highest one) that I have really been digging lately, so I have concentrated most of my play time on that one, in an effort to make sure that everyone else will be well funded when they come out of the bullpen. That one was never intended to be the lead character, but I found myself really liking the powerset combination, and how powerful they feel when playing. Even in large groups. I had 25 toons at level 50 when the original came to an end, and a good number of them have been re-created here, and will eventually all get their time to run through the adventures (and levels). I'm just so happy to have the chance to do so again!

I am on the 4-Chan Discord, and one of the derogatory comments I find amusing is how the "LEO-IZED" I25 code has powersets that were never supposed to exist, and imply what an abomination that makes the whole thing. If we went by that thinking, ever new powerset introduction, and power proliferation done since Issue 1 would be viewed in the same light. The game evolved a little in the 7 years that it was running in the SCORE environment, and I personally believe that we have all benefited greatly from those changes, and the existence of the SCORE server itself. Without that, we absolutely would not have our game back at this moment. I'm not sure why I stay associated to that Discord, when it seethes with hatred for Homecoming, and Leo in particular. I guess because I believe you can't just ignore opposing views. Best to know what they are, so you can make informed decisions on why you don't believe as they do.

Sounds like fun!

There really is nothing further to add. The changes were made, some adjustments were made after that to make it closer to what was intended in the original patch. That's the bottom line, and it is the reality of things. All folks have to do, is decide if they themselves wish to play here under those terms. If not, there are choices that did not exist during the original run to find place to play where the situation is more to your liking. If you do like being here, we should be concerned with nobody's play style, other than our own, unless someone else's infringes upon yours in some tangible way. Complaining about how others choose to play, under the terms given, accomplishes nothing. Just enjoy the game folks! Is it perfect? No. Is anything? NO! I for one love the game being back, and I accept it as it is, warts and all. I consider that vastly superior to lamenting it's shut down, and longing for it's return. Now that it has, I have no complaints, with the possible exception of not being able to play as often, and for as long as I wish. Because I would be spending a LOT more time in-game if circumstances allowed.

I had never heard about it until yesterday, so when I did, I voted for Homecoming. I'm sure many others playing here had not heard about it either. It seems like something intentionally designed to make it look like Homecoming is actually the least popular, to persuade new players who wouldn't know better to go other servers instead. If so, I don't care for the tactic, and hopefully anyone who falls for it will realize the truth fairly quick.

Love my Earth/Earth Dom! She is recreated from her former self in the live game, and she is just as fun these years later! She is currently level 40, and while only using SOs at the moment, she feels pretty powerful! In fact, she was never meant to be my lead character (first to 50), but it has certainly worked out that way. Love the powers, and the sound effects. It SOUNDS powerful!

I like it! I'll try to be there!

I've been watching the numbers, and it seems that Excelsior has consistently been more heavily populated over at least the past week, than Torchbearer, which was surprising. Torchbearer was always the most populated since the second iteration of the re-launch. I guess the availability of character transfers has finally had the effect of evening things out.

We can sit around and fret about the big boogie man NCSoft, or we can enjoy playing the game we all missed so much. I have, as much as I possibly can. I am making long term plans with all of my characters, and I will continue to do so until I have a solid reason not to. If the worst happens, I know two people personally, who are running private servers. So, if the end comes again, I will be playing. Just having to start again. I could deal with that, if it meant never having to worry about moving again. I can only hope that work on tools that allow for character data to be saved, and transported between servers becomes available soon, so that we won't ever even have to worry about starting over again either.

There is nothing about this game that I hate. I loved it when it was live, I pined for it in the 7 years it was gone, and I rejoice now that it is back. However, I will say that there are certainly aspects of maps, and a few other things that I feel myself dreading, or loathing. But, I LOVE that I have the privilege of loathing them once again!

I remember a team of RAD defenders, and controllers with my SG mates being a total wrecking machine, powering through everything we did. Was it boring being so powerful? No, not at all. Because without any kind of Tank, or melee to take alpha strikes, or keep aggro if something went wrong, this team of squishies always ran the risk of team wipes if we didn't all follow the plan, and work together. That was the fun of it. Now, we are making plans to bring them back for another round, as soon as we can find some of our old friends, and get the band back together...so to speak.

I hate the Discord website/PC interface quite intensely. No idea if it's any easier to use on an 'app'. I think it is, but your mileage may vary.

Actually, Discord gives the admins the ability to pin important posts, so they are always easy to find. It's just a matter of them doing it, and you finding them to be helpful/informative. The other thing Discord offers that forums don't, is built-in voice connectivity. Makes it easy to coordinate play times, and get on a voice channel, all in one. I know there are other ways of doing it, but the group I play with has their own Discord channel, so we chat there, and use the voice services during play. It works out well once folks get all of the audio stuff working.

I remade 13 of my mains! I had 25 at L50 when it all ended, and now half of them are back! I don't have time to play them all, but I have time to move them around to new Day Job locations once a week to keep the names from slipping away. In time, so long as things stay as they are, they will all have their time to shine.

Yeah, it would seem like combing forces between the Reddit, and 4Chan servers would be a good idea to bump up the player population. But, they 4Chan server would have to have some kind of warning about what to expect as far as player conduct. Other than that, sounds like a solid idea. Just not sure how jazzed the folks running those servers are about the concept.

"You now have the power to run your own server!" ignores the massive necessity of the "massively multiplayer" bit of "MMORPG" which at the moment homecoming is monopolizing. So yes, we're allowed to criticize them for running their servers poorly. Agreed! It's not monopolization if people choose to be here, and if so many choose to be here, then perhaps they need to concentrate more on finding things to make their server(s) more appealing, and stop looking for ways to make Homecoming appear less appealing (unfairly, I might add).

Played Earth/Earth Dominator through a few TFs this weekend, and it was a blast! It has become my favorite toon! As an Earth/Storm Controller I can confirm. Tons of fun!

Probably not a bad idea in general, but as fast as these donation events raise the entire month's projected cost; even if they had to do another to cover something unexpected, it would probably be covered in 30 minutes, or less. 8) I love that the community is so willing to support the game we all missed for so long, and want to stay around as long as folks want to play it.

One of these months, I'm gonna get it quick enough to give a little back, for all I get out of this game. For now, I guess my sincere thanks will have to do.

I'm always civil. ;D Just a personal note on the new name policy. Today, I logged in and noticed that most of my characters had not been accessed in 8 days. Knowing that I left them all at Day Job locations, I went into each, and moved them each to a new Day Job location. The whole thing took about 10 minutes. I have 13 characters. While I know that some have more than that, I wanted to point out that, for 13 characters, it was not a time consuming, or exhaustive effort to log into each one, and move them somewhere that was advantageous for them to just stand around. Get enough of these, and there are accolades, and they get to keep their super cool names that I don't want to give up. Since I had 25 or more Level 50 characters at the end of the 8 years of the original run, I think I am being honest is saying that each of these, and any new ones I create down the line, will have their time in the spotlight. I wish I had time to play all of them constantly, but I don't. So, the idea is to keep them doing something productive until their particular time comes.

Nothing is perfect. But, I have always believed that the benefits, and the fun factor (and let's not overlook the social aspect because of the great community) greatly outweigh any of those flaws. It is truly an example of something that is greater than the sum of its parts.

I think I heard that there was a bug in the 1-10 XP, and that it was being looked at for a fix. So, it doesn't match the intent at the moment, but I feel like a fix is coming soon. They are probably just gathering other things to make the patching/downtime effort worthwhile.

The only concern though is that then because the ping pong ball has bounced back over into the ae side of the net, that they'll further pop it etc etc etc. I get server stability concerns that were had due to the AE map server stuffs but the congregating to the trial was the direct result of that change. Limiting choices in the short term is what leads to folks being funneled into something else. Speed of leveling should not be a worry for the team, really outside of server related issues. We're not in the epistemic bubble days of the NC folks needing to figure out how to eek out as much time to play in the game to maintain transactions and subs etc. Its a different perspective now. Personally, my only concern is that there is a desire to continue to maintain nc's previous thinking (or a reluctance to let that go for what ever reason). We're seeing a few of these decisions now and while trying to think of them in the context of the now, it still is compelling to have concerns of the direction that it may continue to go towards. *shrug*. I understand what you're getting at. But, I guess I'm just not accustomed, or familiar with being that tied to the stats the game, that any change would change how I feel about playing it. I love the game, I love the lore, and I love all the things one can do in a such a mature game. Mostly, I like sharing that play time with friends on-line, which also makes it a social thing. So, there is very little that could be done to make me want to play anything else. I have played "anything else" for the past 7 years, and all that ended up being was marking time in the faint hope that this one would come back. Now it has, and I couldn't be happier. It's a RARE second chance that I won't be wasting on worrying over what I consider minutia. I know others feel differently, and that's their prerogative. But, please don't accuse those of us who are perfectly happy playing the game we love, as being deluded, or viewing things with rose colored glasses. Some of us have been around long enough to realize what really makes us happy, having tried many other things. This makes me happy. But, for those of you who still need to make that journey, I understand. I was young once too. 8) :)

Proof positive that if XP is really all you're after, there are still ways to do it. I'm sure there are those who will point out that it isn't the same, which is true. But, in total it will make the difference between taking less than a day to get to from 1 to 50, and possibly adding a few more hours to the total. Might seem like light years worth of difference, but in the grand scheme of things, it's really not.