Sanguinesun

Congrats guys on this! Figured something like this was coming. Very cautiously optimistic about this however, I do have some concerns: 1. The 30% donation increase needs(as foreseen at the moment.. could go higher) and how in recent times reaching goals each month has taken longer, I hope that there will not be a situation that needs will not be met in the future. I hope the team plans conservatively and accordingly in this regard and to not over extend themselves. How will it be handled then when needs start to become inconsistently met or even worse consistently not met? 2. I didnt see it specified but usually limited license agreements have an expiration date. What is the expiration date for this one then and what happens if said expiration date comes and the agreement stops? Not from a frame work of NCSoft requesting a shut down but in regards to the statements that the legal structure and current limitations had been imposed upon our group perhaps having to be reverted to and changes to the game occur thusly? 3. There is concerns this will affect transparency regarding the project in a direction of becoming less transparent (as this has been a contention even as it was in the past too). 4. There are also concerns of how this will, given the intentions to continue to develop the game, implement changes that will cause fundamental changes that will affect current play interests and gravitate away from the philosophy of allowing players to predominantly play as they wish. Things like for example use of AE for farming is the easiest one that comes to mind due to how it is a divided, contentious point within both the players and the dev team. And there are other similar examples. 5. With the statements of a City Council to be made and Cipher being lead. Will the structure of decisions regarding them be transparent? For example does Cipher have the overall veto even if the council has a consensus other wise or other such similar procedural info be made known to the community?

In gaming terms, Japanese is ranked as one of the S tier languages in difficulty to learn for multiple reasons (category 4 or 5 depending on the linguistic ranking system you look at but always in the top difficulty group). Japanese is a high context language and due to the social stratification, extremely nuanced. English is considered linguistically to be a low context(well more low-med) context language by comparison. A foreigner living in Japan can pick up enough (if they study etc) to deal with most daily conversation level needs within a year, but passing the JLPT 1 (top test score level/near native level) with proficiency in all aspects of the language really, takes years of extreme study and living in the language for most all seeking to pass at that level. JLPT 3 or 4 is easy enough to pass in the first year but the jump to 2 and 1 is significantly longer for most. It may be controversial to say for some, but you can't really master Japanese(or many different languages) without living in the language. People think almost always and only in terms of listening, speaking, and writing but to the detriment of forgetting the intricate web of cultural context and aspects of linguistic relativity in these regards.

Heh its in Fort Mill. I should've known. Now Fort Mill has 2 claims to fame: the infamous and long gone PTL and now that. (Full disclosure, I lived one town over for 2 decades :P). Probably made from old Springs or Celanese toxic waste :P:P

People are just dancing around it in this thread but Im just going to say it. He was, and still is, a shyster. Period.

Dark Dark controller(the dark/ pet being like in harry potter the "grim' an ill omen/curse and the /dark one being like a curse too). Illusion Dark or Mind Dark with "being in you head" sort of curse/bad luck. Any combination of archetype power sets you choose but with a character name and costume to exemplify some one who is the curse to inflict miser and bad luck on you in the form of their being sent but some other power to cause you harm or some such. Really many different ways this can be approached.

I've seen this year's holiday event more issues with AFK leaders and AFK brutes for some reason which is a bit weird really on the brute front. Every year there are afk spam aoe healers and there's on excelsior the same flying robot mm I've seen nor for 3 years straight who is never in a group too. Its why when KWarf has groups running, its the best place really as that just doesnt happen vs PI. The focus on MM's and people going over the top to report mm's like the OP is encouraging when there are plenty of also valid mm's participating isn't helpful, either.

To be pragmatic, this may be a signal to start tightening belts so to speak on the offerings of the game, such as starting to consider the number of servers being hosted or other things such as looking into other services that may provide same/better needs for maintaining the game. The bulk of the costs are OVH, after all. It may be an unpopular consideration but wants do not always equal reality in these situations and something more sustainable perhaps may need to be considered.

All it takes is letting someone know it needs to be reseeded lower and its a non issue. 🙂

There is no single most powerful ability from powersets. We've had years to see to that not being viably the case. Everything is situational, as most have said to this point regarding different powers: "X is good in the right situation.".... or.... "X is good in the right hands." meaning a player's acumen plays a significant role.

I dunno... to me, Its practical depending on the toon/playstyle as its organized by Function Keys so you can quickly press as needed. Basically that's what it was designed for by the devs to be, really. *shrug* Now with all that said...let's talk about base storage organization..... 😉

Hmm a bit hard to suggest things I've not already made or are making 😛 That said, depends on what sort of horror you're going for but here's 100+ ideas and mixes of ideas to think about. 1. Plain suited character with some variation of The Tax Man/ IRS would be horrific, or some other sort of debt collector theme given the current clime. 2. Something the complete opposite of Snarky (horror is a perspective like the Addams Family after all... :P) 3. Something Akin to making people panic that servers are permanently shutting down this month 4. An undead Christmas Bunny Pirate 5. A stalker with a greenish brown plant theme and zombie face called Rotten Collard Greens or any other rotten veggies themes 6. Seasonal Layoffs 7. Cannibal ATM 8. The Creature from Crab Rangoon(play on creature from the black lagoon) 9. Concert Fees Vampire 10. Pokie (opposite of a Taylor Swifty) 11. Surgeon Slow (opposite of Taylor Swift) 12. Hospital Bill 13. Butter Knife (dipped in salt) 14. Inconvenient Store Clerk 15. Mother In Law 16. Horror Director theme costumed toon that is an mm (I already have one though hehe) 17. Tooth Ache theme variations 18. Migraine theme variations 19. The Ghost of your meanest teacher 20. The ghost of your worst Ex 21. The ghost of your worst boss 22. Zombie giggolo ... business has been unfortunately falling off... 23. (Insert x)-phobia 24. Death on Holiday (insert your holiday theme as one wishes) 25. Gas Pump Ken (not to be confused with barbie/ken mind you..... mind you....) 26. Ubermenschen Eats (like uber eats but a 5th column zombie) 27. Spectre of Layoffs (play on words too there) 28. Spectre of (any thing someone fears to loomingly occur in the near future). 29. Anti-Anesthetic Man 30. Creepy Janitor themes 31. Creepy co-worker themes 32. Greasy Granny Girlfriend 33. Credit Maxing boyfriend/girlfriend 34. Hangnail 35. Dental Themes of various sorts, especially sadistic ones 36. Robo Caller 37. Any thematic "Karen" 38. Demon-itized Channel 39. Liberal Arts Degree (would you like fries with that?) 40. Job Head Hunter (character with no head) 41. Pumpkin Spiceless 42. Office Coffee (a very vile drink and brown water theme). 43. Free Range Zombie Chicken (says "mmm tastes like human" 44. Zombie Peep 45. Halloween candy themed ones(as many hate some in the following list: Circus Peanuts Candy Corn Wax Cola Bottles Necco Wafers Peanut Butter Kisses (High Point, NC playfully banned these back in 2018 lol) Tootsie Rolls Smarties Licorice Good and Plenty Mary Janes 46. Already Christmas themed (horrific and or anger inducing) 47. No Cell Service 48. Shrink-Flation Funeral Director 49. Heavy Month (room left for interpretation...) 50. Crunch Time Management 51. Some sort of Changeling (Im calling it right now that the TV series currently running on that theme isnt supernatural but a misdirect addressing only themes of child loss) 52. Identity Thief (this could get creative with player that makes lots of different costumes of other known players on their server). 53. Unsweetened Iced Tea (only US Southerners may get it) 54. Sweetened Iced Tea (only US northerners may get it) 55. Eggs with Ketchup (see above). 56. Buttered Grits (see above) 57. Putrid Poutine 58. Natto on Toast (google natto if you dont know what it is... for some it smells like 3 day old smelly socks) 59. Ripe Surströmming (a fish zombie) 60. Toe Cheese Tom 61. Mariachi Mummy 62. Narcissist Mummy (they're wrapped up in their own issues) 63. Flares Wolf (different options there...) 64. Invasive Species (many different themes) 65. Skunk Ape, Big Foot, Sasquatch, Yeti or similar themes with name variations. 66. Use Car Salesman 67. Loan Officer 68. Undead Influencer (social media pariah) 69. Studio Exec 70. Daymare (as opposed to nightmare) 71. Worst Toilet Cleaner 72. Infernal Instructions (you know... ikea funiture instructions) 73. Forumite themes. 74, Carolina Reaper, Ghost Pepper or variations on those themes/names 75. Cordyceps themes 76. Bad Hair Horror 77. Forever Hiccups(could be an evil clown...) 78. HR Spook n Stuff (gotta know the old tv show) 77. Left Over (insert food name) (zombie theme) 78. Dropped Phone 79. Pinkeye (insert name starting with a P) 80. Bank Fees 81. Busy Bed Bug 82. Bloated Tick 83. Nether Leech (as in its in an unmentionable place of pain) 84. Standardized Test Teacher 85. Overslept 86. Abandoned (insert theme) 87. Just a Rash 88. Wither Brain 89. Telemarketer 90. Encapsulated Marginal (Anthropology joke) 91. Missing Jigsaw Piece 92. Bad Breath (insert b name) (zombie) 93. Out of Work Zombie 94. Bad Album/broken record themes(for sonic or symphonic etc) 95. (insert name) Cooties (healer and buff/debuffers ) 96. Drawn and Quartered 97. Death by (insert theme) 98. No Legacy 99. Exuviae themes 100. (Insert Scary Controversial Topics you want to risk making a toon of that may not get the ok for... consider at your own... scary.... risk).

My only beefs from last year was the afk bots mm flying that was grouped that intentionally would leech kills to grief others in PI and league leaders that would go AFK. PI because of those 2 things was a bit of a nightmare. And on rare occasion there was the issues with people teleporting others to fight GM's when the leagues had the consensus not to(as folks would not always have.. especially on new toons, the teleport prompt on). That said, The groups at Khalista Warf were exceptional and I hope it becomes as successful this year (and more the go to this year vs PI) as it was there last year.

I think the way your initial post communicated things led various folks here to believe that you were in expectation for some sort of solution to the factors that pertained to inducing your issue.... and in addition making an overall statement as to the conditions of the player base now being worse to that of the "old community" implying how the game was on live. I recognize then that you're stating above that you're not with the expectation nor intent from your initial post that something from a technical standpoint would be accommodating and that your main focus has been how you felt treated by the community here for the statements you gave concerning others saying things to the effect of "turning down the fx" etc. A few things then I'll offer additionally regarding all that: 1. Arguably 90% of the players who play now used to play live. Thus I'd present to you that live and now are similar if not same folks. That said and due to the much much much larger set of demographics of players when live, the general consensus (outside of some groomed elitism that rears its ugly head now and then from the communty(but again was also seen plenty on live), has been that live was a much more caustic community than now. 2. A devil's advocate point: some of what you originally stated concerning what people told you may well be a mix of just simply their lack of understanding your issues, their poor attempt of suggestions to you due to ignorance of that, and a pinch of confirmation bias from you that they were being overtly negative towards you. 3. You've put your challenges out here through, as you say, your venting and that is of course an advocacy for yourself, naturally. Not a small number of the people in the community do so. I can tell you in the last 4 months that I have encountered, talked with, and been on the listening, and suggestions end of not a small number of people who have many different challenges as well. At least 3-4 people had challenges related to severe anxiety that prevented them from leaning into the uncomfortability of joining groups. One I talked with is recovering from a stroke and has limited reaction response to not just playing in general but responding to others. Lots of people who are not native speakers of English who play but remain mostly quiet to hide that in case they encounter frustrations from others. And all that is before mentioning those suffering from alchoholism(by their own admission) and various mental issues I wont mention. My point with mentioning all this is --not-- to diminish your frustrations or invalidate them. It is though to say to you that you're not alone and there are others that are going through their own issues and challenges with play. Not all of them either may have an understanding or empathy for your situation mind you (due to ignorance or their own above mentioned challenges preventing them from doing so)... and that too has to be perhaps given consideration when one is able to be mindful there of. I thus at this point can only suggest for you to hopefully surround yourself in play with others who work with you on things as best they can and go from there. Last point(and this is just in jest(lightening things), dont get me started on the "my cat is causing me to drop playing" folks..... 😛 Cats are just archvillains in fur.

Im not sure why there is a comparison to the "old community" being done regarding your disability. HC has done more to have limiting effects features in game than was when it was live. While there have been new sets that have come about with powers, the same sort of basis of occurences between them and any older sets powers are not different on that level of consideration. We also have to factor that even if every one had very simplistic visuals attributed to each of their powers, that it doesnt factor that when you're in a group of 48 (ie any major league raids), then each individual attack placed by 48 people is going to have the potential to mimic the effects of common visual seizure triggering effects. (48 simple effects every 1-3 seconds firing off in either unision or staggered in other words). Understand this isn't being stated to diminish your disability. It is to point out that your comparison of now to "old community" seems strange or misplaced. However, I recognize your goal to be some way to essentially remove graphically any type graphical renderings that would be seizure triggering from a volunteer player developer team already limited and strapped of people and time resources to perhaps develop a system that would satisfy your specifics for seizure triggering(triggers can vary depending on the individual to varying degrees of course). So I empathize with your situation, but unless someone has other creative workarounds to offer or the dev team members who could enact a change to accomodate your disability speak up, Im not sure there is much that can be done otherwise. Im sorry that that then may be the unfortunate case. ☹️

While sleeps are ok. A comparison with a root is a bit like comparing an orange to a bowling ball simply because they're round in some regards. Are you factor I recognize that you've amended your claims concerning sleeps across sets 8 hours then 2 hours respectively at the time of this writing but as a point of clarification, even 3 years ago other sets had sleeps. That said, sleeps are just another tool in the shed. Comparing them to immobilizes is like comparing an orange to a bowling ball simply because they're round and seeking to rank one better than the other is a mis-comparative situation. Functions/purpose, situational use, damage, and other points are not factored either. Something else not comparatively considered. Psionic damage type, especially in the 40-50+ range of mobs is one of the highest damage resisted types among the games mobs(2nd): Galaxy Brain's Common Resist Chart - Google Sheets All by 1 power (levitate=smashing and smashing's 4th on the resisted list) is psionic damage type. And yes it doesnt have a pet which for some play styles, that is a practical loss because mass hypnosis has a 240s base recharge that typically just applies. So its just good for 1 group with a long wait to use again. Unlike the pets which can be up and contributing from group to group for the length of a mission or more commonly multiple missions. Mind isnt bad. Its fine. But the point is that when you start to draw comparisons to other sets and then use sleep as the pedestal from which to claim superiority for the set(and yes again erroneously as you've admitted to for the lack of sleeps from other sets), it really doesnt make for a compelling argument.

As others have said, it used to be much much more punitive than it is now. Back when the game's goal was to keep a player paying their subscription, the debt was just one of the layers of doing so..... in addition to being a learning tool. Death in most games is a learning too in itself but if someone is dying so much that they're accruing lots of debt, it was meant to try to have them step back and think "hey, Im doing something wrong that I need to change". In our current, no paid subscription model, debt's role has been just mainly relegated to being a vestigial feature with just a minor "hey ya might want to change what you're doing if debts an issue for you" (ie almost never). Basically debt is now more or less a much ado about nothing.

Attempting to apply erroneously perceived prescriptive rules of discourse in a descriptive rules of discourse community is just so adorable...

Depends on the age of the sake. Clear to yellow to orange depending, usually.

Still no resolution to this issue.

Likely because the conditions that caused it to happen to others last time wasnt then or now applicable to you. According to the team last time, it was due to erroneous region block issues.

Nope

For a few days now, yet again, accessing the events calendars for servers brings up the error message and not able to be accessed.

Whatever you think you can cosmetically match best your concept, really.

Well sorta... City of Heroes RPG Quickplay Pack - Eden Studios | City Of Heroes RPG | DriveThruRPG.com But the early 80's Champions pen and paper rpg is also a good fit with a more fleshed out rules and play system imo.