city info terminal kiosk, err thingy

[Snarky]

not something i use much honestly.  can someone tell me a bit about them?  oh, do they still work and are there any of them redside?

[Ukase]

You stole my question! lol

The Paragon Wiki refers to them on blue side as "City Information Terminal Kiosks". They were added with Issue 2. No mention is made about them on red side. Just seems like they'd have given villains a similar way to see who was bashing the most npcs and what-not. 

[Wild Claw]

I think they fell out of use before CoV became a thing, or were broken and they didn't bother to fix them. I joined Live with the Good vs Evil release, and they didn't seem to work at that time. I vaguely remember someone telling me that the stats they produced were incorrect for some reason, but I don't remember being told what that reason was.

 

Since then I've puzzled over if we could repurpose them, but I wasn't entirely sure what to do with them. Given they were 'info terminals' I wondered if they could pop a browser window to the wiki, City of Data, and the like. (I also remember someone telling me that there *used* to be a browser extension built into the game some time around Issue 2, but it had been removed the next issue due to extreme bugginess.)

[Glacier Peak]

Are the ones in Recluses Victory not usable?

[Knock!]

I remember that when they were first introduced, they were leaderboards that tracked things like damage dealt or enemies defeated. And I think they did that for the zone you were in and for the entire game (only blueside then), but that might not be the case.

 

I'm not sure when the character stats they show now were added (nor when the leaderboards were dropped), but they do still work. They even track how many times you visit the top of the Atlas Park globe.

 

[Greycat]

The leaderboards were dropped back on live - those things actually took a *lot* of resources, apparently, far more than we'd have guessed. New stats are - either SCORE or from here.

[KauaiJim]

I had completely forgotten about these.  I confirmed the Atlas Park one still gives some info.  Did not see any in Mercy.  I couldn't find much online but there is one post talking about it once being a 'leaderboard' but that was apparently disabled to foil gold spammers or some such?  Also it was apparently resource heavy on the servers?  I also saw slash command for /kiosk listed on the old wiki but it doesn't do anything now as far as I can tell (if it even was related to this).  

 

This is the kind of thing that makes me want to peruse the old forums via PK's still pending project.  

 

... and @Greycat just posted pretty much the same as what I was able to find.  👍

[Snarky]

I think I used one of these like once, maybe twice years ago.  I do not recall ever running across any object Redside (and i play a LOT of Redside) that offered anything like this. But I dont always explore.  For all I know there could be something in the old abandoned labs where you can craft stuff that gives out this info

[GraspingVileTerror]

So, when the game first launched, the kiosks didn't work at all.  I made a character called "Kiosk Repair Man" as a joke, but never really played him.  He would just stand around the kiosk in the City Hall courtyard and say "I'm on my break."

 

I think it was Issue 2 when the Kiosks started working?  Possibly sooner.  But, yeah.  As others have said, they used to show Leaderboards for things like Damage done, Healing done, and Enemies Defeated for specific factions.  I have no idea why they stopped working, but @Greycat's explanation sounds likely.

 

Little known fact, but Redside -could- have access to Kiosks!  Through Mayhem Missions!  They would work there just as if you were in the City Zone, as I recall.  There are a few broken Kiosks in the Isles too, but clicking on them doesn't do anything.  As I recall, there's one by the Port Oakes Arena.

[Darmian]

In my post about a halfway house/porting AE arcs to the game world, we posited that these could be utilized to help bring up an external Base Computer UI/AE terminal hybrid.

[tidge]

3 hours ago, Snarky said:

I think I used one of these like once, maybe twice years ago.  I do not recall ever running across any object Redside (and i play a LOT of Redside) that offered anything like this. But I dont always explore.  For all I know there could be something in the old abandoned labs where you can craft stuff that gives out this info

 

Some of the information that kiosks could provide can be had by clicking on civilian NPCs strolling around the Rogue Isles, such as total hours of play time.

[Greycat]

2 hours ago, tidge said:

 

Some of the information that kiosks could provide can be had by clicking on civilian NPCs strolling around the Rogue Isles, such as total hours of play time.

 

... with the caveat that that *can* be wrong (showing more hours.)

 

Personally, I miss being able to look at it and see that I'm a Nemesis nemesis sometimes. ;)

[KauaiJim]

25 minutes ago, Greycat said:

... with the caveat that that *can* be wrong (showing more hours.)

 

Yep.  Clicking on an NPC who's name begins with the letter 'M' will show hours played but as @Greycat pointed out, it's buggy and can be inaccurate.  I think (at least in my case) what caused it is logging out with an incomplete AE arc.  The timer keeps running and adds the total hours even when it should not.  There may be other causes too for all I know.

[Blue Jay]

On 6/5/2021 at 11:21 AM, Wild Claw said:

I joined Live with the Good vs Evil release, and they didn't seem to work at that time

 

Same

[Shenanigunner]

Back on live, I found them a useful place to park my alts. Sort of an animated pedestal.