chatting between heroes and villains, which AFAICT is not possible elsewhere
No, there is Pocket D - a dance club that the DJ/Host has enforced neutrality in (and provided PvP arena terminals:P)
Also there are two zones where heroes and villains co-operate (time-travel to one, fend of trans-dimensional invaders in another)
There are also various other ways to chat cross faction (but not face to face).
Actually he was not if you RTA. He was exploiting zone mechanics to deliberately annoy other players.
Thanks Mr. Condescension, but I actually did RTA (and several others about the same guy). He didn't exploit any mechanics, he went into a player-vs-player server and - surprise - started attacking other players. This is specifically how the game was designed to be played.
Answer this question for me: if the players get so butthurt when they get attacked, what are they doing in a PvP server?
He did exploit mechanics. He was "droning" people - taking advantage of safeguards to prevent spawn-killing to kill people instantly. If he had actually fought people, he wouldn't of gotten half the insults and what-not.
What he did was morally wrong. Now, if he had actually fought people and not droned them, and those people complained, then the complainers would of been ridiculed.
Especially when he was attacking people who didn't want to PVP by abusing a mechanism intended to protect people who didn't want to PVP?
The drones were not to protect people from PvP - they were there to prevent kill-spawning. That, and that only. If they didn't want to PvP, they could stay out of the PvP zones.
The mechanism to prevent people from PvP who don't want to PvP is - the contact that explains how the zone works is outside the zone, and when you zone in, there is a 30sec countdown until you are PvP enabled, giving you plenty of time to get out. That, and except for the zones and arenas, you cannot PvP - confuse powers from hostile npcs aside.
Basically, he played the game (actually fighting villains) and was hated for it. Not because he was being vile or crude (indeed, completely contrary to what you suggest) but by violating game defeating "customs."
It wasn't for PvPing he was disliked/ridiculed. It was for using a cheap tactic - teleporting foes into the Zone Drones. Drones have an auto-hit, auto-kill attack and are placed by the developers to defend the zone-in and hospital areas so people can get into the PvP zones without dying before they can act. As I recall you don't even get kill credit for it (rep or recipe drops) - and if petitioned in the right way he might of be able to be nailed by CS for griefing - for a while you could teleport people into watchtowers that if you couldn't teleport you were stuck in and people did get banned for that. It was something the game let you do but it wasn't okay.
Also, just because it's possible to PvP with anyone there doesn't mean that people have consented to PvP with you.
Actually, if you ask the the CS staff, if you play the game and read the beginner's info - yeah, they have. Entering a PvP Zone means you consent to be engaged by anyone anywhere at any when inside the zone.
If you want to only PvP against specific people, that's what "City of" has arenas for.
NCSoft's forum policy is to lock, with exceptions for :
Vulgarity/Profanity
Some real over the top personal assualts
Posting other player's private information (exceptions for things like "If you want in the SG, talk to @Player, or an artist's website).
Combined with the nature of their boards, they really don't like to delete posts (as it is, 75+% of their post deletions delete the post's content, not the post itself, leaving ample evidence of how often they do such.), especially since that always results in "Wow, this thread got shorter", etc.
From what I noticed, the changes were on areas where changes WERE asked for. It was simply a case of "Be careful of what you wish for".
destroying the market economy in their attempts to make the invention system more "fair"
Destroy? Changed, certainly, but I think "destroy" is a little far. And it's settling down, and they have already done some adjustments to the merit values.
showing that they have no clue how to balance anymore when they buffed some already powerful sets while nerfing a set that really needed some buffs and making it nigh-unplayable
Only in a general sense. Front/Middle/Back range of the map.
But to be fair, the MA is based of the MISSION designers themselves wanting a better mission tool. We pretty much have access to everything the mission designers do, that doesn't require resources from Art, Code, Powers, etc.
As for the maps - they generally either choose just a type of map, or select a already-generated layout, like (again) we will be able to do. Pretty much every map will be available to us, although it has been stated that some resources will require an unlock - which isn't unusual in this game.
I seriously wonder at your playstyle.
1 attack until the mid-20's? Totally player choice.
Accuracy does feels real streaky at times, but I felt that in WoW too. And in City of, you can just use an Insight inspiration. You do use those, right? They drop frequently, for free, and you can even combine three of the same type & tier to change them to one of another type.
3 minute downtime for endurance recovery? Unless you have Vahz's desease (granted, and removed, by a story arc) end only takes 1 minute to recover completely (of non-use. don't be afraid to turn off your toggles). Also, do turn off Sprint in combat, helps a bunch.
Yes, the power curve is different from WoW. Of course, City of Heroes, although it has an enhancement system, doesn't do gear like WoW does.
You complain about level capping the trial - WoW does too. And the levels in the demo have always gone by fast, to me.
At least I can move in City of Heroes, in WoW you move so slowly.
If you team, and choose both primary and secondary powers, you don't grind much. But every MMO has grind. And they are not trying to compete with WoW - frankly they can't, because WoW and it's numbers are a freak of nature.
And if you give City of Heroes a try, don't be afraid to say Hi in the forums - you can get a ton of help there with questions/issues that may arise.
The only times I have played versus Kadabera Kill, it was in a 20+ mission from a 20+ contact. And hover, while not granting full immunity, does mitigate KB substantially, and is available at level 6. There are also one or two IO sets that have KB protection as a set bonus, and those are much less expensive then the single-IOs. Also, if they play and accumulate merits, the KB IOs are some of the easiest to afford with merits if you want to purchase them specifically and not do the random rolls. Also, two of the three IOs that grand KB protection are npc drops, so it is not impossible for a character to get the recipe for free.
Also, none of the KB Kadabera Kill or his pet is auto-hit - and so +Defense (either from your powers or Inspirations) protect against it on the "You can't hit me" principal. Also, the break free line of inspirations also provides KB protection.
Naturally, I'd rather see the impact of ad-supported software on the sticker price. We have many resources that are purely ad-supported such as web sites and many television programs, so why not some nice free ad-supported games ? Dungeon Runners and Exteel. Both kinda fun.
Are there any sites or services in which you'd voluntarily look at ads to lend a hand? Well, I would voluntarily look at ads to lend City of Heroes a hand. That is, if I hadn't cancelled my account the moment they offered a $10 costume pack. That was totally optional to buy...
I would agree with you, but as a long-time CoH player I can tell you than NCSoft NorCal (who used to be part of Cryptic Studios) have a habit of actually listening to the community, more so than any other MMO that I've played. Where WoW admins shout "Working as Intended" and EVE admins scam the game for money, you can approach CoH admins and ask them for something and they'll tell you if they can do it and when.
NCSoft have earned my trust on this one, and I'll be turning the ads on. Ditto.
Perhaps they could divide up advertising revenue or a portion of the revenue amongst all of the players viewing advertisements to reduce the monthly subscription fee. So in the end players are "paying" the same amount. The more people viewing the ads, the greater the overall revenue, and perhaps more people would subscribe to playing No, because then they have a reason to make them non-optional. It would also give a fluctuating price - not good for a monthly service.
It's pretty obvious that they're not making a huge amount from box sales Lets put it this way - with box sales in the millions, I think World of Warcraft is the only MMO to recoup it's making costs through box sales.
And when you buy a box in a store, part of the money goes to the store, and their distributor, and so on until the studios gets some at the end.
This won't go live until after issue 12.
A feature that they are currently working on, which may or may not go live with issue 12 (but they are trying for it) will be to save all your character settings (and hopefully GUI set-up) so you can load them on making a new character. Or, an old one.
TBH CoX is already on a slippy slope with you have to pay for the extra content these days instead of updates that you are paying for (the point of a subscription game). And how do you feel about wow making you pay for extra stuff? So far the only things you have really payed extra for were new package incentives (GvE edition goodies) and the wedding costume options - which are VERY limited in appeal.
And Surtur, they have said that there will be some rotation among the ads of community events, etc. But anything that will make it there will also be on the forums, so those who opt out won't miss out if they care about it.
My expectation is that the ads would be downloaded while the game is updating and would simply replace some in-game textures that already exist. When you zone, your client gets ads assigned to the boards in the zone (so they will/may change going, then out, of a mission). While zoning, the ads, if your client has not yet displayed them, are downloaded. If it has been displayed, it's stored in the game directory so it can be quickly displayed.
So, I hope everyone (optionally) enjoys City of Penis Enlargement, City of Buy Gold Now, City of Make Free Money on the Internet With Our Free CD, etc... The developers have considered ads for some time - but they had three Major requirements for any partnership.
1 - Opt out. This is the big one.
2 - Immersion. The only spots for ads are going to be where they are already. They did say they might add billboards later, in places that they fit, but no pop ups, and eventually those movie posters might be for real movies.
3 - Control. There is a number of people at NCNorCal that will be able to approve ads. There will be NO ads in City of that Positron or a similarly placed person has not approved. Among other things, this means they WILL be family friendly/rated teen.
What gets me with NCSoft is if this is optional why are they making people Opt-Out rather then Opt-In? The only reason they are doing this is just to get some extra development cash (they made sure it would go right back into the game) - so if you have say, 20/20/60 of Willing to see the ads/Hate ads/don't care, you are getting 80 % instead of 20%, which is better for getting the addition development money.
Presumably in-game ads like this aren't going to measure performance by click rates, since clicking would take you out of the game. They may measure it by camera focus time (ie, if the ad occupies at least 25% of the screen for 10 or more seconds). It's just going to be impressions, and you have to get within a certain distance of a billboard for it to count.
Basically, a significant percentage of people will "opt-out". Enough so that they will eventually remove the opt-out choice. They have said, in a manner that cannot be mis-interpreted, that the only time they will ever remove the opt-out feature is if they are removing the ads entirely, as you don't need to opt out of what is there. And they have also said they will not gate content based on "opt" status.
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No, there is Pocket D - a dance club that the DJ/Host has enforced neutrality in (and provided PvP arena terminals :P)
Also there are two zones where heroes and villains co-operate (time-travel to one, fend of trans-dimensional invaders in another)
There are also various other ways to chat cross faction (but not face to face).
Actually he was not if you RTA. He was exploiting zone mechanics to deliberately annoy other players.
Thanks Mr. Condescension, but I actually did RTA (and several others about the same guy). He didn't exploit any mechanics, he went into a player-vs-player server and - surprise - started attacking other players. This is specifically how the game was designed to be played.
Answer this question for me: if the players get so butthurt when they get attacked, what are they doing in a PvP server?
He did exploit mechanics. He was "droning" people - taking advantage of safeguards to prevent spawn-killing to kill people instantly. If he had actually fought people, he wouldn't of gotten half the insults and what-not. What he did was morally wrong. Now, if he had actually fought people and not droned them, and those people complained, then the complainers would of been ridiculed.
The drones were not to protect people from PvP - they were there to prevent kill-spawning. That, and that only. If they didn't want to PvP, they could stay out of the PvP zones. The mechanism to prevent people from PvP who don't want to PvP is - the contact that explains how the zone works is outside the zone, and when you zone in, there is a 30sec countdown until you are PvP enabled, giving you plenty of time to get out. That, and except for the zones and arenas, you cannot PvP - confuse powers from hostile npcs aside.
It wasn't for PvPing he was disliked/ridiculed. It was for using a cheap tactic - teleporting foes into the Zone Drones. Drones have an auto-hit, auto-kill attack and are placed by the developers to defend the zone-in and hospital areas so people can get into the PvP zones without dying before they can act. As I recall you don't even get kill credit for it (rep or recipe drops) - and if petitioned in the right way he might of be able to be nailed by CS for griefing - for a while you could teleport people into watchtowers that if you couldn't teleport you were stuck in and people did get banned for that. It was something the game let you do but it wasn't okay.
Actually, if you ask the the CS staff, if you play the game and read the beginner's info - yeah, they have. Entering a PvP Zone means you consent to be engaged by anyone anywhere at any when inside the zone. If you want to only PvP against specific people, that's what "City of" has arenas for.
It's more like you play them in the Holodeck.
NCSoft's forum policy is to lock, with exceptions for : Vulgarity/Profanity Some real over the top personal assualts Posting other player's private information (exceptions for things like "If you want in the SG, talk to @Player, or an artist's website). Combined with the nature of their boards, they really don't like to delete posts (as it is, 75+% of their post deletions delete the post's content, not the post itself, leaving ample evidence of how often they do such.), especially since that always results in "Wow, this thread got shorter", etc.
added a number of changes nobody asked for
From what I noticed, the changes were on areas where changes WERE asked for. It was simply a case of "Be careful of what you wish for".
destroying the market economy in their attempts to make the invention system more "fair"
Destroy? Changed, certainly, but I think "destroy" is a little far. And it's settling down, and they have already done some adjustments to the merit values.
showing that they have no clue how to balance anymore when they buffed some already powerful sets while nerfing a set that really needed some buffs and making it nigh-unplayable
And which ones would those be?
Only in a general sense. Front/Middle/Back range of the map. But to be fair, the MA is based of the MISSION designers themselves wanting a better mission tool. We pretty much have access to everything the mission designers do, that doesn't require resources from Art, Code, Powers, etc. As for the maps - they generally either choose just a type of map, or select a already-generated layout, like (again) we will be able to do. Pretty much every map will be available to us, although it has been stated that some resources will require an unlock - which isn't unusual in this game.
I seriously wonder at your playstyle. 1 attack until the mid-20's? Totally player choice. Accuracy does feels real streaky at times, but I felt that in WoW too. And in City of, you can just use an Insight inspiration. You do use those, right? They drop frequently, for free, and you can even combine three of the same type & tier to change them to one of another type. 3 minute downtime for endurance recovery? Unless you have Vahz's desease (granted, and removed, by a story arc) end only takes 1 minute to recover completely (of non-use. don't be afraid to turn off your toggles). Also, do turn off Sprint in combat, helps a bunch. Yes, the power curve is different from WoW. Of course, City of Heroes, although it has an enhancement system, doesn't do gear like WoW does. You complain about level capping the trial - WoW does too. And the levels in the demo have always gone by fast, to me. At least I can move in City of Heroes, in WoW you move so slowly. If you team, and choose both primary and secondary powers, you don't grind much. But every MMO has grind. And they are not trying to compete with WoW - frankly they can't, because WoW and it's numbers are a freak of nature. And if you give City of Heroes a try, don't be afraid to say Hi in the forums - you can get a ton of help there with questions/issues that may arise. The only times I have played versus Kadabera Kill, it was in a 20+ mission from a 20+ contact. And hover, while not granting full immunity, does mitigate KB substantially, and is available at level 6. There are also one or two IO sets that have KB protection as a set bonus, and those are much less expensive then the single-IOs. Also, if they play and accumulate merits, the KB IOs are some of the easiest to afford with merits if you want to purchase them specifically and not do the random rolls. Also, two of the three IOs that grand KB protection are npc drops, so it is not impossible for a character to get the recipe for free. Also, none of the KB Kadabera Kill or his pet is auto-hit - and so +Defense (either from your powers or Inspirations) protect against it on the "You can't hit me" principal. Also, the break free line of inspirations also provides KB protection.