Though he is not a member of this community, my dear friend neo_tanuki is a City of Heroes player who has enjoyed this game for many years. Recently, he tried a free trial of Champions Online, and today he posted this essay about why he's not going to buy a regular subscription:

Champions...I think I'm done
by neo_tanuki

( Read more... )

If you wish to comment on this essay, feel free, but please also consider doing so on his original post.

Well, there is more about AE I don't like since people abuse it until death of CoX. But now I just want to show what I've seen in AP on Triumph.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: annoyed

Manticore (Sean Michael Fish (did you know he used to do voice acting?)) just opened a big can of whoop-ass on lore:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Number=13557669

( First set of lore-answers here! )

Ask your lore questions here:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Number=13557773
*** INCLUDING DISCREPANCIES between current lore, past lore, and new lore posted in Canon Fodder ***

Current Mood: excited

Gamasutra article

Brought to my attention from Slashdot, if it matters.

Will edit in a bit with the article text for those behind work filters and whatnot. The first paragraph does have Joe Morrissey (Hero 1) come up with various euphemisms for the male organ.

Massively.com interview with Joe Morrissey (aka Hero 1)

Contains some tidbits about the MA, like how arcs are chosen for Dev Choice, which I'm sure at least some may be interested in.

Will edit to reproduce the content later, for those blocked at work or whatnot.

EDIT:
x Jim Morrissey
o Joe Morrissey

EDIT:
( Full text, no pictures )

I know we can assign custom powers to critters and that we can create our own signature villains with the Architect. However, can we create our own custom villain groups? I'm looking mostly at physical control rather than powers adjustment (i.e. I'm not looking to create "Psychic Hellions" for example, but a whole new VG we haven't seen yet). Does anyone know if this will be possible, and how much control we'll have over it?

I've got an idea for a story arc, but it involves an entirely new villain group that the game hasn't seen before. As a result, I'm looking to create the group from the ground up: minions, lieutenants, bosses, etc.

I know MA's still in closed beta, so I understand if this question isn't answerable at this time, but I figured I'd ask anyway.

Current Mood: curious

I've been reading The Language Construction Kit and I had an a-ha moment at the part about possible languages with no verbs:

Jack Vance (in The Languages of Pao) posited a language without verbs. For instance, "There are two matters I wish to discuss with you" comes out something like "Statement-of-importance -- in-a-state-of-readiness-- two; ear-- of [place name]-- in-a-state-of-readiness; mouth-- of this person here-- in-a-state-of-volition." Vance may be in a state of pulling our legs.

Joke or not, my first thought was, "That sounds like Rikti!" Except the CoX writers don't seem to apply it uniformly. Some sentences: In Rikti: Seem just to have: Superfluous colons.

I'm just going by memory of Rikti dialogue, so I may be wrong...but even so, it sure sounds like it could be Rikti!

You might have noticed what a pain in the ass it is to set missions on a team right now, what with everyone having to be in the same zone, and them being labelled and such. According to Posi, this is a bug and is being worked on now. So heave a sigh of relief and start wondering what the hell they were /trying/ to do that bugged into that.

So is it feasible to believe that ice domination will be available to controllers and thermal radiation will be available to defenders... sometime in the near future.

I know this info is probably available somewhere, but I have no idea where to look. I am a controller altitis sufferer and I would like to make Ice/Ice someday.
Thanks in advance.

This is a very weird question, but...

Is there any way to stop random strangers from giving you shields, speed boosts, et cetera? While I appreciate the gifts, I'm also visually impaired, and I find that after various glowies have been tossed on me I lose many of the fine details of the game for some time afterward.

When I'm in Wentworth's or the like and someone keeps running by and doing it repeatedly, I generally ask them to stop and receive positive results, but sometimes people are down-right rude about stopping until I explain the fact I'm half blind. And then, when I do, they have to load on the commentary about a blind person playing. So. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

I'm debating between two toons for the Drunken-Posi tomorrow. They want the defense, so either my bubbler or my cold defender. So, question:

Is there a difference in influence earned between a level 50 who exemps down for a low level TF, and a lowbie running that TF? Yumm is 50 and CDV is 12. Would Yumm earn more inf just because she's technically a 50, and therefore earn inf as if she were fighting 50s? Or would she and CDV earn the same amount of inf overall?

I feel like I should know the answer already, and I kinda think I do, but I wanted to make sure.

Cross posted from CoV journal. Just though of an elementalist Primary for MM's and looking for feedback/suggestions for improvement before submitting it in the Forums.

http://community.livejournal.com/cityofvillains/525914.html

It looks like we don't have to tear down our bases and rebuild to get the refunds :D

Prestige Refunds: The programming team has set up a refund system for all base plots, rooms and items. As soon a player loads into a base, that base will automatically refund the Prestige difference. This is crucial: the base must be entered in order to trigger the Prestige refund. If your base is not loaded, then the refund will not happen until someone enters it.

More base Q&A stuff announced here.

You know what I wish we could have?

A way to find out if there are any rikti or zombie invasions as soon as you log in. Such as a tab that you could click and it would tell you:

Atlas Park is under attack by Rikti invasion forces

or somesuch.

Just sayin'.

Thanks to everyone for their feedback about where to post an idea for new game content. I took your advice and posted it over in the forums, but I thought I'd also share it here, since you're all such swell people and all.

( Utter madness lies within! Madness, I tell you! )

Current Mood: rushed

Suppose I had what I felt was a great idea for new content for the game. Where would I go to offer that suggestion and have it read by the people who can do something about it?

And has anybody ever had their suggestion show up in the game?

Thanks!

(And yes, another GIP)

Current Mood: curious

I was following the thread on level cap and new content and it got me to thinking about comics and how certain characters never really seem to go past a certain "level."

Take Daredevil, for example. He's an urban hero. He's got the heightened senses, sure, but beyond that, in game terms, he should be fighting Hellions and Outcasts his whole career. That guy should never really be trying to give Galactus a bloody nose in PI.

That got me to thinking about levels and relative content. I've been playing the game for a little over two and a half years, and I'm curious what others think about this.

Consider how long it takes your average toon to go from level 10 to level 20. Now think about how much content exists for toons at that level. Now do the same for a toon between level 40 and level 50.

Is the ratio right? I'm also curious to know the ratio of level 40-50 toons versus the number of toons below the 40 mark. Speaking for myself, I have entire servers full of low-level toons, perhaps half a dozen in the 30-40 range, and only two level 50's.

I don't have any answers here. I'm just curious to know what others think. Plus, it was a chance to show off my shiny new icon. :-)

I'm glad that our devs have found ways to add content to the game without having to raise the level cap with each new major expansion like some other games have been doing.  I suspect that if the devs ever were to given into the demands of the people with lots of Level 50s who cry, "Why don't the devs raise the level cap to 60?" that within about two weeks of increasing it from 50 to 60, there'd be a bunch of people with Level 60s who PL'ed through the new "end game" content screaming "Why don't the devs raise the level cap to 70?"  And as someone who has lots of alts but very few 50s, I appreciate that the expansions CoX has received have given us both new "end game" content AND lots of cool stuff for all other level ranges, too.

OK, guys, you know I'm a huge fan of bases and base construction, so I'm sure it's no surprise that I've been breaking my "mostly avoid the forums" rule lately and keeping up with the Base Construction forum. As I'm sure you can imagine, it's been a madhouse (more so than normal!).

Now, I still have no desire to go on to the Test Server, and I seriously doubt I'm gonna take the time and effort to do so. Partly, this is because I'd rather use my play time to actually play, and partly because it's like Xmas to me: I want to see the new stuff for the first time when I'm actually accomplishing it. I only bring this up to add a disclaimer to the following info: I generally trust it, but since I wasn't the one to go to Test and get it, take it with a grain of salt. Also, as this is now Open Beta info, and easily available to anyone that wants to go check, I'm assuming that the recent brouhaha over posting rumors does not apply to the ton of info behind the cut. If I'm incorrect, please let me know before just deleting it, as a lot of work has gone into formatting this to make it an easy read/reference.

( Price Changes, Recipes, Salvage Changes...Oh, My! )

Lighthouse says: Hey gang, We've been following closely the feedback and reactions to Open Beta. One of the chief points of discussion has resolved around the changes to Hero Epic and Villain Patron power pools.
We wanted to let you know that the Development Team is working on additional refinements, based in part on player feedback, to those changes. The team wants to have some rounds of internal testing to make sure what we are proposing will work before we present it to you, but in talking with Castle and Positron, they want let you know about it soon. So, thanks for your continued support and interest and stay tuned for more information!

So I'm going into wait-and-see mode for now. (I was very active in the APP/PPP dissent thread, refreshing a couple times per hour, waiting for some kind of input from a redname. I'm glad they've heard us at the very least.)

(cross posted to redside)

UPDATE! Castle says: Hi again. More news from the frontlines.

Quote: Hey all, I'd like you all to know that I've been reading everyones feedback since closed beta, and have heard all the good, the bad and the ugly. Just a heads up, but we'll be adding the extra powers in as an extra level 43 power, and keeping the existing powers exactly where they are. We are doing this because of the constructive feedback we got during closed (and now open) beta. We're in serious crunch mode to get this done though, so I'll skip writing more info until we're done tonight.
Jonathan /Quote

Discuss!