New efforts!

[PSI-on]

That I think was just Jack being Jack.  He does tend to say what's going on in his head without thinking things through fully. Which if he was just some fan or gamer that'd be fine. But as a head dev, not so much.  He really needs a PR guy to filter him.

But he is actually a very cool guy if you get to sit and talk to him.  Got a a chance to talk to him a bunch at Gen Con once back before STO launched.  During the STO Q&A my friend and I were the only ones asking questions about the actual game and not just Trek fan boy questions . We stuck around a reward a talked to him about lots of stuff.

But I think his biggest fault, and this is where he rubs most people the wrong way, is that in his attitude towards fandom  and gaming in general is that he feels that there /is/ a right way to be a fan and there /is/ a right way to enjoy a game and if you don't share his viewpoint, you're doing it wrong

Yeah, I heard once back in the day he was in game and over heard two players bad mouthing him or the company or some such thing and he turned his dev powers on him, mind you it's hearsay and might have been on the old forums, but from the way people talk about him in our community it makes you wonder....then again I also once heard either him or BAB beat up some players in game with their powers, then turned into a trash can and flew away...so I guess...anything can happen. (sorry for posting so much ya'll, I'm so far behind I took to skimming through >_< )

[gypsyav]

I believe they were talking about the respec trials, not the incarnate trials. Early on, those two trials WERE a pain in the rear, but after some reworking they were easy. Well, the hero one was, I never ran the villain one after it was fixed. But from all the chatter I saw, the villain one was doable in like 10-15 minutes where the hero one you were stuck in the reactor for at least that long, not counting the missions leading up to it.

I was talking about the respec trials. Never did play one after they were reworked. Too afraid of the nightmare they had been. 

[Thirty-Seven]

I believe they were talking about the respec trials, not the incarnate trials. Early on, those two trials WERE a pain in the rear, but after some reworking they were easy. Well, the hero one was, I never ran the villain one after it was fixed. But from all the chatter I saw, the villain one was doable in like 10-15 minutes where the hero one you were stuck in the reactor for at least that long, not counting the missions leading up to it.

Yeah, I was a little confused by his response since he was clearly quoting a post about the iTrial... But then he mentions villains as if it was different running the iTrial on redside.  So I suspect you're right.  However, I was only ever on one Respec Trial that failed, so I didn't really figure he could have been on enough failed attempts to warrant frustration either.

[PSI-on]

I believe they were talking about the respec trials, not the incarnate trials. Early on, those two trials WERE a pain in the rear, but after some reworking they were easy. Well, the hero one was, I never ran the villain one after it was fixed. But from all the chatter I saw, the villain one was doable in like 10-15 minutes where the hero one you were stuck in the reactor for at least that long, not counting the missions leading up to it.

Yes, I'm sorry, I never got to do the I-Trials, so I didn't know when you said reactor you weren't talking about the respec trials, sorry. Though if the game comes back I would love to finish the hero respec trial at least once...I'm tired of regrets and missed chances.

Edit to 37: Yeah... I'm heavily introverted among other issues, so making friends in game was tough and in the 8 years I played the game I could never find ONE PUG on Triumph who could finish it, heck half of them never even made it past the first or second mission, and don't even get me started on Positron before it was changed >_<

[PSI-on]

The biggest killer among clowns ?

*slow claps* Oh, I see what you did there sir...touche...

[HEATSTROKE]

I was talking about the respec trials. Never did play one after they were reworked. Too afraid of the nightmare they had been. 

If we get the game back.. and the server is still called Virtue.. Look up HEATSTROKE... The Titans United SG ran them all the time.. never failed...

[gypsyav]

If we get the game back.. and the server is still called Virtue.. Look up HEATSTROKE... The Titans United SG ran them all the time.. never failed...

I definitely will. I had a few toons on Virtue but didn't usually play there as my friends were on Guardian and Virtue always lagged too much for me.

If we get Virtue back I might recreate my main there. If I do look for Electrastatic.

[Serpine]

When you say "Once you know - you will understand why it would make things more complicated." that makes me worry that it's a bad thing...it's not Cryptic is it?

Really that phrase could be practically anybody who has ever been mentioned or theorized as all of them have complications being known would cause. They could be hiding from view or outright lying about their buyout interest until it is a done deal so it isn't disrupted by nagging questions. Some examples off the top of my head:

* PWE/Cryptic - Has past history with NCSoft which may not all be positive, a reputation for game alteration, and a competing product. It would be a forum mess.
* Missing Worlds aka CoT: Building a competing product which they kickstarter funded for and might have difficulty convincing people they should abandon or duel develop with CoX.
* Plan Z Studios aka Heroes and Villains: Building a competing product and... okay I don't really see Golden Girl being behind a secret buy out offer, but few people are as big a fan of CoX and I'm trying to be complete here.
* TitanNetwork: They would have to maintain an image of impartiality because if the buyout failed they would still need to maintain there existence as CoX hub.
* Infogrames / Atari - Again? There is a lot of back and forth ownership with Hasbro, which is connected to D&D, which is connected to NCSoft (OOPS EDIT) PWE.. Its a lot of corporate messiness.
* Members of Cryptic planning a breakaway - Successful or not, PWE would be mighty unhappy with internal staff planning to sneak off and restart a competitor.
* Former members of the Paragon team - Allegedly involved in previous failed buyouts, so to much publicity could help reawaken whatever broke down the original attempts. Also a lot of emotion involved on all sides.
* SOE or Disney - Own competing products and are somewhat scary: People would be concerned over what this would lead to (i.e. is it just buy to kill).
* Valve/Steam - Distribution sure, but MMOs? Would just get hammered by questions.
* Random rich people - Raise the issue of their development capabilities (which they could pay for I guess, but still).
* Activision Blizzard or EA - Reputations built for good or ill on current game stable. Would raise concerns about alteration to the franchise.

Note I'm not advocating any of the above, saying its any of the above, or even believing its any of the above. I'm just saying there are plenty of reasons to keep the deal hush-hush for most of the usual suspects.

[Battlechimp]

Yeah, I heard once back in the day he was in game and over heard two players bad mouthing him or the company or some such thing and he turned his dev powers on him, mind you it's hearsay and might have been on the old forums, but from the way people talk about him in our community it makes you wonder....then again I also once heard either him or BAB beat up some players in game with their powers, then turned into a trash can and flew away...so I guess...anything can happen. (sorry for posting so much ya'll, I'm so far behind I took to skimming through >_< )

I know the story that you're talking about with Jack. It was back in beta and they weren't bad mouthing him. They were griefing him.  He was on a non dev character teaming with people who were side kicking him up.  This was back when suddenly dropping your sidekick and watch them go from level 29 down to level 5 in the middle of a fight was still a thing.  So while they were pointing and laughing at teh noob. He logged in his dev character, despawned the mobs in the zone then spawned a giant monster on top of them.  He later told them which he was and this was where "Statesman's Pal" supposedly first originated from

[Acanous]

I know the story that you're talking about with Jack. It was back in beta and they weren't bad mouthing him. They were griefing him.  He was on a non dev character teaming with people who were side kicking him up.  This was back when suddenly dropping your sidekick and watch them go from level 29 down to level 5 in the middle of a fight was still a thing.  So while they were pointing and laughing at teh noob. He logged in his dev character, despawned the mobs in the zone then spawned a giant monster on top of them.  He later told them which he was and this was where "Statesman's Pal" supposedly first originated from

That's... actually really funny.

[LaughingAlex]

; _ ; in all my years of playing, I could never EVER find a team who could finish a Reactor trial without failing. I even ran into a team leader who got us that far and kept pushing us at the end out of shear amusement of watching us get our butts kicked until we each left one by one after laughing at us and wasting all that hard work and time....I gave up on ever getting those badges and never even tried villain side.

Thats why I suggested what I suggested .  I figured, something much harder that I know for sure couldn't be done.

Edit: Wait wait wait, your saying without failing....er...ever finish without failing.  Nevermind.....doh.

[PSI-on]

Really that phrase could be practically anybody who has ever been mentioned or theorized as all of them have complications being known would cause. They could be hiding from view or outright lying about their buyout interest until it is a done deal so it isn't disrupted by nagging questions. Some examples off the top of my head:

* PWE/Cryptic - Has past history with NCSoft which may not all be positive, a reputation for game alteration, and a competing product. It would be a forum mess.
* Missing Worlds aka CoT: Building a competing product which they kickstarter funded for and might have difficulty convincing people they should abandon or duel develop with CoX.
* Plan Z Studios aka Heroes and Villains: Building a competing product and... okay I don't really see Golden Girl being behind a secret buy out offer, but few people are as big a fan of CoX and I'm trying to be complete here.
* TitanNetwork: They would have to maintain an image of impartiality because if the buyout failed they would still need to maintain there existence as CoX hub.
* Infogrames / Atari - Again? There is a lot of back and forth ownership with Hasbro, which is connected to D&D, which is connected to NCSoft. Its a lot of corporate messiness.
* Members of Cryptic planning a breakaway - Successful or not, PWE would be mighty unhappy with internal staff planning to sneak off and restart a competitor.
* Former members of the Paragon team - Allegedly involved in previous failed buyouts, so to much publicity could help reawaken whatever broke down the original attempts. Also a lot of emotion involved on all sides.
* SOE or Disney - Own competing products and are somewhat scary: People would be concerned over what this would lead to (i.e. is it just buy to kill).
* Valve/Steam - Distribution sure, but MMOs? Would just get hammered by questions.
* Random rich people - Raise the issue of their development capabilities (which they could pay for I guess, but still).
* Activision Blizzard or EA - Reputations built for good or ill on current game stable. Would raise concerns about alteration to the franchise.

Note I'm not advocating any of the above, saying its any of the above, or even believing its any of the above. I'm just saying there are plenty of reasons to keep the deal hush-hush for most of the usual suspects.

Hasbro and NCSoft have a connection?

[LaughingAlex]

I know the story that you're talking about with Jack. It was back in beta and they weren't bad mouthing him. They were griefing him.  He was on a non dev character teaming with people who were side kicking him up.  This was back when suddenly dropping your sidekick and watch them go from level 29 down to level 5 in the middle of a fight was still a thing.  So while they were pointing and laughing at teh noob. He logged in his dev character, despawned the mobs in the zone then spawned a giant monster on top of them.  He later told them which he was and this was where "Statesman's Pal" supposedly first originated from

If I was in his shoes i'd have done the same thing .

[PSI-on]

I know the story that you're talking about with Jack. It was back in beta and they weren't bad mouthing him. They were griefing him.  He was on a non dev character teaming with people who were side kicking him up.  This was back when suddenly dropping your sidekick and watch them go from level 29 down to level 5 in the middle of a fight was still a thing.  So while they were pointing and laughing at teh noob. He logged in his dev character, despawned the mobs in the zone then spawned a giant monster on top of them.  He later told them which he was and this was where "Statesman's Pal" supposedly first originated from

Ah, guess the story I heard was retold so many times it sounded different, in this case they had it coming. Can't tell you how many backstabbing TP's and whatnot I ran into myself. However, Statesman's Pal? Never heard that one.

[Serpine]

CoH didn't force the superpacks on you like CO forces lockboxes on you though.

Force? In NW and CO I have almost every lockbox item I've ever wanted even though I've hardly opened up any boxes. I simply purchase them from people who have better luck. What boxes I get have a high stack maximum so I don't notice them till the new one comes out and I merge them all into my account bank, until they are old enough that they sell on their own in the auction.

Meanwhile, I never got the black dog on CoX even though I opened a lot of packs, and didn't have any alternate means to get it. So personally I found it a worse system.

[Serpine]

Hasbro and NCSoft have a connection?

Noooo. To many corporations being mentioned at once and I glitched. Corrected my post now to say PWE.

[LaughingAlex]

Force? In NW and CO I have almost every lockbox item I've ever wanted even though I've hardly opened up any boxes. I simply purchase them from people who have better luck. What boxes I get have a high stack maximum so I don't notice them till the new one comes out and I merge them all into my account bank, until they are old enough that they sell on their own in the auction.

Meanwhile, I never got the black dog on CoX even though I opened a lot of packs, and didn't have any alternate means to get it. So personally I found it a worse system.

Thats what I used to do when it comes to my vehicles.  When I was gold, I'd sell keys as I had nothing else at the time to buy with the stipend.  So I'd have zen and sell the keys to others.  Most part, used to get most of my globals from selling mods.  I don't do that anymore, nore can I, silver cannot sell more then 10 items turns out.  That limits us even more, as we cannot sell peices one at a time to let the globals build up.  But I was able to get a fair number of vehicles by selling keys rather than just opening them.  Only got a few vehicles via opening the boxes.

What I am talking about though, in terms of the boxes being tied to CO's economy, is that players cannot trade more then 250 if they are silver so they have no choice than to use and trade keys.  While a gold player spends 40 globals for say, a skyfox, a silver player spends 40 keys to buy directly.  Thing is people open boxes for other things to, particularly, mods for equipment and vehicles.  Both come in ENOURMOUS quantities through boxes.  In fact, you cannot feasably get rank 6 or 7 mods with normal drops because unfortunately not enough drop from mobs.  They really don't.  About one in ten mod drops from mobs at level 40 are rank 5 mods, most the time it's a rank 4.  And even then, the RNG is such you will spend hundreds of hours getting 5 of even a single type of rank 4 mods to get one rank 5 and EVEN THEN it is not a guarantee.  In fact making a rank 6 through the craft system is about 50/50 chance of success.  A rank 7 mod requires 5 rank 6's, so besides the 50/50, with 25 rank 4's to make 1 rank 6, your looking at about 125 rank 4's to make one rank 7.  See a trend?  Boxes can get someone 10 rank 6s....yeah....bribery to victory in a nutshell, really sad.

Edit: I'll say one doesn't have to participate in the folly for items, but just about everything in the game is earned faster in boxes.  People who are silver just get a lot of globals if they really end up opening boxes for some reason.  Or they use the globals to buy and save keys up for that one-two q boxes they need for the zen to get that aura.

Another Edit: I'd say perhaps, TV tropes hits the nail on the head with regards to lockboxes.  You can easily get keys by buying them with globals, while people can get tons of globals selling keys.  But you can get lots of zen to by getting questionite, so you can earn everything in the game just by getting questionite. 

You can even open the boxes by getting questionite and using the zen, OR you can just save up globals, get keys via questionite-earned-zen, sell the keys for even more globals(typical gold tactic).

The whole thing kind of goes around in a big circle.  It keeps the gold farmers down at least.  But it's still a bit messy imo.

Everything can be in theory earned in the game, and questionite can allow a person to more easily do so, but it does allow people to just pay cash for everything.

[Thirty-Seven]

Meanwhile, I never got the black dog on CoX even though I opened a lot of packs, and didn't have any alternate means to get it. So personally I found it a worse system.

Yeah, but seriously, the dog wasn't worth ANYTHING close to how much it woulda cost to get one fur sure.

To me, it'd be one of those things that you may end up with as a special bonus, it shouldn't have been something anyone really expected considering the rarity.

[gypsyav]

I know the story that you're talking about with Jack. It was back in beta and they weren't bad mouthing him. They were griefing him.  He was on a non dev character teaming with people who were side kicking him up.  This was back when suddenly dropping your sidekick and watch them go from level 29 down to level 5 in the middle of a fight was still a thing.  So while they were pointing and laughing at teh noob. He logged in his dev character, despawned the mobs in the zone then spawned a giant monster on top of them.  He later told them which he was and this was where "Statesman's Pal" supposedly first originated from

I would have done the same thing. I hated the jerks who thought doing that was funny even though I never had it happen to me.

[Serpine]

To me, it'd be one of those things that you may end up with as a special bonus, it shouldn't have been something anyone really expected considering the rarity.

I certainly didn't expect to get one because the chance was so stupidly low. But I likewise didn't feel it was a correct thing to have items of that rarity. Making them a vet reward or selling them in the store is fine, but not this sort of lottery nonsense. From another game I would have shrugged and ignored it (I have and still do so on plenty of games) but I held CoX to a higher standard that it usually, but not in this case, delivered.