Zed-F

Re: List Your CO Heroes! Updated list for me of Silver ATs, not including old gold characters: Psi Temptress (Mind, 40) Crimson Temptress (Cursed, 40) Frozen Shade (Glacier, 40) Cyber Hawk (Mountain, 40) Disposable Boy (Master, 40) Patient Karma (Grimoire, 36) Jade Shade (Unleashed, 28) Dough Boy (Devastator, 15) LoopyBot (Inventor, 14) Heavy Breath (Behemoth, 13) Wisp (Mind, 13)

Re: The move to FTP Any new folks wanting to join the Hero Games supergroup, feel free to give me or any of the other officers/leaders a shout in-game and we'll be happy to set you up. IIRC you have to be online at the same time as one of us in order for the invite to be made, but otherwise it's not a big deal. My current silver characters: Frozen Shade@Zed-F - lv26 Glacier Psi Temptress@Zed-F - lv33 Mind Flame Temptress@Zed-F - lv22 Inferno Patient Karma@Zed-F - lv15 Grimoire

Re: Instant Karma Rebooted! Instant Karma's original concept was a badass normal without any of the badassery. He used conventional guns, i.e. Pure Munitions, and had no Talents or Superstats. Since Munitions didn't have a block enhancer, a useful heal, or a passive, he had none of those things, plus he had the challenge of lacking superstats and having low stats in general. Nevertheless, I managed to get him to his low 20s on the strength of Two Gun Mojo, Shotgun, and Smoke Grenade, before I tired of CO and allowed my subscription to lapse. In the interim, a difficulty setting option has been added, so that any character can experience a certain amount of additional challenge. Instant Karma might never have been created if this had been available at the time. Still, with the launch of F2P, I have had the opportunity to revive the character, but he will have to be an archetype. Clearly Soldier fits best, but it does alter the character's dynamic quite a bit. Soldier does have a block enhancer, a passive slotted offense, and a passive energy return power, and is forced to have superstats. Soldier also has quite a few extra attack powers that Instant Karma hadn't yet picked up. So, I've had to change the rules a little in order to keep the same feel of base challenge for the character, on top of what the difficulty slider provides. Instant Karma is now specced as a Soldier archetype, with the following restrictions: - Must craft all his own gear. - Cannot use Talents or Advantages. So far he is level 22, in the Desert and dealing with Viper there. I also plan to run him through Demonflame in the near future to see how he fares there. Hopefully it'll be fun!

Instant Karma Rebooted! Part 4:

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online? Originally played the game for about 4-5 months after release before getting bored. Came back to it recently and subbed for 1 month to set up my characters for F2P and get a feel for archetypes, with the intent to lapse back to Silver status. So far that plan seems sound. I'm glad I subbed for 1 month as it allowed me to sample the adventure packs and make sure my characters were set up for the upcoming changes. The game has had *many* quality of life improvements since I last played. The core issues that caused me to unsub in the first place are still there -- this will never be my 'main' MMO -- but it's fun enough to be a sideline MMO I can hop into under the F2P model whenever I feel like getting my superhero on. Also F2P allows me to set up a second account for my daughter and not worry about breaking the bank. Thus I'm overall quite happy with the way things have shaken out for the F2P conversion. IMO you can't beat CO in the superhero genre, for the price. I'd recommend it for others to give a whirl, so long as you don't go in with inflated expectations or looking for a permanent home to spend all your free time in, you're golden (or silver as the case may be!)

Re: Who's still playing and when? I'll be back from time to time from now on (sporadically). Have a mix of toons levels 5-40.

Re: The move to FTP Also, said procedure is optional, and you can keep up to 6 old Gold characters around on an existing account and still create or convert 2 other Silver characters for use and be able to play them. Alternatively, nothing stopping you from making a new account, if you have more than 6 Gold characters you don't want to convert. I'm not sure how this scales up if you had more than your default 8 character slots to start with, e.g. due to getting characters to level 40 or buying extra slots.

Re: The move to FTP Some info about the first 8 archetypes they plan to release. http://www.champions-online.com/node/595112

Re: The move to FTP But a good point nevertheless.

Re: The move to FTP Well you could make a new one or convert one of them. After all, if you're not subscribing right now you aren't playing them anyway. Personally I plan to leave my high level toons as gold toons (so if I ever do re-up, my high level toons will still be there), and convert a low level toon or make a new one, for those times when I do get an urge to scratch the Champions itch, but not so much so that I'm willing to pay for the privelage.

Re: The move to FTP Presumably, the info Cryptic hgas put out about the Silver player package and what will/won't be available to F2P players.

Re: The move to FTP Currently you can download a free trial, but you need to buy a box to get a key for the full version (down to about $5 if you get it on sale now) and then pay a monthly subscription. When they go FTP you'll presumably be able to download the complete game for free and have no monthly subscription on the Silver plan. Gold will still have a subscription, unless you're a lifetime subscriber.

Re: The move to FTP Technically, a game where you have to buy the box before you can play (without a monthly fee) is called B2P or Buy to Play. Free to play games don't require a subscription and are free to download in the first place. Their revenue model is entirely microtransaction-based.

Re: Why isn't there going to be a version for the Xbox 360? Couldn't work out a deal with Micro$oft.

Re: The move to FTP For me it's a good move, as I've been dormant in CO since the beginning of the year. I got my 4 months in at launch and haven't felt a serious urge to re-up my subscription since, but I have been a bit curious about the changes that have gone into the game as time has gone on. I might pay for 1 more month of subscription before this goes live to catch my high-level characters up on the latest content, and then I'll start a fresh Silver toon or convert one of my lowbies to Silver. It'll also let my daughter have a chance to participate now that she won't need to pay for an account.

Re: Juggernauts Unlimited Well, the main aspect of a Juggernaut is that it crushes or brushes aside any obstacle in its path. Really, you can do this with just about any SFX. The main thing is that it needs to have an ability to not just avoid obstacles while moving, but blow through them or knock them aside. An obvious example would be a TK specialist who could create a field that repels anything that is sufficiently close to him. Especially if said field can also protect him from damage or act as a barrier to incoming attacks. Mechanically, we'd be looking at a continuous no range AoE TK, only to repel objects directly away, in conjunction with a force field or force wall. You can do the same thing with many other SFXs, though in some cases the 'repel' portion of the field might be better replaced with a 'destroy' portion, for instance in the case of a pyrokineticist who just nukes anything that comes close to him or that he approaches. Regardless, if you want a continuous AoE just about anything... it's probably going to be a pretty expensive effect, if you want it to be at all powerful.

Re: Why doesn't 6e use hexes as a unit of measurement?

Re: Champions Online - Cue Dead Parrot Sketch! Actually I suspect that most of the folks who have let their subs lapse or otherwise quit are simply done with the game for now, because their fun/frustration level has gotten too low. While some of this may be frustration creeping up in the most vocal cases, it's more likely in the majority of cases that the primary cause is the fun level dropping as ppl go through the motions of 'been there, done that.' Some games do a better job of not just enabling multiple playthroughs with different options to try, but rewarding multiple playthroughs with a variety of well-balanced playstyles to choose from. Unfortunately, CO isn't one of them, IMHO; playing through CO with multiple characters provides a very 'samey' play experience.

Re: Champions Online - Revelation Coming In March So we are expecting VB to be a microtransaction-scale addon, without a microtransaction price? Ok, fair enough. I'm looking for more like a full xpack worth of new content, though, which means I'm still waiting.

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online? Overall, an enjoyable time-waster, but not very intellectually challenging or deep. Mind you, it's really not billed as the latter. Too easy for my taste, but then most MMOs fall into that category. I would say it's a decent start, and I enjoyed my time up until the point where I got bored with it, but there isn't nearly enough for me to be satisfied on a long-term basis. Character creation is rightly lauded as a strength of the game, but otherwise I wasn't really wowed by anything. Missions tend to be pretty samey after a while, as there are very few puzzles and everything rotates around 'find bad guy, beat him up, and go through his pockets for loose change.' The variety/challenge of play experience could use some work... but again, most MMOs have this problem, at least for solo-able content. Not many. I would eliminate the subscription fee and move to a Guild Wars- style revenue model. To me the subscription price is the biggest obstacle to continued play on a casual basis, and in my opinion, no game is worth the amount of money lifetime subscribers pay for the privelage. I'm the kind of person who will find the right game with a box purchase price and a free-to-play model, and then keep playing that game off and on for years with no additional dollars invested beyond expansion box prices. Subscription fees are anathema to my style of game purchase and play. Yes, and no, respectively -- at least until I've gotten over the feeling of 'been there, done that' with respect to existing content, and there is a substantial amount of new content available at what I consider a value price.

Re: Thoughts about Vibora bay I've not been trying to keep up with what's going on re:CO recently as I'm pretty much done the game for now. I was planning to wait until a substantial amount of new content would be available before considering extending my subscription. I paid for 4 months of subscription at the outset, which actually got me 7 months with the 6-month deal and the month for buying the game. However, after around 4.5 months and levelling up several alts, I found there really wasn't that much left to do that I hadn't done enough times already and/or was really all that interested in doing. Now I hear that the first expansion is upcoming and will cost some amount of money. Well, rah, I guess. I'm also going to be in wait-and-see mode on this. Just how much new content are we talking about, and for what price? Will we get additional subscription time with that content, or will it be extra? So far my experience with CO was decent enough, and I'm glad I did it, but that still does not make me a fan of subscription-only games. Like Sketchpad, I prefer the Guild Wars model. So unless Cryptic really wows me with their x-pack, I'm thinking I'll likely hold off this time around, and wait until a little of the 'been there, done that' has worn off and I've got a higher interest level in revisiting CO before returning.

Re: Moving Violation Soulbarb: Tech really isn't her subject of expertise. If there's magic involved, she'll be able to determine that in short order; otherwise it's time see if any of her contacts knows anything that mould make for a lead to investigate, and to do some research to see if she can find anything on the net or in the news about it that seems worth following up on. Sylph: Check with UNTIL, since they often get called in on paranormal threats in the city, and once they've had a chance to look into the matter, offer a hand with following up on it. She's not much of an investigator, and tech is not her specialty either. Alternatively, she could commune with the plants of the city and try to pick up on any impressions they might have regarding this, but that's something of a crapshoot.

Our bank is full of white junk and has been for a long time. I think we are past the point where we need to be keeping that sort of stuff around. It was useful before we had lots of people available to do crafting and before most players had a few alts around that could pass gear to their own lowbies, but I think the practice of allowing anything at all in the bank has outlived its usefulness. I'm going to clear the bank out of the white junk items. From now on I think we should be focusing on keeping green or better items only in the bank. Plus crafting mats, of course, both for regular crafting and for travel powers. The only exception to the rule about item quality would be for power replaces that unlock costume pieces, or munitions power replaces. Any munitions or costume power replace should be allowed in the bank, since those aren't as common and may be needed for thematic reasons.

Ok, guys, If we want to see some activity in our SG, I think we're going to need to nominate someone to take over the organizing force of the SG. Steve hasn't been on in forever, so I don't think we can look to him for that. Ideally it should be someone with a long-term commitment to the game, which probably means a lifetime subscriber. I'd be willing to do it, but I'm not a lifetime subscriber. I got the 6-month package, and I'm not currently planning to renew when it runs out -- at least not until they come out with an expansion or some other compelling reason to re-up. I like CO, but I hate subscription fees and I have other interests that need tending to. We need someone to organize group activities such as runs of high-end lairs and so forth. We need someone to make decisions about things like recruitment policies. We need someone to make decisions about things like the use of the SG bank. Who wants to step up and take a leadership role? As far as I can see the position is up for grabs. Any volunteers? Nominations?

Re: My Sob Story (My Son's Really) In the meantime, until your issues with Gamestop get sorted out, you can try the demo. Though judging from the other forum posts here about it, that may have its own share of technical troubles too... Hope your son enjoys the game. My daughter about his age certainly does -- though she does need frequent assistance and/or advice.