State of the Game - 9/15/2009

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Greetings, Champions!

There’s a lot to cover this week, so let’s just dive right in like Armadillo tunneling his way into a bank vault.

More Content!
Monster Island has three new repeatable mission chains to help bridge our content gap there. These are unlike any of our other missions in that they’re designed as destinations you’ll revisit and will change over the course of several missions. Here’s a sneak peek!

The Hidden Base
Heroes discover the entrance to a secret base in Well’s Pass. None of their contacts know anything about the entrance so it’s up to the hero to check things out. What secret project lies deep within the VIPER base?

The Lost Caves
A series of lost caves has been discovered by the intrepid Paleontologist and television personality, Professor Plummet. His early reports have come back, stating that Elderworms have also found a way into the labyrinth of caves, and are using them as hunting grounds. Contact has been lost with the professor, and help is needed in finding him.

The Manimal Lab
A group of Manimals are behaving strangely and are guarding a nearby cave complex. Further investigation reveals a hidden laboratory that also acts as the prison for a highly intelligent rat Manimal named Professor Ratso.

We anticipate these mission chains will make their way to the Public Test Shard next week and we’ll need your help making sure they’re ready for release to the live servers.

Adding Some Meat to Team
We’re working on several new additions to the teaming system. We’re currently testing new UI that allows players to see the state of team missions even if they don’t have them. Upcoming additions (in development) include showing your team members’ current objectives on active missions and adding rewards for heroes that assist on missions, even if they don’t have the mission themselves.

Do You See What I See?
Graphics performance should be better overall for players. Some high-end users have experienced what appears to be a reduction in performance. But this is actually due to us fixing a bug where sliders that were set all the way up in certain categories weren’t actually providing that level of increase. Players with top-end graphic cards should retune their settings for maximum performance.

The Mail That Ate Sheboygan
Many fixes to our mail woes have already been pushed to the live servers, but one big one is currently on the Public Test Shard and will be pushed to the live servers ASAP. We also currently don’t have a way for players to send resources to other heroes. This is a known issue, and requires a tech solution to implement. I don’t have an ETA, but it’s on the list. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.

The Balance of Power
We’re currently making passes on all the powers in the game and will be making changes designed to not just bring aberrant powers into line, but increase the effectiveness of those that need it. We’re also examining the best ways to inject more resources into the economy. Our top concerns are what are concerning you as players. We're working as fast as we can to address issues, work on the overall balance of the game, and be as responsive to possible. Keep hitting the forums with solid, constructive comments and we’ll keep working to make the game better and more balanced in both the PvE and PvP arenas.

Powers Aren’t Black / White – Yet…
We’re big fans of being able to shift the hue of powers into the realms of black and white. The issue is that these aren’t hues, but tints. This means that with the current way our color system works, you would see pure black or pure white colors as opposed to the grayscale subtleties required to give you the look you actually want. Basically, it requires some new engine technology, but we’re looking into how to make this happen.

Celestial Power Set
Along with some incredible events and rewards, there’s a new power set coming out with the Blood Moon event. The Celestial set is designed to provide assistance to allies and destruction to enemies. The power effects are amazing and the versatility of the set makes it both compelling as a single-focus set and also as supplementary powers to other builds. We’re going to be doing a special feature on the website in the upcoming weeks showing off the powers, so stay tuned for a detailed look.

Tutorial? We Don’t Need No Stinking Tutorial!
While it sounds simple, there are few things we had to design out to allow players to be able to skip past the tutorial if they’ve already done it once. It’s next up on the list for our content lead, and we’re hoping to have this onto the Public Test Shard as soon as next week.

Where the Duels Are(n’t)
We’ve heard your requests for our more social areas like Club Caprice and The Powerhouse to be duel-free zones. Both our content and programming teams are combining efforts to get this in as soon as possible.

A Room of Danger in the House of Power
We’re designing a new room for the Powerhouse where you can try out your powers against automated enemies. We’ll be sure to inform you when this moves to the Public Test Shard so you can help us test it out!


See you online, Champions!

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Swuuu-eeet!

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Good stuff, thanks for the information^

I forgot to mention, its a shame theres absolutely no mention of Retcon changes in there, which means Cryptic is happy with the Retcon as it is. Pricing is so extreme i can't go back as far i used to with the old ten steps system, even though it shows all my powers, i can't actually afford to do it ever.

EDIT:

Bill Roper posted information on the Economy and Retcon changes here (http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?t=68671), I am now a very happy man!

Thanks again.

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9/10 and 2 snaps. make it so!

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Great stuff guys! Keep up the great work!

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Sounds GooooooOOOoood!

But no dueling at powerhouse? wtf thats BAAAaaaAAAd

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Nice, looking forward to it all :)

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Duel free powerhouse? I out-regen the biggest laser ALREADY, it's the only way to actually test damage/healing!

Might I suggest makign a duel room? Or a "VR" type area? Something to test more "real" combat, and just making a no-duel area in the main rooms.

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I have to admit that I'm sitting a little in awe of Cryptic right now. Call me a fanboy and what have you, but this is the first time in the last 8 years of playing MMO's for me that I've seen a company respond this quickly to the playerbases wishes.
I know we aren't getting everything or anything we might want, but Cryptic is really showing that they are willing to put in the time and effort to check feedback and work on it. Sure, some of the things in the list are right now given as 'we need to make some new tech, but it's coming' and honestly that's fine. It's just a question of getting the message out that it's officially being worked on.
Thank you cryptic for giving me personally one of the best experiences I've had with an MMO developer thus far.

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Where the Duels Are(n’t)
We’ve heard your requests for our more social areas like Club Caprice and The Powerhouse to be duel-free zones. Both our content and programming teams are combining efforts to get this in as soon as possible.


Yikes! I think disallowing duels in the power house isn't a very nice idea. When in the power house I want to be able to test out new abilities on real players. I want to see how long my hold will work on someone, or maybe to test a new build. The power house is supposed to be where super heroes go to train new powers, and they should be able to duel eachother to test these powers out, just like if you went to some martial arts training school you would totally see people testing new moves on eachother.

Love everything else I read though, good work!

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Nice will wait on the TEAM stuff

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Yikes! I think disallowing duels in the power house isn't a very nice idea. When in the power house I want to be able to test out new abilities on real players. I want to see how long my hold will work on someone, or maybe to test a new build. The power house is supposed to be where super heroes go to train new powers, and they should be able to duel eachother to test these powers out, just like if you went to some martial arts training school you would totally see people testing new moves on eachother.

Love everything else I read though, good work!

I wouldn't mind a little dueling area in the power-room, like a do-jo or something.

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wow, you guys dont ***** with us, you give us the cold hard facts, Telling us not only are you working on it, but why it going to be hard work. Thanks allot for not just telling me "Hey, This is what we are fixing, we dont know why it doest work, but maybe it will work soon." No you actually tell us its engine problems and what going to be happening, I love yopur guys game you have here, and as long I know you guys are compentent and are working on the errors, it makes the future all so much more grand.

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Wow. You guys are actually implementing exactly what the community has been asking for. I've never, ever seen that before from a dev team. And it's awesome.

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Fantastic update, the changes mentioned sound great. It's especially nice that alts won't be such a hassle anymore, with the new tutorial skips and level gap fills!

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Cryptic, despite what the louder dissenters of the forums say about them, delivers once again. This is absolutely incredible community interaction. Many of these additions sound wonderful. Can't wait!

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THANKS!! These changes are fantastic and i personally really appreciate the effort you guys are putting in! I'm really enjoying this game and it's only getting better!

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I'm excited. While Celestial doesn't really sound like my cup of tea, I'm sure more power sets are in the pipe. Keep the updates coming, Cryptic. Also, don't hesitate to let us know if you need a hand from the players for any reason.

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The teaming improvements are the single biggest shot in the arm that this game needs. Getting xp bonuses for teaming on missions you don't have + new Monster Island content = no more content gap.

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Although all these proposed changes will take time, it's amazing that you've basically addressed most of the issues that I and many other players have been asking for! Keep up the great work :D

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The turn around and output of changes so far has been amazing compared to other mmo's

keep up the good work.

do you guys have some kind of machine to increase the hours in a day?

or is that just your speacial power Bill?

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The word that first comes to my mind after reading that is "incredible", and I see many other posters had the same reaction! I can't believe how fast they are addressing what people are asking for, it's unprecedented.

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Great game & great news@Chronomancer, do it so :D

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The turn around and output of changes so far has been amazing compared to other mmo's

keep up the good work.

do you guys have some kind of machine to increase the hours in a day?

or is that just your speacial power Bill?


It's not amazing, it is absolutly nessecary. Hellgate London already was released without working Auction House and mail system, now this happens here again...

One should assume, that 2009 (!!) standards like shared banking, emailing and Auction housing are not a troublesome problem and pretty much well developed and functioning features in a MMO:

this is like announcing, that your newly purchased car will be delivered with 2 wheels, the missing two will be delayed for 2 months, but the public relations manager is making a big promotional out of delivering those missing 2 wheels.

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This is ALL really great news! Looking forward to it :D

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Tutorial skipping and shifting the tint of powers? Got me sticking around for a while when you implement these and no duels in Caprice and the Power House AND a Danger Room-esque addition...

Oooh would you look at that carrot dangling in front of me...

Great work all you guys at Cryptic, knew my lifetime sub was for SOMETHING. :cool:

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It's not amazing, it is absolutly nessecary. Hellgate London already was released without working Auction House and mail system, now this happens here again...

One should assume, that 2009 (!!) standards like shared banking, emailing and Auction housing are not a troublesome problem and pretty much well developed and functioning features in a MMO:

this is like announcing, that your newly purchased car will be delivered with 2 wheels, the missing two will be delayed for 2 months, but the public relations manager is making a big promotional out of delivering those missing 2 wheels.

actually...this falls under "S*** Happens"

WoW had a major Mail issue that was fixed no more then 4 months ago. EQ2 keeps adding functionality to is Broker system. Co/X just added their Auction system not to long ago. So while it may be 2009 and these features have become standard...coding is coding and issues are not unheard of.

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Duel free powerhouse? I out-regen the biggest laser ALREADY, it's the only way to actually test damage/healing!

Might I suggest makign a duel room? Or a "VR" type area? Something to test more "real" combat, and just making a no-duel area in the main rooms.

Just to point out / clarify the last section of the SotG:

We’re designing a new room for the Powerhouse where you can try out your powers against automated enemies. We’ll be sure to inform you when this moves to the Public Test Shard so you can help us test it out!

This is pretty much what you just asked for, so consider us on it.

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I'm impressed. I hope the Balance of Power comes soon. I've got a lot of broken characters that need some sweet lovin.

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Just to point out / clarify the last section of the SotG:

We’re designing a new room for the Powerhouse where you can try out your powers against automated enemies. We’ll be sure to inform you when this moves to the Public Test Shard so you can help us test it out!

This is pretty much what you just asked for, so consider us on it.

Damn Bill, go to bed. It's late. :)

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Fix up the AUCTION HOUSE along with the BANK please.
and keep it up with the changes

O and don't forget all the broken quests along with your updating.

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It's not amazing, it is absolutly nessecary. Hellgate London already was released without working Auction House and mail system, now this happens here again...

One should assume, that 2009 (!!) standards like shared banking, emailing and Auction housing are not a troublesome problem and pretty much well developed and functioning features in a MMO:

this is like announcing, that your newly purchased car will be delivered with 2 wheels, the missing two will be delayed for 2 months, but the public relations manager is making a big promotional out of delivering those missing 2 wheels.

I gotta agree with this.

This is like horrible, terrible deja vu. I remember seeing "state of the game" posts from Roper back on Hellgate London. The game servers went down soon after.

Your reputation precedes you here Roper; I am extremely pessimistic. Don't ruin this potentially great game too.

If you offer "hybrid pay to play" services, so help me Ironclad...

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Yikes! I think disallowing duels in the power house isn't a very nice idea. When in the power house I want to be able to test out new abilities on real players. I want to see how long my hold will work on someone, or maybe to test a new build. The power house is supposed to be where super heroes go to train new powers, and they should be able to duel eachother to test these powers out, just like if you went to some martial arts training school you would totally see people testing new moves on eachother.

Love everything else I read though, good work!

I'm really damn happy about this. It's so god damn annoying trying to read power descriptions and plan out builds with 12 years olds constantly trying to duel you over and over.

I do agree that at least one of the rooms in the PH should allow duels for people to test stuff. I'm just glad to be able to plan out stuff in peace.

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Please don't disable duels in the Powerhouse. :(

Perhaps designate a new room for them in there so other players don't lag (I'm assuming that's the issue?) but it's the only way we can really test our powers out in -actual- situations rather than having a blue laser tickle us a bit.

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Most excited about the upgrades to teaming features. Need a lot more play time to get to Monster Island. Very impressed by this post and the communication in general by the Cryptic team. Especially at 1 a.m.

Greatest concern is totally disabling duels in the P-house. A lot of players seem to enjoy this. They just need to be away from the service area. My two cents.

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Sweet.

I'm so sick of 8 year olds dueling in the midst of everybody trying to level up lol
And sweet about the automated enemeis.
You guys might consider putting in a room that would specifically allow dueling in the power house if that's not a giant headache. I"m fine with people wanting to have other players test things out, and while buying powers that's great if they want to help eachother out, I mean, I've done that when people requested it, but just not where we're already trying to do stuff.
So love the sound of the danger room...sorry...room of danger :p
But yeah for those that want to test things out it might be cool for them to be able to go to a separate part just to do that.
Bored kids who have nothing better to do than grief is a problem with dueling and such though. I mean last level I had there were 4 people who wouldn't stop dropping the duel rocket directly in the middle of the trainers and spamming powers all over us, ask them to stop, they'd just laugh and go "but you all want to watch us".

On that note, we need a quicker way to report people than what we have now, that, or you at least need to make it so that when you select someone, they can't just fly away to have their character and info disappear.

celestial powerset, looking forward to that, and power balancing and enhancing, God yes lol.
I'm hoping minimines is finally made right and useful without being a win button, and that I can finally pick my PFF character back up without feeling like a cheated paper doll.

On that note, you guys might want to be putting more thought into free respecs. When it comes to things like all the balancing and changes that are happening now, and powersets being released, people are going to feel boned or cheated.
A: either you have a power that no longer works with your concept the way you want, or at least that you don't enjoy it, so you're going to want to get out of that. The respec costs are still pretty prohibitive though, so even though you guys have fixed it so that you can respec all the way, it's still sooooo expensive that people just still are apathetic towards that idea.
B: a new powerset comes out and you OMG over some of the stuff in it and how it perfectly fits your you level 27 character. This could be more than just picking up a single or a few powers, but maybe wanting to insert several of these that fit your concept even better into your overall build.
Example: you guys release the earth set, someone's made their attempt at an earth elemental character, they're not going to want to toss or reroll that character, they just want those powers for the character they already love.

and woot, looking forward to bloodmoon, be great if you guys could give us some info on levels and such so we can prepare. I'm personally wondering how leveled I need to be to get involved fully, and not turn into a zombie that is lol

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Some good stuff there. Including some things that I thought we were just going to have to put up with. Great going :)

On the other hand, there's another just like...no wrong joke, sorry.
Just...please go easy with the nerf bat!

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I gotta agree with this.

This is like horrible, terrible deja vu. I remember seeing "state of the game" posts from Roper back on Hellgate London. The game servers went down soon after.

Your reputation precedes you here Roper; I am extremely pessimistic. Don't ruin this potentially great game too.

If you offer "hybrid pay to play" services, so help me Ironclad...

So you're going to bash the man for 1 failure, and completely ignore all the good he's brought? His reputation precedes him because of 1 (one, uno, eins) fail? You need to learn the history of "The Roper".

Please don't disable duels in the Powerhouse. :(

Perhaps designate a new room for them in there so other players don't lag (I'm assuming that's the issue?) but it's the only way we can really test our powers out in -actual- situations rather than having a blue laser tickle us a bit.

READ!

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Great stuff. Keep up the good work!

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Thank you all so much. These are addressing some of my concerns, and I'm really pleased that you all are communicating with the playerbase.

My biggest concern is not having alternate zones for leveling alts. As it is now, we have no real choice in where to go to level; we have to do the exact same stuff every time. But this will understandably take a while.

Again, thanks.

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Do NOT disable duels in the PH ! With this rediculously impossible respec system you HAVE to be able to test the powers vs players before buying them ! Do NOT disable duels in the PH ! :mad:

Do the developers actually PLAY their own game ? I am speechless. Come on guys... How is it even remotely possible to think that is a good idea ? Just ... damn.

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Is it too much to ask to get some kind of "State of pets" answer from one of you Developers?

Clicky for Pet thread (http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?t=66042) Please throw us pet fanatics a bone and let us know yer at least looking into all these issues.

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A+

10/10


Love the how you have kept the community informed keep up the good work....

I think how AoC could have been if they worked like you .....

If this is how CO is now and will be ... then i believe STO will be awsome ..... and you will have a fan of cryptic even into the afterlife .... Qapla !! ....

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Wow, that sounds awesome. Can't believe how quickly some of the much needed fixes and changes are coming.

Well done Cryptic! hookers all around! :D

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So you're going to bash the man for 1 failure, and completely ignore all the good he's brought? His reputation precedes him because of 1 (one, uno, eins) fail? You need to learn the history of "The Roper".

Hellgate was an enormous collection of failures. It was riddled with fake promises of things to come and state of the game posts that brought us nothing. If Roper made mistakes in the past, and is doing the same thing again, then yeah I'm going to focus on that. The biggest difference here is that we aren't selling this game based on the hype that OMG THIS IS MADE BY THE PEOPLE WHO MADE DIABLO!!`!1!!

I feel terrible for lifetime subscribers of Hellgate, I can only hope it doesn't happen to lifetime subscribers here.

Sure, good job on delivering things that should have come with the original release of the game. Good job on quick turn around of game issues and player comments. I remain unsure about the future of products made by "The Roper." I would definitely like to be proven wrong here.

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Thanks for the update. It sounds like good stuff.

Along with an automated attack dummies room in the Power House, I think many of us would like to see a free for all pvp room too. If you ever played Anarchy Online, it'd be a bit like the pvp arena there where you'd seamlessly walk into a ring and be flagged, or stay outside the perimeter and watch. This'd be great for managing powers and entertaining eachother without arranging a Hero Game.

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Just to point out / clarify the last section of the SotG:

We’re designing a new room for the Powerhouse where you can try out your powers against automated enemies. We’ll be sure to inform you when this moves to the Public Test Shard so you can help us test it out!

This is pretty much what you just asked for, so consider us on it.

This is amazing. I mean, the speed with which some pleas are answered by Cryptic. You guys rock. In granite armor.

ps duels in power house are fine.

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It's not amazing, it is absolutly nessecary. Hellgate London already was released without working Auction House and mail system, now this happens here again...

One should assume, that 2009 (!!) standards like shared banking, emailing and Auction housing are not a troublesome problem and pretty much well developed and functioning features in a MMO:

this is like announcing, that your newly purchased car will be delivered with 2 wheels, the missing two will be delayed for 2 months, but the public relations manager is making a big promotional out of delivering those missing 2 wheels.

all those 'standards' were with the game at launch? I guess the item e-mailing was wonky but that was a bug?

Also your metaphor is pretty horrible since you're assuming an mmorpg needs those things to even work. A better metaphor would be like selling a car without a car radio since none of these features are neccessary but are certainly nice to have.

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Did anyone else totally have an accident in their pants when they read this post?

Well the males at least?

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I have been more than just impressed with the constant work that is put into the game and so is my fiancee. Every day there is new news on what's going on or a patch being put up. This kind of customer service and public relations is what people have been wanting in games, but just haven't gotten till now. Keep up the communication and this game will go far. People will here stories on how OUR developers for OUR favorite MMO don't quit and continue to add and refine content.

I have been unable to level in the past half of a week cuz I am working on something for the community and I can't wait to start leveling again. I am in high anticipation of whats to come and hope that when I finish what I am working on it will help this community grow even more and I do aspire to someday work side by side in the improvement and satisfaction of the CO fanbase. Cryptic has changed my personal aspiration goals for when I get out of the military... and that, my friends, is quite impressive.

Again THANK YOU for everything good sirs. I hope that this keep ups and sets the standard for other companies, especially those who think that they are on solid ground and can slack off because of their fanbase. Good luck...

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I'll add my voice to the chorus: sounds good :) I esspecially like the sound of the 'Danger Room' in the Power House :)

Then again, the new powerset is hopefully fun as well ;)

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A Room of Danger in the House of Power
We’re designing a new room for the Powerhouse where you can try out your powers against automated enemies. We’ll be sure to inform you when this moves to the Public Test Shard so you can help us test it out!

The Powerhouse is not primarily a social area. While I agree that choosing powers in the middle of a duel is a bit of an annoyance, it should not be impossible to have duels there. If the powerhouse is made duel-free, it should definitely have one room that is not so. Dueling is a very good way to test out new powers.

To a lesser extent, that applies to the social areas too; it would be lovely to have a stage, arena, and/or cage where you can duel in front of an audience, even if most of the area is non-duel.

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We’re designing a new room for the Powerhouse where you can try out your powers against automated enemies. We’ll be sure to inform you when this moves to the Public Test Shard so you can help us test it out!

Seriously? :rolleyes:

Are these automated enemies going to despawn constantly while you're trying to get anything tested, like the current powerhouse dummies? The slightest knockback and they're gone. It better be instanced so someone else can't grief my testing.

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The Powerhouse is not primarily a social area. While I agree that choosing powers in the middle of a duel is a bit of an annoyance, it should not be impossible to have duels there. If the powerhouse is made duel-free, it should definitely have one room that is not so. Dueling is a very good way to test out new powers.

To a lesser extent, that applies to the social areas too; it would be lovely to have a stage, arena, and/or cage where you can duel in front of an audience, even if most of the area is non-duel.

I would be willing to bet that automated enemies would be plenty fine for testing.

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Seriously? :rolleyes:

Are these automated enemies going to despawn constantly while you're trying to get anything tested, like the current powerhouse dummies? The slightest knockback and they're gone. It better be instanced so someone else can't grief my testing.

I am sure it will be instanced, that way the game can pick a mob your level. Maybe they will even let you pick if the mob is a Henchman up to Master Villian!!

:eek:

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It's very refreshing to see that all the things we've been griping for have been listened to. I look forward to these and other changes.

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Sounds like a massive update. Keep up the good work Cryptic :)

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Thanks a lot guys!
I'm really looking forward to playing!

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Hm, good stuff overall, I think though that a duel in the powerhouse is needed for checking up on how the power will work on a human player (as you know in peeveepee? :P) Now touching upon the pvp and travelpowers aka the teleportation/fly and well.. that's the two OP powers at the moment (correct me if I'm wrong) how about making a mirror of the pvp areas where travel powers are disabled? That way you could choose if you wanted to fight players with or without.. travelpowers, I think that would be the best solution to the problem and wouldn't touch how they work vs npc's in pve.

Txt highlighted most important of the post ;)

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Nice SotG article. It is good to know what the team is up to.

In regards to the duel free powerhouse, I would like it if the area around the trainers were duel free but everywhere else available for a duel (the back room etc). Otherwise it is really okay as it is in it's current state.

Danger room in powerhouse is a good idea.

Skipping the tutorial level? Sounds sweet. Just want to know a few things for characters who skip the tutorial (to level 5 I assume).

Will they gain any equipment? I do not think this would make much difference in the long run but it will put characters who have just left the tutorial at an obvious disadvantage initially (Which may well be your intention)

Will they get the Key to Millennium city (whatever it does ^_^).

Will they get the quests to go to powerhouse and speak with XXXX.

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Great stuff

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Where the Duels Are(n’t)
We’ve heard your requests for our more social areas like Club Caprice and The Powerhouse to be duel-free zones. Both our content and programming teams are combining efforts to get this in as soon as possible.

A Room of Danger in the House of Power
We’re designing a new room for the Powerhouse where you can try out your powers against automated enemies. We’ll be sure to inform you when this moves to the Public Test Shard so you can help us test it out!




This would be great.. I'm not a PvP player, and its really frustrating to try and get to a trainer when people are dueling and running about the place, and with some of the larger, flashier effects firing off constantly it can make you just want to get out of there as quick as you can.

that said, it wouldnt be "fair" to the PvP players to completely ban dueling inside the powerhouse.. they want to test new powers against the type of opponant they'd be using them on, same as the PvE players and we're getting a "room of danger" for that..

I think the reason for the delay is they're looking to make both possible, no dueling at the trainers but areas for dueling so PvP players can test, and a danger room for PvE players..

so please, no more "OMG DUNT BAN DUELING IN TEH TRAINING ROOM" posts.. its not like these are patch notes and its happening now, wait and see whats done before having a frantic reaction!

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Tutorial? We Don’t Need No Stinking Tutorial!
While it sounds simple, there are few things we had to design out to allow players to be able to skip past the tutorial if they’ve already done it once. It’s next up on the list for our content lead, and we’re hoping to have this onto the Public Test Shard as soon as next week.

A Room of Danger in the House of Power
We’re designing a new room for the Powerhouse where you can try out your powers against automated enemies. We’ll be sure to inform you when this moves to the Public Test Shard so you can help us test it out!


This is pretty sweet news.


Where the Duels Are(n’t)
We’ve heard your requests for our more social areas like Club Caprice and The Powerhouse to be duel-free zones. Both our content and programming teams are combining efforts to get this in as soon as possible.

This is absolutely horrible though. Powerhouse duelling is essential, and what the hell is wrong with a good old fashioned superpowered barfight with tables being smashed over heads and laser beams burning innocent bystanders to crisps while missiles, icebergs and psychic horrors go flying everywhere? :mad:

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Did anyone else totally have an accident in their pants when they read this post?

Well the males at least?

Yes...I just read the first post. :eek:

I have no words.

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*runs around in circles waving arms in the air*

Yeah! Already loving the game a lot :D

*has to sit down and take a breather....I'm almost 40 and not as fit as I used to be*

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Wow awesome stuff ^^! The new set sounds cool, as does the danger room :D.

Just one thing though....dont disable dueling in all PH all the time, we still need to test powers against each other.

Maybe move dualing to a new area away from the power trainers or stick it for use in the "travel power testing" area or the newdanger room in the future.

Black and white powers...omg that would be so sweet...black ice, black fire, white shields and black powers....heh, finally I mite be able to make a proper angel of death come blood moon :D.

I hope the new set has some cool innates or passives or buffs that cover many different playstyles.

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Kudos & CSAT +1 to Cryptic! - Look forward to the successful delivery (which will hopefully silence the detractors) :D

Re: Duelling, I'm pretty certain that duelling in the MAIN / TRAINING only area of the Powerhouse is what we've been asking to Disable - I'm sure it will be enabled elsewhere, so before people jump on the bandwagon, let's see if Cryptic confirm - this will hopefully be the best of both worlds.

To me, I'm more impressed by customers/players who openly admit they may have been wrong to prematurely judge Cryptic when they do deliver according to (majority of) customer wishes, than those who simply entrench themselves in rhetoric and refuse to let go of past issues, or just change tack to find something else to complain about, when Cryptic do step up. Please give credit where credit is due also!

Remember - always look forward, there are no regrets in that direction! :)

Trelawney

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All the additions sound most excellent! However I must join with those that think removing dueling from powerhouse alltogether is a bad idea. How powers perform in duels and in PvP is after all the true test. Howabout a dueling room in the powerhouse or a free for all combat zone you can warp to before locking your powers (maybe for people close to the same level as yourself 1-5, 5-10, 10-15 etc...) ?

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Yay you guys are just the yiffiest! Thanks!

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Monster Island has three new repeatable mission chains to help bridge our content gap there. These are unlike any of our other missions in that they’re designed as destinations you’ll revisit and will change over the course of several missions. Here’s a sneak peek!

Just a note, repeatable missions only count as one mission when it comes to "plugging the content gap". We still need dozens of other missions, especially factoring in replayability. Or, of course, you could just fix the XP curve back to the level the game was designed and tested for. It also all seems to be Monster Island content, which doesn't help the pre-Monster Island potential snags. I get that adding content takes time, but you had plenty of content in the game before launch, and it was only after the XP nerf that more content became necessary.

Reverting the XP nerf would make new content unnecessary and it could just be fun new variety to have available, rather than something absolutely necessary, and your content team could spend more of their time on end-game content and new zones.

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Duel free powerhouse? I out-regen the biggest laser ALREADY, it's the only way to actually test damage/healing!

Might I suggest makign a duel room? Or a "VR" type area? Something to test more "real" combat, and just making a no-duel area in the main rooms.

/agree

defiantly a "danger room", or a "pvp room"

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Positive, positive and more positives! - nice job Cryptic!.

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Kudos Cryptic.

In all honesty, one of the main factors influencing the decision to become a lifer was my experiance with the customer service Crptic provided with the CoX games.

I have a number of friends in Singapore who subscribed to the CoX games and can cite instances were the customer service provided by Cryptic was truly above and beyond the call of duty.

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I'll show my support too.

While it's not perfect (and I don't expect it to be at all!), I think they are taking things in the right directions and somewhat quickly.

Good show, I look forward to all of this.

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Please don't disable duels in the Powerhouse. :(

Perhaps designate a new room for them in there so other players don't lag (I'm assuming that's the issue?) but it's the only way we can really test our powers out in -actual- situations rather than having a blue laser tickle us a bit.

This please. It is just as important that players be able to test their build changes against an intelligent adversary as AI controlled ones. I don't think anyone really wants the powerhouse to be completely duel free. Instead we just want some areas of the powerhouse that arent cluttered with duels, e.g. the lobby.

The large room with nothing but blocks in it is perfect for duels. Please leave this room pvp enabled or add another large room this size or bigger that players can duel in.

Overall this is a fantastic list of updates to the game. Thank you for listening and Thank you for keeping the communication lines open like tihs.


*edit - oh, and DOOOOOooom!!!

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Yes!!! My suggestion of a "danger room" type area for the powerhouse is coming true!


And I don't care if they remove the duels from the powerhouse as long as there's a place where I can make PVE enemies attack me and such..

I think a lot of people didn't notice them say that...

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1 request i have is that they can update it so we can have as many slotted pasive powers as we want i mean ok i might take 3 slotted pasive powers that means i have 3 less attacks to use and as a dual sword marshal artist toon i have 3 passives to choose from and i'd rather pick all 3 and scarafice some of the more useless combat powers

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1 request i have is that they can update it so we can have as many slotted pasive powers as we want i mean ok i might take 3 slotted pasive powers that means i have 3 less attacks to use and as a dual sword marshal artist toon i have 3 passives to choose from and i'd rather pick all 3 and scarafice some of the more useless combat powers

Ask for 4 and be happy when they give you 2 :p

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Now thats what I like to read! Very nice info Chronomancer. I look forward to helping test it out.

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1 request i have is that they can update it so we can have as many slotted pasive powers as we want i mean ok i might take 3 slotted pasive powers that means i have 3 less attacks to use and as a dual sword marshal artist toon i have 3 passives to choose from and i'd rather pick all 3 and scarafice some of the more useless combat powers

I wish they would just remove the hp bar and make everyone invincible too. It is so useless to die and they need to wise up and make us gods.

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Where the Duels Are(n’t)
We’ve heard your requests for our more social areas like Club Caprice and The Powerhouse to be duel-free zones. Both our content and programming teams are combining efforts to get this in as soon as possible.

I'd say removing duels from the powerhouse would be a mistake, as there's just no substitute for testing your powers against other players. Everthing else sounds great, but please let us duel in the powerhouse, even if we have to do it in a special room or something.

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Out of everything you're doing for the game, which is cool, I REALLY hope you are correcting the game crashes. I've never seen a game crash so many times in my life of gaming. It can crash once every 5 minutes at time, and sometimes back-to-back. I've seen it crash when a popup such as Avast where it notifies me that the virus database has been updated. If that happens while I'm in the game, CO crashes. This goes for any popup whatsoever from the tray icons while the game is running.

My system:
AMD3 Phenom X4 965 Black Edition
Two ATI HD 4890s in Crossfire (not overclocked)
MSI 790FX-GD70 Motherboard
4gig Patriot 2000 (PS316000)

Please, I don't care what enhancements you add to the game. It matters not to me. Get the game crashes fixed. I'd like to feel that I've spent my well earned money for something worth while.

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I'd say removing duels from the powerhouse would be a mistake, as there's just no substitute for testing your powers against other players. Everthing else sounds great, but please let us duel in the powerhouse, even if we have to do it in a special room or something.

Most definitely remove duels from the Powerhouse. I'm tired of hearing it all going on while I'm trying to figure out my build. Put it in another room, back room, whatever, just not in the main entrance where you purchase powers, etc.

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A lot of these changes are vital and really need to be up and in ASAP, by no later than Blood Moon, actually. The MI missions, team fixes and mail fixes need to be in before the end of the month, really.

But I am impressed with the speed at which you guys are recognizing the clear problems and addressing them.

There's still a ways to go however: Lagmuria, auction house/bank fixes, broken missions in general, lairs, Nemesis improvements, basically the post-25 game needs some serious love and fast.

Still, it's good to see that improvements are being made on a weekly basis.

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Sounds great Bill & Cryptic team. You guys have done a great job dealing with bugs and missing content for a new MMORPG so far. My hopes are high.

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Most excited about the upgrades to the teaming aspect of the game. Sounds like Cryptic is good at listening and doing.

Where's that gigantic Thumbs Up icon?

This will do Mega Thumb (http://www.tmz.com/2009/09/15/obama-calls-kanye-a-jackass//)

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New content is great, and getting the game to a solid state is fine, but to be perfectly honest, I can't see myself bothering with the game for at least the next six months or more.

Why? Well, while there's a decent amount of content--and plenty more to come, I'm sure--none of it feels very exciting. Everything has a bit of an "Oh, wow, lookit that" moment, but nothing has that "Holy crap, let's do it again!" feel to it.

So, what would get me to keep playing and suggest the game to other people is:

- More Anti-Air in hot-spots to pull flying heroes out of the sky, regardless of level.
- AI variety, so that fighting the same mix of mobs doesn't always play out the same exact way.
- Less-public PQs or scaling PQs; a single group doing a PQ is optimal, two groups is okay but crowded, any more than that and the PQ is just lame.
- (More) Nemesis encounters in public and private; like the random 30-minute emergencies you're approached with by NPCs, these should pop up and feature your Nemesis and not just the minions. Some should even be located out in the zone rather than being completely instanced. Add a chance encounter with Nemesis and/or minions to other missions ("The enemy of my enemy is my ally").
- Consider adding NPC sidekicks, fully-customizable for every hero who hits the current (or future) level cap.
- Less menial missions, more epic quests! Utiliize mission or instance linking, streamlined so players may hop from one instance to the next without stopping by or turning it in to the mission NPC; have players go from raiding a scout camp, to chasing a messenger, to sieging a fortress, to killing a villain, and optionally delving in to a hidden compound (just an example).
- Random zone-wide events where supervillains make an apperance (similar to the Qularr Invasion or Cryptonaut Assault, only less focused on a single area); players defeat wave after wave of invading minions, rescue hostages, fortify defenses, disable reinforcements, and finally take on the invading supervillain.
- Early levels need to be extremely forgiving for new players--in all regards, including retcons and the like--considering that this period is when most players undergo a steep learning curve to get in the game. That learning curve can determine whether or not they'll even bother, and to be punished for not fully understanding how something works when it was never really even partially explained to them is completely off-putting and a major hurdle.

There's plenty more to be worked in, and this is just some of what you could do. While the lore may be interesting, the actual gameplay can be quite dull. Playing one day after the other begins to feel repetitious and boring because of a lack of variety; the names, places, and ugly faces change, but the situation is always the same.

Well, either way, I'm sure people will end up throwing more money at this game month after month regardless, but for a gamer like me, I need variety. Which is why I'll be beta-testing MAG soon, then picking up Uncharted 2, then Way of the Samurai 3, then Borderlands... and that's just October. Let's not forget that there are MMO competitors too, like DCUO, SW:TOR, Mortal Online, etc. So, for the next six months, gamers--like me--will be making the choice between a whole slew of titles, and Champions Online is just another MMO beyond the initial creation process, because the incentive, pay-off, and excitement just isn't there beyond that. As a matter of fact, the reward for continued playing beyond the creation process seems to decline when it comes to entertainment value.

I don't mean to bash, but fact is fact; MMOs take time to enjoy or have fun with, and even Champions is no exception (yet). But I guess it's all fine and well, since Champions won't hit that solid state until about 6 months in (as most MMOs go). Time is key to subscribers at this point in the game; the less time you take to solidify the game, the better--the less time it takes for players to start having fun, the better--the less time it takes to get exciting features and content in to the game, the better...

Eh, I didn't intend on ranting, and I'm sure Cryptic already knows or realizes much of this (you'd have to if you were serious about being in the gaming industry, right?). But yeah, after this (free) month is up, I won't be coming back for a while (if ever), and I hope not too many players / subscribers are the same (you lifetime subbers don't count for anything anymore 'cause you've already paid your money).

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I have to admit that I'm sitting a little in awe of Cryptic right now. Call me a fanboy and what have you, but this is the first time in the last 8 years of playing MMO's for me that I've seen a company respond this quickly to the playerbases wishes.
I know we aren't getting everything or anything we might want, but Cryptic is really showing that they are willing to put in the time and effort to check feedback and work on it. Sure, some of the things in the list are right now given as 'we need to make some new tech, but it's coming' and honestly that's fine. It's just a question of getting the message out that it's officially being worked on.
Thank you cryptic for giving me personally one of the best experiences I've had with an MMO developer thus far.

AMEN! I agree!

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Most definitely remove duels from the Powerhouse. I'm tired of hearing it all going on while I'm trying to figure out my build. Put it in another room, back room, whatever, just not in the main entrance where you purchase powers, etc.

Aye, I like duel in the PH, but there is no reason it needs to happen in the main entrance room. Other than that, I'm reading the list of up coming changes and I'm in awe. I really like the way things are trending!

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@chronomancer:

As a former lifetime sub of HG:L and current lifetime sub of CO, let me applaud your personal changes in how you haven handled things from then til now, the information outflow on this stuff is VERY much appreciated.

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Greetings, Champions!

There’s a lot to cover this week, so let’s just dive right in like Armadillo tunneling his way into a bank vault.

More Content!
Monster Island has three new repeatable mission chains to help bridge our content gap there. These are unlike any of our other missions in that they’re designed as destinations you’ll revisit and will change over the course of several missions. Here’s a sneak peek!

so why do you keep nerfing things which only aggravate the mission gaps such as day 1 mission xp nerf, repeatable mission xp nerf, open mission timers nerf, stronghold pvp xp nerf, etc?

seriously..where's the overall mission xp buff and xp per mob buff to help us while we're waiting for you to create this crap..?

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Love everything but "Where the Duels Are(n’t)" duels are the only way to really test powers. Even testing the effects for PvP. If you remove duels from the powerhouse you will be gimping the only real test ability powerhouse offers.

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I wish they would just remove the hp bar and make everyone invincible too. It is so useless to die and they need to wise up and make us gods. :eek: not really what i said but now i think about it there will be some that use all the damage reduction powers to make them immortal i think that a game thats catch line is total customisation should let you choose exsactly how to make you hero be it a imortal that has 2 combat abbilities or a pure combatant with no damage reducing abbility also i want to be able to see what my weapons look like rather than wasting my resoruces :mad: testing the looks of weapons. hope I'm listened to about the Passive slots i mean personally i think passive stuff should be Innate and not need to be slotted anyway it's passive meaning you don't activate it

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Love everything but "Where the Duels Are(n’t)" duels are the only way to really test powers. Even testing the effects for PvP. If you remove duels from the powerhouse you will be gimping the only real test ability powerhouse offers.

yeah..duels definitely need to stay in that big room with all the platforms and boxes. don't remove them completely from the powerhouse..

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Like what you have here, but I have a couple o fthings I would like to add...

Any chance of making the tailor a part of the Powerhouse team and allow for free tweaking until we leave the Powerhouse, just as it is with powers?

Making the Powerhouse a duel-free zone is a mixed thing. Maybe the combat dummies will be good enough, but some people just like to test against players.
Having people break out into fights wherever can be irritating, though.

Any chance of disabling fighting everywhere except for one large room? Keep the fighting in an appropriate area?

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It looks good so far :). But could you PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE remove surpression from all travel powers when the uses is NOT engaged in PVP. I understand that it is needed for PVP but in PVE it is sorely needed. It is aggravating when you are cruising along with flight and some mob pops you for 20 HP and you slow to a crawl. Thanks :).

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Hellgate was an enormous collection of failures. It was riddled with fake promises of things to come and state of the game posts that brought us nothing. If Roper made mistakes in the past, and is doing the same thing again, then yeah I'm going to focus on that. The biggest difference here is that we aren't selling this game based on the hype that OMG THIS IS MADE BY THE PEOPLE WHO MADE DIABLO!!`!1!!

I feel terrible for lifetime subscribers of Hellgate, I can only hope it doesn't happen to lifetime subscribers here.

Sure, good job on delivering things that should have come with the original release of the game. Good job on quick turn around of game issues and player comments. I remain unsure about the future of products made by "The Roper." I would definitely like to be proven wrong here.

Seriously its time to let Hellgate drop. The BIGGEST issue Hellgate London had was a lot of people considered it a single player rpg with delusions of being a mmorpg. I myself bought the game played it solo offlline looked at subbing and decided not to as it seemed to be just more of the same. So if you want to blame someone blame us those of us who bought the game and decided NOT to subscribe (I later decided to give the subscription a shot but it was to late). NO game can survive if based on a subscription model if the user base do not subscribe the biggest mistake made by Hellgate was to allow people to play it without subbing.

So seriously Hellgate London was a good game I enjoyed it but it tried to be both a online and a offline game at the same time. This experiment failed but it was a valid effort and from what I could see the developers did all they could to keep it running as long as possible however once the money well dries up there was nothing they could do.

Yes mistakes were made a lessons learnt but seriously did you or did you not enjoy the game, I know I did I thought it was well made and entertaining. Its failure was due to a number of points NOT ALL OF THEM under the control of anyone person and we the players (especially the offline ones) ourselves had a large part to play in that.

Just my 2 cents
Gadareth

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Adding Some Meat to Team
We’re working on several new additions to the teaming system. We’re currently testing new UI that allows players to see the state of team missions even if they don’t have them. Upcoming additions (in development) include showing your team members’ current objectives on active missions and adding rewards for heroes that assist on missions, even if they don’t have the mission themselves.

This , if they can pull this off and make it as user friendly as COH's then we be onto a winner. As teaming at the moment is a night mare, a new teaming UI is much needed if it can make it clear for all in the team to see what the current mission is and allow the choice of all missions to be selected.

So am hoping that this works out as will make teaming a lot better for all of us

And the other things you have mentioned are also pleasing to me, is nice to see you are taking on some of the communitys requests.

:)

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Big Changes a coming!

Sounds Awesome!! I can't wait.:D

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repeatable missions are not content, they are an annoyance at best and are incredibly boring. If thats the kind of "filler" you can come up with Im not enthused on the future of this game.

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Yes A nice Powerhouse is a terrible thing to waste.. I mean you had the Travel power test room for fighting.. a better danger room and target range would improve the feel of the place.

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Tutorial skippage? YES PLEASE!

Also, no word on extra shiny costume bits for the Character Creator? There must be some lovely stuff they're keeping for themselves! IT'S A CONSPIRACY! CHARGE THE BARRICADES!

...possibly too much caffiene. Apologies.

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This is all good stuff. Look forward to seeing it implemented.

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Seriously its time to let Hellgate drop. The BIGGEST issue Hellgate London had was a lot of people considered it a single player rpg with delusions of being a mmorpg. I myself bought the game played it solo offlline looked at subbing and decided not to as it seemed to be just more of the same. So if you want to blame someone blame us those of us who bought the game and decided NOT to subscribe (I later decided to give the subscription a shot but it was to late). NO game can survive if based on a subscription model if the user base do not subscribe the biggest mistake made by Hellgate was to allow people to play it without subbing.

/Signed! If this game manages to stay around for a year, and I have little fear that even come close to shutting down in that time frame, I will have more than received my moneys worth in entertainment. Even at the six to nine month timeframe its close to breaking even if you consider the extra character slots received with a lifetime sub.

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New content is great, and getting the game to a solid state is fine, but to be perfectly honest, I can't see myself bothering with the game for at least the next six months or more.

Why? Well, while there's a decent amount of content--and plenty more to come, I'm sure--none of it feels very exciting. Everything has a bit of an "Oh, wow, lookit that" moment, but nothing has that "Holy crap, let's do it again!" feel to it.

So, what would get me to keep playing and suggest the game to other people is:

- More Anti-Air in hot-spots to pull flying heroes out of the sky, regardless of level.
- AI variety, so that fighting the same mix of mobs doesn't always play out the same exact way.
- Less-public PQs or scaling PQs; a single group doing a PQ is optimal, two groups is okay but crowded, any more than that and the PQ is just lame.
- (More) Nemesis encounters in public and private; like the random 30-minute emergencies you're approached with by NPCs, these should pop up and feature your Nemesis and not just the minions. Some should even be located out in the zone rather than being completely instanced. Add a chance encounter with Nemesis and/or minions to other missions ("The enemy of my enemy is my ally").
- Consider adding NPC sidekicks, fully-customizable for every hero who hits the current (or future) level cap.
- Less menial missions, more epic quests! Utiliize mission or instance linking, streamlined so players may hop from one instance to the next without stopping by or turning it in to the mission NPC; have players go from raiding a scout camp, to chasing a messenger, to sieging a fortress, to killing a villain, and optionally delving in to a hidden compound (just an example).
- Random zone-wide events where supervillains make an apperance (similar to the Qularr Invasion or Cryptonaut Assault, only less focused on a single area); players defeat wave after wave of invading minions, rescue hostages, fortify defenses, disable reinforcements, and finally take on the invading supervillain.
- Early levels need to be extremely forgiving for new players--in all regards, including retcons and the like--considering that this period is when most players undergo a steep learning curve to get in the game. That learning curve can determine whether or not they'll even bother, and to be punished for not fully understanding how something works when it was never really even partially explained to them is completely off-putting and a major hurdle.

There's plenty more to be worked in, and this is just some of what you could do. While the lore may be interesting, the actual gameplay can be quite dull. Playing one day after the other begins to feel repetitious and boring because of a lack of variety; the names, places, and ugly faces change, but the situation is always the same..

i like it all dude i hope they think about putting all this into the game

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repeatable missions are not content, they are an annoyance at best and are incredibly boring. If thats the kind of "filler" you can come up with Im not enthused on the future of this game.

Hopefully the content dump coming is more than just repeatable missions. They really should be there as a safety valve in case the content added to the game to cover holes doesn't quite match their expectations.

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Just to point out / clarify the last section of the SotG:

We’re designing a new room for the Powerhouse where you can try out your powers against automated enemies. We’ll be sure to inform you when this moves to the Public Test Shard so you can help us test it out!

This is pretty much what you just asked for, so consider us on it.

Automated enemies will be great for testing PvE but I believe he is asking and so am I for an area in the Power House where you can test your powers on another player (PvP) as the effects and usefulness of powers scale differently in the two situations.

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Ooooh, awesome news Bill! Keep up the good work guys! :D

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Skipping the tutorial level? Sounds sweet. Just want to know a few things for characters who skip the tutorial (to level 5 I assume).

Will they gain any equipment? I do not think this would make much difference in the long run but it will put characters who have just left the tutorial at an obvious disadvantage initially (Which may well be your intention)

Will they get the Key to Millennium city (whatever it does ^_^).

Will they get the quests to go to powerhouse and speak with XXXX.

I think that if you opt out of the tutorial you should start at level 1 with no equipment. Its stupid to do it otherwise. You want the gear? You want the first 5 levels? You want the perks? Earn them. Yes, those doing the tutorial will be at an advantage, they spent 30+ mins of their life earning the stuff, while others took the lazy route and didn't. Im sorry but if they start you out at level 5 with gear, then NO ONE will do the tutorial ever again. I mean everyones been screaming add more content yet they dont want to do the content thats sitting in front of them.

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Ok let me first say TY for the update. Now let me bring up two things:

The Balance of Power
We’re currently making passes on all the powers in the game and will be making changes designed to not just bring aberrant powers into line, but increase the effectiveness of those that need it. We’re also examining the best ways to inject more resources into the economy. Our top concerns are what are concerning you as players. We're working as fast as we can to address issues, work on the overall balance of the game, and be as responsive to possible. Keep hitting the forums with solid, constructive comments and we’ll keep working to make the game better and more balanced in both the PvE and PvP arenas.

I'm sorry, but this scares me. I read this as "we're going to make your powers less effective in the name of balance". I used my free retcon on my Electric character the other day. It took a decent amount of courage on my part to click that button. That character has been deleted due to getting his rear kicked often once getting to Snake Gultch. I haven't used it on my other two characters. They have some issues (the might one more so than the DB character) but they're not glaring enough to use my "get out of jail free card". I'd like to because stuff like this bothers me, but I'm not. I'm waiting for more nerf hammers to fall. To be frank, I don't trust you guys on this issue.

Powers Aren’t Black / White – Yet…
We’re big fans of being able to shift the hue of powers into the realms of black and white. The issue is that these aren’t hues, but tints. This means that with the current way our color system works, you would see pure black or pure white colors as opposed to the grayscale subtleties required to give you the look you actually want. Basically, it requires some new engine technology, but we’re looking into how to make this happen.

Here's a request: can we please have the same color palette for the powers as we do for costume pieces? Or merge the two?

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New content is great, and getting the game to a solid state is fine, but to be perfectly honest, I can't see myself bothering with the game for at least the next six months or more.

Why? Well, while there's a decent amount of content--and plenty more to come, I'm sure--none of it feels very exciting. Everything has a bit of an "Oh, wow, lookit that" moment, but nothing has that "Holy crap, let's do it again!" feel to it.

So, what would get me to keep playing and suggest the game to other people is:

- More Anti-Air in hot-spots to pull flying heroes out of the sky, regardless of level.

Please don't do this. Getting yanked out of the air is precisely the sort of thing that would probably get me to stop playing.

[Archived Post]

I have several complaints concerning your product. You just covered quite a few of them. Awsome job your doing. People complain continually without seeming to understand MMO launch woes. You have done outstanding so far. The one thing I would like to add to this list is the ability to SEE the weapon skins at the tailor. Oh I lied there are two things. I know it has to be down the road but non super power travel powers would be cool. I know there's the hover board but I was thinking like maybe a motor cycle or better yet a skate board. A cool skate board enhancement would be the Super Olie.

[Archived Post]

I actually like the dueling in the Powerhouse, if it is removed can we have a room for dueling?

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Great news all around. Keep the fixes coming! :)

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Adding Some Meat to Team
We’re working on several new additions to the teaming system. We’re currently testing new UI that allows players to see the state of team missions even if they don’t have them. Upcoming additions (in development) include showing your team members’ current objectives on active missions and adding rewards for heroes that assist on missions, even if they don’t have the mission themselves.

OMG YES YES YES!!!! Thanx Cryptic! I love you guys!

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quote:
have to admit that I'm sitting a little in awe of Cryptic right now. Call me a fanboy and what have you, but this is the first time in the last 8 years of playing MMO's for me that I've seen a company respond this quickly to the playerbases wishes.
I know we aren't getting everything or anything we might want, but Cryptic is really showing that they are willing to put in the time and effort to check feedback and work on it. Sure, some of the things in the list are right now given as 'we need to make some new tech, but it's coming' and honestly that's fine. It's just a question of getting the message out that it's officially being worked on.
Thank you cryptic for giving me personally one of the best experiences I've had with an MMO developer thus far.

/agree

and i've 3 peeps who dropped another mmo (****/wow) for exactly the same reason.

keep up the good work bill.

[Archived Post]

Expand the Concept of Tutorial into A Crisis.. Simple yes no maybe... But extremely do-able.

Now We have a mini-Crisis. of How To missions.

Mail to the Chief- Mayors Mementos.. Fine.
Meet your Qularr in a nut shell. Learning part of the MC in the process.

What if we Had a Mission arc to Reclaim the Ravenwood Academy from them. As our Power Station JR.

Spice the Tutorial up. Run a raid with Silver Avenger.. Have a follow the Leader.. How to use Travel powers w Sapphire.

PA 101 w Defender.
Might w Iron Clad.

Now we have the guilty pleasure of Smashing Qularr seeds like Pumpkins.. Give us a smash up derby of vertical envelopment.. A Harmon Tower Rescue. Get us off the Streets and on the Skyways Roof Tops sooner. River Harbour boat rescue.

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I think that if you opt out of the tutorial you should start at level 1 with no equipment. Its stupid to do it otherwise. You want the gear? You want the first 5 levels? You want the perks? Earn them. Yes, those doing the tutorial will be at an advantage, they spent 30+ mins of their life earning the stuff, while others took the lazy route and didn't. Im sorry but if they start you out at level 5 with gear, then NO ONE will do the tutorial ever again. I mean everyones been screaming add more content yet they dont want to do the content thats sitting in front of them.

I disagree with the majority of this post.

Firstly, I agree that characters who skip the tutorial should not get gear (the millennium city key may be an exception. If it is required for any reason I wouldnt want any skippers to miss on content)

However, if your character did not start out at level 5 you would be at a serious disadvantage when taking on enemies in canada and the desert.

I think you also fail to understand the concept of a TUTORIAL. Not to sound obnoxious but it is where you learn the ins and outs of a game, for advanced players this becomes a rather dull experience.

The tutorial takes me 30 minutes, the crisis zones are where the game really starts for me. Wishing to bypass the tutorial is a common aspect in a number of games, it is not a LAZY approach. Would you want to repeat kindergarden after you have been to college?

You have to remember that a number of players have done the tutorial zone 2 or more dozen times (Since open beta I have repeated the tutorial on 18 characters I'm sure closed beta members have done this far more often)

I don't want to come across aggressive or anything, I appreciate your opinions and I am simply stating my own.

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I don't agree with no duels in the powerhouse. It's very useful to help test powers when dummies just don't cut it.. Perhaps a dueling chamber is a fair compromise? A room where duels are allowed, but in the rest of the area duels aren't. I've never been bothered by duels myself

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wait a second...so they're going to let me see my team member's missions status...but not let us use need/greed for drops?

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The teaming improvements are the single biggest shot in the arm that this game needs. Getting xp bonuses for teaming on missions you don't have + new Monster Island content = no more content gap.

Agree .... I actually LIKE to help others finish missions and would love to get some XP out of it too.

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Oh Bill, you know all the right words to say, of course I'll marry you!

On a side note, I will echo concerns of no Duels anywhere in the Powerhouse. Remove them from the training room, sure, but not everywhere.

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I give cryptic props for posting this. It takes some balls to admit some of the problems that they did today, and I think the community is better off for it. I'd rather have a dev group which lets us know that these problems exist, and that they're working on them, than denying that they exist altogether until they show up as a bugfix on a patch.

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I have been very impressed so far with the update process and the content and bug fixes provided.

As far as fixing the mail... how about our toons essentially sharing a bank? I noticed a couple of arrow buttons when I went to the bank yesterday but they seem to do nothing. Would be nice if I could arrow over and add/remove stuff from my other characters banks.

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Wow that just about alleviates all of my woes. The only thing that I wouldn't like to see go is the duels in the powerhouse as stated before. A room specifically for this purpose would be a good compromise.

[Archived Post]

Wow that just about alleviates all of my woes. The only thing that I wouldn't like to see go is the duels in the powerhouse as stated before. A room specifically for this purpose would be a good compromise.

Provided that entering this room didn't result in leaving the Power House and sticking you with a retcon cost on that new power you are testing.

If somebody duels in the PH are bothering you, you could always switch instances.

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Duel free powerhouse? I out-regen the biggest laser ALREADY, it's the only way to actually test damage/healing!

Might I suggest makign a duel room? Or a "VR" type area? Something to test more "real" combat, and just making a no-duel area in the main rooms.

Personally, I think the lobby area is the only location in the power house were Duel should be refrained. It is a bit distracting, noise and visually at times, while you are trying to power up. Reading the info, comparing the effect on you stats etc, when you have 3 rockets boots and a bunch of people dueling is somewhat annoying.

I am not sure about the other areas, as I do not recall seeing anyone taking the time to move to another room to duel, like the travel power testing room (room north of lobby). The latter I think would be a nice duel room with minimal impact on people testing their travel or lifting power.

Zak

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You had me at Tintable Powers....

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I didn't see it mentioned but I also really hope all player names are going to be displayed all the time. It would be a big help in countless ways. I am also really hoping when you're on team your names also get highlighted a different color. Another simple add that would make things so much better.

Also, I am realy hoping any additional content stops the pontless running across zones for the next mission and that we no longer need to constantly return to the contact to obtain rewards. I know these games are designed to keep you logged on and playing for longer but these methods just cause resentment more than anything, IMO. Another variation would be to allow us to exit a mission upon completion and not have to run all the way back to the door.

Looks like some good additions are coming but I really, really hope it isn't repetitive content like CoH has been doing for years. Using the same maps and doing almost the same mission time after time...no thanks. That is a really huge cop out and easy way to cram content into a game. I guess they have never heard the line: quality, not quantity.

All in all, some growing pains here and I hope to stay but it's a wait and see kinda thing :)

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Is there any more word on the plans for retcon? I was hoping to at least hear "we're analyzing data". As it is I'm afraid to level.. it gets harder and harder to retcon out of a power I've been saving up to.

Other than that, I'd have to echo that duels shouldn't be fully disabled in the power house. Too many things can't be tested well without another player, and with the state of retcon every point you spend is (literally) made of gold.

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Thanks for the update Bill, can't wait to get ahold of the power tinting.

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Mr. Roper - I honestly don't duel much, but I do understand it usefulness in the PowerHouse where a player may want to test the PvP viability of a power choice BEFORE they lock it in. Would you guys consider either adding a 'Dueling Room' to the PowerHouse - OR making it part of the new 'Danger Room' in the PowerHouse?

As for the rest - good stuff. I have to say, I am impressed with the amount of stuff you're adding. New content is needed most of all and I do hope once you fill in the gaps in the various ranges, you'll continue to beef up and add more missions across ALL level ranges so that we don't just repeat the xact same content for ALTs.

Lastly, I'd still like to see a few more 'Dungeon/Lair' instances like Dr. Destroyers Lab for the lover levels too (one that caters to the 20-25 crowd would be nice. Again (imo) the more cotent and leveling path options for players, the better.

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Yum yum, give me some!

I like!

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Nice, if they keep holding on this work i will buy this game :).

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Can't wait when duels in the powerhouse are not allowed. They are freaking annoying in there. :(

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Danger Room in PowerHouse! No more targeting silly boxes!

Nice info - thanks for the update.

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...

Squee!!!

I'm not a huge MMO buff, but this is the most responsive dev team I've ever seen. Good at you guys!

Everything on that list is reason to celebrate except for the no dueling in the powerhouse. I'm annoyed just as much as anyone else by the constant dueling by the trainers, but dueling serves quite a useful purpose for folks who are trying to balance their character for pvp. I would prefer to have either another room, or every room but the training room, open to duels. Because an ai opponent just isn't going to cut it.

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Jesus Christ, FINALLY you are removing the tutorial for people who already played it once...

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I would be disappointed if duels were not allowed in the Power House. I can understand not allowing duels in the main area but the travel power test room in the back is perfect for duels and should not bother anyone. Please don't make us zone into another area just to duel; we see the loading screen enough.

I personally love entering the power house and seeing heroes testing there powers by dueling.

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This update is nearly one big barrell of awesome, but the lack of any concrete info for changes to the economy or the retcon system is seriously troubling. It ranks in the top 3 of the necessary systems for this game and its astronomical costs are glaring.

Bill, all of this is great news and I support wholeheartedly, but the retcon system should/need/has to be a red siren blaring bullhorn for fixing. Even if only to bring it into the realm of reasonable affordability to allow better use of it until the economy modeling is done.

I know you're working on it, but its not a minor item where preaching patience is enough. Something is needed (hotfix, modification, etc.) to enable it fully or at least 75% of its fully functionality so players aren't doomed by choices that looked good at 25 but are sucking wind at 32.

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Placing changes on a public test shard? Oh my you are listening after all!

A Room of Danger in the House of Power
We’re designing a new room for the Powerhouse where you can try out your powers against automated enemies. We’ll be sure to inform you when this moves to the Public Test Shard so you can help us test it out!


This is huge. All I can say is thanks.

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Just to point out / clarify the last section of the SotG:

We’re designing a new room for the Powerhouse where you can try out your powers against automated enemies. We’ll be sure to inform you when this moves to the Public Test Shard so you can help us test it out!

This is pretty much what you just asked for, so consider us on it.

Most people saw that, but my major concern is that making the Powerhouse duel free will be easier to implement than a whole new danger room. If you remove duels before a danger room, there will be a huge problem.

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All good stuff in this SotG address, but the following...

Adding Some Meat to Team
We’re working on several new additions to the teaming system. We’re currently testing new UI that allows players to see the state of team missions even if they don’t have them. Upcoming additions (in development) include showing your team members’ current objectives on active missions and adding rewards for heroes that assist on missions, even if they don’t have the mission themselves.

... is fantastic! :)

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I didn't see it mentioned but I also really hope all player names are going to be displayed all the time. It would be a big help in countless ways. I am also really hoping when you're on team your names also get highlighted a different color. Another simple add that would make things so much better.

FYI - The player name display problem is already fixed on the latest Public Test server build.
(Taken from the 9/15/09 Public Test server patch notes):
General

* Names will again always appear over heads when selecting "Always" in the HUD options.


So, that should be going to the live server soon.

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Jesus Christ, FINALLY you are removing the tutorial for people who already played it once...

But.. but.. who will shut down ALL those beacons?!

[Archived Post]

But.. but.. who will shut down ALL those beacons?!

Lol - I'd love to see a DIFFERENT message from all the citizens for those who skip the Tutorial (and I'd be among them too with my alts). The current Citizen message reads something like:

"Oh look, it's <Heroname> the one who singlehandedly saved Millenium City durig the Q'Larr invasion! Iwonder why Defender hasn't offered him a spot with the Champions?"

Skip the Tutorial, and you'd see Citizens saying the following:

"Oh look, it's <Heroname> the one who was MIA durig the Q'Larr invasion of Millenium City! I wonder why Defender hasn't kicked his butt?!";):D

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I was kind of shocked to see the mention of tutorial skipping. I never thought the developers would make it possible. The tutorial is such a integral part of the game, especially since you gain levels and get equipment/perks in it.

I don't know if I will like having the ability to skip the tutorial, but I am amazed that the developers are going out of their way to fulfill the players' wishes.

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But.. but.. who will shut down ALL those beacons?!

They will continue to emit a frequency which drives the Quelarr (sp?) crazy! ZOINKS!

Seriously though, I give you guys a 10/10 on how well you've communicated and addressed player issues. I am sitting back a bit in awe at how you have handled yourselves so far. I hope some of these other game companies will sit back and start taking some notes because you guys have proven what a lot of MMO fans have been saying. It is possible to listen and communicate to your player base! If you guys keep this in mind over the life cycle of this game I really believe you're about to set the gold standard that others are going to have to follow. Thanks again from someone who never planned on playing this game and is thankful I gave it a shot!

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Keep up this pace, and Champions Online will blow the competition out of the water inside of a couple months.

My biggest concern right now is the end game content - specifically, the lack thereof. It bothers me because I know this has proven a rather sticky issue in City of Heroes as well. Champions Online should definately solve this problem as effectively as they solved the PvP balance. I'm hoping to see a good end game in place by the time my alt-a-holicism is adequately resolved to get me to 40.

[Archived Post]

Just to point out / clarify the last section of the SotG:

We’re designing a new room for the Powerhouse where you can try out your powers against automated enemies. We’ll be sure to inform you when this moves to the Public Test Shard so you can help us test it out!

This is pretty much what you just asked for, so consider us on it.

I think people want a place they can DUEL or go against mobs ni the Power House not be completely duel free...fighting off waves of mobs really isn't as good a test for some who like to see how their powers affect other players. I could see a potential fubar here if the PvPers get screwed on this one. Personally those waves of mobs better be soemthing other than ******** dummies.

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It's great to hear what you're working on because you've addressed almost every issue I've seen with the game (depends on if you guys get the powers/pets balanced right).

I hope the whole powerhouse isn't duel-free. I do think the table where you get your powers should definitely be duel free, however I think you should have at least one room, like the big room in the back, for dueling so people can test their PVP builds without having to pay for respecs.

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Since everyone else has pretty much covered the mad props kind of reply, I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the Creature That Ate Sheboygan reference. Great, classic game, and one of my earliest programming experiences was making a monster builder for it on the TI-99.

[Archived Post]

Duelling in the Powerhouse is kind of necessary. Make a room for it or change the concept entirely with more rooms or cheaper retcons...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Do You See What I See?
Graphics performance should be better overall for players. Some high-end users have experienced what appears to be a reduction in performance. But this is actually due to us fixing a bug where sliders that were set all the way up in certain categories weren’t actually providing that level of increase. Players with top-end graphic cards should retune their settings for maximum performance.


I knew that this was going to be used as the excuse as to why the framerate went down.
The only problem with this explanation is this: The Screen Space Ambient Occlusion setting is either on or off, there is not slider. This toggle worked before the update (it added shadows to grooves and such), which is what it's doing after the update, yet now when its on, the game is almost a slideshow.

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I love the majority of this, however I feel that rather than removing dueling form the powerhouse completely simply allow it only in a specific room.Otherwise I'm loving what you have planned so far.

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I'm really liking the sound of the danger room and the duel free zones area.

One thing that I would REALLY like is a room that we can access as an instance with a "friendly" NPC in it. In this room there is a powerhouse trainer which we loaded up with abilities that we want to test out.

Here we can test out certain abilities that can only be used on friendly targets to see if they are worth getting.

One example would be the Protection Field from the buffs area 1 level up from the block abilities. I really want to test this ability, but it can't be placed on myself only on friends.

Another thing that would be GREAT if you could do it is if in the danger room you provide a readout.

Ex: I want to test out a series of debuffs i've just procured. First I decided to get Sigil of Ebon Weakness then get an ability that reduces elemental resistance. The readout could tell me the NPC's damage potential then what it is actually doing to me.

Another thought is the readout telling me how much damage I do to a single target and how much I do area wide. This way I can see if i'm gearing my toon in the right direction towards area damage or if the AoE damage ability I got just isn't working right.

[Archived Post]

I was kind of shocked to see the mention of tutorial skipping. I never thought the developers would make it possible. The tutorial is such a integral part of the game, especially since you gain levels and get equipment/perks in it.

I don't know if I will like having the ability to skip the tutorial, but I am amazed that the developers are going out of their way to fulfill the players' wishes.

I think its fine, it definately IS an integral part of the game, but after a few times I understand the story and a few low level items (Very GOOD low level items) are the price ya pay for skipping it. Besides anyone with higher level toons could always craft some items for their alts if the concern is too much to bear! :D

Oh yeah, I think the response to all these items posted in State of the Game is phenominal! Go Devs, GO!

[Archived Post]

Just to point out / clarify the last section of the SotG:

We’re designing a new room for the Powerhouse where you can try out your powers against automated enemies. We’ll be sure to inform you when this moves to the Public Test Shard so you can help us test it out!

This is pretty much what you just asked for, so consider us on it.

But a friend can be asked to do a certian thing, and a friend may have certian powers and advantages we want to test against. Are these drones going to have that kind of functionality?

[Archived Post]

Sadly, no word on fixing lagmuria (lemuria)

Rubberbanding and lag in that instance is so bad I've found myself shot underneath the map on more than one occasion.

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My transition from whiner to fanboi is nearly complete....

I think the way to go re: powerhouse is, in addition to NPC enemies, to have a duel room, so people can have at each other without making a public nuisance of themselves.

The teaming thing is SERIESLY HUGH. :p

One more thing to add: When a mission is set as primary (for a team or a soloer), the waypoint should behave exactly the way it does when you set an 'emergency' contact as a waypoint via the crime computer--i.e., the circle should show on your minimap regardless of its distance, so you know which direction to travel in. As I said, this functionality is already in game, but only in the instance of setting an emergency contact as waypoint. It seems like it ought to be fairly easy to implement the same function for primary missions. I imagine it was always meant to work like this anyhow.

It's great to know you're listening, Bill. Can't wait for the changes!

[Archived Post]

I think that a "Duel Free" powerhouse is just plain bad. some advantages (devour essence with phlebotomist for example) can't be tested using the current setup.

I think it would be a MUCH better idea to have a room, or another instance that is accessable ONLY through the powerhouse, which doesn't lock your ability choices when entering/leaving it. But simply making the powerhouse duel free is horrible.


Other then that, I like the updated info. Will we get any information about the specific powers of the celestial set before it comes out?

[Archived Post]

While I like the sound of much of what is in the State of the Game, I also like the sound of real-world teleportation and flying cars. Until those things are a reality, its all just a bunch of words that serve to distract people from how things ACTUALLY are NOW.

So, good luck with all that work! I hope to see it implemented in a reasonable timeframe.

[Archived Post]

Where the Duels Are(n’t)
We’ve heard your requests for our more social areas like Club Caprice and The Powerhouse to be duel-free zones. Both our content and programming teams are combining efforts to get this in as soon as possible.

A Room of Danger in the House of Power
We’re designing a new room for the Powerhouse where you can try out your powers against automated enemies. We’ll be sure to inform you when this moves to the Public Test Shard so you can help us test it out!


Please make sure the second item is done (and working well) before the first item is in place. Right now dueling is the only way to check out the effectiveness of most new powers. If it weren't for the ability to duel than all of my toons would have been hopelessly gimped with crappy, worthless powers.

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Yay!!!! Sounds ****ing off the chain!!!

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I suggest making a room in the powerhouse that is for dueling, so pvpers can test out thier power selections before buying them permanantly. I dont like how the pvpers crawl all over the trainers while your trying to level up, pushing you away and closing your window or in general spamming and lagging others but I think moving them to another area of the powerhouse would be the correct way to solve the problem.

You could even have a powerhouse instance that is specifically marked PVP friendly.

[Archived Post]

Greetings, Champions!

The Mail That Ate Sheboygan
Many fixes to our mail woes have already been pushed to the live servers, but one big one is currently on the Public Test Shard and will be pushed to the live servers ASAP. We also currently don’t have a way for players to send resources to other heroes. This is a known issue, and requires a tech solution to implement. I don’t have an ETA, but it’s on the list. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.

See you online, Champions!

Quite simply, I would prefer the bank be a bit larger and account based. So any of your heroes could grab from the same bank box instead of having to artificially mail it to yourself. This would also eliminate the bank toon.

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Absolutely fantastic. I'm amazed at how quickly you guys are responding to what the community wants and how hard you are working at making this game even awesomer then it is now. I want you to know this means a lot to us as a community that you are actually making changes based on what we asked for. I have never before seen a development team do this. Keep up the good work. :D

[Archived Post]

I suggest making a room in the powerhouse that is for dueling, so pvpers can test out thier power selections before buying them permanantly. I dont like how the pvpers crawl all over the trainers while your trying to level up, pushing you away and closing your window or in general spamming and lagging others but I think moving them to another area of the powerhouse would be the correct way to solve the problem.

You could even have a powerhouse instance that is specifically marked PVP friendly.

Don't forget the rockets blocking the counters and the powers that shake the screen. :p

You can actually block doors with those rockets, too. There is no way to push them out of the way.

I do agree giving them a room to duel in some where in the powerhouse.

[Archived Post]

Lots of great stuff!

I'm a little disappointed that the Powerhouse might be duel free. I can understand Club Caprice, but a lot of people want to test out powers against live players in the Powerhouse before they buy them. Maybe there could be a "duel room" in the Powerhouse.

[Archived Post]

I would love to see another tutorial area in the beginning of the game with a different storyline. Just that one tutorial done a million types makes it boring.

[Archived Post]

Black and White Powers, Tints and Shades of Grey? I love You!

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I have to admit that I'm sitting a little in awe of Cryptic right now. Call me a fanboy and what have you, but this is the first time in the last 8 years of playing MMO's for me that I've seen a company respond this quickly to the playerbases wishes.
I know we aren't getting everything or anything we might want, but Cryptic is really showing that they are willing to put in the time and effort to check feedback and work on it. Sure, some of the things in the list are right now given as 'we need to make some new tech, but it's coming' and honestly that's fine. It's just a question of getting the message out that it's officially being worked on.
Thank you cryptic for giving me personally one of the best experiences I've had with an MMO developer thus far.

Yeah, I too am very happy to see that things are being communicated. We can live with a reasonable amount of time to fix things as long as we're communicated that things are being done. Thanks Cryptic!

[Archived Post]

Lots of great stuff!

I'm a little disappointed that the Powerhouse might be duel free. I can understand Club Caprice, but a lot of people want to test out powers against live players in the Powerhouse before they buy them. Maybe there could be a "duel room" in the Powerhouse.

It wouldn't be a problem if they dueled in the other rooms instead of on top of the trainers. I cannot count how many times I've been knocked off the trainer because of this. Then again, maybe trainers should be spaced further apart and in the various rooms. This could allow people dueling to go into the large room, tweak power and continue dueling without crowding up the entry way.

[Archived Post]

Regarding the performance issues.. many players with high-end cards have performance problems no matter what graphic options they choose.

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PLEASE make the chat tabs able to undock and start new windows. This feature is needed soooo bad.

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Duels in the PH is fine, so long as it's disabled in the main part where the trainers are. The "travel room" is kind of pointless even without duels, since people will use it an average of 10 seconds in their lifetime in the game for it's intended purpose.

And this is coming from someone who doesn't even PVP at all.

Other than that, I remain impressed with Cryptic. Good job!

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Me so happy!
Love you long time!

[Archived Post]

this sounds great! Glad to hear many concerns are being worked on and so quickly.

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"Where the Duels Are(n’t)
We’ve heard your requests for our more social areas like Club Caprice and The Powerhouse to be duel-free zones. Both our content and programming teams are combining efforts to get this in as soon as possible."

Man, I wish I was a furry so I could whine and get whatever I wanted.

[Archived Post]

"Where the Duels Are(n’t)
We’ve heard your requests for our more social areas like Club Caprice and The Powerhouse to be duel-free zones. Both our content and programming teams are combining efforts to get this in as soon as possible."

Man, I wish I was a furry so I could whine and get whatever I wanted.


Quoted for M-Fin TRUTH yo.

[Archived Post]

Solid stuff, I love it. However a point I want to address.

Yikes! I think disallowing duels in the power house isn't a very nice idea. When in the power house I want to be able to test out new abilities on real players. I want to see how long my hold will work on someone, or maybe to test a new build. The power house is supposed to be where super heroes go to train new powers, and they should be able to duel eachother to test these powers out, just like if you went to some martial arts training school you would totally see people testing new moves on eachother.

Love everything else I read though, good work!

I kind of agree with them, all those people dropping bombs everywhere running around dual in the hallways or in front of the Trainers was ridiculous. So I do say kudos. But... you do have a valid point. Testing it vs human players is still something people want to do, esspecially PVPers.

I think there is a happy comprimise, they said they are trying to bring in a Danger Room. Which will be awesome, testing powers vs automated targets, static or walking dumies was not enough. We can truely test out our powers there. Actually for PVE I find the danger room better than dualing, mobs do not fight like one PC does. Still PVPers still like to see their powers vs a human opponent.

There lies the answer, also have a "Dual Pit" in the Powerhouse. Where people can go and dual there. This will let us dual in the powerhouse and test the powers vs human controlled targets and take the fights out of the trainer room which probably annoyed so many people. Plus when you there, people know you want to dual. Perfect comprimise, perfect solution. Since they are thinking of the Danger Room going for this is not a far fetched request.

[Archived Post]

Everything looks good on paper - except the filling content gaps by adding repeatable missions. The lack of missions/exp such that you have to do practically every single one to level up is already dropping the replayability of the game, adding missions that you get tired of BEFORE you roll a new character to fix this is not the way to go.
That and removing duels from the Power House. Ham-handed way to fix a minimal problem that will likely cause a much larger problem.

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Everything looks good on paper - except the filling content gaps by adding repeatable missions.

I'm kind of apprehensive about the repeatable mission thing myself, but considering they've acknowledged the gap and mentioned wanting to have an abundance of missions, I'm willing to accept (for now) that this is just a temporary stop-gap until they get more real missions in.

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I love what I read.

Good work.:cool:

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as far as the content gap goes three huge issues

the 2 quests "A new king snake" and "nesting instinct" (last lvl 34 quests you can get at 31 on monster island) are part of the gap cause they are in the hidden research facility in Wells park that is mentioned... which isn't in game yet.

and 2

The end of the lemurian crisis is almost impossible (especially solo) spoiler! highlight to see, or check out all the posts in the mission forum: (no directions no tool tips most people don't group and you can't solo the end boss without a perfect build for it), if you haven't run into it the end of the Lemuria crisis has a room where you continually regen energy, and if you fill up your energy bar, you die... oh and there's a boss and adds too. so you have to somehow take out a lengendary boss thats so big you can't see his charge attacks with adds on you while constantly emptying your energy bar to avoid dying which for most characters especially glass cannons = no blocking allowed

and three I couldn't get any of the above before I hit 31 in the first place... so all my gear is waiting on me to level now.

that said the changes coming out look awesome and so far this is the best job of managing expectations I've seen from any mmo.

oh and for any one with questions about wtf happend with hellgate check out Roper's post morten of hellgate/flagship on 1up (http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=0&cId=3169356) or some of his recent interviews at game sutra (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4026/the_hardwon_wisdom_of_bill_roper.php)

I'd rather have someone who knows damn well what went right and wrong than the teams at WoW/AoC/War who say everything is fine l2p all the time.

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Duel free powerhouse? I out-regen the biggest laser ALREADY, it's the only way to actually test damage/healing!

Might I suggest makign a duel room? Or a "VR" type area? Something to test more "real" combat, and just making a no-duel area in the main rooms.

You didn't actually read the post did you?

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You have the right to duel in the powerhouse

and

I have the right to not be bothered by your dueling.
Make an open room just for dueling in the power house.

The dumbest rooms in the powerhouse is the one with the lasers, the one were guys run in circles, and the one with the platforms with nothing in it to do.

You can wipe those rooms and changea those. I dont think that will **** anyone off.

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post respectfully removed by poster. thank you.

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post respectfully removed by poster. thank you.

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I for one would like to thank the devs for their hard work and to their response to our gaming needs. Keep up the good work. Hope to see the new content soon. :)

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As mentioned guys, what you need in the Powerhouse is the cool dojo you already have in MC, picking up and dropping there and letting people dual in there.

That aside, this is one of the better "state of the games" I've seen in a new MMO, a number of issues I have addressed.

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Keep up the great work!

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Sounds like some good changes coming. I'd welcome more real missions of course instead of repeatables, however I also realize that repeatable missions are better than nothing so it's a good temporary measure to help players out.

Regarding dueling in the Powerhouse: if players had been more considerate and kept duels away from people who are trying to train and don't want to hear all the power spam, this wouldn't be a necessary change. You brought it on yourselves. I for one won't miss having to turn my speakers off each time I go to train.

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I sure hope more than one person at a time can make use of this new danger room. Picture 5 people on the Big Laser trying to click it to outdamage their regen, but only one can click at a time.

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Aye, the Devs have been very prompt in working things out to improve the game and listening to the players who have discovered things that need improved. Kudos!!!!

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Whether I continue my subscription to this game, or not, depends entirely on "The Balance of Power" aspect of this proposed update.

I'll be completely honest: I don't have the utmost faith in Cryptic's ability to balance a game, powers-wise, at this point. So, I'll be interested to see how this turns out. If it's just nerfs all around, or nerfs to important powers that keep me from dying every 2 minutes, I'm not sticking around for a third round.

Anyway, the other proposed content is nice and all, but the powers are what is most important to me, as none of the rest of the content will matter if I'm spending all my in-game time grinding missions and dying all the time and can't enjoy it. Not that I'll be in the mood to enjoy it if that's the case, anyway.

So, in short, Cryptic, if you're going to mess with powers again, make sure you actually keep us in the loop this time and make the changes positive. That's a great way to keep a good portion of your player base from ending up miserable.

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Once you fix the framerate, are travel powers going to be given back their 15%?

Heh.

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Here's an idea for the dueling/pvp in the powerhouse crowd.

let us queue for the pvp matches form the powerhouse, for 0 aclaim/xp.

this solves a couple issues


People who want a /noxp for pvp who want to stay in certain brackets just for perks or cause its more fun/balanced
lets you keep trying out powers and reconfiguring in between boughts so you can find something compelling that works
Lets people who really truely want to keep a dedicated testing character (one of the level to 40 and leave in the powerhouse with a free retcon chars) a way to test and keep testing.


that said perhaps it could be a spectator cage match or several rooms that people could watch from outside/ 1 vs 1 instances too

that said here's something I've never seen in a mmo.. how about team duels...

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Mr Roper,

If you remove duels out of the powerhouse then how do you propose that we test our powers with respect to PVP without biting the bullet and blindly choosing? This is a bad idea if you want players to have some success with the power house. Or is the objective here to force people to guess (incorrectly) and have to reroll toons (aka pay more months of subs)?

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Adding Some Meat to Team
We’re working on several new additions to the teaming system. We’re currently testing new UI that allows players to see the state of team missions even if they don’t have them. Upcoming additions (in development) include showing your team members’ current objectives on active missions and adding rewards for heroes that assist on missions, even if they don’t have the mission themselves.



Hell has frozen over. ;)

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Hehehe, I suggested the Dojo too. I see many people here thinking on the same page. Many of us still want to be able to duel in the Powerhouse to test a power, but also understand, 12 people slapping each other in the foyer was annoying.

This is what makes it the perfect fix. Also with the Danager Room it shows the devs are willing to expand the Powerhouse. Also the danger room is the best thing in my book. I mostly PVE and want to test my powers on Mob types and not player types. But still, the dualing option is always good to test certain powers and stuff. So dueling is still desired by many.

So having a dueling room is the best answer, no more annoying those that buy powers, but still have duels. Everyone wins. That is a good thing. Ofcourse I suggested a duel pit and not a dojo, I guess I am more gladitorial and Roman in my thinking than MA. But the idea is still the same.

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Oh I lied there are two things. I know it has to be down the road but non super power travel powers would be cool. I know there's the hover board but I was thinking like maybe a motor cycle or better yet a skate board. A cool skate board enhancement would be the Super Olie. it would be cool to have not super human travel powers

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Its been said before, but I'll repeat the sentiment:

Wow. Thanks. This is a remarkable turn around on player concerns, and it feels like we're establishing a partnership, Developers and Players, each with something to bring to the table.

That is fantastic, thanks, keep up the good work.

I love the "State of the Game" post idea, lets keep it going.

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So along with Teaming issues being adressed, does that include Problems with Aggro when teaming in Lairs, so that this doesn't happen anymore?

http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs51/i/2009/258/2/c/FIX_THE_AGRO_by_HebaOfFelwithe.jpg

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While this is all really great stuff...

As the poster above mentions, there is nothing in here about addressing the Threat issues..
I would dare say that its more important to teaming than the ability to see eachothers missions.

(and i cant belive it took 20 pages for someone to comment on this)

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Duel free powerhouse? I out-regen the biggest laser ALREADY, it's the only way to actually test damage/healing!

Might I suggest makign a duel room? Or a "VR" type area? Something to test more "real" combat, and just making a no-duel area in the main rooms.

You must not have read the DangerRoom section of his post where you can actually fight against automated enemies.

U FTL

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Hehehe, I suggested the Dojo too. I see many people here thinking on the same page. Many of us still want to be able to duel in the Powerhouse to test a power, but also understand, 12 people slapping each other in the foyer was annoying.

This is what makes it the perfect fix. Also with the Danager Room it shows the devs are willing to expand the Powerhouse. Also the danger room is the best thing in my book. I mostly PVE and want to test my powers on Mob types and not player types. But still, the dualing option is always good to test certain powers and stuff. So dueling is still desired by many.

So having a dueling room is the best answer, no more annoying those that buy powers, but still have duels. Everyone wins. That is a good thing. Ofcourse I suggested a duel pit and not a dojo, I guess I am more gladitorial and Roman in my thinking than MA. But the idea is still the same.


Yes dueling room is a nice compromise.

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I think that if you opt out of the tutorial you should start at level 1 with no equipment. Its stupid to do it otherwise. You want the gear? You want the first 5 levels? You want the perks? Earn them. Yes, those doing the tutorial will be at an advantage, they spent 30+ mins of their life earning the stuff, while others took the lazy route and didn't. Im sorry but if they start you out at level 5 with gear, then NO ONE will do the tutorial ever again. I mean everyones been screaming add more content yet they dont want to do the content thats sitting in front of them.


I agree with this. You are a level one boner without gear. Hell by skipping the tutorial you miss out on picking up a few perks.

Hell you only have to do it 8 times at what 30 minutes each? Slightly annoying but IMO way down the priority list of things to do.

In any event, I still support the change.

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To expand on what I said earlier, I want dueling in both the Powerhouse and the Club. Those places are where players gather and they make great pvp areas because of that. I like to duel random people, so if I can't duel in the PH or CC then where? Theres really no other areas in the game where lots of people hang out. When I see another player out in the wild we're both questing and don't want to duel.

If you get all bothered because people fighting in the club doesn't fit into your roleplaying ruleset then stop being a baby and deal with it like we have to deal with people trying to cyber in local chat.

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I do love the upcoming changes!
However, I also agree that the powerhouse could really do with a duel room if duels will be disallowed in there. Im all for having a duel-free environment to work on stuff in peace, but since PvP is a part of the game, the ability to test my skills in a duel would be a very viable addition to the powerhouse now

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Adding Some Meat to Team
We’re working on several new additions to the teaming system. We’re currently testing new UI that allows players to see the state of team missions even if they don’t have them. Upcoming additions (in development) include showing your team members’ current objectives on active missions and adding rewards for heroes that assist on missions, even if they don’t have the mission themselves.



This alone will turn this game from decent to amazing.
Some of the other stuff is good too (most of it actually) but this is the thing a lot of us have been fighting for since CB.
Of course my opinion matters most and I think this should be top priority so put blinders on your devs so they work on nothing else.

This alone might actually turn this game into a MMO.

*gasp*

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I like everthing that was posted... minus the duel free zones. How else can we try out holds or damage on other players without leaving the Powerhouse, finding out we don't like the power, going back in and it costing a TON of resources. I'd rather you limit the areas you can duel than take it out altogether. How aobut that big room where all those tall platforms are. That's where I do my duels in the Powerhouse anyway.
Also, I think this idea came from a bunch of cry babys who don't like to hear the duels going on while they are leveling their powers.
My advice to them is:
1. Turn down your sound.
OR
2. Take off your headset.

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Awesome...just awesome. You guys are on top of most of the major requests/issues players have been talking about on the forums for a while now. It's great the staff listens to their customers it's rare to see this level of service...can't wait to some of this stuff in action...

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I like everthing that was posted... minus the duel free zones. How else can we try out holds or damage on other players without leaving the Powerhouse, finding out we don't like the power, going back in and it costing a TON of resources. I'd rather you limit the areas you can duel than take it out altogether. How aobut that big room where all those tall platforms are. That's where I do my duels in the Powerhouse anyway.
Also, I think this idea came from a bunch of cry babys who don't like to hear the duels going on while they are leveling their powers.
My advice to them is:
1. Turn down your sound.
OR
2. Take off your headset.

This...
Everything else is awesome but i realy dont understand why cut dueling from powerhouse when its a part of it,
I have dueled a ton of people in powerhouse just for fun and to test abilities and builds.
I just cant imagine powerhouse without duels.
Haha i have no idea how on earth this silly idea to disable duels in PH came trough to devs.

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This...
Everything else is awesome but i realy dont understand why cut dueling from powerhouse

Because some people don't have the common sense to leave another player alone when they say they don't want to duel, or just randomly spam duels around the common room and shoot off all their loud and obnoxious powers. Of course that doesn't describe every person who wants to test powers against other players; unfortunately it is the most annoying segment of the population that creates the lasting impression with everyone else.

Because people act stupid is the reason we can't have nice things. It's like two children fighting over a toy. If they can't share it and get along, the toy gets taken away from both.

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Because some people don't have the common sense to leave another player alone when they say they don't want to duel, or just randomly spam duels around the common room and shoot off all their loud and obnoxious powers. Of course that doesn't describe every person who wants to test powers against other players; unfortunately it is the most annoying segment of the population that creates the lasting impression with everyone else.

Because people act stupid is the reason we can't have nice things. It's like two children fighting over a toy. If they can't share it and get along, the toy gets taken away from both.

There's a dev post in another thread that states that they're going to leave duels in part of the powerhouse, but not in the level up area. You'll still be able to duel there, just not on top of the training counter. It's in the Dev Tracker.

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/Applause.

Excellent.

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Color me impressed and eager to see the changes. Especially the power rebalancing; specifically bringing up the ones that are lagging behind and not any more nerfs (I'm ok with fixes on skills that are performing beyond their described and intended scope).

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I am really impressed this is wonderful news, especially the teaming part

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Awesome. The game has been getting better week by week: some small changes, some big ones, but all indicate that the dev team is responding directly to the community's concerns. Well done!! Feeling 100% happy about my lifetime subscirption! :)

Put me down for being happy that there will not be duels in the power selection area of the Power House. I've never dueled there, but I understand the legitimate reasons why players would want to test powers against other players before locking in their purchase. I think an additional room where they could do so would be a good idea.

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Please don't take duels completely out of the powerhouse. I really like the option of testing on other players. A room somewhere in there just for that would be fine.

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Please don't take duels completely out of the powerhouse. I really like the option of testing on other players. A room somewhere in there just for that would be fine.

I thiok a couple of dueling/danger rooms in both the Powerhouse and Club Caprice would be great; I agree with excluding it from the main areas, though.

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Making teaming more attractive is sooo important at this point. The cool powers and graphics draw you in, but teaming keeps you coming back.

I would love to see a large room in the powerhouse that is the only place there where dueling can take place. Make it about twice the size of the travel power test room, and you'll be good to go.

The NPC "danger room" there will be a godsend for testing powers that you really couldn't test otherwise. Will a defeat there cause the loss of stars?

I really really want to be able to finally see the weapon models while working on a costume!

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While I can understand not being able to duel in Club Caprice, I don't believe it is a good decision to remove dueling from the powerhouse. Even with the addition of automated enemies in the new "danger room" some players are going to want to test out new powers and advantages against other living players before they leave the powerhouse and lock their purchases, especially if their gameplay is focused on PvP. Perhaps also create a room where dueling is allowed still in the powerhouse if you remove it.

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Sweet.

I'm so sick of 8 year olds dueling in the midst of everybody trying to level up lol
And sweet about the automated enemeis.
You guys might consider putting in a room that would specifically allow dueling in the power house if that's not a giant headache. I"m fine with people wanting to have other players test things out, and while buying powers that's great if they want to help eachother out, I mean, I've done that when people requested it, but just not where we're already trying to do stuff.

but they're all still 8-year olds dueling right? Not players who want to test out their powers who occasionally, and temporarily, inconvenience you. But it's ok for the 8 year olds to test out powers in a specific rooms. I assume a room for 8 year olds, right?

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Thanks for the updates, Gang. We really DO appreciate it.

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Sound very good indeed, keep em coming!!



Now , only thing that would make it better would be if the server starts to respond again :)

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Making teaming more attractive is sooo important at this point. The cool powers and graphics draw you in, but teaming keeps you coming back.

I don't see what is there to prevent you from teaming.

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I approve this message and then some. These additions would be awesome.

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I think the reason why they remove dueling because, people would not leave the power house and change their skills all the time due to the free Retcon. Maybe make a separate instance for dueling.

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I like everthing that was posted... minus the duel free zones. How else can we try out holds or damage on other players without leaving the Powerhouse, finding out we don't like the power, going back in and it costing a TON of resources. I'd rather you limit the areas you can duel than take it out altogether. How aobut that big room where all those tall platforms are. That's where I do my duels in the Powerhouse anyway.
Also, I think this idea came from a bunch of cry babys who don't like to hear the duels going on while they are leveling their powers.
My advice to them is:
1. Turn down your sound.
OR
2. Take off your headset.

It's not only the sound. It's the fact they also get in the way. :p

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Oh god yes. Sometimes I'll zone into any Powerhouse and they'll be multiple duels going on in the same 50 by 50 ft area. It's ridiculous.

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sounds nifty, i have been wondering, has there been any thought into allowing player designed hideouts or secret lairs?

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This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Cryptic Studios Forum Usage Guidelines (http://forums.champions-online.com/announcement.php?f=2&a=6). Thank you, Dionaea

[Archived Post]

My initial post didn't seem to get read so I'll copy this here.

Hello.
I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place or the suggestion box, I'm sure if necessary the mods will move it.

Firstly, I'd to thank Cryptic and everyone involved with making a really fun game to play. I'm really having a blast flying around and Gigabolting everything to death. Lots of people are posting around demanding things and crying DOOM but when all is said and done (bugs aside) you've made a very entertaining and immersive game.

Now.

The first thing that I don't get is something with the Loader/Patcher. I start up the game today and the patcher downloads a quick patch and shows news for a Sept 15th Patch Update. I login and rush off to finally clear that My Lost Foot quest but its still broken. I click around and realize that the patch is on the public test server, not the live server. So now I'm kind of confused why my loader is showing me a patch update that didn't go live yet. Maybe I'm just misreading something or I dunno. It's just a little bit of a let down.

The second thing is other languages on the forum. Sort of. I think I've noticed that you guys split the other language forums into a separate section. That's great. But in the Dev Tracker its flooded with posts and replies from Dev's that aren't English. Would there be some way to change the dev tracker so it doesn't do that?

Third...I see a lot of people begging for more content and end of game stuff and what not and thats cool, but my request to you in this area would be the following. Please simply fix all the bugged quests first, make quests repeatable, public quests shareable and so forth. It would be a lot easier to make alts and play the game with different toons over and over if those issues were addressed.

Lastly...the map! After your experience with COX (yes yes sorry for the comparison but what else can I compare too?) I was expecting a really informative map system. Alas the one here in CO doesn't seem all that comprehensive. I know part of the fun of the game is exploring the map but it would be really nice if the map would update with important NPC's and Locations as we've found them. Especially with all the contacts that give quests. For a completionist like me it's frustrating to miss a quest or contact only to find it after the missions are gray.

That's all I can really think of. I hope nothing I said here starts a shouting match or anything of the sort. I just wanted to voice some of my frustrations and hope they get read:-D

P.S.: Please fix Field Drones. Thanks!

P.P.S: Thought of one more issue. Will we be given opportunities to edit or alter our nemesis if we arent happy with how we originally made them?


P.P.P.S: Can you guys refine the Search System? It's way cluttered and diffuclt finding anyone. Do we really need the option to search every instance?

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This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Cryptic Studios Forum Usage Guidelines (http://forums.champions-online.com/announcement.php?f=2&a=6). Thank you, Dionaea

[Archived Post]

It's not amazing, it is absolutly nessecary. Hellgate London already was released without working Auction House and mail system, now this happens here again...

One should assume, that 2009 (!!) standards like shared banking, emailing and Auction housing are not a troublesome problem and pretty much well developed and functioning features in a MMO:

this is like announcing, that your newly purchased car will be delivered with 2 wheels, the missing two will be delayed for 2 months, but the public relations manager is making a big promotional out of delivering those missing 2 wheels.

Umm... there is an AH, and a bank...:D

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ugh really...?
i mean im totally fine with the no duels in Caprice, the RPers need some space for themselves...
but Powerhouse? If im making a pvp build i will have no idea how ill fair fighting AI's.
Plz plz plz plz dont disable duels in PH, it makes pvp builds impossible xD

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Man you guys must be working hard, love the news !
Specially the graphics one :P Keep it up !!

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I understand some people are upset about open launch but in the opinion of someone who got pulled in a week after launch I think the balance is great and very fun. Dying as frequently as I do but still being able to achieve missions (unless I do them slower) is great! As someone who likes to enjoy the game from 1-40 it helps dilute the grindy feel most MMO's have.

I have two requests related to the SOG post.

1) If resources are going to be increased I would like to see they are only increased to a level such that someone could afford a full respec at some point in their career along the normal questing lines but would have to hunt for money to afford a second respec.
What I mean is if I level to 40 without a single retcon or buying any items I should be able to afford a full retcon @40. This should scale to max level. This way if I were to do a full retcon at level 15, I would only have to make that much money back after I'm 40 to do another full respec.

I don't think we should be able to go hog wild with our retcons but I do think we should be allowed a little more room for mistakes esp. for noobs since a lot of the power's descriptions aren't terribly clear. (i.e. X skill adds a buff and I have no idea what that buff is / require an NPC to crit me to see the affect)

I choose a net ability on my first guy from gadgeteering not knowing that everything in this game that normally wouldn't have any ranged attacks (such as wolves WTF?) had ranged attacks. I've pretty much ditched that guy because it irks me so much. To get money without feel like I'm just hunting money I do quests...which makes me level and makes the retcon more expensive. It's a vicious cycle. It is probably one of the ugliest features of the game to have to play to 20, decide to reroll and play levels 1-20 again.

Playing 1-40 however, and then rolling another character through the full game again is something I think will benefit Cryptic since there will be less burnout concerning a significant section of the game.

2) Don't remove dueling from the powerhouse until those bots are in :) I'm annoyed by people constantly making wooshing laser sounds as much as anyone else, but I just turn down the volume because I understand the limitations of the test rooms.

[Archived Post]

ugh really...?
i mean im totally fine with the no duels in Caprice, the RPers need some space for themselves...
but Powerhouse? If im making a pvp build i will have no idea how ill fair fighting AI's.
Plz plz plz plz dont disable duels in PH, it makes pvp builds impossible xD

A specific room where dueling is enabled (even if it has to be instanced) is definately favorable.

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If we can't duel in the powerhouse we're screwed for real testing. Even pve based testing sometimes! The dummies don't register all debuffs correctly!!!!

Either make a real danger room area where we can summon our own NPCs to bash (and have them also attack us) or keep dueling in!

[Archived Post]

My personal opinion on each element. YMMV.

The tl;dr version: good stuff.

More Content!
Monster Island has three new repeatable mission...
This sounds promising. While there is some debate about which levels are most in need of new content, the devs have to start somewhere. Furthermore the intention to give these missions a different feel is a clear positive. It still means there will be thin content for a while yet so -1 point. Overall:
8/10

Adding Some Meat to Team
We’re working on several new additions to the teaming system...
Anything that improves teaming is good. Showing shared mission status will be a huge help, and giving rewards to assisting heroes who don't currently have this mission is an idea I saw on the suggestion boards and fell in love with. It won't be a complete fix, but it will be much better.
9/10

Do You See What I See?
Graphics performance should be better overall for players...
This is hard to find fault with. The only reason I'm not giving 10/10 is that today I was playing in near-total darkness when I logged in. I felt like Daredevil, but without the sonar (now there's an idea for a power set…). It could well be a local bug on my machine, but I'm a tough marker so…
9/10

The Mail That Ate Sheboygan
Many fixes to our mail woes have already been pushed to the live servers...
The only thing keeping this from a perfect score is the "we don't know when" aspect. OTOH I do appreciate the lack of obfuscatory spin.
9/10

The Balance of Power
We’re currently making passes on all the powers in the game and will be making changes designed to not just bring aberrant powers into line, but increase the effectiveness of those that need it.
While OP powers need to be fixed. I'd prefer to see the priority on making weaker powers and advantages more appealing: more buffs, fewer nerfs. I'm also not a big fan of the "let's break it in the other direction before finding the middle ground" approach. That makes perfect sense in beta, and annoys me enormously when I'm a paying customer. On balance:
7/10

We’re also examining the best ways to inject more resources into the economy.
Can you say "affordable retcons"? It's progress, but what "examining the best ways" to me is "we have a problem and don't know how to fix it". Still it's better than denial.
6/10

Our top concerns are what are concerning you as players.
Rhetoric, or genuine objective? I can't really see why a dev would choose to annoy their income stream so I'm inclined to say the latter.

There are still a few questions on design philosophy I'm not clear about, or disagree with. But they can't please everybody, and I can live with that.

My biggest criticism here is that Cryptic's communications over changes haven't always been timely. Eg whether you like the Sept 1 patch or not, from a comms POV it was badly bungled. I suspect it was due to massive workloads on short deadlines, but it was still a shock to a large number of customers.
What's done is done. Moving forward:
8/10

Powers Aren’t Black / White – Yet…
We’re big fans of being able to shift the hue of powers into the realms of black and white…
What's not to like? I can finally create Mega-Mime, hated by all…
10/10

Celestial Power Set… The Celestial set is designed to provide assistance to allies and destruction to enemies...
Love the idea, but given the support roles are totally borked in terms of Exp I'm not convinced this is going to work in the short term:
1/10 (with the current Exp model), 10/10 (when they fix it)

Tutorial? We Don’t Need No Stinking Tutorial!
While it sounds simple, there are few things we had to design out to allow players to be able to skip past the tutorial if they’ve already done it once...
I have a confession to make: I like the tutorial zone. Credibility = 0.
OTOH I've only run it through perhaps eight times, and I can see why it drives people nuts. This is certainly a popular request, and it shows Cryptic are listening:
10/10

Where the Duels Are(n’t)
We’ve heard your requests for our more social areas like Club Caprice and The Powerhouse to be duel-free zones. Both our content and programming teams are combining efforts to get this in as soon as possible.
This one has divided the community. I'm in the "ban duels from the main area, allow them in at least some of the test rooms" camp. If they do that:
10/10

A Room of Danger in the House of Power
We’re designing a new room for the Powerhouse where you can try out your powers against automated enemies. We’ll be sure to inform you when this moves to the Public Test Shard so you can help us test it out!
Been on my wish list for ages.
10/10

Overall score: 8/10

[Archived Post]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! You really are listening and it feels great to be reassured that this game will continually improve!

[Archived Post]

Duel free powerhouse? I out-regen the biggest laser ALREADY, it's the only way to actually test damage/healing!

Might I suggest makign a duel room? Or a "VR" type area? Something to test more "real" combat, and just making a no-duel area in the main rooms.

Setup a room in the Powerhouse with a 'Fight Club' ring in the middle of it. Disallow duelling anywhere else in the Powerhouse. Issue solved. I don't want duels going on everwhere I go in the Powerhouse but certainly it is a good thing to be able to do so somewhere in there!

[Archived Post]

Please don't remove dueling from the power house. Isn't there some way you can limit it by area rather than entire instance? I grab all of my powers with PvP in mind and I always duel people to test new strategies out.

Heck, I'd even say leave it in the club as well. There's nothing better than a good drunken bar brawl from time to time. =D

[Archived Post]

I have to admit that I'm sitting a little in awe of Cryptic right now. Call me a fanboy and what have you, but this is the first time in the last 8 years of playing MMO's for me that I've seen a company respond this quickly to the playerbases wishes.
I know we aren't getting everything or anything we might want, but Cryptic is really showing that they are willing to put in the time and effort to check feedback and work on it. Sure, some of the things in the list are right now given as 'we need to make some new tech, but it's coming' and honestly that's fine. It's just a question of getting the message out that it's officially being worked on.
Thank you cryptic for giving me personally one of the best experiences I've had with an MMO developer thus far.

What he/she/it said. :)

[Archived Post]

*bows* I am still keeping my Respec for when the nerfs com a hollering...


Malazar is doing great, these options only make his life easier. Glad for the lack of duels in Caprice. yet, Even I would enjoy a good room for just Social Dueling.

[Archived Post]

A proper danger room is something I've noticed the absence of, firing at dummies is one thing but it's difficult to gauge the effectiveness of your new power if three other people are dealing damage to the dummy as well!
Imo a perfect solution would be to have a door in the powerhouse where you could travel to your own instance where you could spawn active/passive dummy henchmen/villains/master villains at your level or one or two levels below or above you.
You could then gauge your power's effectiveness before committing to it. Maybe even have a trainer in the room so you can try powers without having to go back to the main Powerhouse.
Obviously I have no idea how workable that would be.

[Archived Post]

Make it so, & me and my friends are REALLY looking forward to this:



Adding Some Meat to Team
We’re working on several new additions to the teaming system. We’re currently testing new UI that allows players to see the state of team missions even if they don’t have them. Upcoming additions (in development) include showing your team members’ current objectives on active missions and adding rewards for heroes that assist on missions, even if they don’t have the mission themselves.