New efforts!

[brightmoon]

"Go go go go go go go don't wanna get eaten by a sharknado? We're all gonna die in a sharknado"
                                                               ENOUGH SAID!

[MM3squints]

I like the new avatar. Very appropriate.

Is it weird the first thought I think of Chicken and fish (flavored) waffles when looking at that avatar?

[Waffles]

Is it weird the first thought I think of Chicken and fish (flavored) waffles when looking at that avatar?

Not at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKu7ESmTO8o

[Dr. Bad Guy]

I'm not sure what's worse... the heated PvP discussion, or the sea puns.

We, the jury, find the defendant gillty of terrible fish puns!

Got to go with puns.  Pvp discussion will only get you death threats.

[pinballdave]

abalone! fish puns are fun

[Dr. Bad Guy]

Fish Puns are Cod's gift to comedy

[Dr. Bad Guy]

"You can tune a guitar, but you can't tuna fish. Unless of course, you play bass."
~ Douglas Adams

[Dr. Bad Guy]

If you can stop powen-ing n00bs and downloading internet prawn for a second, you may find this interesting, particularly if you're a sucker for word-play. Fish Puns are Cod's gift to comedy. For those who love nothing more than the art of the crappie pun, the fish pun is surely the apex of the form. Comedians will often spend a great deal of time fishing for a way to include a piscine pun within their joke, whilst experts will try to utilise them as the hook of the gag. The following is the offishal Uncyclopedia guide to fish puns, the fin-omenon and the use thereof. Ya know, just for the halibut?

Had to be put out there. Read this as its berry punny

[Harpospoke]

And don't worry too much about season 5...

Ok...it doesn't end like Battlestar Galactica, does it?

I mean...I loved BG all the way through and then...that last episode left me sitting there with a big question mark above my head.   I would love to try the series.   I just watched Farscape for the first time and liked it pretty well.  (Got a Guardians of the Galaxy vibe)

[skoogmik]

IDK, I'm a little worried one of the mods is going to come along and smack the carp out of us!

All I can do is to quote some Jim Croce Lyrics:

You don't tug on Superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger
And you don't mess around with Aggelakis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4qUXcXuMSE

[hejtmane]

We, the jury, find the defendant gillty of terrible fish puns!

Got to go with puns.  Pvp discussion will only get you death threats.

Fish heads fish heads,
Roly poly fish heads,
Fish heads fish heads,
Eat them up yum

[Cailyn Alaynn]

Ok...it doesn't end like Battlestar Galactica, does it?

I mean...I loved BG all the way through and then...that last episode left me sitting there with a big question mark above my head.   I would love to try the series.   I just watched Farscape for the first time and liked it pretty well.  (Got a Guardians of the Galaxy vibe)

FarScape was AMAZING. ...somehow, I never actually finished it tho. Hrm, Need to do that...
No spoilers.

[Remaugen]

This thread has slowed dramatically since the unmasking thread started. . .


We're almost there!   ;D

[MM3squints]

We, the jury, find the defendant gillty of terrible fish puns!

Got to go with puns.  Pvp discussion will only get you death threats.

https://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c18/AmandaG1029/tyson-eats-children.jpg
:D

[FloatingFatMan]

Ok...it doesn't end like Battlestar Galactica, does it?

I mean...I loved BG all the way through and then...that last episode left me sitting there with a big question mark above my head.   I would love to try the series.   I just watched Farscape for the first time and liked it pretty well.  (Got a Guardians of the Galaxy vibe)

Oh no, it doesn't end like BSG... It ends... at the end of season 4!  Season 5 wasn't originally going to happen, then the idiot studio sprung another season on JMS and he didn't have any story content left so we ended up with a season of filler. :p

[Felderburg]

I repeat - if that were true, then all of the Incarnate Trials would have been PVP-only.  It is transparently obvious to the most casual examination that the reason those PVE rewards were put in those zones was to lure PVE players into those zones to be cannon fodder for the amusement of the PVPers.  It's disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

It's also disingenuous to say that the devs actively wanted PvE players to be griefed as "cannon fodder". Yes, they were there to entice people to play PvP, but being griefed is not an intended feature.

It really is a shame that the competitiveness of some PvPers gets in the way of making sure everyone has fun - a few jerks clearly turned many PvE players away from PvP entirely. I really enjoyed CoH PvP - I spent a TON of time in Siren's Call, and Bloody Bay when it first came out. I had some great times with other heroes, having massive battles on the villain base beach head. And in Siren's Call, there was a stalker named Peek-a-Boo - before moving to China, the player would hold duels on a set of buildings that became known as "Peek's Perch" on Pinnacle for a while. For the most part, people I interacted with would leave PvE players alone, if they specifically said they were there to get badges or whatever and be done. Obviously not all PvPers do, but it seemed like common courtesy to me.

As far as powers go, I had flight, and probably a non-optimal build. But I did number crunch a bit, and tried to improve things within the concept of my character. I had plenty of fun, even without following some sort of PvP über build to the letter. I also had plenty of victories, so it's not like having a PvP build was essential. To be super competitive, sure, but not to just have fun fighting other people in the zones.

Regarding the superiority complex of PvPers: NPCs aren't that smart. Sure, some AI is good, but there is nothing that compares to the ingenuity of another person. So yes, there is an air of superiority amongst PvPers, because they fight, and win, against the most challenging enemies the game has to offer: each other. Additionally, in most games I've seen, PvPers are also the most knowledgable about the mechanics of the game; because they're trying to fight the most dangerous opponent, they try to squeeze every last little bit of power out of a character. This means they find loopholes or even bona fide exploits in game mechanics, in the quest for an advantage over other players (and any bugs found are reported by PvPers, because if it's a bug it might affect only certain people, leading to an unfair playing field). So combine a superiority complex with competitiveness and the anonymity of the internet, and you get what is often a toxic combination. Which is a shame, because like I said above, I always had fun with PvP, and met a lot of cool people doing it.




One thing that CoH did get right in its PvP is separation of PvE and PvP powers. I left the game for a while before I13, and came back to ghost town zones, which was a shame, but as I recall even before that PvP was separate. In Star Trek Online, due to the cash shop, there is an artifical divide between PvE and PvP players because the powers aren't separated. Powers you can buy for money are released, and become literal "I win" buttons in PvP. PvPers justifiably complain because the whole point of PvP is beating someone in a fair fight, not someone who paid for an I win button. So the power is nerfed, and suddenly a toy that PvE players paid for becomes much less fun or even useless in PvE - and the PvE players blame the PvPers for it, despite the fact that it's the devs fault for not separating powers or at least testing them in a PvP environment. CoH did have a PvP vs. PvE mentality, which is unfortunate, but at least it wasn't caused from the issues that STO has.

[Ironwolf]

You see my vision of PvP is completely different.

I for one expected AE to be PvP related. You created the scenario and then you fight. The scenario would be player set based on Mission type:

1. Escort get someone out of the area safely using Defenders to buff or heal and all the other types to do their jobs - here the way I see an escort job going. You and your team enter and head to the extraction point. The other team is Phase shifted during this time to an area a certain distance from the NPC. Once the NPC is grabbed a timer starts and the mission begins. Your defenders buff the NPC as you head out an opposing tanker taunts the NPC pulling them towards him - the defender slaps clearmind or other debuff on the NPC and they are free of the tank for 20 seconds. The other team attacks the NPC or tries to hold them - and you fight with all your existing powers exactly like in PvE. It is an Office, Warehouse or cave type setting where the limited sight distance handicaps the attackers somewhat. This causes a close up and personal battle.

I would have options for Time limit, deaths permanent or not for the mission and other settings the players agree to.

2. Capture the flag - just what it you expect - you try and stop a group from escaping with a flag - TPers would be unable to TP and hold the flag - it would drop - in fact all travel powers would be disabled for the flag holder. You have to slog it out. Defenders can buff doors that must be destroyed to get out and the flag stays where it is when dropped - again all while  under a timer fastest team wins.

3. Last man standing - you try and hold on against all odds. Last man wins for his team.

4. Defend the City, you try and defend a city from destruction and the team allowing the least destruction in a set time wins.

In every instance the players can aid their team by buffing the enviroment (as in the Terravolta Reactor Trial) or healing/buffing others. Your powers don't change the way the conditions of the enviroment reacts - does. Then everyone has a place in the game. Ice can put out fires, fires can melt ice and so on. Stepping completely out of the box. It is less about what you do to each other than how the enviroment reacts to each player.

[Remaugen]

I've had several thoughts on PvP since it mostly didn't work for me. I used to farm in Recluses Victory since it was mostly empty and I found many more purple drops there than anywhere else. (The RNG usually hates me, but in RV it was less cruel that usual!)

A Free For All (FFA) or Carnage map might be fun now and then but the team oriented PvPs never really worked. But what about a "Race" map? Everyone enters from the same door or map corner and tries to exit out the opposite side of the map with NPCs and other obstacles in the way, players could either cooperate or set each other back.

[Arcana]

Oh no, it doesn't end like BSG... It ends... at the end of season 4!  Season 5 wasn't originally going to happen, then the idiot studio sprung another season on JMS and he didn't have any story content left so we ended up with a season of filler. :p

More precisely, JMS wrapped up a lot of story arcs early because he wasn't sure he would get renewed for season five (the original plan was a five year series), and thus some of what was supposed to happen in season five got preempted.  The season five content wasn't just filler, it was supposed to happen in some form mostly, but it was supposed to be supplemented with additional content that was mooted by season four acceleration.

Also, for those not aware of how B5 ends, B5 doesn't "end" in Season four exactly.  What happened was that JMS had a very specific ending in mind for B5, and when he thought he was not going to get renewed for season five, he shot that ending during season four.  When he did get renewed for season five, he now could push that ending to the end of season five.  But now he needed to shoot another episode to fill the spot vacated by his taking the season four ending (also the series ending) and moving it to the end of season five.  So he created another episode, which oddly almost *could* function as the series end in a sense, but doesn't actually end the series per se.

If you didn't know any of this, and someone gave you the first four seasons of B5 to watch, you'd think the last episode of season four was explicitly written to end the series.  What's interesting is that it wasn't; it was written knowing there'd be one last season.  So why write an episode that looks like a series end knowing there would be one more season?  Because of a quirk in production history.  Babylon-5 was originally launched on the PTEN network, back when Warner tried to launch their own syndicated network.  PTEN basically folded at the end of season four, leaving B5 no home.  When they were picked up by TNT, they got to air their season five.  But JMS knew there were people who were receiving PTEN but did not have access to the TNT cable network, and would not easily be able to see season five.  So he wrote the last episode of season four as a sort of "pseudo-ending" for B5 for viewers who might not get to see season five for a very long time, or ever.

[BadWolf]

Personally, I utterly ignored PvP. I think I went in once to the zones because I had a character I was trying to get all the Exploration badges with. I went once to Bloody Bay...? The one with the Shivans, anyway, right after the zones went live to experience it. And I wandered in a few times with my Stalkers, because what's the risk? :) But for the most part, I didn't make use of it and I never felt like I needed to. Maybe if I'd played in a "leet" team that was running the STF or LRTF, but in regular play Shivans and nukes were kind of a thing I heard about, not a need.

And I liked it that way. I have never liked open PvP, and having it segregated to a part of the game that the people who liked it could do it made me utterly happy. The mechanics of PvP can feel free to change based on the recommendations of people who know more about the process, but personally I think the thing that CoH did most right was to keep it the **** away from the actual proper game.