New efforts!

[Noyjitat]

I won't shy away from Keyes reactor even without an alpha slot, it gives tones of incarnate exp.  But the underground trial is easily sabotage-able, so don't expect me to touch it with a 20 foot pole.

I enjoyed all the other trials however, as they were both balanced and fun to play.  But the underground trial needed to seriously be given a "your targetted" icon above peoples heads.  So saboteurs couldn't troll the trial by sneaking in while targeted and watching everyone be instantly killed for no reason.

Liberty had a good regular group running underground every friday / sunday led by ukase rex usually right after our msr. Didn't have problems with sabotage other than the occasional idiot that messed up the bomb run.

[Noyjitat]

I don't know how to react to this page, talking about the origins of life and iTrials at the same time. If this page was a meal it'd be a steak marinated in monster laid on a bed of jalapeños.

Honestly though if you really loved iTrials and want end game content galore, DCUO is exactly that. It's literally designed from the ground up with this raid grind as the basis. CoH was not designed for this at all, in fact if you played from the early days you'd know they explicitly advertised weekend warriors and hardcore being able to enjoy this game together. An end game raid design is only for hardcores. Incarnate powers totally negated any other objective in the game by making it seem trivial, solo'ing was essentially removed, farming AE was the only other reasonable option. You could literally spend 200 mill on a elec/fire or ss/fire brute get him/her the first incarnate and power level people 1-50 in an afternoon.

By the end of the CoH days it was like watching Led Zeppelin sing Katy Perry covers, it really shouldn't have happened and was painful to witness. This game was almost the only thing on the market that didn't succumb to WoW fever, and in the end the lead developer did.

I miss this game a lot but I already know if it launches it will be a race for 90% of vet players to hit 50 and start grinding out incarnate stuff, because honestly what's the point of taking your time with that content in place? I'll be taking my sweet ass time enjoying all the sights and sounds, playing the game I remember from the early days. To each their own though I suppose, I'm sure I'm a minority.

DCUO has a combat level grind requiring gear, dailies and a special combat level to access new content. It more closely matches wow and it's gear check system than CoX. While in Cox at most you eventually needed a couple level shifts but only for the last couple of trials and previous trial content wasn't trivialized and still rewarded you for playing it.

[Floride]

Liberty had a good regular group running underground every friday / sunday led by ukase rex usually right after our msr. Didn't have problems with sabotage other than the occasional idiot that messed up the bomb run.

I smiled when I read this. The weekends felt full because of the efforts of a few guys like you and Ukase. *sigh* Now I'm really missing this too. I looked forward to these so much.

... Occassional idiot? Meh, I've been called worse.  ;D

[Waffles]

You could say it was grindy, the Itrials...

I would say, that while true, CoH easily makes grinding feel fun, where I can destroy armies single handed, if I play smart.

[Sermon]

You could say it was grindy, the Itrials...

I would say, that while true, CoH easily makes grinding feel fun, where I can destroy armies single handed, if I play smart.

If new owners got control of CoH, the first thing I would want to see them tinker with was the ability to progress all incarnate stuff (not just alpha slot) on all content. I would be happy to play the game as is, but the gating in incarnate stuff never seemed in the spirit of CoH to me.

[JanessaVR]

If new owners got control of CoH, the first thing I would want to see them tinker with was the ability to progress all incarnate stuff (not just alpha slot) on all content. I would be happy to play the game as is, but the gating in incarnate stuff never seemed in the spirit of CoH to me.

If nothing is behind a pay wall, then there's no incentive to subscribe.  If no one pays for anything, then the company goes out of business and the game is gone again.  So I rather doubt that will happen.

[Arcana]

I would say the alternate theories on the Big Bang itself is a pretty dramatic change in thinking.    When you start the discussion of that with "That's right. Everything we know about the universe may be wrong."

http://mobile.news.com.au/technology/science/has-the-big-bang-theory-been-busted/story-fn5fsgyc-1226721187118

Like I said, you have much more faith in our ability than I do.    I tend to think we let our ego inflate our self-worth.

It would help if you quoted legitimate scientists, rather than "staff writers."  Let me quote the very next sentence after "Everything we know about the universe may be wrong."

Cosmologists have speculated that the universe was created after a star collapsed into a black hole - a theory that helps to explain why it seems to be expanding in all directions.

Everything *they* know about the universe is probably wrong.  No astronomer thinks that.  I'm not even aware of any crackpot astronomers that think that.  The entire article starts off horribly wrong, and it doesn't get any better:

The Big Bang theory suggests that the universe was created from a single point in the universe but despite years of research, nobody yet knows what triggered the eruption.

It also fails to explain why the Universe has an "almost completely uniform temperature."

The current accepted theory of cosmology includes the concept of inflation, which specifically addresses the issue of temperature uniformity.  Also, the CMB doesn't have a perfectly uniform temperature, and the differences in temperature are even now being analyzed to determine if they are consistent with inflation theory.  The article itself remarks:

The European Space Agency recorded slight fluctuations in the temperature of the universe and found that the cosmos contained imprints of radiation that matched predictions made in the Big Bang theory. Obviously this creates a discrepancy in the astrophysicists' research.

In other words, the current model doesn't explain why the cosmos as almost completely uniform temperature, except for the fact the actual cosmos has temperature irregularities consistent with the current model.  The article characterizes this as a "discrepancy" in the research they are commenting on.  Seriously?

Its easy to find people that claim "everything we know is wrong" but that doesn't make it true.  The ideas in those articles are highly speculative, and contain about as much real science as the Wookiepedia.

Its one thing to be skeptical.  A certain amount of skepticism is necessary for Science to work.  What I don't understand is why you are skeptical about all of modern physics, but not skeptical about "staff writers" sensationalizing the scientific equivalent of water cooler speculation.  If you were as skeptical about the articles you are linking to as you apparently are about all of modern Science, you would probably be able to (correctly) shoot down the ideas in those articles without much difficulty.

[Twisted Toon]

Ok. I'm back from the hospital and I finished my nap, and dinner....and my other nap.

I won't be suggesting a hernia surgery as a viable vacation tool.

We may just well find a purely robotic force out there that prefers super hot planets like Venus.  Or species that prefer gas-giants like Jupiter that would "burst" in our atmosphere for example :).

That brings to mind 2 alien races in the Star Control series of games. The Mmrnmhrm and the Slylandro. My favorite was the Pkunk though.

Now, I think I'll take another nap.

[Whatelse73]

If nothing is behind a pay wall, then there's no incentive to subscribe.  If no one pays for anything, then the company goes out of business and the game is gone again.  So I rather doubt that will happen.

I'd say that even if there is incarnate stuff (which in i23 there is), it'll be a while before any of us are level 50 and able to build on that.  I'm sure that I'll make a few "mains" at first of various types (though I really do miss my old crew, it'd be too awesome to have our old accounts back).

I'd just be happy to be there.

[Tubbius]

Know what I miss more and more about City, other than flight?

Targeting through another player.  That would be so, so, SO useful in many other games that I miss it a lot.

[Aggelakis]

Know what I miss more and more about City, other than flight?

Targeting through another player.  That would be so, so, SO useful in many other games that I miss it a lot.

UGH. FOR REAL. I have a macro in WoW so that I can select a teammate and then /assist them, but it requires repeatedly doing that - every time a critter dies or they switch targets.

[Ohioknight]

My suggestion is that we are never going to find extra-terrestrial life if we only look for earth life.   It doesn't sound logical to me to base our concept of "life" on the life that evolved on this planet.   Sounds like the most self-limiting view possible.

What other concept of life do you recommend we look for, how do you imagine it "evolved", how do you imagine we should "look" for it?
Do you think there is reason we should NOT look "Earth life"?

My point was that we have debate about science on every level...not that there isn't a difference in the topics being debated

Science works because it involves debate.  People argue their positions, when they make proposals that don't match counter arguments, then consensus moves towards the alternatives.  Peer review means that people who have actually studied and demonstrated competence in a subject can act as noise filters to keep down the ideas that are so poorly based on evidence or are so poorly constructed that it would waste everyone's time to pursue them. 

People who don't endorse the value of consensus have their bridges collapse -- that's why we know it works.   

We really just don't agree about our assessment of the situation ... Again, my point was there is debate.   You obviously fall on one side of the debate.

It has been observed that not all positions or opinions are equally valid.

[Ironwolf]

It would help if you quoted legitimate scientists, rather than "staff writers."  Let me quote the very next sentence after "Everything we know about the universe may be wrong."

Cosmologists have speculated that the universe was created after a star collapsed into a black hole - a theory that helps to explain why it seems to be expanding in all directions.

Everything *they* know about the universe is probably wrong.  No astronomer thinks that.  I'm not even aware of any crackpot astronomers that think that.  The entire article starts off horribly wrong, and it doesn't get any better:

The Big Bang theory suggests that the universe was created from a single point in the universe but despite years of research, nobody yet knows what triggered the eruption.

It also fails to explain why the Universe has an "almost completely uniform temperature."

The current accepted theory of cosmology includes the concept of inflation, which specifically addresses the issue of temperature uniformity.  Also, the CMB doesn't have a perfectly uniform temperature, and the differences in temperature are even now being analyzed to determine if they are consistent with inflation theory.  The article itself remarks:

The European Space Agency recorded slight fluctuations in the temperature of the universe and found that the cosmos contained imprints of radiation that matched predictions made in the Big Bang theory. Obviously this creates a discrepancy in the astrophysicists' research.

In other words, the current model doesn't explain why the cosmos as almost completely uniform temperature, except for the fact the actual cosmos has temperature irregularities consistent with the current model.  The article characterizes this as a "discrepancy" in the research they are commenting on.  Seriously?

Its easy to find people that claim "everything we know is wrong" but that doesn't make it true.  The ideas in those articles are highly speculative, and contain about as much real science as the Wookiepedia.

Its one thing to be skeptical.  A certain amount of skepticism is necessary for Science to work.  What I don't understand is why you are skeptical about all of modern physics, but not skeptical about "staff writers" sensationalizing the scientific equivalent of water cooler speculation.  If you were as skeptical about the articles you are linking to as you apparently are about all of modern Science, you would probably be able to (correctly) shoot down the ideas in those articles without much difficulty.

I enjoy the Big Bang theory also known in the bible as in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth.

The reality is no one can even postulate the triggering event that would cause a huge amount of matter to suddenly be flung into an ever expanding nearly infinite space. When you read the bible (not a christian here but I still study it) you see this:

The Creation of Light
Genesis 1

1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

If you wanted to explain the start of the universe in a short manner - this is about as good an attempt as you could make. God could be replaced by the source of creation - for something caused the event, hence was the source.

[Codewalker]

UGH. FOR REAL. I have a macro in WoW so that I can select a teammate and then /assist them, but it requires repeatedly doing that - every time a critter dies or they switch targets.

Addons can do this. I know for sure that Bartender4 (replacement action bar) has an 'auto-assist' mode that works pretty much identical to COH. It's under the state configuration tab. I assume that other action bar mods can do similar things.

[CrimsonCapacitor]

Know what I miss more and more about City, other than flight?

Targeting through another player.  That would be so, so, SO useful in many other games that I miss it a lot.

I'd vote for sidekicking.  You just rolled a new toon and wanted to run with friends who were playing at level 45?  Done. 

In EVERY other game I've tried, if you're beyond X levels above/below the mission/quest/investigation/name du jour, you either are a drag on the party ("Great.  CC faceplanted.  AGAIN.") or you do not get XP.

Why on earth do Devs not seem to understand that friends want to team together?

[PsiBug]

Ok. I'm back from the hospital and I finished my nap, and dinner....and my other nap.

I won't be suggesting a hernia surgery as a viable vacation tool.

That brings to mind 2 alien races in the Star Control series of games. The Mmrnmhrm and the Slylandro. My favorite was the Pkunk though.

Now, I think I'll take another nap.

feel better sooon!

[Reaper]

I'd vote for sidekicking.  You just rolled a new toon and wanted to run with friends who were playing at level 45?  Done. 

I especially enjoyed that anybody from any level range could join each other's teams and still receive the rewards.  Especially with the super sidekick feature.

[Vee]

my goal is to get an ice/time troller...to 50 as quickly and effetely as possible.

That might be the best typo ever.

I wouldn't say the itrials were grindy per se, it's just that we all had so many alts by the time they came around that they couldn't help but seem that way. It was really reasonable for a toon or 8, especially compared to other MMOs, but after that it was just too much. My main problems with them were the baf lag issues and the fact that i had less fun on my favorite content once the inc powers were out of the bag (end fight of lrsf taking less than 30 seconds, e.g.). I went to freemium shortly after keyes dropped and never played any of the later ones or had hybrids. i didn't even want the lore pets i had. If it comes back i'll probably just do enough trials to get barrier, judgement and the proc slot on whatever toon is my farmer instead of the dozen plus toons i had +3 on. anything else I get will probably be from DA.

[Pyromantic]

i had less fun on my favorite content once the inc powers were out of the bag (end fight of lrsf taking less than 30 seconds, e.g.).

This was the reason I had mixed feelings about the incarnate system.  Too much content was trivialized.  It was effectively a level increase by another name, and the fact that City hadn't embraced WoW-style continuing level increases was one of the things I loved about it.

In many ways I think the game was better without it.  Not that something like it wouldn't have been good for the game, but I feel the power discrepancy between those with or without incarnate abilities was too large.

[Sermon]

If nothing is behind a pay wall, then there's no incentive to subscribe.  If no one pays for anything, then the company goes out of business and the game is gone again.  So I rather doubt that will happen.

I didn't mean gated behind a paywall. I meant how you had to do certain trials to progress certain incarnate tiers.

Honestly, the free to play model of CoH Freedom is probably too generous for a fresh relaunch of the game.