New efforts!

[Remaugen]

Just to balance the discussion a little: I have not had a single negative experience with Linux people, posting questions, etc. Got a link to that discussion? Just curious!

For what it's worth, the folks on the Mint newbie help forums were wonderful, by far the most helpful I have encountered in Linux. Others were much less so.

[Arcana]

Some years ago, during one of my many forays into the Linux world (I'm an old SCO Unix lag so I knew the commandline well), I had occasion to go onto one of the newbie user groups and ask a simple question about configuring something (I forget what now).  What followed was probably the most shocking and obscene attack upon everything imaginable about my person, my intelligence, and my sheer affrontery for DARING to ask such a stupid question. At least three people suggested I kill myself, and many others suggested I go get raped in the local jail...

It does tend to be a bit hit and miss out in Linux support-land, better now than in the past but still its very much like trying to ask a question on an MMO forum or like asking whose God is the best one. Forums that explicitly cater to evangelizing desktop usage tend to be better on average than  in the old days where you were just as likely to find out the person answering your question about how to configure sound has been arguing to get the sound API changed for the past three years and is a bit crusty.

[Arcana]

VMWare Player is free to use, and runs W10 perfectly well.

I should have mentioned vmware player for the cash-challenged.  Available free for non-commercial use here: https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_player/7_0
It lacks many more sophisticated vmware workstation features like snapshots and remote server desktops, but it otherwise is a perfectly reasonable test platform.

[LadyVamp]

Most people, myself included don't want to have to get under the hood. For you, Linux is like a muscle car you love to tinker with so you  know how everything works. I admire that level of knowledge. I really do, but I have no desire to do all that. All I want is car that starts and runs with minimal fuss.

Don't get me wrong, I parsed LadyVamp's sentence just fine. I know what a command line switch and how to use one. I even understood that she was telling it to not use multiple processor threads. I just don't want to have to jack with it.

Actually, I don't get under the hood all that often though it's nice to be able to do so.  I tend to be more of a, "ok sofware dev, you know this crap you just put out as your master piece isn't going to fly with the general populous," kind of guy.  Although I know how to program, last time I wrote a for loop was in college (about 20 years ago).

Unfortunately with Linux, there's a big a trade off.  It's more configurable than Windows or Mac.  Tools to do configuration work on Windows and Mac tend to be better than on Linux (and its cousins FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD).  Often times, there's little or no need to alter the system on Windows or Mac.  Linux almost always needs tweaks.

[MWRuger]

It was about 8 years ago and on a newsgroup, not a forum (the old nntp newsgroup system), so no... No link, sorry.

The old nntp newsgroup posters were the worst. I once asked a question about using a program to read the news groups and my experience was very similar.

[CoyoteSeven]

This thread has become mired in irony.

[duane]

This thread has become mired in irony.

I am still glad to have a spot to check.  All the years of the game and first two after shut down I was pretty sure I was the only coh-obsessed person.

[Zerohour]

I am still glad to have a spot to check.  All the years of the game and first two after shut down I was pretty sure I was the only coh-obsessed person.

Not even close.  To give an example, I used to find inspiration for new characters and their color palettes from rusting pipes and mold growth where I work lol

[duane]

Not even close.  To give an example, I used to find inspiration for new characters and their color palettes from rusting pipes and mold growth where I work lol

My 8+ year old spreadsheet to track event badges.  The old badge listing layout was terrible until later years.

[umber]

My 8+ year old spreadsheet to track event badges.  The old badge listing layout was terrible until later years.

Ah, one of my favorite gripe-memories of CoH.  Do you remember when we asked Positron (back when we was the Badge Guy) on the official forums for a QoL change to the badge listings and his handwave response was something to the effect of "they look fine on my own spreadsheet"?  That man's commitment to customer service never failed to impress ;)

Some people should not be allowed within a mile of any sort of public relations microphone. 

[HeatSpike1]

I am still glad to have a spot to check.  All the years of the game and first two after shut down I was pretty sure I was the only coh-obsessed person.

You're not alone my friend! I'm still watching CoH videos on YouTube, running around in icon, creating new character costumes and perfecting their builds in mids. Still hoping to be able to play the actual game again in the future :)

[darkgob]

Ah, one of my favorite gripe-memories of CoH.  Do you remember when we asked Positron (back when we was the Badge Guy) on the official forums for a QoL change to the badge listings and his handwave response was something to the effect of "they look fine on my own spreadsheet"?  That man's commitment to customer service never failed to impress ;)

Some people should not be allowed within a mile of any sort of public relations microphone.

There's a reason why the devs became less vocal in the last couple years of the game, and that'd be one of them.  Between Posi's AE temper tantrum and BAB's hilarious lack of a professional filter, the PR team was probably about to rip their hair out.

[LadyVamp]

I am still glad to have a spot to check.  All the years of the game and first two after shut down I was pretty sure I was the only coh-obsessed person.

300 pics of the zones, my toons, and my base.  about 50 pages of my personal wiki with base and toon info, bios, pics (the 300), and description text to tie it all together.  also have the badge tracking spreadsheet uploaded into the wiki for my badge collector too.  I look at them from time to time.

though coh wasn't my first mmo, it was the one I loved the most.  I play other mmos today but never as into them as I was with coh.  It's like the first time you fall in love with a girl.  You never love another woman quite like that.  The hokey thing is I'm listening to Ronnie Milsap's Wouldn't have missed it for the world while writing this.

[duane]

300 pics of the zones, my toons, and my base.  about 50 pages of my personal wiki with base and toon info, bios, pics (the 300), and description text to tie it all together.  also have the badge tracking spreadsheet uploaded into the wiki for my badge collector too.  I look at them from time to time.

though coh wasn't my first mmo, it was the one I loved the most.  I play other mmos today but never as into them as I was with coh.  It's like the first time you fall in love with a girl.  You never love another woman quite like that.  The hokey thing is I'm listening to Ronnie Milsap's Wouldn't have missed it for the world while writing this.

Yes, there is an external hard drive with all the screenshots... I used to add text to them to promote super groups, events and maintain the old group's website.  I agree, nothing has clicked.  I see many good graphics in new games and would like to think COH would have eventually received its upgrade eventually.  For now it is school work, civilization and month long forrays into a game.  This month wow, maybe secret world after its next update.

[Inc42]

The problem is that MMOs that are still around don't even have the base mechanics of CoH that worked so well. I can't join a game that a friend is playing without having to spend a long time trying to catch up to them before even playing with them, because no one else seems to be able to wrap their head around the sidekick system. I despise "go kill 10 of these guys" quests because I'm likely competing with multiple people for those kills and in some games that can make one of those quests take hours and most MMOs seem afraid to do heavy instance based content. And don't get me started on games like TOR and Neverwinter where the "everything should be solo friendly" crowd got their way and if you have more than one person for MOST of the content then everything is far too easy.

MMOs are my favorite genre of game, yet I can't find one to keep my interest to save my life anymore.

[LaughingAlex]

The problem is that MMOs that are still around don't even have the base mechanics of CoH that worked so well. I can't join a game that a friend is playing without having to spend a long time trying to catch up to them before even playing with them, because no one else seems to be able to wrap their head around the sidekick system. I despise "go kill 10 of these guys" quests because I'm likely competing with multiple people for those kills and in some games that can make one of those quests take hours and most MMOs seem afraid to do heavy instance based content. And don't get me started on games like TOR and Neverwinter where the "everything should be solo friendly" crowd got their way and if you have more than one person for MOST of the content then everything is far too easy.

MMOs are my favorite genre of game, yet I can't find one to keep my interest to save my life anymore.

City of heroes main advantage was probably it's balance, it was possible to solo, but you really had to know what your doing and probably pick an archtype and powerset combination built for that.  Of which there were tons of solo-supporting sets of all types to.  I personally feel, and some here may mention I have said it numerous times, that mmorpgs should be called "MMOHTG", HTG standing for holy trinity grindfest, because of the two major problems they all have.

You have the holy trinity, which basically means to me "There is litterally only one strategy that works in teamplay" in mmorpgs.  I've said it dozens of times.  If your using the same strategy over and over and over and it's the only one that works, the game gets boring very very fast.  It also indicates a sore lack of balance, as truely balanced game would allow for a wide variety of strategies.  There is also that lack of depth.  It's often mistaken for depth, but when there is no real learning beyond just one min/max build or just a small number, thats nothing compared to so many games in and out of the mmo genre.

But it doesn't stop there.  You have the extreme grindfest we all know and dread.  I mean when so many mmorpgs had to fall into "Raid x boss with infinitely small drop rate", combined with the above your going to have a very, very boring game.  Same strategy repeated dozens or hundreds or even thousands of times for one item, it gets extremely boring to do that.

City of heroes avoided that because of just how diverse the sets were but also how balanced they were, and the fact that the game was balanced around elements that ensured the trinity wasn't a required strategy.  Sure, you could try playing with it.  But besides weakening your team overall due to ignoring all that wide variety and shoe-horning yourself into only specific powersets(usually ignoring any support character but empaths, the worst mistake any team can make), you also missed out on the purpose of the game which was that you could pick any two powersets on any archtype and see how it works.  I know Matt Miller thought altitus was a problem for CoX, but I think it was actually a blessing.  He was just thinking "mmorpg is a job", kind of mindset.

Which, I think is the true big problem mmorpgs have and why they become mmohtgs often, the players themselves are almost comprised entirely of stop having fun guys/scrubs.  Or at least, the most vocal seem to be.  They sometimes don't even understand what fun is, they often only think of that one thing, the rewards, and nothing else.  Not the journey through the game, not the discovery of the abilities you got along the way, just the items at the end-game.  And I suspect that gamers of every other genre look at the mmorpg playerbase and facepalm at the general attitude and how regressed the genre is, which I'd say is probably worst off than the mms issue first persons shooters have.

Because at least first person shooters do get good games once in a while that offer alot of fresh air such as Serious Sam, or Hard Reset, or Shadow warrior 2013.  Heck even the mms games have spec ops the line.  We also saw deus ex human revolution and fallout new vegas, all games that did a pretty good job moving forward, while mmorpgs have been stuck in the 1990s.  City of heroes was, well, the only game to move forward.

[darkgob]

In terms of gameplay I think Star Trek Online shares a decent amount of similarities with CoH (ground and space taken separately, each in their own way), and despite the career tracks (Tactical, Engineer, Science) being constructed around the Holy Trinity game content doesn't really require that degree of rigidity in team structure.  Hell, the entire game is easily soloable save for the PvE Queues that require a team in the first place.  The place it falters is in the Quest for Stuff, the horrific grind and PWE's general cash-grabby tactics.

[Arcana]

There's a reason why the devs became less vocal in the last couple years of the game, and that'd be one of them.  Between Posi's AE temper tantrum and BAB's hilarious lack of a professional filter, the PR team was probably about to rip their hair out.

BaB was, well BaB (god bless him though, he was always honest).  But part of the reason the devs were often reluctant (I'm aware of devs that were offered red names and turned them down absolutely) and sometimes constrained from posting with official red names on the forums is that they were subject to unrealistic standards of posting.  Matt's "tantrum" is a classic example.  I read that thing a hundred times trying to find the tantrum, and it simply wasn't there.  I actually often recommended tone, wording, or clarification changes to dev postings, and there were even a couple of times when I was in a position to make a proactive recommendation to change how the devs were about to describe something, and when they didn't it often blew up exactly as I predicted.  And yet I honestly could not find the specific edit point in Positron's posting I would have censored had I been in a position to do so.

Except, and this is the point, to say that in that particular case I was certain that no matter what anyone said, and no matter how it was said, the (or rather a significant vocal percentage of the) playerbase had already made up their mind to attack anything that the devs were about to post.

One of the areas I used to say the players were basically always wrong was in the area of implementation.  When a player either guessed, theorized, or extrapolated how the game worked, unless they had inside information they were basically always wrong.  This was so absolute of a rule that when someone said anything on the forums about the implementation of the game that I knew to be true I knew that player was either in direct communication with the devs or were hacking the game client in their spare time.  It was a huge red flag.  The other area was developer motivation.  Players ascribed motivations to the devs that were almost always wrong, often hilariously so.  Players would post how certain they were that a particular dev had a particular motivation for making a game change because it was just so obvious, and I would laugh because I would know that particular dev had nothing to do with the change.  In at least two cases devs that were accused of having malicious intent for making a change actually opposed the change internally.  But once you ascribe intent to a developer, your perception of everything they say and do is irrevocable tainted.  Our playerbase may have been tamer than most in this regard, but it was no less vulnerable to the same errors in judgment combined with pitchforks to back it up.

At some personal risk of being reprimanded or banned for doing so, I actually posted significant insider information about what went down with those Architect reward reversals.  Short of naming names, I stated what fundamentally happened and where errors were made that the devs themselves were trying to sort out at that time.  Few listened and fewer cared, and to prove it I'd bet today everyone who remembers Positron's "tantrum" doesn't remember the most important fact I disclosed that called that entire perspective into question, because under the circumstances it was impossible for Positron to have done what the players said he did.

[Codewalker]

In at least two cases devs that were accused of having malicious intent for making a change actually opposed the change internally.

Hmm, Castle and i13 PVP is probably one, it's the biggest and most widely spread misattribution I can think of. I'm curious as to the other, though I know you probably can't name names even now. Maybe a hint?

Few listened and fewer cared, and to prove it I'd bet today everyone who remembers Positron's "tantrum" doesn't remember the most important fact I disclosed that called that entire perspective into question, because under the circumstances it was impossible for Positron to have done what the players said he did.

I admit to not remembering. More on the "didn't care" side because I was too busy laughing at the people who had been madly exploiting the obviously broken critters getting bitch slapped and whining about it. Shot in the dark: De-leveling characters since it's something that can't be done short of restoring from backups, which wouldn't really be feasible on the scale it was claimed.

[Angel Phoenix77]

In terms of gameplay I think Star Trek Online shares a decent amount of similarities with CoH (ground and space taken separately, each in their own way), and despite the career tracks (Tactical, Engineer, Science) being constructed around the Holy Trinity game content doesn't really require that degree of rigidity in team structure.  Hell, the entire game is easily soloable save for the PvE Queues that require a team in the first place.  The place it falters is in the Quest for Stuff, the horrific grind and PWE's general cash-grabby tactics.

I agree with Star Trek Online sharing some things with City of. if you ever got to the Dysons sphere, listen to the music that plays, I swear it is almost like the Storm Palace.