Could the old crafting social instances be turned into supergroup bases?

[JRVthatsME]

This is something I've been thinking about for a while and I'm wondering what the rest of ye might think. The old crafting system that used to be in Champions Online used to have 6 special social instance stores for more advanced crafting, which now don't really serve any purpose. I know that three of them can still be entered and that the entrances for the remaining three no longer function, though maybe the instance itself still exist without a way for players to go there. Anyway considering that each of these instances are fairly big and were originally made to have venders and crafting stations it occurs to me that with the addition of a few features that supergroup members could upgrade (sort of like in Star Trek Online) and a way to assign a particular number of one of these instances as belonging to a supergroup, restricting entrance to supergroup members and those invited by supergroup members, and having the particular instance refer to a database that determines what features and how far they are upgraded based on recording what supergroup members have done to get those feature that these places may work as a reasonable supergroup mechanic in the game. The places I'm talking about are as follows.

Enchanted Gear Store


Fighting Dojo


Invention Shop


Mutations Store


Arcana Store


There was also an Ordnance Store but I can't find the picture for it. One way in which I was thinking that these could be useful for supergroup is if they changed the amount of gear slots players have back to 9 like so.


But change the top 3 slots to hold enhancement (I'm using this word since I can't think of a better one off hand) offense, defense and utility gear instead of secondary or primary gear. Then flag all the old crafting system primary gear, including the power replace gear and the like as enhancement gear that can only go into the top 3 slots and can only be made in a supergroup base that has a crafting station upgraded to a high enough level for the enhancement gear to be crafted. Anyway these are just thoughts and I'd like to hear what others think of them. It might be a way that  basic supergroup bases could be added to Champions Online using resources that already exist in the game.

[Xev]

Still can't believe I blew all that coin on my first guy for crafting skill-ups only to find out that crafting is what it is today.

I've got nothing. Never got to see the old crafting system and have never joined a SG.

[Eldershinjo]

 

I didn't even know those places existed. Darn, they look pretty nice too.
I'm clueless as to how much work it would take to use them as Super Group Bases though.

[JRVthatsME]

Well i guess the best thing to do would be to let everyone know where the few places that can still be accessed are so ye can take a look at them. nearly all the features that used to be in them have been removed or disabled, but each on still has 1 thing (different in each place) you can interact with to summon/unsummon the staff for the shop. In the pics I'm posting of the entrances I'm also showing the /loc (short for Location) coordinates where they can be found. Just type /loc and press enter to see the coordinates of where you currently are. The first number is East/West, the second is Up/Down, and the third is North/South.

First the Mystic Foundry, across from the Magic Lantern Bookstore.


Next the Workshop.


Finally the Armory.


These seem to be the only ones that can still be accessed.

As for the old crafting system I'll try to give as much information as I can. First this youtube link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN5NMMTwqDs
Another thing that could be done with some of the higher level crafted gear is when you are crafting them you could opt to do some extra work on the item to add some extra properties like bonuses to crit and the like. There were also some special consumable devices that could be crafted too.

Click on this like to a page on the wiki that will link to selections of items that could be crafted in the old system. Just click on any of the three links under ARMS, SCIENCE, MYSTICISM.

Many of the old primary gear also had extra features such as Click Upgrades http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Click_Upgrades (Although most click upgrades have been remade as legacy devices in the drifter store, though i believe the originals still exist in game and that some players still have some in their banks/inventory).

Power Replace Items: http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Power_Replace_Items

and Proc Upgrades: http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Category:Proc_Upgrades

[Todogut]

You have the Teleios' Tower and Viper's Nest missions, requiring a team of five. Sounds like fun. Let's gather a team!

[General Idiot]

You have the Teleios' Tower and Viper's Nest missions, requiring a team of five. Sounds like fun. Let's gather a team!

There's actually a few more of those too. There's Dr Destroyer's factory at level 27 in Millennium City, Teleios Tower in Canada at level 30... Monster Island has three, and Lemuria has one too I think. They're basically WoW style 5 man dungeons. In my personal opinion none of them are terribly good, either. A lot of the problems with the game's combat system show up a lot more against mobs balanced for five people - most notably, that crowd control is infinitely more effective in the hands of an npc than it is when used by any player.