Dear God, Help Me, I'm trying this again

[Xanthippe]

You can buy both renames and server changes now.  I've not done that, so I don't know how much it costs.

I think you can check to see if a name exists.

I have so far played my 32 fire/fire blaster (Bernadette BBQ), my 32 ill/FF controller (B-Girl), and my 17 grav/rad? controller (Cranky Spouse).  I have been asked to join teams numerous times on each.   None of these are on Virtue or Freedom, the highest pop servers.

I have not found soloing to be hard or a grind, because I'm enjoying the storylines and the actual play.  Xp gain seems to be moving along at a reasonable pace.  I've also been futzing with inventions and the market.  I am enjoying getting salvage drops - the random nature of them is fun.

I still have a 25 nature dominator and a 28 ice corrupter I haven't touched yet and many smaller than 15.

Why are some of my missions with gray mobs?  Is there a badge at the end of the chain?

[tazelbain]

Wait what level was he when you lost his name, if it was above 6, you got screwed.

[Numtini]

The name Kathy (my name) was taken by someone in the LOTRO beta. They played it to, I think 6th, and then left it. It still sits there. I put it on my friends list. I even emailed them in game.

I'd like the name. They're not using it. They're not going to use it.

sorry, I am with ncsoft on that one.

[stray]

Wait what level was he when you lost his name, if it was above 6, you got screwed.

I didn't even check (and now I uninstalled the client).. I thought he was in his teens, but now I think that I might have rerolled him as a dominator (or whatever the CoV controller is), then stopped playing soon afterwards.

[Signe]

They only did that whole name thing once or twice on CoX, right?  Then they dropped the idea because so many people complained.  It would annoy me though I wouldn't care passionately or anthying, but I can understand why it would bother a lot of people.  I thought it was a bad idea for CoX, especially since it's lack of "stuff" makes it hard to stay subbed for extended periods of time for a lot of people.  It seems to be one of those games that many go back to, though.  If the new superhero game has more content and is as fun to play long term as this one is short term, I expect CoX will become very empty, very fast.

[Lantyssa]

The game has been around four years.  They announced their plans for allowing people to take names, and you only lost the name if you were inactive, below a certain level, and someone tried to make a character.  There have also been tons of place-holder characters and people who played a bit then never returned.

I don't think it should happen often, but I'm with Numtini and tazelbain on this.  Recyling names of low level, unused character names is a reasonable thing to do.

[Llava]

If you leveled him higher than 10, you'd still have the name.

If you didn't, why the fuck do you care so much if you couldn't be bothered to play him for that long?

[stray]

Because.

[schild]

That's absurd.

[Hutch]

If you leveled him higher than 10, you'd still have the name.

If you didn't, why the fuck do you care so much if you couldn't be bothered to play him for that long?

[stray]

Hmm, so what's the alternative to being pissed? Am I supposed to like my names getting deleted or something? 


Besides, I already said "Oh well, it's done now" in the first post I complained about this. Then followed up with an explanation with why it might have happened. It's not like I'm here saying that I'm going to sue Cryptic or some shit. So I'd appreciate it if you guys not go there, with the QQ pics. I'm just a little dismayed is all.

[Morat20]

I prefer Dark/Dark, but I'm a wannabe goth.

I have a goth defender (healing) based off the character Abby on NCIS. It was lame, but amused me at the time. Surprisingly fun to play at the time.

I wanted to do Pokemon's Nurse Joy, but it seems that's not the most unique idea in the world. (My son was a huge Pokemon fan at the time)

[Xanthippe]

I wanted to do Pokemon's Nurse Joy, but it seems that's not the most unique idea in the world. (My son was a huge Pokemon fan at the time)

I have an emp defender named Dr. Goodhead.  "Holly Goodhead" was either taken or had too many characters.

[Jimbo]

Hero's on Freedom

Villans on Virtue

Good startup characters for Hero's:
Scrapper -- especially Spines/Regeneration, Broad Sword/Regeneration, hell anything/Regeneration, and pick leaping/fitness as your 1st two power pools and you will have a lot of fun solo or groups.
Tanker  -- Fire/Fire is great solo and pretty decent in groups, the new Willpower looks very promising (haven't played it enough), just remember that it takes longer to do stuff alone with this set
Blaster  --  they are fun, just becareful not to take on a lot of scoundrels at once, I have a soft spot for Assult Rifle/Devices, but have enjoyed a energy/energy blaster lately.

Villians side:
Mastermind  --  read up on how to control your pet's and you will do great in a group or solo
Brute  --  I like my electric/electric, I had a stone/dark and it was a lot of fun but had big time endurance problems...


I currently play a spines/regen hero and a plant/thorn domminator villian, they are a lot of fun.  I have a lot of fun in groups with my trick arrow/archery defender, willpower/battle axe tanker, plant/thorn domminator.

Now if you are building a villian or hero for PvP that is a whole 'nother ball game, depending on where you want to battle and what you want to do.

[Glazius]

I think my favorite toon of all was a simple fire/ice blaster. I remember checking the game out right after they added things like defiance (is that what it's called for blasters? Where damage scales as your health goes down?) and turning into a mega-nuker when I was darn near dead. Was really fun.

Defiance has actually changed now. It's called "defuriance" on the boards, because every attack you land gives you a short-term bonus to damage, more for single-target and close-range attacks. You can get up to about 50% pretty easily.

Also it lets you fire off your first two blast powers and your first support power under the influence of stuns etc.

[Morat20]

I think my favorite toon of all was a simple fire/ice blaster. I remember checking the game out right after they added things like defiance (is that what it's called for blasters? Where damage scales as your health goes down?) and turning into a mega-nuker when I was darn near dead. Was really fun.

Defiance has actually changed now. It's called "defuriance" on the boards, because every attack you land gives you a short-term bonus to damage, more for single-target and close-range attacks. You can get up to about 50% pretty easily.

Also it lets you fire off your first two blast powers and your first support power under the influence of stuns etc.

Aww....I loved the feeling I got when I was hovering there, under 10% health, inspirations exhausted and surrounded by the smoking corpses of my foes and thinking "I AM A FUCKING BADASS!". I guess I can still do that, but it won't feel the same. :)

[Glazius]

I think my favorite toon of all was a simple fire/ice blaster. I remember checking the game out right after they added things like defiance (is that what it's called for blasters? Where damage scales as your health goes down?) and turning into a mega-nuker when I was darn near dead. Was really fun.

Defiance has actually changed now. It's called "defuriance" on the boards, because every attack you land gives you a short-term bonus to damage, more for single-target and close-range attacks. You can get up to about 50% pretty easily.

Also it lets you fire off your first two blast powers and your first support power under the influence of stuns etc.

Aww....I loved the feeling I got when I was hovering there, under 10% health, inspirations exhausted and surrounded by the smoking corpses of my foes and thinking "I AM A FUCKING BADASS!". I guess I can still do that, but it won't feel the same. :)

The "You think you can stop me? YOU CAN'T FUCKING STOP ME!" feeling of taking out an NPC mezzer with the tiny attack chain you get even under mezz is pretty good too.

[Llava]

Hmm, so what's the alternative to being pissed? Am I supposed to like my names getting deleted or something? 


Besides, I already said "Oh well, it's done now" in the first post I complained about this. Then followed up with an explanation with why it might have happened. It's not like I'm here saying that I'm going to sue Cryptic or some shit. So I'd appreciate it if you guys not go there, with the QQ pics. I'm just a little dismayed is all.

All evidence seems to indicate that you really didn't care when you had the name and are now just using it as an excuse to be "dismayed".  That's what I'm calling you on.  It's totally reasonable of them to free up names that have been inactive for months and were never really played, especially in a game like this one.  All of the names I cared about are still waiting for me because I actually used them.  I know the grind is (was) a big complaint with this game, but it's not like level 10 was ever hard to get.

[stray]

/sigh

I don't know why you defend such measures as normal (as far as I know they are not... it's the only game that I've had my name deleted in...hence, I'm "allowed" to be surprised and dismayed on that point alone).

Anyways... Correct, level 10 isn't hard to get. I think you didn't read my explanation though. I had been above that level before. I remember now that I had deleted him (he was well into his teens) because I tried rerolling as a dominator or whatever it was in CoV (and I finally purchased that around a year ago...and it was mainly because I did care enough about that character... the blaster secondary was attractive for Gravity). It turned out to not be what I wanted though, and I simply left it alone for awhile. Hell man, I barely played any PC games since then. I started using Macs again -- and I didn't even have a bootcamp installation until Leopard came out some months ago.

If you want my entire life story on why I can't keep City of Heroes on my mind at all times, then I'll gladly share that with you too. Needless to say, I cared "enough" -- I care as much as every other game out there expects me to care. Just because Cryptic decided to be different doesn't mean that I don't care at all. That's disingenuous fanboi bullshit.

[Ragnoros]

Never mind.

[stray]

Never mind.

You took my name, didn't you?!

[Lantyssa]

I like humorous names and heroes that are half-serious and half-parody.

Go with a Battlestar Galactica Rip-Off.  Reinstall and make your new hero: Mr. Geta Grip.

[Signe]

You can have my Smiley Face Girl or Brick-Outhouse if you like.  Even Creepy Ivy.

[Lantyssa]

She's a BRICK... Outhouse! *dance*

[Xanthippe]

I'll give you Icy London if you want her.

[Morat20]

Well, rolled a superhero on Virtue -- Fire/ice blaster.

toon name -- and global chat name -- is Blazing Ice.

(Yes, stupid name. But hell, all the good ones are taken....)

[Lantyssa]

A great fire/ice blaster name would be Ginnungagap.

[Trippy]

Why are some of my missions with gray mobs?  Is there a badge at the end of the chain?

Storyline missions usually have a cap on how high the mobs inside them will go (no it doesn't make sense to me either). You can tell you are on a storyline misison by the little book icon that shows up when you view a mission from the Contacts screen. At the end of a chain of storyline missions there's often an extra reward (usually a DO or SO that you can choose from a list).

[Glazius]

Why are some of my missions with gray mobs?  Is there a badge at the end of the chain?

Storyline missions usually have a cap on how high the mobs inside them will go (no it doesn't make sense to me either). You can tell you are on a storyline misison by the little book icon that shows up when you view a mission from the Contacts screen. At the end of a chain of storyline missions there's often an extra reward (usually a DO or SO that you can choose from a list).

Actually, all contacts have a cap on how high the level of their mission will be. If you've got a yellow-backed book icon from a contact they'll keep giving you missions so you can finish up the story, even after you've outleveled them.

Also, some enemies just won't spawn over a certain level. I think this has only been used for effect once, a mission from Indigo or Crimson to take down some Malta before they ruin a fledgling hero's life. In one of the side-rooms are the Skulls the Malta have hired to take credit for defeating the much more experienced hero. They're capped at 14 and you can probably just roll over them. That's the point.

[climbjtree]

This MMO was the first since Asheron's Call that I really enjoyed. Sadly, I'm running an ATI card, and can't play. Would it be ridiculous to start building a new computer just to play CoH again?

[Lantyssa]

A new video card would be cheaper.

[Morat20]

Lantyssa: I missed your global chat handle. :)

As for ATI's -- I have a Radeon 9200 (I think -- it's ATI for sure), and CoH seems to run fine. What's the problem with ATI cards?

Also, apparently I can choose between a permanent Ghost Slaying Axe or Sands of Mu. Any reason to choose one over the other?

[Signe]

I like Sands of Mu.  It satisfies my "slapping someone silly" cravings.

[Jimbo]

I usually go with Sands of Mu for magic or mutant origin charactes, and ghost slaying axe for the others.  These two aren't affected though, later on you will have a choice in range powers and that origin will play into how much damage you do with it (Blackwand and Nemesis Staff).

My scrapper spines/regen is of mutant origin, so I gave him Sands of Mu and Blackwand.  My defender trick arrow/archery is of natural origin so I gave him ghost slaying axe and Nemesis Staff.  There is some debate in that negative energy is nicer to have than smashing damage, if you want to go that route, then Blackwand and Sands of Mu is better.  Sands of Mu is also a melee cone attack, so it can hit three bad guys or more sometimes.

[Morat20]

I think I'll go with Sands of Mu.

So -- the ATI cards? I've got one and haven't seen a problem. Is it just some cards, or what?