The Glade 4.0

That's right, the day of its official launch, Champions is already teasing us with information about its first major content patch!

Not a surprise from Cryptic, but it's pretty nifty-lookin'. I mean, come on -- kicking off the game's updates with a zombies and werewolves event? What a great way to spread the interest!

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Zombies are so underrated!

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Sometimes it's the tiger or the tiger

"But Amdee, darling, you're a homicidal maniac..."-Mickell

Got in on the Early Access (No thanks to GameStop, but that's another story), and finally picked up my copy yesterday. Really annoyed with the respec costs atm. They keep saying they fixed them, but they are still way too expensive. I think maybe they are "balancing" the costs for lvl 40, instead of the lower levels. I don't know, but its getting really annoying.

Also not sure why they did a sweeping change to all sorts of powers the day of launch. Wasn't that what the Closed/Open Beta and Early access was for? And not only that, but the only mention of this in the notes was about passive defensive skills, yet many other offensive powers got hosed, and several non-passive powers had their energy costs increased. And yet no mention of these in the notes at all.

And thanks to these changes, and the ridiculous respec costs, I've got a lvl 10 toon that I'm going to have to re-roll now. Thanks, Cryptic!

I had high hopes for this game, after playing the open beta, but so far, I can't really say I'm impressed.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

Cryptic acknowledged the high prices for respecs and have dropped the cost a lot. Also any characters that were created during the head start period will be given a free full respec, they just have to put that ability in the game which is forthcoming.

So who's all in game? I'm @Aizle. Colphax and I have found each other, but who else is playing? Anyone have a Super Group going, interest in starting one?

@Jomero

I wouldn't mind being a part of a SG with glade members. If nobody wants to start one, I could. But... any guild I create will be a very casual one and will always remain so. I've attempted to walk the fine line between casual and hardcore guilds multiple times in the past, and I refuse to straddle that fence again.

If people are cool with that, then let's do it!

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Indeed, any guild I'm looking for would be casual as well. I don't really care who the "leader" is, but let's bounce around some names here and agree on something decent. While Gladers Anon might be cute, I'd like something super hero like.

The Glade League of Justice!

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Holy shitsnacks!

Some quick ideas:

Omega Sector (from True Lies... not superhero-y but I like the idea of being the last and final response =])
Champions of Fortune
Section 31 (the super-secret offshoot of Starfleet, introduced in DS9)
Great League of Adventurers Defending Earth (G.L.A.D.E. name might be too long though)
Casual Response

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I like "Casual Response"

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Holy shitsnacks!

Which is silly, because this ability was available in the Open Beta. Granted, it only went back to your last 10 selections, but the ability was still there.

Also, yes, they have acknowledged it every patch, and have stated that "it's fixed" every patch, as well. And then when you get in game, it's still absurdly expensive.

For instance, I took my character to the powerhouse in the desert once I was out of the tutorial. I was level 6 at the time, and I wanted to respec out of one of the automatically selected powers for my power set. It was a little over 400 Resources. I had just over 300 resources. So I sold everything I had, and was still 50 resources short. So I quested a bit to earn the rest. Well, because I leveled to 7 while questing, when I went back to the powerhouse, the cost had jumped to 750 resources. Just from gainng 1 level, the price almost doubled. And I still hadn't bought or respec'ed any powers at that point. Granted, it has come down A LITTLE since the latest patch, but no where near enough. There's no way a lvl 6 or 7 character can have that many resources without some outside help. And yet, everytime they say they fixed it, I log in to see that they failed, yet again. That's why I think that they are balancing the cost based on level 40 characters, instead of lowbies.

Also, keep in mind, that I got fed up with it, and haven't logged in to check in a few days.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

If we want to keep fairly roleplay like (which I would be for) I like Omega Sector the best.

Casual Response is good if we aren't trying to roleplay, but I still think I like Omega Sector better. Plus from a costume standpoint, I think there is an Omega symbol for the various insignia costume bits, which might be cool.

Right, and it's still there including respecing all the way back to the beginning, no longer limited to 10. However, what isn't there is a mechanism for making it free for one subset of players (head start toons) and not everyone. That is the part they have to create.

Yes, respecing everything at lvl 5/6 can be a little spendy, but honestly the only reason to respec at lvl 5/6 is if you don't like the starting non-energy power, and if you work a little at it, it's not that tough to get those resources. Not ideal certainly, but also not untennable IMHO.

True, I guess the part that's really irritating for me, is that the cost goes up every level, whether you've already respec'ed or not. That's pretty silly, IMO. I think it should be more like WoW, where the cost goes up every time you respec, and it's not based on your toon's level.

Otherwise, you run into the problem that I had, where you wind up leveling while you're trying to earn the money to respec, and it ends up costing you much more money than it should have.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

I tried to do a mix, but yeah I tend to lean more towards a more serious (sounding) name than not. I am a fan of names with a very subtle hint of wit, humor, or geekishness. Like my guild in WoW was Grabthar's Hammer. It's a very fantasy sounding name, but it also comes from Galaxy Quest (By Grabthar's Hammer, you shall be avenged!) and it was subtle enough that few people would make the connection.

Since "Omega Sector" comes from a not-so-serious movie, it has that flavor that I like. And you're right, it would be even better to design costumes around if the greek Omega symbol is one of the options.

I put Casual Response up there for the double entendre (firefox claims that's spelled wrong... silly firefox) as well as it lets people know up front it's a casual guild.

But if people like the idea of Omega Sector more, I say let's do it. But again these are just a few quick ideas I had. I am definitely open to more ideas if people have them.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I'll check the costumes tonight after work to see if the Omega symbol is there.

Confirmed, the Omega symbol is available for costumes.

Off to work---but I'm also kinda liking The Omega Sector.

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Women are from Hoboken, men are from Trenton. ~ Jimmy Kimmel

Omega Sector has been formed! Kaffis and Aizle are officers (as well as a few others) so give any of us a tell in game if you would like to join!

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I'm @warrito, I'll be happy to sign up for Omega Sector.

I'll look for Kaffis or Aizle tonight.

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Raell Kromwell

Asterisks in the link. Linky no work.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Fixed Link.

http://brokentoys.org/2009/09/09/busy-b ... ment-34379

Interesting commentary.

I haven't found the nerfs to be all that annoying, in some ways I'm actually finding it refreshing to have to pay attention when killing trash mobs again. Most MMOGs these days are easy mode anyway. And with no death penalty, it's not like failing a little is all that debilitating.

I do agree with his commentary on the respec costs. I really dislike that you can't change the one skill you got early on, without having a HUGE amount of cost associated to it. Especially since many of the power combinations don't really work well together, I think that cheaper full respecs are going to be necessary. Hopefully that is something that they will put into the game.

Other than that, I'm enjoying the game quite a bit.

One of the things I like about WoW that most MMO's lack is a sense of visceral response. In other words, I hit this button, and my character and UI do something dramatic and exciting.

That, I felt, was one of the failings of CoH - I hit my button, and then it would wait, and then something would happen, and my next queued ability would happen, and it all felt very choppy.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

You get that feel from Champions Online, much more so IMHO than in WoW.

In Wow, to be doing a good job at what your role is, you've got to be focused on your rotation, especially if you're DPS. So it's very rare that you get to appreciate one big attack or similar, you're in the zone timing your rotation to maximize your DPS, heals or threat. It's fun when it all works right, but it's not really flashy.

I like the charge-up powers and manual blocking. Definitely makes the game more interactive.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!