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A scene I would like to see in COT

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Cyclops
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A scene I would like to see in COT

http://black-falcon01.deviantart.com/art/Asset-out-of-Containment-539352205

Every mad scientist has one of these about to break out, right?
maybe we could have one wander about the city eating NPCs...that would make a cool video.

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... because ...

... because ...


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....

....

I don't know what I just watched, but I must have more of it!!!!

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... or were you thinking ...

... or were you thinking ...


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Seen Attack on Titan, even

Seen Attack on Titan, even went with my wife to the live action movie (ow, ow, ow,painful)... it was the second one I'd not seen before

Technical Director

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I think that if Harry Dresden

I think that if Harry Dresden can ride a reanimated T-Rex skeleton through Chicago, then we need at least a taste of something like that.

(insert pithy comment here)

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Dark Ether wrote:
Dark Ether wrote:

I think that if Harry Dresden can ride a reanimated T-Rex skeleton through Chicago, then we need at least a taste of something like that.

Don't make me dig out the.... FAT UNICORN!!!

https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/fat-unicorn

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

it was the second one I'd not seen before

Ms. Kobayashi's Dragon Maid just finished its 12 episode run. It's available on Crunchyroll.


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

... because ...

Without a doubt, Kanna is the cutest character I've ever seen in anime. Where did you find that AoT parady!? sugoi! awesome!


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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I'm not sayin', but in the

I'm not sayin', but in the immortal words of Bon Jovi, "Whoa, we're half way there."

https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/raptor-dinosaur-animated

(insert pithy comment here)

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This is sort of like a T. Rex

This is sort of like a T. Rex:

https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/little-yellow-duck

Perhaps more scary, too.

(insert pithy comment here)

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I'd like to see an invasion

I'd like to see an invasion of flying enemies (demons, dragons, jet-pack storm-troopers, etc.) sweeping into the city from the horizon. I'm thinking Wizard of Oz flying monkeys or Apocalypse Now helicopter assault. As the enemies get closer, the heroes would be able to determine the main target(s) of the assault, and would need to move to head them off.

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Potato-Girl wrote:
Potato-Girl wrote:

I'd like to see an invasion of flying enemies (demons, dragons, jet-pack storm-troopers, etc.) sweeping into the city from the horizon. I'm thinking Wizard of Oz flying monkeys or Apocalypse Now helicopter assault. As the enemies get closer, the heroes would be able to determine the main target(s) of the assault, and would need to move to head them off.

Well, this is how the Rikti Invasion events played out at the end:

Note the spaceships flying in from a distance, dropping bombs and firing big yellow-green bolts of doom they fire from overhead blasting any hero in reach.

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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Lin Chiao Feng wrote:
Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

Potato-Girl wrote:
I'd like to see an invasion of flying enemies (demons, dragons, jet-pack storm-troopers, etc.) sweeping into the city from the horizon. I'm thinking Wizard of Oz flying monkeys or Apocalypse Now helicopter assault. As the enemies get closer, the heroes would be able to determine the main target(s) of the assault, and would need to move to head them off.
Well, this is how the Rikti Invasion events played out at the end:

Note the spaceships flying in from a distance, dropping bombs and firing big yellow-green bolts of doom they fire from overhead blasting any hero in reach.

I saw someone in chat talking about getting a league together to take down a Dropship... so here's some of us doing it. Twice.
Part I:

Part II:

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Yeah, I remember that. Worked

Yeah, I remember that. Worked, what, a couple times before the devs buffed up the ships so much you couldn't do it any more.

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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Lin Chiao Feng wrote:
Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

Yeah, I remember that. Worked, what, a couple times before the devs buffed up the ships so much you couldn't do it any more.

Previously, they could be slowed and such. They buffed them so they couldn't be effected in such a manner, but they could still be damaged. And damage them we did.

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Lin Chiao Feng wrote:
Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

Yeah, I remember that. Worked, what, a couple times before the devs buffed up the ships so much you couldn't do it any more.

Why would they do that? It's awesome that with enough high-level heroes you could actually take down a ship. I wonder what their thinking was?

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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Empyrean wrote:
Empyrean wrote:
Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

Yeah, I remember that. Worked, what, a couple times before the devs buffed up the ships so much you couldn't do it any more.

Why would they do that? It's awesome that with enough high-level heroes you could actually take down a ship.

I never had an opportunity to attempt to bring down a ship, but I definitely share your sentiment, Empyrean. I sincerely hope that nothing is invincible in CoT either. The possibility that an entire army corps of heroes and villains could come together to take out a squadron of drop ships gives me goosebumps just thinking of it. I can just imagine the cheers, hoots and hollers in Voice chat if one is finally taken out...


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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If memory serves, it was

If memory serves, it was because they were never intended, by the devs, to be one of the objectives. Which, I'm pretty sure, drove the players to want it more.

And yes, it was pretty amazing.

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Bringing down the drop ships

Bringing down the drop ships didn't get you a badge or more than a token amount of prestige and inf. They were completely flavor.

The devs wanted your butts on the ground clearing Rikti foot soldiers with everyone else. Remember, spawn rate was increased the more players you had.

... Which, of course, led to too much lag and overloaded servers.

So the way it typically worked was that most damage was done by pets and AoEs because by the time a MOB showed up on your client, it was already dead. There was also a bug where the MOB would be targetable but undamageable before and during its teleport-in period, and would sometimes be visible before teleport-in (it would just appear there, then after a couple seconds, disappear and start the teleport-in animation). So by the time you could shoot it, everyone's AoEs and pets (which don't have network lag) killed it.

So of course folks would go look for their fun elsewhere. I just hadn't heard of enough folks getting together to take down a dropship by brute force.

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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Lin Chiao Feng wrote:
Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

I just hadn't heard of enough folks getting together to take down a dropship by brute force.

Did any one manage to bring one down some other way, like hacking their autopilot or jamming their radar altimeters? ^_^

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It was actually brought up at

It was actually brought up at the Spring 2012 Player Summit, where Positron looked over at a very contrite Arbiter Hawk and said that he had been assured (in no uncertain terms!) that the Drop Ships could not be defeated AT ALL ... and then the Players went out and proved Arbiter Hawk decisively WRONG, because Players are sneaky little bah'stids that way. So since the ships were supposed to be unkillable, they had to go about MAKING them actually unkillable, because that was the design intent in the first place.


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*is "not" writing a short

*is "not" writing a short story where heroes take down the fully armed and operational Rikti mothership flying into Titan City after having destroyed Paragon.*

Curious about an event like this. IF there were a large dynamic entity flying in over the bay (did anyone else read that in Serg Tankian's voice?) Would anyone with a clear line of sight be able to see it? IE is the draw distance for a significantly large object greater such that it could be seen from farther away?

If not could you use a ominous cloud or fog effect which was visible at substantial range to disguise the instancing of such a large event? IE there wouldn't be a "event bulletin" in chat but you could look out and see..."sh*t getting real over there"

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You might want to make two

You might want to make two altitude ceilings. One for player that we can't exceed in the vertically upward direction, and a second one for the NPCs, clouds, alien ships, satellites, the moon, etc.

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Lin Chiao Feng wrote:
Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

I just hadn't heard of enough folks getting together to take down a dropship by brute force.

At least it wasn't a trivial task during the short period of time that it was possible and that short period was ONLY during the beta of the event. I saw around a dozen of those ships get popped during several different encounters. As mentioned the main trick was to slow them down enough so that the slow-pokes of the group could catch up to the ships and collectively damage them enough to crash them.

To be clear they were only killable via that slowing exploit during the BETA of the event. By the time the event was officially "live" they had already nerfed them. So technically I'm not sure anyone actually killed a dropship "for real" during live play.

Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

Bringing down the drop ships didn't get you a badge or more than a token amount of prestige and inf. They were completely flavor.

Posi did say at one point he specifically did not want the dropships to award a badge for killing them. Based on what Redlynne said about Posi's belief that they were ALWAYS unkillable seems to match up with that. ;)

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

... or were you thinking ...

As long as you don't have anything as bad as Mike's death in the anime then I am fine with Titan-like NPCs being unleashed (or eating and escaping) by some mad scientist.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

To be clear they were only killable via that slowing exploit during the BETA of the event. By the time the event was officially "live" they had already nerfed them. So technically I'm not sure anyone actually killed a dropship "for real" during live play.

As posted previously.
Not just once (dated 8 Sep 2012 in Kings Row),

But twice (dated 8 Sep 2012 in Steel Canyon)!

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

You might want to make two altitude ceilings. One for player that we can't exceed in the vertically upward direction, and a second one for the NPCs, clouds, alien ships, satellites, the moon, etc.

That would make a great event. Shooting down the moon...

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Cobalt Azurean wrote:
Cobalt Azurean wrote:

As posted previously.
Not just once (dated 8 Sep 2012 in Kings Row),
But twice (dated 8 Sep 2012 in Steel Canyon)!

Right... but during the beta period of that event (where they tested it for several days on the Test Server before it officially went live) we killed like 7 or 8 of them in maybe 15 minutes. Based on that specific beta testing alone the Dropships were severely nerfed before they went live.

So as I said I was NOT SURE anyone managed to kill one after they were nerfed but of course I'm not omnipresent so I suppose it could have happened. I played on Virtue so obviously I don't know what happened on Champion. I also don't remember the specific dates the beta testing took place but I'll take your word on it that the vids you posted (dated 8 Sep 2012) were NOT taken during the beta testing.

P.S. Funny story - There were several players who made a huge deal out of killing all those Dropships during the beta. For literally years after it happened they praised themselves on the old CoH forums like they were the "Kings of the Game" for killing a bunch of what were effectively "broken" critters during a beta test like it was a real accomplishment. For what it's worth I'd only consider it a "real" accomplishment if you were a part of killing one on the live servers. *shrugs*

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Cobalt Azurean wrote:
As posted previously.
Not just once (dated 8 Sep 2012 in Kings Row),
But twice (dated 8 Sep 2012 in Steel Canyon)!
Right... but during the beta period of that event (where they tested it for several days on the Test Server before it officially went live) we killed like 7 or 8 of them in maybe 15 minutes. Based on that specific beta testing alone the Dropships were severely nerfed before they went live.
So as I said I was NOT SURE anyone managed to kill one after they were nerfed but of course I'm not omnipresent so I suppose it could have happened. I played on Virtue so obviously I don't know what happened on Champion. I also don't remember the specific dates the beta testing took place but I'll take your word on it that the vids you posted (dated 8 Sep 2012) were NOT taken during the beta testing.
P.S. Funny story - There were several players who made a huge deal out of killing all those Dropships during the beta. For literally years after it happened they praised themselves on the old CoH forums like they were the "Kings of the Game" for killing a bunch of what were effectively "broken" critters during a beta test like it was a real accomplishment. For what it's worth I'd only consider it a "real" accomplishment if you were a part of killing one on the live servers. *shrugs*

Per Paragon Wiki, Closed Beta started 13 June 2007, Open Beta started 27 June 2007, and it went live 24 July 2007.
Those videos were from Sep 2012, as stated previously, so it's safe to say that it was accomplished after. Honestly, sitting on two separate videos for five years to upload them to try and make it seem like it happened not in Beta seems a bit of a stretch. That's not to say some people haven't gone to certain and even extreme lengths to mislead people, but c'mon now.

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Grimfox wrote:
Grimfox wrote:

*is "not" writing a short story where heroes take down the fully armed and operational Rikti mothership flying into Titan City after having destroyed Paragon.*
Curious about an event like this. IF there were a large dynamic entity flying in over the bay (did anyone else read that in Serg Tankian's voice?) Would anyone with a clear line of sight be able to see it? IE is the draw distance for a significantly large object greater such that it could be seen from farther away?
If not could you use a ominous cloud or fog effect which was visible at substantial range to disguise the instancing of such a large event? IE there wouldn't be a "event bulletin" in chat but you could look out and see..."sh*t getting real over there"

Should be able to.

Honestly, a big problem we have currently is being able to disguise the edge of the world, that's how far the draw distance is.

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

Should be able to.
Honestly, a big problem we have currently is being able to disguise the edge of the world, that's how far the draw distance is.

I don't envy you with that problem. Kind of makes me think of a fish bowl. I wonder what the fish see from the inside.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Cobalt Azurean wrote:
Cobalt Azurean wrote:

Per Paragon Wiki, Closed Beta started 13 June 2007, Open Beta started 27 June 2007, and it went live 24 July 2007.
Those videos were from Sep 2012, as stated previously, so it's safe to say that it was accomplished after. Honestly, sitting on two separate videos for five years to upload them to try and make it seem like it happened not in Beta seems a bit of a stretch. That's not to say some people haven't gone to certain and even extreme lengths to mislead people, but c'mon now.

I'm not really suggesting anyone was deliberately trying to be sneaky about this. But if you actually want to go down the "conspiracy theorist" path I would point out that Sept 2012 was just a few weeks after the announcement that the game was being shut down by NCsoft. For all we know the person who posted these vids might have made them years earlier (during the event beta?) and was only motivated to post them when they did (in 2012) as part of a "memorial" for a game that was getting shut down.

Simply put there is no proof that the vids were MADE in Sept 2012. We only have proof that they were POSTED in Sept 2012.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Cobalt Azurean wrote:
Per Paragon Wiki, Closed Beta started 13 June 2007, Open Beta started 27 June 2007, and it went live 24 July 2007.
Those videos were from Sep 2012, as stated previously, so it's safe to say that it was accomplished after. Honestly, sitting on two separate videos for five years to upload them to try and make it seem like it happened not in Beta seems a bit of a stretch. That's not to say some people haven't gone to certain and even extreme lengths to mislead people, but c'mon now.
I'm not really suggesting anyone was deliberately trying to be sneaky about this. But if you actually want to go down the "conspiracy theorist" path I would point out that Sept 2012 was just a few weeks after the announcement that the game was being shut down by NCsoft. For all we know the person who posted these vids might have made them years earlier (during the event beta?) and was only motivated to post them when they did (in 2012) as part of a "memorial" for a game that was getting shut down.
Simply put there is no proof that the vids were MADE in Sept 2012. We only have proof that they were POSTED in Sept 2012.

There is, however, proof that the vids were made after the beta, however. The videos demonstrate Ultra Mode, which was not introduced until Issue 17, on April 28, 2010.

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

There is, however, proof that the vids were made after the beta, however. The videos demonstrate Ultra Mode, which was not introduced until Issue 17, on April 28, 2010.

Ha... made'ya look. ;)

But seriously I never categorically said with absolute certainty (or proof) that no one killed a Dropship after the beta. I just said I wasn't SURE anyone had simply based on how relatively easy they were to kill during the beta versus after they were nerfed.

To be hyper-honest I played so many thousands of hours of CoH that for all I know I was involved with killing a few Dropships AFTER the beta myself but I simply don't remember it as being significant. The whole laughable scenario of people thinking that killing a bunch of them during the beta was a "big deal" basically soured my entire experience with whether or not ANYONE had ever killed ANY of them at ANY time.

Posi said it was essentially a "mistake" that the game allowed people to kill them at all. I suspect that like Lin Chiao Feng most people never even knew they were killable in the first place. I'm willing to take all that into consideration for what it's worth. *shrugs*

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As some measure of proof, I

As some measure of proof, I participated in an event on Virtue server in which we destroyed 41 dropships, in Talos and PI, in 2008. The event was demorecorded by Samuraiko and appears on her Youtube archive channel (you're probably familiar with her CoH-promoting videos). We coordinated enough group-flyers so that everyone could maintain damage (since the dropships could not be slowed), and if I recall correctly, actually had two team-clusters so we could cover both dropship routes and boost our kill count.

Good times...

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I recall the whole discussion

I recall the whole discussion over dropship kills and my attitude is:

If it has a hit-point bar, it should be killable.

I, for one, will be looking forward to seeing how soon before an Aether Pirate Cloud Cruiser is brought down.

Technical Director

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

I recall the whole discussion over dropship kills and my attitude is:
If it has a hit-point bar, it should be killable.
I, for one, will be looking forward to seeing how soon before an Aether Pirate Cloud Cruiser is brought down.

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Scott Jackson wrote:
Scott Jackson wrote:

As some measure of proof, I participated in an event on Virtue server in which we destroyed 41 dropships, in Talos and PI, in 2008. The event was demorecorded by Samuraiko and appears on her Youtube archive channel (you're probably familiar with her CoH-promoting videos). We coordinated enough group-flyers so that everyone could maintain damage (since the dropships could not be slowed), and if I recall correctly, actually had two team-clusters so we could cover both dropship routes and boost our kill count.
Good times...

Again I said I wasn't SURE it had happened after massive nerfing that occurred during beta testing. Clearly it did. Like I said my omnipresence isn't perfect. ;)

But frankly after I was involved in several gatherings where it was possible to kill a Dropship every 60 to 90 seconds by simply mashing buttons with a few dozen random strangers who's only collective tactic was being able to fly fast enough made the very concept of "Dropship Popping" something I never thought was all that impressive, worth recording or worth bothering to do after the beta.

The fact that I truly seriously didn't recall that anybody ever bothered to try to kill Dropships AFTER the beta is testament to the fact that it was not something I considered a cool/memorable thing to do. Get back to me if you managed to do something genuinely praiseworthy like earn all the "Master" Trial/TF badges on TWO different characters - now that's something I'd pat you on the head and give you a cookie for.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

I recall the whole discussion over dropship kills and my attitude is:
If it has a hit-point bar, it should be killable.
I, for one, will be looking forward to seeing how soon before an Aether Pirate Cloud Cruiser is brought down.

All things considered if the CoH Devs seriously did not want Dropships to ever be killable they should have made them literally unkillable. The idea of attaching a "hit-point bar" to a thing that is not supposed to die is at the very least counterintuitive and at worst a "tease" to tempt players into wasting their time trying to beat an element of the game that's simply badly designed.

Hopefully the CoT Devs will learn this lesson in CoT. If something is supposed to be unkillable don't give it any hit points. ;)

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Doctor Tyche wrote:
I recall the whole discussion over dropship kills and my attitude is:
If it has a hit-point bar, it should be killable.
I, for one, will be looking forward to seeing how soon before an Aether Pirate Cloud Cruiser is brought down.
All things considered if the CoH Devs seriously did not want Dropships to ever be killable they should have made them literally unkillable. The idea of attaching a "hit-point bar" to a thing that is not supposed to die is at the very least counterintuitive and at worst a "tease" to tempt players into wasting their time trying to beat an element of the game that's simply badly designed.
Hopefully the CoT Devs will learn this lesson in CoT. If something is supposed to be unkillable don't give it any hit points. ;)

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Scott Jackson wrote:
Scott Jackson wrote:

As some measure of proof, I participated in an event on Virtue server in which we destroyed 41 dropships, in Talos and PI, in 2008. The event was demorecorded by Samuraiko and appears on her Youtube archive channel (you're probably familiar with her CoH-promoting videos). We coordinated enough group-flyers so that everyone could maintain damage (since the dropships could not be slowed), and if I recall correctly, actually had two team-clusters so we could cover both dropship routes and boost our kill count.
Good times...

41? Jebus. That is impressive. I think the most we on Champion took down was 18, but that was based off someone's comment on one of our YouTube videos posted directly after an earlier Dropship Challenge on 18 July 2009 (two years after Issue 10 beta).

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Cobalt Azurean wrote:
Cobalt Azurean wrote:

41? Jebus. That is impressive. I think the most we on Champion took down was 18, but that was based off someone's comment on one of our YouTube videos posted directly after an earlier Dropship Challenge on 18 July 2009 (two years after Issue 10 beta).

I still contend that getting a few dozen people to shoot at a flying moving target for a minute or two and then rinse/repeat a few dozen times was not -that- impressive by the standards of "truly difficult things to accomplish in CoH".

But I will concede one point that's interesting in light of Posi's apparent claim that he never wanted/intended Dropships to be killable in CoH: If the Dropships were supposedly meant to be unkillable why did the CoH Devs bother to include a relatively cool looking "nuclear fireball" type explosion effect after a Dropship was popped? If you think about it there shouldn't be any kind of fancy unique "death animation" attached to something that was never supposed to die in the first place. ;)

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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I'd give you folks on the

I'd give you folks on the Champion server equal credit. We really only hit 41 on Virtue because the whole organizing team stayed around for a second zone (PI) invasion, which just happened to occur almost immediately after the first.

The fact that it was coordinated in Talos zone chat with plenty of volunteering strangers, before we'd really been "taught" to cooperate on that scale via incarnate trials and leagues is, to me, impressive in its own right.

Here's to hoping we have several similar PUG-able zone-wide challenges of varying difficulties, with at least one in the lower levels so newbies can witness the firepower of our fully-armed and operational ba...uh...super power lightshow. It's a sneak peek at how awesome a character's endgame powers will be, and is oddly missing from most MMOs as a treat to entice new players - especially those on a free trial.

Not sure if the Atlas Park invasions that hit right at the zone-in point from the tutorial were a bit over the top, but that must have been a unique experience to new players when it did happen. I'd love to see occasional things like that, to draw max-level players together with players level 5-and-up. Skyway's troll rave and KR paladin construction almost qualified, as they caused strange activity around the zone, but sadly offered little motivation for higher-level players to join (or even know that the event was occurring).

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Scott Jackson wrote:
Scott Jackson wrote:

I'd give you folks on the Champion server equal credit. We really only hit 41 on Virtue because the whole organizing team stayed around for a second zone (PI) invasion, which just happened to occur almost immediately after the first.
The fact that it was coordinated in Talos zone chat with plenty of volunteering strangers, before we'd really been "taught" to cooperate on that scale via incarnate trials and leagues is, to me, impressive in its own right.

Agreed. And I've reached out to some people for confirmation of our number, mostly out of curiosity. @Fanged Knight and @Cherry Cupcakes and their Stoned Templars SG led the Dropship Challenge on Champion, and they were in our SG alliance. They're good people and we've stayed in touch with them since the shutdown. @Jonnie Neutron, one of their members who was also there, contends that the number was closer to the thirties, but can't remember the exact number through the years.

Scott Jackson wrote:

Here's to hoping we have several similar PUG-able zone-wide challenges of varying difficulties, with at least one in the lower levels so newbies can witness the firepower of our fully-armed and operational ba...uh...super power lightshow. It's a sneak peek at how awesome a character's endgame powers will be, and is oddly missing from most MMOs as a treat to entice new players - especially those on a free trial.
Not sure if the Atlas Park invasions that hit right at the zone-in point from the tutorial were a bit over the top, but that must have been a unique experience to new players when it did happen. I'd love to see occasional things like that, to draw max-level players together with players level 5-and-up. Skyway's troll rave and KR paladin construction almost qualified, as they caused strange activity around the zone, but sadly offered little motivation for higher-level players to join (or even know that the event was occurring).

Again, agreed. Drama aside (we had a lot on Champ), I always enjoyed Hami Raids or really any organized event in the game, mostly in that I enjoyed the social element of players coming together to overcome a task or objective that they normally couldn't do alone. So when Invasions came along, be they from the Riki Homeworld, or more traditional raids like the Incarnate Trials, I was all about them. And I definitely hope some measure of advanced teaming or raiding makes it into CoT.
Additionally, I was a hardcore monster hunter. If I wasn't mildly involved in something else, I would almost certainly help out other players with giant monsters and their badges. It was actually one of the motivations for me to roll my first debuffer, a rad/rad defender. Ironically, it was also the reason that I deleted my first debuffer, but that's a story for another time. It was more personal motivation than anything else that kept me, a higher level player, going to KR or Skyway or Perez Park or wherever. I would still like to see similar events in CoT that happen in lower level zones. Now, do I think every zone needs an event of some sort? Not so much, but if there is, it should be something along the lines that enhances the lore and fits into the flavor of the zone.

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For what it's worth I'm not

For what it's worth I'm not against events in MMOs that require a large number of players to get together to accomplish something. If you count things like trials, TFs, Hami raids and other zone events all together I easily did over a thousand of them in CoH alone.

If CoT wants to give us something like the Rikti Dropships again that'd be great. My only nit-picky hang-up I had with the whole affair in CoH was the beta nerfing and how too many people were counting killing a ton of un-nerfed Dropships in beta as if it was a "real" accomplishment. Shooting proverbial fish in a test-barrel is not an accomplishment to me.

As far as people organizing to pop Dropships on the live servers goes I simply honestly didn't realize that was a thing. You guys don't have to keep "proving" that it happened. Perhaps people here are remembering it as a "big deal" because it was probably a pretty rare occurrence to get enough people willing to try it in the first place? I guess for me I was always more impressed by things like Hami raids because at least those raids required some serious tactics to accomplish. People had to follow instructions and kill certain things at certain times and it just seemed far more satisfying once we succeeded. The only thing you needed to kill Dropships were enough people who could simultaneously follow flying targets and mash buttons quickly to maximize DPS.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Perhaps our collective

Perhaps our collective uncertainty of the details simply led to a desire to share pleasant memories from CoH? I agree that Hami raids were more impressive from a tactics standpoint - however, on busy servers, the participants knew it was achieveable in advance (typically, the raid involved nearly the same people from week to week). I suppose that the earliest Hami raid attempts did offer that novelty and sense of uncertainty, but by the time I joined the game, that hurdle had been cleared many times over. Hmmm...I also wonder if the fact that an encounter requires participants to focus on the details of tactical execution has an inherent side-effect of decreasing the perceived awesomeness of the overall event, for *some* of those players.

I think it's that feeling of surprise, novelty, and accomplishment (even if the actual mechanics of the encounter are kept simple for the sake of newbies) that the OP's picture evokes for me. Of course, complex and high-level encounters have a place in the game, too.

Switching over to the topic of giant monsters in CoH, I also found them to be very enjoyable due to the often spontaneous nature of encountering them (as in Croatoa or a superjump landing into the triple KR paladins), and the challenge of an impromptu takedown after a call to zone chat or global. Or...we could always "plan" a GM hunt through the zones, with people still spontaneously joining and leaving the team(s) at will, swapping characters for badges, etc. Really brought players together, who might otherwise never team up for traditional missions or trials due to differences in level or position in the story, or lack of available time.

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Nyktos wrote:
Nyktos wrote:

Redlynne wrote:
... or were you thinking ...

As long as you don't have anything as bad as Mike's death in the anime then I am fine with Titan-like NPCs being unleashed (or eating and escaping) by some mad scientist.

Gotta keep the T rating.

BTW, I just got done with volume 21. You're gonna hate what happens to [REDACTED] when they get to it in the anime, and what happens to the Survey Corps during and after that. You don't have any favorite characters, right?

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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Doctor tyche wrote:
Doctor tyche wrote:

I, for one, will be looking forward to seeing how soon before an Aether Pirate Cloud Cruiser is brought down.

*picks up the gauntlet*

You dropped this, Sir.

Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

You don't have any favorite characters, right?

Savage. Are you running the Wendy's Twitter account too?

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Lin Chiao Feng wrote:
Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

Nyktos wrote:
Redlynne wrote:
... or were you thinking ...
As long as you don't have anything as bad as Mike's death in the anime then I am fine with Titan-like NPCs being unleashed (or eating and escaping) by some mad scientist.
Gotta keep the T rating.
BTW, I just got done with volume 21. You're gonna hate what happens to [REDACTED] when they get to it in the anime, and what happens to the Survey Corps during and after that. You don't have any favorite characters, right?

I've read it so I already know. I just found that scene in the anime very disturbing because of the realistic reaction.

Hmmm I wonder if you guys could do a Lovecraftian-like Kaiju?

Formerly known as Bleddyn

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Grimfox wrote:
Grimfox wrote:

Lin Chiao Feng wrote:
You don't have any favorite characters, right?
Savage. Are you running the Wendy's Twitter account too?

LOL we were saying that about the first season of the anime, long before Wendy figured out how to tweet. And the manga volumes have the cadets in a line on the back covers, backs toward the camera. As the story goes on, that line gets sparse. The Japanese love their attrition grind stories, and the author is only too happy to dish it up.

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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Hey you could have taken up

Hey you could have taken up the Wendy mantle after dishing out some AOT sass.