Yeah - It was all yellow and red servers last night. I had not seen that in quite some time.
Along with complaints that there are queues to get onto the more populated servers…to contrast with last week’s complaints that the game is dead and the servers are deserted. 
Are you Sailboat on City of Heroes forums too? If so, I’ve ran an Iron Eagles team with you on Justice server. I’m Zhanid over there and playing Zamboni Man on thursdays.
No kiddin’? Yeah, that’s me. Zulu Time and the deceased-but-will-be-reborn Djinni in the Iron Eagles, and malking trouble on Guardian most of the rest of the time.
I swear I am going to get to play again. Someday. I took some time off and while I was waiting for GR, I got a job. That was good, it allowed me to pay for my annual subscription. But it is bad because I am on the road constantly. I was in the early beta for Issue 17, 18, and GR and didn’t get to play any of them. And can’t seem to find the time to play now either. 
For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention, yesterday at PAX the CoH panel announced that in I19 the fitness pool will become inherent. So Swift, Hurdle, Health & Stamina will no longer require power picks, thus freeing up 3-4 powers and a pool selection for anyone (which is almost everyone) who took Stamina.
They’ll still be slottable like Rest or Brawl is now and we won’t get more slots but even three “free” one slotted powers can mean picking things like Combat Jumping, Teleport Friend, Hasten or a Leadership Power that you wouldn’t have taken otherwise.
CECIL has been missing you. Even though we seldom team, it was always good to have you in the channel. I hope you get to play again soon. Do you have a laptop? I’ve managed to play on one while traveling quite a few times, though it’s not as nice as my gaming rig at home.
[QUOTE=Jophiel]
They’ll still be slottable like Rest or Brawl is now and we won’t get more slots but even three “free” one slotted powers can mean picking things like Combat Jumping, Teleport Friend, Hasten or a Leadership Power that you wouldn’t have taken otherwise.
[/quote]
I consider this a wonderful move. No more spending a bunch of your early power choices on boring-but-near-necessary Fitness powers. You can actually take more cool powers as they become available, and, as you point out, it allows more build flexibility later without an overwhelming increase in power. Also, Castle says they’ll unlock at level 1 or 2, which will help a lot with downtime in the low levels.
Also, the first Incarnate slot will be available in I19 (as we were told to expect), now with content to go with it. I liked the Alpha slot in beta even without any content, so I’m very much looking forward to this. I do hope they took some of the lore/fluff suggestions to heart, though.
I’m meh about it. Stamina is not the necessity everyone thinks it is, and working out how to get by without it is an interesting puzzle.
Not every AT needs boosted recovery rate, and for those that do there’s other ways to boost it aside from a power. Set bonuses, slotting intelligently for endurance reduction, focusing on blue inspirations…the idea of choice and sacrifice is what game design is based around.
Personally I’m happy about it. It means I’ll be able to fit the travel powers I really wanted in my builds, play sub-20 without wanting to punch the monitor, take an extra power pool in some cases, and as said pick up powers that are actually fun.
I have a laptop, and even increased the RAM so it can handle COH better. But getting wireless is harder. I am spending most of my time in truckstops, and they all charge for access.
The what slot? Are they finally adding in new epic ATs?
No (although there’s talk from the devs of a Praetorian Epic AT at some point); the Alpha Slot is part of the upcoming Incarnate System for level 50s. Level 50 characters be able to gain Incarnate Levels and slots. Eventually slated to expand to 10 Incarnate levels; sort of leveling sideways since you’ll still be 50. There’s also supposed to be extra-tough endgame content as well to go with it.
I wasn’t in that part of the beta, and it is apparently being changed somewhat anyway, so I can’t really give details.
It’s not an AT, it’s the new system for advancing/improving level 50 characters, along with content designed to challenge Incarnate-boosted characters. All Incarnate powers function only at level 50. If you exemplar, they become inactive.
So far, 10 tiers of Incarnate abilities have been designed. Unlocking a tier gives you a “slot” for a single Incarnate power. The only one we got to play with substantially in the beta is the Alpha slot, which is the first one you unlock. In beta it was unlockable by spending merits (reward, Vanguard, or hero/villain), or by completing one of several high-level task forces or trials. (That may well change for I19, since there’s content coming for it.)
The Alpha slot powers functioned like a global enhancement–you could choose to build Cardiac, Nerve, Musculature, or Spirit Boost powers, and they enhanced all of your powers based on the type you chose. The basic Spiritual Boost, for example, enhanced healing and recharge. The Boosts were upgradeable, each with two paths and several tiers of upgrades. The Core upgrades increased the strength of one of the main effects at the cost of variety, and the Radial upgrades left the enhancement strength alone and gave you more different boosts. The top upgrade of the Spiritual path enhanced, as I recall, healing, recharge, stun, speed, and a couple of other things, and it gaves you a level shift (raising your effective combat level by 1). We never actually got to try the level shift mechanic; the upper tiers of the Alpha powers weren’t available before they pulled it from the beta.
We’ve picked up hints about some of the later Incarnate slots, but nothing definite. Some of the more informed speculation about them, based on leaked info, includes:
*The Interface slot will allow you to add a new secondary effect to your attacks.
*The Lore slot will allow you to summon pets. You can choose a combination of offensive and defensive pets.
*The Judgment slot will give you a new extreme-damage attack; they look like crashless nukes. For example, the Ion Core Final Judgement [sic] power is described as " Chain Ranged AoE, Extreme DMG(Energy). Recharge: Very Long. Has a chance to do additional damage to all foes. This ability can hit up to 15 targets.“, and the Ion Radial Final Judgement [also sic] as " Chain Ranged AoE, Extreme DMG(Energy). Recharge: Very Long. Drains endurance and debuffs the recovery of affected targets. Has a chance to hold targets in an electrical field. This ability can hit up to 15 targets.”
Wow. That sounds like a lot of work and thought. And they have to design content for it, since we already greatly overpower the NPCs at level 50. At least we did when I last played, I doubt it has changed much since.
I will have to start checking the forums and catch up on what is happening, so if I ever get to play I will have some idea what to do. 
At least I can do that now with my phone, even if it won’t let me play the game. 
Also, they mentioned that Issue 20 (not 19) is going into closed beta next week or so, that it has “a lot of new systems” and will involve a signed non disclosure agreement to be in the beta. Issue 19 will go into a “normal beta” after that and is expected to be released in the fall. Sounds like something interesting is brewing for Issue 20.
With the Incarnate system you get a third build and I get the impression that Incarnate powers won’t operate outside of the content built for them. So when you go into some new I19 zone or on some Incarnate Task Force, you’ll use your Incarnate build. But it won’t help you when you decide to solo Lusca or take down Rikti Towers in RWZ.
Incarnate powers work fine in normal use at level 50–my main used the Spiritual Boost powers, and even the first-tier one made a noticeable difference. They don’t work when you exemplar, and we’re not sure how the level shift mechanic will work, but they’re definitely not limited to Incarnate-only content. There wasn’t any Incarnate content in the beta; how would we have used them?
The third build is just another perk that comes with unlocking the Alpha slot, probably added so that you could make a specific build tailored to taking the most advantage of Incarnate abilities without interfering with an exemplar build.
For anyone who missed it, details on Issue 19: Alpha Strike are available on the CoX home page. Some cool stuff besides the Alpha Slot and Stamina becoming inherent, like alternate animations for a bunch of powers - no more trying to explain how power armor lets my guy breathe fire!. And some neat screenshots.
It looks like all the blast sets (and lots of others) are getting the option to customize emanation points. I’m already pondering changes to a bunch of my characters on that basis. Also, I notice that Integration got singled out for some options–I guess the devs noticed that some people consider the Tarzan animation silly.
I’m glad to see Apex showing up in an actual role in the game, but I hope they revert at least part of his costume to look like it did in the comic book; I don’t like the armor much. Tin Mage is also cool–I guess he’s been duplicated from the data he left in the time capsule.
Regarding Going Rogue:
I am enjoying the story lines, and your ability to “go undercover” with another faction.
The going undercover stuff is cool. Did you also notice they added some Origin-specific dialogue options in GR? Tech/Science characters can get more details about Clockwork speech when talking to the Clockwork in the tutorial, and Magic characters when defusing this one bomb instead of trying to cut the wires can pick “Use a Speak with Lightning Elemental spell”.
Pretty much:
[QUOTE=Noble Savage]
There’s a grain of truth to that. The thing with that animation is that it’s really quite signature and works better with some Origins than others. Adding a new flavor has been a popular request, and that’s why it’s in the mix now. Hope you enjoy it.
[/QUOTE]
I’d take “works better with some Origins than others” as a nice sounding way of saying “only works for characters who are cavemen, monsters or Tarzan ripoffs”.
I liked the idea myself, and back when his letter came out I made a homage character named Steel Mage (Grav/Psi Dominator) supposedly created from a stolen copy of the plans in the time capsule. The idea being that villains created him, but Tin Mage foresaw the possibility of his plans being misused and planted a sort of heroic Trojan virus in the programming to subvert any copies towards herodom. So he started out a villain but I’m taking him blueside when I get around to it.