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Back On Mac & My Market Prediction Coming True

Hi! I'm back playing thanks to the recently released Mac client for City of Heroes. It's a not a gaming machine, but after setting the graphics down the game plays well enough for soloing. It'd be nice to see a Linux client for CoX as well.

Remember when I predicted the price of Miracle +Recovery recipes was going to go up? Level 20 Miracle Uniques at the time were averaging 65 million or so. I got back in game recently and checked on the price: even with the Merit duping scandal creating a downward price pressure, the price of the Level 20 Miracle Unique has gone up to about 90 million. I'll bet it hasn't hit the demand cap yet, either.

What's causing this? Getting rid of random rolls, in my opinion. People are choosing to save up for the Miracle Uniques with Merits and using it rather than selling it. That's my theory, anyway.

The solution? Give Merits in addition to random rolls at the end of Task Forces. This will increase supply and drive prices down, making it easier to equip many alts. Will the devs do this? I'll guess no, but anything is possible.

My City of Heroes Blog on Hiatus :(

Due to technical difficulties, My City of Heroes Blog is going on a bit of a hiatus while I square away some computer problems. Most likely, I'll be missing the entire Winter Event.

I'll try to get back as soon as possible, but until then I thank you for your readership, and I thank the devs for the great game of City of Heroes.

Kick some bad-guy butt for me. I shall return.

Daemodand

Happy Winter Event!

The Winter Event is scheduled to start today, Monday, December 15.  Time to start hunting for those Slow Resist IOs. ;)

Today's PvP Results: 14 Rep, 2 Defeats

As I try to work more PvP time into my schedule as I rebuild my characters for Issue 13, I got my first live PvP in tonight.  Playing Daemodand in RV, I got 14 Rep and got defeated 2 times.  7 Rep per defeat.  Not bad at all!  I Phased to avoid a third defeat, and I felt kinda bad about it, my opponents earned a kill.  But I have to use the tools the game gives me, you know?  Maybe PS can be either disabled or put on a very, very long timer in PvP zones.

The reports of Energy Melee's death are greatly exaggerated.  I was on the recieving end of a lot of it tonight, and it remains highly effective, especially in the hands of a Stalker.

What I like about how Defense is handled in PvP 2.0 is that I don't feel like I have to live in Elude just to survive.  I save Elude for emergencies/when I'm outnumbered.  I popped it only twice tonight (tried to pop it before my first defeat but as usual was too slow lol; the second defeat came while in Elude...Arachnos Heavy killed me right through it lol).

When I get my builds organized at long last, I'll be PvPing much more often.  It was nothing but fun tonight, even when I lost.

Subscription Fees + Microtransactions: A Negative MMO Trend

Sonly Online Entertainment recently introduced microtransactions to the subscription-based EverQuest and EverQuest 2 MMOs.  Apparently they dropped it on the playerbase without so much as a warning, and in direct contradiction to prior promises to avoid such a move.  The Galaxies NGE vets are not surprised.

This is the kind of thing City of Heroes needs to be very careful about.  They've been moving more towards this themselves recently.  Purchasing renames, server slots and character moves is one thing, but the Booster Packs have you purchasing costumes as well, and they've even started including powers with the Packs (such as the Self Destruct that came with the Cyborg pack).

MMO publishers need to make a choice.  They need to go with subscription fees, ads, or microtransactions, not two or more.  Sure there is money to be made, but there is customer wrath to incur as well, as SOE is finding out once again as people rexamine their EQ and EQ2 accounts.

NCNC, don't let this happen to you.

Read the MMORPG thread.

SOE's new cash shop.  Note how next to "IT'S TIME TO TAKE YOUR GAMING TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL" is  a graphic of a wallet with money coming out.  Very poor design choice.  I'll bet that gets changed.

More Valkyrie Pics

Check out the article in this week's Scoop.

Task Force Random Roll

Daemodand got another 20 Merits and I went with the Task Force random roll.  This time I got the Entropic Chaos trio, level 35.  Crafted, it's worth about 5 million, minus about 500k crafting costs yields 4.5 million "profit".  That's 225,000 Influence per Merit.  My lowest take yet, but very acceptable.

I have been going on a tear with Daemodand.  I've played him for years at this point, and he just keeps getting more fun!  What a great guy.  And I set him up with some new duds for when he's off-duty:

Daemodand, recently hired as a PPD Detective, consults with his fellow officers.

Winter Event Coming December 15th-January 4th!

I'm so looking forward to getting the Slow Resist IO for Daemodand and Bush Ranger.  It'll stack so nicely with Super Reflexes natural Slow Resist.

Read the announcement at the official forums.

Task Force Random Roll

Bush Ranger got 20 Merits and I decided to gamble on a Task Force random roll this time.  Guess what I got?  A level 40 Miracle +Recovery!  Crafted, it's worth approximately 75 million on redside.  That's about 3 million per Merit.  Very, very good return.  Boy, did I get lucky!

So that's 1 Trial roll and 1 Task Force roll so far, and they're both winners.  I like Trial rolls more because I think there's less junk in 'em (thus the higher price).  I was feeling lucky today and it paid off.  Big. :)