***Dave Does the Game
Uninstalled LotRO this evening. It’s a beautifully crafted world, an expansion of Tolkien’s writings that deserves accolades. I just didn’t find it a gripping enough game to stick with it (esp. compared to City of Heroes).
I will continue to peer over Doyce & Kate’s shoulder to see what wonders they discover, but the road, for the moment, doesn’t go on and on. Except to Rhode Island …
Via Greppo, it’s the I13 sneak peak! Hightlights:
Mission Architect: design your own missions and story arcs. Very spiffy (and, I suspect, a lot harder to make something interesting than it will seem). On the other hand, on a low level, this now means an unlimited pool of new (user-rated) content.
Day Jobs: While you’re offline, depending on where you park, you go to your “day job” — e.g., if you park in City Hall, you work as a City Official, which earns you extra influence; if you log out in a University, you’re working as a Scholar, which earns you salvage. Keep doing it, and Day Job Badges and Titles result in a higher “salary,” etc.
This is CoX’s version of other games which give you “stuff” even while you’re not on with your toon, which is kind of nice.
Power Sets: Shields! Pain Domination! The former is open to both sides; the latter is only for Villains (the opposite of Empathy).
More Cimerora Missions. That reminds me — we need to run some.
Merit Rewards: Okay, this sounds interesting:
A new game system that allows players to earn tokens by completing Trials, Task Forces, Strike Forces, Raids, etc. The most challenging and time consuming tasks grant the most reward tokens, which can be redeemed throughout Hero and Villain zones for recipes, enhancements, salvage, costume pieces, badges, inspirations and other game items.
Hmmm. And how is that going to differ from Influence? And if there is a distinct difference, is that fair to folks who solo/duo and never run in Trials/TFs/SFs/,etc?
Etc.: New IO sets, Costume sets, Patron Power respec, Zone Refinements, and more.
Nothing earth-shattering, but a nice release. The boards have it that it may not go live until after the Winter Event kicks in, but they are trying to make it still happen in 2008.
Okay, I confess, I’m spending a goodly time hanging at Wentworths and doing crafting and all that. I’m not as fanatical about it as some, and sometimes it’s an “I have some free time but don’t want to sign off, so let’s just do something” activity, but I’m still at least mildly hooked. Honestly speaking, it’s the money/influence. Even though everyone swears up and down you don’t need XOs and IOs to make an effective character, I still feel like I’m missing out on something when I don’t actually sell that Deific Weapon for 4 million at auction. And as long as I’m doing that … well, heck, I got this recipe dropped on me and I have almost all the ingredients … and …
Yeah.
The problem is, of course, I’m an altaholic, which means I have plenty of characters to do this with. Even just looking at my main duos with Margie, we have several that we cycle between.
It is a little-known fact that auction stuff gets flushed after, oh, something like 30 days of inactivity.
You see where I’m going.
Yes, with various hiatuses in playing, there have been times when I’ve returned to a character — “45 day ago” — only to discover that all that money I had invested in bidding on stuff has essentially vanished. Basically, if a transaction was accomplished (as they almost always are over time), then that “bought” or “sold” has vanished after the expiry date, taking with it the item or the influence.
*sigh*
Now we know why I’m not a Day Trader in Real Life.
Doyce points to a cool article on “phasing” content in MMOs. The idea is to strike a balance between a static world and a heavily instanced one.
Brack gives the example of a quest where a player needs to rescue villagers from a Scourge-infested town. Players who complete the quest will see the villagers they’ve rescued back at the quest hub whereas players who haven’t done the quest will not. WoW Insider’s Alex Ziebart experienced the same after doing a series of quests involving the Wind Serpent Goddess, who appeared for him in town after completing her quests. She was there only for him and wasn’t visible to other players (who presumably haven’t done the quest series). It’s a new way to bring a new experience to players without having to load anything (such as in instances).
It’s an interesting idea to fight an age-old problem in MMOs — how do players know that they are having an impact? Taking CoX as an example, no matter what I do as a hero (or villain), the only thing that really changes is myself. Yes, I get passers-by discussing my virtues/vices, and, yes, the contacts may mention something based on the last mission I fought. But, really, the world around me and the NPCs I interact with don’t really change one whit no matter what I do.
The previous alternative to this was to deal with instances. This could be small-scale — in CoX, something that happens at the end of a mission — or it could be large-scale — the wholesale change in the world in LotRO when you complete initial half-dozen levels (the best example of which is the one for humans/hobbits, where the town is now recovering from the fires and bloodshed of the brigand raid).
Phasing, instead, “simply” tailors what characters see and hear based on stuff they’ve done. A simple example in CoX (were this implemented there) would be if, after the Ernesto Hess TF, the big central “mountain” on Striga was a broken-topped smoking ruin … for you. For someone who hadn’t done the TF, it would still look intact.
That points out the key problem with phasing, which is that two players, side by side, might experience very different things. If I’m teaming with some folks who haven’t done the Hess TF, and make reference to that cool smoking ruin, they’d think I was nuts. It would (further) strain the suspension of belief for doing the TF a second time (either while at level, or mentored down).
I can imagine it being used in more subtle ways, though, that would be less jarring. Perhaps a “Thank You, Captain Ultra” banner over a building (that each person might see with their own name). Maybe if you’ve gotten certain hunt badges, the text that those hunted groups use in dialog with you changes. Or perhaps a mission that changes how you (graphically) see certain bad guys (or good guys) — as more or less menacing — in future encounters.
Anything that helps tailor the MMO experience more to the individual, while still maintaining that “mass” community, is a good thing.
More Kitsune/Ex-Terra action over the weekend, up around 34, which means Bricks into Founders, zone-wise. We’re picking and choosing our story arcs and generally having a good time.
As a pair, we’re sort of like a Regen Scrapper … everything golden until it goes into the toilet fast. Ninety-nine percent of the mobs we engage we simply carve through like butter (we’re running on Unyielding at the moment). But there was some death involved over the weekend. Aside from the one case of “gosh, I guess ambushes will come after me if I stand in the train station while on bio break just after I’ve taken a hunt mish,” the rest were all about drawing too much aggro, too quickly. For all my smacky-smack controlling with Illusion, it’s also easy to draw a lot of unwanted attention with the Rad secondary. And a lot of my powers have a long cast time, so it’s easy to watch the health bar drop-drop-drop-gone while waiting to get power X fired so that I can throw a heal.
Biggest regular problem was in the Bricks (Talos) Safeguard mish on the side mission to stop the jail break. Eleventy zillion Tsoo bosses. We both took some temporary dirt naps with those.
Still, fun times.
Margie’s been doing soloing with Old Star, who’s a Fire/Rad Controller, and evidently quite soloable. I rolled a clone of Al McGordo as the same (instead of a Rad/Rad Defender), but didn’t get any play time.
A few days ago, one of my three faithful readers sent me a note.
I’ve been following your City of Heroes blog for some time, and wanted to pick your brains on the RP SG that I’ve been invited to run on Virtue. The SG in question was once a fairly strong SG with lots of players and a rich RP environment, but attrition in leadership coupled with poor recruiting (and other dramas) has lead to its considerable decline in the last six months. The current status is that the SG is basically dead, but has a ton of prestige and a long history. My goal is to reverse its fortunes in relative short order.
The person (who will remain nameless, since it was sent off-list) then proceeded with the brains-picking.
Now, I’m not sure I’m best qualified on the subject. Yes, I’ve done tabletop RP games, and PBeMSs, and, yes, I’ve both played in and run an RP Supergroup in part of an RP Coalition.
On the other hand, the Consortium of Justice was very intentionally an “RP Lite” group (this should be fun, not work), and, of course, the RP Coalition which I was a leader in managed to blow itself up quite nicely over a series of Unfortunate Dramatic Events. So my quals here are a bit sketchy.
That said, I’m a manager in real life, so I’m either qualified to talk about group management, or else am an expert at sounding like I am. So here’s what was asked and what I wrote, just for the record, and to stir up some conversation. I’ve edited it slightly to untangle some of the email thread.
(Ironically, Doyce was just posting about “guild drama,” whence the amusing graphic below. And I suspect a lot of what I write here applies not just to CoX, but to LotRO, WoW, etc.)
Have you ever run an RP SG? Have you ever been in one? What were the qualities that made it successful?
Though I enjoyed doing RP stuff in CoX, I was (and am) too much of an alt-fiend to get tooooo much into the full-time RP character. My goal was to always speak in character, drop some interesting hints about my character in conversation (and follow up with same when someone chose to pull on the threads), and to have a good time. We were one of the “Light RP” groups in the Coalition.
But in the RP groups and the aspects of the Coalition that worked well, hmmmm …
In short, I think a strong RP SG operates about the same as a strong SG in general, except that some extra care needs to be taken to foster that fragile suspension of disbelief that makes the RP stuff work.
Hmmmm, what else? Themes are good. Some of the better RP SGs had a strong theme or story behind them, and one that drove their “events.”
I’d add in [I did not in the original of this] an in-person, in-character interview for RP groups. If the person can’t RP an SG interview, they won’t do a good job later on. And it gives the leadership a chance to see if the RP concept will actually work with the SG.
CoX is an interesting game in that it still has a relatively strong user base, based on the fact that it’s a superhero MMO where none existed previously. Do you think that SG declines are occurring in general, or do you think that there is room for another RP SG in the world?
Hard to say. Certainly overall CoX population is down. Virtue is a good server for this simply because it has a large population. I’ve been invited to some SGs, but the populations have never been such that there were ever many people around. And my own interest has, honestly, faded enough that I don’t feel the need or have the time to be dedicated enough to be a good, contributing SG member. Alas.
That said, I think there’s always a place for a good RP SG in any world worth playing in. đ
I’ve run many organizations before in many games, so the “business” side is familiar to me. The challenge in this one is to run a heavy RP organization and to revive a dormant brand, as it were.
It might be interesting to advance the “story” around the revival of the “brand” for the characters, new and old. In other words, how is it in Paragon City that the Ultra Corps is suddenly being revitalized, or why is Captain Metallo and his cohorts trying to revive the Ultra Corps to its glory days? In other words, it’s not just a change in management, it’s an adventure! (And if there are some multiple layers to the tale — the one for public consumption, and one that only the “leaders” know but about which hints might be dropped to the troops, or newly initiated leaders are let into the know about (“… Statesman is really a Rikti spy, and we’ve re-formed in order to tackle the Freedom Phalanx when they finally turn on humanity?!”)
I’ve been in heavy RP organizations before, so I understand the atmosphere, but this will be the first time I’ll be administering it.
It’s different — and it makes it harder in some ways to maintain RP for yourself (you always have to be sort of monitoring things on a meta level). Best advice is:
1. Find others to share the burden with. Burn-out is the biggest threat.
2. Behave as you’d want a leader in your previous groups to behave.
Thoughts? Anything else I should have mentioned?
Well, I was away for three weeks on business and holiday. And then playing catch-up on stuff at home. And then …
Well, I didn’t fire up CoH until this weekend. Margie’s been doing some solo stuff while I was otherwise engaged, but she was happy to have me hop on and join up with me. Wait, that wasn’t quite the way I wanted to phrase that …
Anyway, we pulled up Kitsune-chan and Ex-Terra. I was surprised we’d gotten them up to 32, which I sort of see as a magic level for characters (perhaps because Velvet, my first successful character, plateaued at). We’re deep into Croatoa stuff right now, which means lots of nice magic salvage, and now that Kitsune has Fred the Phantasm, she has a nice array of pets, Illusion powers, and Rad debuffs to play with. Usually we start off with her turning the biggest bad guy. Then Ex-Terra hops in, and I either drop Scary Sam (Spectral Terror) or drop my Rad debuffs on the Turned guy, or both. I’m usually in close enough at that point for Fred to get involved, and for my own choking Rad cloud to be playing a role, and between spamming Blinds and keeping the heavies turned, and (as a last resort) calling in the Boy (Phantom Army), we rarely run into too much of a problem — unless one or the other of us takes a wave of damage too quickly.
Fun. Probably boring to read about, but fun. This pair could easily be our next 50.
Hit 42 months Vet Reward, by the bye, so we both now have a Team Teleport power, which just makes life a little bit easier.
Did some solo work with Lady Zebra Friday afternoon, and got her leveled to 31 (despite some rather frustrating “The Case of the Vanishing Mentor (and The Subsequent Mission of Plinking Attacks”). So on to Bricks. Auras, too, save that LZ isn’t really an aura sort of character.
Friday night and Saturday pulled out Kitsune-chan and Ex-Terra. Illusion-Rad rocks, though it’s almost an embarrassment of riches in attacks and debuffs. Went through the Midnight Club initiation for the first time, which was mildly frustrating (unless you like puzzles), esp. since it didn’t really lead to anything we can do until 35. Still, got up to 29 by Noon, in time to do some real work for the day.
Huzzah for Double XP weekend, even if the most popular servers (Virtue and Freedom) were red and black (and crash-o-riffic even when only yellow).
Coming this weekend!
Woot! And, ding!
Wonder who we’ll play? Someone up high to get closer to the magic 5-0? Someone in the middle to punch past that 30s hump? Someone down low to get us some finger-smackin’ powers? Or someone new?
Was on a large PUG the other evening and we got a police band mission — “Stop Archon Roget and his bodyguards.”
Quoth my character, “Archon Roget — he’s the wordy one, isn’t he?”
Beat. Beat. I’m waiting for the LOLs.
“I dunno – we’ll have to see,” someone finally said.
Man, a line like that would get dice thrown at me at a tabletop game. I know — it has.
So I did end up doing some CoX playing over the past few days, getting some good time in with Lady Zebra, Woe Nellie, and Miss Crackle.
I also took up Arty’s invitation to join up with the Repeat Offenders global group — consist of a global channel and a bunch of SGs in coalition spreading across the Hero and Villain side of Freedom and Virtue. I had mixed luck with actually leveraging Lady Zebra getting into one of the alt RO SGs and from there actually getting gameplay with the group — but I did end up with lots of time with Woe Nellie playing alongside Arty and some of his other cohorts, which was kind of fun.
I also spent $10 and transferred Miss Crackle over from Victory to Freedom, just because things have been serously dead on the former server for PUGging. And I then had a great time in two different groups for the next few hours, which probably means it was a worthwhile investment.
Overall, good times. But I’m looking forward to duoing with my favorite gaming partner real soon now.
Yes, someone else is actually publishing a Consortium of Justice comic book.
I am tempted to pick up one of the t-shirts, though …
Doyce shows how you can really do a good job of simulating LotRO using out-of-the-box D&D 4th Edition rules. Geeky goodness! random average: The One Where He Totally Geeked Out Like a Mid-1980s Gamer Nerd ((Hacking DnD 4 into Lord of the Rings))
Current rules on what sort of powers will root (keep you from doing other things during activation) and which ones won’t:
Toggle Powers:
Toggle powers that root should all only root for 45 frames (1.5 seconds), after which the animation should be interruptible by movement or other power animations.
Click Powers:
There can be exceptions to any of the above rules as deemed necessary.
Have been playing — not scads, but a decent amount. Over the weekend focused on Kitsune-chan and Ex-Terra — got them up to 26 over the course days. I figured they’d be good — as an Ill/Rad Controller and Spine Scrapper — doing the Rikti raids over the weekend, and they were indeed (and, in the meantime, managed to finish off getting the Wedding Band and the Talos safeguard mission, too). Good times.
Next up … hmmm … Margie mentioned there’s some Midnight Club content at our level. I’m interested in giving it a try.
A few notes about this and that in my online gaming life:
Noticed a Forum entry (now no longer up) complaining about the Hasten effect (and, peripherally) the Superspeed effect. Hasten wreathes your hands (up to the elbows in a burning yellow glow. Superspeed gives you a bright flashy area all around your feet — and, of course, as a trail when you run.
The Superspeed effect can be a little irksome — but Hasten is one of those that’s bugged me practically since I started the game. If it would have any good I would have added the following:
I’ll toss in my vote to significantly tone down the Hasten effect (hey, if you want flaming hands, take an Energy power, a Fire power, or an Aura). Superspeed is a bit annoying, too, but while it makes no sense that your feet/running would be glowing at only 90mph, it’s at least a canonical sign of, well, superspeed.
The problems/differences are:
1. Superspeed is a toggle. If I want to appear without Superspeed’s aura, I turn it off. If I want to appear without Hasten obscuring my hands and arms, I have to wait a minute or two (and be sure I turn off the auto-fire).
2. Superspeed is a power. Hasten is a character mechanic enhancement, like Focus and Build-Up, only with less justification for the effect. People take it, mostly, not because they think glowing hands fit their concept, but because their build will be helped by faster recovery. So obtrusive an effect for an enhancement used by people of all Origins and ATs and Builds makes little sense.
(Of course, I find the dust kickup from Sprint and the trailing dustfall from Combat Jump to be mildly annoying, esp. when flying or standing still, so I may be oversensitive.)
(I’ll also note that it makes more sense for Hasten to be a whole-body thing, since the recharge effect works on kicks, mental powers, pretty much everything, not just swiftness of hands.)
I am not a Dev, nor do I want to be one on TV, but it seems to me that this effect could be toned down quite a bit without a lot of development effort. Ironically, its ubitiquity means it much less likely that’s going to happen, since it would affect the appearance of so many players.
That said, if we could get a toned-down “Custom Hasten” similar to the “Custom Sprints,” I would be very happy.
The impression given from the replies form BAB and his forum supporters was (a) it’s not broke, so it ain’t gonna be fixed; (b) if it ever does get fixed, it will be with powers customization; so (c) it’s not likely to get fixed any time soon.
Which may all be true, but it’s still an annoyingly bad choice of effect for most characters, and I wish it was different.
This PDF download explains all about I12 — and quite amusingly.
Patch notes! Comments in italics.
The Midnight Squad story arcs (Hero and Villain)
For generations, the Midnight Squad has dedicated their lives to protect the world from worldly and dimensional threats. Now, they need the help of the Heroes of Paragon City and the Villains of the Rogue Isles to finally rid the world of Rikti. Heroes and Villains must cross through time and journey to an ancient land to find knowledge long forgotten and battle ancient foes. — New content is always nice, though I’m not wildly ravenous to get to it. Margie’s played a bit of it, considers it a “fun little set of stuff.”
New Zone : Cimerora
Cimerora is a hub zone (like Ouroboros) with features such as:
New Task Force : âTimeâs Arrowâ
Character Origin Missions (Hero and Villain)
Where did Origins come from? How are they connected? How long have they existed? — Glad to hear we’re getting something with Origins other than just different stores and trainee powers.
Villain Epic Archetypes: — more below on this.
Hollows Revamp
The Hollows has received a game-play upgrade including: — Yay! Hooray!
Loading Screen Tips
Powerset Proliferation
While researching the energy strands that all super powered beings tap into, Dr. Brainstorm caused a massive release of energy that imbalanced the energy grid surrounding the powers nexus.
As a result, it appears that heroes and villains now have access to powers that previously were unavailable to them.
Blaster
- New Primary – Psychic Blast — Probably what I’ll be playing with. Nice damage enhancement. Definitely not overpowered. Not a lot of AoE.
- New Secondary – Mental Manipulation — PBAoE Confuse! Yay! But not as control-heavy as other blaster secondaries.
Brute
- New Primary – Battle Axe
- New Primary – War Mace
- New Secondary – Super Reflexes
Controller
- New Primary – Plant Control — Margie really wanted to like this, but found it frustrating in a lot of ways (Mass Sleep + AoE Attacks = Huh?)
- New Secondary – Thermal Radiation — Margie says a nice utility set.
Corruptor
- New Primary – Electrical Blast
- New Secondary – Storm Summoning
Defender
- New Primary – Cold Domination
- New Secondary – Ice Blast
Dominator
- New Primary – Earth Control
- New Secondary – Electricity Assault
Mastermind
- New Secondary – Storm Summoning — Margie had a blast … worked really well with Mercs. Great for soloing. Tank for your pets!
Scrapper
- New Primary – Fiery Melee — Margie opines this is *very* fun. Kind of blappy. A bit endurance-heavy.
- New Secondary – Fiery Aura
Stalker
- New Primary – Electric Melee
- New Secondary – Electric Armor
Tanker
- New Primary – Dark Armor — Annoying. Better, maybe, with a team. Endurance pig. Very expensive self-heal.
- New Secondary – Dark Melee
Optional Character Slots Purchases — This is nice.
User Interface:
Power Trays
Player Notes:
Conversely, you will not be able to see any Player Notes or ratings that other players may have written about you.
In-Depth Power Information
Detailed Power Information is now available at Power Selection, Level up, Respec, and Enhancement placing screen as well as a new tab in the info window. This information shows the powers basic data along with every effect the power has. — Folks who like numbers will love all this.
Improved Character Creator
Players may now select a costume set theme from the new âCostume Setsâ drop down menu in the Character creation process and the Tailor (for Heroes) or Facemaker (for Villains). — Very convenient to start with a “baseline” costume set.
The Costume Sets revolve around existing and new Costume sets. Some Costume Sets are unlocked through gameplay achievements, Veteran Rewards (i.e. the Boxer set) or by Costume Pack purchase (i.e. the âGood Versus Evilâ Justice and Sinister costumes or the Wedding Pack).
Local Settings
Most user options can now be saved to file and loaded from file. If a default setting file is saved, all newly created characters will use the default file to set initial options. The options window has buttons added to save and load default files. Non-default files can be saved and loaded via slash commands. — Yay!
General Options
Window Configuration
Chat Tab Configuration
Chat System Revamp
Player Names are now clickable in the chat window, brings up a menu you can use to: — This is *very* nice. A lot easier to do this stuff via the chat window than retyping names — especially when there’s a stray hyphen or period or apostrophe in them.
Clicking the channel name of a global chat channel will give these options:
Right-Clicking a players name in a global chat channel that you are a moderator of will give additional options:
Powers, Enhancements, Recipes, Inspirations, and Salvage are now linkable in chat
Under the chat options section, there is new item “Individual Name Colors” which will display each name in the chat window its own color.
Pet combat messages are now sent to the pet owner. Added channels Pet Damage Inflicted, Pet Combat, Pet Damage Received, Pet Healing Received, Pet Healing Delivered, and Pet Hit Rolls. Newly created Masterminds will have a “Pet Combat” tab added.
Global Chat Changes
Global Names and Local Server names are now transparent. The invisible wall between global and local identities has been removed, so that if you know another playerâs Local Server Name, then you will be able to find out their Global name by using the following commands : — These changes are all very interesting — and the subject of much angst and worry from some parties on the board. Not something I worry about all that much.
/hide and /ghide will now bring up an option dialog where you can separately choose to hide from Global Chat Channels, Global Friends, Server Friends, Supergroup, and Searches.
In addition there are commands to individually set each of these options:
Changed /ignore and /gignore functionality. Using either command will ignore that user on all global channels as well as all local characters and any new characters they create.
Increased Max Friends to 200
Ignore list size had been increased to 200.
Players are now allowed to have 10 Global channels.
Zone Event System Message Channels
Inspiration Improvements
You can now combine 3 inspirations of the same type and strength into a different inspiration of the same strength, this is accessible via the context menu for qualified inspirations. — Not sure I’m inclined to do this, or to remember to do it, but a nice feature.
Also added slash commands for inspirations:
Leveling Up Bonus
Leveling up will refill health and endurance!
In addition to restoring the player to full health and endurance, leveling up will now greatly inspire the player. — I.e., level up makes someone uber for a brief time … which is kind of nice.
Combat Attribute Window Improvements
Added commands to add or remove attributes form the Attribute Monitor:
Per player request, added new fields to the Combat Attribute Window.
Power Trays
Trial Account Limitations
Trial Accounts now have the following restrictions. Characters on Trial Accounts may not:
Combined Notes
User Interface
Powers
Accolades
Attack Powers
Defense Powers
Buff / Debuff / Status Effect Powers
Travel Powers
Veteran Reward Powers
Values Changes
Status Effect Changes
AI
Arena
Bases
Emotes
Game
Graphical Effects and Animations
Inventions
Rewards
Sound
Store
Tailor
Tasks
CITY of HEROES
Powers
Accolades
Blaster
Controllers
Defender
Peacebringers
Scrappers
Tankers
Warshade
Powers Text Changes
Note: All Heroesâ Powers text underwent scrutiny and many changed to correct typos, and to reflect consistency and accuracy. The power effects, duration and recharge have not changed, only the description and combat log messaging has been updated. All secondary Knockback, Stun, or other status affects will now be noted in combat logs when the effect occurs for all powers.
NPCs
Tasks
Trial
Zone Events
CITY of VILLAINS
Giant Monsters
Zones
Grandville
Powers
Brutes
Corruptor:
Dominator
Masterminds
Stalkers
Patron Powers.
Accolades
Graphical Effects
Powers Text Changes
Note: All Villains Powers text underwent scrutiny and many changed to correct typos, and to reflect consistency and accuracy. The power effects, duration and recharge have not changed, only the description and combat log messaging has been updated. All secondary Knockback, Stun, or other status affects will now be noted in combat logs when the effect occurs for all powers.
That seems like a really short open beta.
Big announcement post with lots of links.
I’d post more (and may later), but I have an internet filter blocking my going to the CoX site (though not to the boards, oddly enough).