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Jorden_Yen
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| CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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THE STORY OF A CASUAL GAMER WHO PLAYED CoH
I am 28 years old, married, and a father of two. I have spent the last four years dividing my time between family, higher education, and work. I love RPG’s and will play them when I can, but when I play, I think that anything less than several hours in a row is wasted. Who can play for only 30 minutes at a time? Not me, that’s for sure.
So in my case, I can only play during vacations or weeks that are light in work. Since PlayNC doesn’t offer a >> weekly rate << (*hint hint), I waited almost a year after release to play the game until a time when I had four consecutive weeks off. This way, I could play the way I like which is a minimum of four hours a day.
So a casual gamer is someone like me who can only appear in the game once every few weeks to few months. In my case, likely once a year or less unless they come up with a >> weekly rate << (*hint hint) or a low monthly rate with a limit to the amount of hours per month you could play (which wouldn’t hurt me because I could only play a few hours a month anyway)..
So from my experience playing the game, I have built this guide to help the casual gamer like me who has far less consecutive time to play than most other CoH members seem to.
PREPARING TO PLAY
Before I started my account, I read up on game-speak and some guides to different character types. Next was choosing a character type. While the game is built with teams in mind, if you choose the right type (read: tanker or scrapper) you can join teams when you want or have to and solo the rest of the time. This is important since almost any team, productive or not, will suck down at least an hour of time that you may not have.
In my case, I used the following guide to build a Dark/Regen scrapper:
The Complete Guide to Dark Melee and Regeneration
This exceptional guide lists not only all powers and power pool combinations, but pros, cons, and slotting suggestions. It is one of the best I’ve ever seen and having played this character type up to level 34, I can say that it works well.
For things like commands, controls, game-speak etc., you will learn that either from reading online (as I did) or from in-game help from peers (as I also did). For now, I will assume that you have a control on actual game play and focus more on solo/casual play techniques.
CREATING YOUR CHARACTER
One thing I was never able to find out was what difference it makes if your character is Mutation, Natural, Science, etc. There appears to be no difference other than some enemy types and contacts will deal with one kind of enhancement and not others. For example, if you are of magic origin, fighting Circle of Thorns will give you magic enhancements, but not fighting Nemesis (this only matters after level 14 or so when you start to get dual and single origin enhancements). Therefore, for your first character, pick whatever sounds good to you.
One of the more annoying things in the game is fighting in caves. This is because you have very poor visibility if you chose a tall character. For this reason and because smaller characters either run faster or appear to (either way, it doesn’t feel like it takes as long to get places), try not to go above 5 ft if possible.
Spend some time thinking about the design of your character’s clothes, accessories, patterns etc. You will likely keep and play this one character most of the time so make something you like. You will eventually be able to create a new costume for your character, but this happens much later in the game and requires fairly significant influence (money).
Be careful and think through/read up/talk to other players about which powers to get as you level. Some are more important than others to surviving to the next level. You will eventually be able to do a task force (set of missions in a row that requires a certain number of heroes. Read: no soloing TF’s) that allows you to earn a respect (re-specification). A respec is where you can rebuild your character from scratch as if you had just gone from level 1 to your current level overnight. This way you can make better choices about powers and slotting based on you play experience and style
Just remember that the respec TF (Task Force) requires a team and several hours (assuming you don’t fail in which case it could take even longer). TF’s are the bane of casual gamers so only take one on if you have the time and the reward is worth it.
One very good way to plan out powers and slotting is to use a character designer. Joe Chott's Hero Planner will allow you to walk through the leveling of your character and choose different powers and slotting combinations visually. Just download it and see (it’s free…last I checked). Since CoH doesn’t have an in-game helper for respecs (*hint hint), planners are necessary to see the effect of enhancements of different kinds on powers in terms of accuracy, duration, and damage potential.
One thing to keep in mind, you will likely end up recreating your character or trying some different types which is what I did in the first week and a half. I got four different characters up to level 13-14 when I could have spent all that time leveling just one. Try to plan our your main and play them most of the time. If you don’t care about making it to level 50 to get the Peacebringer and Warshade archetypes, go for it, otherwise, stick with your main most of the time.
CONTACTS
Missions are a great way to get experience fast because of the bonus you get upon completion of missions. The only other way to get experience (normally) is to just hunt around and kill things. This gets really boring so for now, we’ll concentrate on missions.
To get a mission, you use contacts. Contacts are your non-player characters (NPC’s) that are listed in your contacts menu. Keep as many active missions from different contacts as you can which at the time of this writing is three. In doing this, you will often get compatible missions. Here are some examples
- Your contacts give you two to three missions in the same zone
- You have a mission to “kill 10 Hellions” and a door mission full of Hellions
- You have two missions at the same time to kill “10 Hellions” and “15 Hellions” in which each kill will count for both missions.
- Your zone 1 contact keeps giving missions in zone 2, and zone 2 contact gives you mission for zone 1 so, though you have to travel, it’s not as much of a waste.
The biggest problem with missions is getting to them. Because of how you travel in the early levels, try to keep missions close or clustered together. Even in later levels, travel is more of chore than it should be.
You DO NOT want to complete all missions for only one contact at a time. This will limit how much of the game you see and will often lead you into a situation where you run all the way to a zone, complete the mission, run all the way back only to get another mission in the same zone you were just in.
Most contacts will give you their “cell” number after a few missions. As soon as they do, start calling them instead of running all the way back. This saves valuable time. To “call”, open the contacts menu and press the CALL button next to the info for that contact. If there is no CALL button, you haven’t done enough missions for them yet.
One other important thing to keep in mind: you will sometimes be given the choice of contacts. Chose ones that match your type so that when they offer you enhancements, they’re the kind you can use. For example, I chose to be of magic nature during character creation (as opposed to technology, mutation, etc). By sticking with missions and contacts of a more magical nature, I will get enhancements that I can use. This becomes important later when you begin to get dual origin and single origin enhancements.
MISSION TYPES AND ORDER OF DESIREABILITY AND WHY:
The thing that makes a mission more or less desirable is the time factor. While any other solo player may not care, a casual gamer won’t have all day to spend on a mission. Therefore, typically it’s the mission that’s the fastest to complete that is listed as best.
On that note, I highly recommend the combination of Super Speed and Stealth abilities. With Super Speed, you can get to mission MUCH faster and is (in my opinion) the best travel power by far. With Stealth, you’re hard to see and gives a bonus to defense, but unlike other invisibility powers, you can fight and use all your abilities. Together, you have full invisibility and can literally stand next to an enemy or in a group and wave at them or burp in their face (‘/e belch’ from the chat window to perform this action (without quotes)) and they won’t move a muscle.
Keep in mind that you can get stealth at level 6 and probably run past *most* of the enemies with only the occasional attack. Until you get SS, this is a good way to turbo/ninja missions. Without the SS, Stealth, or both, pretty much every mission becomes a “Kill all” mission.
Missions in approximate order of desirability:
1. Hunting missions - This is where you are commanded to “hit the streets”, “take back territory”, or “give a message to” some group of enemies. They will be worded different ways, but you will be commanded to find and kill (arrest) some number of that kind of enemy. They will usually be in the same zone as you, but not always.
These are typically the easiest and fastest type of mission, but make sure you know where to find these things and that you can kill them. If they command you to kill Vahlolik which are level 6 at most in Galaxy city, but they require that you kill them in Perez (where they are up to level 14), you may not be able to take them without a team. Also if you don’t know where to find that type of enemy, you may waste a lot of time just looking for them.
2. Find crate/box/equipment - These are the easiest door missions especially if you have stealth powers. You just run around, find the glowies (the boxes or equipment that glow and make a slow pulsing sound) and click on them. No fighting required. You can also hear the glowies from a decent distance away and with good speakers or headphones can tell its direction and distance very well with practice.
3. Kill leader and crew door mission - You will go to a warehouse/cave/lab and have to find and destroy the leader and the people closest to him. The leader is usually in the furthest place from the entrance (highest floor, deepest cave, furthest room) and they will almost always talk when you get near them which causes his name to appear in your global chat box (which should match the name listed in the mission goal). Even if they don’t talk (as they often don’t in the later levels), you can point at each enemy with the mouse and it will show their name.
Sometimes it just says “kill leader” in the mission goal and doesn’t give you a special named enemy to look for (usually in later levels). You can try to guess which one it is or if you’re lucky, they’ll have a special (non-generic) name, but this will usually become a “Kill all” mission at this point.
4. Patrol missions - You must go to the target on the map and click the police phone. Then you go to the next target and repeat. After about 5 or so phones, you get a mission bonus. These are good that there’s no fighting, but bad in that you will usually travel over the whole zone.
5. Hostage missions - You will be told how many hostages to find and they’re pretty easy to spot by the behavior of the enemies standing in front of the hostage. There are always between two and three and they act in a “we have a hostage” kind of way. You will pick up on this very quickly.
These can be good because you only have to rescue the hostages, but depending on the density of the enemies and the difficulty of finding some of those danged hostages, this kind will often become a “Kill all”. This is because you will sometimes not be able to extract the hostages without attracting the other enemies or because there’s a hostage hidden so well, that if you don’t kill everything, you’ll never be able to keep track of where you’ve been and where you haven’t.
6. Destroy crates/boxes/equipment missions - You must find and destroy some in-animate thing(s). These are not the same as glowies because they don’t glow and they don’t make noise. You must actually target all crate-looking things and hope it’s the one you want. If it is, you will see a life bar like any other enemy and you whack on it until it explodes or is otherwise destroyed. These can be a total pain to locate and you will end up killing most of what’s in there unless you are sneaking around.
7. “Kill all” missions - These are the “if it moves, kill it” kind of mission and are about the most aggravating. You have to empty the mission of all enemies with prevents you from quickening the completion at all. If you have the time, ability, and desire, go ahead and take this mission, but if you want to make the most of it, form a quick team. You will be able to move quicker and get better experience by bringing along more people.
8. “Combo” missions - You must find something and kill the boss, or kill all monsters and rescue the hostages (which is no different from any kill all mission by the way), or find the data, kill the boss, and rescue a hostage (also when there’s only one hostage or item to find, he/she/it is usually very close to the boss).
9. Any mission in Perez Park - Ok, I’m sort of kidding, but when you play in Perez, you’ll find that just getting to the door can take a long time. My record time circling the park trying to find the right path to get me to the door mission is about 20 minutes.
SPECIAL MISSIONS
1. Board train missions - These are where a small section of a normal city zone is walled off with a blue force field and you have to do one of the above door mission types in a mini-zone. This is hard as heck because a warehouse/lab/cave mission is very linear and well mapped, but in these missions, stuff is even harder to find . A “kill all” train mission will make you want to scream sometimes.
2. A timed mission is any of the above door missions with a time limit attached. Be careful about taking these and make sure you have that amount of time before taking it. They almost never take that long, but play it safe.
FORMING TEAMS/BEING INVITED TO TEAMS
You will need to team at some point no matter what you do. Teams can be fun and interesting plus earn great exp or they can be a waste of your time and cause you to scream obscenities at your computer making people nearby questions your sanity. There are steps you can take to reduce the latter variety.
As of issue 4 (the fourth version of the game), you can enter a custom message that people seeking team members will see next to your name. Use this feature to weed out teams you don’t want. For example, “no blind invites” means you will automatically refuse anyone who sends you a team invite without sending a tell first (a tell is a private message from one player to another which can be done to and from anywhere in the game at any time as long as you’re both online and on the same server (and one of you isn’t ignoring the other)).
The important things you need to know when joining a team are: what are they doing (hunting/missions/TF), what level are they (did some shmuck at level 10 invite you when you’re level 14?), and what types are the team members (You will quickly learn that certain types of missions require certain types of players).
Whenever you have a good team experience, add the key players to your friends list These would be people who play well, have a good personality, and don’t worry about a lot of questions you might have about the game.
When someone on your friend list is online, you will receive a notification so you can message them if you need help/want company. Right now, you won’t know anything about the player other than you liked them enough to add to your friends list because CoH doesn’t allow you to attach comments to friends’ names (*hint hint) which is particularly a problem for the casual gamer, but it’s still better than nothing.
One tip for being invited to higher level teams (where everyone is higher level than you), hang out in a zone where the enemies are all at your level or higher, select “looking for any” in the team window and just do some hunting until a local team decided they need another scrapper. Team leaders will often look for people in the same zone so the team doesn’t have to take much time to gather together.
Don’t bother forming a team yourself until you’ve been in a few so you can see how it works. Also get a good idea of how they types work together and their roles so you know who to kick when necessary. It’s surprising how often you’ll get a rogue player who won’t listen to the rest of the team and constantly gets you all killed. To avoid this, don’t be afraid to kick a player from your team and know what everyone should be doing (and make sure they know it too).
Having said that….
ARCHETYPE ROLES
*Tanker - Meat shield. They take the hits and make sure that everyone in a mob is paying attention to them (they hold the aggro (aggression/attention) of all the enemies). They have enough hitpoints to survive most battles alone, but not enough damage to always kill everything before they themselves die. Essential for battles with large numbers of enemies at and above your level.
*Blaster - Damage dealers. These are snipers of the game. It’s not glorious, but their job is to hide and fire, not draw attention and to NEVER jump into the middle of a mob. They need to stay away from the action and unload lethal damage from afar.
NOTE: A blaster will pretty much die (and often does) as soon as an enemy notices them, but most blasters I’ve played with don’t seem to know this. Of all types in the game, I’ve seen blasters die more often than all other characters in a team because they fire on a crowd before the tank has their attention or because they won’t stop firing and run when they start to lose significant life.
Blasters almost always throw the team off balance so be careful about the blasters you team with. They really can be useful if played correctly, but I very rarely saw that happen.
*Controller - Crowd Control. Controllers are one of the two types that require teams (early on anyway) because they are so squishy (low on hit points). They do crowd control and with a strong controller, you don’t even need a tank because the enemies will be frozen, confused, held or whatever. They have almost no hit points and should never focus on offense until later levels or when the crowd is firmly under control or they have the ability to summon pets. Controllers are great support characters and will often take teleport, resurrect, healing, or other team powers.
*Defender - Healers. I really like defenders because they have a good balance of attack/control and healing/support powers. They are very versatile, but for the most part, they are your healers. A team depends on the defenders to keep healing, passing out ispirations (too large a topic to explain here), and debuffing (weakening) enemies so that the rest of the crew can focus on their job instead of watching their health and trying to stay alive. A really good defender knows to only use their attacks when soloing or when the team is fighting weak mobs. During tough battles, the defender should only be doing support actions so they don’t draw aggro and die.
*Scrapper - High damage, medium hit points. The scrapper’s primary job during a team battle is to add damage to what the tank does and take out the problem enemies quickly. They will often focus on bosses because of their ability to take enemies far above their level and are also important for protecting the squishies (low hit point characters) from enemies that for whatever reason aren’t paying attention to the tank (or being held by the controller).
This is what I chose for solo play. The primary advantage to the scrapper for solo over the tank is that tanks focus on killing many enemies from one or so levels above them to a level or two below. Scrappers can often take on enemies 4 or more levels higher than themselves as long as there aren’t too many. As you get higher level, you will begin to manage groups of enemies at or above your level instead of just one or two at a time.
*Peacebringer/Warshade - Flying Squiddy Blasters. Basically they’re blasters with flight and a bunch of nifty, unique powers from level 1. You can only play them if you get a character to level 50 first so you can USUALLY assume that anyone playing one of these knows how to play the game.
However, in my experience, PB and WS players are one of two types: one of the most patient and friendliest team players in the game, or dumb as a post. Treat them as a blaster as far as team play goes.
TEAM ETTIQUETTE
For the most part, it’s just easier to assume that whoever has the star (the yellow star next to name signifies that character is the current team leader) is in command. When there’s indecision about where to go or what to do, let them choose and support their decision with the rest of the group. There’s nothing worse than a group full of “leaders”.
However, if the leader makes enough bad decisions, you can “kick” them by having all members quit from the team and reform with a new leader leaving the dummy out (but this is not common). Much more common is where everyone chooses a new leader and the previous takes a back seat.
The most annoying people in the game will constantly flood the team chat channel during or out of battle with meaningless crap. One member I was with hit all the auto talk buttons “HELP”, “WAIT”, “READY”, etc. all the time. Others would write talk dirty or act otherwise very juvenile. Be an adult. Even if playing in character (where you talk and act as if you ARE the character you created), treat others with respect and you will get respect in return.
Pay attention to the team chat window. People (other than the annoying ones I just mentioned) who take the time to type something do so for a reason. There are times you will want to kick back and just chat about things, but for the most part, you should be paying attention to what your team is saying.
If you have something to say that should be private, send a tell to that player. Don’t complain about your “worthless leader” or the like in the main team window.
Try not to chat during battles unless the battle is very much under control or your team is just in that kind of mode. Sometimes you will get into a group that’s just out to have fun and doesn’t care about debt (negative experience points you receive as punishment for losing battles (but not before level 5)). These will be the best experiences you will have in the game (another reason it’s important to add great people to your friends list (and why CoH should have a feature for adding comments to people in your friends list (>>>>>>HINT HINT<<<<<).
SOME FINAL NOTES
This game is fun, but becomes kind of stagnant after a while. The primary problems are that as you level, it becomes harder to level. That is, the experience necessary to make the next level rises in an upward curve. By the time you hit level 25, it could take many days or weeks to go to the next level (depending on how long you play consecutively per day).
Also, most missions are marred by the fact that you can’t find something or you have to spend too much time getting to/from them and your contact. If the game designers would add another power pool, the game would be more casual-player friendly. I suggest the following four powers for this pool
- Telepathy - You can contact your contacts remotely all the time instead of only after a few missions.
- Mind sweep - Send out a psychic ping that makes your target boxes/hostages/bosses play a tone (like making everything you need to find a glowie). Either that or you can see target bars through walls so you know whether a hostage is in a room before you go there.
- Contact Port - Teleport to any contact or trainer on the map
- Gate port - Teleport to any gate or train station
The rates for the game are reasonable, but not for the casual gamer. I can’t spend $15 a month when the demands on my time are so high. What I CAN do is go down and rent a game from the local movie store for one week for $5 during a week I know I’ll have some down time. Since the game is (rightly so) designed so that your characters remain on an account forever and you can pick the game up where you left off after many months, Play NC should introduce a weekly rate for the game similar to standard game rentals. Either that or a $5 a month rate for a limited number of hours for those of us who can’t play 6 hours a day anyway.
Once you earn a temporary power, you should have the option of placing that power into a special power pool (up to four) and every time you level, have the option of switching which power you will use until your next level. For example, let’s say you earn the Sands of Mu and Wolf Whistle powers (both of which are very useful). If you selected them to be in your permanent four available powers, every level you could choose to keep that power or choose the other. Either way, you should be able to keep temporary powers and there should be more temporary powers available (so everyone doesn’t have the same ones).
If they don’t do something like that with the temp powers, then each character type should have several new powers added and you should get powers more often (like change it to 100 levels and you level twice as often). For example, each character type should be able to have a ranged attack, an area attack or effect, and a basic heal (and I would really like a pet!). Since most character types are so focused, you can’t solo with them well which is death to the casual gamer.
The random events are good, but there are too few of them. Giant monsters are great, but don’t show up often and require that you be ridiculously high level to participate. Things like the ghost ship are very good and there should be more interesting random events in all zones. Like every now and then, I think it would be fun to have a Devouring Earth run down the street of Atlas Park chasing after something. As long as they didn’t attack anything that didn’t attack it first, it wouldn’t harm the low levels, but it makes the game more interesting.
How about random glowies out in the zones with special powers, influence or exp bonuses? Finding hidden treasure is a lot of fun. Winter lords = good, Halloween pumpkin dudes = fun.
More enemies that aren’t so human looking (too many humans like the nemesis, crey, family, council, sky raiders, etc).
There should be more to do in the game than missions and badge hunting. You should be able to earn super gadgets like the batmobile or batplane. You should be able to choose and fight any kind of enemy in the arena (just like most good RPGs).
You should be able to create a sidekick which could either be what is now known as a pet or from one of your other characters on the same server. The AI can control it and you could rez, or heal it by giving it inspirations. This way you could play solo, but have more than just one character to deal with.
I know that it would be hard, but some of the mission maps get really dull after a while. I think that if the buildings were more realistic, it would be much more interesting. For example, a real office building has a parking garage, then a lobby, then office floors with cubicles, with the nicest stuff on the top. Elevators go all the way up, not just one level per elevator.
You should be able to push pets out of the way and you should be able to knock out those annoying NPC’s in missions. Like if you hit a running NPC with brawl, they should get knocked unconscious. This would not only be fun, but would keep them from getting in your way.
Messages from friends should be colored differently than other players in tells and in team windows. It’s really hard to remember someone you added to the list weeks ago so you might ignore one of your friends accidentally. On that note, you should be able to attach comments to people you add to friends, and people you add to the ignore list so you can remember some things about them. Especially for players who can only find the time every few months, there’s no way to remember details of other players.
IN CLOSING - EXPLANATION OF SUGGESTIONS FOR GAME IMPROVEMENT
First, CoH is an exceptionally designed game. It runs well, looks great and has on of the best character generation engines I know of. My suggestions are mostly for rules and policy and don’t represent criticism of the game.
Anyway, right now, CoH is designed for the long term player who has time to devote to the game, not casual gamers. They need more events, more powers, faster leveling (faster rewards), and more activities that you can do to attract a larger audience (that and the weekly rate). To play for 8 hours straight and not get any special devices, items, powers, abilities, or anything at all just doesn’t cut it in the long term.
(Tiny note: I have since updated this guide extensively which is now at coh.jeremyduffy.com
***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***
Jordan's Town
My lousy name for the comic that I did which can be found here CoH @ JeremyDuffy.com
My favorite guide - Advanced Costuming. How to work your costume into your character's theme, story, and playstyle.
Jordan Yen 50 Dark/Dark/Dark Defender
Shazel 35 Fire/fire/fire blaster
Screaming Gale 35 Storm/Sonic Defender
Jordan Yin 36 Warshade, Jordan Yang 33 Peacebringer
Mudnuke 38 Earth/Rad Controller
Doctor Kev 38 Necro/Dark Mastermind
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| 07/26/05 19:31 |
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thejeni
Posts: 26
Joined: 08/12/2004
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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wow... that guide covered just about every aspect in the game... that was AMAZING!!!! if you would like (and i know i would like this) you can copy and past that into a guide that way it is a bit more perminate on this site... i can tell you put a lot of time and effort into that thing and i'm VERY glad you shared it w/ us
oh yeah Welcome to the site!!!
Siggy created by DeathFetish.
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| 07/26/05 22:23 |
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Grifter0408
GameAmp Staff
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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All I can say is GREAT GIGLAMESH that is a post. Very nice.
and as thejeni said, welcome and look forward to more things from you on the site.
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| 07/26/05 22:26 |
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Nakoma
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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I'm pretty sure I just plotzed.
CoH
TRIUMPH
Thermablaze - Level 50 fire/fire blaster - Pargon City Vigilaint Watch
Mr. Uganda - Level 50 storm/dark defender - Global Heroics
Mu'shroom - Level 44 ill/rad controller - Fusion Force
Polar Fury - Level 28 ice/ss tank - Wild Cards
Mr. Haiti - Level 13 claws/dark scrapper - Global Academy
Lady Lupine - Level 25 sonic/energy blaster - Night Shift
Splinterbug - Level 27 spines/regen scrapper
CoV
TRIUMPH
The Big Red Hurt - Level 34 ss/inv brute Shadow Syndicate
Jagdhund vom Gruft - Level 32 dark/fire brute - Gothic
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| 07/26/05 22:50 |
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Demonico
Posts: 18
Joined: 07/06/2005
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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wow, very well thought out guide. i didnt get a chance to read the whole post but from what i did see it was pretty good. kudos.
GUARDIAN
HEROS:
Lv 50 Human PeaceBringer .Demonico
Lv 50 Force Field/Dark Blast Defender Demonico
Lv 42 Mind/Sonic Controller MR. Herman
Lv 22 Ice/Energy Melee Tank Diva D
Lv 12 Kat/Regen Scrapper Ichigo Shinigami
VILLAINS:
Lv 18 Grav/Thorn Dominator Mad Jhak
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| 07/26/05 22:54 |
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RonJ73
GameAmp Staff
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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| QUOTE | | I'm pretty sure I just plotzed. |
Do you need a towel or something?
By the way, this seemed worthy of pinning...so I did. GREAT guide! I'm sure it will help out a lot of younglings.
***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***
City of Heroes/Villains
Onion - L50 - Katana/Super Reflexes/Body Mastery Scrapper
Scotch Bonnet Girl - L50 - Fire Aura/Fire Melee/Pyre Mastery Tanker
RonJ73 - L50 - Stone/Energy Aura Brute
Aurora Australis - L50 - Willpower/Energy Melee Tanker
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| 07/27/05 00:24 |
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Malicious_Intent_2001
Posts: 0
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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Two words: Totally Botzin! And for those that haven't been around long enough to understand that - Great article. We appreciate all the hard work, bubba. Welcome to the site!
Malicious
"Hell is empty, and all the devils are here." - William Shakespeare
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| 07/27/05 01:44 |
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govtmorgue
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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That was a well thought up guide. Great for the casual gamer or even the serious gamer. I rated it a 6...but all it gave me to choose from was a 5.
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| 07/27/05 05:49 |
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Electro
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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| QUOTE | | You should be able to create a sidekick which could either be what is now known as a pet or from one of your other characters on the same server. The AI can control it and you could rez, or heal it by giving it inspirations. This way you could play solo, but have more than just one character to deal with. |
Very well-written guide. Regarding your suggestion for built-in sidekicks, I believe I read where this is planned for some future issue. I think it was someone's interview with Statesman. Anyway, you would have control over the type of sidekick, and even be able to build him/her to your specifications as you (and they) level.
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| 07/27/05 07:35 |
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Jorden_Yen
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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Thank you all for your kind words. As a matter of fact, I did spend quite a long time on the guide. About a week I think.
I got the same suggestion for posting it as a guide from one of the GM's so I'll definitely do that. I didn't realize that there was that option before :P
I would just be happy if CoH took my advice about the lower rates for guys like me. I like the game, but can't justify the price for the small amount of time I can play :( (especially now with my new job).
***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***
Jordan's Town
My lousy name for the comic that I did which can be found here CoH @ JeremyDuffy.com
My favorite guide - Advanced Costuming. How to work your costume into your character's theme, story, and playstyle.
Jordan Yen 50 Dark/Dark/Dark Defender
Shazel 35 Fire/fire/fire blaster
Screaming Gale 35 Storm/Sonic Defender
Jordan Yin 36 Warshade, Jordan Yang 33 Peacebringer
Mudnuke 38 Earth/Rad Controller
Doctor Kev 38 Necro/Dark Mastermind
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| 07/27/05 18:15 |
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Samurai_DD
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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Great article. I am not a casual gamer, in fact I have totally mad free time, 60% plus of my time is leisure and now that I am on vacation its almost 100%. So Im not a casual gamer, lol. Great guide fr those who are though. A weekly fee would own for ppl who are in your circumstances though, and your guide is as much for the casual gamer as to the new player. Congratulatons on it, its really great for a large demographic of CoH players. Keep on truckin!
"I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse." :p
Isaac Asimov
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Star Wars is forever!!!
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Flame Samurai - Scrapper in Pinnacle, Main Hero
Lurking Shadow - Stalker in PInnacle, Main Villain
Way too much alts...
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| 07/27/05 21:26 |
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LordXenophon
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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Yes, this will be quite valuable for new players. It will definately help anyone through their first few hours of play.
        
          
          
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| 07/28/05 17:34 |
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Falcon15
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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Wish I had found this site/guide before I started to play. Extremely impressive. Kudos.
"The only substitute for good manners is fast reflexes" - Vlad Taltos
"Not all still water runs deep. Some of it is pretty damn shallow." - Personal Observation
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert A. Heinlein
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| 09/14/05 11:19 |
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Dark Illusions
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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I am still in school, hehe, so I can only play on weekends, however, I can play for hours on CoH on weekends. So, I'm not quite sure if I can count myself as a casual player.
That was a great guide! It took me about 20 minutes or so to read the whole thing, and I'm so glad you are great enough to make such a large commitment! Good luck on everything, and when you ARE on city of heroes, just feel free to give me (Saura) a tell if you need anything, though, I'm willing to bet you are a complete pro at this game for making an entire guide on the game for casual players.
Thanks so much again! Great guide!
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| 10/20/05 18:29 |
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Jorden_Yen
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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Actually, I had only played for one month by the time I wrote that guide :). I haven't played since because I don't have the time or extra cash, but I'm reading the site again studying up on Issues 5 and 6 so I can play again sometime this Christmas or early 2006. Like I said, casual player :D
Jordan's Town
My lousy name for the comic that I did which can be found here CoH @ JeremyDuffy.com
My favorite guide - Advanced Costuming. How to work your costume into your character's theme, story, and playstyle.
Jordan Yen 50 Dark/Dark/Dark Defender
Shazel 35 Fire/fire/fire blaster
Screaming Gale 35 Storm/Sonic Defender
Jordan Yin 36 Warshade, Jordan Yang 33 Peacebringer
Mudnuke 38 Earth/Rad Controller
Doctor Kev 38 Necro/Dark Mastermind
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| 11/22/05 07:13 |
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RoxAlot
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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| QUOTE | One thing I was never able to find out was what difference it makes if your character is Mutation, Natural, Science, etc. There appears to be no difference other than some enemy types and contacts will deal with one kind of enhancement and not others. For example, if you are of magic origin, fighting Circle of Thorns will give you magic enhancements, but not fighting Nemesis (this only matters after level 14 or so when you start to get dual and single origin enhancements). Therefore, for your first character, pick whatever sounds good to you.
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Just like to add. Im pretty sure (not certain) the difference effects the powers youl recieve. IE: Natural Blaster X Will fire ammunition. While Magic blaster Y will fire elemental magical attack from his or her hands. Im not sure what the difference in damage and enemy resistances are. However I am sure it effects them.
Edit:Just realized. Some enhancments are specific to said classes. IE:"You cannot use this enchantment because of your magic origin"
***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***
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| 11/25/05 03:03 |
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swissarmy68
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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Unfortunately Rox, that is not the case. Although that would be a sweet enhancement. The powers that are available for the characters are all the same no matter what origin you are. The origin effects who your contacts will start out with and which enhancements you can use when you start using Dual and Single origin enhancements.
The changing of the effects for characters has been suggested by many people as something they would like to see. As of now though, everyone has the same effects no matter what origin you are (for example, a Natural Blaster Fire, and a Science Blaster Fire both have the same effects with their fire attacks).
Swiss
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| 11/25/05 06:45 |
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RoxAlot
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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| QUOTE | and which enhancements you can use when you start using Dual and Single origin enhancements.
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Aye this is what i meant in the edit. I did however realise the whole natural etc. Thing. Thanks for correction there.
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| 11/30/05 23:32 |
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Rainah
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| Re: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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Very good ... which has been said but it did have things in there that I would not have know/ thought of before now i willbe careful when making new chars when i get the itch for a new toon
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| 11/30/05 23:52 |
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electraoutlaw
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| RE: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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umm. . . . WOW.
This guide is incredible. Let me just say that I wish there were more of the NON-casual gamers who made the effort to know the game that well.
Props to you my friend.
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| 12/19/05 11:12 |
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Mild816
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| RE: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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that guide rules
lol internet.
Ultra1 - 31 Electric/Devices Blaster - Justice
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| 01/05/06 08:47 |
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Dark Illusions
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| Re:Casual Gamers Guide (or something like that) |
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| QUOTE | | Very good ... which has been said but it did have things in there that I would not have know/ thought of before now i willbe careful when making new chars when i get the itch for a new toon |
I see you as well have alt syndrome (teehee)
Well, whenever you ARE online it would be great to meet one of your characters or something like that maybe we can team up if it ever happens good luck!
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| 01/11/06 18:32 |
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saadshaheed
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| RE: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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Absolutely Brilliant!!
I also consider myself to be a Casual Gamer. You guide has really made me rethink my approach to the game. I started with a Blaster, and I now use a Scrapper as my primary. But I got discouraged with how hard it has become for me to lvl now; (my scrapper - Speed Trap is now lvl 28).
I wish I had seen this guide before I started playing. Thank you very much for taking the time to compile such an informative piece. I sincerely hope that you get more free time to play as much as you would like in the future.
CoH needs more players like you.
Kudos!!!
***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***
CoH Rocks!!!
My Profile
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| 07/06/06 15:34 |
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Jorden_Yen
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| RE: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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| QUOTE | Absolutely Brilliant!!
I also consider myself to be a Casual Gamer. You guide has really made me rethink my approach to the game. I started with a Blaster, and I now use a Scrapper as my primary. But I got discouraged with how hard it has become for me to lvl now; (my scrapper - Speed Trap is now lvl 28).
I wish I had seen this guide before I started playing. Thank you very much for taking the time to compile such any informative piece. I sincerely hope that you get more free time to play as much as you would like in the future.
CoH needs more players like you.
Kudos!!! |
Thanks! I'm only embarrassed that it's out of date. I actually built some new guide (links in my signature), but it's mostly focused on playing a dark/dark/dark defender (my main after all) though there's some good info on character building and missions that's I7 relevant.
Jordan's Town
My lousy name for the comic that I did which can be found here CoH @ JeremyDuffy.com
My favorite guide - Advanced Costuming. How to work your costume into your character's theme, story, and playstyle.
Jordan Yen 50 Dark/Dark/Dark Defender
Shazel 35 Fire/fire/fire blaster
Screaming Gale 35 Storm/Sonic Defender
Jordan Yin 36 Warshade, Jordan Yang 33 Peacebringer
Mudnuke 38 Earth/Rad Controller
Doctor Kev 38 Necro/Dark Mastermind
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| 07/06/06 15:55 |
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Electro
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| RE: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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| QUOTE | Absolutely Brilliant!!
I also consider myself to be a Casual Gamer. You guide has really made me rethink my approach to the game. I started with a Blaster, and I now use a Scrapper as my primary. But I got discouraged with how hard it has become for me to lvl now; (my scrapper - Speed Trap is now lvl 28).
I wish I had seen this guide before I started playing. Thank you very much for taking the time to compile such any informative piece. I sincerely hope that you get more free time to play as much as you would like in the future.
CoH needs more players like you.
Kudos!!! |
Welcome to GameAmp! We like it when new people post. :)
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| 07/06/06 16:17 |
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saadshaheed
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| RE: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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Jorden and Electro,
Thank you for making me feel welcome!! I'm happy to be here. After I read this post, I signed up at GameAMP, just so I can post a response.
Obviously this was a good decision to join. I sense I can learn a lot here.
This post may be a little dated, but it still contains oodles of useful information. Enough that I was able to revive my Blaster - Cold Zone II (who died more times than I care to remember) after not playing him for over 6 months; playing him solo and on a team last night, obliterating all previous debt, as well as lvling twice in about 3 hours. And the best part, I didn't even die once.
The result, I have reserved my seat in front of the PC for an all day marathon tomorrow, and my Scrapper - Speed Trap (he rocks) will get a well deserved vacation!
Once again, Thank you Jorden_Yen. Great Site BTW. Keep up the great work.
War Cry: "Everybody Chill!"
CoH Rocks!!!
My Profile
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| 07/07/06 08:47 |
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Phase_of_Echoes
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| RE: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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Welcome to Gameamp!
If you have any questions feel free to ask. There is a wide range of knowledge here and just about anything you want to know about any Archetypes.
Most of us are Altoholics so that helps too.
Take a look around and enjoy. Hope to see you here more often.
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| 07/07/06 08:53 |
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swissarmy68
GameAmp Staff
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| RE: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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Welcome to you.
Feel free to ask any questions you have, everyone here is more then willing to help (in-game or here on the site).
Check out some of the other forum posts. There is even a new supergroup starting up with people that are registered here on Gameamp. It is a great group of people to run with.
Glad to hear you are enjoying the game.
Swiss
This space is currently under construction
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| 07/07/06 09:33 |
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thejeni
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| RE: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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Welcome to the site, saadshaheed!
Jordan's guide really is amazing isn't it?!
Siggy created by DeathFetish.
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| 07/07/06 10:04 |
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DarkZaleth
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| RE: CoH Guide for the Casual Gamer -- My Story |
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Well Written and lots of info for the New Players.
***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***
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| 07/10/06 10:49 |
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