retiarius

The problem with CO for me is that I'd already played the tabletop version for over a decade, having created dozens of characters, and the character creation between tabletop and crpg versions was about as different as it could possibly be - almost nothing in CO felt anything like Champions™ to me, and ultimately it didn't feel as satisfying as CoH.

If you right-click the game title in your library list, and then left-click the icon in the resulting flyout window, Steam should give you options for changing the icon. The hero and grid images can be changed from the main library window by right-clicking (and choosing 'Manage' > 'Set custom artwork', and 'Set custom background' respectively).

Right. Except for the one stretch of six or so years post-shutdown where NCSoft wasn't even aware that City of Heroes was still covertly active.

I think that to some degree, the collar has always been there - it's just a question of who is holding the other end of the leash.

My two thoughts: 'You are the hero of your own story, not the sidekick in someone else's.' 'Comparison is the thief of joy.'

How does one silence the god-awful sound associated with this stealthy power? Delete the 'glow3_loop' file from the directory?

If you sincerely want it, it's not too late to begin to cultivate it - it takes persistence and time (sometimes a lifetime) but the journey itself is the destination, and it is well worth it.

That the map scale adjustment I select resets itself each time I zone.

That's rather the rub - they don't have to "prove it's overpowered" (whatever 'overpowered' even means in this context), because it's their game, not ours. Acceptance of this central tenet helps determine whether you continue on as-is, move on to something else, or some varied combination of those two things. As future changes come about, data mining will aid understanding of whether or not those changes are causing the population number to increase, decrease, or remain about the same.

Changes for the sake of changes. If change is necessary, I'd opt for a more pressing need - like a complete overhaul and re-design of the cumbersome and user-unfriendly respec process - it would a very welcome change to have the respec process be such that one looked forward to doing it, and enjoyed the process when interacting with the UI, as opposed to something to avoid if at all possible.

Why would it be the case that it's too late to change it? This is a completely different team of people at the helm, with their own vision of what the game is and should be - is there something about the original game's state (i.e. the final build prior to sunset) that is in an HC charter or mission statement somewhere? Even if there was, it seems to me that there will eventually be changes that run counter to what some portion of the playerbase would prefer -- it was a commercial product back then - but the gaming climate in late 2020 isn't what it was in 2010, and future changes will be needed to meet an ever-evolving player need in order for the game to grow and remain viable.

It improves the game in the perspectives of some, and makes it worse for others. In the final analysis, you'll have some who would want the /ah command removed as well, and others who believe removing it would be completely counterproductive. Maybe it too will eventually be removed. The key though, is that it doesn't really matter what you or I think - it's the homecoming team's boat, and they'll steer it in whatever direction they see fit, if they believe that it improves the game. This isn't navigation by democracy or popular opinion. The most important choice one can make is at some point whether to stay on the ship (whatever it's destination), or to grab a life preserver, jump into the open ocean, and see what other possibilities are out there.

I'd agree to some extent, especially with respect to newer players, and to some degree, older ones. But another measure of the world's liveliness is also dependent on how active its social and team-forming channels are - if fewer are looking for groups or, looking to make groups, then a whole bunch of people standing around in Pocket D can make you feel left out rather than included.

It's an ancillary goal that you want people to spend as much time in-game as possible - the trick is finding the balance that produces the greatest number playing for the longest time without losing: a) players who get frustrated and cease playing because they've burned through the content at high speed, or b) players who get frustrated at the abundance of perceived time sinks in the game that inhibit playing the game in the way that they want to play it.

Proof-of-concept is another possibility. It would be unrealistic to believe both that the current model and the game's well-being will last indefinitely. The more capably it can be demonstrated that the current game management team is capable of making considered decisions to evolve the game's future (in part through balance decisions), the more likely it is to get broad buy-in from users when other future changes become necessary that help ensure the game's survival and growth.