Greycat

OK. This is comparatively *ancient.* And a rediscovered "lost" piece for me. (I'm setting up a new NAS and transferring an old, about-to-be-retired 8Tb hard drive to it, checking folders and ... "ooh, I forgot this one." Artist, if anyone remembers from way back, Graver13. No digital anything, lots of watercolor. This one's just listed as "Walk - Graver." Definitely one of my characters from live, an ice 'troller taking a distractable Jack Frost for a walk.

Maybe a bit of cleanup, but...

1. Introduced - I seem to recall seeing the website early(ish) and/or hearing things, and it looked interesting, but having other things to deal with it kind of passed out of mind. Meantime, some friends and I had been playing (tabletop) Silver Age Sentinels. Had fun with it, but one of our younger members joined the army so the game was on indefinite hold. I'd been having fun with the character from there, though. Tried recreating him, sort of, in Freedom Force, but ... eh. The game just didn't really do it for me. Walking through Walmart, I ran across the City of Heroes collectors edition box. Had two thoughts, 1, who'd keep paying for a game after they bought it? and 2, eh, month free, lets see if this scratches that itch. (Box had the Statesman heroclix figure, PVP mini comic, code for the Prestige Power Slide and Cape of Four Winds when you created your account.) That was in Issue 3. I kept playing - with one small break when the (new-ish) incarnates content and attitude towards it was "Yes, you now must GRIIIIIIND these trials! Single player content for it? Pfft. GRIND!" - until, well, now. 2. Love most... that my characters are mine. I've only run across (unplanned) similar costumes in the game.... once that I remember, *maybe* one other time. But I do mean both in look and variety - and how open it is to RP. As opposed to being "Fighter #8490753" which has the same gear all the other fighters of your level do because you need to have that to do stuff that level, so you look the same, fight the same, and need to grind (as opposed to doing what you'd actually LIKE to do) to get cash for the next yes-you-do-need-it upgrade in gear that every fighter gets at THAT level. Also that it's not *competitive* - it's not "the guy who got the first hit on the world/area boss gets the credit, now wait an hour for it to spawn again so you can finish the quest that's holding you up." And that you don't need tank-DPS-healer to do stuff, most any composition can handle most any standard content.

Painting in progress...

So one 3d creator I follow takes some commissions. Decided to give them a try - the style wouldn't work for all my various characters, but for MB here... Needs some post-printing and processing cleanup and obviously painting and such, but... (Artist - Highpolya on Fiverr.)

Half-retcon, half-mission generation - Crey. Look, in Outbreak you had the police standing around while Crey did some "helpful" evaluation of Rikti drones. Then we don't see them, and then boom, bad guys. (OK, there's some mention of it by Synapse, as I recall, but still.) Having Crey as a tech/natural/science, possibly mutant, 1-50 contact chain where they're *giving* you missions at level 1 (and being "genuinely" helpful) to build up the whole "they're all right and do some good, as much as a big company can at least" gloss that you really never get to see and that would lend some "well, maybe she's right" to Countess Crey's arguments when stuff's found out about "those are rogue elements, we're launching an internal investigation." Obviously by the end, yes, you're aware of just how bad they are. But it could have been an interesting journey. (Yes, I know, something similar for magic would have to be developed. ) VEATS: Part of what I like with Kheldians is how the world reacts to you, as far as spawning Voids, Quantums, etc. VEATS? They just got a really crap storyline, aside from that you could be just another standard AT. I'd alter the storyline for how Arachnos responds to you - as in early on, sure, mostly keep it the same - someone higher than you wants to make a name for themselves by keeping you in your place - but after that? You get some actively hostile Arachnos in the world at times, and others who'd be willing to fight with / follow you. This starts making you "interesting" and possibly a threat to the Patrons and Recluse. Good bit of rewriting, yes. But it needs it. (And I'd also get rid of the DAMN FORCED RESPEC AT 24 and let you just pick your path at level 1.)

The incarnate system would never have been "finished," and was planned that, frankly, "newer" powers and content would make old ones obsolete (in which case, why have ATs and powersets?) Dug into this a bit in my EATs guide, with links to references. Honestly, I'm rather glad it never got farther than it did. While I wouldn't mind it growing "wider" for a bit of variety, maybe, it doesn't need to get more ridiculous in powers (and the content that would be required.)

No. The battalion are unrelated, and tend to be focused on Wells. The Nictus are generally just trying to survive. If they had the strength to be the Battalion, they wouldn't be running from the Peacebringers. Yes, I know the twilight's son bit, which has always been a bit ridiculous for a species that can travel the way they do. The Well is also not a Nictus. The Wells, even with retcons, have been fairly explained. (As well as the other unseen power levels and plans that were had - and I've got to say I'm rather glad we didn't get there - around them. I mean, eventually getting to "the cosmic aspects of order and chaos?" Yet we can't go to ... underwater, or England, or Egypt... Bleh.) The wells are, in essence, created ("involuntarily," I'll say, versus consciously) by the related species that have them.

There are a few that do. Croatoa's the one that sticks in mind for me, since it's an overarching story arc.

We went through a long argument about this when someone else passed. The devs aren't going to add an NPC, for multiple reasons. *If* anyone gets added, it's going to be someone on the actual dev team. Dev response - They're not *opposed* to a wall of names/memorial, but it doesn't sound high on the list. (Yes, I'm replying because I'm seeing this thread while looking in the forum to see if someone I've not seen around for a while who was sick was mentioned by anyone. I *know* their close in game friends, but even they don't know and brought it up.)

When using it when I went to MSRs regularly on a 50 +3 (both my 'shade and others,) to get the most effect and mobs I had to snag a Super inspriation, which bumps * your* level up by one.

No more tex-mex for you.

Usually when these sorts of things are suggested, it's things like a modern engine and newer graphics, without the various limitations for what can be done with a costume/more modifiable faces/etc, moving the timeline forward, fixing as much of the "we'd love to but can't due to structural limits in the game" sort of things. Usually paired with expanding the scope (starting out with going to other places in the world, going underwater/into space, etc.) Would I love to see it? Solid "maybe." Would I expect to ever see it? Nope. Especially as an MMO. I'm not sure when the most recent actual-MMO has been released and done well. I'd half expect if someone launched a COH 2 "officially" it'd be a squad based game (COHelldivers 2?) And given the way corporations are, it'd be a ton of microtransactions and such (unless they *did* follow the Helldivers 2 model... you *can* buy in game cash, but there's no reason to, since earning the same stuff in game is actually done at a reasonable pace.) Plus there'd have to be a demonstrable market for it as a "live service" game. So. Yeah. For those and many, many more reasons, I don't expect to see a COH 2 ever.

Semi-frequently, here.

Whenever I see the MSR listed on Everlasting these days, it's instanced - people go to the zone (or a shared zone) to get invited in, for this and other reasons. So they should have zero impact as it is. (Or, rather, it's already essentially IN an "MSR" zone.)