Greycat

1. This is not "back on live." This is homecoming. 2. Fort Trident/The Crucible has nothing in it. There's really nothing special to it. There's no longer a vendor you turn hero/villain merits in to for things like recipes. That was removed. (Heck, Fort Trident was removed. Just had to go doublecheck my memory - took a level 50 hero, went to go into it, "you cannot enter.") 3. No, you do not get hero or villain merits for doing a morality mission any more. You get 40 merits, even for hero or villain. If the HCWiki says this - which is a copy of PWiki, for updating - then someone hasn't updated the entry. I'll give you before and after shots of a hero running "One good spider," a Hero-alignment mission. You'll notice no hero merits awarded - just 40 regular reward merits, like any other alignment. This is *literally* as of a few minutes before posting this.

Power pools were already "loosened up." You no longer have to take Hover or Air Superiority to get Fly, for instance, and get THAT pick earlier. It's already stupidly easy to make ridiculously overpowered, overprotected, perma-everything'd characters. It doesn't need to be any easier. MIght as well ask for your T1 to be a button that kills everything short of AVs/GMs in one press for 1000 yards around you. AVs and GMs would take two presses.

I'm ... not sure what you're seeing. Old information, maybe, from when they were earned (I don't even recall how right off the top of my head) to turn in for stuff at the Cauldron and Fort... whatever. Now, thy're just holders for 50 reward merits at a time. You don't earn them. You go to a merit vendor and pick "Convert." Doesn't care what your alignment is. (See image. Character is, was, and always has been pure blue. Option to convert to and from is there - and just did one of each for this shot.)

Still think this is just a gorgeous environment, generally bare though it is...

Uhhhhh.... no. Just ... no.

Well. "Altaholic" does not mean "No or few 50s." Going to start with - I made a bit of a guide back on live. The Altaholic's guide to getting to 50. You may get some ideas there. Short form for me, currently, would be one or more of these - - I like the character as a *character.* - RP keeps me playing one or two characters consistently. (Finally have Cat Grey over VL100.) - I have "projects" like "One of each x to 50." - And sometimes it's just something that clicks. They're not the only things, but they've been the most helpful.

I'm going to point you at the HC wiki, with *the game's definition of a story arc.* Since I'm talking about the game. I'm obviously using the game's definition. So. For instance. Praetoria has an overarching storyline the player goes through. That story *line* is made up of several story *arcs.* Does that clarify things?

There's ... a few ways to answer that. Originally it kind of felt like "making your way," eventually getting to the point where you're rescuing Statesman (and no, Posi doesn't have that same impact.) It wasn't really a single, guided storyline, more like a theme. There are plenty of sub-arcs, both in groups and in ... problems (Supradyne, for instance, which goes through several levels as well as various clues from plaques and such. Such as, did you know in a *very* small percentage of users, they can see across dimensions? Also drives them insane.) There are - let's call them "story zones," such as the Hollows, Faultline, Striga and Croatoa, with most everything self contained. And there are Epic ATs, which are called Epic because they are tied to a specific, 1-50 storyline - for Kheldians, the Kheldian war, for VEATs... something destined one something something blah. Those are probably the only things that *do* have a storyline going 1-50. THough it's more a dive into a specific facet of the story, rather than "the game's" 1-50 arc. The game, of course, has its own history - but also due to the nature of it being an MMO, time gets kind of wibbly-wobbly, too. *shrug* Praetoria... sort of does, though it's more your choices than "this is the story of praetoria." TLDR version? Other MMOs have "This is the game storyline, and you are a participant." COH is more "This is your storyline, and the game is the medium to tell it. Choose which way you want to go."

OK, not a screenshot, but I just ran across these and had to share. Old Origin titles... title bars? Title graphics?

We decorated the office with AOL disks at one place I worked... both the floppies *and* CDs.

WHy shouldn't Reggie be? He works out frequently. (That said, sizes in this game are ... questionable at best, as far as scale. There are times I think things were just slapped in... like som eof the SG tables that not only can you not sit in, but that would make the most massive character look like a 3 year old sitting at the grownups table.)

You two act like that isn't done now. Someone ignores someone else because they were acting up or whatever. They tell their friends, sg mates, etc - it may not be server or game wide, but yes, little unofficial lists like that exist all over the place. Sometimes it's warranted. I've had groups kick people out who were there to do nothing but be disruptive and make people uncomfortable - instant SG-sized blacklist against one person. And yes, word gets around *there,* too - I've had people tell me "Oh, you have so and so in your group? Look out, they did such and such." Sometimes, like I said, it's warranted. Sometimes it's very obviously one side of the story or a personal grudge. How you react to it is up to you.

Also, managed to get an archived wayback machine capture of the old COT paragon wiki page, old look - http://web.archive.org/web/20080324182808/http://cityofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/Circle_of_Thorns

Well, the COT costume set was added to the market Sept 27, 2011. I dn't recall if they were changed at that point or before. Edit - https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Issue_21 - issue 21 lists the Circle of Thorns visual revamp. Sept 27, 2011.

Warshade? Has holds, melee, ranged, melee AOE, ranged AOE, stuns, heal, slows (every attack does slows as a secondary effect,) resist (shields,) can add defense with combat jumping, probably tack some leadership in there. Alternately a VEAT, as they've got the leadership toggles - possibly a fort?

Yeah. Currently they're not (though it looks like some people are dumping old packs...)

*sings* Comets to the left of me, Jaegers to the right, here I am stuck in a cutscene with youuu....

Not necessarily. I think from the description he's looking at either metal ore, as mentioned, or something like the ... enemy group whose name s escaping me right now, redside, rock monsters animated by the red coral... gah. *Goes to hcwiki* Slag golems. Those guys. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/File:SlagGolem1.jpg ... which have less metal in them than I remember, but still.

Yeah. Story arcs and story *lines* are two different things, definitely, and there are hooks and mentions and such that were around for years and never touched again on live - because "we brought in new devs and wanted them to do their own thing, not continue someone else's" (not the exact quote, but close enough - fairly sure it was from Posi.) The mentions of Gadzul Oil - and the eye of Horus in the oil spill in Oakes - stick in mind to me. They were there to lead into the Blood of the Black Stream, they've been there since COV went live (Mr. Bocor makes mention of Gadzul Oil, for instance) - and they never went anywhere. (Honestly, the BotBS reference goes back even *further,* as they had an early contest for a CCG card made of a player, and when they picked a winner, they tweaked the reference to refer to it as well - and that, as I recall, was done by the time I joined in i3.) Now, granted, BotBS was supposed to be another Epic AT, so there's a lot more involved than just a storyline (and I seem to recall another dev - maybe Castle, for some reason I have manti come to mind - say they tried to bring them up to be worked on a few times,) but still... dropped and ignored. (Supposed to be tech/magic, shapeshifters, going back to ancient Egypt, turning the earth into or using it as a sort of giant supercomputer via nodes like the one in Oakes - think ley lines, as I recall.) Delving into "really obscure you wouldn't know they were clues to content," the last Hollows mission from WIncott, when you're retrieving artifacts - some of them point to dropped items, like the surprisingly light skull ("like it's hollow") was supposed to be an Avilian (the AT that was dropped when they figured out how to just give wings to players as a costume part,) and in Striga, one of the missions has you rescue some oceanographers and a "something" they brought up - which was an early reference to the Virtea, supposed to be an undersea race enslaved by and serving the Coralax, but that reference (and EAT) was dropped as well, though we did get them as NPCs in COV (including Barracuda.) There are a *lot* of hooks in the game that never got paid off, even in live. But if an arc gets in, it didn't even get through beta without being a complete arc.

She's only there Wednesday and Saturday nights.

I'm pretty sure the team's mentioned "We wanted to do this, started looking into / doing it, then found it wouldn't work" a few times (on unannounced things.) So this isn't theoretical.

... and AE dialog, and a few other spots.

Eh, second. Fixing the text editor, now that would be glorious.

I don't know of anyone who actually believed that. Or that they'd do more than "technically" hold true, while renaming it to ... I don't know, Microsoft DoorOS 1.0 afterward.

Pretty sure this has been suggested (probably a half dozen times) before. Yes, it'd be common sense for the setting to *stick.* Hopefully it is on the radar. (Then again, with the game code, changing it might flip Atlas Park upside down, turn Lord Recluse into Turndown Girl and clean the streets on Redside.)