Greycat

... wow, some people see GMs *much* differently than I do...

Pfft. Farmer makes farm. File's saved on the local drive. They publish the farm. Farm away on it. Unpublish when done. Rinse, repeat any time they log in to do some farming. Not really tedious, hitting "publish" takes all of a few seconds. Edit: And the "popular" farms will be the ones with that file shared around so any farmer that wants it has their own copy to run at will. End result - no INF lost on the farms, AE arc numbers rocketing (new number every time one's published,) and non farm/story arcs launguishing.

If that were the *only* way to get those items, maybe. But "rare" items are still easily obtainable, generally. I can completely ignore the AH and pick up full sets of purples, if I so choose. I have characters with plenty of merits they're just sitting on, obtained just by playing the game. I could probably convert those to quite a bit of cash as well if I wanted to. *shrug*

Have to say absolutely not to anything triggering invasions/GMs, and an AE or Invention tax isn't needed. Conversion... as long as *converters* aren't removed by it, maybe. Then again, converters are already "it costs cash" if you buy them from the AH, or (indirectly) through superpacks, so... Honestly, "So and so has a bunch of money" - I don't care, as long as they aren't dickish about it.

I'll admit, though, I'm now curious to see if anyone has an old copy of Herostats and if it works currently...

All these. The OP's reaching professional politician levels of question dodging. The quote isn't "if you can dodge a question, you can dodge a ball." If their issue is with farming? Again, don't farm. If the issue's with something else? How about some explanation instead of insisting on causing the rest of the playerbase issues?

100% this. If You, OP, have something against AE farms... don't farm in AE. Problem solved.

"Most damage" doesn't mean best/most useful. How about the low-damage support that's buffing those people to hit those numbers and keep everyone alive, for starters? Just no. We don't need "damage ranking" or anything like that sparking arguments.

No. It's already a very nice buff on its own... and then you have to look at *everything else the set does.* It needs to be buffed like water needs to be more wet.

It *really* depends - AT, powerset, etc. - if the benefit's immediately obvious or not. For instance, if you're a blaster, you're probably set for everything and may never use them. *Maybe* ssomething for RP or if you take that into PVP or something, but generally, you make things be dead that weren't before. That'll pretty much be true for all the melee ATs, Dominators, probably Masterminds as well. You might use it as a sort of respec if something big comes along but you don't *really* want to completely undo your old build. Many support sets seem fine with a single build as well. However, once you get into, say, Empathy, Pain Dom, or anything kind of heavy on team buffs, having a solo and team build can be *really* handy. For instance, an Emp/* Defender trying to solo things doesn't really need the rez, clear mind, heal other, absorb pain or fortitude. They can use those for, say, a self stealth, leadership for a little extra boost or other powers they may not otherwise fit into a team build (or sacrifice offensive powers to fit in.) And, yeah, as mentioned, Khelds can have human-only and multiform builds, or lean more towards a certain bit of specialization.

Vidiotmaps, certainly. I've played with some other mods - tweaking glowie sounds, returning PB sounds to what they were, etc. but they're mostly take it or leave it. Vidiotmaps, though, is the only thing I make *sure* I have. Also, I think the xp/inf gain thing you're thinking of might have been Herostats. Mids... I rarely if ever use. I don't think I even have it installed anywhere at the moment. But I don't care about min-maxing, perma'ing, etc. Of course, there was also Sentinel Plus back in the day... But yeah. Pretty much the only "must" is Vidiotmaps.

I don't "build." I pick as I go and tweak what I need as I go. They usually end up just fine.

They still do. They take a bit and are easily interruptable, but they will still blow up their allies.

Funny thing, not everyone plays the exact same way. YOU may not enhance or place them. Someone else does. YOU may find certain powers (say, Hasten, Tough, etc) vital. Others may rarely if ever take them and find them extremely skippable.

Nemesis *really* likes Cherry Cordials.

I'll often take Kick just because of where it lands due to character size. Don't need to slot for amusement.

No. Just no.

Yes, second are level 10, third is 50 (or at Incarnate unlock.) Treat each like individual characters for everything but level. You have to select powers for each up to whatever the max on that character is, and enhance each. So it can be expensive. As far as a guide? I wrote a short one on live - accessible via internet archive here. And I think it answers most of the things you asked.

If it weren't for the time, I'd be happy to. I tend to run through content, especially mid-20s to mid-30s (after which, I admit, the siren's song of MSR and merits often calls me away....)

I would - - probably get people together to go over the lore with a fine toothed comb to make sure it's consistent. (Seeing different viewpoints is fine or someone hearing such and such, ok. But the underlying timeline, lore, etc. should be consistent.) Just so we have a good, solid basis. - Get rid of the whole sentient well and go back to the idea (granted, vaguely described) of it collecting humanity's potential and occasionally releasing it (causing ages of gods/herores/legends.) - Put in Nictus-side storylines redside, to see that side of the Kheldian war. Get choices to make other alliances to work with or against Arakhn on the way, for instance. - Even if it can't be an EAT (because those are a lot of work on top of this,) introduce the whole Blood of the Black Stream - NPC group, storylines from 1-50, interactions with other groups, etc. There are several hints and mentions that just were dropped because the live devs went "oh, we're ignoring that, we want new people to do their own things, not actually finish these other things." - Similarly, more information and missions with the Coralax - who were also supposed to be an EAT at one point - and their (as I recall) enslaved race, the Virtea. (You know that odd "thing pulled up in the nets" in... I believe Stephanie Peebles arc? Yep. That. Another hook that was never paid off.) - While it's a minor hook - Hollows missions from Wincott. You find the Hellions with artefacts, one of which is a hollow skull. That was a nod to one of the other EATs that never saw the light of day (meant as a way to give players wings before they figured out how to do it as a costume piece) - Avilans. I think I'd want *something* just to explain what that was. Even if it had to be specifically in Ouroboros. - More Ouroboros (and other time travel) missions, not connected to any greater storyline, but exploring bits of the history. Fight in Brass Monday. Investigate Mayor Spanky way back when. Try (granted, fail, but still) to save the Moraine. Finish a series of them, get a badge - something like "sepia-toned glasses." - While it's a minor thing, purge anything that tells you THIS is where you get your powers (like dark-themed sets often saying "they're from the Netherworld!" No... leave that to the player.) Epic ATs excluded, since they're tied to a storyline so it makes sense to have more definition there, but for the generic sets? No.

I tend to just autocomplete rescuing them. Of the three, the generic Longbow grunt is the least annoying.

Most Arachnos maps, but probably highest among those is the reactor (or whatever it's supposed to be) room... especially when there's a "kill all" or "lead hostage out" in there. Just so much wasted or otherwise annoying vertical space.

The universities - or at least the empty ground showing something being built where they were - were added pretty much on the heels of this. They were working on a different sort of system (I want to say it was called a legends system, I have the quote... somewhere,) but it got scrapped and we got the Inventions system, which was derived from some if its ideas, later than we were originally going to get "something." We were initially supposed to get it hot on the heels of ED. And no, I don't think we *would* have gotten it without ED. ED, and some of the other limits, were needed. The whole "Oh, everyone stand at the entrance while the tank (or scrapper, for that matter) herds the floor and a single blaster nukes them" that people seem to pine for? That was not fun. It was amusing, briefly, sure. But it was broken and would have led to the game dying *much* earlier. From one of the people constantly being told to just stand back and watch? While sure, it gave time to BS with people, no, that was not fun. Rail against ED all you want, but it was absolutely needed in hindsight.

Of them, Praetorian Office is probably the most flexible. I have very few that could use the dark metal techy Arachnos, and while I have aliens, the Rikti aesthetic doesn't really fit them. PraeTech is probably second place.

I've *built* bases in the past, but find myself without ... plan or energy these days, so mine tend to be mostly utilitarian. I have friends who do other bases which we tend to use for RP purposes. Only one I've done anything close to "publicly" was one called Stages, pre-Echo plaza, just to have somewhere to bring people for costume contests with steady lighting, and I don't think it was ever used - I threw in an extra room (a 'borrowed' warehouse/garage) for a scene at one point, but other than that.... *shrug* I keep thinking of rebuilding some, but... time, energy, ambition. With the whole "building above the base" thing, there's one I'd love to build/expand, but ... yeah. No idea where to start, and what I have in mind I think would get annoying and/or frustrating for me quickly. As far as PVP? I don't really care about it in the base. *shrug* I can do without raids. The editor (like a few other things) needs a complete overhaul. I agree with scale - both for the base "blocks" and several items (like the old "you are all toddlers at the grownup table" sized SG tables - with chairs you may not be able to get in.) Being able to do things like... let's say Sim City style, drawing a road (with road texture,) raising and lowering some terrain, having basic shapes (you can texture) to deal with really building things, having "walls" and "floors" where you don't have to guess which has a texture on both sides, being able to lock (say) a string of fence pieces together to move as a single longer fence, being able to copy/paste bases or have some premade ones available for people who want a spot without all the building - yes they'd be more generic, but for "I have my house," it'd be fine... Rgh. Could go on with that for days.