Greycat

... did you say something? 😉

There used to be SG "recruiting events" - granted, they tended to be kind of RP heavy. I'm not sure when the last one was, or when the next one is, but that could be handy. And, of course, you can always start your own and tailor it to just what you need. Leading one can be a bit of fun on its own. (Just remember you don't have to do it *all* on your own. Delegate.)

I'm going to say "Temper your expectations." Especially depending on what the name is. If it's something... "sort of obvious," it may well be someone active who has it, or be on a 50. We don't have a way of looking up if they're on a 50 or when they were last on, after all. Not saying "don't try," but at the same time... don't build yourself up too much in thinking "I'm going to get THAT NAME finally!" (After all, this didn't do much on live when they ran it.)

... as picky as I am on lore, especially when it comes to Epics... for the *most* part I'd have a hard time making this argument, as I think about it. There are some, sure. I mean, we can get "Emperor for a day" by doing a run of explore badges. *Some* certainly wouldn't make sense at first glance - "Son/Daughter of Praetoria," for instance, because the Khelds never had anything to do with Earth (per the live devs) in Praetoria. Plus, non-lore-wise, that one (as an example) would take away some from "Uniqueness for a Praetorian." Though really looking through the list for a lot of these? I'd have to really stretch to make lore-based arguments against them. Yes, they mention things like "The resistance would call you a real slammer" - which... would be true regardless. And some of them, as written, don't make sense for a lot of *Praetorians,* if we're sticking with the descriptions. The first damage badge (Repaired) says "If you were any ordinary clockwork, you'd probably have been scrapped by now." And how many people play clockwork? Heck, read through the Held badges.. ..they even get to the game mechanics ("One of these days you'll remember you can buy a break free.") So... honestly, I've kind of shifted over to being somewhat torn. On the one hand, there should be things unique to Praetorians, IMO. On the other... it's really hard to nail them down for the most part to "This only makes sense for a Praetorian, and even then it's in the description, not the actual title itself" for a reason - and it's kind of a weak reason as you read the descriptions. Honestly, those are perfectly in line with in-game examples. Heroside, you go rescue "one good spider," and it sounds like something that's been done before. For Khelds? Fullalbedo. Brightshift. Lightburner. (And it could be argued "and Warshades overall.") You lose access to your *arcs,* but being on the "wrong" side's definitely *there.* Very in your face just through playing the game (granted the Kheld examples are in Kheld arcs, not general ones.) ... so, yeah. Like I said. Opinion's shifted a little, and my main feeling of opposition involves Praetorians losing some of what makes them unique because of their starting choices.

So. I join an MSR on a 50. I'm early, so I'm slotted in as one of the team leads, so there's a 50 at the head. People get added/removed without my input. I can be AFK or concentrating on trick or treating. I can do... essentially nothing leading-related (since we have a league leader.) How is that worth an extra reward? I just got lucky to get slotted into slot 1. That's just one way to game that. Or, I - as a level, say, 25 - see Jack and Eochai in Croatoa. I spend several minutes getting a team together, and just before we attack, I give the star to FiftyDude, who's a 50. They would get those rewards, not me. How would that be fair? (And yes, *I* know I can just pick one of their missions at 50 as active to bump up the rest of the team - but quite a number of people don't know that.) So... no. Let leading the team be its own reward. Do it enough, do it well, you'll be recognized and have people waiting to join whatever you run.

Honestly there's a lot that could be (in some cases, you could even say needs to be) added to the AE. It *does* sometimes gete there, but still. (Honestly, I still want an Unbound Nictus for a contact for ... several AE arcs I have in mind. Both Kheld forms in both flavors, and so forth. I'd like to be able to start players in a jail/holding cell for stuff. And... yeah, several enemies would be nice to have in there. I don't think Spetznaz is in there, for instance.)

maybe? And I've almost never seen that happen. I *have* seen it, but it's exceptionally rare for them all to have boss turrets.

Right, you found them with a boss turret. They don't all spawn with that. And yeah, it's a 5 minute respawn time - even on live. You do sometimes have to "base shop" for where to do this. But this was a normal stop for me on a character hitting 15, and I made plenty of controllers and defenders.

... actually, yeah, everyone CAN if they know how the respawns work. 1. Find a firebase with nothing but minion and lt turrets (low level dual and quads, no boss missile turrets.) 2. Take *all* of them down to a sliver of health. (If you're low damage, the hardest is probably the MG turrets in the middle, actually, because you get fired on from at least three sides.) 3. Defeat ONE outer turret, preferrably one of the weakest ones (dual gun.) 4. Wait for that *one* to respawn. You now have the full 5 minute timer to take it, plus all the weakened ones (they don't respawn or regen) out. Been able to do this with at-level (15) low damage characters since live. Given there's almost no chance of anyone actually attacking you in the PVP zones with how dead they are now, usually the biggest threat is whatever NPC is around.

Pfft. Arachnos is all about stabbing each other in the back. You should just be happy your pets help you at all. *nods* 😉 That said... I seem to recall the original intent was that MM pets aren't "pets," they're minions or henchmen - and they're the focus of the mastermind, to the point they give up two extra potential attack powers to buff them. That control is part of the tradeoff for making a mastermind. (Yes, I'm aware of petless MMs. I'm also aware they're not very common for a reason.) Controllers, doms, crabs - and *certainly* not folks who have gotten Lore pets unlocked - are nowhere near that dependent on them. While I'm not against a "No, bad, come here" that's not just a resummon, I really doubt you'll ever get full control or anything near what a MM has.

I seem to recall mention that no, a rename wouldn't work. You'd have to create a new character. But nothing stops you from deleting that character right after and renaming the original.

If your broadsword is depressing, you're using it wrong. Use the pointy end or the thin side, don't push the enemies with the flat side. *nods* ... ok, smartalec-ness aside, I don't mind broadsword. The only difficulty I had with it when concentrating on it - mind you, this was on live with SOs - was that my BS/SR scrapper just chewed through their END like crazy. (Said scrapper saying hi from the old comic... third from left on the ledge.)

Ehh... I mean, the ones most "in danger" are level 1-5, given that's a 30 day timer. 6-49, you have a year. Plus it takes effect in just under a month. That's a *lot* of time - and I say that as someone with a *lot* of characters. On top of that, you kind of have to look at the character name itself. If it's "UltraGuy," it's more likely to have someone wanting that than "Juan de Santa Domingo ESQ" or "Supergroup base editor 1234."

Depends. Are you counting the holiday event badges? Exploration: 2 Day job: 5 Spring event: 7 (if I'm counting correctly on the wiki) Chalet ski/ramp runs: 6 Candy keeper: 8 (which I believe also duplicate ones from the winter event?) Probably missing some.

Called it. 🙂 (Mostly from experience, and because I know full well it has to be like that for that exact reason.) Seriously though - for all the questions about "Is this ok," before you ask, ask yourself "Can it reasonably be called disruptive?" The raid zone thing has been long since established. Event criers I don't think have ever been an issue (short of a new one, say, spamming chat in multiple channels every minute, and I can't think of any instances of that.) If you (say) somehow went AFK in a way that blocked a portal, expect to be moved (for instance.) "AFK Farming" in AE? It's in AE, nobody sees it except people in the AE, and so forth.

... no. This will be done during RP as well, for instance.

It'd be a good replacement for Prestige. Though, being a "change something in the UI," not sure how easy it'd be.

... *looks at the hotel leagues* I don't know about "more difficult" there... 🙂

I seem to recall being told at one point that it actually *couldn't* be done with accounts due to how things were set up. (Rusty memory.)

I think you're going to get a vague answer to a lot of that (it's one of those "we have lines, but hesitate to say what they are because people will go RIGHT up to the edge of them" things that are just headaches for gms.) What you're describing probably won't be an issue. They're listing raid zones and during events. Given when the Prismatics were introduced, there were people hovering AFK in front of the hotel with a MM (and other people complaining about it,) they're probably talking about that sort of thing.

It's mostly been an issue with raid zones (though, given last year's halloween complaints of AFK hotel-farming, they're probably extending it to that.) If you're just chilling in a mission soaking damage for a badge, I don't think they'll care (unless there's a really extreme server load issue.) Edit: Also preparing for waves of "Name release went live! Broken, still didn't get the name I wanted!"

... well, in fairness to the OP, the only thing going "faster" would be crafting with one click instead of 4-6 or so to make each tier. The materials still take time to collect. Plus, @Uun has a point - the OP's talking solely about using Empyrians, which isn't particularly cost or materials effective.

I'm ... "eh" on it? I mean, I've got enough characters with piles of emps and threads (and even shards) I don't even pay attention to. On the one hand, sure, probably a decent shortcut (especially when making the other T3 to make a T4,) though that doesn't really take a lot of time. On the other... only real tangible downside I could think of is support requests when someone accidentally makes something, especially high tier, they didn't actually want to. *shrug*

Has nothing to do with looks. It's just the badge name. (It's not even the badge *count,* just the name is different.) And as mentioned, you can't swap to a Praetorian alignment. Null only does the Hero - > Vig -> Villain -> Rogue loop. (I don't know right offhand if you keep it after you go hero/villain and exit Praetoria, come to think of it, or if it swaps to Immortal.)

If I'm targeting through another player, there's a reason for it. If I'm using a life drain, I probably need it.