ABlueThingy

Does Gale take procs well? I've never played with it

I am kind of disappointed that necromancy can't just raise the dead like... a necromancer

Disney is absolutely a cruel organization. If you want me to present to you a lawsuit where Disney filed and said "We're suing this guy because we're jerks" I'm not going to be able to do that. If you want examples of Disney being frankly inhumanly cruel to people I can find you tons. If you want examples of hypocritical lawsuits Disney filed I can do that. If you want examples of lawsuits Disney really didn't need to file I can get that. Marvel ran a poor case, however we all pointed out at the time that they COULD have made a stronger case and failed to do so. But again, it doesn't matter. I'm still not even talking about Disney suing HC directly. Or even necessarily going after NCSoft. I'm saying if NCsoft thinks for a moment that Disney might consider going after them for letting us exist. They will throw us under the bus. I'm saying all it takes is for NCsoft to "be a little worried" that Disney might take action. Disney, the people known for going after anyone and everyone to protect it's IPs. Disney, known for casually send people "Request for summary judgements" and "Cease and desist" over relatively minor things. They already stretched their necks out by letting us operate as it is. Frankly as trigger happy as NCsoft was in the past to kill private servers I dunno what magic HC used to get them to leave us alone so far. ----------------- You just mean copyright/trademark law in general? If I had the power I would instantly reset the laws back to prior to Disney's meddling in them. Also with my newfound unlimited legal powers I would smash Disney into a thousand thousand pieces such that they could never recover. Seriously the research I've done for this thread has given me a new level of hatred for Disney

There have always been limits on what you can make. Instead of removing the costume options the Devs have always asked that people exercise some level of judgement. Don't do things that could get us shut down is a pretty low bar for people's imaginations to clear.

I think it's something they are planning on porting over it just needs some tweaks. On a tanker the numbers would be bananas due to the AT Mods they have. Or at least that's what I remember being said about it. So expect it EVENTUALLY. But maybe with some slightly different numbers or powers.

Only if I'm saying their motivations are the same. And I'm not. Marvel once sued over IP infringement because they were being petty and desperate. Disney sues people all the time over IP infringement because... they are Disney and it's what they do. A tiger attacks out of hunger, fear, anger or maybe even boredom. It doesn't really matter to the prey. Just because this time the tiger is well fed doesn't mean it's safe to go into the cage.

I never said Disney was strapped for cash. I think they have more money then most countries at this point

When it was just Marvel, yes. It's not just marvel now. It's Disney. Who needs no excuse to hurt people. Didn't they get caught spying on children recently?

Being worried that Disney would copy/paste a C/D letter and email it to NCsoft to tell them to tell us to cut it out isn't paranoia. It's something they do routinely. It costs them nothing. NCsoft is not the winds or waves. It acts logically to protect itself. Right now we're not a threat. If NCsoft things we might court ANOTHER lawsuit they will drop the hammer. This is something that has already happened in the past. And now Marvel is owned by Disney, an even more lawsuit happy company. And we're under even LESS protections then we had with Paragon as everything here is already some level of illegal. The meteor is a poor analogy. All you can do is watch for one. Because you don't know the angle or time or size you can't make concrete plans. It's only ever happened once or twice in history. There's nothing that you can do to lower the odds of being hit. Or to raise the odds of being hit. All you can do is build a bunker and hope if/when it hits you can mitigate the damage. But we're not talking about the rare, one in a billion cases. And again we're not talking about forces of nature. We're talking about something that happens routinely. That already happened to us specifically. With known causes and effects. We know why they act the way they do, we know what will trigger the event. This isn't a lightning strike or meteor falling where only paranoid people worry about it. This is sticking a fork in a light socket. This is people arguing they should be able to stick a fork in anything because "What are the odds that THIS hole is a light socket" and we're sitting here telling you "We already did that once and got shocked" And the fork people are like "But it wasn't that bad AND it was a long time ago, I'm sure light sockets are different now" I'm not even saying it's super likely. I'm not saying that if you make SuperDuper-Man420 then tomorrow the game will be shut down. I'm saying the threat goes up. Maybe it doesn't go up much. Maybe. You remember that bored game? Don't wake Daddy? You try to get around the bored and every so often land on a space that makes you push a button on a toy alarm clock part X number of times. And there's a small chance the buzzer goes off and you have to go back to start.(I think I've never actually played it my brain is just full of 90s popculture) My point is just... stop pushing the button. We already got buzzed once. We know it CAN happen. We don't know how likely it is. Only that continuing to hit the button makes it more likely. Maybe it will take a hundred pushes. Maybe ten thousand. Maybe a million! Or maybe it takes four. But we know that if you keep pushing it it will eventually ring. It costs you nothing to stop. So stop. This is sorta the point. You can have an "opinion" on this because it costs you nothing. HC devs see this being at least likely enough to have GMs guard against it. Because if you're wrong then they are the ones that have to eat it. ---- Wouldn't that be the definition of "in a community?" Doesn't the rest follow from there?

I mean, if you want to ignore the part where sometimes they do care and you can't easily predict when they will bother. Ok Making a clone character in city of heroes does not meet the legal definitions of Fair Use or Transformative Work. If it was distinct enough from the original to be under "Transformative Work" the GMs likely wouldn't have generic'd it. If I was angry I wouldn't be posting. I've been trying to explain to you why you are having these issues and how to avoid them. I won't tell you to "Be more creative" because that would be kinda of rude I will tell you that if you don't make your character distinct enough from whatever inspirations sourced the idea. You will get generic'd. And I will tell you that "Distinct enough" is up to the individual GMs. And they will generally err on the side of protecting the server over your freedom of expression. I'm not saying that to be mean. Just... this is cause and effect. There is no "line" to cross when it comes to making a character based off an existing IP. It's more of a DMZ. If you want to risk your character getting their costume/name wiped you can poke around in there. The DMZ starts at "I'm making a character based off/an homage of X." How does shielding a game from lawsuit and targeting from the publisher while they work on getting it into a usable condition put it MORE at risk then poking disney with a stick and hoping they won't crush us?

People lost their shit because you're putting our game at risk, again, after we just got it back. No one cares if you don't think it's much risk. It's not worth it to us.

Disney has actually dropped C/Ds fan artists. They normally let it go because it's a bigger hassle to sue every single artiest individually. Disney actually has a policy on fan art. Cosplayers are usually left alone because they're done at events that give free press to Disney at places where Disney can make money. But here's the thing, you don't have to make money off a Disney character for Disney to have legal rights to sue you. All you have to do is something they disapprove of. They're Disney's characters after all, they get a say in how you use them. If you make "Ion-Man69" an alcoholic billionaire pornstar as a bit. And you dress up in a modified ironman costume with the codpiece replaced by a pink thong and just do poses on the beach? Lets say taking instragam photos. Disney can sue you to stop it. Even though you (technically) broke no decency laws. You made no money. But because you are making one of their characters look bad. And that's the how/when Disney drops the C/D on fan artists. Disney often dislikes it when people do "non-family friendly" things with their characters. If you made a donald duck knockoff as an AR/Fire and had them shooting criminals and setting people on fire. Disney has been known to get riled up about those things. They have been known to throw fallacious C/Ds at people just to make them shut up. And then refuse to defend it in court. Just delay things as long as possible to punish the artists as it costs you money to keep having a lawyer submit "Yes we're still contesting" papers. You want to know why Disney lets Deviantart exist and sell art of their characters? Because as long as you're just drawing approved art in a limited fashion Disney considers it free advertisement. As long as you're not making too much money. Or Disney could make MORE money by hurting you. Or Disney got a bug up their ass and decided no one is allowed to do X anymore and mass C/Ds people. (every so often they throw a fit about something. No more shipping starwars characters, no showing Tony Stark drinking/smoking, no whatever) So the times they let people get away with things are... basically irreverent. Some works are allowed under fair use or transformative use policies legally. Sometimes Disney lets people do things. Some kinds of art are ok. But every so often Disney will drop a bunch of C/D on people legit or not. Because it's cheap and easy. I already posted the example where they were going after people for posting pictures of toys they bought legally. Even though that was stupid. Speeding is illegal. Blowing red lights is illegal. I sat at the light and watched well over 10 cars blow the red. When it was my turn I followed on the heels of 3 cars, all of us blew a red light and the two guys ahead of me were going even faster then me. Cops only pulled me over though. Why? I know I've seen those cops sitting there watching cars blow that light? Some of them doing 20mph over. Why stop me? Honestly, I think because it was exactly 5pm and he was heading home. And the local laws say they get bonus pay for working overtime catching "criminals." But it doesn't matter why. I broke the law. Yes other people broke the law. Doesn't matter. Just because other people are flagrantly playing with IP law doesn't mean we can afford to.

That one? I couldn't find any other pictures. If there is a full physx dress on the Talons it was likely a testbed for giving players one Last I heard the issue was making the fabric loop around. The engine can only handle hanging strips and not a full wrap around. (personally I want the Talon's snake legs)

If you don't do something when someone messes with your IP you are at risk of that being used against you later. Failure to protect and IP is grounds for losing your trademark. If Disney refused to act on people making their own Mickey Mouse movies and cartoons and what not they couldn't later on claim trademark infringement against someone making a Mickey Mouse hat. They can just point out to the judge that Disney hasn't been enforcing it's IP on all these other people, it must mean it's public domain now. Note that this only applies to Trademarks as I understand it. Copyrights are for a set period of time. Trademarks have to be defended. That's one of the big differences between the ™ and the © --- Now again, it's not even Marvel/Disney that we should be worried about directly. Because they wouldn't go after us. They would go after NCsoft for letting us exist. Just sending a "Hey, stop that shit" letter to NCsoft would likely be enough for them to bring the hammer down on us. Takes Disney a few minutes to send or S.Korea. Takes NCsoft a few minutes to send the C/D to HC. And boom, game over. It's not going to say "Hey! We heard you let someone play Daddy-long-legs-man and we're gonna sue you!" It's going to be more like "Hey, you've been letting a pirate server run and infringe on out IP without repercussion. Sounds a little shady bro. You got that relatively new CEO there and your Stocks were lookin' a little iffy there for a while bro. Sure would be a shame if we had to do any... legal things... that might make you look like idiots. You know, letting a pirate server run free and threaten Disney's IP. Of ALL companies." (I like to imagine Disney is run by Arms Akimbo from Freakazoid) Basically they just have to threaten NCsoft vaugely. Send NCsoft a C/D that says "Stap." Or NCsoft has to THINK they might do that. And NCsoft will burn this whole thing down. No sane company is going to risk a lawsuit with Disney, even one they know they can win, to protect a pirate server.

That's not goalpost moving. There are multiple points to consider which we have said many times now. What you are looking at is the supporting arguments. There are multiple supporting arguments. If you argue against one supporting argument and someone points out that there's still a dozen more that's not goalpost moving. That's a nuanced discussion. See, that's a good point. NCsoft should be mad. But NCsoft is fully aware of what we're doing here and has not shut us down. It has been stated that HC formally entered discussions with them about letting us continue here. Thus far we do not know the results of said discussion, only that they have not shut us down yet. That implies discussion is ongoing. Which means selling the rights to HC is still on the table as far as we know. As long as we're acting in good faith, that still stands. Hopefully. Part of that means HC's GMs are going to very seriously enforce the IP rules on account of NCsoft getting burned in the past on that and NCsoft being scared of letting a pirate server put them in possible liability. Because, again, as long as they are letting us run then they are tactfully endorsing us and endorsing whatever we do here. So stop making clone characters.

It's less about Disney coming after us and more about NCsoft getting worried about Disney going after them. The HC team takes in money, donations, to keep the servers up. But that is still an income off someone else's intellectual property. The clowns that Disney sued weren't sitting on piles of gold, they were making a modest income to live off of. But that's money that could have gone to Disney. That's all that matters. The monthly donations are money that(hypothetically) could have gone to Disney. Is that stupid? Yes. Is that petty? Yes. Does Disney do stupid and petty things? Yes. Will they win if they try? Maybe not. Will it cost NCsoft thousands if not tens of thousands to fight a stupid and petty lawsuit in a different country? Yes. Will NCsoft set us all on fire and push us out to see rather then risk seriously risk a lawsuit? Absolutely. Do people constantly making use of Marvel/DC/Whoever's characters raise the likelyhood of lawsuit? Even if infinitesimally so? Yeah.

Doesn't Champ also have wall crawling? I would kill for that.

I found some more examples too

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2017/10/23/goodbye-mickey-new-disney-lawsuit-could-ruin-your-childs-birthday " "Disney alleges that Sarelli has a "knock-off business ... built upon the infringement of Plaintiffs' highly valuable intellectual property rights," including the fictional characters Darth Vader, Iron Man and Elsa and Anna from Frozen. Disney is upset how this company "provides unlicensed and poor quality appearances and performances" by actors dressed as "iconic characters for themed events, such as children's parties." " https://insidethemagic.net/2020/03/disney-wins-lawsuit-ec1/ "A 22-page lawsuit was filed against DisGear by Disney Enterprises and Lucasfilm Entertainment copyright infringement in the use of Disney logos, designs, and products." https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/disney-levies-fine-elementary-school-illegally-lion-king Disney sued a school for showing the movie Lion King without saying pretty please first Also for the sake of Irony, I found this one: https://abovethelaw.com/2018/08/fair-use-for-me-but-not-for-thee/ Disney is saying the Michal Jackson estate is being too stingy with it's copyrights. The MJ Estate countered with the above images I dropped. ------------------------- The point here is that sometimes Disney tries crush you. Sometimes it doesn't. Are you willing to risk a few thousand dollars on that? That Disney maybe won't come for us. That maybe they won't win if they do. So you'll only be out a few thousand for the legal filings and lawyer fees. You'd be willing to pony that up right? No? Then don't ask the HC Devs to risk it for you.

They recently changed the way KB works. The vectored KB settings they mentioned. There might be something there worth looking into

I also agree. I don't see any issues letting Masterminds get damage enough that they could replace their T1 pets with their primary attack powers if they wanted. If you want to dump 3 power picks and something like 10+ slots into your three attacks from the primary... that sounds like a fair investment

Originally the Devs, one of the artists I believe, heavily resisted adding in any kind of "Furry" content. That's why all we got was "Gross" heads and then many years later we got the generic animal heads. I think they're asking for something more customizable then what we have now. Frankly I would love more beast/monster parts but someone has to build them

The fact that they don't police every single instance at all times is irrelevant. Giant corporations like the rules to be huge and sweeping so they can enforce them or not as a threat. It is absolutely the metaphorical sword of Damocles hanging over the server. Just because you are unaware of the threat doesn't mean other people are blind to it. NC Soft has shut down dozens of private severs, something has stopped them so far from shutting this one down. Disney shuts down online storefronts, harasses fan artists, has shut down cons, they've sued everyone from their own artists to actual children. I mean, shit, go look up Kimba The White Lion's history. Disney is audacious as F about this. It's not even so much that Disney will come after HC directly. NC Soft just has to get worried that HC is a liability. That Disney MIGHT come after them for tacitly endorsing this private server(Which is what they have done by letting us continue to exist with their knowledge). If it looks to NCsoft that the people running this server are letting people run wild and doing any "unseemly" things. Porn mods, open racism/sexism, vulgarity and yes playing loosely with other people's IPs. They are not going to let it continue. And if y'all actually push NCsoft hard enough? They might keep going to try and shut down as many private servers as they can. All they have to do is send a polite letter to Reddit and Discord and most of our community vanishes in an instant. Maybe that won't happen. Maybe. I'm basically saying that NCsoft is Praetorian Hamidon and HC is Tyrant. HC has managed an uneasy truce for the moment, with terms negotiated on our behalf. This has kept the Hamidon from wiping our entire community out so far. But instead of putting brain washing juice in the water and kidnapping and mutilating children... they are asking you to make your costume less derivative, make your names less obvious a ripoff. If "Bulk-Mad" the turquoise SS/Inv Brute was your Aurora Borealis and you wanna Calvin Scott us all for this grave injustice well. I don't know what to tell you. The forums are not going to be very receptive to this.

I have had a number of ideas that reeaaally scream for some kind of melee set to be paired with support. Even just something like Dominator assault sets ported over.

I'd rather see Hasten changed to be somewhat conditional. Like made into a toggle that gives 50-75% of it's current boost but the higher your current speed is the more bonus recharge it adds on(potentially raising it over it's old numbers). If you can maintain a character at the speed cap and control them you wind up with tons of bonus +rech. Or that it has to be "reved up" before giving you a full boost. Say once you click it you have 5 seconds to hit itmore times and each one is a stacking 20% +rech/-end red. The more global recharge you have the more times you can hit hasten in that window and the more +recharge you can squeeze out of it. Or anything so it's not such an unalloyed good. AND I SAY THIS NOT BECAUSE I WANT TO NERF HASTEN(per say). But because I want to open up the design space a bit so we can have more interesting powers in the pools without every pool having to justify itself against Hasten. As long as we have limited pools and limited power picks that is an issue. (imo this all applies to Weave too)