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El D last won the day on June 21 2022
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CuppaJo? Definitely echoing the sentiments of missing our '04 community rep - I've got fond memories of the Cuppathon and w00t radio from back in the day. Also, having looked at ESO, seems that Cuppa transitioned. The studio head of ZOS is Joseph 'Jo' Burba. All the more good for him, tbh. Glad ESO is in capable hands.
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On the topic of watching, I don't think they'll keep the dingy Firefly space-western aesthetic for the whole film. While trailers can be cut in any random order, pretty sure that Kara loses the coat at some point since she doesn't have it for the final fight clip or for the requisite 'hero costume shot.' Also those scenes seem brighter and more open than most of the earlier ones in-general and the House of El symbol at the end goes through a literal glow up starting off faded and then illuminating to 'how it should be.' Having the first half be a Guardians-esque grimy subversive style to represent Kara's depressive alcoholism then transitioning to a brighter Superman (2025) look when she fully embraces who she is and what she can do seems like a pretty solid way to visually reflect her progression. Plus that'd still keep room for some grand space shots and more colorful stuff from the comic.
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Same here, though I can't imagine they would due to marketability alone. Krypto was one of the most commented on bits of Superman (2025) - that's advertisements and toy sales right there! Spoiler thoughts from the comic -
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Praetorian Infernal is actually T'Keron. It makes so much more sense, provides actual villain motivation and plot prompts while maintaining the thematic role, and the 'oh he's just an evil mirror version' was dumb even when being a generic evil mirror world was Praetoria's whole gimmick. The only thing dumber was Praetorian Infernal staying the same after Going Rogue's revisions.
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I dig the concept and usability of these powers, but bouncing off of @Ukase's comment, they seem like they'd be better served as START powers rather than a power pool. While the utility is interesting and the roleplay opportunities pretty great, aside from the travel power and the final team buff there's not much in the way of actual power mechanics to balance around, especially considering as a power pool it'd be locking a group of mostly QoL abilities to a specific choice (and forcing build compromises as a result). As START powers though, there wouldn't be any quibbles of how to tweak them versus options like Fighting or Medicine - they can just work that way as the benefit of purchasing them.
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It's incredibly odd to hold CoH to comicbook time, or claim that very little of its content has specific dates, when it's always been in real time from the start. The canon timeline advanced concurrently with the release of every Issue, and included numerous specifically dated historical events for many signature heroes along with real world events at the correct points in history. The Paragon Times catalogued changes as they occurred, similarly showing they happened when the content was released. Literally everything about the revamp of the Rikti War Zone, Hero 1, and Vanguard only worked if it occurred when it was released, years after the Rikti Invasion. Kallisti Wharf's introduction only works if the game's timeline is post-Praetorian War - there's enemy groups that don't exist yet, let alone have access to Paragon City, if the Incarnate trials haven't concluded by then. The Protest Too Much badge references events happening in 2018 that set up Blackwing Industries and the Bicentennial badge only works if 2023 has come and gone (conveniently tying in to when it was placed in-game via Issue 27). Many of the Bicentennial plaques specifically reference the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s, not to mention all the other historical badge plaques from Live pointing to things from colonial times to World War 2 to the War on Drugs in the 1970s & 1980s. The whole Piecemeal arc and the Dr. Aeon Strike Force literally can't exist concurrently with old content they reference as already having happened and there's content on Beta right now for Issue 28, Page 3 involving the revamped 'all the arcs from Live already happened' Striga and high level Skulls, who didn't exist as a thing until recently. Rant aside, just make the longevity part of Bartlett's mutation. If he was that buff in his seventies, he can still be that buff in his nineties. Magneto manages, so why not Thunderhead?
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Paramount Moving On from Kelvin Timeline Trek
El D replied to ShardWarrior's topic in Comic, Hero & Villain Culture
Huh. They have a pretty decent track record. At minimum I'd say just how accurately D&D-like Honour Among Thieves was bodes well. Shows they're willing to delve pretty far into the source material and actually utilize what it contains in an earnest manner rather than reinvent or subvert it. If they do that and keep leaning into practical effects and cool costumes, this could work. -
I want to Assasin's Strike this facist turd.
El D replied to mechahamham's topic in Suggestions & Feedback
All for giving the recruiters actual stats. Enemy groups having more varied options for broader level ranges is always a good thing (provided said enemy group has expanded level bands) and anyway, if the Council are going to malefactor for some lackey, they all knew the risks taking Chumpy McMouthpiece into a zone he isn't leveled for. Honestly I wouldn't mind more instances of stuff like this in-general. Low level Hellions captured by the Circle of Thorns in Talos. Low level Skulls picking up Superadine shipments in Independence Port/Striga. A Knives of Artemis mob having captured a member of the Legacy Chain or a Malta Group spawn interrogating an Outcast. There's a lot of interactive instances between groups that canonically work together or would be opposed to one another that'd help make the game world feel that much more interconnected. -
It's less who would we be to deny it and more who are we to demand one. At least in that particular format. A massive, public memorial that only the devs can manage, and thusly have to update from an unending petition of names, bios, and handles to account for every deceased player before and afterword, does not seem likely. Especially so given how stringent the devs already are regarding NPC memorials even existing as well as them being deliberately unobtrusive. It's asking them to change a very reasonably held approach they've maintained for years to one that adds a new commitment that'll last until the servers shut down for good, and if it's not properly respected in every instance it will result in some rather angry players. I've seen how upset folks get about proposed powerset changes; I don't have any doubts the thought that the devs were disrespectful to their deceased friend(s) or family would be much worse. As some of the other posters mentioned, holograms, customizable NPCs, and bio plaques for bases could resolve this much more proactively. It'd let players to make bespoke memorials actually reflective of the passed player - the act itself also letting them honor the person they knew - in-addition to offering every other conceivable use that holograms/customizable NPCs/plaques would have for bases. It'd also nix any requirement of active dev involvement, too. Vastly improved ways to respect fallen players, empowerment of the community, and no eternal hot potato for the devs seems like a win/win/win here.
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I'm not opposed to the idea, but my concern with making an official memorial site is that something large-scale would invite active submissions. Any kind of public display with direct, Homecoming-marked approval would have folks petitioning the devs for their spouse/parent/friend/etc. to be given a spot, and then getting upset when it's not provided. Including more readily identifiable information about the tribute characters already in-game could exacerbate that, especially if any players had prior disagreements with that person. I doubt any friends or family who knew the tribute characters' players would enjoy seeing that person's post history scoured for objectionable comments or some ancient argument from the Live era dredged up when someone else thinks 'why'd they get a tribute and not my friend?' Admittedly, that is extremely cynical and HC's community is largely better than that - especially for these kinds of things - but also the current era of the internet has well documented behavioral problems. It's certainly possible any official memorial would be treated as respectfully as the majority of the in-game gatherings usually are, but keeping the tributes as is - 'they're now part of the city' and done solely at Homecoming's discretion - feels like the avenue with less drama. That said, having the tribute NPCs themselves actually marked as memorials in-game would be a nice addition/in-between, since there's nothing in their bio sections about that. Like @Dacy posted, that way there's some kind of indication to their purpose but done in a way that doesn't detract from or overshadow the tribute itself. The players who knew them already know and the players who didn't have the purpose made clear, so if someone does want to know more about the player behind that character they have the context to actually come to the forums or the wiki.
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I played the Steam demo for this a while back and enjoyed it. The voice acting is really solid, the writing is engaging and fun, and the game mechanics are interesting enough to keep your attention and require consideration to both the characters and the on-going story. Sending out the different heroes to fitting emergencies was definitely more enjoyable than the hacking part, though. It had a very Paragon City-esque atmosphere and setting, though the tone was a more 'adult streaming series' than CoH's content tends toward. It's like Invincible meets The Office. If you liked TellTale's past entries (The Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands) I imagine you'll like this.
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Number of issues with that premise for future content. First and most important is that the Homecoming devs have stated they are not bound by nor intend to continue the Lore AMA storyline ideas from Live. Second is that even if there was dev interest in those ideas, they'd also have to want to work on Incarnate stuff and - entirely understandably - they're focused on expanding the game in other ways instead. Thirdly, Praetorian Hamidon is effectively locked in Praetoria. He has no way to reach the Shadow Shard and even if it did, with the dearth of the Well's attention on Praetoria after Tyrant's defeat, it has no reason to back Prae. Hamidon if he tried to go up against Rularuu.
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This is... actually a really interesting combination. Makes fitting use of the fake Mandarin twist from Iron Man 3 while also having the 'original actor' possibly become more comic accurate by learning magic. It's been long enough from the release of Iron Man 3 that the negative reception has faded, it ties into prior films of multiple phases in organic ways, and has solid plot reasons for an existing character to show up - and then they actually do! Also it's more Ben Kingsley, which is its own plus. Combined with the fact that the trailer didn't spoil really anything about how the show goes and feels like a pretty solid shift from the 'standard MCU style'... shoot, maybe they're onto something here.
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That's already the case on many of the large social media sites. Any instance where there's possibility for high levels of traffic or profitable engagement, they become inundated with bots pushing AI content to users who cannot spot it (see Facebook and old people) and/or to users who can spot it but are either apathetic or actively share it because 'haha computer thing do stuff I like.' Given that Homecoming is a forum for a 20+ year old game, is at the fringe of an already niche interest, and that the MMO market is nowhere near what it was even ten years ago, it's thankfully not remotely popular enough to be worth that kind investment. That means aside from the occasional spammer, posters here are most likely actual people, so AI content cropping up here is due to real users who are actually interested in it. Given the prior replies in this thread, these seem to be the acceptable aspects regarding AI: - AI does things that its users lack the technical or artistic skill to do, otherwise they would do it themselves - AI is cheaper than commissioning someone who does possess the technical or artistic skills its users lack, so there's no longer a necessity to pay someone else - AI does things much faster, so even if its users had the technical or artistic skill or knew of another person who did, it's still quicker to just enter a prompt - AI is inevitable, so the internet might as well get used to its imperfect state now because eventually it's going to go from 'convincing but has tells' to 'indistinguishable' That last part I have to take a bit of an issue with, not on any technical or even moral ground but just on the nature of branding. Even if the media fidelity of generative AI improves to a direct one-to-one with real video, AI companies are going to go out of their way to say AI made it. Specifically their AI, which is better than the competition. Case in point, this thread. Rather than post in any of the existing AI content threads, there's now a brand new one with Grok directly in the title. What's the Grok thread about? Why, showing off the neat stuff Grok does and encouraging others here to use Grok. 'Look what Grok can make when fed with NCSoft's IP! You too can do this, just give your CoH screenshots to Grok! This thread hosted by Homecoming.' The forum already had areas for posting AI content, so why did Grok deserve its own name drop? I have doubts that OP works for xAI and even more that Homecoming or NCSoft have any partnerships with them, so it's probably not intentional on that front. It's far more likely that OP, as they said, likes the things that specific AI generator does and just wanted to share. That doesn't change the fact that the thread still has the name slapped all over it and is pretty much free advertising on Homecoming's dime (courtesy of content xAI is being given free access to, but doesn't own). Of course, that distinction only works when AI is being advertised, be it intentional or not. Plenty of folks have used AI secretly. Fake screenshots to troll a friend, fake texts to get back at someone, fake videos to generate likes, fake contest submissions to get prize money. That's the real tipping point. Not companies using it as a labeled, marketed product or active users encouraging others to their specific favorite, but people generating things at their own discretion without any requirement to declare AI was used at all. It makes me incredibly glad we can still tell the stuff posted here and on Discord are CoH screenshots that have been AI-ified, generator name drop or no. If it were advanced enough to make something that actually looks like legit in-game content? That's the ballgame for any amount of civility and trust here. What happens to the forums when we stop being able to tell the difference between content that doesn't exist and things that actually happened in-game or are really in development? What happens to community relations when anyone can show up with something that looks like a real interaction, but isn't? Does ToS apply to AI generated content at all, since it isn't actually happening in-game - no matter how much it increasingly looks like it did? Sure, Homecoming could still ban someone if they're dumb enough to post ToS breaking stuff on an official site, but what authority do the devs have if it's hosted elsewhere? 'Hey, that's an unauthorized use of our IP, please take it down' doesn't hold much water when hefty portion of Homecoming's own community already doesn't care about that and - more importantly - are the ones generating the fake AI content in the first place.
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The Dr. Aeon cutscene from the Statesman/Ms. Liberty Task Force is pretty hilarious. Even better when you imagine Aeon has giant googly eyes instead of goggles. The Romulus 'I! Am! NICTUS!' bit from the final ITF mission is a classic, both for 'player character dancing in the background' reasons and because of the giant chatbox text (RIP). Much as I malign the writing choices of 'Who Will Die?' and despise Darrin Wade, Statesman's death cutscene at least treats the moment earnestly.