El D

Certainly possible! Though remembering how... 'intensely focused' Jack could be on his particular vision of the game and its lore, I always figured he either really didn't like Atlantis as a pop culture 'fish people society' concept or just went 'Well, I'm already using Mu and Oranbega - Primal Earth don't need anymore ancient humanity magic societies.' @JMacClear glad to see you got the concept up and running! Or swimming, in this case. I dig the organic sea-life inspired take with the guy's costume. Hits that visual 'Atlantean' look while still being unique.

If HC does something with Galaxy City, it needs to be something new - just bringing back the old starting zone would probably leave it as another mostly empty blueside map, initial nostalgia burst aside. As it is, even if underutilized Galaxy's Last Stand at least offers the most modern tutorial showcasing game mechanics that neither of the original tutorials do. Overall, I have doubts that any of the 'destroyed' blueside zones will ever get major revamps by this point. Between the amount of work it takes to redesign an entire zone map, then set out NPCs and mob spawns, write dialogue, mission arcs, plaques, badges... It's a lot. Then multiply that by the sheer number of 'this area of Paragon has been in total ruins for 20+ years' zones and it turns from Mt. Everest to Olympus Mons. It'd be a big ask for a fully funded staff working full time. All that said, I fully support something being done with Galaxy City, I'd just expect it to be more manageable, content-wise. Some new mission arcs or a big task force could easily work, whether that takes place amid the ruins against the Neo-Shivans and advances the Coming Storm or involves Ouroboros to flashback to the original Galaxy City and teaming up with Galaxy Girl and Dauntless (and/or some of the other Galaxy heroes honored with statues - Cassiopeia, Wayland, M1). Ouroboros flashing back to historical heroes and city zones 'before they fell' could actually be a really neat way to do a pseudo-revamp and tell a lot of stories CoH has never really touched on in the process.

A guarantee?! That changes everything. Let's get this accolade in the game right now! I've even found some art for a badge icon, to save the devs some time.

Not sure how many folks here are keeping up with Daredevil Born Again, but as of the latest episodes (5 & 6) it seems like a fantastic continuation of the Netflix series. Every article claiming Disney Marvel was going to water things down - level of violence, religious content, dialogue, fight choreography, even the presentation style - seems more and more unfounded. It's possible a lot of that is due to the revamping the show went through to get the main actors back on board and happy with the direction of their roles and the series, but I'll happily accept 'it's good due to course correction' over 'they were stubborn and it tanked.' Slight spoilers -

They probably added it in when they revamped the Rikti Crash Site into the Rikti War Zone and brought Vanguard into the game. 'How do we explain how this military force stands against the Rikti?' 'Fancy make-believe armor and weapons!' Tracks with Issue 9 introducing invention salvage and IOs then Issue 10 being the second Rikti invasion, too.

I have sincere doubts that Homecoming would allow XP boosters and freely encourage them to be used for years, then all of the sudden add any sort of badge that a character only obtains by never using them. Much less including the other restrictions of no AE, no enhancement trades, and no influence over X amount. The 'You played the game The Real Way™!' approach to reward design is both entirely arbitrary in an MMO like CoH and its own slippery slope of recursive difficulty that just keeps increasing. 'I got the badge for not using AE!' 'Well I got the badge for not using AE and using Brawl as my only attack power!' Badges are rewards specifically for playing various aspects of the game. The only abstention badges are for rejecting inspirations/recipes and day jobs earned while logged out, neither of which lock players out of any content or choice of progression.

The Level Availability changes are some of the best things HC has done. It expands build options across every AT, allows players to finish their primary and secondary out by level 30 (which is useful for new and vet players alike), and meshes perfectly with the Super-Sidekick system to make replaying lower level content much more fun. Allowing players a more direct route to experience all the powerset combos the game offers and find ones they enjoy most, then making just about every level of content in the game more fun to play with said powersets in one fell swoop is pretty nice. Heck, just for making lower levels not a power slog and negating a lot of the 'Well okay, I'll exemplar down for the badge but I'll hate it the whole time' it was worth it.

This is correct! Also fully agreed. Colors being on the same layer with the skin is why lighter patterns have much stronger bleed-through - the more saturated and/or darker the pattern is, the more a character's skintone gets covered by that particular shade. Though not entirely, like the original post pointed out. If skin options weren't keyed just to their specific palette we might be able to test this more fully, but the skin palette (which just sounds wrong to type out) was very carefully locked down by the Live devs. They didn't want folks running around 'naked' or putting various flesh tones on non-flesh costume pieces. Which is incredibly hypocritical given the number of nearly naked costume options and the fact that 'non-human' characters can easily be made 'nude' but that's a whole other kettle of catgirls. That might just be how it works due to the way the game handles Skin as a separate thing to Tights (or Not Skin or whatever the code name for it is), but if it is just a matter of opacity... I'm gonna get annoyed that the Live devs never tweaked that. If that won't do it, I do wonder if it'd be possible to make Tights/Non-Skin alt. versions of all the Face options, with the same face texture maps, and if the game would just apply the Tights usage of patterns to them that way. That would require adjusting the palettes though, since any Non-Skin option as is wouldn't be able to select any flesh tones, unless the alt. versions get locked to whatever the current Skin selection is the same way sleeve options in Jackets and Robes do.

There is no easy method for cross-platform integration on a 20+ year old niche MMO managed by a volunteer dev team. Matter of fact, there's no difficult method for it either, because that implies there being an existent method at all for that to take place. As for it being a 'trivial ask' - if that were at all true, doesn't it seem a bit odd that it hasn't been done already? The servers don't have a neglected, dusty 'Enable Cross-Platform Gaming' switch on them that the devs just choose to ignore year after year.

Homecoming's Code of Conduct Copyright Policy is pretty direct. You cannot use any outside IP. There is the 'without permission' catch, but I assume that accounts for both the permission of the IP holder and the permission of the Homecoming team, and HC's policy is pretty much a blanket 'don't do that.' So you can't run around as 'Conquest the Viltrumite' in-game - which, thank god, because Paragon doesn't deserve the Viltrum Empire inflicted on them (not that they'd last long against CoH-style debuffs and a few Warburg nukes). If you wanted to make up your own violent alien society inspired by the Viltrumites, that's allowed. They just can't use the same names or copy the character design/background. Alien overlord in a bodysuit with facial hair and a robot arm is okay. Alien overlord in white spandex with a mustache, scars, and a gold robot arm, not so much. Also, to echo everyone else about Season 3, it definitely kicks things back up after Season 2. The finale fight was absolutely worth the budget focus and gives me hope they'll be provided more money in the future (those poor animators).

What @Snarky said - you can only bring over costume files you have saved. That's done easily enough by copying any or all of the desired costumes from the preexisting folder and pasting them into your Homecoming costume folder (if you haven't saved any new costumes yet, you could just copy over the old costume folder itself into the Homecoming directory). Any other information, like character stats, builds, enhancements, badges, names, etc. was all server-side and lost when NCSoft took the game down.

I'm surprised nobody has offered an alternate universe antagonist. Energy/Energy Blaster with powers colored bright white named Lens Flare. Just make sure they keep jumping in front of all the other characters and block the view during cutscenes, while reminding everyone how much edgier and therefore cooler and better their timeline is. When pressed for details about said timeline, just respond with Beastie Boys lyrics.

As @JJDrakken and @Skyhawke said, MIDS is perfectly safe provided you get it from the legit source and don't mind it possibly eating up your free time buildcrafting. The only other issue is possible eyestrain due to the UI not resizing in maximized windows, but that's also a bit reflective of the general age of CoH's playerbase. Compared to most online games nowadays this place is practically a retirement community. 😛

1000% agreed. The game having specific palettes locked to specific things is one of the most irksome aspects of the character creator. You might find the perfect color for a costume idea, but oops! It's a shade locked to a singular type of power customization. The game can already render all of these colors, let players pick from all of them. Some of them might not look the best applied to certain things but the game is already capable of randomized technicolor monstrosities. Some folks might also use them inappropriately, but if a player really goes out of their way to be obnoxious with it that's what the report function is for.

The dev standpoint of 'Atlantis doesn't exist' was mostly from Jack Emmert/Statesman, going by Matt Miller's/Positron's comments in the Lore AMAs, which could be taken with a grain of salt even back on live given with the studio changes he relinquished any creative control he had over the setting. That said, no, there's been no official depiction of Atlantis or Atlanteans in CoH - the only 'official canon' aquatic communities are the Coralax (common in early level Rogue Isles) and the Virtea (which haven't even appeared in-game in any capacity yet). If you wanted to stick to hardline canon you could have your character linked to one of those, but you're also perfectly fine to write whatever you like. Alternate universe, some other dimension, magical nonsense, or just in some deep corner of the ocean. Anything can jive in the kitchen sink that is CoH. Make up your own Atlantean character and on the off chance they run into another Atlantean, roll with it! Have them talk about the differences, similarities, what their favorite underwater snacks are, etc. On the even more off chance HC does make a canon Atlantis you might have to adapt some things, but that's a 'very far down the road' thing. Regarding an overall server consensus on Atlanteans, my immediate thought is 'praise the RP gods, it's not another catgirl or succubus.'* *As a player who has feline and demonic characters, I'm including myself here

The game literally has events that mark the passage of each year in concert with real time. Graphical restraints =/= 'Timeline never advances' though if we are going to use that as a marker, there's also the fact that every character can use a modern smartphone. Would be real odd to have one of these back in 2004, wouldn't it? Also, to tap the Bicentennial Badge again, with the explicit references in bold for emphasis Still, who knows? Maybe the constant in-universe references of decades passing, the set, specific dates for content added during Live that matches the release dates, and the repeated emphasis that the modern day Paragon City is in the 2020s is all just a Nemesis plot. Has anyone checked the plaques for steam vents? Maybe call Ms. Liberty and have Longbow investigate them (but not the ones from the Rogue Isles, they'd just shoot everything).

I think you might've missed something there! Your collage of quotes seems to have accidentally skipped over every single bit of factual evidence I cited in my prior post about Ms. Liberty's depiction, her age, the comparative age of her allies in the Vindicators, and the set timeline of the game. Surely that's just a coincidence. Now, to get things back on topic... This comment made me think that an examination of their moral code and how it has changed could be a fun avenue to take Longbow in. Libby too, given that a lot of her prior writing - at least background-wise - was a stated desire to get out from under Statesman's shadow. Longbow seeing all the distrust and skepticism could be a solid motivation to improve their standards, and Ms. Liberty has had no greater avenue to build her own legacy than examining how her prior decisions were shaped by following States' example. The whole thing with Red Widow and wanting to redeem Recluse would also be Libby succeeding where grandpa Marcus never had, and plays really strongly into her work with the Vindicators given that redemptive justice was her whole motivation for founding that supergroup. Heck, at that point Libby having to contend Longbow's more extreme elements with her desire to see the best in others and give them a second chance is an arc that practically writes itself. Maybe even with Praetor Duncan trying to poach some of them (wanting to spite her counterpart still) but only getting a handful of the really disillusioned on her side. Longbow rising above moral gray influence of war, Praetoria, and their own checkered past to be a better version of themselves and help better others in the process via the example of their founder seems like a fitting Hero Morality mission-style approach.

So this says teenager? The adult woman depicted the exact same way as all the other adult women from the Vindicators, Carnies, and Arachnos? From all the way back in 2007? Sure, we can attempt to handwave 'that's actually Dominatrix!' - except she's still the exact same age as Ms. Liberty. Which would raise even more questions regarding the background the original devs wrote before Praetoria revamp. 'What should we do with the evil alternate counterpart to our idealistic teenage girl? Name her Dominatrix, give her a gimp army, and heavily imply she's involved with her own grandfather!' Personally I'd prefer to think that wasn't written for a teenage girl, much less one who would be an eternal teenager due to comic book time, but hey, interpretation. We can even run with the comics being non-canon, but the art still had to be officially approved. I sincerely doubt 'draw the teenage girl to look like every other adult woman there and have her pose provocatively on the bar counter to be stared at by her dimensional counterpart's explicitly adult co. workers' was the specific direction they picked, irrespective of David Nakayama's penchant for pin ups. Also yes, the Vindicators are all adults. Mynx was considered the youngest one and she was born in 1982. Of course, everyone's free to interpret characters however they like. My interpretation just happens to align with objective facts about the game's timeline, canon, character depictions, and the general idea that comic book logic be damned, they wouldn't put a highschool student in-charge of a NATO-backed paramilitary organization (no matter how poorly written some of the arcs or content involving said NATO-backed paramilitary organization may be).

The quibble with that is the Laura Lockhart flashback arc is a deliberate subversion of Ouroboros' purpose to maintain canon integrity against time travel shenanigans. It's an example of what the menders aim to avoid if at all possible, with Laura getting a very specific exception. If flashback arcs provided the option of undoing or changing the canon outcome, there ceases to be collective continuity to advance and write with. Also, there'd be an avalanche of posts with people demanding specific revised endings to their favorite arcs, which by itself would probably make that too much of a dev headache. That said, I would be interested in seeing a very angry Ms. Liberty interrogating Mender Silos about why Statesman had to die the way he did. Possibly even backed up by Recluse. Even years later I imagine that he's still absolutely furious some no-name ex-Midnighter was the one to get Marcus and not him.

CoH doesn't use comic book time. They didn't use comic book time for the canon lore timeline and every Issue introducing content on Live accounted for that content occurring in the year it was released (they even had Paragon Times news articles released referencing these events as new and current changes explicitly occurring on the Issue release dates). There's also Penelope Yin, who aged a fitting 8 years in the same timespan from Issue 8 to Issue 23. That's not an assumption, that's how the devs ran the timeline. It's also how the HC devs run the timeline, given the plaques for the Bicentennial badge (and the Bicentennial badge itself). Also on the topic of time passing, to bring this back around, that could also make Ms. Liberty stepping up and Longbow shaping up a stronger arc to have. How Libby has handled leading Longbow in that time frame is an interesting question. How have her personal views changed and how has she handled taking up Statesman's legacy? How did the death of Statesman and the reshaping of the Phalanx impact Longbow's morale and motivation? What about the wake of the Praetorian war and integrating various Big Name Praetorians into Primal society? I imagine many agents doubled down on the need for true blue heroism and were willing to accept anyone who'd earnestly stand with them, while some others might've abandoned the cause. Shoot, Longbow could even address the 'vigilantism' in their ranks with a Hero morality arc, where they deal with a group of the Redside Candy Canes and tackle that whole depiction - a 'We don't seeing a place for that kind of thing in modern Longbow' approach. It'd even fit with Ms. Liberty's idea of wanting to reform Recluse. Arachnos having to contend with gun-happy Longbow in the Isles is an active detriment to her plan, so they scale down offensive operations, discipline the agents who engaged in it, and focus more on humanitarian aid to the citizens.

Bit late but the game is up - I was able to log in normally. Usually when I have that issue I either have caps lock on accidentally or mistyped part of my password.

Considering that, Captain Dietrich taking on a director mantle for an arc overseeing Longbow's personnel revision in-light of everything with Vanguard and the Praetorian War would make a lot of sense. Integrating Praetorian refugees, diplomacy with Rikti Traditionalists, and keeping a sharp eye out for Nemesis automatons on top of the normal hurdles of managing a vast paramilitary organization that already has Arachnos to contend with would be a fantastic place to pick up with this kind of arc. They have to account for the comic book-level fracturing (clones, time travel nonsense, robot replacement, super spies, etc) as well as general disillusionment and moral compromise. It'd even work with Dietrich's own arc through the Vanguard content, and how she'd have to confront her own desires for strict morality and righteous justice vs wondering when she herself would be crossing a line. 'Sometimes I think about what Sefu would choose.' Alternately (spoilers) Ms. Liberty can't be a teenage girl via the game's original lifespan alone. Longbow first showed up in 2005 and she'd been an established hero well before then working with Statesman and founding the Vindicators. The game ran until 2012 - even if Libby was 18 on launch (and we accept that she did all of that 'before the game' stuff while literally in high school) she'd be at least 26 by the end. Ms. Liberty was probably a nebulous 'mid/late-20s' for most of the game's lifespan and is at least in her late 30s if not early 40s by now. Of course not all of her dialogue or writing reflects that, but well, see the prior comments about the Red Widow arc. Libby could be written so much better if things focused on her being a competent superhero trained by Statesman and actually effective at organizing people rather than seeming to stick with 'she's a blonde' and valley girl nonsense packaged with 'I'm idealistic so I don't need logistics or pragmatism or any of the actual aspects of my job.'

Biggest quibble I can see with this was the reception to Hard Mode content (and Incarnate content, back on live). Many players already take umbrage with increased challenge/difficulty even at the highest tiers of the game where they have the most options to alleviate it. Adding it in deliberately across all levels by baking it in for entire powersets (and thusly exacerbating it even further in the end game for anyone who plays those sets or teams with a player who uses them) probably wouldn't be the right move. Also it's still easy enough to make the game more difficult just by slotting powers inefficiently - or deliberately, like using SOs over an IO build. Power creep is important to consider when making new sets, certainly, but dialing effectiveness so that it ends up lower than a general baseline just means nobody will want to play the set (looking at you, Kinetic Melee). For Fun options should be relegated to customization, I think. If someone wants to play a serious, deadly ninja assassin with a katana or a goofy super-clown with a balloon sword, that should be a costume creator issue not a mechanics one. Also on that note, the Toy Bat should be a weapon skin for all the melee weapon sets.

You know, this could actually be an interesting path for an subversion of that whole 'an entire faction splits off from the main one for X reason' story arc plot that CoH has already done multiple times over. Having instances like this crop up in Longbow but the organization addresses them promptly - with the requisite player involvement of course - would be a way to include this aspect while still maintaining Longbow as the 'top shelf reputation' hero group, emphasizing that they actually take accountability for it rather than letting it fester (when they can). Given the example of Lt. Harris it's already canon that Longbow isn't immune to such issues, but this would also account for Longbow not being plagued by broad in-fighting as some of the other groups have been. They have bad eggs but not nearly as many, so why not let the player get involved as to why? In-retrospect your assessment was more nuanced than I realized and my prior post was overly dismissive, so for that I apologize.

Longbow isn't real though. Neither is the setting of CoH, despite how much actual world history and influences it might mirror. It's all a narrative construct, and within that narrative construct we already have multiple organizations that fulfill the 'group that does questionable actions and slides along the scale of heroism' niche. Wyvern, Vanguard, the PPD, the Resistance, even Malta at the extreme end of the 'fully abandoned even the pretense of morality' spectrum (not that they had any to start with). I'm not opposed to an arc where Longbow takes accountability for their questionable agents and actions from prior content - that could actually be a fun way to progress the faction, honestly - but the catch that they absolutely can't be paragons of morality because 'those doesn't exist in the real world' is an odd restraint to keep in a game where superpowered weirdos in spandex have dance parties in interdimensional nightclubs.