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When can they come together with the other servers? Never, because servers don't work like that. When can 'the people' come together with the other teams? Never, because Homecoming's devs have very different ideas on game design than the other server dev teams do, and vice versa. That's the whole reason they're separate dev teams who run different servers to begin with. The different versions of CoX literally cannot be consolidated because with so many different changes and modifications implemented across the different servers, they all utilize different versions of the code. This is akin to stating 'It'd be so much better if I could put a race car engine into a big rig.' It's not going to work just because it's the same type of thing. As for 'working together for the playerbase' that presumes that the entire playerbase of the game - every player who plays on every server - all want the same things. They patently do not, or else there'd already only be one server that everyone plays on. Some people prefer the game the way the HC team runs it, others prefer it the way the other servers run it. That's the entire point of having the choice to play where people want to play and having the code to set up and run servers out in the wild. Lastly, as far as selfishness goes, that would be demanding a needless and impossible consolidation in-spite of all the hours of work that the HC devs have put in here to improve this version of CoX (and in-spite of all the work the other devs of other servers have put in to make the game that they feel is best on their servers) just because it's what one person wants over the effort and decisions of every single dev team and the entire spectrum of players this game has in its various forms.

The Virtea are a Redside thing, but they've never been more than a section of the Coralax background lore or appeared in-game. This is their only blurb from the Homecoming wiki: I just figure it'd be a neat way to expand an extremely limited but really interesting enemy group previously locked to specific areas in one side of the game, especially considering the existing Coralax mobs are all just one palette swapped coral person model and the coral golem - and that their level range Redside is abysmally narrow. Have Merulina wake up, send out more Shaper priests, upgrade the Coralax, and add in the Virtea followers to support them (giant Deep One-esque fish people would make fantastic Elite Bosses). Given that they hate humanity's pollution of the Earth, there's tons of angles to be done with that which could easily fill up a new zone with content - none of which have to be the 'evil deity-thing sends out its minions for world domination' plot that's pretty overdone by this point in CoH. The player has to save a Crey lab being attacked by Coralax forces only to find out it's been polluting the area with chemicals, so then they must decide whether to spare the scientists/let them face the legal system or offer them up to the Coralax for morality content. A Praetorian scientist - or better yet, Riptide - is attempting to make peaceful contact with Merulina's followers, using Praetoria's focus on eco-friendly technology and clean living to build common ground only to reveal that they've been developing anti-Coralax tech in-secret because they're similar enough to the DE that most Praetorians would have understandable second-thoughts. Hell, could even have Coralax team up with the players and the Praetorians against the Devouring Earth, whose horrific combination of mad science and black magic is viewed as even more of a corruption than normal pollution is. Tangent aside, yeah Peregrine Island is definitely what I was thinking about with the urge for no war walls. I totally understand why they were put in mechanics and lore-wise, but zones can be made without them now (and frankly, the Rikti take them down often enough that they don't serve much purpose anymore >.>).

I really enjoyed the storytelling and the intersecting paths through Praetoria's content. That level of writing and mission mechanics is a pretty high bar (even if certain areas were somewhat problematic). The newer enemies with enhanced difficulties are still among the most interesting to fight, even in AE arcs - though the penchant for including ambush after ambush got old. I usually went the Responsibility storyline for the same reasons that @DougGraves said. Much as I really liked the Resistance contacts, actually engaging with their missions and zone areas was a much bigger pain than it needed to be. It's cool that they modeled it after the Primal Sewers and it absolutely fits the concept, but the tunnels are just obnoxious to get around in. As for continuing the story threads... With the Praetorian War officially over, the survivors evacuated, Tyrant and his Praetors defeated, dead, or switched sides, I think most of the story points lead to things continuing on Primal Earth. I'm not opposed to more Goldside content, but the overall plot has already moved past it so any additions to the 'Praetorian War' storyline done now would require a bunch of handwaves as to how it either fits into the prior plot without actually changing anything and doesn't invalidate the conclusion of the prior arcs with Praetoria being evacuated. QoL-wise I totally support @Krimson's comment of letting Goldside 50s access Ouroboros and join iTrials (and gain the ability to flashback to Praetoria missions in the process), but story-wise... Praetoria's basically done. As far as current content goes, it's been surrendered to Super Hamidon. Thinking about it though, Ouroboros access could allow for going back to a 'Before Going Rogue' task force or two, like Twilight Son's or Mender Silos'. Allow the player to actually play through the decisive moments of Hamidon Wars in the 1970s and see Tyrant's rise to power against global annihilation as he establishes Praetoria. Heck, have it take place in a fallen Paragon City as a mirror to the Praetorian iTrials/task forces, with Tyrant rallying against the death of humanity and Hamidon's invading forces. Show him as the promising hero he was (and who still had to compromise in the face of not being strong enough to defeat his foe) and provide more background on the Praetors. Marauder remarks a lot about the Hamidon Wars - let us actually see him being the man he was and wishes he still could be. It'd make a fantastic lead-in to possibly having Emperor Cole and the surviving Praetors step up to fight against the Battalion (as was the original plan on Live), showing them how misguided they were and how much of a difference they could make fighting for the right reasons.

If this were to be implemented, I'd definitely want it to be sequestered from other pre-existing PvE spaces. Not out of any sense of thinking that farming is bad or an illegitimate way of playing the game but solely from the sheer crowd that it'd draw. It'd just be more equitable for everyone by having this be its own zone, which would allow players actively engaging in the farm more space to actually join in and team up together without taking space away from any of the PvE zones and the players running that content (or having said PvE players take away zone slots from the farmers). Trying to put something like this in a pre-existing zone just seems like it'd be the 'AE in Atlas' problem all over again or the constant RWZ issues of 'we're running a Mother Ship raid, if you aren't joining in please go to RWZ 2.' I wouldn't be opposed to a token akin to the PvP Temporal Warden, either. If a player makes a character for this prospective 'farm zone' then that's what the character is exclusively for and they can't access other areas outside of SG bases, Pocket D, and Echo Plaza. No going into PvP, no other PvE content, no badges or iTrials, with the Incarnate unlocks coming from XP rewards, vet badges, and drops. Heck, could use the Shadow Shard as a set-up - the character is a Reflection and runs repeatable missions there since they're tied to the zone and literally can't leave. Starts at level 1 and go from there. P2W vendors and standard stores available in some kind of military hub as the default player gathering space. It'd let the farm characters keep their niche and retain the ability to finance other characters, while still requiring that said other PvE/PvP characters actually be leveled up or made separately. As for it being faster than AE... that part seems doubtful. AE's progression was taken down a notch specifically because it was excessively fast (due in-part to a bug in how XP was being rewarded and in-part to just how absurdly quick the turn around is on incredibly mob-dense maps) and even in its 'nerfed' state it's still much faster than any of the traditional PvE farming maps by a significant margin. With influence and drops as easy to gain as they are at level 50, turning off a character's ability to gain them until that point isn't a serious detriment - especially when said character could reach level 50 in a few hours after literal character creation and then spend the rest of their hours upon hours playtime actively earning again. It might offer the same speedy turn-around with mob-dense maps that AE has currently (to make it a worthwhile option in comparison), but I doubt it'd be entirely focused on a single enemy group/damage type. That's just going to fill the zone up with the same small handful of powersets - a 'if you aren't playing X set or slotting for Y, you're doing it wrong' situation. Frankly, just as an experiment, I'd like to see what would happen if Reflections and the mobs they fought replaced all the damage types and defense types with 'Special.' That way no matter what kind of powerset someone picked, they wouldn't be at any more or less of an advantage against the various enemy groups while running the missions and everyone could farm however they preferred.

3 or 5 would be the most interesting, with 5 winning out due to the landmass shape alone - that witch hat/Nightmare Before Christmas mountain curl is so much more interesting than yet another 'Here's a box of war walls.' Also because, for a coastal city, Paragon has a massive dearth of actual coastline in-game or beaches that aren't attached to islands. As for content, there's a lot that could be done with it. Coralax invasion like what @Glacier Peak said - or have the Virtea finally appear in-game, since we've got fish monster costume bits now. Have it become 'Little Praetoria' overlooked by a Vanguard base (or/also a U.S. navy base). Include some kind of secret villain lair hidden in there somewhere, trying to take advantage of the refugees (Malta? Knives of Artemis? New group?). Do all of the above and more. Just whatever is done, please don't surround it with war walls.

@Naomi makes a lot of very good points. IMO, if 'this is an earnable costume creator item' is implemented for certain special cosmetics again the seasonal route is the way to go - with the caveat that it works like the bonus costume slot/candy cane salvage does. While the event itself only runs for a select time, access to the vendor to actually buy the item should be available year-round. That way there's still a limited time to earn the salvage necessary for the item through the event missions but outside of the event if someone makes a new character the cosmetic item is still possible to be obtained via stockpiled salvage or AH purchases. It seems to strike a solid balance as far as 'earnability' goes. Having something be too easy makes some players wonder why there was a requirement in the first place (like emotes behind exploration badges, much as I personally am totally supportive of that) and having it too restrictive means hardly anyone will get to use it (like locking costume creator items behind high-level content or excessive defeat badges). With the seasonal set-up, there's still a base measure of expected gameplay and engagement on a level that doesn't either feel arbitrary or overly restrictive and other rewards and progress are earned at the same time (badges, XP/Inf, possible PAPs) which incentivizes players to run those events even more when they're around. Frankly, I wouldn't mind more themed events. They don't necessarily need to be around holidays - especially given that the October to February window is already a bit lopsided - but anything using the same 'salvage -> reward vendor' seasonal framework would work. Having them set up around various groups, like a Longbow event that allows for unlocking those bandoliers or thigh pouches or a Knives of Artemis event for their boots/tactical gear could be fun. Some equally-accessible contact offers appropriate missions working with/against that particular group for 'Faction Medals' which can get turned in for whichever gear is in the event shop, perhaps with on-going event items offered at a discount but all existing items can still be bought.

More seriously though, this is one of those 'self imposed' things. As @biostem and @JasperStone said, if someone doesn't want their character to have a polished hero costume at level 1, a cape before level 20, or aura before level 30 then they can just... not use them until after they run those missions, which still exist and are freely accessible by everyone. That's a perfectly serviceable way to interact with and play the game if that's what a player chooses to do, which was the entire point - this is deliberately offered up to individual player choice rather than left as a blanket restriction on everyone because not every player would want to play that way. IMO, there's never really been a sense of accomplishment to earning a cape or an aura anyway. It's a single, one-off mission players were forced to do to unlock access to, as far as superhero designs are concerned, two incredibly standard arrays of options. At least, until the Paragon Market came around and you could buy a pass to have capes/auras at level 1. Sure, there was a lore justification for it but that was just put in to explain why the Live devs required a mission to 'earn' them in the first place (and explain why capes/auras didn't exist when the game first came out, because they didn't have the tech until Issue 2).

110% Yes. All of this. With newer sets having different arrangements of mechanics that old IOs/enhancements just don't account for and older sets getting revamps to make them more competitive, having enhancements & sets capitalize better on how powers function would be fantastic. Plus it'd just be nice to have more viable, varied options in-general to cover the bases. Expand the SO combinations, adjust existing IO sets, add entirely new ones - whatever form it's got to take, I'm here for it.

This would absolutely harm the increased creative freedom that players have been given via the removal of now pointless restrictions like this one. Also, given that HC has allowed all available costume pieces and weapon models from character creation rather than requiring badge or level unlocks, this would run directly counter to how both the devs want HC to be engaged with as well as how players actively engage with it. The costume creator being open to everyone and not being arbitrarily gatelocked by level/badge requirements is one of the few things the vast majority of players see as a good thing. If someone wants 'exclusive swag' for a level 50, that's what fully IO'ed builds, end game content & badge titles, Incarnate powers, hard mode rewards, and the new hologram costumes are all for.

I think that might just exacerbate SOs being ignored, honestly. Early IOs are already much cheaper and making the lower-level ones even better numerically seems like it'd just lead folks to buy those instead since they'd be an even better one-and-done investment. The trade-off for them not degrading as a player leveled up was that they didn't provide as much of a buff as even-level SOs do at lower levels, but since IOs eclipse SOs pretty hard at higher levels lessening that on top of set bonuses doesn't really seem like a detriment. SOs need something to make them worth the continual investment - they're too expensive at lower levels and not mathematically worth it at higher ones. Given that they're origin specific, it could be interesting if having a higher amount of them slotted made that character better at fighting opponents aligned with that origin-type. Sort of like set bonus that increase the powers effects against specific enemy groups, encouraging players to fight those groups more and get more usable SO drops.

Yeah, the 50k isn't going to make a huge difference - which isn't to say it shouldn't be done just that it alone won't really improve things. Frankly, more than anything I think @battlewraith's post is a really good point on highlighting SOs just being over all overly expensive, especially at lower levels and in-particular with how cheap IOs have become. A level 20 SO will get you more numerical benefit than a level 20 IO, but that level 20 IO is more than likely a fraction of the cost on AH, will never degrade, and won't ever require that a player spend tons more influence to upgrade it repeatedly every X levels. Beyond that, by the time someone hits the level where they earnestly need to slot enhancements it's just so much more more cost effective to get level 25/30 generic IOs or available attuned sets and slap those in until the character hits 50. The 50k for doing the tutorial isn't a bad idea, but as is all that is probably going to go into Wentworths and not any of the in-game stores. SO prices from stores need adjusting - given that they require multiple expenses of influence to upgrade even after that, they shouldn't be that prohibitively expensive in the first place (also any store-bought SOs should be able to be sold back for their full value, imo).

I'm here for this. Could absolutely work as a cool task force where the player teams up with Nectanebo and the moon cult priestess that Shadowstar bonded with in that time period while escaping the Nictus. That bit alone would make a nice direct contrast to Cimerora - working with the sole (at the time) 'good Nictus' vs fighting against an army of evil space invaders. I'm curious as to who the conflict would be against, though. The Blood of the Black Stream could definitely work given they were there and the touches in the game's background gives something to expand on. Could possibly involve an ancient cabal of Mu wizards, too. The modern Mu can't be the only time they've amassed groups of red lightning Hequat cultists throughout the entirety of human history... Really, anything that doesn't involve the villain group also traveling back in time to screw around with things like with the 5th Column, I'd be happy with. The Banished Pantheon were around then too, but they've got Dark Astoria (and parts of Cimerora) as their whole thing already. I also wouldn't mind some actual Mender involvement this time around. They're the Time Travel Guys, so it makes sense that they'd be involved. Hell, given the time period we could even team up with Prometheus and see if the giant toga-wearing smurf can actually back up all the smacktalk he gives in the incarnate briefings.

That seems like more a problem with that one Alignment power being objectively better, rather than a constraint that should be left restricting the entire rest of the Morality system. 'Everyone would take X power' isn't a reason to keep the system as the vestigial, ignored sliver it currently is - that's a reason to re-balance the alignment powers so there's an actual reason to pick one over the other (mostly by making the Rogue/Vigilante powers actually worthwhile to have). Alignment should have no mechanical difference on a character, and should instead focus on content/player choice as to why they remain a specific alignment. If players could pick from each of the alignment powers that best fit their specific character - with each of them actually being serviceable options - and had to do so by actually running a Morality mission with some semblance of regularity that'd make the system a lot more active. Heck, at that point attach Alignment credit in more places to regular story arcs where players make choices. HC is already doing this in certain spots, but as an example of one where it doesn't exist but could take Graham Easton. The player's choice to spare (Hero credit) or kill (Vigilante credit) Sun Xiong could totally work for a progression point. Make alignment progression toward Morality missions more interwoven with the rest of the game and it'd be a lot more common to actually run them. Combine that with a repeatable Tip Mission contact for both Blueside and Redside and the Alignment content becomes much more readily accessible across the board.

Frankly, there's next to no detriment to being a Hero/Villain as is. Their alignment abilities are objectively better, they have access to an extra currency for reward merits only they can earn (while Vigilantes and Rogues can only convert into it at reward vendors for convenience - which already removes half of its exclusivity), they benefit even more from the constant focus on co-op content both before and after Alignments were introduced (RWZ, Dark Astoria, iTrials, Midnight Club/Cimerora) and the fact that all of the various event content, Ouroboros, post-alignment TFs like Khan/Barracuda, and the Signature Story Arcs all exist as 'Here's the Blueside and Redside contact for this so everyone can play it!' The only major thing any player might actually miss out on are a handful of task force/story arc badges, because even the accolades and powers those grant also already exist as yet another 'Here's the Paragon/Isles equivalent.' Homecoming adding Vigilante and Rogue-specific content that requires that exact alignment to play and allowing Vigilantes into Fort Trident and Rogues into the Crucible was a step in the right direction, but 'you can play both sides' as a selling point for them doesn't really hold much water when the overwhelming majority of the major content in the game is already accessible that way by default in one fashion or another. IMO, Vigilantes and Rogues always should have had their own alignment merits to earn, with powers that were on-equal footing to the others so it actually became a trade-off rather than a detriment. That way players would have had a reason to actually keep playing morality missions and reaffirm those alignments, rather than changing once and never touching it again because 'what else is there to earn from it?' The effectiveness of the alignment powers shouldn't be a factor in why someone picks a certain alignment - pigeon-holing someone into a narrow concept due to mechanical constraints, even relatively minor ones, is bad design. The Morality system always should have been about ways to engage with content, rather than locking certain rewards away. Alternate dialogue choices, paths through missions, or even unique arcs entirely should have been things for every alignment on the spectrum, like what the HC devs are doing now. Also this is a bit of a tangent but I wouldn't mind seeing a Vigilante/Rogue-specific mini-zone that Heroes/Villains couldn't get in as well. That'd cover all the bases, concept-wise, plus could put some of the surviving Praetorians in there (Marauder would make a great trainer) along with other NPCs who work with both sides/are currently shifting alignment like Frost Fire and Mercedes Sheldon. Heck, have it be a joint Vanguard/Midnight Club compound somewhere if it needs a particular a theming to counter the Longbow/Arachnos set up of the other two given that 'working with everyone' is the gimmick both of those groups have and they both work together already.

This seems like a solid route to take, especially given that Homecoming's focus thus far has been on individual alignments having specific story arcs unique to them. Having the power reflect an investment in an existing or prior alignment - akin to a Day Job power, where it's unlocked after a certain amount of effort/time - but not requiring someone to stick to that alignment puts the focus more on concept and what content that character is meant to run. Heck, could make the requirement 'This power will remain unlocked if you spend X amount of alignment merits' with Hero merits working for Hero/Vigilante unlocks and Villain merits working for Rogue/Villain unlocks. Or just outright make Vigilante and Rogue merits for that purpose, and give them an even exchange rate with pre-existing Hero and Villain merits, respectively. Gives them more of a purpose and provides players a reason to actually run those missions again. This would certainly get me to run some alignment content, which I haven't touched at all in months and months and months.

Yeah, the Live costs were so atrocious that I imagine most folks either don't remember them due to sheer 'I never want to think about that nonsense again!' or just not having used them nearly as much in the first place as they do on HC. 95% of all my builds on Live were made via Wentworths or lucky drops - using merits, especially for really rare sets, was an exercise in near futility. It could certainly be done but it was painful spending that much. Granted, the entire point of having ATOs cost 400-500 merits each was to get folks to spend Paragon Points on superpacks rather than 'waste merits.' One of those 'yeah, you can earn them in-game but it's a lot easier in the cash shop!' things that modern MMOs all latched onto in the intervening decade. Also ninja'd by @Number Six but they'd know better than me anyway - I just figured HC did at some point it given that's how much they cost when I started playing here. xD

Yeah, reward merit costs used to be beyond excessive. Homecoming has already made the reward merit system vastly more cost-effective with prices in fractions of what they used to be, plus expanded it with many options the old system didn't even allow for (and which would have been 5 to 10 times more expensive than on HC if they had, like PvP and Purple sets). It was ridiculous.

Reward Merits and PAPs were instituted for the same reason that every other previous 'new currency' was put into the game - precisely so they wouldn't utilize influence for everything. All that'd do is allow the players with Scrooge McDuck-esque pits of inf to instantly get all the new shinies the moment they go Live and then have nothing to actually play the game for. Which in-turn leaves the other players - long-term ones who don't have massive hordes of savings and new players just starting out - in the lurch because a hefty portion of the playerbase isn't running the new content at all. At that point there'd be no reason in making new content actually playable, or anything beyond 'Click this button to subtract X influence and get Y!' Divided currencies mean everyone starts at the same starting line for the new stuff, which means everyone has to run content to get it. Players continually playing content is what keeps them around and keeps the game going.

YES! That one too! Frankly, all of the custom weapon 'zoom in' poses in the costume creator ought to be actual emotes. The player model can obviously do the emote with the correct weapon showing up already, so the trick would just be attaching it to a chat command at this point.

This was the first thing my brain came up with regarding 'fusion Kheldians.' I do like the idea though. The Kheldian story arc kind of stagnated pretty hard for the longest time. At least the VEATs have the on-going shenanigans with Arachnos and the Isles to sort of work with. The only real new Kheldian stuff we've gotten is the Hard Mode ITF and the Sister Valeria arc - which while fun and engaging content, doesn't really advance things in modern times (at least, not in any way we've gotten to see yet). Plus, the idea of fusion Kheldians just seems neat. Like they both tried to join with the same person at the same time, or ended up melding when the Nictus was going all energy-vampire on the Kheldian and now they're stuck together. There's a lot of avenues to play out the whole 'symbiotic' thing.

Fair enough, in retrospect that comment was more than a bit out of order (both in that I'm not a GM/dev/etc. and the nature of this specific forum). My apologies. @Troo I think you're on to something lowering the range, though imo I'd take it even lower - at best a 'start at level 20-25' token. With the new power level adjustments, that'd give players the opportunity to jump right in with a full powerset they've wanted to try but still have a hefty amount of gameplay to get used to how the sets work and what they want to build. Avoids the most commonly PL'ed through levels while enforcing progression for the 'This is pretty much how the end game will work' ranges and still gives plenty of time to accrue inf, recipes, drops, etc. A set up like that... I think I'd be okay with. Probably not purchasable via inf or a mission arc, but as a reward for winning a dev or GM-run contest - something rare where everyone who plays would be on even footing to attain it. Edit: Also that way if it were used on Live without testing on Beta or wherever else first and the player is unhappy with the powersets, then that's on them for wasting the token.

I think the Positron Task Force revamp into Posi 1 and Posi 2 is pretty much a gold standard for any future revamps. They're not an overwhelming deluge of repetitive missions like Synapse or the Shadow Shard TFs, but neither are they an absolute cakewalk like Penny Yin. That a lot of the later task forces are built along similar lines - a relatively small string of 4-6 large missions in which a lot is accomplished - is a pretty great design philosophy to keep imo. The Sutter, Apex, and Tin Mage TFs embraced this and they're some of the best task forces we've got. The Dr. Aeon SF and Hard Mode ITF did it as well to really good effect, which opened up room for the hard mode status to be more flexible in how intense things get and how long the gameplay might take. Zone transitions are fine, so long as they aren't every other mission or done right off the bat (looking at you again, Synapse). They were pretty common in the older, original task forces but by now are basically a relic from the Before Times when 'travel time' was seen as 'gameplay' and we didn't have the massive offering of fast-travel options as we do now. I'd say as a range-finder, Citadel is pretty alright for a standard amount. Numina also works, if as an outlier, because that zone transitions are the core content of the task force and it can be done very quickly if decently organized. Honestly, I like the design that was put in late in the game's life, where all or at least the majority of the doors were linked to the specific zone the contact was in. The RWZ task forces, Katie Hannon, Ms. Liberty, etc. It keeps the focus tighter and makes the content feel less like the team is acting as gophers for the contact. That said, being able to board transit more often and just have the instance say 'You're now in X zone' would be perfectly acceptable. I don't mind having to move around a zone I'm already in - that's an engaging level of movement - but constantly jumping to other zones makes it feel like more of a chore, especially if it's just 'summon the Longbow jet and tap foot while waiting for the teleport prompt.' There's a level of momentum there that isn't maintained and waiting to be chauffeured around when I'd have more fun flying myself is a bit... eh.

Amazing how 'go play a different game' is an acceptable reply now, when earlier it was apparently crossing some unacceptable boundary. Despite the fact that earlier it was in response to... the comments of 'just use the server in this game where the thing this thread is proposing already exists and can be freely utilized by anyone who plays.' Heck, I'd figure that the server framework alone has already indicated what the playerbase's priorities and thoughts are. The devs already allow instant-50s under restrictions they've deemed acceptable - I.E. solely for impermanent testing purposes in an environment that does not guarantee they will be kept around - while Live requires actual playtime and XP gain to advance and the playerbase is... uniformly fine with that given the continual lack of a mass migration to the place that has instant-50s, the lack of any posts complaining about 'Where did my 10 pages of Beta-server instant-50s go? This should be changed!' All that on top of the apparent overwhelming drudgery and waste of time that leveling up is seen as by some posters. That said, you do you. I never claimed to have authority over the forums and absolutely do not want the responsibility that'd come with that. Neither am I'm telling you that you can't post about this. I'm just saying that posting about this proposal is not going to make it any more likely happen.

I think the core of it is that astral projections and ghosts are essentially both 'spirits' enough to be affected by the same things, with the key difference being how they got to the point of being an incorporeal entity. Ghost Widow's soul/essence/consciousness was fully linked within her own body when she died, and more importantly she died in the throws of a massive failure for Arachnos full of regret, bitterness, and vengeance so she's a traditional ghost - infused with negative energy and unchanging from that horrible moment that ended her life. On the other hand Numina willingly projected out of her own body and possessed Red Threat in an attempt to stop his disruption of the earth's core/save the world, so there's a lot of self-sacrifice and positive emotions there. Her original body got destroyed so she couldn't go back to it and her consciousness got stuck/buried in Red Threat until he died in the Rikti War which set her astral form free. So Numi's not a ghost ghost so much as a disembodied spirit because her spirit never underwent that negative, horrific-type of death (though she might have had a front-row seat to watch it happen to Red Threat, who got ganked by Rikti while he was in prison). Honestly I imagine Numina's manifestation is more in-line with what Sister Psyche would have been in-between mind-riding, she's just stuck in that 'in-between' permanently unless she decides to possess someone else again - though with the established risk getting trapped inside them for who knows how long, totally understand why she doesn't.