El D

Supposedly Lord Recluse's voice was done by Sean Michael Fish AKA Manticore from the original dev team - though whether this is just for the in-game monologue or also for the trailer I don't know for certain. It definitely sounds similar enough, though. The other guy is Foreshadow. He's got a very different outfit in-game than the one used in the trailer.

If you're in combat and it's gone so badly you're spamming at icons to stay alive to the point where you hit Secondary Mutation for a random 'Save Me!' hope... You were already going to be defeated. If you're hitting it in combat just because you forgot to use it at the start of a mission and get monkey'd, well...

I don't understand how portraying Bond accurately - and thusly having him be a misogynistic sociopath who does terribly violent things in the name of his country - counts as rewriting. That's not rewriting that's just who Bond is. A flawed, dynamic character who is fun to watch but also a vile person who does vile things. Also he's not a hero, he's just the protagonist. Fleming himself never even considered Bond a 'good guy.' He's explicitly a weapon of his government and a distilled product of his era. Which, if Amazon focused on that, could be an improvement. Having the franchise take a step back from modern day adaptations and portray Bond in the time he was written for seems like it'd play better, and would be a marked change from the Daniel Craig era besides. Plus we're far enough away from Austin Powers that more of the spy goofiness from the earlier films could be kept in as well.

Kallisti Wharf is part of Paragon, yeah. On the official map it's marked as #24, between Independence Port and Steel Canyon. The new drones are probably linked to whatever story content the HC devs are going to introduce for the zone (only reason I can imagine for a change both that minor and that deliberate) and the architecture was a 'Hey, we made all these new assets for Preatoria and we're making a new zone, why not use the new, fancy stuff?' rather than use a bunch of old textures and map assets they'd have to phase out/replace later anyway. If the Live game had kept going, I imagine most of the major Blueside zones would have been upscaled with newer assets by now to be like Kallisti - similar to what was done with the Atlas Park revamp.

Narrative context is not equivalent to player context. Running around on a casino themed map is not the same thing as a player character running around promoting a gambling site or real world casino. The 5th Column are Nazi terrorists but they aren't espousing that as a valid viewpoint the way allowing a Nazi terrorist player character would be. The Freakshow use Excelsior and the Trolls use Superadine as fictional drugs but that's not the same as a Scrapper with a bio that says they explicitly get their powers from cocaine. The Code of Conduct applies to player-made characters, text chat, and AE arcs precisely because the generation of all that is outside the direct control of the devs and some people are jackasses. It's a pretty standard 'You do X flavor of nonsense, you will get generic'd/banned' legal safeguard.

They would have to change power selections, because the way every powerset in this game works at least partially around core mechanics where character death is not a permanent impediment. The math behind every power is built at least somewhat around the core concept of defeat for player characters being a fleeing inconvenience. Heck, in the case of rez powers its explicitly the sole intention, and there's a lot of those in the game spread across many archetypes. Including Awaken inspirations that drop regardless of archetype while fighting mobs at levels 1 through 50. None of which will have any use or function whatsoever on a 'permadeath' experience. For a dedicated Hardcore server, an entire core dynamic of interacting with the game would either need to be removed or reworked entirely to do other things and everything else would need to be re-balanced around defeat being permanent, rather than defeat being a very real occurrence that is only marginally impactful. If none of the math changes and the game plays exactly as it does now just sans rezzes? Well, I hope folks like restarting from level 1. Get stomped by a giant monster? Start over. Get ganked by a mob you didn't see? Start over. If you run a taskforce set on the wrong difficulty? Start over. That's not even getting into endgame content like Dark Astoria, iTrials, or Preatoria. One good Rikti Invasion could end an entire Hardcore server with existing mechanics. That's doesn't seem like something a dev team could reliably put time and investment in the way Homecoming's servers have been built up. It's difficult to do major dev events when attending them possibly results in players losing their characters entirely. 'Oh hey, they spawned in Hamidon - now I'm dead and this character is gone.' I'm not saying that Hardcore doesn't take skill or require extra challenge or even that having a really exclusive badge celebrating that wouldn't be cool, it's just that CoX does not innately lend itself to working that way (nor, as I understand it, do many of the HC devs). With other games that have official hardcore support, like WoW, it works better because the mechanics are different and the community is populous enough (even nowadays) to fully support side endeavors like that. As a devil's advocate for this point - a Harddcore section of the HC forums, for folks who want to play on the existing servers this way? 1000% support that and think it should be added. The game does allow players to play this way currently (if mostly via honor system) and a dedicated forum section would make it easier for folks interested in doing so to engage with one another. As an experiment to gauge the actual viability of Hardcore CoX, that seems like the most plausible first step, anyway. Just seeing how many people would even try the game that way and engage with it. Even if it still resulted on no official support beyond a place for chatting and player events, it'd be a spot where those who do Hardcore characters could compare notes and strategies and that seems plenty fair. I can think of far, far worse forums to have among the CoX circle (like bringing PWNZ back...).

AE is the Nemesis system for CoX. As @Rudra said, the Champions one is literally the same arc over and over again - AE actually allows variety and bespoke content. It just requires that players write to get full use out of it. If you really want to be surprised by a custom Nemesis arc, commission someone to make an AE arc for you or join a roleplay supergroup.

Zerging through missions is the core gameplay loop, though. We're playing superheroes - even with the adjusted enemy mobs and damage types, people still speed blitz content all day every day because that's how the game's mechanics encourage people to play. The only real outliers are the explicitly challenging instances like Master Of runs or Hard Mode TFs. Said explicitly challenging instances are still built around characters readily being able to die and immediately respawn and keep going, so even the content closest to a 'Hardcore' mode the game has still encourages players to try and try again vs any sort of permadeath. CoX is literally not made for any sort of Hardcore arrangement beyond a player choosing to delete their character upon their first defeat.

Seconded. Empathy being able to pre-buff that way - more akin to how every other support set aside from Pain functions via shields/res buffs - would be a pretty significant boost in usability. Also it just fits the design of the set. Empathy doesn't blunt the amount of damage or improve chance to dodge a hit, but it heals so good it provides enough hit points to tank through it anyway.

This is a NPC tradition I would love to see continued and this particular pairing is a perfect odd couple. 1000% here for this. "Just one more thing." "It's never just one more thing!" "It is for the criminals, Craig." "Falk, you manage to perplex even me." "Yeah, I get that a lot. Wanna go get some chili?" "... Sure. That sounds lovely."

Truth. Here I was thinking that an actor who vacillates between 'endearing goofball' and 'badass father figure' - sometimes even in the same role - is pretty spot-on for Mr. Fantastic. There's an earnest corniness to Reed that he absolutely has, but he can also absolutely buckle down when things need to get serious. Pedro Pascal might not fit into every generic 'world's smartest man' vibe, but for Reed Richards specifically? He definitely tracks, imo. How 'smart' the character is will end up being due to the writing and plot, anyway.

It's less 'every human has psychic powers' and more 'every human has psychic potential' - that level of potential just differs and in most cases is next to nil. It's also the entire basis of the Fortunata program in Arachnos, with them selectively going after recruits with the most potential and fostering them via training and mental links. CoX liked doing lore like that for Primal Earth's humanity. They did the same thing for humans who actually manifest magical powers - they all connect back to Mu and Oranbega. As for Sister Psyche's comment, I see that more as an explicit retcon of the 'no mutants existed before the Atomic Age' lore point that was never actually referenced in-game (and was basically broken by Sister Psyche's own background before the game started, until they decided to finally write around it). Also probably put in to help jive with the psychic Sybils in Cimerora, though whether or not they have innate psionic powers or are magically gifted them from Phoebus has yet to be determined. None of this also explains how some folks manifest psychic powers vastly differently than others (like Malaise and the Clockwork King). Official lore around psychic stuff has been nebulous at best, only gently tailored to the character at-hand. IMO, the more direct way to make it all jive is to keep the human potential aspect and have that be enhanced by whatever origin is involved. Weird genetic mutation, sun deity magic, or intense training can all spark that potential in different ways, explaining the variances in power (and even the similarities, as all the Fortunatas are honed for foresight and divination).

You can already do permadeath - when your character dies, delete them. That's how permadeath works in MMOs like this. As for the original suggestion, no thanks. Hard Mode already gets enough complaints, this would magnify that multiple times for something even fewer people would use.

Nyeheheheheh... ...World domination

I enjoyed Creature Commandos! The character designs were great, the soundtrack fantastic, and the action scenes suitably stylish and gnarly. Slight spoiler-y comments, so putting the rest behind the curtain.

It's totally fair to point out that the existing color UI is easy to use vs remembering RGB Color codes - though I think that emphasizes the importance of how the costume creator UI would need to change with an expanded color palette. If players were still able to lock select colors for the entire costume in the primary or secondary slots as the existing creator does, or lock certain values for certain pieces for easy reference, that seems like it'd resolve many issues in juggling such granular shifts on such an expanded color chart. Or maybe a 'Prior Color Choices' box, something akin to how image editing programs often have 'last used option' sections to scroll though when changing color values or gradients that shows all the various ways you changed the current image thus far.

If there's no name release in-place, more and more names just get locked away on accounts that are no longer active. Which is what happened with all the original Homecoming servers and why the devs finally activated it. Victory is getting a grace period so the folks who migrated their characters have time to take stock, rather than have the 'Welcome to Homecoming!' party also immediately slap them with the Get Generic'd stick.

I think a lot of the prior examples of hitstop in this thread emphasize that it works fantastically for a cinematic experience - such as in movies or anime - and in fighting games and 3rd person action RPGs where the gameplay is intended to be handled with a controller, designed to utilize haptic feedback, and made with movement and combat mechanics where weight and reach matter more directly/at all. Which is where the problem comes in, seeing as CoX has next to none of those things (and those it does have aren't implemented the same way). Combat in CoX provides no haptic feedback via any sort of controller and doesn't shift in perspective akin to Fatalities or zoom-in/repeat shots. There's no change in damage or functionality from mistiming a swing or not building up enough power (specifically as it works in Monster Hunter or a fighting game) and no mechanic for variances in character/weapon weight. None of the cinematic or numeric impacts of hitstop exist in CoX - the gameplay just isn't designed for it. What CoX's gameplay is meant to be is functional, engaging, and quick. Specifically so in the framework of an MMO, which means the 'weight and impact' of Titan Weapons is purely visual. It's an illusion via animations and power FX to sell the aesthetic of the set. You could play Titan Weapons the exact same if the weapon and the FX were entirely invisible (call it Titan Interpretive Dance). There's no numerical difference with or without the weapon because the weapon itself isn't a gameplay mechanic (nor is the character model, for that matter). Also CoX's emphasis on frenetic gameplay is precisely why Titan Weapons was lambasted for being painfully slow ever since it was introduced. The lumbering, powerful swings fit the look, but they still didn't feel as quick as other sets (and in various cases, outright weren't as quick, even after they got adjusted). All that combines to mean that slowing down the animations on a set that is already considered very slow - even if it's just in player perception of the animation change rather than actual animation time - is not going to be taken as an improvement when the aesthetic is all that changes. To play devil's advocate, bundling this with mechanic improvements? That could work. Hitstop being included with some number tweaks to enhance Titan Weapons performance might get more broad interest and player support, but I still see it as a hard sell just from the way the game operates. Also at that point, knowing our community, various folks would probably just ask for the mechanical boosts without the animation change.

A fair thought! Mission contacts or minor NPCs could be solid additions, yeah. Some of them already lend themselves to that sort of inclusion - having the Shining Stars (like you mentioned) and the Hearts of Darkness would work well. Heck, a dance off with Crosscut doing /e popdance and Dillo doing /e robotdance practically writes itself.

Toss a few more generic citizen dancers or hero/villain group NPCs into Pocket D? Sure, why not. There's plenty of precedence for it with the existing NPCs and the inclusion of memorium NPCs as well. Also there's a lot of 'new' dance emotes made well after Pocket D was put in-game to use with them for bonus points. Put in Signature NPCs - like Ghost Widow or Manticore - on the dance floor? That's a bit more of a stretch. Signature NPCs showing up only happened during Dev events when they were actively being piloted so players could actually interact with them. Just having a pure CPU Manticore mindlessly grooving out for photo opportunities feels... kind of desperate, to be honest. 'Look at me, totally dancing with The Real Manticore!' Frankly, it's a lot more fun to snag those moments with the devs actually playing said NPC. That said, I wouldn't be opposed to it for say, a special event of some kind. CoX's Anniversary tosses the Phalanx and Arachnos into Pocket D for a weekend or something. As permanent additions, though? Nah, I don't think they should be relegated to background filler.

This is definitely a more engine-friendly workaround for a 'stretchy punch' set. With the proper color selections available and optional matte/non-glowing customization options, players could even make them match existing costume pieces pretty closely. As a possible alternate, have the attack animations summon SFX of a stretchy fist that matches the costume's selected glove pieces, akin to how the weapon sets work. Doesn't actually stretch the character model, just makes a temporary SFX that fakes it.

It makes sense with the lore and expands on the Nictus updates that Requiem and Arakhn have already gotten in fun ways. Sounds good to me! Always in-favor of updating older AVs like that. Okay, a Nictus-ified giant wolf for Requiem would be cool. Heck, at that point give Arakhn a warped bat/vampire-alien form and make them mesh with the whole Warwolf/Vampyri transformations. Bring the whole transformation aspect of the villain groups full circle.

No - account data from when the game was originally live is not accessible by Homecoming (if it even still exists at all by this point). You'll have to recreate characters/bases/supergroups from scratch, but HC has implemented a lot of tools that make advancing through the game easier than it was pre-sunset.

Going to second the 'worth a watch' comments - the art style is vibrant, the fight scenes are solid, the music and voice acting are great, and frankly, it's just nice to have a Superman who feels hopeful again. The new takes on the classic villains are fun and the broad utilization of Krypton's alien technology makes Supe's opposition feel a lot more organically interconnected.

As OP mentioned in the initial post, I'd rather not have chat windows more cluttered than they already are. That's real estate taken up by something entirely unnecessary in local channels, and in global channels you already go by the global name as is. I don't oppose the idea of this being a 'toggle on' option in the chat settings for folks who really want it, mind, but I also don't see much point in it - if someone wants or needs to know another player's global name there's already tons of immediate options. Click their name in the chat window and hit Get Global Name. Right click their avatar and use 'Add Note' (though 'Get Global Name' could definitely be added to that menu, too). Or type /getglobalname "character name"