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With how various NPC costume pieces work, the shoulder section and the cape might very well be a single piece. Statesman's Tights option has its own texture pattern and chest emblem, so the cloak could be a chest or shoulder detail with a special cape attached.

It's not an issue of 'like vs exact copy.' It's the matter of 'players connecting their creations in-game to an outside IP in any fashion is not allowed.' So waving a flag, shouting that they're doing it, and asking other players to help them do it, is a pretty solid recipe for HC staff to bring down the generic bat (or at least motion to it with obvious intent). Privately knowing your character or AE arc is a homage to [insert piece of media here] is fine. Everyone takes inspiration, even the original dev team that made the game did. Publicly posting about the exact IP - to the point of listing specific copyrighted characters and asking for guidance on how they could be made via in-game systems - is asking for trouble. There's no plausibility in the statement of 'Hey, how do I make Magneto?'

What Glacier Peak said, but more specifically - posting an open written record asking other players to deliberately aid in skirting copyright on the official public forum for the game is bad practice. HC doesn't need to invite any problems that might screw with their agreement with NCSoft and intellectual property is a pretty big one, so the HC devs and GMs don't tolerate or encourage any behavior of that sort among the playerbase. Also, some folks need to watch The Wire and learn the proper time and place to take notes.

Given the Valentine's Day tip, it's probably in Sally & Lusca's too.

Also: We need a DJ Lusca! Possible nebulous canon of the Valentine's Day tips aside, with DJ Zero seemingly confirming the accuracy of this and the vigilante ending of the Shauna Braun arc explicitly involving Lusca eating a dude, the idea of Sally being a known danger to the waterways around Paragon City actually has more merit than I thought (even tweaking the interpretation to them eating the tons of fish in the holds rather than the sailors). Though now I want to know how exactly Sally wrote that. Did she use her teeth? Hold a jagged bit of wood or anchor with her flippers? And how did the giant lake monster learn English? Or the giant octopus, for that matter? And why is Sally's writing style that of a teenage valley girl?

Much as the badge mechanics are arranged purely by in-engine constraints (it's a defeat badge, so something must be defeated to track it), Sally's perception in-game is odd in-general. The idea of the lake monster somehow being seen as the real myth in a zone populated with murderous fey, pumpkin men, storm witches, and moss-covered reindeer-wookies all from Celtic mythology feels really strange. Making Sally's badge be reward for vicinity and keeping her an event spawn with a timed route seems like a solid solution. It'd nix any quibbles about hitting her, allow easier badge acquisition for players, and remove a bit of the weird idea that she's somehow the most unbelievable part of Croatoa. 'Yeah, that's Sally. We have weekly sighting excursions planned on the university campus. Sometimes heroes come by and give her snacks.' makes more sense than 'Oh man, you got a picture of the mysterious Sally? After punching her in the face? I'll add this to all the others photo evidence we have and still continue to not believe she exists.' Actually, thinking about that, just make it so using /e cameraphone or /e camera near her gives the badge. That feels like a fun alternative for folks who don't want to smack the peaceful dinosaur.

Agreed! Jon Favreau would also be a very good option, especially given how involved he already is with writing and being an executive producer. Even the weaker aspects of his Star Wars content (certain sections of The Mandalorian and a hefty chunk of The Book of Boba Fett) are solid enough foundations to keep building with and showed how willing he was to work with other directors and performers. He also seems to align with Filoni in the aptitude for bringing in older Expanded Universe content, which is also a major plus.

Speculation is that should she step down then Dave Filoni will take over, possibly with more involvement from Kevin Feige, too. Whether or not that's a good thing depends on personal assessment of the MCU and current Star Wars efforts, which is a pretty fair mixed bag by this point. Filoni certainly seems to capture a strong amount of Lucas' original spirit for the franchise though and at minimum those two wouldn't go into another film trilogy without some kind of overall outline. The Mandalorian movie will probably be the make or break starting off point.

I'd argue that's what the progression of the films have already done. Connery's Bond has scenes that absolutely wouldn't have flown with Brosnan's and Craig's, for example, and that's reflection of 'Well, it's been 30+ years since the first films were made and attitudes changed.' Been the same amount of time since Brosnan now, and likely Craig once Amazon's stuff ever comes out. Though having mentioned it, I wouldn't even mind them going back to the rougher content of Connery's Bond provided they actually contextualize it in the story. Have the woman Bond 'seduces' be in on it from the start, perhaps an informant, and they're both playing a role for the mission rather than Bond having his way with the umpteenth Bond girl because the script says they just can't resist him. Bonus points if it's also to play into the expectations of the antagonists. As far as Amazon changes go, I'm willing to wait and see. Fallout and Reacher are pretty solid, earnest adaptations that don't shy away from more intense content (variances in tone aside). That makes me doubt they'd full on neuter Bond, at least not unless they do Casino Royale again...

A well-adjusted person doesn't react to horrific acts of violence - especially ones they directly caused - with a witty one-liner. It makes him a fantastic spy and action movie protagonist in that he's capable of committing incredible violence when the situation calls for it in a way that entertains the audience, but it's pretty sociopathic. As is reckless behavior, disregard for authority, rampant sexual activity, lack of empathy, likeliness to abuse alcohol, and a disregard for social norms. A lot of which is heavily enabled by MI6 and his work as a spy, certainly, but it's still a pretty solid checklist for Bond's character (really only missing 'English accent, tuxedo, and gun'). Overall that feels like splitting hairs (and not from black to blonde, like when they went from Brosnan to Craig) but I will concede that - at least in-regard to Bond's personal outlook - the distinction is fair enough. He's not a member of the He-Man Woman-Haters Club or some raging incel, but he still has a pretty steady disregard for women, mostly seeing them as sex objects or distractions. Though, that being a reflection of Bond's own MI6 warped perceptions rather than a personal belief would be an interesting avenue to explore. Bond sees himself only as a 'useful weapon' so that's how he comes to view everyone else. The Craig era went into that - Bond himself being disposable for MI6 and what the work takes from the spies - but didn't really delve into that beyond 'And thinking about that makes him quit and retire. Again. It'll stick this time, we're sure.' I don't want them to change Bond or remove these things, I just want them to do more with those aspects by this point. Explore these things in the actual narrative, rather than just go through the motions or gloss them over.

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.