DoctorDitko

Oh, good lord, how could I forget: STAY THE HELL OUT OF AE UNTIL YOU'VE LEVELED YOUR FIRST CHARACTER! You can stick your head in the Matrix AFTER you've tried the "Real World!"

My most shameless homage was a Zatanna-esque magic user named Anna Taz. Her origin was as a small-time stage magician who was mistakenly kidnapped by the Circle for use in one of their spells. Her exposure to the mighty magical forces filled her up, rather than emptying her out. Her battle cry was: Ydorap emoceb tnemgnirfni! or was it: Tnemgnirfni emoceb ydorap! (I can't remember whether Zatanna's spells were reversed word-by-word, or by whole sentence.) I seldom play her, but so far she's survived!

One point that may not see enough emphasis: Enjoy the journey! This is not one of those games where "life begins at max level!" Most of the fun content happens along the way.

Several places, and different times. NPR has a quick summary: https://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-become-people-excavating-the-legal-evolution It was a slow erosion of personhood, and slow growth of corporate power.

And the exercise of vast corporate power and resources to extend copyright far beyond its original purpose: to motivate creators to create, by letting them profit from their creations before they go into the public domain!

It was an unforgivable mistake to grant Corporations quasi-human status! Q: What do you call an immortal entity, with powers no human can match, and who can be in many places at once? A: A god corporation!

Does this double XP cut off earning INF like the P2W one does? From chat on Torch it sounded like it. If I bought the 1.5x XP from the P2W, would it change me to that instead? Or would they stack, giving me 3x XP? Or be overridden by the server-wide bonus?

Have you seen if it enables the Steam Controller? I assume our own entry would, but someone above was asking. (And not tracking is a feature! If I kept track of hours played, I'd probably need to increase my medication!)

Wise of you! I run a severely hobbled Windows 10 at home, but at work, Fedora, and the game plays beautifully there. For graphics card tests. On my lunch hour. My experience with Steam is minimal, mainly to cash in freebie game coupons, and I do what I can to hobble it also. (I buy my games on GoG, like any right-thinking person.)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't you just add the HC Launcher to Steam as a non-Steam game and get the side benefits? I would also hope the HC team will put CoH up on Steam as a way of advertising. As I understand it, since it is free to play, no fees would be involved.

Wait.. So we're not a Rogue server any more? We can be Heroic and Vigilante and stuff? Cool! Grats to you guys! (For fellow Linux users, the HC Launcher works beautifully under WINE. Fedora 37-39 tested.) Now I guess I need to find some other source of existential dread. Maybe Doctor Who getting Disneyed?

As I slide down the razor blade of life* the thing that becomes increasingly precious to me is time. So deleting a character is a last resort. The only things you can't change are Origin, Archetype, and Powersets. You can change your name, gender, bodytype (see the Tiki Bar Tailor), costumes, Power Pool picks, Power choices in your powerset, bio, SG affiliation, personality, friends... So, basically, the only characters I delete or retire are scrappers. Not fond of melee, and hate chasing mobs all over the map. Reroll as a Tank or Stalker, keep the concept, I'm happy. (OK, and sometimes Kheldians. Too fiddly!) When I do decide to torch a character, I first respec them (to unslot all their enhs for free), throw their stuff in the superbase, mail their mailables to my global, /bindsave their binds -- if they had good ones, save worthy bios to a textfile, and say a few words in memoriam. Then they go upstate to a nice farm where they can play in the sunshine with the other lame characters all day long. *Thanks, Tom Lehrer!

Sort of. You can't use any of the later versions, even if they look pretty much the same. But the original doesn't get refreshed without changing the law (which Disney used to lobby for, and win, on the regular). The 1998 law extension was even nicknamed "The Mickey Mouse Protection Act." Fun fact: "Steamboat Willie" was itself a parody/homage/knock-off of Buster Keaton's "Steamboat Bill, Jr." Which is also public domain as of today!

True words! Think of all the nifty uses of Sherlock Holmes over the years. We'll never have Batman like that, partly from bloated copyright duration, and partly because he's trademarked six ways from Sunday. Batarang, Batmobile, even Batcave are registered trademarks. We're lucky we can still name our kids Alfred! It's a shame.

Agreed. But the continuous extension of copyright, long past the life of the author, seems to be a case of redoubling effort while losing sight of the goal!

Well, now you can make that character you've been itching to create, based on Cthulhu, Steamboat Willie, or Tigger!* Yes, it's Public Domain Day 2024! Many cool works came home at last this year. And it only took 95 years (or a century, in the case of music)! https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2024/ https://publicdomainreview.org/blog/2024/01/public-domain-day-2024/ The tldr is that all published works are part of the public domain. Some countries, like the US, came up with a scheme to detour these works temporarily to benefit the authors/creators, to encourage creation of new works. Over the years, copyright law has been distorted by politicians and lobbyists (*ahem*Disney*ahem*) to the current system. It's a shame, because many works are now lost. It is estimated that over half of early (mostly silent) films rotted in the cans while archivists waited for them to become public domain, and thus legally safe to preserve. At any rate, let's celebrate what we have! * Their first appearances only! And Disney has a trademark on Mickey Mouse that will last till the end of time, so watch those names!

Here's the locations I managed to grab a /loc of: [-556.5 7.6 -1150.2] [03:24] [-110.0 51.0 -1375.3] [03:27] [-2617.7 -1512.7 -1292.7] [03:29] [-3495.3 -595.0 -3025.6] [03:32] [-3405.8 -2000.0 -3198.9] [3393.5 -17.4 -9954.1] [751.8 -2000.0 -3586.0] [807.0 -1079.4 -3601.4] [04:26] [1822.6 173.3 -2116.6] [2409.2 -672.5 -1302.6] (Would have been handier if I'd named them, of course! Sorry!)

Aw! I swear I thought it was fixed this year! Oh, well...

Just noticed -- as of today -- the presents are still around, but Atlas has thawed.

I'm @DoctorDitko, and will be there as Mark Vector, my teleporter. Effing Verizon permitting! (And I love your sig, Scarlet!)

Propel did it, too. "Express Delivery!" I think, as with the Halloween windows, this was a side effect of other changes, unintended, and probably will be fixed by next time.

I think what the OP meant is, you no longer get XP for the portal-spawned demons. In yon Olden Days you could park yourself in that mish and quickly level by not destroying the portals. Devs saw it as an exploit, and thus no XP for summoned critters (Rikti Comms Officer portals, too.)

Here's a bit of a thought: Want to do it on the Beta server? Everyone can get there, grab TT & ATT at will, guaranteed minimal traffic. But I'll transfer my Teleporter to Excelsior just in case.

I haven't tested it, but an easy way to invoke the temp powers tray might be to go to Steel Canyon and help out the firefighters.

"Santa's coming! Look busy!"