DoctorDitko

Didn't have enough characters for "Mad Scientist's Daughter". So I gender-swapped 'em both, and nabbed "Mad Scientist's Son" on Torch! "Mom! Stop with the shrink-ray! You're embarrassing me in front of my team!"

Don't forget about your private Vault for salvage, which can hang on the SG wall, but doesn't count against the 18 table limit. The Vault can be accessed any time by clicking the Vault item which is at the bottom of your Salvage window. The Auction House is also a great place to store stuff for that character only. (You can't use /ah in a mission to pull it up, but you can run to the entrance if it's important.) Ourobouros portals, Supergroup Portals, and Rapid Response portals can all be summoned up in mishes, too. Best to have the Mission Transporter P2W power to get back to the mish. Speaking of P2W, you can get a self-destruction power there that blows you up, and you can choose to go to the Hospital, where the /ah command works fine. (Warn your teammates first, though.) HTH, and welcome Home!

I tried to echo this sentiment... But I kept having acid reflux.

Random suggestions occurred to me while perusing this thread. Would any of these help, do you think? Make names able to be traded on the Auction House? Give out once-a-week tokens that would message the owning player? ("Another player has expressed interest in this name. Reply to contact them anonymously.") Lengthen the character name field from 20 to 30 letters? Reward a badge for players who surrender a name? Make the optional definite article count as part of the name. (That way "Doctor" could coexist with "The Doctor" on the same server.)

Ya beat me to it! Seconded!

A few months back, when I had a character in dire need of a Patron Pool power. While redside, you might as well grab the Invader Badge accolade (+5% HP, equivalent to the more onerous heroic Task Force Commander) by sucking up to Lord Schnauser* and doing all the Mayhems! That said, I'm no fan of running into the Mayhems, grabbing the explore badge, and bailing. Blow some stuff up, dammit! Kids these days... But, always glad to team up with Torch residents who want to join, send me a global tell (you can guess my handle). * OK, Schweitzer. Spoilsport!

I think if more people knew about the sheer, destructive joy that is Mayhem missions, there might be more folks Redside. It's a lot more fun than clicking on/attacking a glowie, which is about all the damage you're allowed to do on Blueside!

I think you can get everything on your list -- just not in one character! I like Grav+Storm, Illusion+Storm, Storm+Storm, heck, I like Stormies! Fold Space can be a real force multiplier, too. And don't overlook Defenders. If you're soloing, I had a Bots/Traps Mastermind that was amazing at controlling the map, but on teams he didn't have time to set things up. MM tip: make yourself an "everybody kill THIS guy" macro. It's a "Nuke them from orbit" button. UltraAlt's advice about turtling with def mode is spot on, too. MMs should be in that mode by default. Anyway, good on ya for giving the ol' game a workout! GL!

I thought of an analogy I like, that I'll just throw out there: Doing all your missions in AE is like being an X-man and never leaving the Danger Room.

I don't think so... But try it and see!

Also, Vidiotmaps is your friend:

Quite right! My apologies if I seemed to be dictating "play my way" to new players. But I seem to remember a Dev sharing a summary of their number-crunching that found new players who zoom to 50 tend to get quickly bored and wander off. I understand the impulse. Modern MMOs tend to have the fun stuff gated at the top level. CoH doesn't make you wait till 50 to have fun. If you play your way through, you are more likely to engage with the game, meet friends, and stick around for a bit.

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!