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A serious point to make: The economy is stable, and has been for quite some time now. There's no sign of inflation growing at a significant rate (or even a measurable rate, right now. prices have remained essentially the same for at least a year). Between the market tweaks (salvage seeding, auto-attunement) and the broad availability of converters, inflation has been very effectively controlled. As such, there isn't a need for a sink from an economic perspective. Even if we significantly increased the population, the costs of various things would (theoretically) remain relatively flat, because those costs are now ultimately tied to merits, not inf*. Now, obviously, people with more inf* than they know what to do with would like something productive, fun or even moderately worthwhile to do with that inf*. There's only so long anyone can sit in their counting room, polishing their stacks of coins and whispering "My precious" before it ceases to be entertaining, after all. But this isn't really a sink being requested, it's a reason to spend some of that inf*. Should people have something to spend exorbitant sums of inf* on? Yes. Every activity in the game should be rewarding in some way, even mass accumulation of currency, or the activity itself is meaningless and shouldn't exist. But should it be a sink? That would depend on how badly those exorbitant sums of inf* could damage the economy. If someone can demonstrate a detrimental effect on the game as a whole which comes from having several hundred billion inf*, then it would justify a sink. If not... then the discussion should revolve around finding a rewarding method of spending that inf*, rather than simply removing it from the economy. And while it might appear to be picking nits to point out that there's a difference, it is important to separate "fun way to reward having piles of inf*" from "too much inf* destroying the game". Though the two concepts might be superficially similar, they're wildly different in implementation and purpose. I'd also recommend that anything the developers implement, should this reach that stage, should recycle the defender inherent code to shut it off when teamed. That would alleviate a lot of issues before they become issues. No bruised egos (if it's a cosmetic effect), no power creep complaints/leveraging it in multi-box farms (if it's a buff), et cetera. This would ensure that it's personally rewarding, but not game-breaking or useful as a means of lording it over others. Now, back to one-liners and lame jokes that make me laugh like the Joker.

A winner-take-all-off dance would be more entertaining.

Which brings us to the other monumental development fuck-up that causes situations like this. This game doesn't encourage player to player interaction. In fact, it actively discourages player to player interaction. Not only does the game default to cramming all of the commonly used communication channels into a single tab, in which it also shoves the combat channels (thereby causing messages to be easily missed during combat), but it also demands that players pay attention to their power tray, health/endurance and the action on the screen, thereby reinforcing the behavior simply because it's impossible to keep up with what's going on in the chat window if you're actively participating in content (yes, we can move windows to group them together, and we can isolate chat channels in separate tabs so we don't miss communication, but these options don't fix anything, they merely move the burden of attempting to compensate for the horrendous UI onto the player). I never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. That's what I see here, and I'm not referring to the player, but to Cryptic and their ineptly designed UI. Yes, the player absolutely was a dick after the fact (appropriate response would have been to ask to place you on global friend list and help you get the relevant badge next time the event popped), but the ultimate source of the issue was not his/her dickness, it was the bad UI. Please don't make snap judgements of those of us who play heroes, @Snarky, based on this situation. People are going to miss messages. The UI strives to make that happen. That doesn't mean we're all assholes, it means we're all human, and until/unless the UI is redesigned to be more intuitive, expect it and don't let it frustrate you. And if you're still having trouble acquiring the badge, send me a /tell when I'm logged in and I'll help you.

The problem isn't the players, it's the event. The two badges were designed with conflicting requirements. The Raver badge requires defeating 50 trolls before they go inside and transform into Supa Trolls, whereas the Dee Jay badge requires defeating 50 Supa Trolls. Consequently, attending the rave event makes it nearly impossible for players to acquire the Dee Jay badge. That isn't because heroes are assholes, it's because the Paragon crew didn't think it through. For the Dee Jay badge, it's significantly easier to just zone in at the central Skyway station and pulp the Supa Trolls there (when they leave the event area, they go there). You can get all 50 in short order that way. Or you can have your ass handed to you, if you're trying to do it at level or below, since there can be a couple dozen at each stairway (again, Paragon's bad judgement, not player-created havoc).

It's not ogre the top.

Melee attacks have a limited range for very specific reasons related to game balance. Status effects have set magnitudes for very specific reasons related to game balance. DoTs/debuffs/buffs have pre-determined durations for very specific reasons related to game balance. And enhancements do most of this anyway, within the balance framework, and exist explicitly for the purpose of doing exactly what you're suggesting. All of the inspirations you propose would throw that balance horrendously out of kilter. I think it's a bad solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Use enhancements. That's what they're there for.

I'd have to say that it was the general lack of progress displayed over nearly a decade that put the kibosh on the successors. None of them were showing any sign of a live release before Co* was brought back, after all, so it's not like Co* being back changed anything.

Or... Miracle Whip you. 😁

It's nebulous.

A sandwich just isn't a sandwich without the tangy zip of Miracle Whip.

Get out of my mind. OUT. NOW.

Considering that we live in a time when practically anything said or done is bound to send someone into a tizzy because too many people have become reliant on having someone to "protect" them from the horror of having to mature emotionally, and we're dependent on nanny states and Internet police to guard us from imagined and perceived offenses, instead of growing up and letting the meaningless, petty stuff slide, I see someone acting as a hatpin aimed directly at the over-inflated egos of everyone, including himself, to be heroic. At the head of a global broadcasting network which reaches over a billion people, he'd be the perfect anodyne to a lot of our juvenile snowflake stupidity. And entertaining. Besides,

Cats are obligate carnivores, the apex land predator (barring humans, of course). Human beings are not only larger, but are easily identified as carnivorous predators by cats (the eyes give us away. front-facing binocular vision). So yes, blinking indicates to the cat that you're not going to hurt it. It can see that you're not sizing it up for a potential conflict, or meal, because you're breaking eye contact. The look away at the end is especially reassuring for the cat. You speak cat well. 👍

Cats experience fear and respond to it accordingly (being small mammals, that typically means hiding until the perceived danger has passed), but they don't have panic attacks in the same way that we do. Panic attacks result from over-thinking situations, responses, behaviors, et cetera. Cats don't over-think anything (and yes, they do think, and learn, and are intelligent), they never would've evolved to become the top land predator if they had nervous disorders and experienced fits of paralysis or breathing issues every time they stopped to consider the possibilities in front of them. What your cats are experiencing is perfectly normal transitional anxiety. They're in a new home, with new people, and cats... well, they like things to stay the same, and things aren't the same right now. They'll adapt. You'll adapt, too, by learning to understand them when they're communicating with you (body language, eyes, ears, tails) and responding appropriately when you know what they want. Time and patience. Speak softly when they're near. Give them pets and scritches when they ask, play with them when they're playing (or encourage them to play, with something crinkly, or a stick/fishing toy, or even something as mundane as making faint scratching noises with your fingernail), but don't go out of your way to force them to accept you. The cat decides when it's time for interaction, but don't distance yourself from them (unless they're explicitly warning you not to touch them). Very few human-cat relationships are "love at first sight" situations, most develop the same way human-human relationships do. Learn to hear their voices (again, body language, eyes, ears, tails (vocalizations tend to be... punctuation, rather than primary communication)) and interact on their terms. Either in this thread or in another, I talk about May, one of the two cats I have now, not wanting to be picked up or held when I first met her and brought her home. At this point in our relationship, if I leave the cabin, she's standing on the love seat when I return. If I don't pick her up, she launches herself into my arms. That change came over the course of about eight months. I didn't try to desensitize her to her aversion to being held, I didn't make a single attempt to coax her into my arms, she decided that she was ready. I gave her affection, I played with her, and I gave her the time she needed to trust me. That trust was worth the wait. With time, patience and learning to understand what an animal is saying, you can develop a rapport with any animal, even wild ones. Cats go out of their way to make it easy on us... apparently, we make great pets.

Fund foster homes for abused and molested children. Provide grants for dementia research, cystic fibrosis research and cancer research. Build a cat rescue village. Buy the BBC and hand it over to Jeremy Clarkson. Begin colonization of the moon and Mars.

Whichever group worships fictional aliens and stages naked protests. If I'm going bad, I'm going big. And bat-shit crazy. In the buff.

There are a few Arena pet badges with no progress text, only a placeholder counter like that. 100 Sky Raider Force Field Generators would be my guess. Edit: https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Hero_Gladiator_Badges#Independent_Gladiator_Badges Those. You can isolate which one it is by defeating one relevant foe of the appropriate type for each badge and checking the counter.

👍

Repel with a tesseracted magnitude.

Repel with an inverse magnitude.

Carnival/circus strongmen were the original inspiration for the external underwear. Tights were added for color and modesty so the comics could be marketed to children.