GM Crumpet

I find playing in 4K and having to increase the UI so it's not teeny tiny causes the buttons to shift and the clicky bit to be offset. Dragging enhancements is a challenge and the enhancements themselves only show a quarter of the image. But it looks pretty though 🙂

While I understand the discussion can we move away from singling out a particular player? It's not fair as they are not part of the conversation, and if they were I imagine there would be a lot of personal comments that we wouldn't allow. Discuss in general, but any further singling out of particular players will make me lock this thread.

I'm going to lock this thread as it's starting to circle back on itself. It's had some interesting points raised, and people have had the chance to comment, but I think it's done.

It is from live if I remember right. We certainly didn't go through multiple dictionaries and make the filter by hand.

To expand on the filter issue. As a PG13 game it's assumed that people of that age and above are kind of used to a lot of the words in the filter and have been exposed to them at some point. People younger than that perhaps not. This is one of those games that really does appeal to a younger demographic and youngsters either want to play (which is wrong and we don't allow it and shhhh don't tell dad) or watch while their parents play. For parents it's an option they can turn on as certain words and concepts may arise that they don't want to have to explain to their little ones just yet. I still squirm in embarrassment on behalf of my parents for the times I asked them what certain words meant when I heard them 🙂

I regularly check to see if names or costumes have been changed back. I'm also the one who does the majority of the generics. Other GM's also do them, but I do most of them so if I make a mistake I'll hold my hands up and apologise. I'm also not overworked, so if you see something that needs to be brought to my attention feel free.

Just to clarify, do you thing GM's don't talk to each other? We have a robust and very consensus based system. We also have an appeal system where someone can plead their case if they feel the were generic'd in error and we pass it to the leads who also discuss it amongst themselves before making the final decision. There is no lone ranger scenario where a character is safe or nuked based on personal preferences. If it's obvious then yes we don't need to discuss it. Green Arrow or Wolverine or Batman will be gone once they come to our attention. Others we might look at and take it for a consensus. As for reporting someone and then seeing we haven't done something, then that's our decision. We have a sympathetic view of certain parts of life like LGBTQ+, or political affiliation. We won't allow specific real life individuals, but we aren't going to go for someone because they are gay this or lesbian that. We aren't going to allow Democrat sensibilities and ban Republican ones. We aren't going to hit a proud Texan or an American patriot. As long as there isn't anything abusive or rude we are more than happy to let then go.

You can make a report via the forum rather than the ingame reporting system. The forum allows you to attach screen shots to the ticket

If someone changes they are good to go. Sometimes people don't realise and just need a word in their ear. We don't punish people for poor choices if they correct those choices.

As a gay man of the older generation queer was always used as a slur and an insult so it still sits uncomfortably when I see it even when it's not used in a negative way. Words evolve and things that were bad once are now acceptable, and words that were acceptable are now bad. And that's a me problem, not the problem of those people who took a negative word and made it a positive. A word that I've used all my life is gypsy. My family is of gypsy stock and still refers to the older generation with that term. My grandmother was the last to really identify as a gypsy and she told me several times she was a gypsy and proud of it, and to be proud of my heritage and never be ashamed of it. If you tried calling her anything else she would get really angry. She wasn't romani, she wasn't a traveller, she wasn't any of a dozen names people used, she was a gypsy. She had lost family members to the gas chambers and celebrated and mourned them. Now of course it's a racial slur, never mind that the people of that heritage outside the US actively use the word and are fiercely proud of it. I'm proud of it. I know my heritage and loved my grandmother with all my heart. The struggles she went through and the stories she told are treasures beyond price. But back to the topic at hand, that's why we have a profanity filter. For those who aren't offended by words it can be turned off. For those who find it offensive or have smaller children who love to watch it keeps the naughty words a parent doesn't want to have to explain hidden.

It always amuses me when you snipe someone from a distance and they fall over but their friend doesn't react. "So we going out for drinks after the shift Barry?"..... "Well I dunno, the missus is a bit frazzled with the new baby and everything. I might just go straight h... uuurgh...." <falls over dead> "Sounds like a plan Barry. Barry? Oh he must have wandered off." ...........totally fails to notice Barry's lifeless body directly in front of him

It's also helpful if you can grab a screenshot of the costume. Sometimes that can be the tipping point between generic and not generic. Words are common and many published hero's are simple word combinations that anyone can have. If the costume and bio are utterly different it can mean the difference between walking around freely and being thrown naked into the street

Memorial characters are limited to people who have made a massive impact on the game and the community. The last one was Chris who everyone knew as Robotech Master who wrote dozens of guides that players still use today, and was a GM almost from day one until he died. He worked tirelessly for the players, often giving up time he would have spent doing other things and cancelling plans just to make sure a player was OK. That's the bar someone needs to reach to be given a memorial character in game. If you want to see his avatar it's in the Midnighter club browsing the shelves. Any player who dies is mourned by the community and we are always happy to have vigils in somewhere like Ouroboros where it's out of the way but people can see and join if they wish. Many of the GM's have joined in holding a torch either on their player accounts or as GM's as a sign of respect, and have stepped in on the rare occasions someone has thought it funny to try to disrupt one. Sadly that's as much as we can do in their memory.

Without going into particulars, some IP characters are ridiculously easy to copy with our costume creator. X-Men characters are a good example, and I've seen no end of Deadpools. And One Punch Man. I understand the urge to recreate and play your favourites, but as everyone is aware we take it seriously and will generic offenders without fear or favour. "But <insert game here> allows me to do it" isn't an excuse. Our sandbox, our rules. Nobody is forced to play on Homecoming, there are other servers out there who may have different rules. I don't know, I haven't looked into them in any detail. Many IP holders are zero tolerance and are well known to vigorously defend their IP's. The last thing we want is a bored House of Mouse lawyer taking an interest (as an example). The laws on copyright and trademark and protected IP's is clear and robust. We just try as much as we can to keep on the right side of the law, that's all.

It's been said by a few people. Our admins try to anticipate things that can be exploited, and something as obvious as this would be a no from the start. And many people have tried to organise PvP events, including GM's and it's always ended up in disaster. They start well enough then a certain section spoils it for everyone else and the organisers walk away. The only events I know of now are from dedicated SG's who close it off to anyone not in their SG.

That works too 😛

If you see a character you think needs to be brought to our attention please put a ticket in so we can see it and take action if we need to. That's the quickest way of dealing with it

In fairness to Thiery he is totally correct. We spend time as lowbies smacking on Skulls, but you get a mission in Atlas at high levels and the poor woman getting her bag snatched is on her own. Powerful heroes walk past her without a second thought and she's on her own. I was in Kings Row yesterday and walked past three cops getting beaten by their own night sticks and I didn't even look twice at them.

Hi everyone Just to clarify, the HC Wiki is run by Michiyo who hosts it on their own with no financial help from the main Homecoming team or monthly donation window. If you can, any donations would be gratefully received. I can attest to Michiyo's integrity and honesty, so any money donated will only be used for the costs associated with hosting and running the wiki. As GM's we find it invaluable to helping players navigate what can sometimes be a complicated game. We use it all the time when we get tickets asking about things from mission difficulties to badge locations. There are a small dedicated group of players who go through and edit old information up to date and add new information when we change or add stuff. Michiyo and their team recently went through adding links to badges and places of importance so you can just click the copy button and paste into the game for a pin to appear on the map. I think many of us would be lost, or have a much more difficult time if it wasn't there.

I think the main problem is people really aren't that interested in PvP. Some people have tried to get players excited by organising events and ended up receiving so much hate and abuse they gave up. While smack talking and abuse to your opponent is perfectly fine and a well crafted insult is a joy to behold, some people took it too far and followed it up in emails and private messages. I don't think extra player rewards would ever happen though. The devs allowed a PvP character to be created at level cap which I think is as much as you are going to get. At the moment you get a decent player balance, but once there are rare rewards you just know the person with the farm alts will throw as much inf as they can to make the most min/max alt possible so they can dominate and suck the joy out of what should be a fun part of the game. It's not as bad as pay to play in retail games where someone will throw vast amounts of real money at a character for the absolute best loot, but it's still something that while in the rules of the server is against the spirit of the event.

The film makes no sense. There are plot points that get lost in the edit, and some of the deleted scenes are way funnier than what stayed in. They also had to totally reshoot the ending as the original ending was awful and audiences hated it. Which is fair. The original ending is on the DVD and it's really bad. Still a great movie though 🙂

I love that film 🙂

History is full of abominations. Much of our medical and scientific knowledge is grounded in the suffering of others. The hard ethical point is that experiments and research has to be peer reviewed and replicated. A lot of "breakthroughs" have been faked and debunked when other scientists try to recreate the experiment. How can you do that when the research is obtained unethically? We are also in an age where opinion is as valid (in the minds of some people) as actual proof. The covid vaccine is a good example. Lots of misinformation about the vaccine spread like wildfire, and most of it was made up out of whole cloth. So many people jumped on the bandwagon that it was a new, untested and experimental vaccine, when the reality was very different. Scientists have been creating SARS vaccines for decades and the research is very much out there. Covid is SARS-COV-2, and just like the influenza virus it didn't take as much effort to modify the existing research to take into account the new variant as it would to create a vaccine from scratch. The difficulty with covid is it's rate of mutation, but even that seems to have slowed down as it stabilised. Flu mutates every year and the vaccine you get is targeted at the most likely variant to spread. Sometimes they get it wrong and have to create a new vaccine, but most years they get it right. That doesn't stop people from thinking crystals, aromatherapy and horse medicine is a viable alternative.

I like Drinker, he's mostly on the ball as is Doomcock. Some of the others tend to err too much on the right wing side of the spectrum (not to the crazy end) which is their right but they tend to be a bit more biased. The best one is Ryan George and his pitch meetings. Those almost always hit it spot on. I just don't get how Barbie and Oppenheimer ended up conflated. Wildly different movies with wildly different audiences. I'm more Barbie myself, and can't think of anything more dreary or tedious than a jingoistic biopic by a director I've never enjoyed a single film from. Yes even Batman.

I'll give America it's due for the Pacific side of things, that was horrific and there was much suffering. America took the brunt of that with support from the other allied powers, but sadly it wasn't as much as it needed due to them being busy this side of the Atlantic. From what I understand it was a damned if you do and damned if you don't with the Atom bombs. Japan would never have surrendered and would have had to be subjugated completely or annihilated. Their code of honour was such that they wouldn't have accepted any other result. Until Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That showed them that annihilation was on the table and America was done playing. If they wanted it to end America would accept the surrender. If they didn't America would bomb them so hard there wouldn't have been a country left. Germany had surrendered, Europe was winding down, but there was an alliance that would have stomped all over Japan and left a greasy stain now they were free to help. The bombs were vile, but they saved a lot of lives in the long run. America held to the adage "Only make a threat if you are willing to follow it through". We non Americans often joke about how Hollywood always shows America as the saviour of the world, but without America as an ally the world would be a very different place.