GM Crumpet

Oh the guy with the silly voice. No idea who he is. Is he famous for something? I'm not from the US so some people don't really register on our consciousness across the pond. I've had to google no end of "Famous Superstars" to see why they are a big deal.

who?

There is a lot to love about Hercules. James Woods is superb as ever, and you do understand his motivation. Meg is almost the anti-heroine, she really isn't that impressed with Herc and is very sassy while being funny and charming. "My names Megaera. But my friends call me Meg. At least they would if I had any friends". It's quite an odd beastie to be honest. Utterly brilliant and funny, but also with a lot of depth and soul. Plus the songs are absolute bangers. The artwork is from Gerald Scarfe so is a lot less "Disney" than usual, and it riffs on the concept of small town guy becoming a world wide sensation and forgetting his roots, with a whole sub thing about merchandising. It even manages to point out the Disney trend to monetise absolutely everything they possibly can, no matter how tenuous the link to the IP.

I have a couple of SS/invul and they don't appear that squishy, then again my SS/invul on live was after the nerfs so with all the delicious set enhancements now I could never afford then I'm pretty much awesome 🙂

well so far it's still polite and people are accepting opinions without screaming, so I'm quite happy. There does seem to be a massive discrepancy in Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic which kind of defeats the purpose of them, but ultimately it's like Twitter. Interesting to the people who go there, but for the majority of the rest of the world largely ignored. I've never had one person go see a movie because they've checked the reviews on those kinds of sites. Or not go see a movie. They will read a review in a newspaper and that's the limit of their decision making.

May 2019 for me. A friend who knew I loved City of Heroes when it was live mentioned Homecoming to me. I got terribly excited and didn't believe it would be as good as I remembered, but I went on the forum and made a game account, then downloaded Tequila and away I went. The excitement as I made my first new character in years was so much that when I appeared in Atlas Park for the first time and heard the fanfare I actually cried 🙂 And yes, it was not only as good as I remembered it was better as I now had a HD monitor, high speed internet and a great graphics card so was able to play on Ultra 😛

The original was crafted very carefully to give proper motivation to move forward, the new version removed a lot of that motivation. From Triton destroying Erics statue to Ursulas manipulation and gaslighting, even to changing the ending, it was all done to remove any trace of the possibility that Ariel was doing it to be with the man she loved. They also added several dreadful new songs that don't fit. Or sound good. The Skuttle rap is an abomination.

I was watching a video by Nerdrotic last night that made a good point. This was about the new Indiana Jones film. They have opened up review viewings to every tiny blog and newsletter they could find for Wednesday, and one of his commentators mentioned that you'll see the "all critics" score go up massively in the run up to the films release. It's currently at around a 50% critic rating so the top critics will be mid range rotten, but the all critics will be really high as the nerds with 10 followers will want to keep getting access in the future. The viewers score is tweaked to remove the lowest ratings, so the zero and half aren't counted, and a lot of the 1 star seem to disappear too. Media reports think we are stupid and compare box office takings today with box office 30+ years ago. I actually saw one crowing that the Little Mermaid remake had already passed the box office for the original film. Really? It has taken more than the originals 87 million dollars run? It made the equivalent of 250 million dollars at the US box office where ticket prices were a fraction of what they are today and didn't open in many countries round the world. so far the remake has struggled to make 211 million in the US and will be lucky to reach the same inflation adjusted figures of the original.

Maybe using the tern neckbeard menace might not be the best thing. You might offend the neckbeards...... 😛

Sadly all the old accounts and characters are gone. We have not and have never had access to the player data, only the raw game files like everyone else. I've heard conflicting stories about what happened when the files were originally leaked but have no way of knowing which version is true. In one only the game files were released, in another the player files were released as well and the person they were sent to deleted them immediately in terror due to the personal nature of the details. There are other versions of the story but the end result is the same. There is no file anywhere containing player account data from live except possibly in the vaults of NCSoft. And that's debatable. As for names, we are 4 years in. The chances of a given name from live being snapped up is quite high. I came in around 3 months after HC went live and my two mains were already taken by someone else. I'd had those names since I started just after the release of issue 4. I had to move on unfortunately and start again from scratch.

Name calling is classed as a personal attack and is not allowed

I remember that on live, but due to certain changes in US legislation we have to have a hard 13 minimum age limit unless we really want to get into trouble.

I think people are trying their best to contribute so are watching the action and spamming buttons. If it's a support character they may be looking for the best time to spam a buff, or a hold or something. Unless I'm on voice chat I worry sometimes when someone is spending more time chatting than attacking. A lot of teams I'm on tend to be on the fast side and outside of a thank you for a gratz or TP or a call for a rez or a wakie most people tend to be too busy for lots of chat. The occasional comment happens like "I hate this map" or suggestions for tactics, or pointing out we all died because the team split, but outside of that most people are just busy 🙂 As for drama, I've seen it happen. I was on a farm where the leader had very specific ideas on how to progress, and it was way outside the normal sitters and hitters dynamic and insisted everyone, including the level 1 alts took part in the fights. Then proceeded to call everyone in the team all kinds of awful names because we either attacked too soon, didn't have our crystal balls on auto so couldn't read his mind, and team wiped. It wasn't even that good a farm. I blocked him and quit. Several team members followed suit and messaged me with uncomplimentary things about the farmer and also blocked him. Sometimes bad behaviour has consequences.

I have that a lot. I was in a MK a couple of days ago and we were having fun and being silly and chatting. It's hard sometimes as you are trying to keep up with the rest of the team and contribute so chatting tends to be limited

I have a lot of inf saved in my global email and drag it out as needed whether it's a level 1 or a level 50 🙂 I also randomly drop inf on new players in atlas

Just a reminder that everyone has an opinion and a right to play the game how they want, even if it's not the way you play, or even if it's not the way you think others should play. Jumping on a returning player because they are doing something you disagree with is not good. We have a responsibility to new or returning players to show our good side. Give them advice, point them to resources they may find useful. give them guides to yes, create a really good farming toon if that's what they want. Sometimes having the build for a horribly frankenslotted toon is welcome. I think farming has a place (I'd be a hypocrite to say otherwise as I have farming alts) but I also think it can become the focus instead of a tool and someone ends up farming as the main or only aspect of the game that they play. Even then, that's up to them. If they enjoy it and get satisfaction from it then I'm not going to criticise. There really isn't that much content at level 50. It can get as repetitive as the low level content for someone with altistis who never gets past level 20. A player who only farms and does high end content is always going to complain there is nothing to do, they are bored etc. The trick is to mix it up.

I agree your original character pick may not have been the best. There are better combinations out there. I tried a few when I started on live before I picked my mains which were AR/Devices blaster and Invul/SS tank. It was such a different experience to my first couple, almost like a new game. As for starting with a farming toon and power levelling new alts as a starting player, I'd recommend against that. The point of the low level contacts is to act as an extended tutorial. Twinshot and Dr Graves are mirrors of each other, but get the basics down in a fun way without feeling like you are "learning". I'm sure we've all seen a level 50 player joining a team and asking "What's an enhancement?" and facepalming. Not their fault, but the modern idea of the game only starting at level 50 and the journey to the good stuff is a grind doesn't apply here. Inf is ridiculously easy to get. Just read a basic tutorial on playing the auction house (of which there are several excellent ones on the forum or pinned in Discord) and you are sorted. Just from merit conversions and good drops you'll get enough inf to slot a pretty decent character. Farming is actually a slow method of gaining inf. It used to be the fastest, but after the bug exploits and loopholes were closed it stopped being phenomenal and went to just OK. It is a good method of power levelling though. I'll often farm to level 22 so I can slot IO's. I've done the lower content to death and really can't face doing it too often now 😛 I agree though, play the game how you want as long as it doesn't impact on other players. I just think it's a shame when players think farming is compulsory and miss out on some actually great stories because they have levelled past it.

I'm impressed OP. It's always nice to see hard figures to combat the regular "Homecoming is dying" posts that crop up now and again. We are reasonably stable, and we get a steady trickle of new players on discord who either played on live and only now found we exist, or were too young to play on live and are now old enough to try the game their parents used to go on about all the time. We also get a few from other games like DCO or CO who want their fix of superhero action but have lost interest in those games. As for the low pop shards, it's a shame. Reunion gets a bad rep, and it's undeserved. I play on Reunion a lot, and there are player led events like Hami and MSR, plus iTrials and weekly TF/SF's. Everyone says "Don't play on Reunion it's dead" which becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. It does get quite busy at times, but mostly when the Americas are quiet so someone over there logs in at 7pm there time and goes "It's dead" when actually all the EU players are asleep. We are active when you lot aren't. And as someone else pointed out, even at their quietest, our two low pop shards are still more active than *cough* other servers where more solitary players who enjoy being solo play. TL:DR Come to Reunion, it's lovely 😛

Some people are still using windows XP??

As a story I find it quite compelling. As a SF I nope right out of there. It's not one I enjoy or wish to play again, and you know what? That's perfectly fine. We don't all enjoy the same things. Players were complaining the content was too easy, that there wasn't anything complicated they had to work hard on to discover strategies and builds to take it on. The devs listened, and created both a very complicated SF and a new difficulty system that made players have to work for the rewards. Now all I hear is "It's too hard, My Defender is useless. I can't play a controller on this" etc. etc. There is going to be stuff you love, and stuff you don't. You can't please everyone. There are players who like this SF and have worked hard to the point they can speed run it and snatch the goodies. Which is fine for them. What's not fine is if those same speed runners berate players new to the SF for being noobs and not knowing exactly what's going on, and not being in the right place immediately. For players like me who don't really know what's going on and just follow along behind and hit things it's not ideal. I did it on Beta before release and wanted to linger and look at all the fun stuff in there, of which there is a vast amount. There are so many fun easter eggs scattered around, plus fun NPCs (Becky) and I wish there was a low diff version you could run solo and just meander through enjoying the very hard work that went into making it. I wouldn't even care if there were no badges on the "easy" version. Or any PaPs. Just a standard XP/inf/merits reward for completing a standard story arc. But as it is it wasn't created for players like me. It was created for those players who wanted a challenge and something past "Oh God, not Penny Yin again".

I had that the weekend. The league leader wanted the badge and we were all noobs and killed Anti Matter as soon as he appeared. Sometimes the best instructions in the world go out of the window in the attack frenzy. We were also trying to get the badge on Magisterium where you defeat all three AV's within 10 seconds of each other. We failed that badge too mostly because (I think) the lore pets kept attacking after we stopped at 2% health. It happens unfortunately.

I did a Lady Grey for the first time ever yesterday and it was a speed run. I was so confused. I just followed along behind and hit things until the teleport to the end boss each mission. I got the rewards, but I prefer a more leisurely approach. I'm in it for the XP, recipes and salvage, and threads. I understand doing something over and over gets boring, but personally I like to feel I've accomplished something . I didn't feel like I'd actually done the TF, just the potted highlights. I mostly avoid speed runs of anything for that reason, but if I join a team and then they announce a speed run I think "Well I'm committed now" and go along with whatever the team leader says.

We can find accounts if you know the global, or an alt name. Then we can find the forum and from there we can help with emails.

This is a hot topic with some strong opinions, which is fine. Please remember to keep it polite and not attack someone for having a different opinion to yourself.

I sometimes feel sorry for league leaders, 99% of the time everything goes smoothly then 1% of the time it's like herding cats. I've had 2 Hami raids in 4 years that have been absolute shit shows with people utterly refusing to pay attention to the league leader. The LL was awesome, the instructions were clear and easy to follow but there were a handful of players who Leeroy'd their way in and we just failed utterly. It's not like Hami is even hard these days. There are 2 different strategies that work, and as long as you do what you are told to do it's quick and easy. Same with MSR. As long as people pay attention it works well, I've had a few where someone uses incan to teleport the league all over the ship instead of just... not using it... Then wondering why everyone dies and we all quit. As for trials, every trial I've done has been awesome, and even though we've failed on rare occasions it's always been because people don't listen or ask questions if it's new to them. DD is actually my favourite, and the instructions are always clear as to what to target, when to target, and who targets who. The only time I have issues is when the league leader uses a different channel to give instructions because it's a stand out colour and some people don't have that channel in their chat list. One point I would raise is events. When you have a full league and need to start another, move leagues 2/3/4 etc to different parts of the map a long way from each other. The recent mapserver was so much fun, then it wasn't. Leagues formed, then more leagues formed, then it became a slide show and all the XP and inf slowed to almost nothing. The lag was dreadful and nobody was able to do anything. Despite me asking over and over for leagues to please find somewhere else it was Thursday before anyone paid attention and it was almost over by then. Excelsior was great early morning, then by lunchtime to evening was painful. I got so much more on Reunion with a 4 or 5 team league.