mechahamham

One thing I haven't seen in this thread yet is the fact that The Warriors as a villain group pretty soundly reference "The Warrriors" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080120/" (Starring Michael Beck, who also played the male lead 'Sonny' in the "Xanadu" musical, opposite Olivia Newton John, and got really outshone by both her and Gene Kelly.) In that movie (and the novel it's based on), the Warriors are made into patsies and spend a lot of time being victimized by other gangs, only barely surviving. Does this sound familiar at all? "Warriors, come out and play!" is taken directly from the movie. I.E., the Warriors, as a villain group, were created to be used and abused by other villain groups. They are 'also rans' right up until they fade out of the story and are straight-up victimized in later arcs. So updating them and giving lady Warriors a starring role should also take this into account, either by having the NPCs reject Odysseus's leadership, and/or struggling against the same victimization the current warriors do in a more cathartic, less pathetic way. I'd love to see a lady Warrior leader say 'No. We're not going to be victims of the Freaks, Circle, or Family any longer. We're not going to play their games. We're not going to be their lackeys. We're certainly not going to die for them.' There's a freakin' ton that can be done with this, even giving the warriors a 'Rogue' villain-group status, kinda like Wyvern is a 'Vigilante' hero-group.

This line makes me happy. Not happy that lawyers are getting paid, but happy that HC is passing at least some of their activities through legal counsel. (Sooper sekrit NCSoft talks?!?! Maybe, maybe not.)The more robust the game is in terms of legality, the more reason we have to expect it to stay around for the duration.

I've heard players say that having Paragon Protectors continue to use the old, long-duration version of Moment of Glory was a balance issue rather than something that had been overlooked. Personally, I think it's kinda played at this point. For example, I've been on teams that purposefully went on Manticore's TF at +4 difficulty, everyone knowing in advance that the MOG issue would be magnified. Our pacing was 'grind through enemies at a difficult, but doable pace... then come to a complete stop every time we encountered a Protector'. Solo, or in small teams, it causes hard stops like that at even level difficulty, even if you try to kite your MOGing protector around whilst fighting other NPCs. Characters that can do a HUGE amount of burst damage can sometimes defeat protectors from above the ~25% mark, but it requires very careful planning. I can see this being a balance and difficulty tool to be used with an AV encounter-- Honoree for example. For standard bosses, though? I think it feels out of place and 'broken'. In sharp contrast, Ted Dubois in the 'Summer Blockbuster Double Feature' trial seems to use the new version of MoG. Rather than 45s, it lasts more like the 15s of the player version of the power. (Ignoring that Ted is also an AV...) So... it's past time to give Paragon Protector's old MOG the boot in favor of the new MOG.

In the mission 'Recover Tomes from Circle' as part of the 'Scroll of Tielekku' arc, some of the CoT minions have this discussion: Later in the arc, your contact tells you that Azuria has sensed a huge buildup of energy in a building in Talos: Before the Dark Astoria revamp, Azuria always sensed said buildup in Dark Astoria. The Circle dialogue obviously just predates the DA revamp. I suggest changing it to something like: "They shall attempt to pierce the barrier somewhere near Astoria, no doubt. Perhaps Talos Island?"

I was helping a mastermind character named Geisha Girl on Excelsior (permission given by her to use her name) to complete her mission 'Stop release of mutagen' given by Lorenzo Tate as part of the 'Will of the Earth' arc. The giant crystals you have to destroy (not to be confused with small emanators) spawned HUGE, like 17 enemy, ambushes for her and her team of ninjas, while I, a single brute, only got 4 enemies when I attacked one the crystals. I think she's being hit by the old 'ambush bug'. It's been a good long while since I've played a MM to any level (during the Live era), but I remember getting huge ambushes when I had a full team of pets out. I suggest looking at the code for ambushes to see if it looks for friendly NPCs to fight rather than just PCs.

In the mission 'Defeat all villains in warehouse' given by Long Jack (You've got to stop them from raising that bridge!), the boss's name has 'Archon' doubled:

Scratch keeps introducing my lowbie villains to heroic contacts when I complete his missions. I've been making villains on a secondary account to play through the Scratch/Ganymede mission combo since I almost exclusively play heroes. Scratch will reliably introduce them to low-level hero contacts upon completing their missions. Steps to reproduce: Roll a new villain. I've been skipping the tutorial and going straight to Mercy and then to Pocket D via a SG base. Get the 'Find the cauldron's location' mission from Scratch. Team up with a hero. Defeat Terrigol in the mission Talk to Scratch again and be introduced to a new contact. He introduces contacts like Hugo Redding and Stephen Zucco Verify that the heroic contact is in your 'Inactive' contacts tab. (Mercedes Sheldon also tends to show up here for some reason, before ever doing the Midnighter's introductory arc.)

I know that other servers have done this. HOWEVER, for a very long time, I've wanted one of my characters, who has a phobia of scissors, to wear a giant pair of scissors on her back. She doesn't use them in melee. There just there to keep her on edge.

The the way my wife read it.

In the tip mission 'Rescue the 5th Column traitor' one of the opening lines of dialogue is: [NPC] Raserei Ubermenschen Fire: Why have they kept him alive for so long? [NPC] Nebel Rifle: No idea. If they'd put me in the same room with that traitorous dog I would have slit his throat in a heartbeat. The text bubble for this censored 'slit', presumably as a euphemism for 'vagina': "No idea. If they'd put me in the same room with that traitorous dog I would have **** his throat in a heartbeat." I was drinking Diet Coke at the time and nearly snorted it all over my desk when I read that as 'I would have shit down his throat...'. I did some testing in local, making the 5th column guys in my mission blush, and found that penis and vagina are both on the bad word list. I'm personally okay with 'seven dirty words' type of words on the filter, and we can, of course, always turn it off. However, I'm not sure it's very healthy for people of any age to think that their anatomy needs to be censored. Even PG-13 movies get an allotted one 'Fuck' per screening. (I personally play with the filters on JUST for moments like the one above.) Honestly, I'd rather the violent act of murder be censored rather than the genitalia. All that said, what REALLY bothers me about the filtering is that it's not consistent. If it's censored in the text bubble, it should be censored in the chat window as well.

Salted and peppered hash (encryption terms and not cooking terms) is best practice, really. I vaguely remember reading something about work being done on the auth database to bring it up to modern levels, though, which makes me worry that it's not. I'm the sort that doesn't really trust password authentication on its own. It's a good 'first layer', so long as you ALWAYS use a different password for every different resource. There are good free pw managers out there, but I use an encrypted disk container for those I don't memorize and try to change them often. (Why yes, I do talk to a doctor about my paranoia. Why do you ask?)

I prefer to use, when I can, passphrases. I logged in today after a few days only to see 'This account is already logged in'. After a quick check of my characters to make sure nothing obvious had been disturbed, I immediately changed my password. I doubt anything malicious has happened. Chances are I closed out while still on a flashback or TF. Still, I'd kinda like to have a longer password than 15 characters, at least until we get something like 0auth or some form of 2fa. I've not looked at the Ourodev authentication code (or any of the code, really). I don't know how that password field is saved. If it's a varchar in an SQL database, it seems like an 'alter table/modify column' wouldn't be terribly ornerus. I say that, and it's probably a set-width string or, worse, a null-terminated C string.

Allow players to wear: horns with glasses. There are other 'Detail 1' collisions that just don't make sense, but that's the big one. Countess Crey's dress and glasses. The dress'd be ideal for a 'Unique Tops' item. Ouroboros Mender's belt. Cimeroran priestess robes (the two-cape system that Sister Solaris wears). Very few of us are playing CoH on the same computers we were in 2012. I think letting players have access to more intricate combinations will have almost negligible performance impact today for the overwhelming majority of players. I get more fps drop zoning into the unoptimized, but empty Kallisti Wharf than I do into Atlas during a costume contest on a 5yo nvidia adapater. In lieu of a real RGB slider control addition to the color palette, loosen the validation on colors in .costume files. We know that the engine will support a very broad gamut of RGB colors. (I have screenshots of me demonstrating this when the costume save feature went in.) This would allow players to fix color mismatches that have existed since Issue 1. The few players who use this to make inappropriate costumes will be ignored or reported almost instantly.

A Taxibot Tour Guide Pamphlet You have come across a Pamphlet for the Taxibot Tour Guide service. You mark the location it references for navigation on your smart device. (Traveling to this location and searching for landmarks will likely award you a badge for exploration or progress towards a history badge.) About the Taxibots The Taxibots were originally a series of robotic heroes who worked to ferry heroes to, from, and across dangerous locations. Their forces were joined by many who were not robotic, including heroes who only had powers related to travel, showcasing the true spirit of heroism that lives in Paragon City. The Taxibots numbers have dwindled simply due to lack of need as teleportation and transport technology advances, but there are still many out there who don't hesitate to help other heroes get to where they need to be. In recent years, the Taxibots were rumored to have been working up a tour service, even cataloguing important locations in the Rogue Isles. While you haven't heard anything official, you can only assume that the pamphlet you found is a part of that effort. (When I read that the HC devs were considering tip missions to help players find exploration points, I immediately thought of the Taxibots and their invaluable service to the others players of CoH. I think that referencing them in 'official' content would be a good way to honor them.)

In Skyway City, Pavel Garnier's name has an underscore in it: Pavel_Garnier

Jimmy, I have a technical question about the new teleport menus. In particular, would you kindly share the icon name of the green 'Fast Travel' icon so that it can be used for a custom popmenu that doesn't replace the one you've created?

This is great for existing players, but we do still get new players from time to time. (And they promptly get sucked into AE farms. Srsly, farmers, quit doing that. I had a player in their 20s ask if they had to stand by the door on a regular mission team this week.) For the truly new players, and those who are returning from a hiatus since before i9, a little more guidance should be provided. Not only is our Consignment system a little more complex that most MMO auction houses, but it's not immediately obvious what can and does sell, especially with the 'last sell price' feature bugged out. I stand what I said before, that the price on DOs (not SOs) should be lowered so that they can be reasonably bought from vendors. I'd like to see a (?) symbol or some other kind of help or tooltip next to the 'Upgrade' button that explains WHAT it's going to do before the player clicks it out of curiosity. Finally, I'd like to see a Shady-looking 'Auction Informant' NPC in a conspicuous place in Atlas and Mercy (I'm thinking not too far from Ms. Liberty) that says something like the following: Psst. Hey, Pal. Wanna learn a little bit about making money? > Sure! > No, I'm good, really. > Is this a scam? It ain't a scam. You think I could get away with scamming folks in *this* city?! Nah, I work for the Chamber of Commerce, which is probably worse. We're trying to get super-powered individuals such as yourself spending more money in town, but the economy has changed a lot over time. I'm supposed to tell you how to *make* more money so you can *spend* more money. As you do missions for folks around here, you'll tend to pick up 'merit rewards', especially after you do something really amazing like fight a giant monster or finish a campaign against enemy forces. Stuff like that. Heck, you can even earn them simply for exploring. You can trade those merit rewards in at that ATM-lookin' terminal over there, yeah, past the statue. Sometimes there'll be folks standing around in red and gold uniforms to take 'em as well. If need some quick cash to further your endeavors, you can trade your merits for things like enhancement converters or boosters. Those tend to sell reasonably well right now at the local consignment house, and should get you, and some of the local merchants around here, more liquidity. > Where do I sell them? Where's the consignment house? East of here. Round building with a transparent ceiling. Kinda hard to miss, actually. > Can't I just trade my merits directly for enhancements or other goodies? You can, and many choose to do that. I recommend talking to the folks at Paragon City University in Steel Canyon. They'll tell you a lot about how to invent your own equipment. I'm just telling you about a good way to get started. Like I said, the economy has changed a lot around here and'll probably change in the future. I'll try to keep up-to-date information on hand so you don't get shafted too badly.

The 'Upgrade' button on the Enhancement screen doesn't show the amount of inf a player currently has. And if the player doesn't have enough influence to cover the upgrade, it fails without any kind of error like 'You don't have enough inf for that'.

I went into the Beta with a new, level 1 scrapper and played through Matthew Hashaby's arc. Before, a new player could reasonably buy a couple of enhancers off the vendors with those first few missions. Now I can afford only one or two DOs, with a generous amount of street-sweeping and selling all my drops. There's discussion about this, but it seems wrong and counter-intuitive to me. I think the price on those low-level DOs should be the same prices you'd find on TOs of the same level.

I'm afraid I don't understand the geologic processes that are responsible for 'veiny' metals other than 'a bunch of gold got dissolved in really hot water a long time ago'. As for natural diamonds, I can't imagine that they're terribly rare if you've got SOME kind of coal/carboniferous deposit, but that digging around in coal is a real good way to tear up your lungs.

Metallurgy's a heck of a thing, ain't it? Add a little bit of aluminum to your alloy mix and, blam, purple. More copper, pink.

And here's the rub. I DO actively work to build event teams and still have all the problems I mentioned. If I have a team of three 20ish people on the Talos hill or in Blyde Square, they see a 50 join and then immediately leave, it becomes much harder to keep them on the team as well.

Non-sprint run is already 15mph. I think that's before Swift, even.

I have a level 18 Archery/Mental Manip blaster that I copied over from Excel. She took Telekinetic Thrust as soon as it was available and slotted it. On Brainstorm, it shows that she still has it unlocked. It's just in the t9 position. If I respec, it becomes unavailable. Moving Telekinetic Thrust to the t9 bothers me deeply. It's basically the same utility as Energy manipulation's 'Power Thrust' with more damage. I use it as a 'get away from me!' power the same way I do with Power Thrust. I'm not at all concerned with the damage it has. it becomes less useful with Drain Psyche, but only by a small amount. Honestly, if I were going to choose an order for Mental Manipulation, it would be like so: Telekinetic Thrust Subdual Mind Probe Concentration Psychic Scream Drain Psyche World of Confusion Scare Psychic Shockwave Psychic Shockwave *seems* like the obvious t9 in this group to me. It's a powerful PBAOE that recharges often enough to use as part of a rotation.

I ran this on my existing Lutris install by selecting 'run EXE inside wine prefix', selecting the installer exe from my downloads folder. It installed and ran with zero hiccups. The copy-over from Tequila was flawless. I updated my Lutris runner for CoH to run the new launcher executable in the bin folder. The new launcher is done well and 'correctly' from a programming POV, as far as I'm concerned. It's blazing fast. Kudos.