madpoet67

I find that it helps to have a few "tricks" up your sleeve when it comes to naming. One that I use... semi-often... is "Primary Costume Color + Theme + a healthy dose of alliteration = NAME"... Thus, a supernatural character in a green accented costume becomes "Green Ghost." A similar character with blue accents becomes "Blue Banshee" It's a fairly common comic book trope... Silver Surfer, Blue Beetle, etc...

So, I finished my first Arc (posted details in another thread), and though I think I have things pretty well figured out, I do have a few questions... or maybe suggestions... Question The only thing I know I've seen in other arcs I've played that I couldn't figure out is enemy population. I've run MA arcs where it seems enemies are crawling all over the place... but when I create mine, there are vast stretches with nothing at all to fight. Is there a way, author side, to increase enemy population? Suggestions These are things that I wanted to do but couldn't figure out how. I call them suggestion because I think being able to do them would make MA so much better. But there may BE a way to do them that I somehow missed. 1. I wish there was a way to "speak to" the final boss before combat. Even if it just means making the boss untargetable until he finishes saying what he has to say. (and more room to have him say things). I know the workaround is to use the mission complete clue or the return to contact text to pull the old, "When you defeated X, he said..." But that's just clunky. This is a superhero game, after all. What's a supervillian if he or she can't monologue. 2. I wish there was a way to place specific mobs in specific locations. It would be cool if you could place a boss on a raised area with his "guards" in a line in front of him instead of the boss spawning randomly with his guards all standing 30 ft away and looking in the opposite direction. I'm sure, as I progress, I'll think of more things that I "wish" I could do. I am a writer after all (Hense the snazzy forum handle). Telling stories is what I do for a living. MA gives me another outlet for that... and it's pretty good, but from a storytelling perspective, it could be better (or maybe it is and I haven't figured it out yet). Trust me, I know what makes a good story... I'm a professional ;D... PS: What is the benefit of restricting an arc to a specific level range?

Ok, bear with me... I'm a little punchy because I did this whole thing in about 28 hours without sleep. For your entertainment, I present... ARC ID#7071: The Death of 007, Pt. One Now before someone says anything about ripping off an IP, or just copying someone else's work, please understand that this is an homage to one of my favorite literary characters... and yes, I mean literary... The story is unique and of my own devising, but it takes its cues, not from the horribly erratic film series, but from Ian Flemming's novels... I would happily enjoy your feedback... and I hope you have as much fun playing it as I had creating it... ...and if you're a true Bond fan, you might find some easter eggs along the way. Part Two is written, just not created yet. Stay tuned.

Is there a comprehensive guide to creating content anywhere online, or do we just have to figure it out on our own? I don't mind tinkering and testing, but a guide would make it easier.

Er... what is the MA?

Thank you all, so much, for your suggestions and support. This community has always been so much better than the communities in other MMOs. Perhaps because heroism requires a certain mindset... IDK... (on the forums for that "other" game, I would have been called several nasty names and eventually told to suck it up or quit.) Anyway, the great thing... perhaps the greatest thing... is that we can now honestly say this game wouldn't exist without the community. Much love to all... @Cryosteel (Torchbearer)

1. Load my UI and /bind files 2. Change UI color to be character specific 3. Grab email from main to collect 1,000,000 inf. 4. P2W for enhancements, double XP, reveal power, and any other powers that fit the concept (i.e. rocket packs for "natural" origin characters) 5. Meet with SGInviter (a special character on its own account) to get invited to my personal SG 6. Visit tailor in SG base to create "secret identity" 7. Go, Kill Skulls (or Hellions)

I'm an altaholic and I know it... perhaps more so with this game than any other. I'm also, pretty much, a solo player. I enjoy interacting with the community, but I don't team up often for several reasons, 1) I'm just not very good (I lack hand-eye coordination and I'm so right-handed I'm practically disabled), and 2) I have mental health issues that make it difficult for me to maintain focus (a typical play-session for me is... run 2 missions... watch TV for 20 minutes... run 2 mission... etc.) and that just disappoints teammates. Anyway, I say all this to explain why I just reached level 35 for the first time a few days ago... and that's when I remembered why I didn't get to 50 in the live game until very near the end. I was stuck at 35-37 on my mains for years! Soloing through the 30s sucks! ...even with double XP. But... I remember how much my love for this game was reinvigorated when I did hit 50... So much so, that when the shutdown message appeared in my chat window that fateful day, I literally cried (Yes, a 45-year-old man sobbing on his keyboard... mental health issues, remember?). I guess the point of this post is to ask for advice. What can I do, in-game or personally, to get to 50 faster? How can I break through this wall that just diverts me into more and more alts while my mains languish? I want... and even welcome... the day when this game is once again the game that tore me apart at shutdown. But, mentally, I don't know if I can get to 50 again playing the way I do. any advice?

So... how does that work?

I have a backstory that I developed long ago, outside of CoH, when I was toying with the idea of creating my own comic book. At the time, I wanted to challenge several comic book tropes and take them to a new level. The first being the “kid” who somehow becomes a powerful adult hero when the need arises, and the second being the anti-hero. My idea was to create an old man who transforms into a young, somewhat angst-ridden teen hero, but within the context of a story that walks a fine line between the self-righteous and the amoral. I came up with a hero named “The Dreamed.” Here’s the story (Sorry, too long for a screenie): Roland Sykes Mr. Roland Sykes is a 56-year-old, English teacher at Paragon High School. A stern disciplinarian and a life-long bachelor, even his colleagues see him as a bitter, lonely old man. As for the students, well… let’s just say he’s the teacher the seniors warn the freshmen about. The truth is, Mr. Sykes prefers it that way. He’s not a terribly pleasant man. As for being lonely, while it’s true that he has never known love, he has never really seen the benefit in it. Respect is all he ever wanted. Until now… You see, Roland Sykes has a problem. He has fallen in love. The problem is, he has fallen in love with Kathrine “Kat” Saunders, a student in his 3rd period class. He keeps his feelings close to the vest, of course. After all, he is nothing if not proper. Still, she is all he can think about. At night, wracked with guilt and tormented by self-loathing, he lies in bed, tossing and turning, until finally, exhausted, he falls asleep… and dreams. At first his dreams, although disturbing, may have been considered normal under the circumstances. He dreamed of being 18 again and meeting Kat on equal terms. In those dreams, he lived out forbidden fantasies of midnight rendezvous full of passion and longing. In the morning, he would awaken, covered in sweat and smelling the stench of his own perceived lechery. During the day, he walked the halls of Paragon High, head down, unable to make eye contact with anyone. His colleagues began to worry. The most common theory was that of a devastating diagnosis… perhaps cancer… but Sykes was as closed off as ever. Then, one night, the dreams changed. He dreamed that in the midst of another clandestine encounter in Perez Park, Kat and his alter-ego were attacked by a group of Hellions. Desperate to protect Kat, he suddenly found himself a costumed hero complete with extraordinary powers. He easily fought off the gang members and saved the day… garnering the admiration of the young woman in the process. Now, when he dreams, he dreams of patrolling the city, fighting crime, and protecting the innocent. As for Kat, she is still in his dreams, but now she is a superhero as well, fighting by his side… his partner… and still the love of his life. What Roland Sykes doesn’t know… what he doesn’t even suspect… is that the dreams… are real. Yes, Roland Sykes is the dreamer… but what of The Dreamed! Kathrine “Kat” Saunders AKA Bengali Kathrine Saunders, known as “Kat” to everyone except teachers and clergymen, was the All-American High School girl. The daughter of the famed geneticist, Dr. Lincoln Saunders, she was an honor student, active in sports, and served as a Cheerleader for the football team. She was popular with both her fellow students and her teachers… all except her 3rd period English teacher… that mean, old Mr. Sykes. But life sometimes takes an unexpected turn, as it did with Kat the night she met a mysterious young man. They first met at the Homecoming Dance. No one knew who he was… her friends all suspected he was a gang member crashing the dance to sell “dyne” or cause some other trouble. But Kat was strangely drawn to him. After the dance, they walked the streets and talked until dawn. Her father was pissed when she got home. After that, Kat began to change. Her father was the first to notice. She was dressing differently and seemed almost rebellious. She quit the cheerleading squad saying only that it was stupid, her grades slipped, and she slept late whenever possible. Dr. Saunders began to worry. What her father didn’t know, was that she was sneaking out at night to meet this strange young man… a boy who seemed to have no family, no home, and no past. She knew nothing about him, but she felt the need to be with him. Kat Saunders was in love. Then came that fateful night in Perez Park. Accosted by Hellions, the mysterious stranger suddenly manifested incredible powers and saved her from the rampaging gang. She realized, suddenly, that she had fallen in love with a superhero. She awoke, the next day, shaken and afraid. She was not afraid of the Hellions… or the Skulls… or even the Rikti, those odd-looking aliens who had invaded when she was a child. She was afraid of being normal. After all, he was a superhero… How could she compete with the likes of Miss Liberty? That night, desperate to be his equal, Kat Saunders snuck into her father’s lab and infected herself with an experimental mutagenic virus. Her father found her the next morning, sprawled on the floor of his lab. She was in a coma for six weeks. When she awoke, she found that the virus had done its work. She was able to take on the aspect of a Bengal tiger… but the mysterious young man was gone. Saddened and alone, Kat Saunders, never-the-less, took up the mantle of the hero, Bengali… determined to use her ill-gotten powers to protect the city and its people. One night, in Perez Park, she ambushed a group of Hellions up to no good. As she fought, she couldn’t help but remember that other night… when the strange young man she loved had saved her… …and suddenly he was there, fighting by her side. Her heart swelled in her chest and she knew that nothing could ever again stand against them… together. The Dreamed From a letter recovered from Ms. Kathrine Saunders: “My Dearest Kathrine, I wish that I could explain everything and answer every question you ask, but the truth is… I don’t have any answers for you. It feels as if I came into existence the night we met. I can’t tell you of my past, because I have none. I can’t tell you of my dreams, because I do not seem to sleep. I can’t even tell you my name… I have never known one. It seems as if I exist each night only to be with you… and the rest is darkness. I do not know who I am. I don’t even know if all of this is real. I only know that I love you. Am I real? Am I? …or am I someone else’s dream.”

Super Jump over Fly. SJ is my favorite travel power. I take whenever there's a reasonable excuse to fit it into a character concept. Why? Just can't get enough of the unintended mini-game of trying to get to a mission door without touching the ground. Rooftop-hopping for the win!

Well... I did some testing with some of the ideas you fine folks provided, and for the time being at least, the Blue Banshee is... ...a Dark/Dark Stalker.

You need to host the image on an image hosting site like imgur and then save the url of the image, and then when you’re composing your post, click the leftmost icon on the bottom row (it’s a painting). You’ll see this: [ img ][ /img] Although without the spaces in those square brackets. In the first one, change it to [ img width=600 ] so that your pic isn’t too big to be seen on the forum, and boom you’re golden. MCM EDIT: I see you didn’t need my advice! Maybe it’ll help someone else :) The problem I had was that imgur doesn't intuitively tell you that you need to make your post public and verify your e-mail to be able to use the link it provides... maybe that will help someone else too. ;D

Finally! figured out images. ;D

...and still can't figure out how to get images to post, apparently...

Hi all, meet... Blue Banshee I... LOVE... this costume and I love the name... but... Given the name and the concept... it is only logical that she use the Sonic powerset... The problem is, I find Sonic unplayable... I hate it... Can anyone think of combo that would fit the name and NOT include sonic?

One of the things I always enjoyed about CoH was its somewhat laissez-faire attitude toward balance. So many other MMOs seem to spend far too much development time tinkering with it. In that "other" game, they've taken balance to the point of homogenization. Every character feels the same. But CoH never seemed to make it a priority. Granted, until the release of CoV, this was not a PVP game, so balance only really mattered to the min/maxers. I think that's why CoH is so alt friendly. Each archetype, and even each combination of power sets within an archetype, feels different. You can play through the same content over and over again and it almost feels like a different game. I had an interesting experience last night that really drove this home for me. During the initial live run of the game, and in the last few months here on Homecoming, I probably ran the Frostfire story arc in the Hollows as a solo character 50 times or more. Each time I found the final mission challenging... a long, sometimes dangerous slog through a complicated maze of villains and obstacles culminating in the first really difficult fight of the game.... Frostfire. Now, I'm no gamer. At 52-years-old, I don't have the reflexes of my younger compatriots (You grew up with Xbox, I grew up with Pong). So, I always got my butt kicked by Frostfire and his minions. Popping inspos and blowing cooldowns, I could, on certain builds, defeat him the first time, but it was always a challenge and more often than not, defeating him required several trips to the hospital. It always took close to an hour. Then last night, I ran a dual blades stalker through the arc. I snuck past the first Outcasts, defeated the three guarding the artifact that unlocks the first door, snuck through to Keystone, defeated him, and snuck straight to Frostfire. I popped my inspos, snuck up behind him, hit Assassin's Blades, and clicked the blue button... 10 minutes... done. Now that is NOT balance... but it was fun... ;D I'm so happy to have CoH back.

/bind MouseChord "+forward" Gets rid of the game's annoying insistence on turning autorun on when moving with the mouse.

So… Here’s my wish list… it’s only one thing. I wish we had a special costume slot for a “secret identity.” This slot would come with its own nameplate and id card. That’s it… You see, I have a backstory that I developed long ago, outside of CoH, when I was toying with the idea of creating my own comic book. At the time, I wanted to challenge several comic book tropes and take them to a new level. The first being the “kid” who somehow becomes a powerful adult hero when the need arises, and the second being the anti-hero. My idea was to create an old man who transforms into a young, somewhat angst-ridden teen hero, but within the context of a story that walks a fine line between the self-righteous and the amoral. I came up with a hero named “The Dreamed.” Here’s the story (feel free to stop reading if you feel you might be offended): Roland Sykes Mr. Roland Sykes is a 56-year-old, English teacher at Paragon High School. A stern disciplinarian and a life-long bachelor, even his colleagues see him as a bitter, lonely old man. As for the students, well… let’s just say he’s the teacher the seniors warn the freshmen about. The truth is, Mr. Sykes prefers it that way. He’s not a terribly pleasant man. As for being lonely, while it’s true that he has never known love, he has never really seen the benefit in it. Respect is all he ever wanted. Until now… You see, Roland Sykes has a problem. He has fallen in love. The problem is, he has fallen in love with Kathrine “Kat” Saunders, a student in his 3rd period class. He keeps his feelings close to the vest, of course. After all, he is nothing if not proper. Still, she is all he can think about. At night, wracked with guilt and tormented by self-loathing, he lies in bed, tossing and turning, until finally, exhausted, he falls asleep… and dreams. At first his dreams, although disturbing, may have been considered normal under the circumstances. He dreamed of being 18 again and meeting Kat on equal terms. In those dreams, he lived out forbidden fantasies of midnight rendezvous full of passion and longing. In the morning, he would awaken, covered in sweat and smelling the stench of his own perceived lechery. During the day, he walked the halls of Paragon High, head down, unable to make eye contact with anyone. His colleagues began to worry. The most common theory was that of a devastating diagnosis… perhaps cancer… but Sykes was as closed off as ever. Then, one night, the dreams changed. He dreamed that in the midst of another clandestine encounter in Perez Park, Kat and his alter-ego were attacked by a group of Hellions. Desperate to protect Kat, he suddenly found himself a costumed hero complete with extraordinary powers. He easily fought off the gang members and saved the day… garnering the admiration of the young woman in the process. Now, when he dreams, he dreams of patrolling the city, fighting crime, and protecting the innocent. As for Kat, she is still in his dreams, but now she is a superhero as well, fighting by his side… his partner… and still the love of his life. What Roland Sykes doesn’t know… what he doesn’t even suspect… is that the dreams… are real. Yes, Roland Sykes is the dreamer… but what of The Dreamed! Kathrine “Kat” Saunders AKA Bengali Kathrine Saunders, known as “Kat” to everyone except teachers and clergymen, was the All-American High School girl. The daughter of the famed geneticist, Dr. Lincoln Saunders, she was an honor student, active in sports, and served as a Cheerleader for the football team. She was popular with both her fellow students and her teachers… all except her 3rd period English teacher… that mean, old Mr. Sykes. But life sometimes takes an unexpected turn, as it did with Kat the night she met a mysterious young man. They first met at the Homecoming Dance. No one knew who he was… her friends all suspected he was a gang member crashing the dance to sell “dyne” or cause some other trouble. But Kat was strangely drawn to him. After the dance, they walked the streets and talked until dawn. Her father was pissed when she got home. After that, Kat began to change. Her father was the first to notice. She was dressing differently and seemed almost rebellious. She quit the cheerleading squad saying only that it was stupid, her grades slipped, and she slept late whenever possible. Dr. Saunders began to worry. What her father didn’t know, was that she was sneaking out at night to meet this strange young man… a boy who seemed to have no family, no home, and no past. She knew nothing about him, but she felt the need to be with him. Kat Saunders was in love. Then came that fateful night in Perez Park. Accosted by Hellions, the mysterious stranger suddenly manifested incredible powers and saved her from the rampaging gang. She realized, suddenly, that she had fallen in love with a superhero. She awoke, the next day, shaken and afraid. She was not afraid of the Hellions… or the Skulls… or even the Rikti, those odd-looking aliens who had invaded when she was a child. She was afraid of being normal. After all, he was a superhero… How could she compete with the likes of Miss Liberty? That night, desperate to be his equal, Kat Saunders snuck into her father’s lab and infected herself with an experimental mutagenic virus. Her father found her the next morning, sprawled on the floor of his lab. She was in a coma for six weeks. When she awoke, she found that the virus had done its work. She was able to take on the aspect of a Bengal tiger… but the mysterious young man was gone. Saddened and alone, Kat Saunders, never-the-less, took up the mantle of the hero, Bengali… determined to use her ill-gotten powers to protect the city and its people. One night, in Perez Park, she ambushed a group of Hellions up to no good. As she fought, she couldn’t help but remember that other night… when the strange young man she loved had saved her… …and suddenly he was there, fighting by her side. Her heart swelled in her chest and she knew that nothing could ever again stand against them… together. The Dreamed From a letter recovered from Ms. Kathrine Saunders: “My Dearest Kathrine, I wish that I could explain everything and answer every question you ask, but the truth is… I don’t have any answers for you. It feels as if I came into existence the night we met. I can’t tell you of my past, because I have none. I can’t tell you of my dreams, because I do not seem to sleep. I can’t even tell you my name… I have never known one. It seems as if I exist each night only to be with you… and the rest is darkness. I do not know who I am. I don’t even know if all of this is real. I only know that I love you. Am I real? Am I? …or am I someone else’s dream.”

When the game first launched, my first character was an energy/energy blaster mimicking GL... Embarrassingly, I was one of the first to get flagged for potential copyright issues and had to delete him. I am far more creative now.

how do you post pics?

Cryosteel and Bonfire Blaze back in action!

You know how when you hold down the left and right mouse button to run... if you hold it for any length of time auto-run engages? How do you stop that from happening?

I started following the development of CoH right after it was announced. Started playing on Day 1. 7 years ago I was a 45 year old man with a wife and 3 kids locked in bedroom crying after the shutdown announcement. (I suffer from severe depression so don't go there...) right now, I'm in heaven. Well, waiting to get into heaven, but at least I know it's there. :)

WORKED!