Black Talon

As per always, passing on every heartfelt thanks and congratulations to the Homecoming team. Without you, ladies and gentlemen, we would have been left with nothing but screenshots, Google images and the occasional YouTube video. This game provides me with a reason to stay awake on Saturday afternoons, after the work-week and the volunteer work is done. Hoping very much we get to pass on our appreciations in person some day, be it at a gaming convention or the like. Until then, know that you have everyone here watching your backs, and that the monthly funding call will be answered, and fulfilled, in perpetuity. All best always.

My hopes that this individual, and his/her/its works will be excised at the earliest available juncture, but just wanted to bring in a quick point of personal recollection. Over twenty years ago, on trekrpg.net, there was an individual called Red Quacker. The person - if I might use that title - engaged in the same sort of I-want-to-stir-the-hornets'-nest attention-getting tactics that this one does. This individual became a subject of site-wide bemusement, and, finally, boredom - because you can only stir the hornets' nest for so long before they've all taken off. Temnix will inspire his (presuming "his") share of head-shaking amusement, then disregard, and will, hopefully, zip out when "he" realizes that no one's paying attention anymore. As a quick by-the-way, on trekrpg.net, Red Quacker's account and posts were ultimately deleted. For the best, really, although there were the occasional, "Whatever happened to...?" posts over the years.

Am well familiar with City of Zeroes - followed it pretty closely Back In The Day - but had absolutely no indication this existed. Thank you very much for having made this available, Zombra, and, like CoZ, it points out some absolutely true yet much beloved "fools' paradise" aspects of City of Heroes. Any more from this particular animator, please let us know.

Best of the lot, stretching from CoH's origin days, is the Countess Crey arc, mid-40s. When my main alt went through this one for the first time (back in '05), I was so damn impressed I sent off a congratulatory e-mail to the Devs. Being turned into a pariah at the hands of a corporate predator who deserves the chair or lethal injection for what she's done - murder-one, identity theft and crippling your husband being the absolute least of it - make this an arc that I'm delighted to have every alt, before and now, have their turn at running through. Always thought it was a shame that the police aren't the ones hunting your character down during this, or that other players couldn't receive a "wanted" notice that put your alt on the PvP smackdown list for. The Striga Isle and Faultline arcs are top-rate as well; never miss a chance to run those gamuts through when the 20+ or 17+ level (respectively) are reached.

Very much agreed that this is a highly idiosyncratic matter; combination of the AT, power-sets, how they've been slotted out, and, finally, exactly what the player is comfortable with. My 50s - and there are more than a couple on that list - keep it at +4/x1, if Scrapper/Tanker/Brute. With the Issue 27 bad guy upgrades, what were previously simple keep-your-eyes-open moments have now turned into, on a number of occasions, genuine nail-biters. My Defenders are at +3/x1, and, indicating the defensive nature of this game's mathematical balance, they haven't seemed to experience a massive uptick in difficulty, even with the bosses. Yeah, a medium defence insp might be added into the mix, but not much more than that. Although the offensive-driven ATs perhaps could handle things at x2 or higher, I'm not a big fan of turning these missions into solo marathons; I'll leave that for when I'm in full teams. I'd like to get to the end sometime during this calendar year and not have to ignore Mom's phone calls.

From the little bit I've done so far, a couple of things stick out: 1. Event-based noises, such as power effects and so forth, seem to have the volume diminished while the zone music has been jacked up 2. Villains have received your basic "Gift from Above" and are considerably tougher than previously Anybody else notice this? Sure, it's not the sort of thing that's going to require Reverend Lovejoy to sit with me, pat me on the back and recite, "There, there. There, there," but it is a touch distracting. Also, not sure if I'm in love with those timers on long-recharge powers - Dull Pain, Instant Heal and so forth. Volunteers from the rest of the class?

Chuckers, THANK YOU! I very much appreciate getting the "inside voice" on exactly what the circumstances were "Back In The Day", and giving this bit of clarification. All my apologies for my presumptions here - although, from what you've indicated, it's a certainty that, during Beta, you guys would have picked up the "Enhance 'em to death" play-style that we, as a player community, were pursuing back in '04. What Mr. Emmert's thought process was during this time...well, I'm not going to go there. All I will state is that the final outcome is something that grabbed hold of the superhero community's 'nads (in a nice way) and pulled us into something that we absolutely refuse to leave. Chuckers, thank you again for everything you and your fellow Devs have done.

I think many of us can experience a, "Been there, done that, nailed it shut," moment when reading that. It honestly escapes me how the original Devs, back in '03-'04, would not have been able to pick up on how the players were multi-stacking enhancements to go for the damage/healing/defence-machines we were working on becoming back in Issue #1. While I can appreciate the logic behind encouraging players to not want to just hit the single-enhancement type for any Archetype, I again think it was something so obvious they should have been anticipating it way ahead of the curve.

All thanks, to everyone here, for the expansion and clarification on this. Regardless as to whether NCSoft provides financial/personnel backing or has just waved the hand and said, "Yeah, sure, you guys represent the IP now," it counts as a serious positive development, especially considering how quickly and callously NCSoft shut things down a little over eleven years ago. If anything, I think this incites a major round of applause for the Homecoming crew, who have given so damn much of their time, effort and dedication to something where the major benefit is knowing that life has been restored to what had it stolen. God knows how many successor projects - and we sure as all-get-out have discussed those hobbled efforts in depth - have dehydrated and whispered away like dust in the wind not because of financial starvation, but because the people involved had just enough of all this to justify calling it quits. New content, old, or published AE stuff, it makes no difference: we have been given a world in which humans can fly (among other travel powers), and that's good enough for me.

I've got some considerable sympathy for PancakeGnome's OP argument; and I agree with Paragon Vanguard's point about character concept making all the difference. Aside from some points regarding IO benefits and so on, the Archetypes work out with considerable similarity - a Tanker is always going to be a Tanker, and have the same list/s of primary/secondary powers to choose from. Along with the mathematically driven and constricted array of bad guys, there is always going to be a numerical limit on what can be done and what can be done to a specific alt. My own Superman clone is IN/SS with appropriate tertiary powers. Where the difference comes along is in how he got to where he is: as I've detailed in his origin, he started off as a bigot with neo-Nazi inclinations, dropping out at fifteen and joining the Fifth Column. He and his unit were in a territorial dispute with Arachnos in White Plains - original name for the Rikti War Zone - when the Rikti mothership crashed and devastated the area. The building the combatants were in was destroyed and the character himself was trapped in the ship's forcefield for eighteen years. Released by accident during a Hero attack on the ship, he realized that the alien radiations had granted him invulnerability and super-strength. With his family now scattered across the country, he was faced with a choice - become an elite enforcer for a villain group or try to reform his life and become a new and better man. He's chosen the latter, and every day marks another opportunity to make up for - and try to forget - the person he once was. Thus, every time this guy takes out a group of Arachnos/Council/Fifth Column, among others, he feels like he's erasing an ugly part of himself. No, this doesn't have a damn thing to do with what powers he's got, how they're used, what the mathematics/coding is behind them or how bad guys get taken out. His difference lies solely in his origins and outlook on the world, and these keep me interested enough in him to keep him going well past the level 50 cut-off.

Passing on every wonderful, eternal good wish to the entire population out there. All confidences that this will be a fantastic Christmas and holiday to all, and the hopes for a great New Year to come for both those in Paragon City's - and the Rogue Isles' - virtual population, and all of us in what we laughingly refer to as the real world. Merry Christmas all. P.S. Snaptooth is gonna take it extra-hard this year, and run cryin' home to Momma over that guy/girl who just won't stop hitting him.

For myself, I agree with Healix's standpoint the big one-ten. Far, far better, IMHACWO, to have something brought up as a mistaken red-flag - and thus allow the opportunity to at least pass on a heartfelt apology to the offended party - than to let a single genuine corporate parasite through. I would hope that, if one of my posts were, for whatever reason, flagged as such a cautionary point, I would be most accepting of the resulting investigation and would pass on a hearty, "Hey - not a problem," to the (hopefully) regretful person who had made the mistaken identification. I think it's understood that there's nothing involving personal bias here, just someone pointing out something that seemed a bit off. While I am certainly not frequent enough a contributor, let alone site-surfer, to pick up on anything but the most obvious of such scam attempts, I do fully support the population as a whole acting as a digital posse and corralling the low-rent punks into the virtual turlet.

Coming in a bit late with this, but pleased that someone brought up this overly-ignored topic, Scarlet Shocker. Voltaic Sentinel is a power I've got, and have used, on one alt and one alt only: my Storm Summoner/Electric Blast Defender. With him, I've found the power to be highly situational; when doing the hostage-rescue bit, and after taking out the boss and his/her chumps with the Lightning Storm/Freezing Rain/Snow Storm/Hurricane combo, I take moment to call up my friend "Sparky", and let said hostage know that he'll be helping us on the way out. At this point there are only the three wave attacks to anticipate - I make it a point to clear the board before taking the hostage in hand and beelining toward the exit - and Sparky has often proven a real help in making sure that such retributive attacks by the bad guys will not be much more than an xp (and possibly inspiration)-bonus-with-effort. Working solo, I will not put Sparky to use when making my way through a mission initially, as there's just too much damn chance of a bad guy walking into range and screwing up the whole surprise-attack thing because Sparky just couldn't keep it in his pants. With groups, however, Sparky is a welcome addition, and will often serve as the clean-up batter when the rest of the gang are concentrating on taking out Arch-Villain X. Highly situational, yeah...but I do enjoy having Voltaic Sentinel as a resource, and the purple IO set I've got in place for him certainly offers some nice side benefits as well.

Very interesting topic, DougGraves - and I empathize completely with your take on it, Greycat. My Boys have generally got in about the sixty-plus souvenirs level each; I really enjoy running the mission arcs and do the best I can to make sure I get the big-ticket ones - meaning where there's an Elite Boss/Arch-Villain to scrap at the end. Hence my fondness for the Striga Isle/Faultline quadrologies, especially where we get to do the James Bond blow-up-the-bad-guy's-mountaintop-headquarters bit. Yet I do also see Greycat's point about having a bit more as a "trophy-case" memento; perhaps an actual physical item mirroring the souvenir description that could be placed in the SG base. Click on that, you get the complete arc description popping up, like an extended version of what you see when you click on various historic points in Atlas Park. Again, don't know what sort of resources/time would be required to implement this, let alone whether it's even possible or if the population's reaction might be a solid, "Meh", but I'd sure support having something that could personalize the SG bases even more. Again, thanks for instigating the thoughts on this.

Welcome to the revolution, Squishee. To be quick about it - for myself, yes, I did have the full crew on Redside, Back In The Day, but have only bothered to recreate and play one on Homecoming; Torchbearer, specifically. That boy, who hit 50 long, long ago, does solo missions almost exclusively; he's exhausted the contacts so these days it's either rent himself out to Vanguard or check those classifieds. I do agree with MoonSheep, Shred Monkey and ZemX wholeheartedly; get on that LFG channel, proclaim loudly that, like The Kid from the unexpurgated version of The Stand, you'd piss Redside if you could, and are looking for others who want to taste societal extremes. If you have any inclination to "play for both teams", as it were, it is perfectly possible to visit Null the Gull in Pocket D, have your alt go Rogue, do both the Hero/Villain thing as you see fit, and double your chances of a date on Saturday night. Otherwise, just very pleased to see you over here, looking forward to be able to exchange "hellos" if we're on the same server, and very much hoping that you can find the teams you're looking for in this resurrected, recalibrated funhouse. All best.

Interesting topic, Scarlet Shocker; for myself, I gave both Champions and DC Online a shot...never got past designing a character in either game. Did, very briefly, try Conan and, however beautifully the game was designed, just couldn't get past the difficulty and apparent repetition in taking down opponents. Could have been an equipment issue with an old, overused mouse on my part, but still. I have concluded that CoX was, is, and probably always will be the only MMPOG I have any interest in getting involved in, and for that I have to pass on my deepest thanks to Jack Emmert and the original Devs for their excellent work, and our always-appreciated Homecoming crew for resurrecting that which was mostly - not completely, but mostly - dead and allowing us to, once again, see through a keyhole into another world.

December 1, Greenwich Mean Time - this meaning that we here in the EST zone are going to get it starting about 7:00 p.m., Nov. 30. I will miss the fall-coloured trees, but Atlas Park is worth going to just to take in the city at night. As I posted a couple years ago, there ain't no substitute for the quiet snowfall in the Atlas Park neighbourhoods as the midnight hour works its way around. One moment of peace and stillness...this until the voice balloon of a Skull thug demanding, "Hand it over, lady!" followed by, "Help! Help! They're taking my rent money!" lets us know that, hey, Atlas Park might be beautiful this time of year, but it's time to get back to work busting heads in celebration of the season...

While, like many others here, I was doing the finger-crossing bit and hoping hoping HOPING that at least one of the post-Shutdown projects would come to fruition, I never had enough faith in any of them to commit funds. The primary reason being, as I've brought up before, the companies were crewed entirely by volunteers, and rare is the instance in which any such venture results in a completed work, especially when it stretches over a multi-year gestation span. People get tired, get bored, get irritated with one another...and sooner or later they zip out, leaving a hole in the production chain that logjams the work until somebody is found who can fill the gap, at least halfway competently. And then someone else bugs out and the entire cascade failure starts again. My approach to those various experiments has been, and remains, one of admiration and sympathy for those who initiated the projects...and condolence and pity for those who committed themselves to supporting their development. Pretty much all of these will become, "Whatever happened to...?" five-paragraph news articles in online gaming publications, congratulating the original teams and giving the slow, sad shake of the head for how things turned out in the end. Let's all just thank those who managed to resurrect CoX, and gave us a reason to be able to look at those other works with genuine sadness and compassion while we work our guys and girls toward 50, rather than uttering the slow sigh and looking off into the distance, whispering, "If only..."

In the 2013-2020 gap, I had completely blanked out on this. Thank you, all, for having given me a valid reason to stop crying, presuming that various demonic forces were haw-hawing boisterously at my conundrum, and allowing My Boy to get back to the way he oughtuz look. Next idiotic, "But what do I DO about this?" situation I've got, I'll send out the online broadcast message and see if I can restrict myself to having only one sharp swat upside the back of the head. Again, thanks to all.

Quick summation: I have an alt - Brute (blueside) - with an origin oriented very strongly toward Arachnos. His chest symbol is the Arachnos spider; and while this symbol still appears when I have him on the Server selector list, it has been replaced with some kind of bull-horn image when I actually put him online. No matter what arrangement I've attempted at the Tailor, I seem to be unable to restore the original chest symbol for when I actually have this guy in Paragon City, regardless of the zone. Wondering - was some kind of irreversible change for characters with this sort of costume addition instituted at some point in the past, or did the Halloween festivities, which this guy took part in quite enthusiastically, result in an alteration that can be reversed only through some unrevealed process? Apologies to the gang for this rather pointlessly cosmetic topic, but getting this guy back to the way I'd like him to look is a bit of a personal sticking point. All appreciations on the advice and/or guidance that might come forth.

The logical follow-up to this whole wonderful month is Guy Fawkes Day on November 5: Lord Recluse (that scamp) has planted your basic Simon Phoenix-style warehouse of C4 in the basement of Atlas Park City Hall, and is threatening to hit that button unless we give him the whole of Paragon City, right...NOW! Working our way into City Hall we find that it's been cross-connected with some alien Cthulhu-type dimension that requires we spend an entire month working through it, further and deeper down, scrapping villains and monsters endlessly, to the eventual disarming. Hm...have to get my butt over the AE office and get to work on this baby...sorry, Guy...

Would have to agree with Gawstruck, for the most part, but I do occasionally wonder if it'd be possible to do a sort of AT-combination bit; e.g., Scrapper with, say, half a dozen powers from a Defender's secondary power-set, and so forth. Sure, the extant power-pools do allow a considerable degree of variation already, but again, perhaps that hybrid type with a higher xp-per-level requirement as a bit of a trade-off.

While I'm probably out of my depth completely with this one - AV scraps, on my part, have never really gotten past the mass call of, "Take 'em down!" - I feel that giving AVs a "Domination" power that would allow the hostile program to assume control of player minions - or even the players themselves - could have devastating consequences. Players would be hitting Break Free after Break Free insps in order to overcome such intrusions. Whether an app could be put together for the AVs that would allow this sort of thing to be executed in a logical and playable manner is, I would think, anyone's guess.

Agreed with GastlyGibus the big one-ten. The only thing that the KoA (and filling in the abbreviation with "Knives of Artemis" or "Killed on Arrival" fits the group about equally well) are missing is the cultural context. In terms of the power-sets...well, with regard to your classic ninjitsu, there ain't nothin' missin'. I can see any member of this group applying to become an acolyte of The Hand in Netflix's Daredevil series and getting a membership card before they're out the door (or risen from the pit, as the case may be). However, they'd have to do a complete turnaround with regard to motivation: the KoA and their reactionary, rather reductionist militant feminist approach would have to go out the window in favour of Frank Miller's rules for The Hand - especially Order Number One: Leave Nothing Living - along with dispensing with Western culture, including science, presumably, and replaced with Eastern mysticism. Yeah, the black hoods and gi, along with the ninja-to, shuriken and tetsu-bishi are all part of the in-your-face image, but it'd be nice to see a villain group that claims the same fanatical, death-worship that The Hand do and follow the same sort of millenarian-apocalypse vision, rather than engaging in the rather childish, "I'm more gooder at being a ninja assassin than you are," self-promoting proclamations the KoA are inclined to make.

Very interesting topic, SeraphimKensai, and one that does tend to point toward a person's game perception and general style. Ain't any such thing as right or wrong on this one, but it sure is nice when the mission-approach is advertised well and clear before anyone deigns to sign up. For myself - not a fan. Part of the reason I want to play the game is, as Yomo Kimata described, to take a moment to smell those roses; when on the Ernesto Hess TF (one of the most wonderfully artistic points in the game, IMHACWO), I want to take a couple of moments to glory in the drama of scrapping your archetypical James Bond-megalomaniac in a livid volcanic interior, with a mega-size 'Mech looming over the proceedings. The original Devs took some serious time and effort in putting these settings together, and, when doing the virtual visit, I'd like to take a second to appreciate the depth of what I, and the rest of the team, are getting involved in. People interested in the speed runs - have at 'er. Again, just very appreciative as to when these arrangements are labeled as such upon being announced, and a clear, unambiguous choice can be made so that participants don't have a, "Well...meh," feeling when things reach their conclusion.