Black Talon

Investing time, care and energy in building a character's bio is, I think, one of the hallmarks that determines this as an RPG and not just a first-person shooter game. Although the 1,023 character limit can restrict things a bit, it also enforces brevity and a get-to-the-point spirit. Every alt I've ever made has a defined story behind them; this allows me to actually start fricking caring about how they interact with their world, and, hopefully, empathizing with other players who have made their own alts just as much a personal item of concern. Black Talon - prime alt - has, from his own background, a particular viewpoint on different villain groups; e.g., as an absolute existentialist, he regards the Tsoo as pseudo-mystical wannabes who replace skill with ritual and can't win a scrap without overwhelming their opponents with sheer numbers. Does this change a damn thing about how the game works for him or any other alt? Not at all - but it means I can use that bio to write an internal story for him before, during and after the missions and keep it interesting, which is part of what keeps me coming back. Although the scope of CoH, at first creation in '04, disallowed the input of personal involvement with particular in-game groups and/or individuals - it could be argued this changed somewhat with the mission architect - I still find that the range of customization in both character appearance and, now, the expression of various powers, gives this game a particular it's-part-of-me aspect that I've found absent from every other MMPOG (which, admittedly, ain't many) I've ever had experience with.

Agreed absolutely. Further comments made by this source - if any - will stick entirely the OP's core topic.

My question: Why can't it be PURPLE? That way we get all the good stuff and don't have to worry about evil - they're always evil, because that's what they have to be - AIs taking control of the world and making us see black cats cross our paths twice. Although, I will say, the side benefit of getting to have Carrie-Anne Moss as our Trick Shot-style permanent sidekick certainly doesn't hurt matters. Actually, having that kind of makes it a case of, "Evil AIs controlling the world and the direction of our lives forever? Meh - could be worse." Lead the way to Zion, oh seductive black-haired, blue-eyed babe...

The Enhancement Diversification - and there's a study in Orwellian language use for you - nerfing had, at best - in my opinion - mixed results. Yeah, it did end up forcing some powers from a total-offense/defense stance into making things a bit less of a steamroller over the bad guys, but at the same time there were and are a number of powers where anything but offense/defense builds ends up becoming a, "Huh. Got all these enhancement slots in the respec that I can't use anymore - guess I'll throw them into powers that don't really need Endurance Reduction or Range enhances and do it anyway." The only power I'd recommend still putting the full six enhancement-stacking on is Hasten - once you get to the SO Recharge enhances, you won't have perma-Hasten, but it's pretty damn close. Back In The Day, I can't count how many times I blessed being able to run Hasten pretty much continually - it rendered any number of extremely long-term Recharge powers, and which already had the full three Recharge enhances stacked into them, into something that could actually be used more than once per mission. Obviously this sort of thing is going to vary considerably from archetype to archetype, and individual build to individual build, but my final word on it: Yeah, I agree fully with the majority opinion here. The vast majority of powers, for any notable game effect, max out at three enhances. I keep wondering if the Homecoming team will take it upon themselves to either reduce or eliminate ED's effects; so far there's no indications of such, but every day, pretty much, brings new surprises from this administration.

Greycat, my thanks. Whatever the behind-the-curtains in-story story of the 5th Column/Council split, it's really nothing more than, at best, a matter of passing interest for me. My friends and relatives and I - Back In The Day - would discuss how the Devs' possible rationale for switching things around was political correctness; I'd argue that, although, yes, the 5th Column does use a number of Germanic titles and military references, this is nothing more than a hold-over from their wanna-be-improved-Nazis image; the group was, is, and always will be indentifiably American, and clearly white-supremacist on top of that. I don't recall seeing a single African American, Asian American, Indigenous or any other non-Western Caucasian group represented in their membership in the eight-plus years I was playing the game. Again, I felt the 5th Column were pretty much a perfect in-game villain group; absolutely despicable, laughable in their over-the-top Nazi-inspired supremacist tactics, and so up-front in their approach that they couldn't help but be self-declared bad guys. Your point about "the 5th going underground and waiting to emerge again", strikes me as a bit out of character for them - there's no way they could hold themselves back from declaring publicly, "We shall conquer all!" unless they'd been reduced to a point where toilet paper spitballs shot out of a straw was about the best weaponry they could put their hands on. Something the Devs at the time grabbed on to as an, "Eh, good enough," explanation as to how things turned out the way they did, I would suppose. In any event, I realize that this is essentially a discussion in a vacuum; there's absolutely nothing I can do, as a player, to influence in-game events aside from passing an argument's thesis on to the Homecoming team. Otherwise, I'm just darned happy being able to put My Boys up against fictional individuals that we're never going to be sitting down with, a table between us, and discuss how we might reach a negotiated truce. The 5th Column has their make-believe hearts set on the conviction that sheer strength and conflict determines who rules the world - fine, I'll be more than happy to be one of those that proves that they're never getting anything worse than a nosebleed from us as we slam their butts into a prison cell. Don't bend over for the soap, guys...

I'd be tempted to state Hover, just because, it's, well, you know, Hover, but I'll leave my reasoning for that for some other time. Meanwhile, I'm going to have to give my double-thumbs up to: Lighting Storm! This power hits the absolute maximum in terms of drama - and it's not just an instantaneous effect, it's a marathon - and when it's activated, you jack the volume up and it sounds like the WORLD is coming to an end. Great time for the Storm Summoning Defender to Hover (see? I told you it's got its pluses) with arms upraised and summon the Wrath of God (Thunderclap, Freezing Rain, whatall) on those who have turned their faces from the path of social responsibility and do the "Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah, hey-hey-hey, goodbye," to the villains as they're disintegrated by three single-origin damage bonus enhancement lightning strikes, and the Storm Summoner's buddies clean up the mess (the villains are begging to die painlessly by the end). Can't wait till my boy hits 32 and can pull this one up...sure, he won't be able to use it any major effect for a while, but it's still nice to put on a show with.

Much appreciated, self-teaching lover of learning...uh, Autodidactic Philomath, sorry (the spell-check here doesn't even recognize those words - oh, the limits of digital lexicons...). I get the point about, "Bring the fricking 5th Column back, screwheads!" completely; I believe I voiced an opinion about it or two on the old CoH public forums Back In The Day. Irrespective of the internal story behind the Council/5th Column conflict, from my standpoint, it's pretty much a big "yeah, whatever"; I'm just happy to have a bunch of total sociopathic jerks who aren't afraid to make clear advertisement of their ridiculous viewpoints and, just as delightful, are perfectly happy to have their butts kicked in a person-to-person (although the Vampyrs hardly qualify as such) stand-off to prove how tough they are. Very hopefully get a chance to go back into one of those (as the first comics series confirmed) pre-fabricated bases and scrap ever-increasing levels of imitation supermen, leading up to a chance to show these wanna-be overlords that they can't so much as do the on-the-soapbox thing on the street corner without being hounded out of town on a rail. Thank you again for the information.

Glacier Peak, thank you for the link; it certainly provides some indications as to when this started to occur - the question remaining, in my opinion, anyway, is why? The 5th Column had a clear and absolutely inhuman set of goals that have been exemplified by any number of human war-criminals, individual and cultural alike, over the centuries; the Nazis just happen to be the most modern, successful (at the cost of how many human lives, we may never have an accurate count), and relentlessly self-promoting. I took a course on the origins, philosophy (if you want to call it such), and history of the Nazis in my last year at university, and one thing that struck me was how the upper echelons of the Third Reich was overpopulated with failed artists. I felt that this aspect carried through to the 5th Column as well; the relentless branding of their image on stone, paper, people...it was an ever-present advertising assault, along with whatever militaristic moves they took, and this again was something the real-life Nazis pushed for endlessly. The reason I'm going into this is because the "Council" seemed, to me, to be simply a generic bad-guy group with no real set of identifying concepts, aside from "We're going to take over the world. Why? 'Cuz." If Homecoming has indeed brought back this association of monstrous pseudo-beliefs, I'll be as happy as anyone else to throw the gloves aside and say, "Time to clean house and knock down a few columns." Although some insight into not just when it happened but why would be kind of nice as well.

I did a search to see if someone had introduced this topic at some point; there didn't seem to be any relevant posts on the subject. On the afternoon of Friday, July 2, I had Black Talon zipping around Steel Canyon, looking for appropriate-level Clockwork to take out in order to fulfill a "Go. Hunt. Kill Clockwork," mission. And I happened across some guys standing on the street in a group of about three/four, looking rather Nazi-ish. I stopped for a moment - Black Talon has Super Speed, so he can get within reasonable viewing distance without attracting attention - anticipating that these guys were going to be the Council or somesuch, and I saw the name below the NPC rank titles: 5th Column. I blinked a couple times, trying to make sure my eyes weren't tricking me, but it was truth. Now, I didn't have my guy attempt to take them down - a) too great a level-gap on their side, and b) too many. But I was considering, afterward, how current management may have taken matters into their own hands and decided to resurrect a group that, I felt, exemplified some of the most heinous and reprehensible conduct and attitudes in recorded human history. In other words, damn good villains for anyone to take the fist to. Has anyone else noticed this occurring? Has the 5th Column - and I know that Manticore's origin is specifically tied to them; I was kind of surprised that it hadn't been ret-conned, and a couple of my alts back in the day were the result of this group's depravity as well, which I was thinking might not have relevance anymore - been put back into action as a major villain group that we can scrap on the streets, in missions and in Task-Forces (where we'll get to take on their AVs) as well? If so, what instigated these changes? Whoever did so gets major thumbs-up and calls of approval from me, but the question remains as to why, and over what time period, these alterations were made. No matter what, good to see genuine sons-of-bitches back in action. Have at you.

agentx5, thank you for being incredibly straight-forward and clear on these points; I could not agree more. Frankly, I can't provide any personal evidence or examples to back up your points regarding the extremely hostile nature inherent to other MMPOGs - I can only state that, having heard of that sort of thing being the norm for person-to-person (or, more likely, group-to-person) conduct in a whole slew of other games, this is one reason why CoX is the only MMPOG I've ever played, and probably the only one I ever will. All condolences on your Champions Online experience, although, again, I've heard of so many of these games being turned into micro-transaction fill-the-bank-vault experiences. Wonderful to learn about your comradeship with the population here - and as stated previously, I honestly feel that it's part of the nature of the game itself that inspires people to conduct themselves this way - and hoping to get the chance to run into you on Torchbearer someday. All best.

DoctorDitko, you're not kidding. Having watched the various "legacy" and "successor" projects go through their turns over the last near-eight years, I was really left unsurprised that things were moving at incrementally slower and slower paces for pretty much all involved. The reason, I believe, is not lack of interest or care in what they're doing; it's because everything is on a volunteer basis, and as a consequence people are, as things go on, going to get more and more of their time demanded by work, family, outside previous commitments, unforeseen emergencies, whatall. People volunteering to pick up for someone who had to leave are going to have to catch up with what was already done, deal with possible (in fact likely) late situations on issues x, y and z, and negotiate with the fact that they're trying to fit in with a crew who had already established a dynamic and might not be happy about the New Arrival possibly making their own suggestions and/or demands. Those who successfully resurrected this game already have the infrastructure in place to get things started up and, as last Saturday proved so aptly, have got support coming out the yin-yang to keep matters going. I clapped and did the "Yay!" thing when I finally got the launcher activated and My Boy put in front of Officer Flint, ready to do that tutorial. The original Devs totally outdid themselves with character creation, establishing a totally immersive world and making it something we actually care about. All congratulations and praise on to the current operators, administrators and moderators, who've done everything to allow me, and others, to continue to go "Yay!" and give the thumbs-up when we decide to scrap Lord Recluse (again). And do the, "I - I just got something in my eye..." bit when hearing that Atlas Park music for the nth time...because it was something we had every reason and expectation to believe we were never going to hear in-game again.

I can only back up what countless other people have already stated, and better. My boys have run into some serious difficulties in the early stages of their careers, and the willingness of random population to say, "Sure, I'll lend a hand with that," has given me no end of joy and respect for the human condition. Perhaps it's part of the game itself that provides inspiration for people to conduct themselves as the heroes they've taken the identity of; where the accumulation of xp and/or enhancements, influence, salvage or recipes is simply a sideline to getting to be, if in virtual form only and for a little while, the person they've always wanted to be. Makes me think of the end of Kick-Ass 2, where, despite Justice Forever having been disbanded, that doesn't stop any of the members from continuing their lives as heroes. And every act of charity/good will I witness in this game provides that much more inspiration to return it in Paragon City's world - which I've been able to do, every once in a while.

This is the kind of stuff I find enormously engaging to read, yet at the same time find somewhat frustrating - I keep thinking, Shouldn't we, as players and factors in Paragon City's evolution - and the elements therein - have a chance to influence the outcome with such in-process or impending events? I understand that, as an MMPOG, what applies for one character/group cannot apply for all, obviously, but still, I'd like to have the opportunity for a story-arc (Task-Force or the like) to be established that permits some kind of "We did it!" outcome, not terribly different from the excellent Striga Isle Task-Force. Perhaps something like that is already in the works (Piecemeal's rather cryptic posts seem to hint at such), and this once again indicates the enormous love the community has for this game, and the world it has engendered, and makes it worth every penny we put forward on a monthly basis to keep things running. Hoping to see more dispatches soon.

Heh. Makes me think of Hotshots: Part Deux, and coming across the waist-high picket-fence gate: "Damn! It's locked from the inside!" Such a barrier would require your basic Thing/Hulk-type character to do nothing but the extensive detour in the MMPOG situation...

This subject - and much appreciated on the topic introduction - is a signature point that differentiates human intuition/imagination from algorithms. There have been several situations, over the past forty years, in the games I've GMed, and played in, where a specific core-book established rule applying to a particular circumstance simply didn't exist. So we made one up, usually based on previously-established mechanics, and moved on. Such is not possible in the online games (for now and presumably the foreseeable future), and, again - as demonstrated with characters of various sizes being able/unable to pass through doorways - this is where the pen-and-paper games win out on a collaborative basis. CoH's ragdoll physics are, in many respects, total aberrations from both what we laughingly refer to as reality, and many game-established mechanics. My reply to such: So what? As long as the mechanics in place can lead to the creation of what I would call A Good Fricking Story, nothing else matters. Plus, it's consistent across the board, for characters and NPCs alike. One of my prime examples for this is, Back In The Day, one of my senior alts ended up doing an arc where Countess Crey had him framed for a capital crime, and between missions, he was attacked by various villain groups (fill-ins for authorized law enforcement), which totally strained the logic of the story and world. There was no way I could see this happening, aside from the police hiring said villain groups on as short-term mercenaries, which would have only happened (again, logically) in a full-out Rikti-style invasion. A use of the in-place algorithms to side-step other issues? Yes. Did it ultimately ruin the story? No. I wrote a note to the CoH staff afterward, congratulating them on what I felt was one of the most imaginative arcs I'd yet seen - and also providing a note that, if possible, replace the between-mission villain groups with actual police, which would have upped the intensity/realism (let's laugh at that concept a bit again) aspect. The point being: Did the story in question have limitations circumscribed by algorithms? Yes. Did those lead to illogical outcomes with some aspects of storytelling, at least with "real-life" factors? Yes. Did this impact on the final value of the story in question? No. Again, in my opinion, much of this issue - similar to my experience reading about/teaching philosophy and law - is based on internal contradictions. Are such contradictions accounted for, and, if possible, amended? This is where the pen-and-paper games are always going to hold the winning hand, in my opinion; there's every opportunity for enterprising individuals to make their own changes to the system (although these go only as far as being house-rules, true) that apply throughout their game-playing world.

3-Ring Binder, thank you for the note! I had actually been wondering about this; I was a pretty serious City of Zeroes fan back in the day, and have in fact been looking to see if there were any published collections of the work, hardcopy or digital. The series - at least as far as I've found in my admittedly limited search - has turned up pretty much nothing, This is another one of the pieces I'd love to see resurrected, and although the individual responsible for crafting such is not in communication with the Homecoming team - again, at least as far as I know - I wonder if some sort of reach-out could be made, indicating that there'd be some kind of measurable audience wanting to have a look at that work. Hoping, hoping, hoping that some kind of breakthrough can be made on the digital-to-real stuff.

Was hoping to avoid this, but very, very ticked off that I was unable to make a donation; the, in my case, predictable technical issues - PayPal not recognizing me, multiple e-mail addresses coming back as unacceptable, calling up PayPal's help number and their own representatives unable to make a connection with the pledge link. Very, very ticked off that a contribution could not be made, at least in this fashion, this month; however, I am going to try to streamline things so that, come the end of July, I will be able to throw something in (matching what I was going to do today) with a little extra to compensate for lack this month. Meanwhile...all I can do is pass my greatest thanks on to those who did make it through, and ongoing appreciations to the GMs and technical support who make sure the blasted game actually stays on the air. Will be playing for the next month with much humility, and extending help to all those who need it.

Thank you for the alert on that, Dazi; I was hoping to do my Thurston Howell III bit, walking in the room with the white suit jacket, black bow tie, martini in the right hand, cigar in the left and saying, "Lovey, take out my chequebook - no, the one where I can fit in two rows of zeros," but it looks like I might have some competition in that regard. However, I will still make my attempt and put the hand out for assisting the waking dream. Just a thought: Maybe have a sort of "numbered waiting list" so those who wanted to pledge but came in a bit too late will essentially be first in line next month. In any event, wonderful to know that Those In Charge essentially have to say, "Sorry, we're full," with regard to community supported items like this, rather than doing the begging-for-cash thing which I've seen happen with a couple of other projects (makes me think; there're more than a few guys panhandling for change in Kings Row. Might they have been disowned MMPOG administrators once...?). Every chance I'll see others here in line tomorrow, waiting to do our bit for the Crown. See everyone tomorrow.

Okay, this is probably coming under the "real stupid" category, but one thing I've been wondering, since the online game resumed roughly two and a half years ago, is the revival of CoH publications: this includes the comics, the RPG, and especially the novels. I made a point of getting both Web of Arachnos and The Freedom Phalanx years ago, under the presumption that they (and the Top Cow comics collection) were going to form what was pretty much the last word in stories attached to Paragon City. While the population here ain't World of Warcraft at its zenith in numbers (as WoW itself now ain't WoW at its zenith), I would imagine there are a number of people, self included, who would like to see these works released, if completed, and resumed, if left half-done. I for one would be most pleased to see a comics series - regular, limited or a bit of both - coming out again, would be very happy to see the pen-and-paper RPG released, and would be hunting down any new novels in the Indigo fantasy/science-fiction area. Is this sort of thing at all on the CoH administration's radar/production screen, or should we just count ourselves damned lucky that we've got what we have and do everything we can to sustain that? Sitting here, looking at the novel covers and twiddling thumbs...

All my serious thanks for this, Dazi, and I will be linking up and putting a few bucks in tomorrow. Just to make a (rather obvious) point, I really feel that it's in situations like this that you start to separate the girls and boys from the women and men; women and men in this case meaning individuals who are actually going to live up to what Mommy and Daddy taught us in terms of civic responsibility. As far as I'm concerned, that extends to ensuring that this type of arrangement ends up becoming a straight zero-sum game (and I mean that in the most positive sense), where the people responsible can look at the month's activity and say, "We came out with no capital gains, but also owing nothing - and that means we won." Such an arrangement is - again, for me - yet another exemplar of the modern sharing-economy at work. The ongoing watch-out problem with such an economy is that it's dependent entirely on the sustained good will of the participants. I cannot and will not have anything to do with anyone else's commitment in this matter, but I'm sure as hell going to make certain I can say, "I did my part." Anyway, apologies for getting on the soapbox with this, but it's fantastic to see people working together consistently (for a measurable reward, that's true) for the benefit of the community. Hope to see all on the board soon.

"How cool to be a newb again." That is too fricking true to be funny, Dazi. Coming back on here, aside from knowing to how, you know, move and jump and press keys and all that stuff, I had almost no idea how the game ran. I was going on sheer buried, let's-put-the-Delco-to-this-corpse-and-start-the-sparks-flying instinct on what worked and how, and nearly lost a couple of scraps before I remembered, Oh yeah, use the Inspirations! Along with making the pause-for-the-cause donations for the administrative team, I'm also thinking about trying to find a decent super-group, just to build up on interactions, rather than turning this into a plain old stand-alone PC game. Hope to read more from recent arrivals.

Felt this was the best place to comment without starting up a new thread. For what it's worth, I did learn of Homecoming considerably earlier than arseovrteakettl - back in April 2019 at first launch - but due to damned technical issues I was unable to get on to anything except the Icon server (where I could at least design/redesign alts) until yesterday. Now, at last, after NCSoft's completely inexplicable shutdown on November 30, 2012 - and I was there, in Atlas Park, with thousands of others, till the last moment - I get the chance to zoom around Paragon City, the single best MMPOG setting I have ever encountered, and start bringing 'The Boys' back to life. Again, like arseovrteakettl, I provide all my thanks to the individuals who took the time, resources, chutzpah and sheer love of Jack Emmert's vision to make this all real again. The next major personal goal to try to find out how to make donations - because, as stated, this may not be a for-profit enterprise, but that doesn't mean people have to lose money - and submit a pause for the cause, and join in with the massive and much-anticipated Pride festivities on June 26...and that's one of the major reasons I wanted to make sure I got on before that date. Again, all thanks to the crew who reassembled this dream, virtual as it may be, and looking forward to meeting up with some new friends and getting reacquainted with old ones. Great to be here. Now, to find a local ferry that goes to the Rogue Isles so I can give Lord Recluse what for. Can't be nearly as tough as they say he is...

Apologies for the delay; have been away for several days. I am reaching a point of complete despair when it comes to attempting to interact with this game in its current state: no matter what, no matter how closely directions have been followed, I simply cannot access the game in its current state. I am afraid that I will have to reach out to the game's current administration, technical professionals, the board population, anyone who can direct me to the proper individuals who will be able to clear up exactly what is being done wrong/what is going wrong. The city in question is Toronto, Ontario, Canada; if there is anyone in this location, or who knows of someone in this area, who can be contacted directly for person-to-person, point-to-point guidelines on how to make this work, I would be most appreciative. Apologies for the tone, but this has been the result of seemingly endless smashing of the head against a wall that refuses to break. Hope to hear from qualified individuals soon.

Coming into this considerably late, but I have absolutely no Internet or cable hookups that would have allowed me to see this back in March, and had to wait until the Blu-ray went up for retail purchase on May 27. First off, I'd have to give full disclosure and state that I saw Watchmen in the theatre twice, Man of Steel three times, Dawn of Justice four, so it's fair to say that I've got some predispositions for Zack Snyder as a director. As a comparison, I saw Joss Whedon's Justice League once, and got the Blu-ray mostly out of a desire to 'complete the set'...and I've never been able to watch it all the way through; can't even remember the last time I even tried. For myself, I think that Mr. Snyder turned Justice League up to eleven in terms of directing quality, dramatic cinematic impact and raw story, and it's a damned, damned shame that we likely won't be seeing him get back to the DCEU any time in the near future. The sole hope is that higher-ups at AT&T - and these individuals are the ones who mandated Snyder's completion of the unassembled cut, Warner Bros. wanted it burned to ash and the remains disposed of in a black hole - will see what kind of income and artistic kudos came out of this and extend the welcoming hand of return. I'd be perfectly happy to put Mr. Snyder put into a sort of overall production role for the DCEU, similar to the outright fantastic job Kevin Feige has done for the MCU, but I have a strong suspicion that Snyder wouldn't be too jazzed about that kind of position, and more to the point, he'd recognize that DC, superhero stories or not, simply has a different approach to its universe's storytelling than Marvel: where Marvel pursued a unified production vision from minute one, DC treats its characters, and their worlds, as unique entities, each with their own world that need not ever touch the others...and if they do, there's every chance it'll be strictly transactional and not have any impact that draws out past the immediate story in any significant way. And I'm okay with that - just as I'm okay with Marvel's coordinated universal vision. I only ask one thing of either, or any comics company, really: Tell us a good fricking story. Anything after that is just gravy. And as far as I'm concerned, Zack Snyder's Justice League tells us that oood story and just won't quit.

Hoping that this subject runs close enough to the thread title that it's not considered hijacking: When I click the CoH icon on the desktop, the game launches, and immediately puts me into character creation; there is no server selection available. I pick the character type/s from the list and then go load the costume I've saved previously. I'm asked whether I want to go to the Tutorial or Atlas Park. Regardless of which one I pick, the character is sent to the zone starting point, which is basically like Paragon Chat except that it's completely empty. Every character that can be clicked on for dialogue/missions/etc. gives off absolutely nothing. All doors that show a hand when the cursor is placed on them give an hourglass for a few seconds when clicked, then become a hand again. Absolutely no character-specific powers are available; only Flight (numeric 1) and the torch emote (numeric 2) seem to work. No emotes on the communication box at lower left will work; only an error message is given in the dialogue box. When in character creation, clicking "Back" takes me to the login screen; I can now put the username and password in. After doing so, clicking "Log In" then takes me to the Agreement page, where I click "Accept". When this is done, "Select a Server" comes up - however. there is only one, "Unnamed", with a single green pip at the right. Clicking on this results in a significant wait while the game music plays, and then "Can't connect to DBServer" appears. Clicking "OK" here results in the sign-in page again, and inputting the password simply repeats the cycle. While simply creating, or recreating, characters and running around the empty Tutorial zone and Atlas Park can be interesting, I would like to be able to meet up with other individuals on active servers and be able to make a contribution to keeping the game running at month's end. If there is any guidance that can be given on this issue, I would very much appreciate it. As a quick note, I am using an HP laptop with Windows 10 and 476 GB capacity. The protocol is Wi-Fi 5, with a network band of 5 GHz, and a link speed (receive/transmit) of 520/520 Mbps. I would hope that this would be more than sufficient to run the game in its current state; please let me know if I'm taking any incorrect steps or missing points in how to get to the active servers. All thanks.