Lazarillo

Hopefully it's sellable.

I was always the impression the statue of him is a 1:1 scale.

Even those those sets are in the code, HC avoids them because they don't want to be accused of ripping off the other communities that did them, for better or worse. It'll probably something kinda niche, and oddly specific, like "Symphonic" Control was.

I mean, there's still not a timetable, so I'd assume that if people ask you the answer is still "eventually, at some point".

Okay, I see what looks like VEAT power customization. Which means that I'm now stuck. Because if it is VEAT power customization, I'm never gonna play anything but a Fortunata again, probably. And if it's not VEAT power customization, then the fakeout is going to leave me so annoyed that nothing else in the patch could possibly salvage it.

...and there's a lot of "working as designed" function that still doesn't function the way it "should" in Ouro. For example, if you miss Praetorian content (which is extremely easy to do even without any XP gain buffs), and go back and use Ouroboros to complete it, the game's ongoing story flags won't pan out correctly. Given Praetorian content is generally more punishing than equivalent stuff in the Primal Level ranges, contacts at least needs an increase in its cap. ...but honestly, it'd be nice just to be able to finish stuff. My anal-retentiveness hates that I have a character who permanently is stuck with Diviner Maros' contact bar half-full because I outleveled his arc but not his standalone missions, and he stopped giving me stuff before we were done.

Have you considered that I'm actually living in the future, after it's rebuilt?

And let me do Tips there! I want to live in Galaxy City again!

Okay, but more importantly, why aren't you deliberately "failing" that mission to get double the payday for doing nothing but enjoying the show of Dr. Aeon getting taken down live on the air?

A bit before the original loss of the game, I started playing a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Particularly, I got into it because I didn't like how a lot of late-original-CoH wrote its story arcs, and SWTOR was more to my liking on the writing front. Somewhat ironically, by the time CoH resurfaced, SWTOR had started doing the same things in terms of storytelling that CoH had done before its original shutdown, and so these days I tend to bounce more between the two. Also, though not an MMO, but possibly from leaning into Bioware due to SWTOR, I got on a real Dragon Age kick for a while, too, to sort of satisfy my love of creating new characters. That's another I've somewhat fallen out of love with though (or at least, with the third, and likely any hypothetical future games in the series).

...because he's the only one?

So here's one that I didn't know, kinda turned out for the best, but damn, if I'd known the sheer ripple effect it was going to create... Anyway, the item itself is under spoiler text, but there's a whole story to it. For full effect, maybe don't read the spoiler of what it was until after the rest of the post? Started the game in...mid 2005, I think it was (I do remember it was, just by coincidence, like, the day after i5 first launched, and man were people pissed...I digress, but the date is important). Created a really basic character, Fire/Ice Tank, and named him "Paradox". Couldn't believe that it was an available name, but I wasn't about to complain. I log in, play the tutorial, wow, this is amazing! Only I get near the end of the tutorial, and realize I got the name 'cause I misspelled. He's "Paraodx". D'oh! No problem, delete, come up with a new name, try again (I forget what I picked at the time, though I do have the character remade on Homecoming with a name I'm sure isn't what I used then). Over the next few days, made a few other characters, to try all the other ATs, including a Sonic Blaster named "Upset Vibration" (a rock-n-roll-er parody), a Dark Scrapper named "Dark History" (a deliberately silly edgy character who became my first 50), an Illusion Controller, "Lazarillo", (a carry-over from a TTRPG I made for a game with some friends at the time), and a Rad/Rad Defender whose name I don't recall. I'm going around, and someone explains global channels to me, and I join Protector Watch. Oh, but the name it lists for me is that first character I made, with the misspelled name. I don't want to be "Paraodx", so I figure, hey, I'm on my controller, I'll use that in chat so people will know which character I'm on. Now go back and read the spoiler if you didn't already. 18 years later, and my accidentally locking myself to the name of that one character in-game, I start using it on the official CoH forums, and then in other places, and then others. And now, I'm like, "Lazarillo" (or something very close) almost everywhere as an online handle. All because I wanted to chat with the alt I was using at the time. If only I'd known when I'd started, I was gonna have to commit to that changed name.

Why play Mind Control, when I can play a Fortunata? (Okay, besides the fact that I can't color my Fortunata powers.)

I mean, really, we're talking about a racist old bastard who's been a villain longer than any reasonable person's lifespan, who basically impossible to truly kill because his true mind just surfs to a backup body any time the one he's using is defeated, and who tends to run a bunch of simultaneous but highly indirect plans, primarily through some sort of complexity addiction, and is primarily motivated by the desire to install his own personal empire over all the world. Wait, is that Nemesis, or maybe someone from Dragon Age after all...!?

You can trade Empyrean/Astral Merits, but once they're proper salvage, there's no way to get them to another character anymore.

A post about the "seven-dees" and none of them are "Disco"? I am another d: disappointed.

Honestly, the biggest weakness of Widows is that I can't color my Fortunatas' powers. But on the flip side, if I could color their powers, I'm not sure I'd even bother playing anything else.

Right, but now compare that to the XP you'll get from Council or Sky Raiders at the same level. The rezzed Freaks give the full amount of XP that they normally would but Freaks as a faction give less XP than other factions. However, it's supposed to balance out, because while Freaks give only 80% standard XP, they have a 1/5 chance to rez, and thus give "double". This was changed back during the game's original lifetime.

It is not haiku. Haiku need kigo as well Summer sunflowers

You get their full XP on the second defeat as well, but as an "exchange", Freakshow of basically all types are only worth 80% the normal XP relative to other mobs of their same level.

It's probably worth noting though that if you run away before the damage is dealt, you don't get caught by the rez debuff either. So if one's playing on melee, you can do a jousting-type maneuver where you queue up an attack and run/jump past them. I frequently do this myself, and it's a pretty helpful approach. That said occasionally when on a team someone else finishes one of first, and thus my joust ends up mis-timed and thus it probably looks like I'm running away after it's too late...

Here's the thing: it's so easy to overlevel in Praetoria that before fixing the teaming "issues" they need to make it so that teaming doesn't essentially require you to screw yourself over on plaything through it in the first place.

Is this something to do with the s00per-s33krit beta server for the elites? 'cause it's worth keeping in mind, Bruiser's handclap has been better than SS got since the before-days anyway.

In the 5-9 range, Mr. Bocor's arc, and standalone missions in general, which, while nothing special in terms of story, are a sort of nice "let's be classy, but still be unapologetically evil" atmosphere that works for a low-leveled villain. A few levels beyond that in the 15-19 range, you have The Aeon Conspiracy, and Echo Down the Aeons from Marshal Brass, and Oh, Wretched Man from Seer Marino, which are all really good lore-building/foreshadowing-type arcs. In the 20-30 range, Dean MacArthur is just one of the flat-out best contacts in the game on either side, and is not to be missed. The contact who follows off from him, Leonard, should also be done (as you mostly continue to work with Dean during Leonard's arc, too). Also in the 20-30 is Vincent Ross, who has a pretty good arc for villains who seek UNLIMITEDDDDDDDD POWAAAAAHHH. I find his final mission to be a sort of "lesson" on how absolute power is also absolutely boring, but some people really dig the finale. 25-29, specifically has Diviner Maros who has a cool arc, remarkably snappy dialogue for a 25,000-year-old mage, and his standalone missions are all sorts of cool Butterfly Effect-type preludes to several hero arcs, so if you did a lot of story there, you'll probably enjoy him (but be warned, his standalones aren't Ouroboros, so you may want to turn XP off for a while with him). Note that if you want to do Vincent Ross' arc, too, do Maros *first*, as if you finished Maros' main arc, he'll get involved in the plot of Ross' arc as well. Also if you have the first Infamy badge in time, Doc Buzzsaw is in the 25-29 range, and her mission dialogue is remarkably fun and and hilarious. Her later arc I can take or leave, but the original ones she had were great. Finally, same range (the 20s have so much good stuff for redside!) if you're playing a Rogue, specifically, Bobby Curtin's arc is a Homecoming original, and my personal favorite of all the ones they've done. It's a ton of fun. Level 30-34 range is the Slot Machine. Like Doc Buzzsaw, it requires a badge, though. It's the one you get on HC for defeating 200 Family Minions/LTs, which you also need for an Accolade, so worth picking up regardless. Its second arc is not very villainous, let's just say, but it's just got some darned good writing. You probably want to avoid Vivacious Verandi, as her arc involves you getting bossed around and just sort of taking it, and that bugs a lot of people playing villains. Level 35-39, I'm a fan of Basse Croupier. He's a pretty cool cat, as they say. You also should start your Patron arcs. You can only get the first one before level 40, but they're all pretty generally well-written. Level 40-44, you can get your second Patron arc. The most "notable" contact in this range is also the most divisive: Westin Phipps, the absolute most colossal scumbag, make-you-feel-sick, "shouldn't I have some standards?" kind of evil there is. In some ways, I feel like he's worth experiencing just so you can understand why so many players hate his arcs, but...just know you've gotta have some stomach for them (the only bit of redemption to be found is that you can betray him at the very, very end by allowing a mission to fail...in a lot of ways it feels really cathartic to let that failure happen but you have to do a lot of really bad crap to get to that in the first place). For 45-50, there's two more Patron arcs, and beyond that, Television, which is offbeat and fun, and Vernon Von Grun, who's similarly offbeat, and fun, and full of mad science, and has the best single-mission NPC ally ever, Becky the Tarantula Mistress. Also Viridian, though the hoops you have to jump through to unlock him are insane, his arc is honestly kinda worth it.

It's not a story arc, but rather, a one-off mission, which made it very easy to miss. IIRC, Homecoming added a badge for it as an excuse to get the one-off into Ouroboros. Per the wiki: In Ouroboros, this is listed under Champion (Level 25-29) as "Lost Motivation". It grants the "Pecking Order" badge.