Vic Raiden

What were generic enhancements like, actually? I think I joined long after they got removed.

(Had to make a double post because of file size limits)

Next in the series, four-corner views of Warburg!

Driven by a sudden spark of inspiration, I ended up cooking this. Working name: Major Liberty.

Great, now I got a craving for a direct video game adaptation of the Champions system (that isn't Champions Online)...

I have dedicated redside and goldside toons, and it feels pretty upsetting that I can hardly see any other player in either place unless I specifically hit up a friend I already know. Eh, would be fun to actually do some team play, especially in Praetoria, and to generally have more things to do there. More zones, more events, maybe even a dedicated TF or two.

Yeah, it's weird how females default to /e sitchair3 for most sitting emotes. And while we're suggesting things, I'd also like to see the hitboxes reworked so that our characters could sit *in* armchairs instead of hovering above them.

Here come a couple more: Analogously to the Mot/Tartarus situation I described before, Tielekku and Zeus are just two of many manifestations of the CoH-verse's celestial embodiment of Good. The female Merit Vendor who stands next to Arbiter Unger in Port Oakes is his wife. 5th Column utilize a lot of tanks, trucks, planes and other military vehicles which take after WW2-era German machines refitted with contemporary technology. Their roster even includes at least one large airship fitted with an aircraft carrier landing stripe and a large battleship's worth of weapons. Unlike her Primal counterpart, Praetorian Vanessa DeVore never succumbed to possession by the porcelain mask she wears. Praetorian police and military forces make extensive use of cloning to bloat their ranks, and a number of Resistance members are runaway defective clones. Praetoria's civilian population was largely evacuated by the time of the Magisterium Trial, meaning there were hardly any casualties after Tyrant's nuclear strike. The souls he later absorbs instead belong to everyone who ever died directly because of his regime. Mercy City is only populated by Arachnos members, Destined Ones and the wealthiest denizens of the island, who live in conditions far better than the people of Darwin's Landing, which is most of everyone else. There's been several attempts by desperate souls to sneak into Mercy without joining Arachnos, to varying degrees of success.

I do roleplay in CoH quite a lot. Both with friends and with the SG I'm a member of, and sometimes even just by responding to NPC chatter. If there's one thing I think would make the roleplaying experience better, it's the ability to make mock-attacks which play the given attack's animation and effects without actually harming or homing in on anyone. Also, a lot more temporary powers for the sake of greater variety in things one could do - like whips or singular pistols, for example.

Whenever McSpazz makes a post like this, it's clearly a good day. More seriously: while using PvP for roleplay combat may be the most dynamic approach, it does kinda suck how it limits the participants to only the handful abilities they have mechanics-wise, coupled with the obvious issue of differences between the characters' in-game power levels and their lore-wise power levels. Freeform roleplay is what I'm most used to, but while it works fine as pure text, it also feels a bit impactless when coupled with the MMO. Can't even illustrate what you're doing because all players are invalid targets outside of PvP.

Right, I haven't taken that into account. Really, it's a little frustrating that so many NPC costume pieces aren't designed to be compatible with the character creator.

On a more serious note, I hope this update also brings new costume parts. In particular, I desire the missing Circle of Thorns boss hoods and belts, more Resistance uniform pieces, or just about anything from the Fifth Column and Council.

Spooky... Meanwhile I bring some more headcanons, possibly more joke than anything else: Nemesis used to mentor Lord Recluse back in the latter's early days, and was in fact responsible for staging his takeover of Arachnos... which backfired horribly as Recluse decided he's not going to remain loyal to some old prick now that he's the leader of one of the most powerful crime syndicates in the world. Nemesis also used to work closely with the Nazi regime back during WW2, and co-operated with Nocturne on building up the Fifth Column. The schism that led to the Council's formation wasn't part of his plan, though. Hellions and Skulls are either actively fanboying the Circle of Thorns and the Banished Pantheon respectively, or are outright their auxiliary groups meant to sway young, bored people with nothing to lose to their cause. There exist several more cities like Praetoria, some of which are loyal to Emperor Cole's global regime while others aren't, not that Cole and his Praetors care. Either way, they're few and far between in the world overrun with Devouring Earth, in various states of habitability.

Okay, that sounds understandable to me. What have you been able to sort out so far, if I may ask?

Okay, screw the law of no double-posting, just this once. I'm honestly surprised there was so little interest shown by the server's people. But if it's of any help, I'd like to volunteer for the workshop idea.

I have a couple too. Arachnos actively keeps the lives of the Rogue Isles' denizens as miserable as possible. Ever-present poverty makes people desperate to do anything to better their situation, especially enlisting in the Arachnos army, while rampant crime paired with an incompetent if not outright corrupt police force makes sure the potential conscripts not only possess at least basic skill in using weapons, but also have a good understanding of the "survival of the fittest" mindset. Despite that, Lord Recluse maintains free public schools, because what better place is there to teach kids loyalty to Arachnos' cause? While a good deal of Arachnos soldiers, particularly older ones, were drafted from the common Etoile folk, the organization also produces clone troopers to beef up the ranks while ensuring the resulting Wolf Spiders all exhibit optimal physical traits. The technology was likely either bought or stolen from Crey Industries. On a similar token, the vast majority of Nemesis' soldiers are automatons. The original Lord Nemesis may or may not be long dead by now, having left behind a whole line of mechanical decoys who all believe they're the original. As such, it's not uncommon for Fake Nemeses to fight one another over that. Of course, this being Nemesis, he deliberately keeps it confusing. The in-universe justification for the Live CoH's abrupt sunset is that the Battalion did indeed invade, and proved to be so devastating that there was no way to save the world from them short of erasing the entire war from history - which is exactly what happened. Mot and Tartarus are just two of many names of a cosmic (multiversal?) entity which is the source or embodoment of all Evil in existence. It was able to taint the Well of the Furies, allowing Lord Recluse to become who he is now: the Champion of Evil, whose position as Primal Earth's chief villain is consistently protected by the entity. Continuing with the pattern of alternate Statesmen being evil, Warlord Hro'Dtohz is his Rikti Dimension counterpart. The Ms. Liberty Task Force still takes place in Statesman's times, but the combination of Tyrant's invasion and Rularuu's awakening resulted in it kind of "bleeding" into its future, or the current in-game present. Chris Jenkins the lawyer and Jenkins the Arachnos operative are brothers.

What's with that smokey white aura around all the enemies in these screenshots? More Incarnate stuff?

Server: Everlasting Zone/Mission: 5th_Column_Flashback_60_Layout_10 Position: [201.8 4.0 620.4] Description: Strange structural piece floating in the door frame.

Truth be told, a lot of the bodysuits deserve to be expanded into full costumes. Mainly thinking about the Angelic, Excess and Heart ones here, particularly their Plus variants.

No, but now that you brought it up, it seems like a good idea. Gotta expand the image galleries.

Continuing with the four-corner full views, here's the PvP island of Bloody Bay.

One big thing I'd look forward to is another look at the issue of roleplaying with MMO limitations in mind, particularly the static status quo and the nature of quests. For instance, if one refers to the events of a mission, how should they go about it considering the mission in question was done by hundreds if not thousands of other players? Related to that, integrating character backstory with CoH's setting in a way that doesn't reek of godmodding on closer examination, or how to be a powerful supervillain if the world doesn't reflect that. EDIT: Got a third potential topic: using the Mission Architect to enhance roleplay.

My eldest two toons, a villainous Electric/Energy Dominator and a heroic Fire/Fire Sentinel, have taken up Sorcery and Flight, respectively. I just gotta say I love flying around and taking advantage of how vertical some places can be. But, I have a slight problem with the teleport sub-power that comes with Mystic Flight: its range feels abysmal to me, making that power situational at best. It's good for getting out of melee range, but not so much for travelling.

I sincerely like the idea of what a single-player CoH could possibly be like, and having the player's influence on the world actually be visible is one major point. But that's a topic for another thread.

True, but since the 5th Column has later been brought back, we now have two enemy organizations which are nigh-identical save for the logo, unit names and soldier uniforms. Sure, the Council eventually got these Nictus-infused Galaxy troops, but that does little to help the feeling that one of these two factions is kinda redundant. Either way, I appreciate how much variety in enemy types they have - almost on par with Arachnos, just what a big powerful force of evil should be.