Vic Raiden

OK, maybe that wasn't the best example, but you get the point. I just wanted to say gaining actual, tangible in-game benefits from completing certain arcs could be neat.

Oh yeah, it's mostly the minions bit I'm concerned about. As said in one other thread, my redside main (Elec/Energy dominator) is an ex-archvillain who once got busted so hard he lost his entire evil empire. And I'm not even sure how long to keep that narrative - I really want him to gain an army to command around, but I don't know how to go about it beyond rerolling him as a mastermind or multiboxing with a henchman toon who is indeed a MM. And of course, there's the matter of this fridge logic of why an evil overlord would do everything in person when he could as well just sit back and watch from his lair as his minions do all the dirty work.

The good: the game world feels much less desolate with all these other players running about. Especially in Praetoria, where I used to feel completely alone. The bad: the game is also more prone to crashing when I zone in to a more populated area.

Sorry for not replying to this further, but... I assume power here means not just physical power, but also things like status, wealth etc., correct?

I've taken the time to browse the wiki, and found that there's a few villain arcs which do put enough emphasis on the player to make them feel actually in charge of the operation... except a good few of those then pull the rug from under you just before anything seriously status quo-shattering can happen, with the most the player gets in the end being a consolation prize of sorts. Not much of an incentive to play, if you ask me. However, were some of the achievements to provide some, I don't know, temporary powers... Take Bane Spider Ruben's arc, for example. You end it in possession of a mind control device, and only get to use it during a single multiple-choice-but-still-scripted speech. Why not make a temporary mass-Confuse power out of it? Or anything, really, so long as one can actually feel like they're gaining something from doing all that work. Another thing, a more far-fetched one, could be expanding the Rogue Isles archipelago. The official parchment map includes a couple landmasses to the south, why not make some use of them? That way, redside players could gain at least some more variety, with more places and contacts to find at a given level range.

As far as new map additions go, here's what I'd love: - Dollface's mansion from the end of the Dr. Graves arc - the final Shining Stars HQ from the end of Twinshot's arc - Neuron's lab, both the normal and ruined version - Reichsman's base with the big empowerment machine - the missing second Council giant robot base map - a version of the giant robot base 3 map without the giant robot - the Arachnos base from Aaron Thiery's arc - the Ministry of Technology from the very first non-tutorial Praetorian mission - at least some of the lava-filled Circle of Thorns lairs - a dose of generic mansion maps That's all I can think of at the moment.

I, for one, don't mind the general run-down oppressive style of the Rogue Isles. It kinda suits the place's history as a colonial outlaw haven which eventually became the seat of power for the world's premier nebulous evil organization... that said, Cap au Diable and St. Martial could both use some redesigning because they simply don't feel that much like what they're supposed to be. I do also mind just how few zones there are, with few contacts to do missions for. Could make for a pretty repetitive experience if you roll multiple villains. Furthermore, like a lot of people in this thread, I too am frustrated by how the game always treats the player as a lackey for hire who doesn't have a personality beyond what the contacts need of them, as well as how little actual villainy you get to do - it's all either petty and small in scope, or fighting the more established villain factions like a hero except with edgy "evil" reasons slapped on it. There's just so few moments where I could really feel like I'm my own villain running my own evil plans... Regarding what could be done to increase the appeal, I'd just second the suggestions of adding more non-cooperative SFs and - in a much longer term - setting up longer story arcs where a player could actually realize their own evil agenda, even if to a limited extent.

I don't think the Freedom Corps Jet Pack is supposed to clip that much into the body of a Huge character, and yet it does. Always.

Double feature this time. 1. Server: Everlasting Zone/Mission: Faultline Position: [890.5 138.0 2301.8] A piece of the southern war wall just a little west of the dam is misaligned, showing the area behind it. 2. Server: Everlasting Zone/Mission: "Stop Arbiter Sands and get the PCM" from Agent G Position: Boss chamber All three of the docked submarines are clipping into the dock floor, which I doubt is supposed to be the case.

Awesome! I've always wanted to see a Clockwork Prince in higher definition than what we see in-game. Any chance of the model files being publicly released? Or maybe also printing some add-ons to make a Paladin or Babbage?

Major Liberty is back after minor reworks.

Weird how they're still mentioned in help pop-ups when they don't exist anymore.

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.