temnix

1) A Spear power set. 2) A proper set for the Whip, with customizable appearance: whip, lash, barbed wire, chain, rope, poi, morningstar... It could focus on circle attacks, tripping enemies up, sending them spinning and jerking them close. I have made a Mastermind with Demon Summoning who won't take any demons, just pick the powers for the whip. But it would be good to have an entire set. 3) Several voice sets to choose from for both sexes. They only require a few sounds each: grunts for jumping, for collapsing, for kata, not many more. This should be a sufficient variety: Child/Thin, Young Male A, Young Male B, Gruff, Raspy/Old, Supernatural Whoosh, Supernatural Undead, Beast, Automaton, Robot and Mute. Because when Mak Men of the Fifth Column fall with a gasp, that's silly.

Your reasons for editing SO suffice, bro, that you can edit without giving any! Try it! About lyrics: sometimes you hear them correctly, but lyrics found somewhere on the Internet give a wrong version. I used to be perplexed by this, because I had assumed that the lyrics are provided by the music companies or the artists, but actually what you get on those lyrics sites is just what someone's ears have caught. In Gorillaz' famous "Clint Eastwood" I was sure I had the first line right, "I'm happy," the "am" drawn out to suit the meter, but online lyrics tried to make me think it was "I ain't happy." I was adamant, because that would not have made any sense. When I realized how dubious those websites are, that gave me a little ground for pride.

From 1892 to 1966 an annual dress ball was held for the students of L'Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the famous arts school of France. Admission was restricted to students in the four ateliers of the school: painters, sculptors and others, and the managers were from the school itself, as gay (which means merry) and ribald as the students themselves, but also strict in their standards. Gatherings of characters in City of Heroes sometimes remind me of that event, also carnival-esque, except for its officially prohibited but really common nudity from both sexes. After the first few years, every ball was dedicated to some historical theme. There were tableaux vivants, dancing, champagne, beauty contests and general revelry. The women who attended, artist models a lot of them, painted their bodies underneath costumes, and the costumes would eventually come off to everyone's delight. The men were often not far behind. The ball lasted through the night and poured out in a winding procession across Montmartre. Towards the morning, somewhere by Louvre, they revelers would disperse. Here we have a Roman senator with a purple strip on the toga, a Japanese woman, a knight kissing on horseback, a Gavroche of a boy under a hoplite's shield, someone who looks to be from the secret police of Venice flirting with an Indian, maybe, - and a contemporary policeman watching from the curb, And below is a bill from one of those events - dedicated to Ancient Egypt, I guess. The French says something like: "Beauty, come with us to marry the pharaoh. Don't be afraid to ride to Abydos in a scant Thebian costume! The Committee." (Notice the hairy calf of the pharaoh.) Wikipedia quotes an instruction from the organizers: "Bal Des Quat-z' Arts, Moulin Rouge, 21 April 1899. Doors open at 10 P. M. and close at midnight. The card of admission is absolutely personal, to be taken by the committee before the opening of the ball. The committee will be masked, and comrades without their personal card will be refused at the door. The cards must carry the name and quality of the artist, and bear the stamp of his atelier. Costumes are absolutely necessary. The soldier—the dress suit, black or in color— the monk—the blouse—the domino—kitchen boy—loafer—bicyclist, and other nauseous types, are absolutely prohibited. Should the weather be bad, comrades are asked to wait in their carriages, as the committee in control cannot, under any pretext, neglect guarding the artistic effect of the ball during any confusion that might ensue. A great "feed" will take place in the grand hall; the buffet will serve as usual individual suppers and baskets for two persons. The committee wish especially to bring the attention of their comrades to the question of women, whose cards of admission must be delivered as soon as possible, so as to enlarge their attendance — always insufficient. Prizes (champagne) will be distributed to the ateliers who may distinguish themselves by the artistic merit and beauty of their female display. All the women who compete for these prizes will be assembled on the grand staircase before the orchestra. The nude, as always, is Prohibited!?! The question of music at the head of the procession is of the greatest importance, and those comrades who are musical will please give their names to the delegates of the ateliers. Your good-will in this line is asked for—any great worthless capacity in this line will do, as they always play the same tune, "Les Pompiers!" The Committee—1899." Here is another illustration from the early days, as usual soul-piercingly unattainable in its artistry and mastery: The balls evoked indignation in polite society, of course, and sometimes ended quite sadly. A very popular model, Marie-Florentine Roger or Royer, known as Sarah Brown for her red golden, "Celtic," tresses and a milky white skin, was arrested for nudity at the 1899 ball. When her whereabouts proved impossible to establish, it was concluded that she probably committed suicide, which led to wide rioting by the students in Paris. It is her levitating, chagalesque, in the first picture. The tradition of the ball, as I said, ended in 1966, which to my mind sets a definite date in a period that I had approximately felt to be the last days of human fun. It was around that same year that in America the Blue Meanies chased out the Yellow Submarine, and they have ruled ever since. We have plenty of them on these boards, too, and the irrational fear Cryptic, NCSoft and now Homecoming have of any suggestion of nudity, the whole hypocrisy and disgrace of the "T" rating, are part of that. As far as I am concerned, I would have liked to see those heroes and villains who mingle in Pocket D to do something more than stand around and flash their special effects. Around them everywhere stand NPC that imitate life and relaxation. The players, to prove that they are living, could at least start a boombox or do some dance emotes or try a party game. Or chat in Local, at a minimum. But maybe they feel shy, don't feel that they may. Well, you may, people. You may start anything you can. The tradtion of carnivals around the world is rich and profound. Those who want to find out a lttle more about this ball are welcome to consult the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bal_des_Quat'z'Arts And if someone knows that tune they played, "Les Pompiers," enlighten me.

So I made this evil surfer dude called Whoa Betide, right? He is a Water Blast/Storm Summoning Dominator who wants to turn the planet from 3/4 water to 4/3. And he has Prestige Sprint: Power Slide on, swirling underfoot, and Slide as his running stance. But how is he supposed to surf through the air everywhere, if Hover makes him either float vertical-like or fly like Flight? Tell me that! Now if he could soar in one of those other stances, he'd be, like, so much truer to his old name - Noah.

Couldn't this be circumvented by supplying a simple text file for every costume listing all of the pieces involved in it and the colors used so that the player has a blueprint for rebuilding a costume from scratch? It doesn't take long to rebuild a costume, as long as you quite remember which parts you used and how they were colored and with what patterns. That kind of list could probably be generated automatically - like the list of powers and their colors on importing, where the changes to all powers are contained. If Homecoming can generate this kind of inventory for every existing character and send the lists out over in-game e-mail before setting down to alphabetize things, players could take care of things on their own side. Give them free tailor sessions, obviously. It's an unpleasant part of housekeeping, but the overhaul would be worth it. And as for adding more parts, can't the sequence problem be solved with some clever renumbering? If the parts go by 1, 2 and so on, insert them as 1.1 and so on?

Why is a text file a security issue? Any browser will offer saving passwords. They are even saved at e-stores and e-banks, although there one usually has to add some extra identification (at least here in Russia; I don't know about the United States, but here all and sundry want to know your phone number to send you confirmation codes, and when you start giving that, expect to begin getting spam calls). I don't believe that a hacker's program could not access these stored passwords. Also this game is free to play, completely at the moment. That has the advantage of making everything in an account impossible to steal, because it has no value. Nobody can buy in-game items with my password, at most someone might vandalize the character roster and waste my respecs. As evil as that would be, access becomes a non-issue if the "Save password" checkbox is accompanied by a disclaimer somewhere. It is a theoretical risk which is mine to take, like all risks.

Having played a Stalker for a bit, I notice that their attack ("Assassin's Staff" in my case) delivers its damage rather too late. I'm all right with them preparing the strike while hidden, but when the blow is made and the character is out of invisibility, there is a good second before damage applies. In this time most enemies get a chance to hit back, or rather hit first, once, even if they go down afterwards. That should not happen. Extend the aiming time for the execution time, if you must, even though I don't think you have to, but make the strike lightning-fast when it finally happens.

How easy you are to give headache to. My simple point is that all of the details ought to be available in all combinations, and never mind what "makes sense" or not. Moving the parts around won't do it. If the tattoo is included in "Masks" "Detail 1" only, that is going to mean the costume maker will have to sacrifice everything else he might desire from that menu. If, on the other hand, it is found in both "Detail 1" and "Detail 2," and in "Detail 3" that replaces and should include hair, then perhaps in those other fields the player won't have to make sacrifices. This is different from what I suggested about combining male and female parts, because the placement of, let's say, a belt might have to be adjusted between the sexes. But expanding menus to feature all parts that are known to be compatible with the current model won't cause any problems, it is only a convenience matter to get around the "either-or" problem. And only some of the NPC were made whole-cloth. Others clearly use the same parts that are available to players. Infernal, for instance, wears a typical "Armored" suit on the whole, etc. An exception was made for him, some kind of custom model created, that included just what I propose, two picks of standard horns. And so on. There are some NPC that use a combination of unique items and ordinary ones. Skulls wear shitkicker boots, I think, shorter than the Work boots that players get to wear, but that is only my impression, and their jackets might not be the same kind, but again that may be due to unusual colors. On the other hand, Veles in the cutscene wears the same part that is called the "Human skull mask" in "Detail 1" of "Standard," only with blue eyes behind it that are unique. But why not ask Homecoming about this? They have the files and can look at them. Hey, Homecoming! Do Infernal and Veles use standard parts or not? Excuse me if I don't come back for a reply. I'm not someone who replies to every thread within 20 seconds, and this conversation is not too interesting to me. I made my point, that at least for player characters all of those extras that are available at all can go into every menu.

The head when "Standard" has two Details menus, with all of the additions either in the one or in the other. "Full masks" has three Details, if I am not mistaken, but no "Hair." And on the whole, "Detail 2" is a lot less useful and attractive than "Detail 1," and the list is shorter. Most of "Detail 2" is taken up by gas masks and other masks. Making a head always involves much juggling: do I use "Standard" and limit myself to the parts there - but then I can have hair, or do I make a full mask with some kind of color that looks similar to skin, and so on. Or: how do I get a "Back of the head tattoo" with "Full masks"? And so on. So, I suggest putting all of the items from each of the menus, including hair, in all of the menus. In effect, eliminate "Hair" as a separate category and turn it everywhere into another "detail" (you can keep the name for simplicity's sake). I don't know what will happen if a player chooses the same detail from two or three menus, whether that will result in three identical additions blending together, a strange jutting and duplication, whether there will be clipping or not, but no matter what the result will be, it is the business of the player making the character, who will play the role of the arbiter. Nobody wants clipping, but if somebody does, after all, let him use that detail. What matters is giving more power of combinations. Some NPC already use duplicate details. Infernal in Founders' Falls sports two sets of horns: "Rhino" along his nose line and those little side horns like Hellions'.

If I had three prizes to give to Cryptic, one would be for emotes (the choreography and expression of motions is perfect), one for most of the music and the third for the design of city areas. You can keep the Shadow Shards and Ouroboros. I am not impressed by a void with a big ball in the middle or any other cliched fantasy concepts. But the inner city in Paragon and the Rogue Isles is a masterwork. The placement of the buildings, levels, precipices, sudden surprises, shanty towns, garbage heaps, Freakshow towers, the Drenchin' Donut on a string, marinas, the tower of the Magisterium and the Paragon Dance Party... The prize would have to be shared with the people who arranged NPC across the game, from the groups of enemies to the "background" characters. And some of the latter only appear on occasion. You may never see them on a particular playthrough, if you run or float by. I don't know if they have schedules or pop up at random, but let's mention the ones we know about. There will be some news here for everyone. I'll start: on Mercy Island, in Darwin's Landing, a Lunatic occassionally appears on the clocktower, firing his rifle at the ground below. Your turn!

Statesman is not dead, if you get to kill him for Recluse. But more than that, of course the game remains in 2012, actually in 2004. Just look at the cars and the trucks. There are emotes for smartphones, but also phone booths on the streets. Some of this obviously comes from incorporating retro elements: the Family wears suits out of "The Godfather" and shoots from Tommy guns. For brevity, though, Donald Trump has never been the president of these United States. The wars in Ukraine, Myanmar, Yemen and Israel, in Syria, never happened. Neither did COVID-19. It is a universe of a better past, and enjoyable that way for those who remember it. After all, where else won't I be surrounded by the Internet and see people talk to each other on the streets, if not in this online game?

I have proposed this before myself, along with a drastic reduction in enemies' Endurance total so that draining them to surrender would become a viable way to victory... right now they die or kill you before they empty out... But this kind of big change isn't going to happen, I think. I have seen no interest either from Homecoming or from players in seriously changing the game. Either they are afraid to ruin it, or they are afraid of NCSoft, but most likely they are just. Not. Interested. And that is why I myself have scant interest left. What am I, stupid to click the same five buttons to level 50 and then repeat?

I am grateful to Homecoming for making the game playable again, for sure, but not for making it free. I like handouts as much as the next guy, but I avoid them because I realize that each comes with an obligation and establishes a relationship that is not reciprocal. In the time of "the live game" I used to buy monthly suscription cards at GameShop, and that gave me a modicum of influence over the game's direction, at least theoretically. It might have been the force of an ant, but I had the power to express my disinterest by walking out, which indeed I did when I became unhappy with the game's mechanics shortchanging my main character, who kept on dying and could not develop. That might have been because I was not a good player, or more serious objections might have come in, but either way, my preferences mattered - as much as an ant's, in any event. Cryptic depended on the money of people like me, nor could this game have been created on crowdfunded money then or now - something that players should appreciate. It took solid, even mighty production values to bring about the world of CoH, and that meant guaranteed salaries for the developers, a secure business model and everything else that lets one feel at ease and be creative. Also limiting the player base to those who actually contributed kept that base limited. It is like with property ownership requirements for voting - a very intelligent restriction. Now that the game is funded by donations, some of them probably from people much richer than myself, and exists in a permanent mod-like state, in some weird financial dimension, I am no longer a stakeholder, I have no say in things, and neither does anyone else, even the donors, except by crying with one mighty voice - of a crowd. Our opinions matter as a statistic. If something is wanted by a large mob, Homecoming might implement it. If not, it is a spark in the wind. This does not bode an innovative future. Then again, people do come to the game mostly out of nostalgia. Floating before the wind, Homecoming feels no obligation to review its direction, its standards, its ideas. For example, they have completely censorious and kill-happy moderators on these boards, the kind that would make Emperor Cole proud. Remember the happy citizens of Praetoria? No disturbing truths or uncomely manners trouble their ears and eyes. They are happy to live in their golden sandbox, walled in on every sound by sonic boom. As long as they all "unite" in being happy, or unhappy in permitted ways, their paradise can go on forever. And Homecoming is not especially hypocritical, illiberal or heavy-handed, only as much as the rest of the Internet and society today. That I don't like, thousands of people poking inside old and essentially primitive, childish, power-gaming mechanics I don't like, but this happy-happy dimension is protected by its lack of curiosity, ignorance of its own nature, just ignorance and a business model that allows it to roll on. Yes, and eliminating the importance of role-playing with that gull I also don't like. That change knocked the bottom from under the very limited meaning, truth and seriousness that could be found in this game. Now that's all optional, and idiots are as welcome as anyone. A lot of things were made optional by Homecoming. Free, it's all free like cheese in the mousetrap! I don't know if that is what users vociferated about on Reddit or not. That place is far stupider than this one. Now let's see if I get another warning point for saying something moderators don't like.

It's too bad that the mobs really were drawn whole. But even from screenshots it should still be possible to study and recreate the details, if not to export the textures. And as for dresses, I don't see why a broad dress or a fur coat would clip more than the bolero or the trenchcoat. Besides, whose problem is clipping anyway? Only of the player making the character. Some of the models may clip, some will be tolerable, other players have no right to complain if they see something breaking through. There are all sorts of clipping issues with walls, warehouse stacks, helicopters, containers, and it bothers no one, because characters don't get stuck on that account (a very impressive achievement for a game from that period).

While pedestrians who give me a languid wave from the sidewalk might envy my powers, I envy their clothes. Shirts, in several varieties of checkers and Hawaian, trousers and slacks, briefs, I think even dresses - there is a lot that they get to wear and I don't, even if its colors are muted and cuts aren't fabulous. Well, the NPC ought to surrender all of that, tintable or not. And this seems like a simple thing to implement, so I am puzzled why it hasn't been yet? Civilians aside, it is another puzzling fact that players only get to try on imitative versions of the equipment worn by different factions, such as Praetorian PPD or the Resistance. The "Praetorian" gauntlets don't seem to be quite like the ones low-rank policemen wear there, and the much more interesting massive, and glowing, gauntlets of suppressors can't be had at all. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the "Chest detail" Resistance breastplace, but only one type of their gauntlets may be available. There are "Resistance goggles" that some of those fighters appear to wear, but others use a type similar to "Blast goggles up," yet again not the same. There is a chest detail called "Resistance strap," a crosswise sling, but if you walk up to some fighters grey to you and have a good look, theirs has a much better, worn texture and a different middle. Their faces are not available either, even though S. T. A. R. T. vendors greet both dimensions from Face 1. The impression that I get from all this is that either the particular creatures for the factions were drawn as they are, from scratch, instead of being dolled up the way of player characters and common villains, and so there are no separate clothing items to give, or those files were lost somehow after being used for the mobs. As a result, someone among the designers in Cryptic decided to sit down and create something players could use to pretend to be from these factions. But I, for one, can't pretend because the differences are so obvious. Homecoming should get the shovel and dig out all of those wearable clothes of every kind from the archives, wherever they are. Exceptional NPC may be allowed to keep their unique items, like Praetor White's gauntlets and belt, but everyone else must turn in his threads to save the world.