temnix

Most of my suggestions have been aimed at adding imagination or encouraging players to socialize other than in these small, fizzy, fission teams of anonymuses that pool together for a task and then dissolve again. The latter would really take adding new mechanics to the game, mechanics that would make characters feel more than masks floating along in the wind. Something for real role-playing that would matter, big-time features. But small details can help create a living world too. And here is one idea: show the messages that players send to each other in channels as chat bubbles that everyone nearby can see, in other words, include Local in them. That would encourage nearby players to respond, if they think they can help or have something to contribute, not everyone is watching all of the channels all of the time. And having more bubbles around would make the world less silent. It is a strange telepathic pantomime that attends popular places, around Lady Liberty, for example. A whole crowd is standing around, several of them probably typing away, and not a "sound" anywhere except for that plump lady asking for donations for children of Galaxy City off-screen. The supergroup channel would be excluded, with only "..." appearing in the buble, and the same for private messages. But if it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done right, and it would be better for messages in different channels to appear in differently shaped bubbles. Keep the rounded square for Local, Supergroup and PMs, but make Global, for example, round, Broadcast jagged, let LFG be rhomboid (more like an ad this way), Help with zigzag top and town and so on. Communication other than in Local should involve emotes too. Here it would be good if Homecoming contributed a few new ones, though I don't know how good they are at making characters execute complex motions and drawing new virtual objects. The original emotes are exceptionally expressive (everyone should have all his characters dance the Pop Dance for a few minutes). To be optimistic, chatting in Help could involve the emote of tapping a message in Morse on a portative radio transmitter. Global - use the typing-at-laptop emote. Broadcast - shout through a louspeaker, and let's convert all text there to CAPS and make these bubbles visible everywhere in the area. Supergroup - speak into a walkie-talkie. Private messages - fold a paper plane and throw it, and let the recipient catch it, if he is nearby. That would draw more attention to receiving PMs. I have been sent local messages many times that I ignored because I paid no mind to the little background beep, and who knows what they contained? Compliments on my superb costumes, at least. LFG could wave two big checkered flags, like in Formula 1. I don't think there are so many messages in the same place at the same time yet that becoming lost in bubbles would be a concern. That would be a healthy problem to have. As it is, chilly and indifferent silence is more of a challenge among the mute supers who clomp past each each other on the way to the next grind.

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.

I did not know about the petsay command, but it is not the same thing. For one, it is very inconvenient and limited to have to type in line something, anything, to make an action happen. We are past MS-DOS. And numerous emotes exist. Does the player have to know the names and abbreviations for them all and in advance? "petsay <em flex>" to flex - how convenient is that compared to a menu? And that is a short emote name. And if I want one of the stances, let's say Villain 2, and don't know or remember which one it is or how it is to be shortened for the typing, what do I do then? My proposal would make it simple to make Henchmen execute any emote that they in principle can or let the player navigate to a window and type a message there, although the command function is superior in that it can combine spoken text and emotes. Still, even that combo would probably not be difficult to implement. petsay also only allows saying something once instead of repeatedly, as I suggested. In short, my idea is for making emotes for Henchmen a viable and popular, and possibly useful, option, instead of a specially devised technical trick to please oneself. According to the wiki, the command is also not too reliable and capricious. And it all comes down to what is important, doesn't it? Yes, the engine contains this (practically hidden) function for pets, for no purpose and without relevance. On the way to killing another mob players can pull off this little number, barely worth mentioning. Well, that is not good enough in my book. I don't respect killing mobs as an activity to build online time around, and what I would like to see is new interactions between players and new tools to that purpose so that this game can become something less dumb.

Allow Henchmen to execute animations and display balloon messages. For this add a right-click option to Henchmen to display, e.g., Emotes and Messages - > This Henchmen - >, All Henchmen - >, Emote - >, Message - >. As far as I have seen, even robots have it in them perform many of the emotes, and if a particular creature form can't do one of the animations, it would probably require no special tuning to make nothing happen. The Message feature would cause the Henchmen to inflate a text in the Local channel regularly. Besides entertainment and happenings like dancing bands, choruses and sign-holding protests, a Mastermind could post his minions around an area to direct visitors to where a party is being held or advertise his exclusive salvage and other sales and invitations.

The costume selection menu, the one that opens through Menu or K (this shortcut does not work for me either on its own or with Ctrl, Alt or Shift, by the way) offers a number of wonderful and unique emotes to accompany the change of costume. I never noticed that menu until recently, probably like many other people. (My favorite there is "Nuke.") But these emotes don't play when switching using the quick keys from Options, on the bottom of that screen, under Other. There are four places for quick keys to change between costumes 1-4, and I have found it convenient to assign the numbers 1-4 to them. Switching from the keyboard is much easier and more natural than going to the K screen, which besides blocks the view, but emotes don't play. I request expanding the keys options to all 10 of the costumes and making it so that the switching uses the emote set up in K. Even better, you could show a drop-down menu of emote selection next to each costume, because while Dr. Jekyll might drink a concoction to turn into Mr. Hyde, he changes into an evening frock more simply. If that is too onerous, then mention in the same menu a way the player can suppress the change emotes. To avoid involving more keys, make it so, for instance, that holding down the right mouse button while switching disables the animation.

Before I played a Mastermind, I assumed the upgrading powers for the minions were permanent boosts. I would "buy" the powers and enjoy stronger, better-looking minions. Instead my character had to upgrade them manually as they appear. This does not bring anything interesting to gameplay, and it is a hassle, especially if some of the henchmen out there have been killed and I have summoned more. Now half of them are improved, half aren't, I don't remember which are which, can't even make them out in the tangle of bodies rolling on the ground. I have to select them in the control panel and keep throwing more upgrades as the henchmen keep touching the grass. Don't I have anything better to do? It's true, there is a little silent satisfaction in throwing that strange... upgrade grenade... to them and seeing them transform, but I would feel no less satisfaction in summoning them and seeing them come in stronger and better already. Actually I would feel more, because then I would really have at my disposal an improved army instead of being some kind of lame tailor always playing catch-up, more and more of it, in fact, with levels. I am the freaking mastermind, I am Dr. Evil, not his quartermaster, arsenal keeper and tattooist.

When I had just started playing a villain and didn't know that I would have to wait for level 20 to start seeing special missions to change alignment (my intent being to play an antihero), I believed that some of the actions in missions I was undertaking represented a moral choice. For example, there was that prisoner of the Longbow, a former stage magician, whom I was at liberty to save, kill or let die. When I saved him, I thought that I was making a meaningful choice. Later on, at the end of the Fire Wire arc, after I defeated Fire Wire, I could decide whether to let him live or kill him. He had annoyed me a great deal and I saw no exonerating circumstances, so I gave in to anger. That, it seemed, would move the needle of alignment towards villain again. Some time later still, in the mission to free Fort Darwin with that traitor from Longbow, I could either support his villainous actions or condemn him, which again promised to make a difference. I expected more of these situations as I played, and when they were not forthcoming and all of the quests were of the simple kill-destroy variety, I ascribed that to my bad fortune or to a lack of effort on the developers' part. They could have added more alignment-affecting decisions in missions so that I might manifest my personality sooner, I thought. But nothing was happening for the longest time. It was not until much after (after reading up on the topic in the wiki, in fact) that I realized that none of my actions in missions or dealings with NPC had any importance whatsoever and that moral choice was a completely formal process: after level 20 I would receive drops of missions, had to perform a set number of them in a particular way, and then I would count as reformed. I would even get a badge to wear for it. Needless to say, that is too little, too late. I wasn't and aren't satisfied with pretending in my head that I am a reformed villain or a morally ambiguous, even indefinable, character. Anthony Perkins in "Psycho" dressed up in his mother's clothes and sat in her rocking chair talking to himself - that is role-playing in one's head and all the difference that it makes. There is no point in letting people invent complex costumes and, for those who bother, character backgrounds without laying out choices in front. As things are, all of the individuation is behind characters: in the bio, in what happened up to the time they ventured into Paragon City or the Rogue Isles (or Praetoria) there can be all sorts of motives and ambiguity, but as soon as we actually get to live the life, it is the same straight and narrow road for everybody. Or we can cheat and go to Null the Gull, sure. That makes even less sense than waiting for level 20. The solution is simple, though it would take work: begin connecting alignment to characters' actions and write more missions (and rewrite prevous missions) to include more of these choices. If it takes 10 steps to change alignment, let it still be 10 steps. Show or don't show moral choice panels, like in "Galaxy's Last Stand," it doesn't matter. If we can read the mission briefing, we ought to understand that breaking a prisoner's neck after interrogating him is a Bad Thing (an example from a mission about D. U. S. T. in First Ward, where the choice is remarkably indifferent).

Emotes have two "Hero" and two "Villain" stances along with a "Neutral" stance - what everyone gets by default. I suggest putting those other options into characters' custom stance menu. That would at once diversify characters all over. Anyone can go see what those stances are like by himself, but, for instance, Ghost Widow uses a "Villain" stance.

Speaking generally, Archetypes available to players fall in one of the two categories: tough but primitive and interesting but wimpy. Close-combat cannonballs like Scrappers and Tankers charge into enemies and bash them repeatedly, while Controllers, Dominators etc. stay well away, because they break like china, and apply a wide variety of powers. There are also some in-between types: Sentinels, for example, are tougher than Blasters at the expense and by dint of having merely protective powers for the secondary set. Many villains, on the other hand, manage to be dangerous both up close and at range. My best example and one of the favorite groups to fight are the Outcasts. Their Bricks, for instance, can wallop the player with stone fists, catch him in a granite hold or throw boulders at them, nor do they have poor hit points as a trade-off. Shockers deliver nasty punches, throw lightning, paralyze and fly around to boot. So why do players have to choose between, in fantasy game terms, the strong but predictable warrior and the resourceful but anemic wizard, and when it is something in-between, why must balance is achieved by nerfing both sides down to a meh? True, pinning characters to such particular roles ensures that most of them need complementary team mates and that after their current Archetype with its severe limitations they will want to try an Archetype with DIFFERENT severe limitatons (or run off to start one concurrently, to rest from turning on the same tactical carousel). But that is like giving some people only legs, others only arms, yet others only the head. Contrary to body organs or cells, we are not specialized details in a common constitution but entities with individual destinies who can display now one quality, now another as we develop through life's adventure. Both for role-playing and for keeping the game process entertaining (only stealth and flight add variety to the repetition) require a more flexible Archetype, one that fights quite well in melee but can act at a distance and has tricks up his sleeve. So let him be called simply Fighter or maybe Man-At-Arms. Give him the damage of the Tanker and the hit points of the Scrapper, a couple of ranged attacks available before long, a couple of holds or disorients. These should probably all be single-target or perhaps one multiple-target power may be included. Even a pet somewhere mid-course would not be out of place.

There may be small details for costumes that would be nice to have, but here is my list of clothes there is a clear dearth of: 1. A medium-length jacket, esp. for women that is not a buttoned-up vest, a French, a whatever it is called that Doctor Evil wore etc., and without a vertical zipper. Also some way to place very big patterns on the front of clothes - dashes, broad stripes etc.; 2. A longer jacket that is not, however, a coat. Anything like this is only available under "Robes" - Warrior etc., and those are kind of exotic and cannot be patterned; 3. Very broad but form-holding jeans; 4. Broad and flared jeans - to go to disco to; 5. A skirt half-way between Short and Long, fuller but form-fitting. 6. Gloves and greaves or boots of a non-generic shape that are compatible with Spiky; Spiky options from elbow up and on the thighs; a spiky spine. 7. Sleeves that follow the shape of arms instead of looking like chimneys; tucked up sleeves; 8. Dress shirts that look like actual office shirts; 9. A policeman's jacket - the PPD and the RIP have to walk around dressed down to their shirts, bravely pretending that they are sweltering in a heat; 10. A fur coat, or better two, one shorter and the other longer (Whatever happened to fur coats? Everybody got so animal-conscious they just shamed them out of existence?); 11. An overcoat that is not a trench coat. A paletot; 12. Earrings and finger rings; 13. Sacks, purses or satchels around the belt, a leather purse bag for women; 14. Collars, standing and turned down, as a head detail; 15. Shitkicker boots, like Dr. Martens. Since this is a T-rated game, they can be called "Excrementpropellers"; 16. An umbrella; 17. A hoodie with the hood down, or simply a lowered hood; 18. A low-riding belt or three, even if they use the old models, but pointing down towards the pubes; 19. A DRESS (Whatever happened to dresses?); 20. Patterning for the Korean pants, the genie pants, the Imperial defense pants, the martial shorts and the baggy tops. Patterning is almost the only way of representing fabrics. And completely dull textures, ones that don't reflect light at all, are very unrealistic and flat. On the image below I had to use a head scarf with just such a texture, and it is the weakest part of these clothes. Flat textures should be tuned to be a little glossy. A month ago I have also suggested inflatable arms - a shoulders/gloves piece that would represent thick, musculur biceps, triceps, forearms and big hands and that could be patterned or kept as a Skin option. This way characters could be given stronger limbs without changing the basic figure meshes. The same can be provided for legs, or a shrinking version. I might be interested in playing a Huge character with enormous arms and short, scrawny legs. I try to find new interpretatons, but ingenuity only takes one so far. P. S. How to pay for the drawing and model-building that has to go into new clothes, or for that matter new powers? Bring back the Paragon Store. Homecoming can't continue on fan donations and using unpaid testers for bug reporting like it's some kind of anarcho-syndicalist kibbutz. Not if they intend to bring about major new features. They can release a new power set once every few months as they are, fix bugs and typos, but bigger things take bigger money. The original CoH wasn't free to play, I was one of those who made all that richness possible with subscriptions. To avoid causing grief, Homecoming can do two things. First, any exclusive powers must not be stronger than what everyone gets for free. Different, yes, but not stronger. Especially not in PvP. And second, after an interval, like, six months, all paid powers and features become commonly available. With these two provisos they can have the best of both worlds.

Even if it were possible to add the "the" by hand, it would not be case-sensitive. NPC would say "Here comes The Panzercrator!" Then again, I did see just now the Skulls mentioned in the middle of a dialogue as The Skulls, so maybe that would be all right for the shabby writing of this game.