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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.

Whether this should go into Bugs or stay here, you decide. The first thing is that there are two hidden, unchangeable colors for a few pieces, in particular the Cosmic Corsair belt, but I think I have seen this elsewhere. That is a very nice belt with a hanging ribbon, you can do things with it, but it actually has four tintable elements, and only two can be chosen from the palette - the colors for the main belt and the back side of the ribbon. The front of the ribbon and its outline use the two colors that were chosen in the beginning, when the colors for the whole costume were linked. By default those are black and white, but one might have chosen a different pair before unlinking and starting on colors for the various pieces separately. Those parts of the Cosmic Corsair belt are stuck with them. (The other belt that might share this behavior is the tail of the Sybil, or it may be one of the Goldbrickets, the inside trim of the Wedding Tux too). Now, when you notice that this has happened and two of the colors can't be accessed, you get a huge problem, because the only way to set them to what you like is to reset the costume's colors entirely, linking them again, then unlinking. You have to write down all of the color combinations for all of the pieces, then rebuild the costume element by element. By the way, it would be good to have coordinates next to the different colors on the palette, for example, numbers 1-10 horizontally and letters A-Q vertically. That would make memorizing and communicating colors much simpler. The second problem is definitely a bug. On occasion a costume just saved won't load, because the engine claims that some of the parts cannot be found and that the owner may not have access to them. This happened to me last night after I used Fashion long gloves (in combination with a sleeveless jacket, in case that matters), but I remember this warning from before. The costume can be "fixed," the parts automatically replaced and after loading added again. I think the costume can be used trouble-free. But for saving and loading this glitch applies. One last thing: when dressing a woman, one of the Gunslinger belts hangs in the air between the waistline and the chest like a hoola hoop. It's amusing, and I thought of how I might use that detail, but I don't think it's supposed to be this way.

A few of the costume textures are very low-resolution and ugly. This is especially true for the jackets - blazers, suits and so on, which are really quite horribly awful. Factories in the Soviet Union used to manufacture jackets like that. But a few of the armor textures are also blurry, like what you get what you click on the starndard "Armored." These are probably the oldest textures in the game's wardrobe, and it is high time they were updated. Also the "Large" boot option is crude, there the mesh needs to be refined. The jackets are quite shapeless, too. I don't know what to do with any of them, honestly, even if I detach the sleeves. Besides reworking the old ones, it would be good to have a jacket that is actually fashionable - in the year 2004 or 2024, especially one a woman could wear. I wanted to make spare duds for my girl character to take to Pocket D, and I had to piece together a jacket largerly from make-belief. The only one a little worth putting on right now is the "Motorcycle jacket," but it's too shiny. The rest are either enormous parodies or shut up with a whole row of buttons or the opposite, as wide-open as if someone is pulling the flaps from the back while his buddy in front is aiming a gut punch. Something like this would be welcome: Another thing is that chest details should be available in large form - really large. I would emblazon an enormous white Z across a black jacket and send my girl over to dance in some pink fur-trimmed sports shoes, but this was not to be. I realize that this is not an haute couture application but just a very old videogame where we are supposed to put a star in the middle of a shirt, add tights and fly out to fight injustice, but I have lost the last crumbs of interest in fighting mobs. Too many stupidly designed missions, too many chances to die in a freak accident or because one plays "against type," too much grinding. Making costumes is about the last somewhat diverting occupation here, though when I think about how limited the assortment of options really is where it matters and that even if I make an original set of clothes, the most there is to do with them is go to Pocket D and stand around... the death of an atheist: all dressed up and nowhere to go... then I remember where I am.

Lloway akingtay creenshotssay niay hetay ostumecay ditoreay. Leasepay. Also add a "Hide UI" button to the costume tab, and I'm going to bring this up one last time and hope that Homecoming listens: an undo button.

A couple of weeks ago I made a Mastermind called the Panzercrator. He was an artificial intelligence from the 25th century in charge of a space factory on an orbit between Earth and Mars who chanced upon a database of human culture, thought he deserved independence, pieced together a robotic body for himself and shuttled off. Later he was picked up by Portal Inc. and ended up in contemporary Paragon City, instructing a gang of street punks in a better way, applying his mastery of chemistry and shooting from two long black Navy Colts. I wrote all that at length before the bio editor gobbled up the text. Anyway, here he is, the Panzercrator. Specially for Rudra, the disco crotch grab: That done, I can point out that NPC don't use "the" when talking to the playing character. The one at the start of the name is just for the player's eyes. But it matters that they say that little "the." It is going to matter to the Chosen One, the Real Mccoy, the Elephant, the Thing, the Final Solution, the Very Same, the Checkered Knight, the Eternal Flame and all those others. People are writing all those stories. So Homecoming should update its name token to include "the," case sensitive, of course. But not everywhere. Most direct addresses from NPC, in second person, don't need "the." They are glad to exclaim: "Good to see you, Panzercrator!" "I have another job for you, Panzercrator!" But when the Hellion bubbles around the corner, he ought to say "The Panzercrator will be caught by surprise!" Aye, and when the Skull blurbs, he ought to declare "Watch out for the Panzercrator!" Even some second-person addresses need this article, like when Lord Recluse inflates "Take my boa but don't kill me, mighty Panzercrator!" (Unlock this with 1000 Reward Merits by clicking on the left Arbiter Drone in Mercy.) It's a case-by-case thing, and something that players should be encouraged to report on the boards, since they are working as interns for Homecoming anyway. String-wise, the developers need two tokens instead of one: with "the" and without, and insert them where appropriate. As a mass replacement they could substitute the one with "the" in all balloons and keep the one without in all dialogues. No rush like a mass textual replacement across a database. Then they could fix the exceptions gradually one by one. Exempli gratia, Dean Macarthur on Sharkhead Isle refers to the villain of the story in third person all the time.

And I got plenty. Me and Wikipedia both.

After being disappointed that there is no proper, full Whip set with customizable looks for the whip and various special powers one could think of - making villains twirl like spinning tops, jerking them close, rising into the air helicopeter-style and attacking in a circle from there... and you can talk about that, if you like, I thought of another weapon to build a set around: the boomerang. Now, all of the power sets should have something special about them, like Storm Cells, Seismic Waves or Blood Fury. In the boomerang's case it must be, of course, that the boomerang flies out in a loop and returns the same way. In the real world it only returns if one is clever about throwing it and catching it, and then only if it fails to hit anything large, and it has to be a returning type. The non-returning boomerang is meant to hit prey and enemies, which if it does, it stays lodged or falls to the ground, and the owner has to plod over - trot, trot, trot - and pick it up. It is just a dart. But we can imagine that the boomerang hits and returns. Being that this set is called Boomerang, not Boomerangs, its special feature is that it can be employed for a single power at a time only. There is no recharge interval for any of the powers, they can be clicked on and off like any device, e.g. the rocket packs, but as long as the missile is on its way out and until it returns, the other powers are unavailable. The character has to wait to recover the boomerang. It does not materialize in his hand after hitting or missing. This creates a bunch of possibilities. Obviously the powers of the set should get a big Accuracy bonus, because it would be very disappointing to wait for the missile to travel there and back again, by Bilbo Baggins, and miss. And it should do good damage and be more effective than other sets to offset the disadvantage of using only one power at a time. The speed of the missile in going out and returning should be fine-tuned in testing. This is all clear. But consider range: usually the farther a power hits, the better, but here the more remote the target, the longer the character will have to do without his weapon, and this will matter for all powers in the set. The secondary power set becomes more important, but some characters might hurl far away for the sake of accuracy and damage and keep nearby enemies off with secondary powers, others might prefer to make short throws. Perhaps the longer the range, the higher the Accuracy bonus, the shorter, the Damage. Besides hitting people in oval arcs and coming back, the set should have a couple of toggles. One might set the boomerang spinning over the head of an enemy, frightening him until it is turned off (and the boomerang returns); on another the missile might circle the enemy, disorienting him. Resistance checks can be made every few seconds. A round attack power is also possible, but here also increased range means that the boomerang will return to the hand later. The appearance of the missile should be up for customization. It might be an Australian boomerang, a steel boomerang, a toy boomerang, a tech boomerang, an energy boomerang, a frisbee, a chakram, a buzzsaw, a Krull glaive, a propeller, * * * - or something else my suvivalist gal could pick up!

I have asked for wings that sprout when one flies. Because they take up too much of the view field to lug them around. I don't know how angels do it.