Siouxsie

I think what the summer shows did was make it possible for the multiverse to happen, but didn't directly cause it. (Yes we saw the results from their perspective, but things out there had to trigger it while they watched it bloom.) Now the movies are about to show how it all falls apart without a clean-up organization. This way it all ties together neatly without any one action being the key, but rather the individual actions all adding up into one giant synergized mess. Yet everything can stand on its own, so it's a nice bit of layering for those of us who consume all we can. I'm expecting the upcoming movies to be a lot of fun.

Some people like to rampage through their Lego city after building it... 😈

Ah, you're more aware of them than I understood. I apologize for not realizing that. I agree they've had their ups and downs, but then you're also going to be familiar with the industry in general and it's myriad problems with enlightenment. (While I'm a hobbyist dev at best, I have several friends in the industry, and probably as many that have left it. Their stories are not encouraging.) If it is just a PR thing, then I fully agree, but I would like to believe that it is sincere. Probably because they so desperately need it. And I wasn't willing to let my cynical nature cloud my post. Sharing is great though. My news has slowed to a trickle these last four or five years since my old gaming board went nuts, and I never joined the diaspora over to Broken Toys.

IGDA has members from a large swath of game companies and indie studios, and it's more a behind-the-scenes organization, so overall I would say it is a good thing. Like any socially-aware initiative its effectiveness will depend upon the people behind it and their fortune in getting people to buy in. Larger corporations will draw their feet as always, but are likely to have at least some devs who listen. (A prime example is someone awesome like Raph Koster who has been at companies big and small and has a general mentality of trying to uplift everyone). The real importance is that there are tons of smaller teams where such a thing can have a big impact, on top of raising awareness in general, and perhaps inspiring someone to make a push in a positive direction. (I's not as if the games industry doesn't have its litany of problems on the backside. I'm for anything that tries to focus on the positive in the hopes that it establishes a good mindset. Of course there will be fluff and starry-eyed individuals without a sense of reality that get involved, but that's true of any social movement.)

In a lot of ways it seems as if alternate earths are mostly isolated, except where it plays into their specific, tragic history. Where Primal Earth is a hub for everything from everywhere, alternate earths are a backwater to be avoided, or a speed bump to an apocalypse that no one wants to visit after. (Which plays into the theory that Primal Earth is literally a hub and those earths are spokes.) Because Praetoria was already deteriorating perhaps it didn't make a good spot for more Kheldians to show up seeking refuge. Because of Hamidon, or maybe because it would fall and incarnate-level threats can sense these things, Bastion didn't find it an appealing target so Shivans were never sent. Though mostly it's probably due to a writing conceit to keep the worlds focused on a singular path. It's hard to tell the story of Praetoria if you're focusing on all the disparate groups that Paragon City has to deal with. It becomes much easier to say they were wiped out or inconsequential. And it makes it interesting when one of those characters does pop up in a context befitting the setting.

Since half my characters are Praetorians I always keep the transition between dimensions fuzzy., much like @Darmian mentions with that great Captain America analogy. I know it was after the place started going down hill and prior to all the worst of the insanity erupting. Depending on the character, it may have been before or after the Wards, which are also somewhat fuzzy in the timeline. (Personal head-canon is that the entirety of First Ward is weeks or months, so there is some overlap with other critical events.) Which is generally good enough for my RP. I came, I went back a few times, I helped out with the refugees, and now it's now. Considering most events in my own life are rather fuzzy, it works out just fine.

This is amazing. I had it on my wishlist but after I rez from dying laughing, it's going on my Play Soon™ list.

My own head-canon on the relatively peaceful version of Praetoria we can go to is it is VR. At least half my characters are Praetorians and if time travel was an option they would be doing everything they could to save the people before it went downhill. Praetorian tech is better, so why couldn't we do a full world simulation better than Aeon's toy? [I finally played Last Bastion the other week and my rather docile MM was raging through the whole thing. No DE left alive. Everyone saved. Even that guy. No way all the Praetorians out there wouldn't do something if they could.]

[insert bravo.gif]

Jersey Girl - a bovine tanker that was the creation of the Mad Cow King; her entire 'family' is bad bovine puns. Latency - a villainous bots/dark (repurposed to 'gravity') mastermind. Basically she's the most frightening thing to an online gamer...

@Aeroprism That's more or less my main money maker. I'll buy a bunch of uncommon recipes, make and shift them to rares, and call it a day. (I have one specific niche, but I'm branching out into a bit more randomness to see what's out there.) I'm not filthy rich, but it gets me what I need to outfit the current character I'm playing and provides a start for the next one. That and Yomo's giveaway. Thanks for that! She used that seed money to make enough to be set for life.

Yesterday was exactly the type of RP day I always want. Logged a baby rogue into Icon to find another medusa-headed individual standing next to me and did a short but fun improv session. Then my friends logged on and actually bantered with me as we did missions. Finally ended the night with a bit of IC silliness in front of Atlas. So I would like to thank this poll to listening to my response and working its magic.

I'm really bad at interacting so the number of people I've RP'd with in CoH is low, but yes. If I see someone I know I'll chat with them wherever I am, even if it is just a hello. (Though my most recent was only semi-IC but was nice because I bumped into Vile and didn't even know it until they sent a tell.)

The purple-tinted edgelord squees in delight, "Senpai noticed me!" There was nothing for us to fear about that, @TwoDee. It was a hilarious take on the topic. Despite my somewhat exaggerated concerns about societal pressure, I mostly don't give a flip about how my characters are perceived or how others make theirs. (Yet secretly I must because when I do get the rare tell about my bio I'm giddy for hours.) I'm only bothered if it's backed up by a personality that would grate regardless of the color of their spandex.

I loved those two Lewis Carroll modules. Slotting them in the same pocket dimension does make sense. They were more horrifying than almost anything else of that period. My group is being run through the new Ravenloft campaign. As fun as it is, your version sounds amazing.

Dark with dark highlights, a dark background, with maybe a little red thrown in, and the personality of a rebel secretly hoping to be popular. It's mostly the personality that does it for me. I love the dark sets, black goes with anything in a costume, and a little adversity in one's background contrasts nicely when shown rising above the difficulties of their past. (Side note: almost all my character's parents in any game are still alive.) And if someone straddles that line, or falls over, but the writing and characterization are good, then more power to them. I am afraid I'm somewhat edgelord-adjacent though. I like darker colors, especially purple. I always choose Ghost Widow as a patron. I'm terribly shy so I'm the lonely person in the corner. Ninety percent of my characters have a dark attack or darkness control power. I just have to hope my bios keep me out of the Abyss. Those I'm pretty proud of, even on the silly characters.

If he's willing to craft them and wait overnight for a buy order to fill, he can get the recipes for cheap, so it'll mostly be the cost of the orange salvage. I normally buy uncommon recipes for conversion purposes since the materials were cheap. Dealing with orange recipes is only something I've just started trying and noticed the prices fluctuate wildly with them. At least in the GotA set. Is such volatility normal for 'off' sets like this?

There may also be concern about exposure to civil suits. Back when I was head of a large PA in SWG we had an issue that had to be taken up by the GMs. They wouldn't let any of us know the resolution, other than we know the player being bothered wasn't contacted again. How they came to that policy I can't say, but I'm sure legal had a hand in crafting it.

Would it help BaRP if you go with a friend or small group? It won't entirely remove the possibility of a random person taking things where you don't want, which seems to be a big concern. On the other hand it might let you either stage the scene a bit or at least be with RPers you're comfortable interacting with while encouraging something of an improv session if others join you.

I've been doing a lot of trading in Numina's and Miracle the past day or two, but I'm small-time and certainly not dealing in enough volume to shift things. The market has surprised me though as I've both been buying cheaply and selling for almost an order of magnitude higher. I'm not even having to convert within the set for the 'junk' pieces.

I'm loving this thread as I'm a bit of a Gold-side fan. There's not much to add other than a few small things. At the end of the New Praetorians arc, you can ask Marchand about the evacuation. He mentions Portal Corp is helping extract survivors from around the world. With the fall of Cole and Praetoria it may be as much precautionary and concern of impending retaliation as it is direct attacks. At least while Hamidon is focused on razing Praetoria. As for the timing of First Ward, because it is several arcs, I assume it takes place over weeks or months. It's only obliquely referred to, but you do get updates on how groups such as the Forlorn are settling in, or how Anna is handling leadership challenges, and those things would take time to happen. That can make its beginning and end be a little fuzzy for slotting with events elsewhere. To me that helps with discrepancies rather than hurts it since it's a period rather than a point in time, and means some seeming conflicts aren't. Between Enriche, propaganda, disinformation campaigns, multi-tiered conspiracies, fear of Cole, fear of Hamidon, repeated resettlements, and a whole host of competing factions it's not too surprising first-hand accounts are all over the place. For all its outward regimentation, the psyche of Praetoria is a ball of utter chaos. (Whereas Primal Earth is the reverse.) The most reliable sources of the Truth are the Praetors who are also the most untrustworthy. I still need to run through the Dark Astoria stuff. Is Night Ward directly or indirectly responsible for Dark Astoria? I noticed Furies running around. Did some Praetorians decide if they can't blow up their world, they'll try Primal Earth? Did our encounter with Dominatrix when trying to gain Tammy's amulet tip her off to what was happening and that lead to her involvement here?

Suffering from both simple shyness and social anxiety I have to support the scenery approach. I've been getting back into the game after a long break, and with Pride happening I decided to get out of my comfort zone and start clubbing. I find an unoccupied spot on the dance floor, the bar, or the slot machines and park myself for a while. From there I listen and get a feel for the place, while throwing out the occasional quip if I can get away with it. I've had a few people walk up and while they weren't intense interactions, it at least broke the ice. (Wait staff and bartenders make good low pressure, short conversation scenes.) One night I helped close the club down and by then there were only a handful of us, which made it much easier to be a part of the conversation. I figure show up often enough and people start to recognize you, and you start to recognize them, so it becomes easier to join in. The down side to that method is it can eat up a lot of time without much immediate payout. So find a club playing a stream of music you enjoy, or get yourself a real drink and costume watch while settling in.

During the Praetorian Penelope Yin's missions, several Sword Masters are encountered with the description text BOSS_DESCRIPTION, or something similar. (Unfortunately I didn't have my screenshot w/ UI bound on this character as I thought.)