Megajoule

Other KB:KD solutions aside: Honestly, they should just go ahead and make Sudden Acceleration (or Deceleration, thank you) a "set" of one. Because that one IO is all that anyone uses or cares about.

In my experience, a great number of people in this forum and others are not. 😕

My point is, I'm sure you have reasons for preferring a minimalist avatar. Are you willing to consider the possibility that the people who designed the login screens might also have reasons for the design choices they made, and not putting in all the information they might have?

There's a lot of "wasted" space in your userpic, come to think of it. You could put a lot more stuff on it, that would inform people more about who you are, your interests, etc. Why haven't you?

Blank space is not necessarily wasted. Consider a hypothetical book printed with the absolute minimum margins to allow for binding - pages and pages with solid blocks of text. Many readers would probably find that exhausting. This is an extreme example, of course, but I hope I have made my point: "wasted" space can be as important as content when it comes to presenting information clearly. EDIT: I also acknowledge that one possible solution is making some additional information available on an opt-in/out basis, via toggleable/customizable displays. The question then becomes whether it is possible and/or practical for the current dev team to make such changes to the UI.

As I keep saying every time this topic comes up (and it's often - which, I acknowledge, shows that there's a demand for it), the amount of real estate on the login screen is finite. Personally, I would rather err on the side of "display only essential information, keep clutter to a minimum." The issue, of course, is that different people have different ideas as to what is "essential" and what is "clutter".

That's the thing. Nobody knows what might have happened. All we have are guesses after the fact. Would you be willing to risk it, to be "open and honest", about something that could mean losing your job, your savings, your freedom, and "no more CoH for anyone, ever"? I'll say it: I wouldn't.

I think it's kind of amazing, but not really surprising, that people can simultaneously think/argue that "talks with NCSoft will never work" and "Leandro should have released his code years ago." Because if both of those are true, here's what would have happened, IMO: It's 2013 or 2014. The secret gets out, somehow. And the same people at NCsoft that were responsible for shutting down the live game send out their attack lawyers to kill this illegal project stone dead. That's it. Game over, forever. The last hidden spark snuffed out. And five years later, we have none of this. IMO again, within a month of when it finally got out, we saw the proof of what would have happened. The people running the then-dominant server got a whiff of what they thought might be a valid C&D, went "hoshit", and immediately shut it all down. Fortunately, it wasn't a real C&D, and other people were there to take up the reins. This time. IMO for the third time, the complainers - still, months later! - are a bunch of folks who are mad that they weren't invited... to a party held by people hiding a family in their attic, with every reason to believe that if word got out (and it almost did, how many times before the last?) the police would swoop in and arrest and/or disappear them all. No, you weren't trusted or invited. Because those were the stakes (as far as anyone knew at the time). The lives of the people who had the code ruined, and no more CoH for anyone, ever. Fortunately for all of us, it seems that 7-8 years is enough time for things to change at NCsoft that they didn't immediately SWAT the server. (I, personally, do not agree with those who argue that they never would have, or that it wouldn't matter because "they'll never get all of us"; maybe they couldn't hunt down every private server, but there would be nothing like Homecoming or Rebirth, and I don't consider eight people playing on a server in someone's basement to "really" be CoH. So instead of one secret server hiding from the authorities, you have a dozen; how is that actually better to the thousands not in the know?) So I have hope that this time, something might actually come of this round of negotiations. But either way, I don't want to see a game that is almost 100% pure nostalgia appeal, a time capsule of an MMO from 10-15 years ago, and which is by most accounts a barely-functioning mass of badly documented spaghetti code, loaded down with a bunch of half-baked "brilliant" ideas with even less consideration and testing put into them than the Cryptic/Paragon devs (and that's saying something).

People were very upset about seeing any real ads in the game.

I guess this would be a good thing for the pigeons who'd be lost without a lever to peck, but... 🙁

It was always an illusion. It was always a lie. HC realized this was bullshit, and took it out. Now here you are saying, "but without my bullshit, how will I live? what will I do?! I want the lie back! I want to pretend that anything I do in this game matters!" It doesn't. All of this could be gone tomorrow, again, and all you'd have is your memories. (And screenshots, I guess.) So take the photographs and still frames in your mind Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial For what it's worth it was worth all the while It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right I hope you had the time of your life

No, that's because "the end of the rainbow" is an illusion, a mirage, a product of refracted light. You can chase it forever and never reach it. And I think you might, because I've said all this and you still aren't listening. whatever. I tried. it's 3 am and I'm very tired and I'm going to bed now.

If I do something I think is cool, in this game or any other - complete a questline, decorate my home base, finish collecting a set of gear, whatever - maybe a dozen people (out of everyone I know, which is a tiny fraction of all the people in the world) will ever hear about it. Maybe half that will care enough to offer a kind/approving/encouraging word before their thoughts move on. By the end of a day - a week, at most - I will be the only person in the world who remembers or cares. So I have to be satisfied with that - I have to live for myself - because if I want or need more, I will be disappointed. I know this, and still I catch myself sometimes. "You're looking for validation from strangers on the internet again. Stop it." I make no claims to being perfect, or even particularly wise. But this is the best advice I have to give, so I'm giving it. The end of the rainbow recedes endlessly. Find the pot of gold in yourself. (Or don't. *shrug* I'm not the boss of you.)

Okay, no sarcasm in this post. Instead, Story Time! I usually score pretty low in the Achievement category on the Bartle test; for me, it's more a matter of making the character "complete" (as I envision them) than chasing stuff for its own sake. But sometimes, I have - usually with a bit of crossover with Explorer. Back when CoH was live, and before the Reveal power was commonly available, I made a point of flying lawn-mower patterns with my main on every single city map to clear all the black "fog of war" from it. Every city zone. This is trivial now, literally a matter of one button press, but back then it took me a few hours. Shortly before that, in Puzzle Pirates (the browser-type game that was my gateway to "true" MMOs), I took the time to go to every single island in the game (at that time) and take a screenshot of the map screen of the whole island. Now, here's the thing. There was no badge, Xbox achievement, etc for doing those things. I didn't get any virtual money, or any special costume or clothing items, or any boost to my stats. The only reward was my personal satisfaction for completing the set and reaching my goal. I'm pretty sure I haven't told anyone about doing either thing until right here and now. I didn't feel the need to. However, this sort of thing is apparently not sufficient to give the OP what they're looking for. This suggests, to me, a couple of possibilities. One is that they're not good at setting their own goals, or would prefer to work toward one(s) set by others. Another, related to the second part of the first, is that they don't find the achievement as satisfying if they're the only one who knows about it; they want or need others to see that they have. This tends to be a lot easier if the challenge is set by someone else, with objective parameters for completion. The criteria are clear and verifiable; you've done it or you haven't, you have the badge or you don't. The third possibility - and the one that I, personally, find the most disquieting - is that the OP may only feel full satisfaction if their achievement gives them access to something that others don't have. Whether that thing was previously available and had access restricted, or if it's a new thing that was never available outside of the challenge, is for this purpose irrelevant; what matters, what's truly important, is that they have a literal status symbol that others don't. This, IMO, is where things get dangerous. This is where the motivation shifts from "I worked for this shiny and now I have it" to "I have a shiny and you don't, that makes me better than you (to some degree)." Ask yourself this, OP - would you be happy if I gave you a task, you completed it, and no one ever knew about it but you (and maybe me)? Or is it not "real", not enjoyable, not satisfying unless you get a trophy to show off to everyone? Is it about having done the thing, or getting to brag about it? One is pride. The other is vanity. I really hope it's the first. Because at some point, everyone discovers that other people don't care about what they have done as much as they do. Not even close. They're all wrapped up in their own lives, their own desires, their own accomplishments (or angsting over lack thereof). So I need to find a way to feel good about myself, that doesn't depend on what anyone else thinks; because if I don't, other people will never give me enough attention and validation and approval to fill that hole.

But how will the OP know and be able to prove, to themselves and others, that they're more accomplished than all the other lazy people playing a video game unless they have a way of showing it? The need is twofold - to have some way of achieving a "high score", and being able to brag about it.

OP, I have a special green star for your belly. But I'm not just going to give it to you, no. You'll have to earn it. How do you do that? Well, I also have here a box, with a button. You'll have to keep pressing (or pecking) the button until it gives you the reward, at some point within the next thousand hours (probably). This is a task involving great skill and determination, I assure you. And at the end of it, you'll have something to display to show all the other Sneetches how much better you are. Because you earned it. EDIT: ... or you could, instead of grinding for a virtual trophy, go work on your car. That would, IMO, be a much more productive use of your time, because the car is a physical object with a use outside this game and will (probably) still exist when they turn these servers off.

PRAISE THE SUN!

If you want to play a shapeshifter, you have multiple costume slots, all unlocked for free now. By visiting a cosmetic surgeon (found in the Vanguard Base and Pocket D, among other places) you can have them vary widely in gender, size, etc. Go nuts.

Another concern, which I have raised for at least one similar suggestion, is screen clutter / how much space is actually available on the login screen, and how much info we can reasonably and clearly fit on it.

It's dismaying how easily we humans can be convinced that grind = fun. But I guess that's why Skinner boxes work, and game companies have put so much money and research into building better ones.

No. Fix basic SS instead. (And by "fix", I mean "get rid of Rage, especially stacked Rage, as a set-defining mechanic/power.") We shouldn't have to reroll, or create a whole new AT, just to have a better version of Super Strength. We also should avoid ATs designed specifically to emulate a particular trademarked character. (Even though, I acknowledge, that character - by virtue of his iconic status - already has plenty of knockoffs, homages, parodies etc. We don't need to add to that, especially considering the new Code of Conduct.) What's next? the Spider-Dude AT? Metal Armor Guy? Fleidermaus?

Player agency in MMOs is fraught, because ultimately the PC(s) can't do anything that would significantly change the game world. Hero or villain, turn around and the same opponents are back where they were before. Destroy (part of) a zone, and it's fixed five seconds after you exit the instance. Status quo isn't just god, it's baked in at the code level.

/jranger

Force of Will and Savage Melee were both "unfinished", not "new".

IMO, you should probably do that just on general principle.