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It's a tool at the end of the day and you will see much more of it, including in entertainment and gaming especially. I don't really agree with the idea that using AI doesn't help people learn (in some examples I seen RP crop up) I guarantee that if spellchecker was a function in the City of Heroes chatbox - it is a thing in some social MMOs - that people would use it, because that too is a tool. Buuuuuut using AI to fully substitute all of your creativity and RP defeats the purpose of having the hobby in the first place, no different to an actor hiring a robot to act their roles in movies for them, it's redundant and a silly concept to even entertain and you can harken this to modern CGI that feels 'soulless', it is very easy to spot bad CGI, and very difficult (and expensive) to hide it. I believe AI will end up eventually in the same place as Practical Effects > CGI does in cinema, the machine lacks soul, something instinctual that we can't quite explain but can feel when a design or idea is born, 'it has soul'. AI will one day very likely end up AGI which is an AI smarter than us, but not by magnitudes, countries across the world are racing toward that. Not to get conspiratorial but for all people know things could already be written, made, played by an AI blurring the lines so well you cannot tell at all, look at the 'Dead Internet Theory' and that kinda thing. Pulling back on topic... I really don't get people that would use AI to fully RP, their only actions being a copy and paste. Bizarre. At that point it's not a tool, you're not using the AI to help create something, you're allowing the AI to fully create it and practically removing yourself from the Roleplay. I mean, I've had RP where the characters write themselves which is weird to say considering I'm the one typing, but sometimes there is no thought process in a reply, it's just 'what the character would do' and for me, that's when RP hits right.

I used AI recently and it's been an immense help, got into Dungeons and Dragons last year, a setting that has 50+ years of lore. When you ask GPT4 to quote only canon quotes from certain editions (and link the sources it gets them from) you can very quickly learn habits, religious beliefs, magic, backstories, world stories for your character in 10 minutes oppose to 10 hours. For examples sake 'What sort of world history would be prevalent to my Tiefling in 5e? How old do Tieflings live for? What is their view of outsiders?' etc. It's a Google search that is faster, smarter and more apt at condensing exactly what you need, exactly why Google now has Gemini (their own AI) built-in to search. On the topic of artstyles it's a roundabout way of a Human way of thinking, almost all art is influenced by other art/ideas it goes deeper with writing. I know some models are trained on very specific styles, you can use multiple models to blend two (or more) styles together; thus creating a new style, I know you can do it with AI art (I've done it), seems likely it's been done with writing styles too. I think this is being overlooked, AI can actually generate it's own ideas using a mash-up of several models that are trained on several different artists, e.g. what do you get when you have 50% Picasso and 50% van Gogh, you get something 'new'. The best AI artworks still require human editing and input, many 'AI Artists' (I can feel the anti-AI crowd cringing at that term) use inpainting A LOT, this is a technique with AI to select an area that needs to be re-generated, but only that area. Even with that though, AI still doesn't capture the smaller details of YOUR character, it can capture the details of A character but not your specific idea. I don't think it ever will until it can perfectly read a character reference sheet like an artist can.

My view is that AI is a tool, it's like Adobe Photoshop, an Excel Spreadsheet, Google Docs, Spellchecker... Vidiot Maps, it isn't currently capable of outdoing a Human at any task, if it was it would be labelled an AGI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence) GPT4 is starting to blur the lines when it comes to writing, but it's a long ways off being an AGI. You can usually tell when something has been filtered through an AI it does follow a certain 'style' of writing because that's what it's algorithm does. People are often very quick to denounce 'new tools' and this is the first major one for a while; "Video Killed the Radio Star". What AI is fantastic at for Roleplay are a few things; Brainstorming Ideas - + If I've writers block or I'm really struggling with an idea AI can help get me out of it. It's exactly the same approach as googling to research things. + Very rarely is there an idea that hasn't been done before, AI usually has something to call back on. - Overuse can be soullessly generic. Crossing Language Barriers - + For flavour I often add some Korean for my Korean characters, AI is literally a Google Search in a more fluid format customised to me. - Translations might be clean and generic, AI veers away from anything controversial usually. Sketches/Decent Art - + With some clever prompts you can quickly add custom images to your blurbs or use it to brainstorm. + It's as easy as a button click on some websites. + No cost associated, no wait times. - Often struggles with details that are very distinct to your character. - Will never be as custom as a character commission. I disagree quite strongly on the idea of not using AI to enhance your ideas, if you treat AI as a tool to create you will have no problem, it's when you substitute your creativity for AI completely that it stands out. As with everything in modern society it's about access and convenience and AI is excellent at both. On the topic of AI art I probably offer a rarer perspective because I've worked with dozens of artists in the past and spent four figures on custom art. AI just isn't there yet when it comes to bespoke/custom pieces, but then the cost of commissions has skyrocketed since the days of 'MMOArt' (who often done many a piece for City of Heroes way back then). The same artpiece that cost $100 then would be $250-$600 now, as getting a commission of your character rose in popularity (on the quality of MMOArt), so did the price. It seemed inevitable to me - as someone that commissioned a lot of artists - that the bubble was going to burst at some point, however, well known popular artists still have client backlog and 6 month wait times to get a $250 art piece despite the arrival of AI art some of which even rips off their style.

It's key to consider that Homecoming is not City of Heroes when it was shut down, there is likely thousands of changes at this point, the actual issue 24 client (http://web.archive.org/web/20121025123119/http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/game_updates/issue_24/overview.php) is out there - with some digging - with only the microtransaction shop stuff changed. Though I think things might of changed mostly with the players, gaming changed a lot, people got better at it and 4 hour task forces are shrunk to like 30 minutes, some people know it off by heart. Some players are playing min/maxed characters, know the best powersets and stuff like that! If you want catalogued proof of player behaviour change look at World of Warcraft > Classic World of Warcraft, it was a radically different experience despite being 99.9% the exact same game, they'll be a handful of youtube vids discussing that sort of thing. Welcome back though! For me, the game is as good as it ever was

I don't play often, but when I do Veracor is always there doing runs that fill up fast. I've been on a handful and they were some of the games peak fun. I totally get it Veracor, hope you enjoy wherever you end up

Stat accolades get boring the 5th time doing it. I follow Blackhearts guide to get it done in a few hours solo but it's still a chore.

Don't think I've ever been in a situation where I couldn't see stuff because of someone's flashy particle effects unless I was playing in first person or something. In the case of Hover some builds revolve around using it else they're useless and die in a few hits. Actually one of my chars has the flame/fire effect that trails behind like 30ft looks so cool. When I'm flying I can't see shit, but it's worth it because it looks awesome, drip or drown.

Always in big teams, in-fact I wish that you could play x4x16 (instead of x4x8), the times when there is a ton of mobs on screen and it's just total chaos is when this game hits right, exactly like an ARPG.

In that vein I always find the 'cosmic-level' plots boring to take IC, sort of the same reason I do not have an Incarnate character (IC atleast) the idea of Godlike characters raises far too many implausible questions and aren't often earned or explained well. Going a bit offtopic here but those grounded plots on even street-tier or mid-level Heroism (or Villainy) are infinitely more engaging than the Incarnate Character ego measuring contests, easier to serve plots, broader scope of situations, more character focus, more difficulties, more accessible. You will often find these 'Incarnate Tier' Heroes/Villains as plot drivers in superhero media; Dr. Manhattan, Homelander, Superman to name a few, if an entire group is on that level it very quickly loses what makes it interesting, if they're not driving the plot they aren't serving a purpose. Not sure where I was going with this! But it helps make the world feel less static when you focus on the mid-level Heroics, because you cannot truly effect the persistent world and lay a claim to cosmic-level (server wide/lore wide) plot advancements.

It's probably easier to view this through the scope of the Hero oppose to the Villain, I think that's being overlooked and Heroes are seen as 'the winners' of Paragon? The entire game universe (even the actual universe/cross dimension) is one big tug of war, the Hero squishes one bug and two more pop up, the Villainous pc/npc/groups/corps/cosmic-beings never stop hitting, thus a Heroes job is never done there is always a new threat, be it re-emerging or novel. Try as the Heroes might Paragon City would never be safe, even if you disregard the idea that game mechanics take precedence (e.g. Perez Park has a gang problem, or Superadine is never off the streets because Troll raves are still a thing). In RP I've always dismissed the entire idea of other player-characters claiming to of 'defeated X' or 'dealt with Y' when it's related to ingame (non-custom) Villain groups, this actually goes for multiple games too, I recall in WoW some RP'ers claiming they killed the Lich King in WOTLK when they'd completed the raid, same thing. The world is persistent and shared, claiming you defeated Dr. Vahzilok at the Faultline Dam is equally as eye-rolling as saying you defeated the Lich King, I usually play these things off as my character assuming they defeated the Doc, or that Vahzilok narrowly got away etc. Point being is that threats aren't actually defeated unless it's part of a custom plot with custom character villains or heroes. Kings Row is still a dump full of Skulls and Superadine, the sewers are still filled with the Lost, Baumtown still hasn't been rebuilt, and you're dealing with the Rikti Mothership threat for the 45th time without ever 'stopping' it completely. The grand excuse for which is that neither Hero or Villain completely win, they suffer setbacks or are temporarily dealt with, but they're always back. Of course the lack of actual solid wins (actual definitive closure) might make Heroes - and Villains - jaded, the world needs to persist for the sake of others. I think that's why plot stuff and pc Hero, pc Villain works by far the best, especially if the fate of these characters is on the line.

I usually start off with a simple concept idea, like a trope the character fits into, then go through powersets to see what makes that work, then fiddle with the powerset aura colours to try and make something that looks cool, then the costume starts to form from that vein, sometimes the characters really click and even win costume contests, othertimes it falls flat and just doesn't work Some chars are inspired by niche comic OC's that take form from that with obvious differences but a similar vibe

Isn't it sort of easy for a character to be jaded about Heroes? Problems still persist in Paragon, they always have and always do else it wouldn't be a City of Heroes. Paragon City aka Smithport has been the in-lore epicentre for Heroism and such for centuries yet there are still the common problems most other Cities face. You've got ultra-corrupt Crey Corp propagandising Heroes, you've Heroes that are text book narcissists, Heroes that aren't quite Heroes but Vigilantes and so much more. Be a Heroes friend and you may be a target for a Villain, because of all the Heroes in Paragon Villains are attracted, all the problems of the City seem to be swept into the sewer systems just below your feet. You've horrors like the Vahzilok who are attracted to Paragon to carve up Heroes and make them Eidolons, you've the Skulls who's rite of initiation is to murder someone. You've War Walls around every district of the City 'for your safety', Superadine on the streets everywhere despite how many times Heroes tries to put it out, all whilst the latest caped crusader is getting a photo-op outside City Hall. Lets not mention the Brickstown Ziggurat being utterly pointless as jail breaks are constantly occurring. I love deep-diving into the specifics of Paragon like this and I play a Hero and a Villain that are on both opposite ends of the scale, the 'sponsored' Hero that's a good person but swiped up by the tornado of influence. The nefarious Villain that truly believes Heroes are a curse on the world than a benefit. As a civilian the City of Heroes would be a hellish place to live, exciting but worrisome. Saying that, playing as a civilian of some sort is very fun, I've done it a few times it's quite funny to get Hero reactions to some random on the street asking for an autograph.

Where you're going to struggle with solo stuff is probably AV's so -Regen of some sort is helpful, theres that temp throwing knife power I forget the name of that helps. But then you probably want a balanced character that can solo at quick speed, so something like an Ill/Cold Troller might deal with most AV's easily, but not be as quick as some other stuff for map clears. Idk, I'd probably go with a Scrapper ??/Bio Armor, you get a lot of utility with Bio and Absorb is very very strong, for primary I'm not sure.

I'm loving the game still, almost at the end with my friend after 70hours gameplay but we encountered a fresh swathe of bugs last night in Act III that made us both just throw our hands up. Elevators in a key moment of the game (Cazador) weren't working, we had to save-load three times before the dialogue progressed and allowed us to actually play, save files get big toward the ending and that took up fifteen minutes of frustration. The Mage Tower area in Baldur's Gate outright refused to load for my friend, we could not progress together, the save file got nuked we had to load a save 20 mins prior to that moment and we outright could not play co-op around the Mage Tower area; the game just said 'nope!' I had to do key fights and infiltration solo, it's the only way we could progress and it was beyond frustrating. I've been told Single Player doesn't have anywhere near the amount of issues, co-op has been an absolute mess. It's my first playthrough so my first impressions.

The game was great for the first few months, bustling RP community, engaging gameplay, amazing CC I'd even say it's way better of a CC than COH, oh and nemesis system was awesome. Than it just fell of a cliff.

The elephant in the room with MRP and likeminded themes is always age I make a habit of asking straight up if a player is above 18 before going into it. That aside, I am more used to MRP than normal RP, my style of RP is without limits, if a character would do it, they do it, if they don't, they don't. Imposing limits on a character because of OOC afflictions usually leaves a bad taste in my mouth, so I seek others cool with it and we get along swimmingly! City of Heroes RP is very casual and kind from my experiences, despite there being an entire game devoted to Villainy. Roleplaying where permadeath is on the cards, for any reason, at any time can be a thrill, I've played several games for thousands of hours where that is the case, players Roleplay differently when there is tangible losses to be had - the loss of your character, psychological damage, physical damage etc - If the die don't land the way you hoped then your characters story can take a turn for the uncomfortable. But! I don't play COH enough to warrant going that hardcore, the game doesn't really lend to it - most MMO's don't. I think the biggest most obvious golden rule is to communicate OOC, if your char is about to get messed up the messer-upper should be constantly talking to you. For me though, there is an exception to OOC comms and that's if you 'sign here' to consent to such at the start of a plot, theme or setting. OOC Communication is good 99.9% of the time, but if you entered the plot/theme/setting knowing your char may get fucked up and then kick up a stink when they do? It's sort of on you, I've been in this situation and it's one of those things where you need to trust the ruleset and the people hosting the plot, trust them enough to put your character on the line sort of deal.

I don't know much about the Angelic side of lore, but Demons have some and it's pretty cool, Hell/Netherworld itself being a dimension etc. It's probably popularised by Tiefling inspired characters too.

Trying to judge games on how they affected me, how much fun I got out of them oppose to hours played! I've thousands of hours in some games and you could say that's value for money, but they don't really stick out as something special. $19.99: SIGNALIS, old school Resident Evil/Silent Hill style game that fucks with your head and leaves you thinking about it for a long time after, might be the best single player indie game I've ever played https://store.steampowered.com/app/1262350/SIGNALIS/ Free: Warframe, the game begins 200 hours in when you make your character, addictive gameplay, addictive grind loop, fair monetization, free, a combat system that spawned a whole host of copycats. Didn't get into it my first time put it down for a year and tried it again then found to love it. https://store.steampowered.com/app/230410/Warframe/ Free/Sub/B2P: MMO Games, dabbled in a lot of MMO's. The worst was probably Lost Ark because it shoves twenty systems in your face at level 5 and it confused the hell out of me. For the best? SWTOR, CoH, WoW, Wildstar (rip), GW2. I think all these MMO's do certain things better than others, SWTOR has the best story/dialogue stuff, GW2 has the best open world meta events are fantastic, Wildstar had the best PVP, I love the artstyle of Wildstar too, CoH is perfect for casual gameplay with no hard requirements, WoW is decent enough. Least Value for Money $59.99: Baldur's Gate 3, I know... shocking? Before you get your pitchforks have you tried multiplayer? I've been playing this recently for the first time and me and my friend have almost rage quit this Game of the Year. The sheer amount of bugs, hardstuck quests, having to save/reload a good 7 times in a 4 hour session due to cinematics not triggering basically hardstuck, glitched cutscenes, conversations out of order, lines of dialogue skipped leaving you completely baffled where the story is going. When it works, I love it! But the bugs are everywhere and really degrade the experience for me. I've yet to play single player but I intend to, Act III feels especially undercooked and rushed, still a great game but might be the buggiest I've played. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1086940/Baldurs_Gate_3/ $69.99: Starfield, I wanted to love this game but it feels so 'generic' and bland, like an Generative AI could of made it, utterly soulless with a story that makes no sense. Lifeless characters, lifeless planets, lifeless gameplay. Took me 57 hours of trying to love Starfield, trying to mod it to be a decent game, just wasn't happening, absolutely do not buy this game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1716740/Starfield/

Well like everything in life not everyone is the same, some 'cliques' have extended a hook to some of my chars it does happen. Everyone has their own clique too, the friend groups you do stuff with and if you don't theres likely plenty of people like you who are looking for friends. I'm in a similar boat to chase, I don't play often enough to properly cement in some group-RP (but I have been invited to a few!), more often than not it's the individuals I interact with. If I RP in Pocket D I usually approach solo peeps, not groups, it's just easier to get involved.

Something completely off the wall but a popular trope would be like a slime powerset Can absorb an alpha strike and convert all the damage dealt to you to your enemies like a reflect. Absorb all the bullets/powers and springboard them back at the enemy, classic A power where you turn to a puddle of goop and an aoe effect that forces the enemies to be skidding around like the ice in the frostfire mission Superjump, but if you hit an obstacle or object you bounce off it like a golfball, this ability deals damage in a 10ft aoe every time it bounces. Jump at a ceiling in an office map and watch the show

4,400 concurrent players is actually an insane number This is Guild Wars 2; https://steamcharts.com/app/1284210 And SWTOR; https://steamcharts.com/app/1286830 It's Steam only so take it with a grain of salt seems both these MMO's have launchers off-Steam, it's insane to even come close to that number of concurrent players.

It's pretty difficult to be bad at City of Heroes you have to go out of your way to be truly bad, there isn't a measurement of good or bad players other than team sentiment (thus me posting in a topic called Bad PUG Experiences) and whilst at higher levels when people are setted out and enhanced the 1 person of a 7 person group could carry fairly easily (in standard +4/8 content), things are very different for the actual endgame content such as hardmodes and itrials. I think the assumption "If you're so bad at the game that you can't progress without being surrounded by seven living gods, the problem isn't the petless mastermind, it's you." here is outright the wrong way to play social MMO's, if everyone on the team has this attitude you might struggle and cause someone to post on the forums about bad PUG experiences. What happens when there isn't an overbuilt carry and everyone on the team thinks someone else is going to carry them? Bad PUG happens.

On Petless MM's... If I play League of Legends and one of my teammates doesn't buy items I can report them and they'll literally get their account suspended for griefing/trolling the game. They're not playing the game as intended and ruining the experience for everyone else. If you play Mercy in Overwatch as the only team healer and you never use heals, you'll probably end up with a game suspension after a while too (Blizz is generally more lenient on what is and what isn't trolling) but 'refusing to play your assigned role' is a punishable offence in most team-based games. If you're playing a Petless MM and joining PUG's you're doing the same thing and while it's not a competitive game (e.g. PVP) you're degrading the experience for the rest of your team, basically trolling. If you do it solo more power to you, but joining groups as a petless MM is just cringe.

Breaking into the established clique of Roleplayers is the final boss of Roleplay. If the group isn't interested in you as a player or character (and you will usually be judged by both from my experience) there is absolutely nothing you can do to get RP interest. Your bio could be immaculate with countless hooks, your character could be infinitely interesting with twists and turns that appeal to a broad range of RP styles, it doesn't really matter in general if you're using the proverbial 'RP Crowbar' to get in on something you're not part of. On a private server for a niche MMO it's even more rooted, cliques are rife, some people play the game for the clique they're in; I don't blame them, we all have our cliques (aka, people we're familiar with and skew our preference to RPing with) however... I think it's on the circle/group/clique itself to extend their hooks to anyone that expresses even the faintest bit of interest in what they're doing, more than the individual looking to involve. The tips here are great, but a lot of these circles have made up their minds before you have even approached them.

Was it Posi 1 or Posi 2 where you have to fight your clones? I remember wiping on that like 5 times, group was ready to give in. I said to all of them to just use 4 purple/Luck inspirations, downed it in 1 go. If you make a pug make sure people know the power of Luck