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The best Villains believe, truly believe what they're doing is for the greater good- for some of the best Villains it actually is, but their morals are too far out of whack it isn't accepted as the moral way to do things and thus draws the attention of Heroes who also believe they're doing things selflessly for the greater good. This isn't all Villains though, there are fantastic villains that don't care for the greater good they care only to corrupt; The Joker is kept alive by Batman over and over again, the Joker only seeks to have Batman break his one rule, to corrupt him, to turn him into the bad guy, you could use some of those ideas for your two characters where each of them are at odds. Ask yourself why Carmen would do what she does in the Rogue Isles, it can't all just be pointless murder? What is the reason in her mind behind those actions. She seems to come from a background that hints she isn't completely psychotic I got the 'Yin and Yang' theme from the two characters you mention as if they're at eternal conflict to strive ultimately for balance. Don't stick to what the game gives you redemption is too predictable, in the eyes of other Heroes you would be watched closely and judged, instead I would have the two characters at ends, have the balance upset for one or the other, your Villain sees a point in being good, your Hero sees a point in being bad, but ultimately they are what they are; Yin and Yang. Have your Villain do some good deeds without even knowing and vice versa to make them more 'questionable villainous', a Villain at heart but... sometimes you do genuinely good deeds. Just my 2 cents, hopefully it gives you a few ideas or inspiration!

Hello! I hope you enjoy it, RP is such a great form of expression where you can create something truly yours then allow others to shape that into something that sometimes extends consciousness; sometimes characters write themselves and it's a very strange surreal connection when that happens but I figure that's called immersion, RP at it's best. Sample all sorts, styles and flavors don't allow anyone to peer pressure or bully you into a pigeon hole, make your own judgement! Stay loyal to character and see the value in tragedy or things you may not think ideal, these events can shape your character in ways you might not of foreseen. And finally realize the distinction between IC/OOC, it's sometimes difficult to not get emotionally invested. I wish I was discovering Roleplay fresh all over again but if I could dish off some hints to my past self, they'd be these. Have fun with it!

I figured Magic is the anti-thesis to Science, Science you can replicate according to a specific set of instructions; it's not a Science till you can reliably repeat it. Magic always struck me as the opposite, it's chaos and can't be proven with Science "It just works!" every cast of a spell should be different in some form or other; if you cast a spell and the outcome was exactly the same each time, then it's a Science. My Robotic character is sentient but considers her sentience Magic because it's impossible for her to copy/replicate sentience, it just happened, it just is. She can't explain her sentience, thus it's not a proven Science, so, it's Magic! At least that's how I roll with it. I think every character should have some mysticism else everything is Midichlorians and not 'The Force is all around us.'

The thing that City of Heroes fell prey to on live was cliques especially in the RP scene, it was the worst out of any community I've been part of, you needed a proverbial crowbar to get involved as an unknown. I bore witness to a lot of backstabbing and bullshit in multiple SG's I've been in on live. I haven't settled into one on Homecoming but back then insulting character concepts in a subtle way or calling out character tropes in derogatory tones were top of the list. City of Heroes players are no different to any other MMO player in my experience but City of Heroes is designed in such a way that there is less of it in the open.

Overwatch is toxic because it's a competitive game, competitive nature breeds harsher opinions, I'd challenge you to name a competitive game that isn't toxic. DPS/Raidlogs made PvE WoW toxic, GW2's WvW is toxic, it's just human nature but there are tools to remove it from your line of sight. City of Heroes is a weird spot, nothing in the game deters you from grouping with others or being competitive. Even the PvP is... eh, on live Sirens Call was the place to be or RV and only regulars went there. The advent of 'quick queues' in modern MMO's killed a lot of kindness in community's.

I wing absolutely everything and I'm inspired in an instant by concepts I gravitate toward, honestly I think that is the beauty of Roleplay, dynamic, flowing and imaginative minds. My two main characters are inspirations OP mentions, but a dozen, hundred of them, with pieces taken apart and put in it's place. Philosophy is my thing, my favorite character (of all time) is a sentient robot that was initially created to serve humans base greed and lusts, in City of Heroes I researched Praetoria to make that concept plausible here, Praetorian Clockwork already laid the groundwork for that. Seeing first hand that the Resistance used Clockwork Bots as 'suicide bombers' in a few missions made my character side with Emperor Cole in any discussion related to her past, the game directly influenced the character, completely changed my idea of which direction to go; guess she sort of became a Villain. My other character is an outright Villain but for all the right reasons. Paragon City seems like a swell place to live until you take a big step back and break it down, on this character I go with the notion that all Heroes are narcissist as evidenced by statues dotting Paragon City whilst there is still major problems with crime and corruption literally beneath the statues feet, all media is owned by corporations with an agenda that generally dislikes painting Heroes in a bad light. You can think of Batman vs Superman, General Zod would not be on Earth if Superman didn't arrive, there would of been no destruction of Metropolis, Superman was the cause, Zod was the effect, alas Heroes need to be completely eradicated to bring back some semblance of balance. Of course it all goes way deeper than this but you get the point, Villain with morals, these are by far the best Villains imo. It's really hard to pinpoint a single thing that made an instant backstory/bio, it's a lot of smaller things for me! The suicide bot thing really stuck out to me and made me question how that would affect my Clockwork character.

I gave it a go, maybe there are some ideas you can take from this. My biggest hint would be that is if you don't use any 'top pattern' on your metallic chest/legs then use Blend (or Diamond Blend) and use a tone or two different on the blend to create some different tones to give it more depth. I gave her a cigarette too cause why not- you can use Bestial Breath aura for a smoke effect which I think looks cool. And don't mind the sliders I used my character as a base and she THICC.

I'm keen to see some takes on Faora-Ul from Man of Steel, seeing a take on her Battlesuit would be real cool! Seems I'm here I'm interested in seeing a take on Vayne from League of Legends, specifically Project: Vayne!

Wow, these are way better than what I expected. I am inspired! Love to see more goes at it too!

Yes, I believe so. I believe it's Emperor Cole who kills most civilians to feed his power via a nuclear explosion. This is after the Hamidon is absolutely unchained and wreaking havoc on the planet I believe. There are missions where you can go to current Praetoria, I wish I knew the name of those missions or if you can use the map in AE, from what I remember the Hamidon spores can really mess you up, even robotics, it's a wasteland with giant tentacles.

There's some talented costume aficionados in this Community and I'm stuck on something I'd love to make, call it 'Costume-block'. Faora-Ul from the DC Film and Comic Universe is one of my favorite Villains of all time. It's clear her look- armor in particular- in 2013's Man of Steel is inspired by Alien and H.R. Giger's work. The armor has a sleek almost insectoid look to it and has the addition of a Cape which is difficult to make look and fit well in the best of cases. I wonder if it's doable in City of Villains with all the pieces and tools we have, I don't think it is, thus this post, maybe you have discovered something I haven't when it comes to costume techniques, hints and tricks that could make it plausible. Another addition would be Powersets, what set do you think Faora-Ul would use? Super Strength? Street Fighting? Kinetic Melee? Invul? I'm keen to see anyone's ideas and brave attempts at a Costume!

Not a fan either, I'm sorry! The chat system in City of Heroes/Villains is literal perfection. I don't think there is a single thing that could be done better, I'm not blind to the games flaws but the chat system even destroys the vast majority of modern MMO's or any other chat system there is. It was way ahead of it's time, perfectly simplistic but with all the essentials needed and an absolutely fantastic consideration for Roleplayers, the chat system alone made the game great. I mean SWTOR doesn't even have chat bubbles, let alone customizable chat bubbles and a quasi-typing indicator. At a stretch, adding emoji's as an option? Maybe? I'm more biased to leaving it absolutely untouched.

It would be nice to see some of the new Vahzilok pieces or even the old- Chaos Gloves, Boots, Masks, the Chaos Leather chest with a V insignia. I'd love to use them on my character.

I'll be upfront- I think most players would find it annoying simply because opinions are very divisive in today's world, it works as a Comic or Film because it's often a fun poke at the state of things. It sort of goes against the notion of Roleplaying in a setting and people may view the attempts as an OOC troll. It could work but you'd have to be smart with it, have you got any ideas/examples of how you'd break the 4th wall in an actual Roleplay scenario? Most 4th wall breaking I've seen will mention real-world events that aren't broadly accepted in the universe, like, if you mentioned social distancing people will collectively lose their shit, lol

You took on a challenge that's for sure. I'd take inspiration from the Magic Carpet in Aladdin, it's possible to convey basic emotions but you're going to be seriously limited in deeper conversation. I'm not sure how you could go into deeper exploration of the character (with other characters) without writing or speaking somehow, sign language of some sort could work with a bit of a reach.

Emperor Cole did nothing wrong and Lord Recluse is following in his footsteps to bring peace to the newfound dimension of Primal Earth. To understand the coin you must visit both sides if only to see how hypocritical Paragons Heroes are!

Balance is needed in every game imo, but why? Anything over-tuned will be overplayed, people don't Google 'What is the mediocre weapon in game X' or 'What is the most balanced powerset in CoH'. If you are researching those terms prior to picking your class/etc you're the minority. Not many people play League of Legends and main a D class Champion unless they absolutely love the theme/abilities/etc. You main an S+/ S / A or even B tier Champion that if you improve on will start to have results. These tiers are the meta which means established/researched tried and true, the S+ tier are most likely a bit overpowered and expectant of balance tweaks. Gaming has changed whether people love or hate that prospect, attitudes have changed and City of Heroes is no exception to the rule, case in point; Spines / Fire Aura Brutes absolutely dominate the most popular powerset and archetype combo because they are the best combo to increase how much INF you get p/h. Efficiency has taken over gaming as a whole, the exploration side is very rare as we have resources now (external websites) that allow you to clearly see a community-thought opinion of what is good and bad and it's typically backed up by math and numbers, they're the scientific papers of the gaming world and can't really be disputed unless someone makes a breakthrough with a brand new meta. Sometimes this efficiency might even mean you're unwelcome to high-level play because the class and powerset combo you picked brings nothing and does no damage- be glad City of Heroes doesn't have easy and widely used damage meters or detailed ingame combat logging like World of Warcraft, in Classic WoW you will not be welcome to a lot of content if you play a Retribution Paladin, you will struggle to find PvE groups/raids. Balance is needed to shift the established meta and keep things fresh, to force people to think of other avenues to being efficient. Balance should not come at the cost of fun however, but 'fun' is highly subjective, some peoples fun is finding out these new metas.

Devil's Advocate, This is a Private Server and as much as it's been attempted to make it an official operation it isn't, negotiations with NCSoft might make it that way (fingers crossed) but these talks have been happening long before Homecoming was a thing and didn't really gain any traction. Now that the code for literally anyone to run the game is out in the wild it might change their stance, or perhaps they're monitoring Homecoming and other servers populations to gauge popularity- remakes/relaunches are a growing trend these days and they're earning big bucks by reigniting previous passions. Developers or GM's here owe people nothing, not even the server we enjoy and play on, if you donate you do so willingly it's not a subscription plan. My personal expectations with Private Servers are that they're here one day and gone the next, that can be the nature of the beast when it comes to this type of thing though from my experience there is typically advance warning especially for larger Private Servers. People like Jimmy or other Devs/GM's are hobbyists providing this to everyone, for free. The ultimate success story for the Homecoming team would be exactly what the Nostalrius Team achieved. I think the HC team has proven to NCSoft that they can fully handle, maintain and patch the game reliably which were the exact same tenants how the Nost team ended up being absolutely pivitol to World of Warcraft: Classic and it's massive success and now work for Blizzard. I hope NCSoft sees this success and considers making the same move Blizzard did. I don't expect anything from future updates but those things are a welcome bonus. The fact the game is actually running and is now permanently available to anyone, anywhere, even if every single server shut down tomorrow is relief enough that City of Heroes and communities that spring up around it will never be going away again.

I'm going off the initial post 'how to get me interested in pvp'. Removing set bonuses in PvP completely, SO-level Enhancements only. Remove Phase Shifting. Basically, revert the game to i7.

I think you're speaking about an issue that is changing gaming across the board. It isn't exclusive to City of Heroes by any stretch, in fact it's everywhere. In the past my first ever MMO was Star Wars Galaxies which released in 2003, back then there was no Youtube, Google was prevalent but you barely bothered with it there wasn't really any 'how do I do X fastest' 'where is Y creature' 'how do I get Jedi' you played the game and you discovered it, then someone might post it on the official forums and it would be very slow to take off as it slowly and naturally filtered through the community through word of mouth. New mechanics hidden items or exploits these days in modern MMO's like World of Warcraft are almost instantly discovered and quickly broadcasted to masses of people they're even quicker and easier to search for and research oppose to actually playing the game and having the journey being part of the experience of the gameplay. I went back and played SWG on a Private Server and it was sad to see, macros were perfected to the point you didn't even have to play the game to reap the rewards, people had multiple accounts to min/max their main characters without reliance on others to offer those services, the same thing happens here on this very server (Hello Spines/Fire Brutes) min/max and efficiency is the goal now as discovery is over, you only get to discover something once. The removal of the middle-man (the community/friends/word of mouth) means to play an MMO efficiently you don't need friends or discovery, exploration or errors, you just need Youtube and a quick Google. Almost everyone strives to be efficient, that's probably why people have Vidiotmaps installed, or they want to play a powerset at it's best potential which means minimizing the time taken to farm INF, Levels, etc. Thus powerlevelling, it's efficient. Gaming across the spectrum is no longer about the journey, it is about efficiency. If Youtube, Google and other sources of instant information shut down tomorrow and there was no alternative pertaining to video games everyone in these grand scale MMOG's would be more reliant on each other and more focused on the journey because to be efficient they would need to work together and be exploratory, just like they did back in 2003 with the advent of SWG, Legacy WoW, City of Heroes and others. New releases that are brand new, day zero with no beta or prior playing are the only real legit gaming experiences where everything you do and encounter, explore and discover are like a legit drug where you get to experience that magic because you know nothing about what you're getting into.

Screw standardization and people attempting to enforce anything of the sort, it's a cancer in RP communities that squelches creativity and sets a limiter on what is acceptable that quickly becomes 'us and them' mentality. What makes City of Heroes unique is it's massive scope of all sorts of characters and Roleplay types, don't fall into that nasty pit where elitism breeds and there is quasi community policing of Roleplay, enjoy what you enjoy and meet others of the sort without need to squelch others who also enjoy X, Y or Z. Make your bio as to what suits your style, IC news report? OOC brief synopsis? 'Hero Corp' database entry? Whatever suits you and your style of storytelling/character prose.

I think it's important to take a step back and weigh up what made City of Heroes have such a hardcore fanbase. It's quite unlike anything I've seen in any other MMO's (maaaaybe except Star Wars Galaxies), critique is sharp in today's world but people who play City of Heroes absolutely swear by it and they love the game and won't ever stop loving it- blinded by passion in a way, I feel. I must of played 2k hours in Champions Online I'm even lifetime subbed but never play it now why? It's too cartoonish, too colorful, too... comical, ironic I guess but then I prefer The Watchmen over The Avengers by a long shot. The game lacked much rigidity and the atmosphere was lacking, City of Heroes oozes atmosphere that strikes the same gold vein as early World of Warcraft, despite the graphics it had atmosphere and that is extremely important I feel. CoH takes itself a lot more seriously than CO too, Champions is a constant bombardment of puns and clichés that really grate after the third-fourth-fifth time seeing them. CoH actually feels more adult but has the charm of something that's great for casual enjoyment too. You can go deep into the political spectrum of Praetoria just to name one major thing that is very adult in nature, it seems to me it's a commentary on Orwellian 1984 perfection, people who blitz through the story won't bother to recognize the similarities, or care much. There isn't really anything like this or other mature themes in CO, it's just pun, pun, pun, bam, smash, boop. Freeform in CO ended up just being 'take these cookie cutter powers to be optimal' CoH actually forces you to accept a powersets weaknesses and trade them off for something else, though cookie cutter here is Spines/Fire Brutes (which didn't exist in the live game). However it was CO's strength too, it's a great game for absolute hardcore min/max, sometimes you might even set a new 'meta' trend by figuring out a synergy no one thought of. Costume creator was just outright better than CoH, more options by far, more outfit items by far, more customization and catering to all walks of character. Combat was worse in my opinion despite CoH feeling incredibly clunky at times, lack of an auto attack is very different to almost every other MMORPG. Story and atmosphere aids to immersion which was one of CoH's strengths and CO's weaknesses. Better group content in CoH, by far. 8 man teams by default made -every- outing in a group pretty much a raid by modern standards, fun stuff. CoH is the better game but CO definitely does some things better.

My take on my Scrapper. Katana Single Target Damage: 10 - (Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly are no joke) AoE Damage: 4 - (AoE is a bit weak) Utility: 7 - (Divine Avalanche is an incredible ability for +DEF)

Damage, just Damage!

Each of my costumes has to have a second variant, mask on/mask off, cape on/cape off jacket on/jacket off. Sort of like a dress down or dress up of the same look.