Attache

I just told Chat-GPT to give me a Silver Age style PSA warning kids not to try "serum science" at home and it added a word balloon that actually made me laugh. EDIT: Oh, I did share a screenshot and bio of Payload as well.

Hey all! I'm away from the game for like the next 10 hours or so but am trying to plan out some stuff for a new character. Does someone happen to know the max number of characters/spaces you can have in a pet name? For a Dom specifically but I think it is the same across the board for re-namable pets. If someone could tell me, much appreciated! Thanks!

You are The. Best. Thank you!

I grabbed Idiom off this list a few days ago. I forgot to mention it. Been on a bit of a character creating tear lately.

Big fan of your builds. I really have no head for it so I cannot begin to say how much this thread has been of use to me. I especially like that you can usually tweak a few of the late choices to take things for flavor and still more or less have the same utility. Thank you so much for sharing these. I cobbled together an Electric Armor / Street Justice Tanker build since I could not find one here but do they not synergize well together? Or is there one and I just missed it? Again, thanks for all you do on these. Appreciate you.

Usually AI feels like more of a surrender than satisfaction for me. Maybe it is because I used to commission—wish I still had money to do that—and its easier to get what you want. That said, even with kind of funky gun on her back and her just randomly firing into the ground, I kind of love how this came out. This was Chat-GPT. I shared the bio and a screen shot and it had kicked out a cool but cartoony version. I replied "Cool but could you do one a little more photoreal?" and it gave me this. I like it!

I used to get heated about this even though I only had like a character or two generic'd, including Live. I just feel and felt that if someone isn't bugging you, don't bug them. Let people have their fun, narc. And, yes, you could make a comic with a character named Phoenix tomorrow and as long as it was distinct from the Marvel property and had a different title, you'd be okay. It doesn't mean Marvel wouldn't still file a harassment suit in an attempt to bully you into submission but if you somehow had the time and resources to fight it, you'd likely be in the clear. But Homecoming is in a difficult place with this kind of thing. An all volunteer staff and a license it took forever to get. Even back on Live, they weren't going to fight for your right for parody or satire or free expression. They're just going to air on the side of caution, zap you, and move on. It is understandable from a resources standpoint. Sure, I think it can be kind of shitty to report someone for strictly for a name. Some people feel like real heroes and that they are "protecting the game" and what do I know? Maybe they are. If I knew someone regularly spent their time, as a player, policing the game, I'd probably just avoid that person.

I finally took a crack at this. My goal was to make something that looked like it could be a real ID card based on that old ID registration screen (can you even access that anymore?) but I updated it a little to have some modernized elements. I'm waiting to hear from the icon maker if I can use them in a public release of the template. If they give me the thumbs up, I'll try to get my layers in order and put the .PSD up somewhere. I may still noodle with it a bit.

Canonically, it is more or less where Providence is meant to be, right? Or has it been nailed down elsewhere? Working on a PPD ID which has the vague shape of RI on it and thought a star where PC is meant to be might pop a little.

I wanted to get my main characters back to where they were on Live and plus I was always in fear that the game would go away again so I tended to rush to 50 and that is a hard habit to break even though Homecoming is legit now. I have 66 50's and a 47 that is on the verge. While the S.T.A.R.T. vendors and the xp doublers are nice and everything, especially if you have limited time to play, I feel like there was a sense of community when things like double xp weekends were happening back on Live. Those were the weekends when you would see all your Globals lit up and it was just fun. I still have fun in the game but when it comes to leveling, it seems like it is just the same handful of things happening over and over again. I participate but it all feels kind or rote, in the end.

That said, I still defend my 13-day stint as Dr. Rick Dagless in Pocket D as being vital to my mental health at the time. Speaking only in Darkplace quotes was endlessly amusing for me and probably a whole four other people. When he was finally generic'd, he came back briefly as Dagless the White and eventually I just renamed him and left it at that. He never speaks now because it is speaking that gets me in trouble.

Yeah, as many have said, it has always been the Homecoming thing. It was kind of laughable when Homecoming itself was a rogue server but I did understand that while operating as such, they didn't want to attract the attention of the Disneys and the WBs of the world that might have enough money to make an issue when it seemed like NCSoft was letting things slide. I get the impulse you have. The characters you describe are iconic. Hell, the comic industry has been heavily doing pastiches of existing IP for decades. It makes sense - the artists and writers grew up loving certain characters but Batman can't have 300 writers and artists. So folks make their own versions. It's what comics have always done. Homages are your best bet - take the inspiration and put some distance between your version and the original's costume and origin. You can be a little tongue-in-cheek but you still want to infuse the character with enough that is different from the original so folks don't know exactly who you are meant to be at a glance. And it will feel more satisfying. And trust me: There will still be folks who want to yuck your homage yum. I have a character whose costumes are meant to be video game characters so I made costumes evocative of iconic video game characters and I took care to make the names and costumes distinctive from the IP. Even so, I guess a couple are still too close and I get the occasional snide comment. If I were reported, it wouldn't really matter if my homage would hold up to legal scrutiny. It most likely would. But Homecoming GMs are just going to generic on the side of caution and call it a day. You have to watch it with names as well. While names can be trademarked as book titles, a company really can't claim complete ownership of the name of an animal, place, or thing but even if your CoH Wolverine looks completely different from the comics, Homecoming's GMs are just going to generic you if someone takes the time to report it. They're volunteers and don't really have the time or bandwidth to research all the ins-and-outs and intricacies of IP. I think Marvel submitted a list of 6500 character names to Cryptic back in the day that they claimed that they "owned" while the lawsuit was happening. I've never seen the list but out of 6500 names, I'm sure the bulk were the common names of animals, places, things, etc that they assuredly did not own but the game studio wasn't about to battle them over it. Also worth mentioning that while it would be perfectly legally acceptable for DC to have a character called Wolverine as long as their version was distinct from the Marvel version and the comic title was something else, Disney would probably still throw a nuisance suit at them to protect the IP. It kind of falls to the owners to protect their IP and companies with enough money to do so vigorously. Homecoming can't take the risk.

I grabbed Misnomer off of the bottom list. Will release at a later date if nothing comes of it.

If Lovebird doesn't work for you, I'd love to take it off your hands!

In another news, grabbed Paydirt off that long list above and am super bummed I missed out on Lovebird. I have a character that references being bummed that name wasn't available in their bio!