RikOz

This is from the part of this story arc where you take the mental monocle to Penelope Yin. I strongly suspect that it is supposed to say "celestial quartz", not "elestial".

Today I logged in my War Mace/Invuln brute, Betty Beatdown, and decided to make some small modifications to her level 30 and level 40 costumes. Because I didn't feel they fit her aesthetic. Plus, I didn't feel they were very creative - they were just the "Black Knight" and "Celestial Armor" sets. In addition, well, she's Invulnerable (for certain values of that term), so what does she need with so much armor? For her "Black Knight" getup, the only real change was getting rid of the chainmail shirt and pants, and adding a chainmail miniskirt: Likewise, for her "Celestial" suit, I eliminated the Celestial chest and leg armor and just went with the Labeaux stuff underneath: And just like that, these two costumes feel "right" on this character. Oh, her backstory: Elizabeth Downing grew up poor in London, UK, with a physically abusive stepfather. One day, when she was 13, her drunken stepfather hit her ... and his blow had no effect. Her mutant powers had manifested as invulnerability. When the next blow proved similarly futile, Betty picked up the first object at hand - a cricket bat - and gave her stepfather a taste of his own medicine, along with a promise of more to come should he ever hurt her or her mother again.

So I spotted this today at the grocery store where I work - Starbuck's Sumatra coffee: Single Origin? I'm guessing "Natural". Probably a +Recharge enhancement.

For my one hundred and tenth character, I give you... The Microaggressor! Erm, he's the one on the left: Street Justice/Willpower brute.

To a certain extent, I think the medieval fantasy RPG style of crafting is out of place in a modern setting like we have here. In a medieval setting, you would genuinely need to obtain the necessary raw materials, and then have the proper training, practice, and, importantly, proper tools, to transform those raw materials into something useful. In a modern/futuristic setting that includes a large-scale manufacturing industry, individual inventing/crafting skill becomes more of a niche hobby thing, because you can essentially buy what you need off the shelf, already assembled. So inventing, as CoX calls it, is really more of an abstraction for "obtaining necessary items in various ways". An important distinction between medieval RPG crafting and CoX inventing is that, in CoX, we (mostly) aren't making "gear". We're making (or otherwise obtaining) "enhancements", i.e. "finding ways to improve what we already have". This is reflected in the names given to DOs and SOs. Enhancements for Natural origin characters read like the protein powders and other supplements you'd buy off the shelf at GNC. Same with Science and Technology enhancements, just stuff purchased at a specialty store. Magic enhancements are "artifacts" that are found or purchased. Mutation enhancements are medical treatments. By the time we get to IOs, origin labels go away, and the IOs (even the named sets) more or less stop representing an actual item and instead begin representing our character's own natural improvement via experience, practice, and continued training. Because, if you think about, where exactly are we "slotting" these things? We don't have "slots". "Slotting" a better Accuracy enhancement represents spending time on target practice. A better Damage enhancement represents extra strength training, or finding ways to concentrate the force of your attacks better. A better Recharge enhancement represents finding ways to work more efficiently. And so on. In other words, slotting an enhancement is not the same thing as equipping a better breastplate.

Another problem with these missions is that, quite often, one of the initial mobs attacking the item will spawn inside the item. You can see their head and arms sticking out of the display case. They will aggro on you, but can't attack, and you can't target-attack them either because, with them inside the object, you get the "Target Blocked" error. The only way to damage them is with non-targeted AoE (or splash damage from an AoE targeted on a mob not stuck in the item. And that can take a while. Sometimes you can get them "unstuck" by running out of line-of-sight, forcing them to try to chase you, but that doesn't always work.

Yet another random idea that popped into my head, that I had to immediately turn into a character! Presenting, "The Aubergenerator" (Electrical Blast/Atomic Manipulation blaster): Aubergine ... he's a big eggplant :D

I finally stopped trying to store salvage. It came to the point where I realized that just buying the salvage I need from the AH was a lot faster than going from rack to rack to rack trying to locate the item I need

Likewise, and it's the very definition of "the best defense is a good offense". Absolutely love being able to take out almost everything before it gets anywhere near me!

Regarding the 20-minute cooldown on using the "Secondary Mutation" power: Either the 20-minute timer runs a bit fast, or the random buff lasts a bit too long. Either way, the buff remains active for several seconds after the power becomes available again. This is a problem because, if you click the Secondary Mutation power again, while the previous buff is still active, you get no new buff. The old buff then expires as normal, you have no new buff, and now you cannot activate the power again for another 20 minutes. Similarly, the Inner Inspiration power's 30-minute timer often runs out, the power shows as being available to use again, but it can be another minute or two before you can actually use the power again. I've seen this multiple times - usually I'm in my SG base and I see the timer on Inner Inspiration run out and the button become active again, but clicking it immediately just results in a red "unavailable" ring appearing around the button. Waiting another minute or two before trying again results in the power working normally.

Calvin's Mom (Sonic/Sonic blaster):

What's actually peculiar is this bit of text after completing the mission: Who the hell is "Lord Caernoz", and what freaking portal is it talking about? There was no portal.

Just obtained and ran the mission again. Maelstrom is next to the "Vampyr Commandant" (the Commandant has a minion as well, but I already defeated him before the screenshot):

This is concept, rather than costume design, because this is just the prefab "Stone" costume. But I got this idea to look up a "word of the day" (on dictionary.com, in this case), and create a character with a name and concept based on that word. The first time I tried this, the word of the day was "Xanadu". Alas, there was already a "Xanadude" on my server, so I waited for the next day's word. That word was "orogeny": the process of mountain-making or upheaval. So here is "The Orogenyst" (Fiery Melee/Stone Armor): The next day's word was "cruciverbalist", which is a designer or aficionado of crossword puzzles. Today's word is the adverb, "memoriter", meaning "by heart; by memory". Couldn't think of a superhero idea for either of those, so we'll see what tomorrow suggests :D

So what does a guy have to do to find a non-Freakshow story arc in the early- to mid-30s range? Those guys get very tiresome, very quickly - especially when you have as many alts as I do. It's like no matter which contacts I have, my alts consistently get funneled into "The Freaklympics" or "The Freakshow War". Some contacts are especially annoying, in that their "get to know you" missions involve Nemesis or Crey, and get my hopes up, and then when they finally offer an arc, it's one of those Freakshow arcs. (My blasters are getting irritated because Sniping a Freak just takes them down low enough to trigger their self-heal.)

Mission in which Freaks are trying to use magic to enhance their implants: Sacrificial Victim: If there's anything worse than being sacrificed, it's being sacrificed incompetently.

Just thought this looked cool, about to venture into Crey's Folly: And this is taking "high on drugs" to a ridiculous level:

The latest iteration of Heartbeat of America:

In the hero version of this mission, Maelstrom is always standing next to one particular mob. Alas, I can't remember what it's called off the top of my head. It's not a "named" mob, but he's a lieutenant with a title/rank that doesn't appear on any other mob in the mission. I've been where the OP is, though - defeated that mob and ran off without noticing its name, and then had to hunt all over for Maelstrom.

I don't recall (again) if I've posted this guy before: Tom da Bomb (Fiery Melee/Rad Armor brute). This is one of my favorite collections of costumes for a single character, so I'm surprised I don't play him more often. Costumes in order of appearance; he's currently wearing #3: And in his civvies: He's actually unusually short. Here he is fighting some standard Freaks, for scale:

I don't get it. I originally heard the name in the Tim McGraw song, "Live Like You Were Dying". Every copy of the lyrics I've seen says "Fu Manchu", but I swear to God Tim sings "Blue", not "Fu".

That being said, one has to wonder if rooftop solar panels can produce enough juice to power a skyscraper.

Katana/Regen brute, "Blue Manchu", created entirely because the name popped into my head.

Finally got a seventh alt to 50. Here's Fallout Bull (SS/Rad brute), in his full radioactive glory: Fallout Bull is my first "Homecoming Original" character to reach 50. The previous six were all live-resurrections. He started out as "Rad Bull", over on Reunion, and the name was a reference to his origin story, wherein he gained superpowers from consuming too many energy drinks. When I moved him to Everlasting, somebody already had the name, so he became "Roentgen Bull", a name I was never really happy with, but couldn't think of anything else suitable, until fairly recently.

Say what? Or did you mean it's unavailable for females with monstrous legs?