Techwright

We do have several of them memorialized as their characters in-game, as @TerroirNoir noted. Some of them pop up in multiple places. The frozen pond zone at Christmas time comes to mind. You can see Ascension, for example, talking on the telephone (his famous phone routine) around the backside of the statue Positron stands before in Steel Canyon.

Pulling this back up to share a thought: In doing some reading I discovered that the wonderful actor Julian Glover is still alive at 87. His Star Wars character was a very competent Imp general, Veers. Veers managed to survive the Death Star's destruction (he was away from base at the time) and survive The Empire Strikes Back (early drafts had the character killed). He's even managed to survive the books as one book that killed the character has been relegated by Disney to the Legends dustbin. Veers was supposed to be in The Return of the Jedi, but Glover's schedule didn't permit it. Here's my thought: The Mandalorian kicked off several projects set in the 9 years after Return of the Jedi, making it about 15 years since the Death Star blew up (15 ABY approx.) Why not get Julian Glover back as competent Gen. Veers for one last run? Finish him off this time. Yes, Julian is much older now than Veers would be, but that can be managed, if with makeup wizardry, he's shown to be badly burned and injured possibly due to the events in Return of the Jedi. So burn makeup, or possibly even cybernetics as a look. An injured lung rasp might suffice for an aged voice. Make Veers one of the architect generals of the First Order, and therefore a key target for the New Republic. I don't care which show the character might end up in, but it could be some glorious continuity and a chance to see one of the dwindling number of actors from the original movie.

Just so long as they have nice wide and tall tunnels.

I've tried to recreate your work (not sure on the skull face/mask) and then tinker with the coloring a bit. I've not changed any patterns or pieces (except possibly the face, and that by accident) with the exception of the eye aura. I'll get to that. 1. I chose to reduce the number of reds used, and tone it to a darker red. 2. Building on the "Shadow" concept, I inserted darker grays, close to black. While these may prove too dark for your taste, I found that lightening them a notch still keeps things shadowy. 3. Taking "Shadowfist" for inspiration, I went to asymmetrical gloves, leaving the symbolic green glove on the left hand, and switching to patterned grays on what I presume is the dominant fist. 4. For this experiment, I changed from the pulsating beastly rage eyes, and went to Glow's glowing eyes, then changed the bright orange, moving all the way to the left on the orange line to get a less brash, smoldering orange look. It also works pretty well with black and charcoal grey which deliver a soft ghostly light glow to the eye sockets. These are just suggestions, don't feel obligated to use any of it.

Don't take this the wrong way, but for a guy whose name begins "Shadow..." he's got a lot of color going on. It's my own personal preference, but if I was making this, I'd probably use layers of dark grey to replace a lot of the red. Use the red, perhaps, but very sparingly. The last part of his name is "...fist". Singular. Perhaps use asymmetrical setting and have only one colored fist? Just thinking out loud. I might try to recreate your look and then try some coloring to see what it might achieve.

I actually kind of like this. It would be kind of neat to have Atlas Park vacant for a bit, and Maurader overwhelming his sweetie with numerous FTD runs.

Yes, remember all the 7's? There were 7 prison buildings total, each with 7 sides, 7 prison floors (8th was control area), 7 wives, 7 cats, 7 rats, ....wait, got mixed up there somehow. You're probably asking how the other buildings didn't send help. (By the way, the prisons were probably not inter-connected underwater.) The first prison episode, when Cassian stood before the door to the factory floor, established that they too were running thin on staff. They probably didn't have help to send, and even if they did, they might not have had the transportation. I got the impression that the late guard in that scene was shuttled by the ship that brought Cassian. Lack of transportation keeps the risk of escapes at a minimal, but it also works against the empire in emergencies. It may be shown in the aftermath that those prisons called for help from space, but this goes back to Cassian's description of the empire as essentially stupid, and they might not have kept an imperial ship nearby. I think you hit it. The engineering wasn't so much the need for practical , but rather the perception (and mostly reality) that one doesn't escape from this facility, at least at the levels. You'd be crushed by the water pressure or you'd drown before reaching the surface. Again, I wonder why they didn't throw space piranha into the water just to reinforce this. It would be a means of disposing of corpses, gruesome though it be. There are some benefits to a water-located building beyond security. Hydro-power and abundant water for filtering for drinking, laundry, and waste facilities for one. It does beggar the question though as to why the prison didn't permit proper showers rather than a sterilizing mist. Those prisoners got to exfoliate once in a while. I have to wonder if the writers and architects of this prison concept had Dante's 7 levels of hell in mind when designing this wretched hive of scum and villainy. The YouTube reaction comments have been full of love for Andy Serkis and for Stellan Skarsgård as well. If anything, the viewers loved this episode even more than "The Eye". Andy's been doing interviews after episodes air and I'm including a post-episode 10 interview with Andy for you to view. Be aware, the interviewer has no sense of "Spoilers!" and delves right into them. DO NOT see this interview until you've viewed the episode:

All of them are great, but that Gewehrwulf really takes the cake!

Sorry, sorry! I got a bit confusaled, after all, I was already replying to 10 others. You're quite right, it was a good post (see below). And you're quite right, Praetoria also has wall-less zones. All is good, the whirlpool idea is genius, though I'm not sure what the execution of it will be beyond visual. Do players suffer damage if getting into it? Do they get killed if pulled to the center? Are water powers able to counter it? Inquiring minds want to know. Makes sense to continue the Greek theme, though would it be if Talos were divided? Only if the northern and eastern war walls were taken down, I feel, so it maintains a perceived continuity. There does seem to be a need to have some sort of opponent or story in the northern bay. That's a lot of unused space. Currently, only the ghost ship travels there, but not always. If we have the wire frames for snakes, do we have enough to make a Giant Monster Charybdis? By the way, did you notice the map has one extra island to the east in the Talos bay? One wonders what that might have been.

Andor Episode 10: One Way Out (Mandalorian: This is the Way 😁 )

I love the stories, so yes, I like the arcs. However, I'm most often in PUGs, so sadly, there's never time to read the story.

I've a minor ice/fire blaster named FreezOr Burn. I've mentioned these others elsewhere in the forums, but I've added Styxian Stone, a seismic blast/dark miasma corruptor, Conflygration, a fire/fire sentinel, and The Walking Red, a Beam Rifle/Energy Aura sentinel.

As always, the concept expressed in my OP somehow quickly mutated and tangents took off. It has been an interesting discussion so far. Let me just note that I'm not trying to dismiss the CoV material, I was just focusing on Paragon City right now. Likewise, I'm not trying to ignore the idea of fixing current zones, that's another topic (one dear to me). I was trying to get a response regarding specific areas of the Paragon City map itself, though there've been many wonderful ideas not tied to any map location. I'd like to comment on several: Are the Virtea something reference in red side? I don't play there much. I'm actually surprised, however, that I've not seen this before, after years in the game. I never considered the amount of coastline. With Peregrine Island, Talos Island, Siren's Call, and Independence Port, I'd always thought of Paragon City as coastal, but yes, I can see the need for expansion in that category, and #5 definitely qualifies. War walls, for any that don't know, were done to cover early-era MMO zone transfers. Peregrine Island shows the progress made. The game transitions to Talos Island if you swim far enough south. While I'll be very pleasantly surprised if we ever do get a new zone, wall-less zones should be possible. As I mentioned above, it's not intended as a competition. The discussion was speculative, and focused on Paragon City. I'll be happy to start a Rogue Island thread version. Closest thing we have is Croatoa, and that's more like a satellite village with farms, and what probably used to be state park territory. I add my voice with all the others so far in saying I'd really like to see this if by some blessed miracle we actually do get new zones. I'd probably drop it either next to Croatoa, or one or more of the zones to the south. Moon base someday, absolutely. Both concepts have major consequences for travel powers. Teleportation almost becomes a necessity in a "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" kind of way. I'd not really considered completely rural as a zone idea. Your future farm tractors sounds fun. Maybe it could tie a bit more tightly to the city story if at least part of the zone were an experimental farm (of the future?) run by a corporation. Say...Crey, with some sinister ideas. I seem to recall a sci-fi story (I don't recall where) where corn was genetically altered to make it (that specific breed) addictive. Run with something like that, and have heroes brought in by the remaining farmers who the corporation is leaning hard on to force the sale of their farms to the corporation. As stated above, I love the idea of fixing existing zones, I've actually commented on it repeatedly over the years, and I truly hope it happens, but it's a different topic than the one laid out. First off, I really appreciate the attention to the OP that you put in, and your well-thought answers. PDA 1 is a perfect idea, and the one for 7,8,9 looks pretty organic to the map layout. PDA 5 is intriguing. I never really considered Malta to need a main base, not like Striga Island at any rate. Malta always struck me as a hard-to-pin-down group: smaller, cellular, temporary bases. Setting that thought aside, yes, I think 5 might work for a Malta base. Visually it looks like a control point for sea access to the city. I'd not have an open base though, like the Council has. Malta is too sneaky for that. I'd think more like "coastal tourist town up top, Malta base underneath". Maybe have access via elevator chairs in the barbershop. 😉 First paragraph: yes, absolutely correct. Man, I love your ideas! The passport stamp idea is fun. I wonder if it could be converted to some sort of mini-game/reward system? The shifting alignment concept in suburbia, if entirely random, would keep things fresh by being a different experience each time. The Refugee Zone is fantastic. I actually could see it either as its own or as a rebuild of part of a current destruction zone. Storyline with changing facade where you protect construction crews clearing rubble and laying down a quick-build village of pre-fabricated parts. Once done, get into a main story arc. Actually, I read "refugee zone" and the first thought I had was a "Hooverville" to reference the tent villages of the poor in the post-stock market crash of the early 1930s. The refugees being those people displaced by all the city destruction, but too poor to move away. Not so much tents as pre-fab mini-homes, trailers, and whatever else could be quickly assembled to house the displaced. Let me pitch a variation of that. If I recall the lore correctly, the Rikti remain a thorn in our side because they have a small portal to their homeworld and troops trickle in. What if we can expand on the Mothership Raid? Fight our way, not just to the center and stand there hammering opponents for a half hour, but searching for the small portal, and forcing our group through in an effort to push back/close the portal from the other side. Eventually we're repelled, and the portal either remains or is somehow rebuilt, but it expands our actions and the concept. I could see this combined with the Suburbia concept. A shopping mall could work in context, and be treated like a zone-within-a-zone, like Terra Volta is to Independence Point. Perhaps a partially abandoned shopping mall (like too many are today). The abandoned parts have had villain groups moving in, and the remaining shopkeepers are asking hero help to clear them out. Along the way in the story, we can investigate the sinister reason behind the ice cream shop having 32 flavors of ice cream. 😉

If you were to add a zone to Paragon City, where would you think would be the most interesting location, and why? What would you like to see in that spot? Please consider how bordering areas might overlap or affect a new zone, giving a more cohesive feel to the city. I'm including a map with a few predefined areas, but please feel free to select anything not in those predefined spots, or perhaps overlapping those spots. I'm choosing to ignore the background colors for the time being as most currently existing zones do not like up with the borders of those colors. I'd rather consider it undefined territory for points of discussion. "PDA"= Predefined area PDA-1 - Croatoa to the NW, Independence Point and possibly Kallisti Warf to the south, Boomtown to the east PDA-2 - Independence Point to the west, Kallisti Warf to the north, Steel Canyon to the east, Galaxy City to the south PDA-3 - Siren's Call to the NW, Peregrine Island to the east/NE, The Hollows to the South, Atlas Park to the SW PDA-4 - Rikti War Zone to the west, Independence Port to the east, Crey's Folly to the south PDA-5 - Talos Island to the west/SW, Peregrine Island to the NW, Dark Astoria to the south PDA-6 - Skyway City to the west, The Hollows to the north, Talos Island to the east PDA-7 - Kings Row to the NW, Skyway City to the NE, Faultline to the east/SE, The Hive to the south, Brickstown to the west PDA-8 - Faultline to the west, Skyway City to the NW, Talos Island to the NE, Founders Falls to the east, Eden to the south PDA-9 - Crey's Folly to the NW, Brickstown to the north/NE, The Hive to the east

That sounds about right. The police box phones make a continuous tone and during certain task forced we've got to tag several with the last one leading to a door mission. I guess I should ask, though: are your recalling the low tone of the police box phone (yellow boxes) or possibly another sound, like the jangling of an old phone bell? I was just over by Ascendant in Steel Canyon where both devices are adjacent to him, and heard the police box tone, but my hazy memory seems to recall a bell jangling as well.

Just saw this. It puts the Aldoni heist in much-needed perspective, since in-story credits aren't 1:1 with dollars or pounds. 80 million Empire credits are going to buy you a lot more than a nice stay at the beach.

Yavin as the series destination make a lot of sense. Obviously somewhere along the line, Alan Tudyk will be back, hopefully sooner rather than later. I do wonder if they let him play the K2SO unit a couple of episodes back, but just changed the voice. Did they say how many episodes? I know they're compressing 5 years of material down to two, due to Diego's desire to not play the role for so long. I'd like to hope that they added a few more episodes so that it is pithy, but without the feeling of being overly rushed.

I wasn't there for "sunset". I was off long-term Beta testing Firefall, at one time a truly promising game until a bizarre gutting of the game by the Chinese company that bought it. Gutting to the point of non-functional. Firefall fans, though smaller in number, pine just as much over the loss of their game. Anyway, I tried to come back to CoH only to discover it was gone. I always deeply regretted that. Around 2018 I was told someone had managed to reactivate the costume designer and the zones, but not the NPCs or other gameplay elements, and I gratefully recreated my favorite characters and went into the matrix to look around. I was struck by how empty it was. Took my shots and vids, and didn't go back. Then around May 2019 a coworker gave me the news of Homecoming, and I must have busted his eardrum yelling in shock and delight. I wasn't the best worker the rest of the day (glad he told me mid-afternoon) and I rushed home to install and hear those dulcet opening notes.

Fair enough. Kill 95% or better? If there's 5 or more delving into the cracks, that's really the time to notify the devs, anyway. It sounds like it would require an added variable, such as a team comprised of different archetypes, one character per archetype. Or additional scoring for those who want to run all of type X.

By the way, did you notice that actress Denise Gough gave what appears to be a series spoiler? Either that or she's laid a cunning trap.

I was on a PUG the other day that ran the Yin TF in just over 14 minutes. Fastest speed run I've ever been on. I'm sure YMMV, and that some teams have clocked a lot faster. It got me thinking: The game has the ability to measure time to complete a TF. I believe the game also has the ability to not allow a mission to have a successful completion as long as a single opponent is standing. Can it therefore merge these two? I'd really like to see what times might be achieved by a team clearing absolutely every opponent in any TF/SF that has a set number of opponents, rather than finding ways to skip most of the material. I realize things like Market Crash that spawns a potentially infinite number of opponents at the end wouldn't qualify. EDIT: And if the game can do this, can it do it by chapter? For example: can it post the time in Yin TF when we complete the leg that ends on the jail cells level of the police station?

It's at moments like this that I suddenly remember my Charlemagne

Still scary though, yes?

I'm sure Snarky likes a good Alfredo, too...so long as Alfredo is type B+.