Techwright

Only very briefly, like for a few seconds of confusion. No this is definitely a villain verses the heroes kind of episode. Good episode, in my opinion. Definitely took things in an unexpected direction. I do have a grievance with one element of the episode, though, although it is minor in light of the whole. Anyone else notice that each episode the Watcher seems to be brought more and more into the spotlight? A previous episode had him spotted by one in the story, this episode, I think, is the first time he's not been just a ghostly image in the background. Makes me wonder if they're building towards something.

The Disney+ Hawkeye trailer has dropped, and it is looking good. I took a look at the cast list on imdb.com, and, no surprise, the tag scene from Black Widow will be fulfilled in this series. I've also seen one classic Hawkeye villain named. My attention was really drawn to Brian d'Arcy James in the listings, though, as he does have a character name. I have learned this was deliberate. It makes me wonder who it is. If it is another villain, I have three guesses. If it is someone else, I have 1 guess. Thoughts?

Trying to see this on my little smartphone screen. I am guessing Blackwing represents the rooster, but that leaves Mr Goodfellow as the sheep? Perhaps my visuals are too small to pick up details.

Nemesis have their own way of utilizing fallen warriors. I'd not really considered Malta in the mix. I'll have to go see that. It's Crimson's arc, is it not? I've not done his stuff since being back in the game. 5th Column, Council, and Sky Raiders were all ones that I suspected were using hard drives with memory imprints of fallen soldiers. I'd not really considered the "brain in jars" view, though I suppose it would work. If the Council would force their soldiers into existing as other horrors, why not this?

I could have sworn I had that on a charcuterie board once.

No offense to the OP view, but I wouldn't call the addition of asymmetrical costume components nothing. That has fired the creativity of many, myself included. Likewise the ability for illusion players to have their pets mirror their looks (handled via the costume creator) is also fantastic. I could wish for a lot more, sure, and I've had a lot of thoughts towards that, but as @Greycat noted, it's a small, volunteer team. Of necessity, their day jobs and personal lives come first. My only real wish is that I could get my hands on training material for the software that costumes are made by. It may be simple compared to what the big league folk do, but I'd love to create more chest emblems for the game to help out. Sadly, it probably takes a degree in game technology.

I've got a lore question. I don't think the question will need spoilers. Though the answers might. When fighting various factions that use robots, notably Sky Raiders, Council, and Fifth Column, I occasionally see a robot in charge and/or referred to with a rank and name (Lt. Smith, etc.). I've seen this in both missions and radio missions. The question: Is there anything in revealed lore to explain why this is? Have these groups tapped into some freaky science that allows them to transfer the memories and skills of fallen leaders into the robots? Are they leaders virtually commanding through a command base connection to the robot? Other explanation? EDIT: And if there is a lore explanation, is it specific to one group? Meaning there might be possibly multiple explanations, each unique to a group.

What makes it so? Not critiquing your position, just trying to understand.

I was unaware this was a concern. If anything, the Vahz feel less dangerous than in the oldest days of CoH. I never noticed developer notes suggesting they'd toned down the Vahz, but I can remember teams getting obliterated by swift, paralyzing crossbow attacks, devastating exploding Vahz, and cleanup-positioned Eidolons. If anything, the first two tickle now with an occasional bloody nose. Are these players running missions at high or max settings?

One of the reasons not to choose Going Rogue at first is that, due to the storyline, you'll not be able to interact with blue and red sides for the first 20+ levels. (It's an interesting storyline, though.) Few players go through "gold" side so it is best for a solo player, or one with a team dedicated to doing content with them. CoV also has a low population, but is more likely to have players available to assist. I think Excelsior has the highest red-side population but don't quote me on that. Everlasting is the unofficial role playing server, so there may be a reasonable CoV population there. The "ingame npc inside pocket d" which can change your alignment is Null the Gull who perches on the truck parked over in the red-lighted side.

I didn't even consider that to be honest. I was focused on selecting goggles that worked but were not the aviator goggles, as I'd used those too often in my designs. Perhaps it works because I used a very dark purple on the lens?

Yeah, I hear ya! I think the pulp/radio/dieselpunk "era" is my favorite, and several of my characters reflect that. I've got a relatively new one that is also inspired by The Phantom: The Rainforest Revenant If others have great pulp-era heroes, keep 'em coming!

Welcome to the game! One thing to realize is that gold side (going rogue) does move you into contact with the red and blue sides in your 20s. So you'll be able to gain access to all the Trials, Task Forces, and Strike Forces eventually. And once you've gained that access, if you've not been told previously, you can either do alignment tip missons (long but interesting way around) or visit Null the Gull in Pocket D (short way) to change alignment and experience what the other side has to offer.

I'm in "wait and see" mode. I've not seen Shang Chi yet (hopefully this weekend), but Phase 4 has a lot of things that either I don't know (Eternals, Shang Chi, Moon Knight, Iron Heart) or have no interest in (Ms. Marvel, Thor: Love and Thunder). That said, there are several projects I'm looking forward to and a few that I'm on the fence about, liking some bits and disliking others. What I'm really interested in at this point is in seeing the Fantastic Four done correctly, and a new take on the X-Men. But these feel like years off at this point, like, "will I be retired by then" kind of stuff. Beyond that, I'm not really sure where MCU is going, and I think that can create a waning interest. I know their roster is very deep, and they've not even tapped creations like Submariner. What I really miss at this point is a bonifide team. Duos (with others along for the fun) seems to be the theme at the moment, but I really liked the idea of whipping out a team movie every two years. They've been strongly hinting at a new team through the appearance of several from the New (Young?) Avengers team in the comics, but there's been nothing beyond that to suggest that these are pulling together towards a team movie. So in summary: I'm not out, and there's enough to keep my interest for the time being, but Phase 4 feels less cohesive than phases 1-3, and that, if ongoing, has the potential to decrease my interest.

So more like wait for the second half of season 1, then subscribe to see it all?

Just learned about the Victorian Britain superhero (and steampunk?) Show called The Nevers. Question: is it worth plunking down the money for the HBO web channel to see this?

Forgot to add, there's a great easter egg in this one that reactors I have viewed so far haven't picked up on. There's a visual gag reference to the logo of Mutant Enemy Productions, Joss Whedon's film production company. Joss, of course, directed the first two Avengers movies, and Mutant Enemy produced the "Agents of SHIELD" TV show.

Glad you liked it. For me...

I don't think that's what the hospital was recommending when they said have a detox shower in the base.

I've never seen bacon in any of the DA stuff, so yeah, needs more bacon!

I've considered this often, in fact, I go into big buildings looking around to decide whether that building's design is feasible as an entertaining CoH arena. I think my answer would be "it depends". The hospital where I work would make a superb game environment. This is because it has everything: wide open rooms like the cafeterias and the Emergency Room, hallways with most double-wide to accommodate 2-way mobile bed traffic, outdoor areas like the covered freight dock, maintenance accessible roofs at differing heights, hospital gardens, and parking garage, destroy-able/savable target areas like the power generation annex and the tech networking areas, many, many elevators and some in weird areas ( I can even think of one that goes...yes...1 floor up), etc. I could probably think of more if I put my mind to it. The other thing that make the hospital ideal is that it was constructed in stages over 100 years (this month actually!) and the stages are kind of a pastiche, so there's a wide variety of rooms and corridors. It's not just a box with a blah layout. I think that a possible key point in selecting interesting buildings. Those that have been modified over a long time will likely have a lot of variables. Even our headquarters would make an interesting CoH fighting area. It's a salvaged and converted 120-year old textile factory, with wide-open work areas and spacious central hallways that serve as party/event areas, and it's only a couple of stories tall, with elevators and stairways in several spots. The layout of rooms and hallways is definitely not standardized, and height is generous given that the chambers were built back when air conditioning in the Deep South was not available, and the higher the ceiling the cooler the floor area. Buildings with cookie-cutter layouts might not need to be entirely boring either. Consider, for example if a high-rise still stood in Boomtown, but the damage to it changed the cookie-cutter layout. Elevators would be offline, stairs would be the necessary means, and fallen, unstable debris would have blocked access between certain floors forcing you to exit and work your way across the floor to another set of stairs. The vanilla floor would be awash with destruction (add-able/modifiable partially-fallen ceilings, broken up floors, strewn furniture, etc.) creating a unique obstacle course to fight through each floor. I guess the answer is to assume that the buildings we enter are not the cookie-cutter blocks kind, or that we only enter a few of those. One thing I would push for, however, is matching interiors to exteriors. Not necessarily perfectly, mind you, but I don't want to go into a door of a 1-story warehouse and have a 6-story interior. So somehow coding doors to only use something reasonably compatible would be a concept I could get behind. Especially when we still might open a warehouse door and get a cave. Ugh.

It should have been the Time melee set, but I heard they lost track of it.

This might make a great suggestion. There's got to be some bit somewhere that toggles to let the computer know a WST has been done. I'd like to think that could be referenced to build a visible display to help the user.

Yeah that happens to me out in YouTube land. I'll see a video, maybe I'm a tad familiar with it, maybe not, and I'll like to read the comments section. I've had several times when I'll speed read comments, find one that strikes my fancy, and glance over to the name and its one of my aliases and the comment was posted years ago. What really freaks me is that, even realizing I wrote it, I don't recognize my own style of writing.

Responding: