Techwright

I understand the ad parts are gone, but the graphics I don't think have always been the same, at least I seem to recall some having different ones. If there's graphics, like ZomBCare, are they hardwired into the code, or can they be swapped out? I rather like the idea of posting contest winners' pictures, especially if they're made to be fictional product endorsers. In similar vein, are the theater billboards still changeable? I'd love to see an update to the movie selections. Maybe hold a competition for designing such.

Knowing Praetoria, it is probably some subconscious mind-control tool of Mother Mayhem's.

I, too, am grateful. I still remember when a work teammate told me Homecoming existed. I believe I frightened about 20 nearby coworkers in my outcry of shock and excitement. I agree, creativity is hard. I've killed several character projects, even 30 levels in, because I couldn't get all the components to feel cohesive. But we've got a forum full of friendly helps including both name ideas and costume design. Its a better choice than copying a trademarked property. As I mentioned in the OP, I've no problems with homage characters should there be enough differences that there's no ripoff. I mean, I even saw what appeared to be an homage to 1930s Superman and a really swell homage to Dr. Fate during the weekend costume contests. Neither violated the rules so far as I could tell, which meant the players took the time to think through their crafting, rather than just ripping something off. Yes, I used "swell". No I'm not a Boomer. 😛 I saw your character, too, at the costume contest, Snarky. Actually I saw him before I noticed the name, and thought, that looks a lot like Snarky's forum pic. And it was. Good show! Yes I used "good show". No I'm not a Victorian. 😛 That was home-made? They told me they got it from Elon Musk. (Still don't want the apartment complex burnt.)

Those are good points. I'll watch for alternate effects next time it happens, and I appreciate the eye-opener on tactics. 👍👍

Thanks! What petition type does that fall under? I don't ever recall having to report like that before. Exploits and Cheating? Harrassment and Conduct? General Help?

Yes, I was concerned what it might mean if they're on a team that is recorded and the video pushed to the public.

I hate to even bring this up, but I've seen a host of names of other properties in game this weekend. I'm not talking homages, where there's subtlety but a different name and enough of a different look and build that it doesn't rip off the trademark. I'm talking flat out copying the name, and using similar look and build. Am I correct in assuming the rules have not changed, and this is still not acceptable?

Honestly, even if player behavior could be modified, there are a number of pets that fire off these same abilities, and I'm not sure they can be reigned in once the fighting starts.

If you want to really go back a ways, look up the history of The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet. In radio, writings, TV. and later comics. You'll notice a certain last name: Reid. The Green Hornet was really Britt Reid, a wealthy newspaper owner with other investments in his financial empire. Then realize that the real last name of the Lone Ranger is Reid. (His first name has been changed up a bit over the years, but most settle on "John" the name Tonto put on the fake tombstone.) Ranger Reid had a secret silver mine, from whence his silver bullets came. The mine was maintained, in part, by his nephew Dan Reid, son of the brother and fellow ranger gunned down in the box canyon ambush. Dan inherits the mine and uses the silver wealth to found a financial empire. His son is the first Green Hornet, Britt Reid. Making the Lone Ranger's silver mine the source of the Green Hornet's wealth, and the Lone Ranger the great uncle of the first Green Hornet. The crossover connection is Dan Reid. He appears as a youth in the Lone Ranger radio show, and as the father figure in some of the Green Hornet radio show. In the 1990s, NOW comics ran Green Hornet comics. In them, they actually tied up a loose end or two rather nicely. Green Hornet and Kato of the radio series became the first Green Hornet and Kato, the WWII team. Green Hornet and Kato of the TV series became the second team, composed of Britt Reid II, the nephew of the radio Britt Reid, and TV Kato was the son of radio Kato. The radio Kato was given seed wealth by radio Britt, and returned to Japan to found a business empire focused on technology. It is his empire that provides the research and equipment for many of the gadgets and vehicles the Reid/Kato team-ups use. The comics then go on to tell their own stories with a third generation of Reids and Katos taking the mantles, the fourth generation of heroes from the Reid family. In the comics, over top the fireplace of the Reid's family room is a large painting of a masked ranger on horseback, said by the Reids to be their ancestor, the first to don a mask to fight crime. Challenge of the Yukon with later became Sergeant Preston of the Yukon on TV, was created in part by Mr. Fran Striker, who'd been behind both the Lone Ranger and Green Hornet series. It can be argued that Sergeant Preston and his dog, Yukon King might also be in the same universe, but I know of no references back and forth.

That's okay, we'll just use AOE root, holds and sleeps just as they start to attack. 😉 I admit I am baffled by the use of sleep attacks anytime in a big brawl, start or fully invested. Since sleep is easily broken by any other attack, I've always perceived it as a tool to stop a second, nearby mob from joining the fight. And on the subject of sleep, why is it that when we sleep opponents, they wake with any hit, but when they sleep us, they can use us as a punching bag for quite some time, assuming we don't have an inspire to break the sleep?

I re-watched the series a while back after Jesse died. I'd forgotten about her, which is terrible, and I'd wanted to correct that. I did remember Scotty, but I remembered the Kari era best, probably because it was both the last and the longest. I do recall paying closer attention to the undercurrent between Jamie and Adam, having learned a bit more about their differences during the interim. It's probably time to again re-watch the series, now that we've unfortunately lost Grant. The cool thing about Mythbuster is that most of it will remain valid and therefore fresh, for decades to come. Some technology displayed or used will show as dated in 30 years, but most will have a timeless element. Besides, who doesn't love instantly atomizing a cement truck leaving a massive distorted peal of thunder in its passing? 😁

I agree with Wild Claw. The trick is, what's the difference between what the MCU did/does, and what TV refers to as spinoffs? I think it is that the MCU was the first movie group to successful attempt to do what TV spin-offs had been doing for decades. But if there is no clear separation, then several spinoff shows which swap characters from time to time, especially if they run concurrent might qualify, and not all are sci-fi. Several come to mind: The Dragnet universe: Dragnet, Adam-12, Emergency!, CHiPs, Quincy M. E., TV movie The Great Los Angeles Earthquake, and even the modern 9-1-1 share a universe. A rather interesting explanation lies here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency!#Spin-offs_and_crossovers The Cheers universe: Cheers, Frasier, The Tortellis, St. Elswhere (crossover), and Wings (not a spinoff, but same universe) The "Hooterville" universe: The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Pettycoat Junction. Several of the characters appeared in multiple series. Sam Drucker, the jack-of-all-trades general store owner appeared in all three, for example. Wild Claw bested me though with the reference to My Favorite Husband. I was not aware that it was the launching point for Green Acres. The Mayberry Universe might be another: The Andy Griffith Show, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., and Mayberry R.F.D. as well as the reunion movie for The Andy Griffith Show. Quite a few of the secondary characters of TAGS transferred to MRFD, and a few of the TAGS characters would pop up on GPUSMC. The Bionic Universe: The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, as well as their multiple reunion movies. The JAG universe; J.A.G., NCIS, NCIS: New Orleans, NCIS: Los Angeles. Multiple stories started in one series and continued in another. The big one though would be the original MCU. There's actually a YouTube video on it:

Re-used doors get a comment from me like: "Somebody get me the name of the realtor for this place. I've got a house I'm needing to sell." Be sure to friend them on your MaskTome account.

What? the Paragon Protectors are protecting Paragon? They're not on the list.

Episode 3 is out and it's like a yin yang relationship: really wholesome and uplifting paired with some of the darkest stuff in animated Star Wars.

I've never done streaming or game video posting myself. I'm tempted to start the latter, but I've got too much RL to deal with at the moment. That said I'm hoping someone(s) will make some spectacular training videos for new players. I've been trying to get a pair of friends to join, and I realized the other day that what I take for granted comes from years of playing. The nuances, especially the variations that are unique to Homecoming, would take a ton of time to explain to friends. I'd love to be able to point them to a training series and say "Watch these, and we'll talk afterwards".

Blessed to have grown up in a town with a highly regarded Shakespearean group that did three plays a year. I just ran through the list, and I believe I've seen live performances of 17 of the 38 plays connected to Shakespeare. Many of those I've seen more than one interpretation. The group occasionally would do other works, and the one I distinctly remember was Cyrano de Bergerac. I also took two semesters of Shakespeare in college, and read a few of the works that I 'd not seen performed. Even when experienced at reading and watching Shakespeare, it takes a few minutes to get into the mindframe of Elizabethan speech, but I agree, seeing these plays is well worth the effort. If they cannot see one live, there's some good movie ones out there. Just a few to name: Henry V with Kenneth Branagh, Hamlet with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart, and Much Ado About Nothing with...so many people!...Kenneth Branagh, Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves, Emma Thompson, Kate Beckinsale, Michael Keaton, Brian Blessed, and a host of others.

To the 7 other illusion controllers who ran the ITF with this guy 👇 Tuesday night on Excelsior, my sincerest thanks. I had the best time ever on an ITF. I seriously think everyone who has an illusion controller should try such a team up with the Imperious Task Force. The power we wielded was absolutely amazing. And if you don't yet have one, may I recommend the illusion/storm controller sets? Control Tower

Might Red have gone to one of the other COH emulators?

The ghost of 2005 WOW guild raid leadership rises again...

I suspect you're not on Excelsior. There's BAF's most every day, and usually many. Lambdas are reasonably frequent as well. Other incarnate trials are less frequent, but are done. The nice thing is that Homecoming makes transitioning between servers a fairly painless process, so if you want to run these trials, it should be a simple thing to hop over to Excelsior, though granted you'll need to verify name availability and take into consideration things like dropping the super group membership, which of course you can pick back up on a return.

Quoted for truth. As to the rest, you can go see Mender Ramiel in Ouroboros and begin to do his story arc. If, as this is your first time, you run into missions too challenging for soloing, don't despair. Pause your efforts there, and jump in when someone in Ouroboros starts putting together a BAF (Behavioral Adjustment Facility) trial. (You may want to avoid the Master of BAF stuff at first. Up to you.) Let the leader know you're new and accept any guidance. We've got some fine leaders in that regard, and they'll see you through. BAF is the first of the incarnate trials, with Lambda the second of them. These will help in getting your Alpha slot unlocked in the Incarnate listings. You'll probably want to read up on Incarnate crafting, but the good news is that incarnate supplies drop, or rather "bind", even if you're going back and helping on other things like task forces and Maria Jenkins arcs.

I suspect the original developers focused on the end of the story that is the Lost and may not have realized how it was perceived by new players moving through the material. As such, in the original game, we'd just completed King's Row which used to be dominantly Lost, rather than heavily Skull and Circle of Thorns as it is now. So in that perspective, Castanella is a natural next step as the OG players moved from KR to Steel Canyon. I do remember the full realization of the Lost/Ritki connection to be a bit jarring as a new player, however. I mean, the clues were all there, but as a new player I still felt like I was "drinking from the fire hose", so to speak, and was letting details slip by as I tried to grasp the big concepts in the game. So in that sense, a little more obvious clues or a little more time to let the connection sink in would have been fine. Huh. As I think of it, it is remarkable how much I take for granted and gloss over today, that I was wide-eyed and struggling to comprehend in 2005, especially since CoH was my first MMO.

Hmm...I don't know. What do you think, Bladespark, my wanted-to-have-a-WOW-two-handed-axe-dwarf-homage-so-used-Titan-weapons creation? Can't think of anything? Yeah, me neither.

Make you wonder if they took the time when designing the MCU, to consider what material Thanos' double blade is/was. That it could break the Captain America shield without damage to itself would seem to imply it is something stronger.