Techwright

Cult movies, you say? Manticore: Men In Spandex Fear and Loathing in Lost Sewers The Ziggurat Redemption Escape from Praetoria City Attack of the Killer Pumpkins Surf Council Must Die! A Fistful of Influence

There's also the selling point of badges for completing all NPC-issued missions in a zone. Why we don't see that being pushed in LFG chat, I'm don't know, but I'd probably enlist if I was reminded that these missions would drive me closer to completing the badge. I like your ideas. (some I was even LOL over) The yoga bit reminded me that maybe a chiropractor or two might not be a bad thing. As to the "walkers glued to smartphones", I'd not mind seeing the streetside purse snatcher scenario played out with a victim trying to tug their expensive smartphone or tablet back from a thug. As to hospitals, I work in one that has had addition after addition tacked on for 100 years, and the sprawling, twisted-corridor result would be perfect for an instanced mission. Sadly, we have shoe-box shaped hospitals in-game.

I'm surprised no one has posted "Boom" yet. Agreed, Samuraiko had the best vids. Did she ever come back to the game? Back in the day, several tried to put Bonnie Tyler's work to CoH vids. Of those, this was my favorite, in part because they managed to capture the awesomeness of the costume creator:

I can definitely see that. That would make sense. Maybe even a bus depot in some zone, like say Skyway. Several expressed similar sentiment (keeping a "snapshot in time"). As a clarification, I'm not asking the current team to do all this, or even any of it. I'm inquiring for fun about "what if" scenarios, and I'm essentially suggesting the same pattern the NCSoft devs did of periodically updating the game in various ways. The idea of Paragon City as its own "snapshot in time" is fine, and has precedence in the superhero genre. Consider the 1989 "Batman" movie. Gotham was a blend of elements of both 1939 (first appearance of Batman) and 50 years later, creating a unique world. In the recent "Arrowverse", one of the alternate Earths (Earth 3?) was likewise a blend of 1930's elements and modern ones. In a "what if" scenario, additions integrated into CoH, while keeping the original material (like flat screen monitors next to CRT) would essentially create that same effect, though on a less pronounced scale of 16 years, rather than 50. But if your take on it is a static 2012 look, that's totally fine. Again, this is a "what if" scenario for brainstorming fun, and I'm not stating these are things the Homecoming team should focus on. Hmm, looks like you're ready for a cup of decaf. LOL. 😄 But yes, coffee shops and even a few tea shops would make the city interesting. Yes, I believe there were such talks. Certainly they at least need to be upgraded, as every Ritki attack now manages to drop the walls. From a lore standpoint, they're not really doing their job anymore.

It's 2019, soon to be 2020. Assuming for a moment that our dev team had unlimited power and skill, how would you suggest they update the look and feel of the city? (Note this is focused on the cities themselves (blue, red, gold), not the instances, power sets, etc. ) Blueside - There's a lot more health-conscious surroundings (at least in my part of the real world) than 15 years ago. 1) I'd ask for chain gyms. Bonus points if the avatars can actually enter and use the equipment. Role players would probably love that. 2) urban jogging trails added in some new small parks replacing some of the buildings and concrete. 3) bike pathing added to some roads. Bonus if they can get NPC's actually biking. 4) boutique, organic groceries and produce shops. 5) cell towers. 6) I'd get rid of phone booths, but I'm not really sure how I'd replace them on patrol missions. Visualized GPS coordinates and your avatar checks their smartphone at each point, perhaps? New Zone (or overhaul of a dead zone): city freight yard. Aging collection of switch tracks and graffitied train cars, with a tired industrial area and a low-income neighborhood adjacent. However, there's re-development going on as Paragon City tries to redevelop a section as a new neighborhood, new station, and new track on a new national speed rail system.

I've played a lot of MMOs, but though I enjoyed things like Lord of the Rings Online, and World of Warcraft, there's only 3 games I ever felt like playing for a very long time. All three shut down. Of them, I can only re-enter City of Heroes. I've heard nothing of a rejuvenation of either of the two others, and they were both incomplete in some way, more or less sabotaged by parts of their development teams, leading to their demise. (Tabula Rasa & Firefall) Though I wish for the best versions of the others to return, CoH is the one I thought about consistently when it wasn't available. Besides, CoH has the nicest community of any MMO I've played in the past 15 years. That's worth the price of admission. Well, when there was a price.

Ace Barnstormer: martial arts/super reflexes scrapper My homage to Dieselpunk/1920s-1940s pulp fiction heroes. There's something very satisfying about the graceful way that scarf moves with the "ballet" that is martial arts. Major Ray Gunn: energy/energy blaster my homage to 1930s-1950s sci fi serial heroes Sea Sentry: staff/electrical brute

Aged of Aquarius: my aging, hippie, water sentinel

There's the matter of the other COH hosted sites as well. I don't know the population counts on them, and I'm guessing Homecoming is by far the dominant one, but with some developing their own power sets and archetypes, there's bound to be at least some bleed-off of players wanting to try every shiny new thing.

Back in the original game, I'd won awards for Ray's look and backstory. I've faithfully recreated both for Homecoming.