Techwright

I'm generally not one to spread out my communications for a game between multiple social links. In the case of CoH, the forums have been sufficient. That said, I've seen a few recent forum references to the Discord site for things CoH, so two questions: 1. What is a dyed-in-the-wool forumite missing by not also hanging out at the Discord canteen? 2. Is it exclusive to Homecoming, or do the other CoH knockof emulators share the discussion?

I'm just confused why people are slotting these at levels 7-10. Nowadays we outlevel so fast. I'm guessing they turn off XP gain for some reason? Clearly a corner of Paragon City I don't frequent. Y'all fighting in the monkey cage or something?

Well, this discussion went in a different direction than I'd anticipated and has been very interesting. I was so sure I was not thinking through established process somehow, figuring someone would point out my mistake and instead I find it was likely a very problematic bug. I suppose that's both a relief for me and a shared headache.

Screen Rant has dug up more information...

@ThaOGDreamWeaver: you've said much new to me there. Taking it in order: 1. Ray Parks - I was not aware. Ouch. 2. Ming Qiu - I watched the video, and she definitely can perform spectacular fights. Impressive. Most impressive. If she can choreograph and teach as well, this could be interesting. (As as side note, I've watched Ming Na Wen in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as well. If Ming Qiu is the stunt person there, I've seen her work before, and just didn't realize it. Melinda "The Cavalry" Mae was a favorite character from that show, partially because she could fight. ) Addressing the spoiler box:

Serious answer speculation: In Greek mythology, Proteus was associated with the sea. One of the heroes (Hercules?) found him on a beach. It's possible the creators of the CoH character were trying to reflect this giving him a scaly look like a fish. That, or they're reptilian scales and the creators were trying to show just what a snake he is. Or he just really liked those bizarre Skittle commercials. Your choice.

How is this not the name of a soda pop company yet?

Sorry to derail, but that just reminded me of a funny story my late father used to tell. In his college days (1950s), the university he attended was a bit formal, and served a family-style dinner several times a week. A faculty member was assigned to oversee each table. It was their duty to see the trays were passed around, and they received the final portion. One faculty lady was known for selfish behavior. When the wait staff brought the dessert tray around, she'd lick her finger, place it on the biggest piece and say "That's mine", obviously intending for everyone to leave it alone. The students eventually had enough. When a nice cake was brought around one day, and the ritual concluded, the student receiving the cake tray from her licked his finger, stabbed it in the cake slice she'd marked and declared "That's hers!". All the others at the table followed suit, reducing the piece to rubble. It fixed the problem.

Regarding Mando series/season 3: There were two problematic episodes, which at 1/4 the season doesn't really mark the season well. On an American school grading scale, 75% is a solid "C", passing, but not much else. Besides the Jack Black episode, I also mean the long, drawn-out episode with Dr. Pershing. I can't immediately tell you how to fix the Black episode. The Pershing one, though, was directed by one of the cinematographers who were being given a chance to share their vision. What it should have had is someone higher up with more experience and a critical eye reviewing it and saying: "trim the Pershing portion by 50%, and give that bit to the Mandalorians." I did enjoy the rest of the season, and the end bits of those two shows. Actually, I enjoyed the Jack Black-related storyline to some degree. Seen the Clone Wars droids again in live action was fascinating, and the city was interesting. Someone just needed to work with the dialog and overall goofiness. It's like JarJar: he would have made a great character if Lucas had reigned him in about 50%. Naive, klutzy, but a bit more gravitas. Enough gravitas at least to make it believable that he'd become the Gungan representative to the Senate, while remaining naive enough to nominate Palpatine. But I digress. Andor is a real gem with one exception: Gilroy seems determined not to use the aliens and droids that already exist and are ubiquitous in Star Wars. (K-2SO units being the exception.) He has droids. He has aliens. Now let us see the new creations seemlessly blended with what has been the foundation of the franchise. I have said for years that Rebels would have been better accepted initially had there been two changes: 1) use the same or similar animation style to The Clone Wars. The Rebels animation style immediately brought many to the conclusion that it was a goofy kids show. 2) Reign in Ezra's off-the-wall behavior. I can't tell you the number of times over the full show that I heard him say "trust me" or "I know what I'm doing" and the entire crew just sighs and gives in, despite him having not done his homework before making the statement. His immediate trust of everyone, and some of those repeatedly, only to learn of betrayal was off-point as well. You don't survive as a street rat for 8 years by blindly trusting everyone. That may sound like I don't like Rebels. I actually do. I've seen it through 3 times, and watch an untold number of bits of it while viewing others reactions. But what I like might have been improved a bit. As to the upcoming Ahsoka: Dave will do a good job. He has only a little previous experience with live action, but no one knows Star Wars better at this point, not even George. And Dave is surrounded by a great team of fan-directors who surely will lend him their skill, especially Jon Favreau. This will NOT be Obi-Wan Kenobi, though doubtless there are already those preparing their doom-and-gloom YouTube videos to state otherwise, sight unseen. I've only one concern: that the lightsaber fighting look polished. Ahsoka's live-action premier had, well, less than a speedy performance in that category. I realize animation exaggerates somewhat in speed, but it resembled more of Episode IV fighting rather than Episode I or Episode III, which it should resemble. Ahsoka two decades before fought with a ballet dancer's grace and speed. Hopefully, they brought in Ray Parks to improve that. Dave is definitely going to show us a sense of wonder. Don't forget, he's the one in both The Clone Wars and in Rebels that deliberately expanded on the mystic side of the force stories giving us things like the Mordis Family, the Lothal Jedi Temple, lothwolves, and of course, the World Between Worlds.

Let me guess: his real first name is Tripp, and his last name is something like Overstone, Overhill, Overturf, Overshot, Overmass, Overall, or even Overcat (all of which I've confirmed are real surnames). 😁

More "hmm...."" The small 3-town southeast section of Talos: does it have/should it have a name? Like an office park or something? It seems so isolated from everything else, that it doesn't really feel like it's Talos.

I've never really had a problem working the AH before. This one kind of threw me for a loop though. Background: I was buying a bunch of 40s, and ran into a higher-than-expected pricing for Recharge. Most common ones (damage, accuracy, etc.) were going for between 100k and 150k. Recharge was running around 250k. I opted to put in a bid at 151k, and wait it out. Finished collecting my others, double-checked it before I signed out of the AH, went away a while to run a Manticore TF, then leveled and put in all my new 40s. When I checked back in after that, this is what I found (below). So my puzzlement: I understand losing to the higher 155,555 bid, but why did my 151k bid lose to three 503 bids and a 150,000? Market reporting delays doesn't seem like the thing here. I was gone for a notable period of time and I'd checked on it once after completing my other shopping. None of this was on the board at the time.

You probably don't want to get into his reasons either. 😳 Welcome, Home! I've greeted other returning players with a long description of some things they might not immediately realize are different: travel changes, enhancement changes, Fort Trident, P2W vendors. If you care to read one of those descriptions, you can find it here.

Agree. It should be a brown and yellow suit. Well, at least it's not yellow spandex. I wonder if the cowl will have white eyes like Deadpool's.

Things that make you say "hmm...". Apologies to Arsenio Hall. Ever note something in the game that makes you wonder? If two equal Sappers square off against each other, does one win, or do they each negate the other equally?

They're just messing with your mind.

And then you have the annual badges and anything added to the game that brings a badge with it. So it's possibly higher now.

When first seeing the ragdoll physics in Homecoming, it struck me that the weird-pose effects had only gotten worse over the years. I remember when they first instituted ragdoll physics, and though many humorous things happened, I don't recall them being quite so ridiculously pliable as they are now.

In full agreement on that point.

This is why I maintain a second account, and I'm guessing it's true for others, too. Temporarily reassign a second-account character to Torchbearer, pass all goods to him, reassign him to Excelsior. Saves a lot of mailing. Not that I've had to move anything in 2 years now, but it even helps within the server, like when I need to move a lot of recipes at once and don't want to have to keep mailing to myself. Move from account 1 character to account 2 character, then transfer from account 2 character to my main crafter on account 1.

I know what you mean. I had a roommate 30 years back that we called "Tim the Toolman Taylor" because he so typified the Home Improvement character. I'm not sure I could call him "genius", though he was highly knowledgeable in his field and a hard worker, but he was constantly getting into hilarious trouble for his type-A, hit-the-ground-running personality.

FYI...current Blue Beetle Jaime Reyes is not the Charlton Blue Beetle Ted Kord, and therefore not a true retcon. Kord remained a Batman-like character to the end. Jaime premiered in 2005, three years before the Iron Man movie suddenly made its titular character extremely popular. Incidentally, Kord was not the first Blue Beetle. That was Dan Garrett, and he actually had mystic powers from an Egyptian scarab (though initially it was said they were from a unique vitamin). So in essence, Jaime Reyes is the third Blue Beetle and if you will, the third retcon/fourth powerset of the title character (vitamin to mystic scarab to science inventor to alien tech). Retcon/change is nothing new to the title. Jaime's tech beetle is alien technology, so there's something of a mystery level to it (just how much does it actually have and how far can it be pushed?) whereas Iron Man is a human creation with (supposedly) known limitations. The closest comparison in the DC roster to Iron Man that I can think of is Steel. I know a great many Marvel characters (not all) and I cannot really state a good equivalent to Jaime's Blue Beetle. Venom certainly has "alien" and "symbiote" but isn't technology. Maybe the best example would have been "CypherLock" a merger of the mutant Cypher (Doug Ramsey) and the alien technarch Warlock. Like the alien Blue Beetle, there was a risk that the technology that was Warlock's DNA would take over his "host" Cypher, but together they were more powerful than separate, and could do things like create weapons. That relationship didn't last long however, and Cypher was eventually killed.

That's a pretty interesting prediction. I can support that outcome.

Either way, the car looks great!