Techwright

Thanks much! I can work with that.

Back in 2005, when I was a complete noob, not only to CoH but also MMOs in general, I learned of a technique that allowed a team lead to drop off the other 7 members inside an instance, then go recruit 7 more and bring them in. Did I mention I was a complete noob? I had no idea what an exploit was at the time, nor how illegal they were. I did this "technique" twice bringing in a total of 22 players, myself included. It was the Atta cave mission, and the game adjusted accordingly. the whole cave (one of the wide ones fortunately) was literally wall-to-wall Trolls. I cannot believe we didn't crash our computers or at least slow them to a slide show, but the fight was epic. EPIC! *Deep sigh of contentment* I was SO embarrassed when someone finally explained game exploits to me. I did report it once I understood. It's probably long patched, but oh, how I wish I could (legally) duplicate that event with the power of modern computers running it.

Adding my voice to the MA pitch. It is absolutely beautiful to have a scrapper run at a 6+ NPC mob, use Ninja Run to low somersault over their heads, land on the other side and immediately sweep into a Dragon's Tail, then follow through on any remaining standing target with Eagle's Claw. Poetry in motion. This is why I have repeatedly asked for a single enhancement slot to for endurance reduction to neutralize Ninja Run's end drain. Lacking that, I have to switch it off when I should be continuing its use.

That's not a bad idea and really fits with the Rogue Island theme, but do you really want a bunch of ghost pirates just standing around and putting up a very modest fight? Now if they did it with ghost pirate ship canons blazing and ghost pirates storming the beaches with guns blazing and cutlasses swinging, that would be something.

Wait...pardon, it's late and my brain is slow...are you saying "toggle off" as in one just has to toggle it back on (annoying but doable) or are you using "toggle off" as slang for it's gone, kiss your hard-won prismatic currency goodbye because you died? If it is an on/off process, like switching costumes, it's annoying but doable. If it is a complete loss, I can see why Snarky won't touch it, and I don't understand why it even made it into the game. While I'd love a larger character, I'd think larger would have problems in a lot of the instances, especially the caves. I've got my brute, Fightanic, at the top of the standard scale, and though I love working with him, I hate those caves, except maybe the ones used in like the Atta the Troll mission.

Well, there are snakes. The devs could possibly put them on a plane if you wanted something different.

Figured as much, and appreciate the spoiler-free approach.

And now we have a tantalizing name drop that might just be a foreshadowing for Ahsoka. It comes courtesy of the brand new game Jedi:Survivor and is mentioned so casually, that one might overlook it. But since the Cal Kestes story is considered canon, it might be worth keeping in mind. I'd also note this name drop ties in with a visual drop that occurred in the latest season of The Bad Batch. Dave Filoni's design work, I'm sure. As it has a bit of a spoiler for the game, just a tiny one (I'll leave the massive spoiler that came attached to it unsaid), I'll drop it here:

WOW was the second great MMO for me, and the one truly addictive. I stopped somewhere in the era of the Warlords of Draenai. To this day, I love the PvP model (instanced or flagged, I never tried the Arena mode), and its one of the few games in which I genuinely loved PvP. Specifically Warsong Gulch. Ah, the tales I could tell around a tavern fire...but I will spare you. It was while playing the game that I first heard of gaming addiction, and my experiences with that game began to match up to the description, so I severed ties. I still think very fondly of my gnome ice mage who loved to insult the Horde, even to his own peril. The greatest compliment paid to me in Warsong Gulch came when the entire Horde side broke off pursuing my teammates and all crossed the field just to do in that goggled pipsqueak pest that kept freezing their team to the ground. I definitely made myself a menace. On the opposing side I was very fond of Tauren, and had several. But I realized I was having to do a lot more in the game with each expansion, and spend hours each day just to feel a sense of full accomplishment, so it was best I left. It took a while, as I was always thinking of ways to improve what I'd left behind, but the game's talons gradually released me. I'm glad to hear you found your way out as well. It's fun, but it can suck the life from you.

Ok, first, that was really well done. It definitely answers two questions (and full disclosure, I've only seen through Discovery season 2 and Picard season 1) : did Kirk's friends visit his grave and what did it take to recover the saucer section. It's pretty obvious to me, with the lore of the Federation, that they'd want to do their best to remove all trace of their presence from a world which one day would be explored by its developing system inhabitants. It does not show (and this was not pertinent to its theme) the recovery of Kirk's body. To keep the Prime Directive, the Federation would have to do that as well, lest a developing culture have even a remote chance of discovering a grave alien to their species. Maybe I just need another cup o' joe to get the little gray cells working, but I'm not understanding the transition from Spock to Spock. What is the purpose for the latter one, which appears to be younger? It seems this isn't their only short film. I'll have to view whatever else they have. One wonders if there might come a day when a officially-recognized hobby group like this can buy licensed use of a Respeecher voice of Nimoy for use in such a video, much like one can acquire rights to music for YouTube videos.

As a humble desktop tech, seeing no Vista thrills me. There's still some common sense left in the world.

I've not read anyone else's comments, so apologies if anything I say has been beaten to death previously. I have 2 villains and 1 anti-hero out of over 50 characters. So I'm playing redside maybe 5% of the time at most. I've done a lot of solo work redside but I don't find it as enjoyable as teaming. I'll play redside if a there's an event called out that interests me, but much of the redside doesn't appeal to me. It's not so much the villainy, I think, as the look. It's designed to look dark and seedy, mostly. I also hate how dark the Arachnos base instances are. It's not just this game, but I'm finding that any game I love that is overly dark tends to eventually turn me off. It affects my real world mood. It's the reason I stopped playing Lord of the Rings Online. The portrayal of growing darkness the closer one comes to Mordor just really ended up depressing me in real life. Back with CoV, it also seems puzzling: why would a supposedly world-class villain put up with dark and seedy? Wouldn't you want the rewards of your villainy? Glitz and glamor? Even the casino seems gone to seed. Yeah, I get that Arachnos' favorite colors are black and red, and they'll not paint the base in dulcet Easter egg pastel colors, but perhaps more radiant jewel tones? I'm also one who having a real-world good sense of direction, surprisingly gets easily confused by a maze casually referred to as a city layout. So Mercy Island makes a terribly place to start. The atmosphere/weather, of course is the same problem. I've mentioned this before: even if everything built by sentients is black, gray, and red, why is the sky that way? It should be like it is every place else on earth: a variety of gloomy days to sunny days, and, with the islands in the Atlantic somewhere between Rhode Island and Bermuda, I'd expect the weather to be leaning toward sunnier. Now if there's an island with an ancient evil that darkens the specific zone, like Dark Astoria has happening to it, then that would make sense in context. I don't really have anything negative to say about the missions, but they also don't really stand out to me either. My feelings are more on the positive side of "meh". I would note that there's not a lot of choice in how one plays their villain, at least not that I've seen. I'd love to have a character that's more likely to set up another for a fall rather than wholesale slaughter, insidious vs extreme violence, but that's not really possible with the design of this game. Blueside, we end up joking about "arresting with extreme prejudice" for the violence we must unleash. Redside could actually be a way to explore unique mission play-throughs and outcomes, not just "go there, kill that, rob this, take hostage". I'm not sure I could list out all the things that might make me play redside more, but an increase in the number of SFs would help. Especially SFs that can be done in under an hour, or be fractioned out, like the Positron TFs. Real Life has changed over 15+ years, and there are more demands on my time than there used to be. A new island to explore might be of interest as well. There were indications back when CoV was released that they had plans to reveal more islands in the archipelago, and if it brings the possibilities more in line with Paragon zones, I'm for it. Change: weather, external appearances where sunnier weather is placed. More color and fresh appearance especially in areas/buildings that are supposed to reflect wealth and status. Brighten the instanced Arachnos bases (or make it a toggle with Null the Gull)

I quoted Sir Myshkin for a succinct summary of what several of you have indicated so far. Notification by "zzz" as a request for aid. Honestly, I'd not even thought of that, and you're right, I probably stopped thinking of that back in the Original Game. Personally, when I think of "zzz" nowadays, it's with consideration to letting the team know that they're down a member for the moment. This mind-think goes back to the OG, where it was possible to be in a big fight and have several team members get mezzed at once. It would let the others know that a potential wipe situation was developing. useful for those fighting in first perspective who might not have seen the effect take hold of teammates. Additionally, a tank could use it to alert the team that he/she/small-furry-creature-from-Alpha-Centauri would not be able to maintain aggro.

Huh. Curious. I was sure he was trying to design a new Projectile Vomiting powerset but died of dehydration before it could be perfected.

I'd second this. As a seasoned player of both the original game and the homecoming variant, I'd recommend running such a trial using DFB teams (Death From Below) which are pretty constantly being recruited in Atlas Park, at least on Excelsior. I recently couldn't decide on a weapons character (which weapon, which archetype), built the 3 likeliest and ran them each through DFB a couple of times to get them to 15 (it's remarkably quick these days using DFB). By the end of it, I had a good understanding of each and could make my choice. As a blaster fan, I approve! 😁 Who cares what the Brute Squad thinks? 😜 That said, if you go that route for a first character, consider Energy/Energy as a training possibility. As I'm about to get a lot of grief for that comment, I'll note that the very thing people hate about Energy is the thing that can aid a solo player: a built-in knockback on all powers. Keep your opponents at bay. The Secondary power set is more melee in nature, and that also aids in dealing with those who get too close during soloing. You can always get the conversion enhancements (knockback changed to knockdown) if you choose to do a lot of team work, and you do have a second build available to your character (see it at the trainers) which would allow you to swap between a solo build and a team-oriented build of your design. I'd also suggest checking out the sentinel archetype. Ranged attack somewhat less than blaster, but with survivability approaching some of the melee classes. Sentinel is a polarizing archetype, I'll note that up front. Some hate them, but many show up in teams, so there's definitely an interest there.

Just finished getting the badge for the Ghost Ship. I seem to recall a discussion on the forums not long back that noted the Ghost Ship was boring. After dealing with 50 ghosts for the umpteenth time, I have to agree. Perhaps its the recent storm characters that have me thinking, but didn't the ship go down in a violent storm? Fix the boredom by introducing chaos. Have storm powers, water powers, even ice powers and dark powers appearing randomly around both the ship and its ghost crew attacking heroes and scattering NPCs. Not necessarily every power in each of these power sets, but definitely ones that can harm or impede heroes from taking out the ghosts. If the ship appears in the day, darken the sky, or at least use the dark powers to darken the area around it's journey. They perished in the storm, make the storm a part of the haunting.

Had to look it up, as I never played it. I can see why, as it is not really in my range of interests. From what I saw of game clips on YouTube it looks like a cross between the crazy humor of the Evil Dead movies and the apocalyptic vehicle fights of the Mad Max movies, with a liberal dose of coulrophobia. I like Mackey, but I'm on the fence about seeing this. I'm pretty sure I can name at least a dozen games, both active and deceased, that I'd have thought would make the screen first.

I realized something today when running the weekly and getting hit with a surprising amount of sleeps and other entanglement: I wasn't notifying the team once I ran out of inspirations to overcome impeding effects. Then I realized it had been quite a while since I'd seen the "Held" or "Zzzz" notification from team members on an untold number of PUGs. I used to see it often, especially back in the original game. Assuming I'm correct and the practice has fallen out of use, why? I'm guessing it is not just a single reason. For me, personally, I don't usually encounter some form of impeding effect that I've not already countered in the build, and when several do happen it's just so unusual to run out of the needed inspirations. I keep a stock in my mailbox just in case more are needed. So when, like today, I exhaust both supplies, I've grown slack and it doesn't occur to me to warn the team that they're a man down for a bit. As a teammate, would you want a player to alert you when they have a crippling effect on them that they cannot quickly overcome? Or does it no longer matter?

It's an interesting thought, but how might that work with our five origins concept, specifically the Natural heroes? Anything beyond your definitions for Street Hero would seem to exclude the Natural origin. Full disclosure: although I have a few Natural heroes, I never really saw it as a viable origin. In comics, natural heroes eventually use tech, either a little or a lot, which means, to my way of thinking, they're automatically tech heroes. Maybe not Iron Man, but even the Green Hornet comes armed with a gas gun, a Stinger taser, and a tricked out ride. Despite my misgivings at this origin, I'm still interested to see how it would be interpreted in any hypothetically future work.

@Trike: the pictures on those first 2 of 3 postings didn't come through, unfortunately. Your third posting did, though. Different storage location?

12. Backup

Let me be clear, because perhaps my original wording was not. My comments were meant with an in-game view only. I deliberately posted the message about avoiding the real-world politics as I was attempting to have a little fun and NOT trying to drag real-world sentiment into this. I'm not truly offended by any of it. It is just a game. I was trying to look at it as might one of my characters. As such, I accept @cranebump's explanation: in the game there are unsettling viewpoints held and they have access to billboards. That there may be real-world comparisons was also not my point. I really was indeed curious about the first billboard though. I'm not clear why it sounded like visually-different Rikti hiding among humans.

Thoughts on @biostem's thoughts: Thoughts on @ThaOGDreamWeaver thoughts: Random observation from the episode:

Two billboards, two questions: 1.) Left billboard - what was the background story to this one? It feels like it's suggesting shapeshifters, but the only one I'm aware of was Protean. 2.) Why do we have this billboard? It's wrong on so many levels. I gather it's a reference to the Rikti War, but we've got a lot of aliens on the side of the planet, not the least of which are hero warshades and peacebringers. While I understand the "protect our homeworld" pitch, this one is just a vicious, unfocused attack, made worse by abusing a specific nation's patriotism and dragging it into a global pitch. Can we get a redo? (NOTE: none of this discussion reflects real-world politics. Please keep it that way. Well, I do think real Earth should be for humans, and dolphins, can't forget them, but still...)

That whole picture is an in-game billboard? I'm drawing a blank as to where it is. I recognize the icon logo, of course.