OEM61

Temporary fixes are just that. A bunch of heroes crossing over in order to run missions to get an accolade before they go back to blue side is not a "fix". It gives red side players that want to participate in those same specific things a larger pool of players to work with for however long players are crossing over to do so, but I don't see it doing much to help with other things. ============= Having "undercover contacts" for heroes means that some players will send their heroes over to red side to run the "undercover" missions and nothing else. ============= Giving more money to players on red side means that a whole lot of people won't care because they have enough money for about anything and if they decide they want to start raising some more they log in a 50, make a lot of money, and mail it to the alt that needs money. Because a 50 can make a lot of money fast. I know that I am not offering much in the way of ideas, but I struggle to think of how you can make someone WANT to play a side that they may have already tried and didn't enjoy. I only played red side back on live when an in-game friend wanted to play red side. If that friend and/or his son are still out there I do not know about it. I have a toon sitting in red side right now, but I am only running Ouroboros missions for badges outside of, so far, the Efficiency Expert missions which I had to run live and mayhem missions which I ran for the exploration badges (and Lord Schweinzer for everything except PI). I should have a time-sensitive badge tomorrow when I log on and then I will begin the process of turning them back to the blue. Down the line I know that I will dip back to red side for some more badging, but for now I have had my fill. And all of these 'solutions' feel like more of the that Offering players something that they can dip over to red side to get, and then they go back to blue, or something that they can just ignore with no great loss. I like to play blue side. I do not like to play red side. There are things that can make me switch over temporarily, but I have not yet seen the thing that makes me enjoy playing the villain more than the hero, so I will always switch back to that side.

Yeah. Flambeaux not so much, but the other two, along with Holo Man, are public enemies 1, 2, and 3 when I am fighting the heroes. Edit: And I have begun to target whichever of those is furthest from the villain army, because the closer they are to the villains the more likely they are to be severely damaged, if not KOed, after the first volley. So if Ether is hiding towards the far side of the hero formation then I might target her. If it's Holo Man then he gets it. Usually one of those two is far enough away to make them my first target, but if they both end up close then Dr. Advance gets it. And for my hero, I usually target one of Misadventure, Mongle, or Savage Siren.

I know that when I play my "villain " (I'll be turning them back hero in a week or so. Just waiting out a badge right now), I make sure to set my sights on Holo Man right after I open the chat window with Positron but before I make a selection so as soon as the cutscene finishes I can open up on him.

Absolutely. And I would support them at least considering giving the offending player a week off to think about their life choices.

Re: The OP - Sure. I can see where that could be useful for a lot of RPing. Always the question about whether it is at all an effective use of dev time, of course, but the idea is one I could get behind. It's not just some ERP thing or a super-niche case. A lot of players might find it helpful as an RP tool. As far as comics phasing goes... It's phasing. It's a comic. I really don't think that people should think too much about it. My all-time favorite phasing character is Vision. I am old, I do not read comics these days, but "my Vision" could, among other things, stick his intangible hand inside a villain's chest and start to solidify it, causing the villain great pain. It could quickly incapacitate minions and help turn a battle against a major threat or even be used to destroy some machinery. But it would kill anyone. It would block and sever the cardiovascular system and generally destroy tissue and bone and whatever organs that might be in the way. It should also damage Vision's hand/arm. His 'synthezoid' body would be affected by having outside tissue, blood, and bone inside of his body when he began to solidify, to say nothing of metal or other such material. But it's a comic book. Vision is (pr at least was) one of my favorite characters. I do (did) not care that his powers "shouldn't" work like they do. I just want them to "work right" inside of the narrative. They established how they work, so just roll with that.

I was just about to go to bed and thought I would check before I did so. I was just coming here to report that it was working for me. Thanks again for taking care of the site.

Still down for me, too.

Thank you for the effort and the update.

Come on. How much XP something gives is not part of "immersion". It is an outside element. It is a player thing, not a character thing. Has nothing to do with "immersion". A character, RP-wise, obviously knows that practice will improve their skills and combat will hone their combat abilities, but they do not have a concept of how much XP an opponent or mission gives them, or how many XP they need to get to the "next level". But in-game? That character could just stand inside the entrance to a mission while other players do all the work and gain XP all the same. XP and immersion are on entirely different planets. And not awarding XP for Surgeons doesn't "interfere with the actual game". Play. Have fun. But if the only fun you have is measured by how many XP you got out of it, then don't fight Surgeons. No one makes you play that content.

How would you measure "Most popular zone"? Would that be "Most player-hours spent there"? "Most distinct characters that visited that zone during the year"? "Most players in the zone concurrently at any point in the year"? I can't help but think that AP would be the winner of most player-hours spent, and it seems all but impossible that it wouldn't win criteria 2. Criteria 3 might be more in doubt as, though AP is still going to be a contender, some raids may bring enough people to another zone to offer up some competition. But maybe I would be surprised. ============= I notice that over half of every Mastermind created this past year has one of three primaries. MM has never been my favorite, but I started thinking of a Mastermind idea and it was also one of those three. I'll probably make it later this year. Might not get too much play, but I'll at least try and get it made. I would like to see the complete list of ATs, though. I know that some of these lists could get too long if you included everything. Primaries and secondaries add up fast when you consider all of the ATs, and then possible combinations are multiplicatively larger still, but there are "only" 15 ATs, so a full list wouldn't be too long. I notice that there are some Stalker sets that made least popular primary and secondary, and it makes me curious where Stalkers fall on the AT popularity list for the year. Were these just particularly unpopular sets, or were Stalkers as a whole relatively unpopular? EDIT: Obviously Stone Melee for Stalkers is specifically unpopular, since only 377 out of at least 8,117 chose it, and if the total number of new Stalkers was 8,117 with 18 primaries to choose, the average would be just under 451 but I am still curious as to how many Stalkers there were total. Anyway... Also? I am curious as to what Power Pools, Ancillary Pools, and Patron power sets were most popular. I guess I would measure that as characters that had one or more powers from that set. Whether someone had one power from the flight pool or all five, they would count as 1.

It's all a matter of personal opinion. There are a lot of mixtures that are possible, and "plus tech" is a very common crossover. Each player just has to decide if they think that the "natural" aspects of the character are more central than the "technology" aspects of the character, or whatever mixture they think is there. Consider that the game defines the Science origin as "You earned your powers through the benefits of modern science, either through experimentation or by accident". Meanwhile, Mutation is defined as "Your powers are derived through genetic manipulation or evolutionary alteration". I may be wrong here, but purposeful genetic manipulation certainly seems like scientific experimentation to me, and evolutionary alteration could come from scientific experimentation or an accident. So just make the call using whatever criteria you think matters most. I am sure that some people pick an origin because the inherent attack is their favorite, they just picked at random, they think that one origin is "cooler" than the others, or that they wanted to fight or avoid a specific group of enemies that one starting contact will steer you to.

I have my art collection on a bookshelf. I kept the old guides that they made in notebook form for expandability that, to my knowledge, never happened (they made a CoV guide with its own notebook as well, but there were never any extra pages for either produced that I recall). I sold my CoH/V Heroclix. The ones that came in the collector set plus the old original capeless Statesman that was a "convention exclusive" piece. I kept one or more versions of a few of my favorite heroes and villains but the vast majority of my Heroclix collection I sold off. I am living rather far away from where I used to play, and when I got disabled the money just wasn't there any more. I am pretty sure that I did eventually throw away my CoH and CoV boxes and discs, though. It doesn't seem right considering what I still have, but I did not see them where I keep those other things at. They may turn up one day.

I know that Hot Feet, the T9 Fire Manipulation power for Blasters, requires that I be on the ground to activate it, but after I toggle it on I can deal some damage while merely being "close" to the ground. I can hover over the heads of enemies and deal damage. Not so high up that they can not reach me, but noticeably off the ground. If I am higher up I notice that enemies will drop down out of flight. No damage from the power but still a very useful effect. I think that "close enough" should be the standard. Nothing should require someone be completely grounded to use. Even characters with earth-based powers are shown in comics using them while flying (Terrax, Geo-Force, and Terra to name a few).

Last post before mine was Friday. I posted Monday. I didn't realize that two days made up a week, or that a two day gap was some sort of major necro.

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I am not in favor of any individual memorials. Especially if it is someone that was pretty much only about in-game things. There are multiple servers. People over here probably never heard of people over there, yet there that hero (or villain, or Praetorian) is walking/standing around. And even if someone might have encountered that player, they may not have encountered whatever character is used as their "memorial avatar". Make a memorial plaza, Put it somewhere convenient; Somewhere visible. Don't stash it in some far corner of Talos Island. Either make a single monument and put it in Khalisti Wharf or make two monuments; One in AP and one in Port Oakes, I think it is? The main villain zone? I lean towards the latter as I think that Khalisti Wharf just doesn't have enough going for it right now. The entire zone feels like an "out of the way place" to me. My ideal would be three statues. Think like a triangular pillar with a hero standing with their back to each side, so they form a triangle themselves. One female, one male, one large male. Each body type represented. The female hero would be in tights with a cape and a "domino mask", and then one of the males would be in tights with a cowl-type mask covering his hair (or lack thereof) and the other would be in some sort of armor costume (or give someone else the cape, or give the female the armor. They could make it a player vote if they wanted to. Not the point here). They could make it three lined up in a row if they thought that one or two of the statues wouldn't get enough exposure because of the location or that everyone would just go to click on the plaque so that was the only statue people would see. They would all be standing, head down, arms down in front of them, clasped hands or possibly if one of them had a sword they could be resting their hands on that as it was point-down into the ground in front of them. Just going for somber, reflective, and/or respectful. If they felt that "Sword raised", "Fist in the air" and "hands on hips" would be good to remind people of the living heroes then that's their call. Then there would be a plaque in front of them with some kind words that memorialized ALL the fallen. Because some players will pass quietly. No one will know. Maybe one or two people might wonder where so-and-so disappeared to and go one about their business. But they matter, too.