Scarlet Shocker

But why?

Some NPCs have a well crafted, detailed back story. Others less so. But some are extremely interesting despite, or because of their back story. I've got a few who fascinate me and regular readers of my words might hazard a guess as to some of them. I was thinking about one in particular who seems to have had a pivotal role in the game lore but has largely been consigned to a relative backwater which seems odd, given the context of their story. There are many NPCs and signature characters that deserve more exposure and better fleshed out bios but who are the favourites amongst us mere mortals who play the game? Who do you think deserves greater attention, and why do you think so? I have some ideas but I'll point them out later...

I did recently get a Night Widow to 50 and I mostly hated it even with a supposedly "good" build. Again, strength of the game - it has something to appeal to everyone!

Are you suggesting that every power set should be "all things to all men"? Should everything be able to solo every content? Then what's the point of it being an MMO? You might as well turn it into a solo game and have done. Ultimately, teaming is what makes us great. Sure, set yourself challenges. Set unrealistic challenges. But don't come home bleating because you couldn't beat all the things with a thing that wasn't designed for that

Euphemisms to tell to your mother part DXIX

Personally I found Widows really difficult, but on live I made an Arachnos Soldier and I went middle path, basically a Bane Spider and he rocked a sea of orange numbers. I've recreated him on HC and he's still good - but I think XEATS are rather overshadowed by the powers creep we've seen in game over the last decade They aren't bad, they're just left behind but bringing them up to date makes the spiral worse.

truly impressive. Well done to all participants. Excellent stuff. Again, this is a thing that even two decades later, other games still cannot do.

I'm not sure what the big takeaway from this thread is; Dominators are shit? Joking aside I love that there are still some significant challenges in the game that require thought, strategy, temps maybe and sometimes a bit of good luck... and in extremis, help from other players. I know that's a pretty unusual concept especially in an MMO but it's something that is often worth remembering. I'm a firm believer that not everything should be capable of being soloed, that's not good design or gameplay. Nor should everything be able to solo all the things. One of the great and lasting strengths of this game is that often we have to rethink how we plan objectives even after two decades, and that's a very good thing. Long may it continue!

I used to play for literally hours on end I was so invested in the game. Now, usually a couple of hours tops. I do sometimes find that I'll get a scheduled activity down but after that's done go off and PUG somewhere on a different toon, just for gits and shiggles. If I play for 3 hours even on a weekend that's quite a bit for me these days

Well each to their own. If not playing the game whilst playing the game is what floats your boat who am I to argue?

Good question. My personal preference is for Controllers. I've played both, several iterations and I always prefer Trollers. @Maelwys is pretty spot on with most of his assessment but I find trollers much more versatile. I find Dominators pretty meh until you're in the Domination phase - as @Snarky has pointed out you have to constantly manage that. But there will be no substitute for you playing them both and deciding for yourself. You're not on any kind of timeline, after all. Play what you fancy and stick with what feels good. If I could suggest a couple of variants for you to try. For a Dom; Earth/Rad would give you very strong CC and good debuffs whilst for one of the most fun Trollers would be Plant/Storm Either way, have many funs!

Dailies have their place but I do love that we're not immediately faced with FOMO if we log in or not. We can log in and take time to just stand around and admire the scenery without feeling we need to do a thing. That's probably one reason why the RP community has been so strong here

I have this hangup from Live where Temp Powers, such as the Clockwork pets and the witch from Katie Hannon were unreplaceable. Once they were gone, they were gone. But I also tend to hoard even Insps until I'm in serious trouble - but that's part of the beauty of any game in that knowing when to use temp powers is part of knowing how to be successful in your gaming endeavours

Because Carp have scales and would therefore also need balancing!

I've been thinking about this a bit longer in light of this thread. After due review, I actually need two billion. My global is @Riff kthxbai

Open questions to be answered in a way you saw fit and, hey it worked and you almost weren't @Snarky about it either. Almost

One of the issues I have with this question is what is meant by homogeneity? Powersets could be almost exactly the same across the board but that isn't really the case and often sets have a few unique characteristics, and not just in signature powers. Personally I think variety is good and I don't mind playing a set considered to "under perform" if it's interesting and fun. If it engages the user. In this context, "under perform" usually means it doesn't do as much damage as another power. I think one of the truly unique things about this game is that similar power sets actually have very different looks and feels and that's one of its strengths. Often I have found that somewhat unlikely pairings make great combos - and there's a tonne of fun to be had experimenting.

I was interviewing a couple of guests on my local radio show last week and they raised a really important point about positivity and the value of good feedback. We're used to being told what's wrong whenever something goes to shit; complaints are easy and cheap and an unhappy person is often very vocal. I know this from personal experience several times over. Many decades ago I worked for a major motorcycle importer in the UK in their customer service team and to deal with customers and dealers you very quickly got the impression that ever single thing we ever did, every product we ever sold, event we staged, everything was a complete bucket of shit from start to finish. Our staff, products, value proposition, sales and marketing & customer service were completely crap and we should all resign and go do something that people might appreciate like become refuse collectors or somesuch. Truly, it was the most demoralising job I'd ever had and I fought to get that job because I was a genuine fan of the product and range. It put me off desperately and in some ways was life changing. This interview reminded me of something - that when something goes well, when something is truly excellent, we often forget the value of telling the powers that be how good it is, how much joy it gives, why we like it, and even just saying a simple thank you. There's also a very important secondary point; when folk complain, often the business responsible for fixing it take a sledgehammer to it because they didn't realise that whilst people hated fault A) they loved positive B) and inevitably bork positive B) in giving fault A) a minor tweak that doesn't fix the problem but makes it less painful. Overall, they give the end user an overall worse experience bit nobody is aware of it until they suddenly realising their fighting a compltely differnet fire. (I'm feeling a bit Rory Sutherland all of a sudden.) We're getting a bit like that here - there's a lot of product negativity (not as bad as some places but nowhere near as good as we could be) so let's turn this around. Enough pre-amble just a simple enough propositional question: What in your opinion makes this game great to play with a completely new team of volunteer, unpaid devs? What works amazingly well, why is this game's management so well respected? What keeps you coming back day after day to punch bad guys in the face? Let's get some positivity out in the open and say it loud! Personally speaking my main joy is that the game is not simply recognisable but enhanced from live. I think our devs have taken a very sensitive line keeping it true to its origins but also adding much new content without erasing or breaking or clean-slating what came before. It's been a fine line and they have done an excellent job of it. That was a big concern of mine when I first learned the game had escaped into the wild and some other rogue servers turned the game into a gross mutation that was barely recognisable but HC devs have stuck true to the original game. Their enhancements, modifications and additions have been very well considered and fit the game well. They deserve a tonne of praise for that, Bravo! Your turn, have at it!

It seems to have fixed itself automagically when I logged in this evening. and dis browser: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/128.10.1/releasenotes/ In Debian

you make an excellent point of which there are many real world examples we can call upon even now! 🤣

The background for the forum page seems to have changed - previously it matched the forum colours now it's simply black. This is a purely aesthetic change but it's annoying and I cannot see anywhere to change my forum appearance preferences. Is this a bug and where should I look to change my forum prefs? TIA!

when I was a kid the same jokes were called schoolboy jokes. I guess they've just gotten older at the same pace as me!

Crypts are assigned their gender at first creation so unfortunately transcrypts are not possible.

The only powerset that must be balanced by its nature is Symphonic, because that has scales