Scarlet Shocker

That might work... but I'd also suggest the users would need the option to turn it off too, for the avoidance of griefing/overuse which then takes us back to square one. And... would it make a difference? We've seen many leagues fail to start properly, despite people whistling and IM'g those who ignore the timer or had an urgent AFK I fear sadly there's no easy fix and the effort to do so might be vastly overcomplicating things without fixing the underlying problem.

This may add another, but unhelpful, level of complexity to the game. I don't denigrate the idea in itself but there are some issues that would need to be addressed. The UI/UX is very very old, designed for old screens when resolution was shite. And you had to get everything on it, on a 14" monitor. Even now it's often seriously had to keep track of what's going on, and that goes double for leagues. I'm an experienced player- - I've played since oughtsix with a few short breaks but I have NEVEREVEREVER been able to be 100% certain where my mouse pointer is. It is super easy to get lost, and in big teams with lots of UFX sometimes you can't even see your fucking target, let alone anything that others are saying. It can be overwhelming for experienced players, even with big screens, good GPUs and trick mouses. And then you want to ask somebody who might not be comfortable in chatting locally to say s/he's not actually sure what's going on? Hell I'm not sure what's going on in many many iTrials - they happen magically and have so many borked mechanics (ok let's reference Rock in TPN again as the prime example) that if you mention it in most other games (and this too) you will get "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOB" shouted at you. This game is sadly past its best and though we are grateful to have it back it will never meet the standards of the first quarter of the 21st century. That's evolution. But we are where we are and we have to accept that it can be horribly confusing even when you think you know what the fuck's going on. So if you don't you don't have a chance in hell.

All true

I'm not getting that worked up about it! 👍

You'd be wrong - I have tried to form missions and regular events on Red and Gold and some Blue too. Your assessment of the content is unfortunately imprecise. There is some excellent content throughout the game and regardless of the actual story, few people stop to read it on a team - mostly it is about the teaming experience. There is a lot of blue content well worth doing and even the stuff that is less good still provides a useful pathway to the gems.

Here you fall into a trap of presuming that steel is the only rational material available in a fantasy game where we know we've had aliens and mages around for a long time. I think I'm right in saying that the Circle of Thorns use crystal weapons and we have other materials for swords in the costume creator too. Sure steel might have had semi-mystical properties in the real pre-medieval world, but that is a very limiting concept - made doubly so when mere player characters can already wield weapons of ice, of flame and psionic power. TL;DR - any sword can be made of pretty well anything in this game

Why would a magical sword be made of metal? Many other materials would readily substitute

I hope you'll forgive me in this instance if I take your "Nope" for a firm and very solid "Yes!" But I would suggest for the (majority of the) rest of us, it's almost certainly a non-issue. I'm sorry if that impacts the game negatively for you.

they use big computers to discover more bits of PI these days

Are you overthinking this? If you want to put your urban civil engineering skilz to the test in a gaming environment wouldn't you better spend your time in Cities: Skylines or similar?

It was super tense. I don't think England can regain the Ashes from here. I suspect that we're going to crash and burn now and that will put an end to "bazball" - it's one thing to play "entertaining cricket" but that's crap if we lose badly. I think the whole team went in undercooked - and many players could have played in a county game for a couple of days instead of playing golf. Jonny might improve markedly now. I notice that in the past he's a bit crap unless he's in a fight with the media and trying to prove a point. I suspect he'll rightly take some stick for his poor keeping and he'll be blasting a century and taking 5 catches behind the stumps... but I don't think it'll be enough. I feel sorry for Mo... he's been offered a poisoned chalice when he is technically one of our greatest all-rounders. We'll have to see how things play out but we saw how much last night meant to Cummings and the Aussies - and they are not going to let tht advantage slip without a real scrap.

I actually disagree with this. I'll try and explain. Paragon suffered a great trauma and many areas were devastated. In fact the city was so wrecked that the city governors and/or national government had to segregate the city into zones with huge concrete walls and force fields. I am not at this time interested in apportioning blame or reason for those decisions... BUT.... It's great to be able to visit a zone, to maybe grab some XP, to explore, to chill, maybe even to RP. A zone can exist, simply because it is there. No zones need a defined raison d'etre - they simply need to provide in and out and allow players to make of them what they will. Not every zone has to have stuff going on. We are so lucky that this game offers massive amounts of content and even after it shut down, more is being added. Sometimes it's just cool to sit in a place that is dangerous and still come up smelling of roses.

of course, things lighten up during the warmer weather

Do not nerf bats... unless Frank Miller had a hand in it!

I mostly play on Excelsior, so I have seen calls for the WST and Radios - I rarely see mission teams. I did get some interest here on the forums but nobody showed for a regular gold side team. I've put shouts out plenty of times but there's very little response unless it gives great XP (Tina Mac et al) or is a badge. There are plenty of calls for DFB and if you go to PD it's often rammed in the AE. I've mostly stopped playing recently because I'm finding the experience quite despondent these days.

Sadly nobody is interested in teaming any longer. I tried to get a mission team together and it fell completely flat. The AE really does suck the life out of this game in a very negative way.

I like this idea. I think we suffer from the presumption that all players are vets but there does seem to be a significant influx of new/returning players who have either forgotten how the game works, or never knew in the first instance. I also think that the ready availability of DXP and fast levelling via AE is seriously damaging to the game overall. It allows people to race to 50 without engaging with the game in a meaningful way. They don't learn their characters, the ATs, Power sets nor do they get to team with players and thus understand the subtle synergies of their AT with others. None of the above does the game generally or Homecming much good, especially in the longer term and in my opinion it's genuinely sad that so much content is simply missed out in the race to endgame. Personally I'd like to see XP boosters removed from P2W entirely - and AE XP halved from base level. That would allow people to create and play missions for the sake of them while also encouraging teaming and actually playing the game. That said I'm under no illusion that this is a popular notion and I doubt it would get much traction in the community.

Agreed. Fielding was poor... especially YJB behind the stumps which is a disappointment 😞

Two words to describe the morning session of day 2: Stuart Broad

Best catch ever?

NSFW but found this funny

Day 1 Highlights: Oh and I'm aware that for many of you out there in Heroland, the rules (LAWS!) of Cricket may be a bit tough to comprehend, so please DO ask questions. I'll do my very best to answer 😄

And the recipient of one of the best sledges in the cricketing world responds to the declaration: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/cricket/65935443 Oh and the sledge? Tufnell was batting and the keeper behind him snuck up close and said "Hey, Tuffers, lend us your brain, I'm building an idiot!"

Day 2 is going to be very exciting and.... ok I'm gonna say it... Day 2 is going to decide the Ashes

Today is the start of the Ashes. England vs Australia, one of the hottest, most anticipated series in a very long time. 5 tests (each test up to 5 days) in 7 weeks Follow the live scores here: https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/the-ashes-2023-1336037/england-vs-australia-1st-test-1336043/live-cricket-score Here's the story behind the Ashes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ashes Enjoy it Oh, and I predict England to win the series 2:1