Blackbird71

I'm not sure how serious you are, but I love moments like these when inspiration strikes. Totally. The Amazing Speculator, a Time/Something/Time prestiditation genius. Can't wait to see it!

1. Re-scale my UI size 2. Set up my keybinds 3. Open a second power bar 4. Vist P2W for all the usual goodies 5. Arrange my powers where I want them 6. Quit to Character Select and start work on the next 5 characters I've been thinking of. Alt problem? Me? What are you talking about?

madpoet67, my play style is generally a lot like yours. I'm an altaholic, I solo a lot, and I play in random bursts as I have time available. Here's the thing: on live, I never got a single character up to 50, and I'm ok with that. I enjoyed every character I did play as far as I played it. When a character stopped being fun, I made another one that interested me. Often I'd go back to ones I had previously abandoned and make a little more progress, but I don't think I got a single character out of the 30's. I don't feel that I've missed out on anything by not reaching 50. Yes, there is content I haven't seen, but there was always plenty to keep the game fresh even without that content. CoX was always more about the journey than the destination, and my character level didn't matter as much as did the fun I was having. I don't know if it's the advice you want to hear, but that's what I'd recommend: don't worry about reaching 50, just worry about enjoying what you're doing now. If eventually you get to 50 by doing this, great! But would you rather be enjoying every minute in the game and possibly not reaching 50, or getting to 50 but not enjoying what it took to get there?

Crap, now I have to go make a character.... I'm not sure how serious you are, but I love moments like these when inspiration strikes. Just the other day, I was listening to the radio while driving home, and Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory" came on. As soon as I got home, I had to make a dual pistols character named "Young Gun." And there is the magic. The virtually endless possibilities for creativity are at the core of the experience for me, and it's still there. Even more so than during live, if that's possible, as more options are open to all players than ever before. The last few weeks since discovering Homecoming have been one of the best outlets for my imagination than I've had in a long time.

On live, I had characters on every U.S. server, just because it made more slots available. Even after years of play, I didn't have a single character at 50 (I believe my highest was ~38). When the servers went down, I saved everything. Sentinel+ files for over a dozen of my favorites, screenshots of several dozen more characters, and well over a hundred saved costume files. When I found Homecoming a couple of weeks ago, I set to work recreating everything I could, and coming up with some new ones along the way. I currently have 39 characters, with more planned. None of them have hit level 10 yet (highest is 7). So far, I've been playing each character for about 20 minutes at a time, just until the Patrol XP is used up, then I switch to another. I keep thinking I should pick one or two and focus on them, but so far haven't been able to settle on which one, so I keep rotating through them all. I definitely spend more time in the character creator than actually in the game; I can literally get lost in there for hours exploring possibilities for concepts. Do I have a problem? So, the CoX altaholics version of a hip flask? I'd be good with that.

Even without the ability to reload characters saved with Sentinel+, I've found it useful just to open the xml files and use the information in there to recreate many of my old characters on Homecoming. They have to start over at level 1, but I don't mind that - leveling was always the fun part for me anyway.

Nice to see I'm not the only one. The smoothest and most stable gaming rig I ever ran used Vista; I finally upgraded it (to 7) within the last two years for compatibility reasons, but I hated to let it go. Vista was a resource hog, but if you built a system with the resources it needed, it ran like a dream.

This was my point, really. :) LOL, fair enough! I did mention this is one of my weaknesses. All part of being an engineer I suppose, always looking for more data to make a decision. Thanks everyone for the feedback.

The only caveat here is that you are given a limited number of character transfers (5/mos?). So you can move some of your characters whenever you want. I believe it's 5 transfers/3 days, which is quite a lot, so I see what jubakumbi is saying. Hopping back and forth just makes it difficult to build up a presence and establish teams/friends/etc. I could, but the whole point of asking in the forums was to not have to spend the time exploring a server community to determine whether or not it's the right server before I can settle down somewhere.

That's at least something to work with; thanks!

(I'm going to apologize upfront for the long-winded post. Typing these things out helps me organize my thoughts and work my way through the issue. If you'd like to skip past the bulk of my thought process and just get to the key questions, then I'd recommend going straight to the last two paragraphs at the end of the post. Thanks in advance for reading through my musings!) Maybe I can clarify my original question. Here is how I see each server, based on what I've read in each server's forum (please correct me if I'm wrong): Everlasting - Focus on RP, RP groups and events will be common here. If I group with other players, by default I would expect them to be RP'ers unless explicitly stated otherwise. Indomitable - Focus on PvP; I'd expect to find more groups engaging in PvP activities. Outside of those activities, I don't really know what to expect, but I'd guess more on the "hardcore" side looking to level quickly to improve PvP play. Excelsior - Focus on casual play, leveling, etc. If I group with other players, by default I would expect them to have a more casual approach to the game, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Torchbearer - Focus on more "serious" or "hardcore" play, high level activities, optimized builds/groups for certain content, trying to complete content as fast as possible, etc. If I group with other players, by default I would expect them to be more hardcore unless explicitly stated otherwise. I realize that none of these are official designations, and that none of these characteristics are absolute, that each server will likely have a bit of everything. As I see it, it's a question of proportions, and how easy it will be to find what I'm looking for. In my particular case, while I may at some point find myself interested in some RP, it's likely to be a rare occasion. My main priority is experiencing the game casually, in finding teams that have a more easygoing approach to content, and supergroups that don't expect me to be on every day at a particular time to join in on certain events but rather let me go at my own speed. Can I find this on any server? I'm sure I can; but how much effort will I need to put into the search? If I can easily find teams and groups that support my play style, then I'm more likely to engage socially and work with other players. If it takes more time and effort, then I'm honestly more likely to spend more time solo in order to avoid hassle and frustration. I'd rather make sure I'm on a server where it's easier for me to interact more with other players. If half the time I'm working with other players they're expecting me to react to their RP, then that's more involvement and effort than I want to put in. I'd be less likely to group up, not because the RP bothers me, but because I don't want to feel like I'm interfering with their play by not engaging the way that they're expecting. Based on my priorities and what I've read of each server, Excelsior sounds like the best fit for me. Now here's the other half of the equation: server load. From what I've seen, Torchbearer and Excelsior typically have the heaviest load. Everlasting and Indomitable, while often also heavy, seem to be at least somewhat less busy than the other two. At least for the time being, I'm on a slow and limited connection, and anything that can compound that (such as long queue times, lag due to high populations, disconnects from timeout issues, etc.) could be a significant problem. So here's my choice as I see it: [*]I can keep the bulk of my characters on Everlasting, where I may have slightly better connection issues, but also may have a more difficult time finding others that play the way I do. [*]Or I can move to Excelsior, and maybe have an easier time of finding my sort of group, but also deal with the issues that come with heavier server load. So I guess it comes down to whether the ease of finding the right sort of group outweighs the complications of a heavily populated server. I don't think I've been playing these servers long enough to really understand how severe of an issue either of these situations are, and this is where I'm looking for some direction from those with more experience before I plant my roots too deep. Is it any easier or harder to find other casual players on Everlasting than it is on Excelsior? Is the server load really cause that different of an experience, and is the load on Excelsior/Torchbearer ever a problem? My instinct tells me that the RP crowd in general is going to be a bit more on the casual side of play, so group finding may not be that different than Excelsior (am I wrong?). But the next concern is that if I find myself among a group of RP'ers, am I going to be seen as the proverbial "stick in the mud" for not engaging, and will my presence negatively impact their experience? If so, I'd rather be where I'm more welcome and where I don't feel like I'm in the way of others' play. This is where my inclination is to move to Excelsior, but that's purely based on my own mental reasoning and forum reading, not on any actual significant experience. Am I right in my instincts, or am I over thinking things (as I'm known to do) and making issues bigger in my mind than they are in reality?

I'm in a situation where I'm on very limited bandwidth, at least for the time being. Playing the game itself isn't too taxing, as long as I manage when and how long I play. What concerns me is unexpected or unnecessary update downloads. Lately there seem to be a lot of downloads for Homecoming (BETA) whenever I start up the launcher. So far they've been smallish, but they add up, and I'm expecting that as development continues these will be a constant and regular thing. I have no plans to use the Beta server, and would rather not have to deal with these downloads. Is there any way to switch these off, and only download updates to the main game itself?

It's fantastic to be back in this game after all these years! When I discovered Homecoming a couple of weeks ago, in my enthusiasm to get into the game I just jumped into the server that seemed to have the lowest load at the time and then spent a weekend recreating about two dozen characters from live. Later I discovered that the server I chose, Everlasting, is the "unofficial RP server." I'm curious what exactly this means and how it might affect my experience. Understand, I don't have anything against RP. I enjoy it myself, but usually in PnP settings. I've done some in MMOs, but frankly I tend to be too lazy to take the effort. In general, I take a more casual approach to my online gaming, logging on sporadically, at different times of the day according to my schedule. Sometimes I'll be online every day, if only for an hour or two here and there, while others I might not log in for a week or more. When I play, I go at my pace, enjoying the game for what it is. Oh, and I'm an incurable altoholic with nearly 40 characters already made and more in mind. From what I've read of the server descriptions and communities, it seems that Excelsior might be a better fit, but what I would like to know is does it really matter? While I have many characters already, most are level 1-2 and could be quickly remade, and any that I didn't want to start over could be easily transferred. I'm in a good position to change servers now as opposed to further down the road, but is it worth it? Everlasting does still seem to have a lighter load than Excelsior. Are load issues going to be a bigger factor than the community and the "unofficial" play style? It seems to me that the CoX crowd is always pretty good regardless of what server you're on, and I honestly haven't seen much open RP on Everlasting yet, so I don't really know how much a part of the server experience it actually is. I'm just trying to think ahead and figure what the best option would be long term. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated!

I expect that's probably what I'll have to do. It's not ideal, as it limits my use of the macro keys. If everything has to be bound to a regular key first, then I'm going to run out of keys before I use up all of the macro keys (18 macro keys x 3 profiles). Though I suppose some creative use of modifier keys might solve that problem.

As this is my first new topic posted on these forums, before I start I just want to say it's great to be back, and a huge thank you to all those who have made this possible! Back when CoX was originally running, I made use of my Logitech G15 keyboard's macro keys for all kinds of things in the game, including controlling my MM pets. Since then, I've upgraded to a G510s, and I'm looking to make similar use of it. The problem is, I don't remember quite how I did it. I've tried entering slash commands as you would use directly in the game. If I enter these as is, they only result in putting a "/" in the chat line with none of the following text. I can fix this by putting a 0.05 second delay in my macro after the slash, but this method is still a bit clunky (with potential to be disrupted) and I was wondering if there were any other methods available. I am aware of the numpad keybinds for pet commands. These are effective, but I dislike using them mainly because of the numpad's position on the right side of the keyboard - I either have to take my right hand off the mouse to hit a command, or move my left hand away from the WASD position to the far side of the board and back. The macro keys are much more conveniently located and I'd like to make use of them. I suppose it could work to set up the numpad keybinds, and then set the macro keys to trigger the numpad keys, but I was hoping for a more direct option if such exists. So, does anyone have any experience with using a G510s or similar macro keybord for these commands? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated!

I remember a short comic strip in one of the CoH comic issues featuring a neophyte hero. "Level six! YES! I can fly now!" *two hours later the young hero has barely made it half way across the street* "Level six sucks..." I laughed so hard because it was so true. I had a friend who used Hover to get around in the Hollows safely. And it took him forever to reach his missions. I remember when I got my first character to level 6 and picked up Hover. The first thing I did was fly up to the top of the Atlas statue (very slowly) - I just wanted to see the world from that perspective. Once I got up there, I ran into another player who was flying around and we struck up a conversation. At one point they must have noticed my level or examined my toon's info, because I suddenly got this tell: "You HOVERED all the way up here?!?"