Player2

How about something decidedly less Christmasy? Power Struggle Broad Sword / Shield Brute

Of course we'd lose assault rifle, beam rifle, and dual pistols... the same way shields exclude claws, dual blades, katana, staff fighting, spines, and titan weapons. That's just the trade off for shields. No special one-handed versions of those melee sets exist, so no need for one-handed versions of weapon blast sets.

Another for the old folks SG...

I, on the other hand, took a more traditional approach with... Christmas Magic Robotics / Thermal Radiation Mastermind

You are doing it right... because there's no wrong way.

A newcomer to my roster, inspired by the children's novel series hero Captain Underpants... Panty Party Kinetic Melee / Ninjitsu Scrapper Complete with starting holiday costume.

My expert archer, Preeminence, takes a less festive approach.

Miss Cricket does not like the cold and really bundles up. She loves her extra-thick snow boots.

Lucky 7's outfit is a bit skimpy, so she gets some insulated tights and a scarf for the winter weather. No hat or earmuffs because she doesn't want to muss her hair.

And then there's my Long Cool Woman (in a black dress)... Just added an overcoat, scarf, gloves, and earmuffs.

Moondrop always sports the same look every holiday... although with more aura flare this year, thanks to the combined aura + path aura that Homecoming gave us.

Big Girl opts for a simple red party dress...

So, it's holiday costume time... I updated Cherry with just a minor color tweak:

Wow, that is impressive.

Shields for sentinels.

Also, the player character is technically not military and the Contact was asked to accord him or her the rank of Sergeant. But the contact might still be calling the hero "sir" out of respect for the hero status beyond any military consideration.

Yeah, basically not until they're certain that it won't have any unintended consequences.

Have any new base items been added with the new update? Here's a suggestion: Could you give us doors that act as teleport portals? I think it would be cool to have a base where access points to other areas of the base or other zones can be accessed through ordinary-looking doors. I know it can be worked around by placing one of the portals on a door, and so we're clicking the portal when we want to use a door, but that gives the glow of the portal that makes the door look weird. Maybe like 3 doors? An arcane wooden door so they can be magical doors to anywhere, tech doors that could be futuristic teleport matrices, and ordinary doors that are just meant to be a mundane looking passage from one area to the next.

Most of the time "unique" names in comic books come from the fact that character trademarks are owned and infringing on them costs real world companies money in court to defend them (and costs the infringer for using them). So no, there aren't any DC Captain Americas or Marvel Batmen, but only out of a desire to avoid litigation. But within the companies own stories, names are often shared or passed along and we get stories where multiple characters of the same name end up teaming up for some adventure (or just fighting with each other). It happens all the time.

Be unique for who you are, not what you are called. As I point out whenever these discussions come up, names just are not unique. The U.S. government doesn't even identify us by our names, they know us as numbers (Social Security) with names attached. And even the most popular comic book hero names can suffer people copying them. Captain Marvel has been used by a half dozen people within Marvel Comics, and a few more outside Marvel Comics. Spider-Man? I'm pretty sure there were at least 4 different people calling themselves Spider-Man operating in the Marvel 616 continuity at one time. Superman and the Justice League? DC created Chinese copies with the same names. If you want to feel special because you have a unique name, I just cannot identify with or endorse that. Be unique for the person behind the name. How dare you, sir? How dare you?!

No thank you. I prefer to come up with my own character ideas, even if sometimes they might be inspired by someone else in some way. Start giving me ideas and I will shoot them down one by one out of hand because they're being handed to me. Hey, there's an idea. Make a decision about things I must like because of how you choose to interpret something I've said. On second thought, how about don't infer conclusions based on information presented. I guarantee they'll usually be faulty. All online games do not suffer this naming problem. Maybe they used to, but not all of them anymore. Meh. I've given away literally over a thousand great name suggestions over on the Excelsior forum Name Release thread for people to either claim or use as inspiration. Read what I wrote: "It isn't that it's assumed that people are squatting on all the good names," It isn't that that people are assuming that... it's that with the unique naming system making character names a valuable commodity, some people are frustrated that people can come in, make a thousand characters, get bored, and then walk away from the game with all those names removed from the available pool. If one person did that, it would be significant. If ten people do it on a smaller scale, it could equal out to the same chunk removed from a given shard's available names (to say nothing of if they create multiple characters across two or more shards). Over time, if dozens of people or hundreds of come and go after a "moment" of nostalgia in COH again or try it out for the first time after hearing others talk about it... a small but significant chunk can become much more sizeable. But yes, let's focus on the idea of what constitutes a "good name" and completely miss the point. Nice, comparing people's complaints to "screaming babies" to completely invalidate their concerns. You win the internet. Feel good about yourself? But to address your point: Yes, people do complain about something even if it's nothing they want directly. Some people don't like hearing the name-squatting complaint and, not worrying about their own interests because it probably won't affect them, encourage ideas like the name purge because then when people continue to complain about a name they want not being available, the purge can be pointed to as at least something having been done to try to help the situation. But you keep calling people babies, I'm sure that will help too. No it isn't hard at all. I could just close my eyes and press my hands against the keyboard for a random assortment of letters and / or numbers. Boom, name, easy. Is it desirable? No. Would I be interested in playing a character thusly named? Very unlikely. And while I have time and again compromised while choosing names for my characters, I find that the more I am pushed away from my original choice with substitutions and compromise, the less interested I become in the character. Names are more important to some people than others, so maybe don't assume that just because it's easy for you that it's easy for everyone. Yes, you are quite prescient. Or maybe you have a knack for seeing patterns. I mean, this topic does come up a lot. Often enough that one might think the Homecoming team might address it at some point. But so far nothing.

I would love to see various missions handled like this in Ouroboros where the final mission in an arc will give you a choice in how the mission will conclude (either same as standard or an alternative, better for heroes and worse for villains or whatever).

And how do you handle the chat text in Praetorians? I mean, you can't give Resistance players a separate color... aren't they supposed to be trying to blend in?

Yes, I'd very much like these options, please & thank you.

Yeah, I really dislike that effect and prefer the No FX option of the set's other powers... as well as preferring No FX options on all powers in general for the sake of increasing player options.