nightroarer

I was in Champions in the dark days between CoH shutdown and HC going public. Never had an issue like this or knew anyone who did. Is it possible? Certainly. Is it likely, maybe not. From my perspective (opinions will vary), the actual upside of the global naming system far, far outweighed the potential downside. Interestingly, even though I had some characters with "obvious" names, I never ran across any characters with the same name. They were undoubtedly out there, but chance meetings with them never happened.

I have 90+ characters and haven't had to settle for weird spellings, odd phrases, or wacky punctuation. There is only one character with an obvious name that I particularly wanted, so I added the initials of my supergroup after his name as a personal identifier. Good superhero names are still available. There are many variations available using traditional comic book conventions (e.g., Doctor, Captain, Scarlet, Silver, Lord, Lady, and so forth), not to mention relevant synonyms (the ones that make sense :) ). I may not get the first name I try, but I can keep the name consistent with my chosen theme without too much hassle. The last four characters I created are Obsidian Archer (trick arrow), Whelm (war hammer), Swiftstroke (ninja blades), and Commander Kilowatt (electric melee). History has shown us that running a name release can have minimal impact. I think if HC does it, the people unhappy about not getting their preferred names will remain unhappy, because they still won't get the names they want. In a few months, we'll see another thread about releasing names again. We saw that on the original servers after they did their name release. For anyone who is interested, I've attached a couple of docs with potential name components to help generate ideas, if needed. It is nowhere near exhaustive, and I haven't filled in ideas for all power types yet (especially for the newer powersets). super_name_components.doc sh_name_prefix_suffix.doc

Yes, yes I do.

As a writer and editor, I can say the most difficult text to edit is your own.

No alts--just 95 mains, ranging from levels 2-32 (the 2s are only that level because I created them to team with my wife and daughter and we haven't run those particular teams yet). I solo or duo/trio with my family.

This. If you are just trying to get an autorun instead of holding down the W key, the R key is autorun. It works for flight as well.

Those effects aren't on sprints, those are auras found in the costume creator.

I understand both the wish the OP has to remain in KR via radio missions and the fact that this is not feasible because of game mechanics. I was just pointing out that the game was designed for much of it to be soloable; it is not an anomaly, it is a design choice--and a good one. Scaling to group size (solo and up) is a great mechanic that reaches a much broader playerbase than if the game required full groups to accomplish anything. Most of my time in CoH is spent either solo or running with my family (wife, daughter, occasionally brother) That was true on the original servers as well. I rarely ran with a large group. Yet I had friends that only played in large groups. We all loved the game. That flexibility in design is a major strength of CoH.

CoH has always had a strong solo component and is one of the most soloable MMOs I've ever played. There are aspects that are certainly geared to teaming, but CoH was designed for much of it to be soloable as well. That is one of the things that makes this same so great; it caters to a variety of playstyles.

Just a point of clarification for those unfamiliar with trademark/copyright: companies have to defend trademarks to protect their ownership. They do not have to defend copyrights to protect their ownership.

How about a 5-mission AE arc where you rescue Percy in each mission, but he gets rekidnapped as he escapes from each one? We could call the arc "Where in the World is Percy Winkley?" Or we could have an arc called "Help Fusionette Rescue Percy Winkley" where you end up having to rescue both of them--each mission.

Agreed. Either or both would be great. Different story options. Of course, back on the "live" servers I stopped muggings quite a bit when my daughter was little. She would watch me play and say "but, Daddy, you have the save the citizen!" How could I not? Then I got her an account and she helped me save the citizens. She just turned 21--and is still saving Paragon City with me and my wife. 🙂

One option might be random spawns on the street that give you missions (similar to the side missions in the safeguard missions).

For myself, hard mode holds no interest. It's great for those who love it. More mission/storyline content is always welcome. Having a wide variety of mission/story paths for different characters ups the fun factor for me. I'd like to see underutilized zones get more content.

Not really; maybe different types of apples. It just meant that we ran characters on multiple shards. The names were still taken and still had the opportunity to be released. Regardless, the rest of my comment still stands. In a game that promotes alt creation, active accounts should not lose their character names. Punishing active players just because they focus on different characters at different times is not a good solution.

This is an important point and one I hope HC takes seriously. In a game that seriously promotes alt creation, draconian every-so-many-days per character login rules are not practical. As others have noted in this thread, an account login rule might be doable, but I'd say a year would be ideal. Three months is too short; people take breaks, life happens. Active accounts should not lose character names. Also, as noted earlier in this thread, when Paragon implemented this rule--on a much larger playerbase--there was no rush to claim the released names. The assumption that implementing a name release rule will somehow open up a plethora of "good" names is not backed by facts or evidence. It's wishful thinking. Personally, I enjoyed CO's non-unique naming system. With all the characters I created, I never ran into another character with the same name. However, I'm also fine with the unique naming system in CoH.

If I pick the same powerset on more than one character, it is always by design--because it fits the character concept I have. Power color customization expands that even further, because it allows you to redefine the power (by imagination) to whatever you want it to be. With the powerset proliferation on HC, reusing exact matches is less common for me now, even if there is a particular power type (e.g., Energy) I want to reuse. Between ranged, melee, and armor, there are enough variations within a given theme to allow for different combos.

If you follow the steps mentioned above, you can view it in the Load costume screen, but it fails to actually load because the costume creator is missing the head option (3, head). Nuts. There are NPC costume parts that would be great to have for more character customization options.

I like the non-unique naming convention. However, I rarely team except with my family, so name collisions are unlikely to happen. I understand both the unique and non-unique name viewpoints and am fine with both. That said, I haven't had much issue coming up with names for my characters (90+) thus far. I don't always get my first choice, but I've never "settled" for something I didn't like. On the rare occasion that I have a name I specifically want, but it is take, I have employed a personal ID system (twice on the original servers, only once on HC). That is, I put the supergroup initials after the character name. An example from DC comics would be Superman. He was on both the old Justice Society and the Justice League. So If I were making a version of him in the Justice League but someone else already had the name, I might use Superman JL. (Note: This is just an illustration; I only create original characters in game :) ) Another option would be to add a relevant title. For example, on the old servers I created a villainous cyborg I wanted to name Decimator. That name was already taken, so I named him The Inhuman Decimator instead. Titles, ranks, colors, etc., can be added to keep the name and perhaps add personality. There are a lot of options, synonyms, and variations that can be used--even without titles and workarounds. I think we are a long way from exhausting all of the good, creative character names.

That's a great picture. :) My wife, daughter, and I have been playing together in the same office for years now (starting with CoH, then LOTRO, and so forth). We call our shared office the Command Center.

All of my characters have bios. Most of those bios are not seen in game. Why? Because I'm an author, and a lot of my characters are based on my own superhero universe.

Nope. I haven't done anything with the tool yet.

Another way to say this might be: The grind should never feel like a grind.

I would hate this. Capes and auras are cosmetic and a standard part of a superhero character's costume and characterization. I always thought those were silly items to gate. I'll still run the missions--as missions. The problem with gating content is that all too often things chosen are not the most logical and/or the way to unlock the content is boring or grindy. I remember in Star Trek Online when they introduced a new five-mission arc on New Romulus. The missions were unlocked via reputation, which meant doing the same set of reputation quests over and over until each mission unlocked. I ground my way through it on one character and vowed to never go through that or any other similar grind again. Later, they unlocked the missions by default, and I took quite a few characters through it, doing not only the missions themselves, but the reputation quests as missions, not grind. Being able to do the rep missions as missions made them more enjoyable, and added another way to add alternate leveling paths to different characters. I'm not an "instant gratification" player, but I'm also not a "you gotta work yourself to death" player. I already have a job; I'm here to play. If they want to gate content, they need to gate the right content and make unlocking it engaging, not boring, mindless repetition. To me, the best reward is engaging content. What good does it do to get the best gear, costumes, and so forth if I don't enjoy the process? Rewards are meaningless if attaining them isn't fun.

This is a replacement for the face_small_mask_2.texture (rounded mask) I made way back on the original CoH servers. I thought I'd post it if anyone is interested. The directory tree is included in the attached rounded_mask_mod.zip file. Unzip the file and put the data folder in your CoH folder. Both the hero and villain paths are included. rounded_mask_mod.zip