Avonlea

Okay, I'm puzzled, now that I look at the winners again... Nepharim's in-game picture looks exactly like a Carnie costume. Is it possible to make that costume in the costume creator? If it is, I'd love to know how...if it isn't, then that's clearly not her character, and that seems like shenanigans.

I mean no disrespect since her real-life costume really is amazing, but that does seem a little sketchy to me.

Rats! I was hoping I could pull a threepeat!

Definite congrats to all the winners though...those were some amazing costumes! The coloring alone on Marisa's costume is really incredible, and I was hoping someone would try an insect cape.

Total props to everyone who entered, too...there were some really great and fun entries! Some of my favorites:
[*]Hyper-man - Awesome match for city hall!
[*]Neuron Man - Zeus, I don't know what to say I haven't already said...awesome work!
[*]Dramatus - I just love that newspaper.
[*]Womanimals - Wow, tough costume to pull off, but the tiger stripes on the body are really cool! Points taken off for reminding me of that old "Manimal" show, though.
[*]Zand - Genius.
[*]Texstar - Shine on, you crazy diamond.
[*]Cookie Girl - The good news: I doubt you'll ever want for a team again. The bad news: No matter what their archetype says, your teammates will all be stalkers.


Congrats again to everyone!


Okay, my costume for next year: nova form Kheldian. That'll win for sure!

And thank you Cricket for taking the time to post all these!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Not very familiar with the Hydra, but at best they strike me as dangerous animals. So maybe that would be like having a baby alligator. Babies grow up. I'd like to think that the average hero wouldn't be that irresponsible.

[/ QUOTE ]

A portal mission more or less states they're people, too. Weird, alien people, yes, but they are kidnapped by the Rikti since they make useful shock troops, and they can't resist because they're not technologically advanced... Basically, the Rikti did the equivalent of rounding up a bunch of primitive peoples and stuck them in front of their army.

[/ QUOTE ]
So pretty much what the rebels did with the Ewoks?

Oh, wait, Leech already had that idea earlier in this thread:
[ QUOTE ]
I want a TeddyBear. One that follows me around, and sometimes gets the baddies to hit it instead of me.

[/ QUOTE ]
Never mind...carry on, then!

[ QUOTE ]
Does this help at all? Here is the exact long help description of the Red Cap Pet:
"You can use this power to create a solidified hologram of a Redcap Rascal. It will follow you around wherever you go. Great for parties!"

[/ QUOTE ]
Ooh, I hope the text is similar for the Rikti Monkey. My defender basically soloed his way to the Zookeeper badge back when you needed 10,000 of the little blighters. This way he can say it's a holographic picture of the last one. ("Look, look...you can see the fear in his beady little eyes.")

[ QUOTE ]
I think I suggested something like this. Decoy Items. A look-alike item that has half the hit points.

Attackers walk into a room and see two generators, they start beating on one, when it gets to half, it self destructs, they know it was the decoy.

Or better yet, put the decoy in a decorative room.

Heck, have one in EVERY room. LOL

Not just gennerators either, rez rings, control aux. anything that is targettable during a raid. ( except maybe anchors and IoPs )

[/ QUOTE ]
Maybe if they were all gray-conning low-level items that could be easily destroyed...it'd be like a Mayhem Mission in your own base!

[ QUOTE ]
On the subject of Drain Psyche, I understand the duration is 30 seconds, but I'm not clear on the recharge.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think 120 seconds. Personally, I put three recharges in it (and two accuracies, which you can do now, thank God). Between that and three-slotted hasten the downtime for me seems pretty negligible. (And that's without Stamina.)

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure if I'm going to invest heavily in hasten to get the recharge down or whether I'll just use it situationally (it isn't permable these days, correct?)

[/ QUOTE ]
Nope, sadly its not perma anymore. I gave it the two extra slots since many of the Mind powers have such long recharge times. (And it's also really handy for building domination!)

[ QUOTE ]
I may get on test and try out Mind Probe, but I don't really want another melee range power right now. I don't see why a mind/psi cant be very effective at range. While Mind Probe sounds nice, there's nothing all that special about it by the description, so there are only two key powers that require close range. But does that really mean you have to live in melee all the time? My guess is that the answer is no.

On the other hand, I've been known to play some wacky concept builds, so YMMV.

[/ QUOTE ]
I've got a Mind/Psi that just hit level 41 and really enjoy her. My advice would be to definitely try out Mind Probe...I can't imagine life without it, honestly. Dominator damage isn't the greatest to begin with, and that's one of the set's big attacks. (For comparison, it does twice the damage of TK Thrust, and about 70% more damage than Levitate.)

And I wouldn't dream of criticizing anyone's choice of playstyle, but in all openness, if you want to avoid melee, you might want to rethink */Psi. The two biggest attacks are Mind Probe and Psychic Shockwave, which are melee attacks. Also, I notice that you're running a build with Hasten but without Stamina--I do the same thing--but that means relying on Drain Psyche for your endurance, which means you'll need to get into melee.

Don't get me wrong...my experience has been that I do okay at range when I need to, but at least on my build, there's a significant improvement when I get into melee. YMMV, of course.

By the way, I've found Mesmerize to be a great power right out of the box, if only as a soft control power. I personally just tossed an accuracy in the original slot and it's great for locking down groups when I solo, or for stacking sleeps with Mass Hypnosis.

Anyway, that's been my experience...hope this helps!

Aww, boo!

I'm really sorry to see you go, Cuppa! You've got a quick wit, a sympathetic ear, and--may I say--you're like a Shaolin master of Ban Stick Fu.

Of course, now my suspicious side is thinking this is some kind of trick to get us all to migrate over and start playing TR. Hmm...

Best of luck!

[ QUOTE ]
Just going to put here about the Chest emblems doing some kind of weird Anti-aliased outline effect when used with some upper body costume parts. This gives a "jaggy" outlines like they were poorly cropped in PhotoShop. With this effect I have noticed a sort of transparency when used with Buckled Leather. In these edges you will be able to see through your character.

[/ QUOTE ]
I've noticed this, too! In fact, this outline effect seems to happen anytime there's a transparency effect applied...for instance, under stealth or if you spin the camera around and zoom way in.

Here's the glitch under Shadow Fall

And Jay? Looking good. Dead sexy.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Jackson Turner was taken by Arachnos, after the arenas were built, n00b. *sob*

[/ QUOTE ]
Clone.

[/ QUOTE ]

You MONSTER!! *runs off crying*

[/ QUOTE ]
Oh, sure, THIS gets a response, but my conspiracy theory about Jackson Turner being healthy and happy sitting on the French Riviera gets no play at all!

Obligatory "did you know":

Did you know that originally, you couldn't have a character name that started with the in-game titles you could receive at level 15 or 25? For instance, you couldn't name a character "The Magnificent Sven" since "Magnificent" is a title that heroes could earn at level 15.

It looks like this restriction was lifted about the same time CoV came out...I'm guessing this is because the CoV titles are different from CoH, and some of the CoV titles were potentially already being used in the names of some CoH characters.

So now you can make "The Magnificent Sven." (And, if you get him up to level 15, you can choose a title so he can be "The Magnificent Magnificent Sven.")

[ QUOTE ]
Jackson Turner was taken by Arachnos, after the arenas were built, n00b. *sob*

[/ QUOTE ]
Clone.

[ QUOTE ]
...that before DevCon signs went up, Crey was the company behind the arenas. The original backstory was to have Crey build and sponsor the arenas in order to cull compabt information about the city's heroes during the battles. This was scrapped sometime after construction phase one and before the foundation was put in.

[/ QUOTE ]
That's just what they want you to think. If you trace the money back, DevCon is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Crey! Don't believe their lies! For the love of God, Jackson Turner could be buried in that foundation! DON'T TRUS--

...

Hi...this...is...Avonlea...again. Sorry...about...that. I...don't...know...what...came...over...me.

Drink Crey cola!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The powers will parallel the Hero accolades as best as possible, for fairness sake.

[/ QUOTE ]

Then my Vanguard-equivalent-bearing future Dom self is very happy! Thanks!

[/ QUOTE ]
Me too, but now I'm wondering what's the CoV equivalent of eliminating endless throngs of Rikti monkeys...

Ooo...horrifying thought...what if it's Rikti monkeys! I defeated 10,000 of those buggers almost single-handedly the first time--I may cry if I have to go after swarms of them again!

[ QUOTE ]
Positron, can you tell us what some of the new costume pieces are gonna be. I don't mean the CoV stuff, but if there are gonna be new pieces we haven't seen.

[/ QUOTE ]
/em closes eyes, crosses fingers
Witch hat for CoV...witch hat for CoV...witch hat for CoV...witch hat for CoV...

Thanks so much for taking the time, Positron!

Ok, I'm clearly coming late to the party (as usual) but I've got some fun stuff...

I had a chance to talk to Jack last November, and here are a few little tidbits he passed along. (Some of these I'm sure we've heard from old interviews, but I figure they're still fun.)

[*] He would love to do an underwater zone, but some of the animators and other staff think that Aquaman is lame.

[*] Wings as a costume option would be great to do, but almost impossible to implement since they'd need to be animated for every power out there; it's much more likely they'll show up just as part of an epic archetype, similar to Kheldians.

[*] He reads the boards roughly about an hour a day.

[*] His three favorite untrue rumors (at the time) were:

1. Accuracy has been nerfed! (Apparently sometimes after playing, he would tease Geko about that..."I don't know, it seemed kind of off to me...")

2. All the theories about why the 5th Column were removed. (In his words, "Who doesn't like beating up Nazis? Even the name sounds evil!")

3. The various conspiracy theories around Enhancement Diversification. (He said he particularly liked the quote at the time, "Statesman's nerfs are like getting my car fixed and finding out they replaced my muffler with a live Ethiopian baby.")

[*] He's amused by the "doomsayer" posts; he sends the best ones around the office.

[*] Growing up he read Marvel comics, but came around to DC with the Dark Knight, Watchmen, etc. These days he's more partial to DC...I'll let you guess why.

[*] The decision to use a monorail to get around the city wasn't a big design decision, although he liked it because not many East-coast cities have a monorail. However, its inclusion was specifically counter to the traditional MMO thinking to slow down travel to make it take longer to get places, which they didn't want to perpetuate.

[*] He and CuppaJo are the big coffee drinkers in the office...many of the developers drink Mountain Dew.

[*] The comic store where I saw him (Fat Jack's Comicrypt in Philadelphia) is where he used to buy comics when he lived in the area.


Okay, and here's one other bit of CoH lore I'm--*ahem*--personally fond of...

Back in 2004, CoH held a Halloween costume contest for people to dressed up like their in-game characters. One of the prizes was a custom in-game title for your winning character. (Which looks like this.)

The titles were different for each of the winners, based on which category they won:

[*] Best Overall Winner: Costume King 2004[*] Best Overall Runner-Up: Costume Queen 2004

[*] Best Male Winner: Costume Prince 2004[*] Best Male Runner-Up: Costume Duke 2004

[*] Best Female Winner: Costume Princess 2004[*] Best Female Runner-Up: Costume Duchess 2004

[*] Most Daring Winner: Costume Bohemian 2004[*] Most Daring Runner-Up: Costume Vixen 2004

[*] Most Humorous Winner: Costume Top Banana 2004[*] Most Humorous Runner-Up: Costume Comedienne 2004

Interestingly, the custom titles wasn't offered as prizes in the 2005 contest.

One other prize was a cameo appearance of the characters in the comic (then done by Blue King). A terrific list of all of the comic cameos during the entire Blue King run can be found here. (Does anybody know if a similar list exists for the Top Cow books?)

[ QUOTE ]
Okay does anyone know the one they use whe you exit a mission in CoV (you're looking around checking to see if anyone has witnessed your crime) anyone know what that one is?

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't know that one exactly, but I think the "peerin" emote will do that same checking around inbetween the "peering inside" part of the emote. I suppose if you're not close to a window you can pretend you're looking through binoculars...

Oooh, that sounds pretty cool! (The jungle room, not the graphics buffer thing. ) I was fooling around with the bridges in a big decorative room with trees, and i liked how the "canopy" of the trees was able to put some foliage around the bridges...I'd be curious to see what you came up with!

And thanks for the tip on the number of torches...I used the bonfire to keep the number of torches down (and it was getting too bright in there anyway), but I hadn't thought about the effect on the graphics card! That's espeically good information since I've been looking at the bigger decorative rooms.

Ok, this is kinda fun...

My villain group recently added an arcane workshop to our base, and I wanted to do something with those arcane bridges and balconies. I've been frustrated with them since I couldn't figure out a good way to use them, and this is what I came up with:
[*]Entering the workshop [*]Here, the unworthy will be made to walk The Path of Fire... [*]...pass through the mouth of Mannitzahotwon, Aztec god of fire... [*]...and be flung into the sacrificial fire pit! (MOLA RAM! MOLA RAM! MOLA RAM!)

So has anybody else come up with a good use for those bridges or balconies? It seems like the long bridge and balcony are especially tricky since the ends are roped off. (I'd love if we could at least put things on them!)

[ QUOTE ]
Why can't we just buy storage bins? Why must we create and then place them?

[/ QUOTE ]
I sure hope not...we'd have to suffer through coordinating our salvage across multiple characters to be able to craft the receptacle to have a central place to dump salvage.

Um, irony?

I'm going to stay cautiously optimistic on the prices of the new functional items...my little PvE SG has scrounged together a semi-functional base, it would be nice to know these are achievable for us. I mean, the storage bins a nice convenience, but lets be honest...some people already mule this stuff around with alts and other characters anyway...it's not like this is something that only big SGs and PvP groups should have access to.

And the new decorative stuff....so...very...pretty. Want it right now, please?

[ QUOTE ]
Pinnacle's Team Evil recently revamped out base -- screenshots can be found on our blog.

[/ QUOTE ]
/em gasp and drool!

Oh, very cool! I love the look and the layout is really distinctive...it's great how the room style gradually changes from area to area. There's a lot of fun ideas here but I think I like the "basement" look the best. (Although the entrance room and the "briefing area" next to the raid teleporter are cool, too.)

Of course I'm also jealous of the larger base plot...sigh...someday...

[ QUOTE ]
G Force Super Group on Virtue.

Topographical View
Control Room
Power Room
Entrance
Medic Bay

[/ QUOTE ]
I really like these. The use of vents around the entrance portal is really cool! I might have to steal that idea...

[ QUOTE ]
Torture room

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm hoping that's a villain group's base...

Though it's funny, since the contents are very similar to our VG's new arcane-themed teleport room:
[*] Entering the room... [*] ...with the magic study area... [*] ...and our mad scientists'--ahem--"research area." (It's the nearby sink that kinda creeps me out...)

Fantastic guide! It's very well-written and quite thorough. I've got a level 44 Emp/Eng and a level 22 Emp/Sonic, and your advice certainly rings true from my experience. I did have one little quibble, however:

[ QUOTE ]

Power Mastery:

Conserve Power is a must – it reduces the endurance you use for a short time. Power Buildup can be skipped for the same reasons I think you can skip Amplify. The shield is Temporary Invulnerability – although it only resists Smashing and Lethal damage, it has a much higher resistance percentage. Total Focus is an extreme melee attack that causes knockback and disorient.


[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, Power Buildup is AWESOME for an Empath. The boost to damage and accuracy is nice, but the real gem is that it also DOUBLES the effectiveness of your heals while it's active. That's a very nice feature when your tank is taking a beating and your normal heals aren't having as big an impact on his hit points. It also doubles the effect of things like disorients and knockback, which might be useful for Screech or Shockwave. (It may also effect the Sleep duration of Siren's Song, but I'm not sure about that.)

Thanks for the great guide, and grats on 50!

[ QUOTE ]
31 Flavors's (Guardian) new Med Unit; now with Auto-Doc:

Med Unit

[/ QUOTE ]
That looks great, and the walls look good with those wall cabinets. That must have taken a while--it looks like there are at least a couple hundred!

And I'm enjoying the pictures of these "one room" bases, too! For my own part, I've been trying my hand at doing some "decorative" bases (say with the 5x5 room)...I'll see if I can post some pics here at some point.

Now I just have to get my friends to start earning some prestige, darn it!

Here are a few pictures of the Guild's base. I'm a big believer in the axim that "talent imitates; genius steals," so some of these ideas may seem...familiar...to those who have been following this thread.

Like the Guild's membership, the base is an eclectic mix of arcane, technology and Eastern-themed decorations, but I think it works pretty well together. The group is only about 5 or 6 RL friends and our (numerous) alts, so the base isn't very big, but we have a functioning workshop with two tables, and a teleport room with two teleporters. (Hoping to get the next teleport room soon!)

And a quick note for those base-builders on a bugdet...the 3x3 teleport room costs the same as a 2x2. It can still only hold two teleporters, but it makes for a nice "great room" for a smaller base. (Ours is a combination teleport room, library, entertainment area and dojo!)
[*]Base layout[*]The entrance room[*]Walking into the "great room"...[*]...with the teleporters...[*]...lounge, dojo, and library.[*]The workshop[*]A long view of the control room[*]Here's the place where we think up the evil[*]The power room...[*]...which also includes the all-important brewery

And if any devs are reading, I'm prepared to do almost anything if it meant we could place windows on the walls. The living end would be a window looking out on an underwater area...that way it could either represent a giant aquarium or a window for an undersea base! Or maybe a view like outside Pocket D? (Hope, hope!)