Bill_Ramey

1. More blueside content. No more expanding away from the core game with things such as COV, Mission Architect, and Going Rogue.

2. More environs. Jungles, frozen tundras, lava lands, and so on.

3. Shorter task forces that take place in unique areas not seen in the regular game. A TF shouldn't be a tedious slog, and too many of them are. The re-vamping of the Positron TF was a great step in the right direction.

4. This is vague, but bases seem to just be a means to an end-it's a place to store stuff, craft, and teleport to various zones. Something's missing, and I don't know what. I've toyed with the notion of taking clues back to base to be analyzed and even with the idea of receiving missions from a talking head a la Super Friends. But I think something needs to be added to make bases seem more superheroic.

5. No more multiple transporters in bases. Have one transporter with a list of zones.

6. Another vague issue, but I like fighting street crime--stalking alleyways and taking down purse snatchers. I wonder if this can be enhanced in some way.

7. Street brawling powerset, so I can make a Wildcat type of character.

You're not alone. I don't like voice chat for the same reasons. I remember one guy who talked about passing a kidney stone in great detail. Then there was the fight over enhancement effects. Conversations inevitably stray into non-gaming topics, and they're often vulgar to boot. But above all, voice chat breaks immersion. I can hear desultory conversation anywhere, but I can only be a superhero online.

Level 50 with approximately 140 badges is good for me. On future toons, I may pursue the Task Force Commander Badge and the exploration badges. I don't worry about Set IOs.

A lot of players like to blow through missions quickly, but some are more tactical. I prefer tactical gameplay myself. A buddy and I went through all of the Faultline missions bit-by-bit and had a great time--COH is much more fun when played through systematically. You're more than welcome to join us on the Virtue server, and we would be glad to start a static team with the aim of going through the game systematically. The invite goes for anyone.

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Or are you talking about a player actually being behind the so-called "main villain" and each "minion"?

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Yes, there would be a human player for each villain and minion, say 3-5 in total.

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Such "hide & seek" might be fun if you had enough people interested in looking for you - but what if no one comes?

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Any mini-game/contest bears that risk.

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It also sounds like a lot of annoying chatter ("taunts") in broadcast that people not interested in hunting for the PC villain would detest.

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Another risk. Costume contests bear the same risk. An occasional taunt can't be any worse than the endless, mindless advertisements for AE farms.

One of the things I'd like to see in the game is a live villain, i.e. a non-NPC villain who taunts and challenges heroes in some way. I have an idea about how this might be done within the limitations of the game engine. It involves using characters created hero-side as villains.

First, we need a main villain and some minions. In Atlas Park, each minion is stationed next to various mobs in the act of committing a crime. For example, there's always a mob trying to break into a car; a minion could stand with that mob and do the cheer emote. The catch, of course, is that the toon would have to be high enough level not to aggro the mob, but this also has an advantage that I'll get to in a bit.

Now a Riddler-style main villain would taunt heroes in broadcast and give clues as to the whereabouts of his minions. The aim of the heroes is to catch his minions. Now given that there is no PvP in Atlas, I'm thinking one way to indicate that a minion has been caught is to give him an inspiration. The first hero to give a minion an inspiration is the one who catches him--and that's easily verified by looking at the log and seeing who gave it to him. For added fun, the minion could do the hands up emote. Now here's a twist: if this is only a contest for lowbie toons, when the lowbie approaches the minion, he will aggro the mob--thus triggering the minion's own henchmen, while the minion attempts to escape.

The upshot is that this uses a combination of hide-and-seek and tag to bring live villainy into the game. Ideally, of course, there would be rewards for heroes as there are in costume contests. I don't know how workable this all is--there are certainly some bugs to work out (e.g. will the minions only be limited to sprint in order to run from heroes?), but I thought I'd throw the idea out there--assuming it hasn't already been discussed somewhere.

I asked the leader if she meant autofire, but she said no. I suspect now that she was thinking of RA and somehow construed it as being preemptive healing. But the group fell apart before she explained further. At any rate, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

I was on a pick-up group with my empath when the leader asked me if I had preemptive heals set up. She said that preemptive heals anticipate incoming damage and then activate quickly to counteract the damage. I've never heard of this, and I can't find anything about it here or on the wiki. Does anyone know what preemptive healing is?

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If I have them rename her Bee Lass for example and later discover Lady Sting (or any better name than Bee Lass) is available

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I kind of like "Bee Lass."

I can't get this to work. I've created the directory and file, but in game the menu doesn't pop up--mine or the default. Here's my test file:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Menu QuickChat
{
Menu Quips
{
option Run1 "local We have a runner!"
option Run2 "local Don't run--the other thugs are laughing at you."
}
Menu Emotes
{
option Tea "emote teacup"
}
Menu Powers
{
option Box "powerexecname Boxing"
}
}</pre><hr />

Is there something wrong with the syntax?