BlueBattler

Hey, all.

Most of the time I don't get to roleplay in the game, but I do spend a fair amount of time thinking about the background of my characters. Some of the information gets put into their bios, and some of it doesn't.

One of the things that I was thinking about was making another attempt to bring a character I had invented as a teenager into the game as a COH character. I was thinking that I'd like to use the "hook" of making him related to a Canon NPC.

I have done this already for three of my toons. Neither they or their ancestor know it, but they are descended from one of the COT Mages who returned to the surface world in the 1920s. (Not Akarist or Zoria; the one who shows up in one of the Patron Arcs partying with the Carnies.) The Blaze Family is descended from this COT Mage and a Flapper Girl-- my hunch is she probably gave their grandfather up for adoption, so he knew nothing of his ancestry either.


Now as in my fanfiction, I always try to make things plausible in the creation of my toons. I don't think it's really plausible for a toon to be a child or spouse of a major NPC like Statesman, Recluse, etc for the simple reason that such a major part of the character's life should show up in canon somehow ... and the odds of the Devs ever making a PC into a canon character are pretty slim.

My latest character I'm inclined to have be a descendant of Bentley Berkeley, the immortal we meet in the Path of Darkness. Now I am debating on whether or not Berkeley would have kept in touch his mortal family-- my own inclination given what he says about not keeping up with people much-- is that even if he knew that he had a child somewhere he wouldn't stick around the family that much ...

Which sort of leads me into the hook for my character. When he loses his family in his origin, he blames Berkeley for their deaths ...

What about the rest of you? Do you often create toons whose backgrounds touch upon Canon NOCs? How far do you think that can go without being tacky?

Well done.

The signature requirement for testing Issue 20 makes me a little cautious.

It's never been used before, so I'm thinking that Issue 20 is going to be a major change to the game in some fashion. I'm also not sure that it's going to be one the players are necessarily going to like. (If it were, why require the signature on the NDA?)

On the other hand, releasing an issue right after your getting a second competitor-- and one that will pose a significantly greater threat simply from brand recognition alone-- that would cause player agitation wouldn't seem to make much sense to me either ...

I wonder if we're going to get all four powers as Inherent-- so that everyone will have both Swift and Hurdle from here on out ...

Hi, all.

I have mostly played Controllers, but I have recently discovered the fun that is the Dominator AT.

One of the types of Control I never managed to get very far was Gravity. My highest Gravity Controller is 25 or thereabouts. As much as I solo, I just wasn't liking the set.

Now I'm thinking about taking a crack at a Gravity/Energy Dom. I have a Mind/Elec and a Mind/Fire, and a lil Elec/Earth that I just started tonight. There are a few powers in Energy I want to play around with as well, so it seems like a good fit.

How good a soloer would a Grav/Energy Dom be Blueside? Any particular glaring problems with the combo?

And I'm looking for some recommendations of apps to get.

I have the DC and Marvel Comics Apps, Kindle, Ibooks ...

Anything else people can recommend that would have to do with comics and/or books?

Also, are there any COH-centric apps?

I have been wanting this for years.

I am happy enough with most of the Pets, but for the love of Romero can't we get those spiffy new zombies for our Tier One Necromancer pets?!

I find the Tier One zombies so blah ...

Boy, it was hard to think of a subject heading for this ...

I was kind of thinking about this last night...

For those of you who are going to play a Heroic Primal AT from the Redside choices (Brute, Stalker, etc), how are you thinking about their background?

Are you going to go for the "reformed" route on all of them?

Are you going to have them be unjustly accused, wrongly convicted innocent heroes who manage to clear themselves? (There's a Malta mission Blueside where you prevent an innocent newbie hero from being framed by Malta so the precedent exists).

Or ... and this is what I've found myself considering as an option for some characters ... are you going to totally IGNORE their past Redside and retcon them as ALWAYS having been heroic?

Given that every Praetorian Toon has a major mission they have to solo, it doesn't surprise me the support toons have more attacks at low levels than buffs.

I definitely think that the Morality Missions for Praetoria will need to be toned down if you're going to want damage-light toons to be able to do them without tearing their hair out.

My Mind/Fire Dom is doing pretty well, but even he can die when the ambushes hit.

For the longest time, it seemed that the bad guys had more respect for Artificial Intelligence than heroes and official authority. I mean, how many radio missions have you done where the named boss of the Council or Sky Raiders or Arachnos happened to be a robot or a cyborg?

I really liked the Rogue Robots storyline because that was the first "All robot" bad guy group we got to fight. (I don't count Clockwork because they are led by the Clockwork King who has an organic mind.)

And remember, Luminary was made by Positron as a wedding present!

And there's the 30s Technology Store Contact Mark IV. He's obviously a sentient being yet the law seems to have no trouble with Crey trying to hunt him down and reclaim their "property."

I think you can easily play AI characters as facing prejudice and discrimination in Paragon. The public may let them fight for them and arrest the baddies, but they may not think they deserve the right to vote, own property, or marry.

I like this idea. There are so many ways you could play this.

For instance, I had an AE Arc about the Rogue Robots returning, and one of the characters was a Mekman named Otto Maddox who wound up fighting alongside the hero to rescue the human woman he had fallen in love with.

At the end of the Arc, you find out that she knew he was a robot and still wanted to marry him.

They'd definitely fit into this sort of RP I think.

Anyone remember the names of the African American heroes who opposed being drafted by the government to be used as super powered agents? I could see one of them working with the group as a civil rights advocate.

Hey, all.

Last year, I was on my way back to the folks and I stopped at a Truck Stop Plaza. I hadn't stopped at one before-- or if I had, I hadn't really stopped to look around-- and I was amazed at all the things they had to offer.

One of the things they had was a rack full of audio plays based on DC Comics as well as some science fiction. I picked up the Infinite Crisis Adaption and found that it was pretty good-- about equivalent to the "Kingdom Come" audio play from a few years ago.


Anyone else checked out any of their stuff?

When did Batman stop being authorized by the Gotham City Police Department? If they still have the Batsignal you have to figure that he's going to have some legal standing ...

So after I got my Crab Spider Blue up to 50, I found my thoughts turning back to my long neglected Warshade Shade of Blue. My PB was my second 50, and I really had a blast on him, but somehow I just wasn't enjoying my Warshade when I played him before. This was a minor annoyance to me because I have a Level 50 of every Hero AT BUT Warshade.

After getting Spider Blue to 50, though, I found myself thinking about Shade's background story, and I decided that I really wanted Shade to hit 50 so he could face Requiem on Warwolf World. (Shade is the Warwolf World version of my first Blue Battler. There's a mission where you find out an alt version of you failed to stop The Path of Darkness which led to the destruction of the world ... Shade is the Blue Battler who failed that arc, and he's the only other survivor of Warwolf World aside from Requiem. A Nictus-- horrified at having helped cause the end of an entire world-- joins with Blue and they survive until they're able to follow a hero back to our Earth where they try to become powerful enough to avenge alt-Blue's failure against Requiem.)

Shade just hit 30 last night. (I have to say that Strigia is a real pain in the butt for a Warshade. If I never have to fight another BP on a WS again it'll be too soon!)


Anyway, there are a few things that I can use some help with in terms of Kheldian background.

1. Since we don't kill our enemies as Heroes in COH, what do you think Stygian Circle is doing our defeated opponents? I'm assuming we're drawing on their life force to make ourselves stronger, but what effect does that have on our foes when they recover? (I'm leaning towards them having nightmares at the very least ...)

2. Anyone worked out a good system for coming up with Kheldian/Nictus names? I loved the name of Reqiuem's half-- Dirge of Entropy-- and I have yet to come up with the "Right" name for Shade's Kheldian half.

3. On a non-RP note, just how good are Unchain Essence, Twilight Shield, and Stygian Return? I want to use the human form as much as possible to differentiate the play of my Warshade from my PB.

It'd be interesting to know if the Joker really DOES meet the critieria for Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity. I think I ran across an analysis of that situation on the Web somewhere several years back, but now I can't find it and I don't recall the final decision ... >.>