Doctor_Geist

Thanks again, just got one at this late hour for my second account. I had gotten one for my main a while back from Twitter, but this is a much nicer way, imo.

(If we're keeping track: 34Y4-MKPJ-RMQ5-YQRC-EPRH, on about my 4th try.)

Fun aura, definitely a comic staple and something I had been asking for from waaay back. Also, fun tip: aura looks great on stalkers or other toons with stealth, it really does the Kirby-esque outlining well that way.

Hail to the "King"!

For those keeping score, have not received my costume code either. I was in the morning contest, one of the finalists (although not a big winner, that was Emperor Moth).

Still, since no screenshots are being posted, thought I'd just submit my own...

Just a fun little idea I got a day or two before the contest for something theme-appropriate but different.


BuzzClickWhirr:

Just to add a data point to the discussion:

2 accounts here. One cycled on the 17th, one on the 24th.

0 reward tokens.
0 points.

I too would love to know what's going on... if nothing else, this has completely deterred me from picking up new items from the store for now. (I don't want to spend the points I have left if I'm not sure when I'm getting new points!)

Also, just for anecdotal evidence for the conversation, I can't seem to find anyone on Exalted who is positive that they have gotten any subscription-based rewards since launch. One or two vague impressions that they might have gotten a token and no points, but that's it. Obviously this is not clear evidence one way or the other (how do people not know how many tokens and points they had?), but just adding it in.

Villains had better steer clear of this cowboy...

Look, it's Peter Griffin! (er, well, not really, but you get the idea...)

I like the options overall, and the cats seem very well done. The minotaur seems to work out well, although I haven't played with those options as much. But if you want feedback...

Big huge gripe#1... no "animal fur" for flat boots. You can put animal fur on the basic smooth boots, but that's it, and that leaves a nasty heel. You can play around with patterned tights on flat boots, but the colors don't match well with fur (and, well, don't look furry). This leaves monstrous legs as the only decent option for a barefoot animal character, and sometimes that doesn't suit well either. Simple fix is "animal fur" available on flats, bonus points if we could get a simple clawed look (with normal legs!) to go with it.

Big huge gripe#2...goes back to an old problem, but the new fur looks awful in white. No matter what skin color you have selected, white fur shows up over very visible pink skin (and the fur itself is pretty grey). I know it's an issue with the base texture having pink and "white" meaning "add nothing," but it just looks bad. It also makes the one character that I was hoping to really use the pack for, Snow Leopard, very sad for obvious reasons.

Somewhat smaller but general blanket gripe: Birds? Well, sort of... They really feel "thrown in." You get one head, and it's pretty specific. The beaks are nice, points for that at least. You get one nice set of feet, but only if you use monstrous legs... and no feathers anywhere (except in the emotes, but those don't match anything in your costumes). No birdlike feet for normal legs, no non-raptor heads, no patterns at all for the head, no tails (!), no feathered patterns for anywhere (!!), and no wings(!!!). I totally grant that we have very nice "angel" wings as a vet reward, and I'm happy with them. But obviously not everyone has access to them, and this would be a perfect time to try something different. But to put in 5 pieces out of 60-something... I'm confused. I'd rather have them than not, but it feels incomplete.

Lesser issues:

• All the heads seem small to me. I find myself basically doubling the scale in all directions every time to get them to "feel" right.
• Also, not much variety in the bull/wolf heads. At least some more patterns (two-color wolf for more dog/fox/hyena possibilities, spots! for cows) would be nice.
• I also wish the new heads accepted more accessories, hats, hairstyles, etc., although I understand the issues. Right now they are pretty "all or nothing."
• Hiss emote is... well, it has its uses, but I wish I had one my male characters might use.
• Why have the obviously monkey-based emote (savage) in a pack with no monkey pieces? (or: why no monkey pieces?)
• Whatever happened to the (early CoV) fur shoulder piece? Would love to have it back with these...
• Wish we could do animal fur with smooth/bare gloves. Works great with monstrous gloves, would just like a "softer" option.
• Wish we had some of the new cat-fur patterns available for normal faces. Snow Leopard still has to fake things with the generic "spots" on a feline face. For that matter, I wish we had better hybrid faces with this, but I guess that's a little off the topic.

Well, before this wanders off into a total wishlist rather than actual feedback, I'll just say I think the pack looks great overall. It does address some things people have been asking for. What there is looks great, especially the cats, and I hope we get more like this (reptiles!) in the future.

Well what do you know... this was just when I happened to be doing my daily forum checks, and figured I'd punch in a couple just to try. As others had experienced with prior days, the flipped-over, upside down, and otherwise hard to read codes were used, but the great big obvious one down in the corner apparently had my name on it.

Thanks!

Haven't even had time to keep going through my alts and add the auras to all the ones that can use them, but I figured I'd share one last one for now. Given the recent events, and the timing of the pack, I did have one more idea. I think this will be the goal for my new dark/dark corr, but I didn't create him in time to nab myself a zombie EB. So if you see any more zombies out on Pinnacle, give me a shout so I can grab Unearthly Presence. But for now, Gothic Horror will model the look for me...

For a bit of an experiment, I tried to see what the cool new bio plasma aura would do when put on top of fire shields. So I have a greenish aura, a blueish fire shield, a purpleish plasma shield... it combines nicely to give me that "strange radioactive shimmer" my meteor-infected scrapper, Meteor-Strike, was looking for. And yes, that and the Omega pieces finally gave me the excuse to try out one of those spine/fire scrappers I keep hearing so much about...

Now, my Ill/Rad controller really got some use out of the pack.



The tarot cards really work quite well for Pretense, since her main costume is basically a stage magician/illusionist.



But the runes fit some of her other "magic woman" personas a little better (and the new magic cape works well with the witch wardrobe).

...and the Impervium cape does fit my shiny (and I mean shiny) new Kin/SR scrapper very well. The atomic aura for the fists was another possibility here to go with Kin Melee, but for what I wanted from him Alpha worked just a tad better.

Fine, fine, Bass called me out in-channel, and I figured I might as well add some I was happy with...



Nuclear Hazard looks pretty spiffy with his new Atomic aura, even if it's a little hard to see in a quick screenshot.

My two cents:

Sashes (Kheldians, obviously, but see also: Carnies, CoT). My Kheld needs one, my mystical characters could use them, lots of possibilities here.

Logos! Should be a simple thing, no worries about pieces clipping, etc. But if a group has a specific logo, we should be able to get access to it. There are 8 that are available as a vet reward, but I'd like to see 5th Column, Freedom Corps, Hellion, Outcast (etc, etc) logos available for chest options. This, at least, would seem to be minimal effort involved from the art department that would give maximum effect for players wanting some way to visually state that their characters "belong" (or "belonged") to a certain group.

A head detail option that gives us something similar to the headsets used by reporter NPCs, many non-armored Crey, certain 5th Columnists, etc. It doesn't have to be the exact piece, but some type of earpiece/antenna/microphone combo.

I agree with many others that some sort of porcelain-type full mask and half-mask option would be nice, especially if it could be combined with textures (a "50/50" mask, one with the skull or jack-o-lantern look, etc). This falls in-between a "new piece" and "NPC piece" request, I suppose, but it would fit Carnies, Tsoo, and potentially Skulls.

Personally, I would like 5th column masks and chest harnesses. I've managed "kinda close" facsimiles, but as long as we're wishlisting...

Freakshow pieces would be interesting, as they're some of the most common enemy groups encountered, and one of the most visually interesting, although I'm not sure what could easily be converted for PCs.

Carnie pieces (like the bustier) are also often-requested, and while I might not actually use any myself, I don't suppose I'd mind seeing what others come up with...

I understand that Circle of Thorns robes are apparently not in the realm of PC-possible, but could we look at what could be done? Odd as it sounds, one thing I would really like is something close to the sleeves. We have "robes", although they are all martial-arts-styled. Just some nice, loose, open sleeves like the CoT have for their robes would be an improvement. This, and a sash (see first item), and we're halfway there.

Sort of. Frequently my characters start because of an interesting name idea, and even if that name turns out to be taken, the concept might stick around and become something else.

But generally there's a powerset in mind (or a concept in mind where I pick a powerset to fit), and then either I find a good name to flesh out the idea and build a costume around it, or come up with the costume idea and work around until I find an available name that fits it.

And then City of Heroes steals it. Yes, I'm still bitter: my first ever character, rolled a day or two after CoH's release, was developed to be a kind of living poltergeist (grav/ff was as close as I could come to the telekinetic idea I had in my head), and "Doctor Geist" seemed to be a natural fit, being both typically superheroic and mildly punny. Doctor Geist was my main for some time, and served as my global name, and then years later, I9 (I think) rolls in with the new alternate lowbie villain track, and some schmuck Arachnos mad-scientist has stolen my name. *sigh*

Of course, it could be worse: you could reserve a name around, oh, the I2 or I3 timeframe, when they first announced they were working on the beginnings of an archery powerset, and be sooo proud of yourself for coming up with a nice archer name and making sure no one could steal it from you, roll him up as soon as I5 hits live, and then a month or so later have the wind knocked out of your sails when the CoV beta shows you that your nice unique "Longbow" toon now has clones everywhere. Yeah, like anyone's going to believe now that I had the name first.

Still, I find one of the most rewarding things in the game is when the desired powerset, concept, and a nice name all come together. Fighting Spirit, the patriotic-themed scrapper, worked wonderfully, and is my real main now. Nuclear Hazard worked nicely for a rad/rad defender (although corr might actually be more appropriate, but they didnt exactly exist at the time). Technophobe seemed to fit a bot/dark combo in an interesting way (even if they've stolen that name for a badge now too), which made me eventually roll up Arachnophobe for a widow. The whole idea of a Bane Spider collective made Weblink an interesting concept, and Buzz-Killer came to mind as soon as I started thinking about a new elec dom.

Sometimes, though, it is all about the name. Rapid-Fire (at times Rapidfire or Rapid Fire) has been re-rolled a few times, from a start as a Fire/Dev with superspeed to the current Fire/Kin corr version.

And then there's my favorite name I ever lost to a server transfer... while I'm proud of Gothic Horror as the new name for a dark/stone with a gargoyle-esque costume, it doesn't beat the original: Ettu. Yes, he was a brute, just think about it...

First off, why do I get the feeling BABs lost a bet or something? This just has the feel of a "wait til he gets back on Monday and sees this"-type setup. For the record, if this is the case, I'm loving it. But since the question was asked...

Granite armor. I know there are technical reasons here, but, well, I don't care. Find a way to get us some variety here. The lack of individuality and inability to mesh with anything but a specific concept has been a stated reason for many players not wanting to use the set.

Elemental swords/breath powers. These are very concept-limiting. I have characters that will use ice/fire sword powers (and I agree maybe there could be options to make more of these available), but I also have some that skip the power just because it doesn't fit the concept. Same (even more so) with breath powers. Like Granite Armor, if the look of the power makes it skippable, but the power itself is balanced and viewed as "fine", it makes sense to change the animation. (If we're going pure wishlist, my ice dom Snow Leopard would love to have an icy claw look to his sword attacks, but that's getting pretty specific.)

Medicine pool. I know pool powers haven't really been looked at yet, but why not? These are powers that any character can theoretically pick up, so they affect everyone. As mentioned, magical animations (wand, spell-casting) and natural (syringe?) would help, and just a plain toss-a-glob-of-goo would let us specify whatever we liked it it were colorable.

Travel powers. Lots of options here, and NoFX has been mentioned, but I'd like to go another direction, and suggest elemental-themed particle effects version for most. Superspeed already has a "blazing trail of fire" look, but why couldn't flight have the same? Or lightning trails for both? Or a powerslide-like animation for superspeed coupled with a crumbling-particle effect at the player's feet that (depending on colors chosen) could work for ice-sliding or rock-sliding looks? Both powers should also have a "glowing trail of colored light" option (maybe with and without an aura that encases the character). Or an "afterimage" look similar to the Dimension Shift costume change, just along the player's trajectory. Teleport similar to "puff of smoke", a lightning rod attack, stepping into a portal, or just bursting into flames and reappearing in another conflagration. Superjump... hmm, I have less ideas for, but hope there could be some elemental themes here (geysers? rock/ice projections under the feet? glowing foot trails?). Oh, and actual baked-in choices of flying pose (instead of the /flypose crutch) would be assumed, I hope.

Please note that I go into more detail here because, again, I think these would have a greater effect on a greater range of characters. Nearly every toon has some sort of travel power, and the ability to customize these animations would reach farther than almost any other type of change.

Also on my list: hasten (both NoFX and alternate elemental themes like lightning, crystal particles, sparkles... just not always fire), tarzan-yelling powers, and, dangit, customizable pets for MMs (and to a lesser extent controllers).

Mainly, just a lot of stuff that has already been said, with maybe my own slant on things, but I thought I'd add my voice to the mob. Even if it is somehow just a mean dirty trick for the Powers guy to pull on the animation guys the weekend before the expansion hits.

Well, this one cost me 9mil inf in a wasted listing fee, but it should be easy to fix, based on past behaviors.

In the auction interface, listing an item for sale can give you a new popup warning you that your asking price will result in a large listing fee. Normally, you just click "yes" and the item gets listed. However, if you accidentally click on another item in your auction inventory prior to clicking Yes for the popup, that second item then gets listed for sale with the large asking price rather than the original item you intended.

The funny thing for me is this is just a different version of the same bug that I caught in beta, where the new "useful salvage" popup could cause the wrong salvage to be sold. This was corrected fairly quickly, and luckily that was only beta... too bad I found this version on Live. This also makes me wonder if there are any other similar popups that could cause issues by referring to the current "active" interface item rather than the original one.

So everyone gets an APP, and villains can unlock their PPP. This does beg a question: has there been any thought to setting up Hero PPPs? Obviously not at the moment-- there are other things to focus on-- but how about down the road, would there be a chance to pick one of the signature heroes and by studying under them unlock a set of powers thematically related to theirs? Work with Manticore to hunt down Protean and be able to fire off a Teleport Arrow, for example, or help Positron save the Faultline Dam (again) to gain some radiation-manipulating technology. Who knows, since there are more top-tier hero characters than there are Recluse-Lieutenants, perhaps each AT could choose from 4 heroes, but not every AT would have the same 4. Posi could be available to blasters and defenders (and corrs eventually), maybe, while Citadel would help melee ATs.

This is of course just wishful thinking, but from a balance perspective, right now Villains can natively choose between APPs or PPPs, while Heroes only have APPs unless they switch sides. While the Villain PPPs are at least theoretically available to anyone, that is not the same as having PPPs for each side. This would be a great opportunity to introduce more variety in powers, either by giving specific powers to match a signature character's theme, or to give options that fit concepts that are currently neglected by epic pools (like radiation, for example).

Hero Patrons are something that make sense and could be fun, as well as giving existing characters more options.

(And a sudden thought grips me: Blue Steel patron arc...)