Heroid

((I know at my store, that people have been dropping Marvel steadily since the end of Civil War. The whole Skrull invasion story didn't do as well as the crossovers before and Dark Reign did even worse. I think they're on the right path with Age of X, where the event is kept mainly within a few books. (It may even get me to read a Marvel U. book, which I have seldom done for the past eight years.)

As far as DC and Image infringing on Marvel's market share, I think that Walking Dead and Morning Glories have given Image a greater presence on the stands and it had nothing to do with Marvel's lack of a huge crossover. And while DC has had a hit with Brightest Day (which at my store is dwindling in readership during it's dragging and weighty middle), its success doesn't seem to have really spread to any of the tie-in books that don't have "Lantern" in the title. (For instance, there are stacks from several months of the new Green Arrow book collecting dust beside the empty Green Lantern section.)

I think that Marvel and DC will still do big event crossovers (Age of Apocalypse and 52 were both great stories and should be considered among the "classics" of comic book storylines), but I think that they will downsize them and keep them within a handful of titles at a time.

But then, if they think that a company-wide Marvel Universe Vampire-Zombie Wars will sell, then... But this lifelong comics fan won't buy it. ))

I haven't read every post in this thread, but I am on the side of solo-friendly end-game content. In my opinion, if you utilize the difficulty sliders and choose your power sets wisely, then any AT should be able to solo all the way through the game. I accept that TF's are designed for teams (as a result, except for Katie Hannon, I have never completed a TF in the six-plus years I've been playing), and that doesn't bother me. What bothers me is the trouble I have unlocking the alpha slot running with a character that isn't maxed out with the most expensive IO sets.

Instead of a higher level cap (which is all Incarnate amounts to -- turning your character up to 11 by painting a new number on the dial), I would rather have seen more content for level 50's. More zones. More environments. More things to explore. Maybe an upgrade to the common rp zone (Pocket D). Hitting things is hitting things, whether you're level 20 or level 50.

But since you have added to the level cap, I'd like to be able to solo to it. As others have said, CoH has always been extremely friendly to the casual solo player who doesn't have hours-long stretches to finish arcs and raids. I'd hate to see that change. CoH is still the best superhero MMO around and I hope to still be playing it in six more years.

((If you read comic books, you might notice that the creators of superhero comics are having the same problems finding good names as we do. Seriously, there are some oddly-named characters out there (Plutonian from the excellent Irredeemable for instance). So while I'm in favor of a limited purge, we're still going to have to use LOT of ingenuity and creativity to find names for our characters. It's not so much getting the name you *want* as it is getting a name that's *good*.))

I'm not sure whether I should post this here, or over on the art threads, but...

Over on Todd Dezago's (Tellos, Marvel Super Hero Squad, Young Justice) Perhapablog, he's announced a nifty contest! Check it out!

http://blog.perhapanauts.com/

There is another contest going on at Superhero of the Month. This time the subject is Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat. Check it out!

http://www.superheroofthemonth.com/

The name purge thing? I can see both sides of the argument. I don't see any reason to NOT purge all trial accounts though. They could do it automatically a week after they expire, and they could tell people this is going to happen when they sign up for a trial, and if they want to keep the name, they can go ahead and subscribe before that week is up.

As far as paid accounts? I think if someone played for a year and has been gone for four or five, it's a safe bet they're probably not coming back. And if they do, they can start from scratch. I took a year of Computer Programming at the local community college back in the 80's. I'm thinking about going back. I'm not expecting any of my credits to still be good. Seems fair enough to me.))

((Nice that this thread has been rezzed.

HEROID - Roy Kirby would appear as a large, muscular human no matter whether he was in his robotic body or his human one. But behind him would stand a dark, hulking shadow even larger than he is.

Rogue Atom - Tami would look like a girl-shaped doorway, and just on the other side of that doorway would be another Tami who looked like a girl-shaped doorway, and just on the other side of that doorway would be another Tami who looked like a girl-shaped doorway, and just...

Alias Smith - Would look like a shadow with one open eye, and that eye would look like the iconic eyes that ancient races drew on the walls of temples, caves, and pyramids.

Winter Girl - Colleen would appear as a little girl dressed in a tattered cheerleader's skirt. She appears alone, afraid, uncertain, confused. Very confused.

((Stuff like this is why I just don't do task forces (tasks force? task forci?) Most of them take a lot of planning and time. Everybody who forms teams to run them has his/her own method of doing so and I wouldn't be offended if they asked me specifics about my characters' powers. But I've started so many and dropped out in the middle because of the length of time it takes to complete them that I just quit bothering: I don't want to waste people's effort because I'm unable to finish. Maybe it's for that reason that I can see why someone organizing a TF team would ask specific questions about AT's, powersets, and even if prospective teammates have enough time to commit.))

((Thanks! ))

((The sweety and sultry Saira! ))

((New post up! ))

http://alternautuniverse.blogspot.co...bye-pt-17.html

((Very nice, Megajoule! I really miss when story threads like this -- Megajoule's, Pill Bug's, Fearghas', Ascendant's, among many, many others -- were a big part of the Virtue forums.))

((New post today! Yay!))

http://alternautuniverse.blogspot.co...bye-pt-16.html

I woke up from my mid-afternoon nap with that feeling. You know that feeling…

When you live your life dealing with mages trying to mold reality like clay or attacks from angry gods bent ripping up the universe like yesterday’s junk mail, you begin to get a feel for impending… something. It’s not always danger. Just change. Huge change. As if the world you see now is not the world as it was two minutes ago and this is the new reality and you’d better damn well live in it or die.

The impending was here.

I climbed out from beneath the stereo cabinet and looked around. The evening sun was low and streaming through the windows, illuminating the apartment in a soft gold. There was no sound – no music coming softly from the stereo speakers; no clicking and clacking coming from the kitchen where this time of day Gen was usually preparing a pan of oatmeal or steaming some vegetables for her evening meal. The apartment was silent, completely silent.

Gen wasn’t on the sofa and I couldn’t hear her moving about the apartment. I crept on cat’s paws through her home, searching, desperately hoping that she was gone to the park to paint and would come through the door with a smile on her beautiful, wrinkled face. Or maybe she’d had a late doctor’s appointment which she and Irmina had somehow not mentioned earlier in the day.

A trip to the kitchen proved unfruitful – there was no evidence that she had so much as stirred a cup of soup. A fear was growing within me. Not a fear for her, but a fear for me.

I padded to her bedroom, stopping to listen as I approached the partly opened door. I could hear the faint sound of her breathing coming through the crack, so I went inside. There she was, on the bed which she hardly ever slept in. She wore a dress that, though I could tell from its style was old, looked new. Perhaps it was the one she had kept hung in the back of the closet – the one I had climbed on a few nights before.

I leapt up beside her and slowly dew near her face. She didn’t see me, her eyes were looking off somewhere far away, somewhere that I couldn’t see, even through cat’s eyes. Her hands were crossed and resting on her belly, and if she had been standing, she would have looked for all the world as if she was waiting. Waiting for a bus or a train. Waiting to meet someone or to leave or perhaps both…

I curled up in the curve of her shoulder and rested my head on her hair. I lay there and counted her breaths, never getting very far before I had to start again because counting is just not what cats do. But I tried. I tried. I knew that soon the counting would stop. I wish I could tell you how I felt, but there are no human words to describe it. But at that moment, it escaped my mouth in a soft “meow.” I counted breaths like sheep until I fell asleep there.

When I woke up, the apartment was dark and I was human again, my time as a cat having finally run out. In the pale glow from the bathroom nightlight, I could see Gen beside me. Her eyes were closed and she looked peacefully asleep, but there were no more breaths to count.

I got up and went to the closet and retrieved the box that was in the corner. After that, I went to the table of framed photographs and chose one taken of her when she was young – about my age – and very beautiful. Then I found the painting she had done of me as a cat. I took these items and started to leave.

At the apartment door, I paused and turned back. I went back to Gen, kissed her cheek and placed the box beneath her bony hand. It belonged with her, and I hoped that Irmina and the Salt would see to it that its contents were buried with her.

Then I finally headed home.