JKPhage

I'll echo the sentiment that we'd love to see the story bible released in a downloadable format. If NCSoft is shuttering the IP and don't plan to use it ever again then there's no harm in letting us see all the backstory and lore that we otherwise won't get to, and maybe some details that never would have made it in-game anyway just as flavor.

My one big question that I will be horribly depressed to not see answered:

What happened with Merulina? Like, who was the dark figure that destroyed her? Does her conciousness live on in the Leviathan or is it simply a vessel for her power that has a darker personality? Where was her power until Calystix conjured The Leviathan? If it was back in Pandora's Box then how in the world did Calystix manage to pull it back OUT to infuse the Leviathan? Were there ever plans to have the Leviathan awaken again? Could we possibly have seen it destroyed to release her power so that Merulina could be resurrected to lead a peaceful Coralax kingdom, leading to an underwater zone?

So many questions and it's always been the most mysterious part of the game to me. I want to know MOAR!

If we're also on the subject of old costume pieces that went mysteriously and inexplicably missing, I'd also like to bring up a piece that I unfortunately never got to see in action, but have seen a few screenshots of in the past and seen requests for. With the release of COV apparently there used to be a shoulder option for Male and Huge that gave you a big fur ruff around the shoulders and the back of the neck, very much like Kraven the Hunter. I sadly don't have pictures of it, but by all accounts it was removed silently, never spoken of again and no explanation was ever given seeing as it didn't clip with anything we had at the time. I'd very much like to see this option return as there are several bestial options now and I have a few costumes that could very much benefit from it. It would work well with barbarian outfits, monsters/mutants/animal pack pieces/yetis/really hairy guys/etc. The female model has the bolero fur, even if it is restricted to use on jackets, but this was usable on tights/skin and other types making it very versatile, and it also added some bulk to the character making it a very striking piece. It would be very nice if men could have this piece back so we can make furry/hairy/whatever characters.

I sadly don't have any screen shots of it, but I'd be very surprised if it isn't still floating around in costume creator limbo somewhere. Even if it isn't, is it possible we could have a new/scruffier version of it? I'd even settle for it as a back detail that just sits on the shoulders, or possibly even an alternate version with an animal skin cape similar to Shadowhunter. It'd be a one-off piece really, but we've received several of those recently and they're not a bad thing, they sometimes provide just the perfect piece that was missing for some people. I'd very much appreciate it, and my wild-boy beast tamer would very much appreciate the extra warmth with the coming winter months.

Haha, I had similar luck last night. I was running consecutive Magisterium trials on a PUG, we all wanted to finish it instead of farm so we could get goodies AND xp, and the first run went really well, we DPS'd the hell out of Tyrant and he went down VERY quickly, faster than I've ever seen in fact. The second round he went down even faster and I notice a badge notification. Cue the entire leauge just guffawing in amazement as we just earned The Hard Way and didn't even TRY. Made me feel pretty awesome.

What am I hoping for? Personally I'd like to see some revamps to Redside, though I'm thinking that may be just a taaaad further down the line. With the new SSA working on establishing a new villain organization to rival Arachnos, maybe in i25 we'll get some sort of takeover and the Rogue Isles will become not so spidery? Maybe this new group cleans things up a bit and makes it more of a sinister corporation style? Arachnos can still hold part of the territory, but this group can have certain areas or entire zones under their thumb so they've picked up the litter, made it look shiny? It would certainly be nice to have a villain area that DIDN'T look like a garbage dump. It's what keeps me from playing redside. Every single zone looks the same to me. At least give us ONE zone that looks nicer, even if it's a brand new zone.

I'm also hoping that we might finally got pool customization but I know that's pretty much not gonna happen that quickly. I'm thinking it'll be i26 or i27 before that pans out, but I'd love to be proven wrong. I'd also still love an underwater zone, but I'm not gonna hold my breathe (haha, puns).

What do I realistically expect? A new Praetorian zone with a new TF or Trial to take down the Praetorian Hamidon. My SG leader actually made a great point on this too: We'll probably be wandering into the wilderness of Praetoria, and with the nature themed enemies and areas we'll be getting Water Blast, Bio Armor and Nature Affinity, all organic/nature themed sets. Hell, maybe they'll even name the issue Back To Nature. It makes plenty of sense to me, and I'd love to see what those thickly wooded areas of Praetoria look like, see what the DE have done to the world when they were allowed to run loose. I don't know what to expect aside from that, but I'd imagine we'll get the cyberpunk set with the issue and probably run into some people living in the wilderness in a kind of Mad Max style wasteland society using bits of the costume pieces, maybe even some kind of nature cult/Devouring Earth devotees/Infected humans using nature powers so they can squeeze the new powersets into an enemy group to showcase them. Time will tell, but I think that's a pretty realistic expectation.

I have a bit of a dumb question actually, but I can't seem to find the answer anywhere. Does one have to be a Titan Weapons character to get the recipe drop, or can anybody running the trial get it by chance? I ask because if so then I'm gonna start trying for the drop on my incarnate toons so I can get it for my TW charcter who is currently sitting in the tutorial, waiting for the recipe before I even want to play him. If not then I'm just gonna have to wait it out until the recipe drops to a (at least moderately) reasonable price. I understand it's a rare drop, but seriously, nearly 1 billion inf for a costume piece is unreasonable for anyone to ask.

I'm perfectly okay with a costume piece being a freebie giveaway, but hopefully we'll get a little gender parity and next week they'll give us a nice princely crown? I've been wanting one for quite some time that isn't that ridiculous little tin crown on top of that HORRIBLE helmet hair. Something a bit more elaborate and regal.

That or maybe they just gave this piece away as a freebie and next week we'll be surprised by the completely unannounced Prince/Princess costume sets!

I can dream...

I would love to see some ghostly-looking costume pieces. I've long wanted to make a ghost character that actually looks ghostly, but I generally have to settle for something plain jane with a stealth IO in sprint or whatever. I'd like some tattered, floaty-looking bits (would be especially cool if we could have something like tattered bandages that are wrapped around the hands/wrists and have trailing bits with cape animation on them.), that sort of thing. I know this is also slightly outside the scope of the thread, but I've pitched a Ghost Pack in the past that would include a power similar to Ninja/Beast run that would make your character float and give them a ghostly transparency/aura. Nothing like actual stealth, just slight see-throughness for a ghostly effect. Wouldn't be an actual flight power, just something with movement comparable to ninja run to make the character drift around instead of walking.

I would also like to see some more non-human options. We have plenty of options for human/humanoid characters, but I'd like to see a second animal pack with Lizard/Reptile, Primate/Monkey/Ape/Gorilla, Bear, Fox, etc. parts. I'd also like to see some non-animal stuff like mutants/stranger aliens, like someone mentioned. This could include eye-stalks, HUGE eyes, mouthless faces, etc. Give us some freaky-looking stuff.

And also, someone mentioned once and David said he was putting it on a list but apparently never did. We have a blindfold with chain or barbed wire, and an option for just the chain or wire, but no option for JUST a blindfold. Would be much appreciated if we could get this option. I have a charcter that would love to have a blindfold under her hood.

EDIT -

Signed, double-signed, triple-signed, sealed and hand-delivered. This is just ridiculous.

Devs, you know better than this, and you need to listen to the playerbase before you make a very bad mis-step. Leave Statesman's Pal as the badge earned from Hero's Hero through Ouroboros, and make Positron's Pal the new badge for A Hero's Epic. Same deal with Psyche/Penelope, Give the new badge for Penny's TF, and let us run the TF through Ouro to earn Psyche's badge (Or keep it if we already earned it). Re-writing personal player character history through badges will not go over well, and it IS petty. Like it or not, those characters are part of the game's history, and we'd like to keep them around if only as a memory.

I whole-heartedly belive that we'll see some sort of Penny Yin powerset coming to players within the near future. Before we got shields we had the Cimerorans as a test-bed for them in game, so it's not unheard of to try future sets out on NPCs. I think if we get Penny's powerset it'll be a dominator set (I'm thinking Mental Assault as opposed to Psionic Assault) with a mix of melee and ranged as she shows. I'm also anticipating an alternate Psionic Control for those who don't like Mind Control. Penny shows some unique control moves (Like the awesome purple psionic lightning cages) as well as a psionic pet. I'm all for a psionic damage control set that comes more in line with the others as far as having some more hard controls and a pet. Essentially I'm anticipating a new primary for trollers and doms, and a new secondary for doms.

I'd really hope that we might get a new melee set out of the deal as well if they go that far, just make a few more melee attacks to flesh out the set (a few ranged left in wouldn't hurt as kinetic melee and claws indicate) so they'd only need maybe one or two extra powers to make it solid. Then we'd get a new set for trollers, doms, scrappers, tanks, stalkers, and brutes out of the deal. Even more extra credit if they cherry pick a bit from the control set and a bit from the assault set and give us a new secondary for blasters. It just seems like making that new control set and assault set could very easily give all those ATs a new powerset without doing too much work. Either way, if we do indeed get a control/assault combo that allows us to make Penny style characters, it will become my main, hands down. Those attacks/controls/pets are WICKED.

And wall of text aside, I'd also love a water control power set, even if it doesn't look like the ultra mode water which the devs have cited as the reason for it not existing. Fountains in game don't look like ultra mode water, so even if we get something with similar effects to Dark Control with more splashy/swooshy effects I think we'd all be pretty satisfied. That plus blue tinted poison would make a rather cool-looking water control combo.

I'm torn on this actually. If we're talking EATs then I honestly would make them something that you have to unlock in game, because that was kind of "the thing" for EATs for a very long time. If we absolutely MUST purchase them then I would want it to be a purchase that included some sort of (mildly epic) story arc to introduce the reason this EAT is going to be around now, and perhaps not allow the player to make one of these EATS until they've completed the story arc at least once, just like a player couldn't make a Kheldian or SoA without getting to level 50/20.

From the examples above, i.e.: Vanguard Mech AT would feature an arc about a new interdimensional threat looming (The Coming Storm?) and Vanguard needing to step up their game with new technology and the best of the best using it, perhaps having existing heroes obtain a temporary costume/character model and the beta temp power tray to allow them to use some of the powers of the new AT as a sort of beta test for the mech armor squad. Then when completed you can make a character that was selected from the Vanguard ranks to utilize it and is set to train with it in the city as a hero before seeing higher level field work.

Midnighter Archmage AT could involve searching for some ancient artifact/relic/book for the Midnighters to boost their power because they can sense the Coming Storm and know that they need to be prepared. They send you off with a piece of/page from the relic/book that gives you a temp power tray allowing you to use a few of the powers from the AT and story-wise allows you to magically track it down. Possibly involves a big showdown between all the magical/sorcerous factions like the Tsoo, Circle, Pantheon, etc. Then when you bring it back it allows you to make a new character from the Midnight Squad that has been empowered by the artifact.

Rikti AT would be pretty basic with the idea of a story arc detailing a peace treaty negotiation with at least one of the Rikti factions to explain it. Standard fair there.

As far as new AT's go I'd actually be really behind the idea of these three, especially with branching power choices. Vanguard Mech AT could have a Heavy style (Tank-like resistance with a mix of ranged and melee), an Infiltrator style (Stalker-like stealth with ranged attacks and maybe a couple of weak support drone pets), and a Striker style (Fast recharging ranged attacks with some debuffs along the lines of chemical agent missles and smoke screens).

Archmage could benefit from independent primary and secondary branching with some basic spells at base level of blasts and some light control/debuffs (possibly with the damage type switch mentioned to turn them into fire, ice or dark blasts, or just leave them as energy) then the primary could branch into heavy control powers, debuffs or pet summons (possibly a mastermind style, I for one would ADORE this), and the secondary could branch into ranged speciality, or an assault-like mix of melee and ranged. (Personally, I love the idea of having a set of arcane MM pets, like golems or energy-based spirits, with an assault set secondary capable of switching damage types. It'd have huge potential for things to get hairy with no defensive toggles but also have the potential to crank out ridiculous damage. Kind of an AT that fires the entire artillery at the enemy ship and hopes that the one huge blast sinks it before they can return fire.)

Rikti is pretty obvious choices, Chief Soldier, Rikti Magus, Rikti Mentalist. Traditional gun/sword with some defensive toggles, Mixed and matched buff, debuff and assault powers, and Something I'd like to imagine would be a mashup of/cross between a dominator and a defender with some defensive toggles to account for the battle armor.

Anyway, if we're talking a pack like this that would include an introductory story arc to unlock them and a signature arc for the EAT to follow when playing as them (And one would hope some new costume pieces to allow us to look the part) then I would gladly pay 1200+ for them. The current ATs that are purchasable launched with their respective titles and don't have signature stuff to them, so they can get away with being cheaper. This kind of thing would be very similar to a "content pack" rather than just a new AT. It would be story arcs, the new EAT, plus EAT costume pieces. I wouldn't go overboard and charge 2000, maybe about 1800 tops. I would gladly pay that for the ability to customize and pilot my own mech, especially if there was a second costume slot that allowed for a REALLY custom mech, like slot 1 is your standard issue vanguard mech, but your slot 2 could be used to make a Longbow, Arachnos or independent mech with color customization and various mix and match parts. If you guys put the effort in to make something like this and really give us something new and fun to play with then I would gladly pay 1800.

I was very pleased with how epic that final battlefield was. Also the floating ships mission was VERY cool and unique. We need more missions like that to make future SSA's seem more important.

My BIGGEST beef with all the SSA's though, and please let me know if I'm the only one who has trouble with this: The dialogue moves TOO FREAKING FAST. I literally stood through half the Rularuu ambush in the floating ship mission trying to catch up on the dialogue and didn't really get caught up until halfway through the third wave, so I missed all the action. If you're going to cram that much dialogue into a mission you need to pace it better, or make the ambush waves/enemey spawns/crazy events wait until all the dialogue has popped. In the past I've been forced to endure a fight that I had no idea why it was happening, then had to read back up the chatlog to find out what the hell just happened. Please work on this devs?

Also, I find it incredibly lazy/sloppy that the unique items/creatures in the final battle had no info attached to them, because yes, I'm one of those people who actually reads the info on new entities. I looked at Rula-Wade's bio and it read "INSERT BIO HERE". I will admit I found it utterly hilarious when I looked at the info for The One Book of Rularuu and it's bio read "TEXT". The other two items were not as amusing though.

These all look amazing Dink! Fantastic work all around, both looks-wise and function-wise, giving us glowing and non-glowing bits.

I have but one small request: If you're porting the shoulders and the belt from the female stuff to male, could we pleeeeeease get the basic gloves and boots too? I'd love to have a set of glow-ringed gloves for my male toons and the boots to match. I usually try to match my shoulder/belt/glove/boot set to give the costume some solidarity, and though I don't claim to know, from what I've heard I don't think it should be too tricky to adjust the gloves for males. I know the boots are a different story as they would require a new mesh to provide a non-heeled version, but I'd be infinitely happy with the gloves as well. I don't wanna start a cascade of "all parts for all genders", I know that ship has sailed, but for a basic glove like that with a nifty detail I'd really appreciate it. It would also give us something to match with that nifty belt and shoulder set.

And yes, the jetpacks are a liiiittle on the big side. Aside from that I like what I'm seeing. Looking forward to seeing what I can cook up with that bubble helmet.

I don't see why anyone would want to use these boots anyway. The toes are HYPER-REALISTIC in comparison to other stuff that we have, and when you look at a toon wearing them you see each individual toenail, then pan up just a bit and see mitten hands. It makes the character look like a freak of nature and it's completely mis-matched. Until we have realistic hands this piece will be useless to me.

On the flipside, I would hope the devs have enough good sense that, should they ever give us realistic hand geometry they'll go through the boot options with a fine-toothed comb and update anything with toes showing to make sure that we don't have the opposite problem.

I, for one, welcome our new eldritch overlords.

I try to avoid established characters completely and entirely in my character's backstory, with the only exception I would possibly make being that perhaps they idolized an existing hero figure or were a nameless face in a crowd of people that were saved by said hero. Anything more is just shoehorning your character into lore to make them seem more important and is a sign of trying to godmod.

On the subject of anthropomorphism in characters: About a year ago I rolled a duo with a friend of mine. My character was a magician, black suit, top hat, silly moustache and all, and I asked my buddy if he would roll a toon with the backstory of being said magician's pet black cat that he accidentally turned into a human when he first started using magic and hadn't been able to figure out how to turn him back. I found it quite an entertaining notion and it was an amusing and thematically appropriate duo according to comments from other players. I'll even admit, I was skeptical to do it at first because catgirls/boys anywhere have a general negative connotation attached to them, mostly because of screeching, pubescent anime fangirls who go to conventions wearing cheap cat ear headbands and a piece of fabric as a tail, tackle anybody dressed like their favorite character and scream "I AM KAWAII NEKO DESU! YOU'RE SO SUGOI!". It really is in the construction of the character. So yeah, I've influenced a friend to create one, and actively played with said character proudly, and it was a smashing success, but keep in mind that the virtue pocket d catgirls likely do not read this forum and would likely respond with nothing more than "You're just a stupid baka!" even if they did. Good intent, but it falls on deaf ears.

Two points:

1) It seems like alot of people may be voting for B just because it's labelled as glowing, which is kind of silly because of the three of them it looks the least "retro sci-fi".

2) Please, please, PLEASE, for the love of all that is holy, if you absolutely MUST do something with a glow to it, ADD AN OPTION FOR NON-GLOWING VERSION. If B wins and you absolutely cannot make a second body suit from this poll, then include one that doesn't glow so those of us who don't want to look like a christmas tree can do so. On the other hand, I'd really like to see C make it, but if it does I'd like the basic one presented as well as an option that has the rings glow so that we have the option if we'd like.

This baked in glow in alot of new stuff is really starting to get irritating when you aren't offering us a non-glowing version of anything without choosing black as the color for the glowing portion. It really limits our color choices for these pieces. The Imperial Defense gloves could be a million times more versatile if we had a non-glow version so we could mix and match them with different colors and include them in costumes with non-glowing parts. Same goes for any and everything that has glowy bits. Please keep this in mind going forward: Glowing parts are nice and shiny and pretty and good, but if you make a piece with it, you really should give us a non-glowing one. Also, labelling one of these options as glowing has, it seems, pretty much tipped the scales irreparably in favor of that piece over the others despite the fact that it really doesn't look as "retro" as the other two.

I'm casting my lot for A in the hopes that we'll have a straight up tie between B and A and get both, because I honestly want both. I think it's a bit silly that we can't get just two options for a jetpack seeing as it's probably THE most requested back detail that's ever graced the suggestion forum, and with back details out for a while now and not a single one made it seems... off. Kinda feeling the same on most of the stuff we're voting on. The weapons could have one or two variants, the bubble helmet base should really just have all 3 base options, and the space suit... well I can see how we really need to pick one we like best, but I don't see how a slight texture variant once we have a mesh built would take all THAT long to make.

Biggest problem I have with the latest costume packs is that we're expected to pay for these but they tend to be straight up ONE costume without much variance aside from tiny little details. At least the magic pack came with three textures for the witch set and bolero and two textures for the baron coat plus a few for the cape. I know alot of this stuff involves new meshes for each item, but for a couple of them? There really should be multiples from some categories to make the set as versatile as possible.