MrMechanical

Human Tamer DID have a 'human pet'.... ME!! I played the role of Bob the Tamed Human!! It was a blast.

All very nice stuff, costumes n such. I only really have one major complaint.

[rant on]
WHY advertise this Tier 9 VIP stuff so blatantly when the vast majority of new players CANNOT afford to drop $15 per token to get it?? It's like the worst kind of taunting, imho. I just finished my Tier 8 this month, but I have friends who got into the game much later that would LOVE these sets, but would have to wait 1 or 2 YEARS before they could get them. This, (along with a few other problems) has gotten one of my friends so frustrated that he's likely going to give up on CoH. I'm certain he's not the only one to feel this way, either. I'm not saying they shouldn't let people know about it, but should they really be putting this on the load-in screen??
[rant off]

I don't have any solutions, but I can say I have been experiencing similar problems to the ones you describe...and a few more...

-letters occasionally disappearing in names/words,etc.
-when working on new costumes, parts of the toons model will disappear (last time it was the models legs from the belt down) or the color palette vanishes.

I also tried all those fixes you mentioned, except for the uninstall/fresh install, but reading of your lack of success, I think I will pass on that for now.

Actually, I am fairly patient. I was just thinking that they'd turn on the Vanguard pack n stuff when they did the maintenance. Would seem to me a good time for such a thing, at least. If you notice my post count, I don't exactly complain in here much. (hehe)

Mostly, I'm just really looking forward to the costume stuff, and I work nights, which has me kind of on a European time schedule. I made a new toon just for the 7 year aniversary, named him StarKnight-7 and I REALLY want to finish his look. The Seven Stars chest emblem, Vanguard Sword and some armor pieces are going to look SO cool.... I hate waiting. :P

It's the 28th.... I'm terribly impatient.... and nothing is unlocked on my account yet.

Can anyone tell me WHY it isn't unlocked?

No, the blue-side isn't more fun, except, perhaps, on a personal level. Some people just can't be evil. I play both sides on Champion server and both seem fairly active to me. Might just be the server you're on.

I was doing a Lord Recluse Strike Force yesterday.... we had it down to only Statesman left, and had him down to less than 1/4 health.... and then.... servers died, and so did the entire team. We were slowed by losing 2 members early on, and 1 other that had his own connection issues... 2 others had to go afk for a time.... we spent over 4 hours getting to that point and we have to settle for getting nothing but a lil more xp debt, at the end.

Well, oddly, I feel a little better knowing I'm not the only one dealing with the occasional 'black-screen-of-death' crash. Of course, I'd feel better yet if it never happened to any of us, but at least now I know it's not because of some idiot thing I alone did.

I would gladly even delete and re-roll a new Soldier, just to get rid of that pack, if I hadn't already worked so long to get my current one up to lvl 32. I may do it anyway (just not as gladly). I'm going to wait a while longer, however, hoping for a fix to come out with I17 or GR.

Besides, with my alt-itis, it's not like I don't have other toons to play

Well, I'm a gun-nut (at least that's what some folks tell me), so I've made a few DP's already. My favorites so far:

Gatlin Guns (DP/Ice Blaster, Infinity)
Gunsmith Kid (Traps/DP Defender, Champion)