Ms. Mesmer

It may not have been just to toy around with badge text, or any RP reason. I suspect that it was done that way because, at the time, it was the only way for the game to keep track of whether you had a respec banked, and whether you could earn another. The game still does check for a specific badge every time you log on or zone to see if you are allowed to have Fly, Super Speed, Super Jump or Teleport without having the prerequisites, for example.

As the original poster, and since I've basically put out all of the information that I have about the subject, I wholeheartedly approve of the new direction that this thread has taken.

If anyone wants to clarify the details, simply run the SF and get the timing of the Apocalypse settled. It's not like it's a particularly long or difficult SF, anyway.

I'm not certain on the timing, though. It seems to trigger right at Strike Force Complete, rather than turning the mission in. If it was a scripting error, it should be when you turn in the final mission, as that's when the Souvenir award command happens. I could be wrong about when the Apocalypse triggers, though, as it all happens very quickly. If they're turning it in that quickly, they're the most dutiful Strike Force leaders I've ever been with, since most seem to be allergic to calling in that last mission.

I don't believe that we were ever told by a developer that X and only X can be a trigger for the Zombie Apocalypse. It might be a bug, or it might be intentional to have an extra trigger. The developers are often very coy about the details on these things. The Souvenir thing is almost certainly a bug.

1. The stingy bugger doesn't give you a Souvenir for completing his Strike Force.

2. Completing his Strike Force triggers a Zombie Apocalypse in a random Rogue Isles zone for some reason.

The first led me to suspect the second, since I did it twice trying to get the Souvenir, and both times a Zombie Apocalypse triggered in Cap right when we finished. So I kept my eyes open on global channels for Tarikoss SFs being run. Two times in the last day, a team has completed the SF with a Zombie Apocalypse triggering each time. Four out of four is too big of a coincidence for my tastes, so I'm calling that confirmed.

It depends. There are a number of badges that are mutually exclusive for Praetorians and Primals. Something like 50 Achievements and a three Accolades, those Achievements are not including the 1250 badges earned badge for either faction, since nobody could actually earn that right now. Then there are opposite faction respec badges, which you can get, but only if you never used the earned respecs from your native side until you switch to the other side. Then there are Bug Hunter and Passport, which are very limited or not even earnable anymore. Then there are four Accomplishment badges that a Praetorian can earn, but no Primal yet can, and six CoH Anniversary badges, one CoV Anniversary badge and the 5th Columnist Gladiator that no Praetorian can currently earn.

That being said, a Primal could potentially have as many as 1202, given that the stars aligned just right, and they had an account that was active from the start and never lapsed, had earned Passport, either through a misawarding that happened shortly before CoV launched, or from transferring their NA account to EU during that program, which has long since passed, having somehow received Bug Hunter, and not having cashed in any of their earned respecs from their native side until switching to the other side, all on a character created before the first Anniversary badge stopped awarding.

If we factor out Bug Hunter and Passport, you could potentially have 1200. For every respec earned from the trial that you actually used up on your native side before switching to the other, you would have to subtract 1, for a total ranging downward to 1197.

To complicate matters a little further, a Primal could also run a Katie Hannon TF with the express purpose of stopping after the eighth defeat of Katie, assuming that they already had X Times the Victor, for the first eight badges for defeating her to stick. Most don't count those badges, and the tracking sites don't list them, but they could potentially bolster the number as high as 1210 for a Primal that had the good fortune of having all of the other factors listed above fall in their favor.

Add one more starting in roughly 11 days for the next Veteran badge for early-awarders like Turgenev.

For a Praetorian, subtract four from that total, plus Handsome/Beautiful, since the contacts needed for those haven't been in the game yet for them since Praetoria launched, something that will almost certainly change when the Spring Fling Event comes back. I doubt that any Praetorian is nearly that high, though, since they can't possibly have earned all available Day Jobs and Day Job Accolades, and would have had to subtract from the time earning those to work on Damage Taken and Healing, at the least.

The visual part of the Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes opening is very well done, in my opinion. I don't have the hate for the song that some do, and even think it actually beats the '90s Marvel cartoons and their technofied themes, but that lead singer is trying too hard to sound like Tom DeLonge for my tastes.

There's no need to add extra slots to Fly for Flight speed. If you want to further reduce the endurance cost, add a Stealth IO, Slow resist IO or -KB IO, then you could still use the extra slots in Fly. Honestly, a Celerity Stealth in Sprint would be a better slotting for a Stealth IO, since the endurance cost is lower, so I'd go with that one over the Freebird, assuming I had the Inf to spend.

I just confirmed with an old copy of my level 50 Blaster on Test. With no Flight speed enhancement in Fly or Swift, and no other powers to buff Flight speed, I traveled at the Flight cap in a 1 mile straight line course. Approximately 61 seconds, which is good enough for me.

It's a bugged tool tip, both of them do that. I had the 32% for a long time on Scorpion's Surprise, so I went and did the Mender Silos TF. I stopped at the last mission and reset it after defeating Recluse each time, since I didn't want to do the whole thing over again. The badge awarded after the 4th defeat of Recluse. For whatever reason, the defeat 5 badges for SGs don't give proper 20% interval credit on their progress bars.

For the Hero respecs, the "earned the respec" badge has different text than the "used the respec" badge, so you can tell by that. The version that you get upon completing the trial talks about how your powers are fluctuating in the present tense, while the one that replaces it after you redeem the respec talks about how your powers were changed in the past tense. I've only ever run the Villain respec trial once, and redeemed it long ago, so I can't tell you about those for certain, but I'd bet they're the same as the Hero ones, with different text for both versions.

Happy New Year, Buggy!

Happy New Year, Infinity!

Completing a cycle, including Mayhem mission, for Wiggy will automatically give your character a choice of contacts that includes Pither.

Infinity Badges went private when it got near full capacity. Several members formed Infinity Badges 2.0, and encouraged those who were active in the old channel to migrate to it. Aside from that channel, there is Inf Badge Seeker, Infinity Hamidon, which isn't really focused on Hamidon raiding anymore, and several other well-populated global channels.

I don't really have what you'd call an active supergroup, or I'd invite you to mine, but getting into the more-active channels will certainly get you teams, and might even get you involved in some active supergroups.

Enjoy your time on Infinity. I've made characters on every server, but I always come home to Infinity for the community that I know and care about.

He did, in a retcon fashion. It was something that was inserted into his character as having happened while he was still Robin, but the retcon to his character happened after he had stopped being Robin, so it's only seen in the rare flashback stories. The current canon for him is that, sometime after taking the beating from Two-Face that made Batman temporarily suspend him as Robin, he went out on his own and learned eskrima. This was all part of the Robin: Year One series. That was why I put in the modern qualifier.