Olantern

I like Fables, which I only read in collections. (In fact, I only read things in collections, period. I forget what's going on from month to month otherwise.) I believe they're up to collection #13. The first eleven are essentially subparts of one story, if you're looking for something manageable (I sympathize with this feeling, as well).

Assuming all three know about the tattoo, here's what I expect, based on their personalities and prior exploits as portrayed:

Stark pays the woman several million dollars to strip in front of him. Unfortunately, he's probably too plastered by this point to make use of the tattoo once he's seen it. He wakes up after the time limit has already passed.

Bond just happens to have a gadget that can "see" the tattoo right through the dress, but he decides to seduce the woman anyway. He does so, tossing off a few puns, then gets mobbed by a bunch of hench-villains. He ultimately escapes, shoots the hench-villains, and defuses the bomb a couple of seconds before it goes off.

Bruce Wayne makes a speech to whatever character is standing next to him about how horrible and callous Bond and Stark are. (Preachy ***.) Then he goes and seduces, then cruelly abandons, the woman anyway, not because he has any interest in her, but "because my dark quest sometimes requires the sacrifice of others' feelings." (Jerk.) Meanwhile, he simply knows the code to enter because "Batman is a genius, so of course he knows it." (Writer's darling.) He goes to enter the code, stepping over the comatose Stark, whom he criticizes in passing as "insensitive." (Hypocrite.) Wayne finds Bond surrounded by the bodies of the hench-villains, just finishing entering the code.

Wayne makes a speech about the evils of death and violence (see "preachy ***"), then beats up Bond, ending by throwing him off a ledge (a fall that would be fatal if it were any other character making the throw), breaking his arms and legs (see "hypocrite"). Then, Wayne suddenly realizes that the tattoo was just a diversion all the time! There's actually a second bomb attached to the first one, even more deadly than the last! Dun-dun-dun! With only seconds to spare (again), he makes a speech about how incompetent everyone else is (see "jerk" and "preachy ***" again), then manages to defuse the bomb for real this time (see "writer's darling"). On Wayne's way out, the writer makes Bond's and Stark's dates fall in love with him, but he decides to vanish dramatically into the night and just leave them hanging (see all those things).

All the Batman fans out there gush about how this story epitomizes his heroism, intelligence, and the brilliance of his writers. (Inexplicably beloved by geekdom.)

Man, I loathe the friggin' Batman.

I still maintain that i19 will release in early December. Traditionally, issues have come out in early December (about a week before holiday events start), May, and occasionally in mid- to late summer.

i19 will hit in December and i20 early in the following May.

Setting aside things like coloring Energy Manipulation to match the default Electric Blast, here are some of my more notable efforts:

- On Grimpen Meyer (Sherlock Holmes fan [the Grimpen Mire is the swamp in The Hound of the Baskervilles] and mud-man), Earth Assault and Earth Control are recolored with the Lava theme to look like greenish-brown swamp muck with green, tainted water or weeds flowing over, through, or around it. Incidentally, I like to pretend that this character gets stronger when standing in tainted water; Sharkhead Isle was very homey for him.

- Drosselmeier, an Illusion/Kinetics controller, uses both the ability to monkey around with time (Kinetics) and magic that is often based on "impossible" gadgets. Most of his powers are colored a pale grey and a dark purple, to keep them subtle, but his Phantom Army is dull gold on slightly brighter gold. The Decoys are magical, mechanical automata rather than illusory projections.

- Reefwarden, an aquatic Ice/Mental blaster, has both sets recolored to suggest sea water, though they're still supposed to be "ice" and "mental powers." A quasi-exception is his World of Confusion bubble; while it's the bounds of his short-range psychic defense aura, it's also meant to look like a bubble of water. Part of the enemy confusion, as well as their tendency to dash right out of it, is due to their suddenly finding themselves wet.

- Stenchor, Evil-oid Lord of Odors, a DP/Rad corruptor, is a tribute to '80's cartoons. He is a humanoid skunk, and his Radiation powers are colored a disgusting yellowish brown using the subtractive palette. Essentially, he emits various stenches that weaken his enemies and sprays his allies with pheromones that speed them up or help them heal, while incidentally requiring them to wash their costumes after teaming with him.

- I remember having a terrible time picking sets for the Dampfjaeger, a Nemesis automaton stalker, back when he was created four or five years ago. I finally settled on Claws as his primary, deciding that even though Dark Melee looked like smoke, I couldn't rationalize away the giant skull of death from the AS or the ability to pull life out of enemies. I ended up with Energy Aura for a secondary, since I wanted the concept of a skeleton that was hard to hit but folded easily if you landed a blow, and I didn't want to use SR for some reason. Once IO's came in, I regretted going with EA over SR, but when customization came in, I recolored the Energy Aura to a faint white, which makes it look like a cloud of steam, perfect for a Nemesis gadget. So it turned out to be the right choice in the end.

- Speaking of steam, I've recolored Fiery Aura as Steam Aura on two characters. In both cases, the idea is that the fire damage (and other fire effects) come from the superheated steam rather than direct burns. One, Right Track, a Fire/Energy tank, is a crimefighting, anthropomorphic steam train. His powers are "bright steam," using Bright Flames in a dark grey color. This is one of my favorite uses of power customization ever; I even sometimes find myself calling out, "Healing STEAM!" when he uses Healing Flames.

- The other steam character, Industrial Revolt, a DB/Fire scrapper, is a mash-up of two ideas I've been kicking around for a long time: a 19th century thug (a la Gangs of New York) and a fanatical guy in a power suit trying to wipe out capitalists. I wanted his powers to look more evil and menacing than Right Track's. I think of his armor set as "Sooty Aura." While a few powers look the same as Right Track's, some use Dark Flames, in more or less the same faint grey color, which gives the look of a cloud of soot when they go off.

All in all, while I never really understood the appeal of power customization before it came in, it's become one of my favorite game features.

I'm coming more and more to believe that the supposedly "unpowered" Batman's superhuman abilities include not only Plot Armor, Being Every Writer's Darling, and Do As I Say, Not As I Do, but also Ability to Inspire Horrific Levels of Overthinking in Fandom.

In other words, it's a comic book. No one has ever bothered to think something like this through because it doesn't affect the story and need not affect the art.

Okay, I'm not a zombie fan, but I teach at this school. Why the heck wasn't I notified about this, and why are they not having me do a guest lecture about "Tax Controversy and the Zombie Apocalypse?"

Difficult decision. While I'm tempted to say "Option 1" to improve the look of the entire game, I know from long experience that "improvements" to costume items actually means "removing options from the costume creator." I've had too many characters stuck with costumes I can no longer edit because they use costume items that no longer exist, such as the pointed ears from the "pointed ears" face.

My ideal solution would be to have every costume part examined on a case-by-case basis, having some entirely replaced (e.g., replace existing "body paint/patterns" with better "body paint/patterns") and some split into new and old versions (e.g., keep old Metallic as "Metallic Legacy" and add a shinier version as "Metallic Reflective"). I'm realistic enough to recognize that this won't happen, though.

Essentially, I don't mind improvements, but I don't want the look of a character completely altered because the art team's understanding of what a piece is meant to be doesn't match mine. For instance, I don't want to log into a character with the Steampunk pants one day to discover that they can no longer be matched with any kind of boot, no matter what color one tints the boot. (Incidentally, this isn't just a problem for older sets and mixing and matching; it's impossible to get the same look on Organic Armor boots, for example, as on the gloves in the same color.)

As a corollary of this point, while the new costume sets created over the past year and a half are excellent, I dislike the fact that they seem designed to work only as sets. For all their low-res-ness, one thing that the older pieces do well is work in a variety of combinations. Please, please, whatever you do to the costume creator, keep in mind that its role is not to give us the longest list of costume sets possible, but to enable us to pick and choose from individual pieces to create characters who may or may not use entire sets.

So, in the final analysis, I have to choose Option 2. Based on prior costume creator alterations, I believe the art team has a much more restricted understanding of how costume assets can be used that players do. To avoid interfering with player flexibility and to avoid more "orphan" costumes that can no longer be edited due to removal of entire concepts from the costume creator, leave what exists there.

That said, while I'm sure it'll strand dozens of my costumes, just as past changes have, I wouldn't consider going with Option 1 the end of the world, either. This is an important point to keep in mind as you make your decision; while most people probably have a preference one way or another, that preference may not be all that strong.

Nightcrawler's. He may be one of my favorite supercharacters, but the ability to teleport, wall-clinging, acrobatic ability, l33t fencing skillz, and having a prehensile tail don't make up for being blue, furry, and ... having a prehensile tail.

As with most announcements, I'm lukewarm about this. I just find it unlikely that the devs would make the Fitness powers available to all characters without reducing their effectiveness. That's inconsequential for high-end builds but puts a damper on play speed for non-min-maxers. I'm also not looking forward to Hasten and Superspeed becoming the new "you must have them or your build sux!!!" powers.

As for the rest of it, it sounds "okay." I'm not complaining, though, since I got what I wanted in i18. Now, it's other people's turn.

I've got a stalker who's supposed to be a Nemesis automaton, and one of his outfits looks a lot like a Nemesis Army uniform. One regular team mate in particular hates it when I wear that outfit on Nemesis missions because he routinely tries to target me.

Most often, when I'm on a team where I'm supposed to buff or heal team mates, I'll shout, "Quit runnin' around, &*(^%$&*!" That, and I call a lot of people "hyperactive jerks," particularly when they run around fighting with superspeed on and expect me to keep up with them.

I can tell when I'm enjoying myself, because I'll shout, "Ka-POW!" and, "Take that, evildoer!" when big attacks hit.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Sho and Ironik. (Our tastes tend to differ, but I try to snag all the superhero prose out there.)

***

Solely in terms of value-for-time-invested, I'd suggest revamping the i0 Task Forces. They get run a great deal by characters of all levels. Of course, they'd be shortened, which would reduce the number of merits they grant, which would cause screaming, whining, and ragequits.

Next, I'd suggest reworking every single contact in the 30's, starting with CoV, then CoH. I'm tired of doing the same leveling path through there every single time. I suggest CoV come first because (1) the first thing I want revamped is the Freedom Phalanx Task Force group, and this gives CoV some parity, and (2) because, while the villain arcs are marginally better than the i0 hero arcs that dominate the level range on the hero side, their execution is pretty dull and repetitive, particularly the all-Longbow Nerva arcs.

I think we're all dreaming if we think anything will ever get rewritten, though. Despite years of the player base screaming itself hoarse over the issue, the devs don't seem to realize that many (a majority of?) players prefer improvements and revamps to entirely new stuff.

You might try asking in the Costume (Re)-Design Thread, stickied at the top of this subforum. Some excellent costumers peruse that thread regularly.

I believe our next major, future content will be a raid dealing with Tyrant himself.

I don't expect to face Praetorian Hamidon, though I do expect more revelations about him, which will encourage the devolution of Primal Hamidon's continuity into an even bigger mess. I suppose that fits; his cellular structure is pretty devolved already.

My scarecrow went Rogue simply because supernatural scarecrows belong in Croatoa. Maybe I'll even switch him back to villain once I get that Witch Hat, but I'm not sure I will. I've always thought of him as kind of characterless, more a magical machine than a personality, and extremely suggestible, which explains why he does whatever his contacts tell him. The Rogue switch actually made the least sense of anything I've ever done with that character; I can't really picture him working up enough consciousness to take a stand on anything.

My Arachnos Widow is going Rogue because he's meant to be an unknown quantity, who performs both heroic and villainous acts seemingly at random. His bio even mentions, along with six different theories about his origin, that he'll occasionally steal all the money from a bank, then replace it with different bills. This is the one character that I'd consider taking all the way around the alignment circle, but since I'd probably bring him back to Rogue eventually, I may just leave him there and be done with it.