Red_Raccoon

I'm not sure which arc we're talking about here, but there's one (#4 maybe?) where you must fight Manticore whether you are a hero or a villain.

VIPs get 12 slots per server as part of their subscription. I currently have 75+ characters and I have never spent cash or points to unlock a single slot on my VIP account. But if I went premium, I would have to pay through the nose to unlock the slots to play all those characters. For those who only play a handful of characters, this isn't a problem. But for those of us with serious altitis, it can be a major issue--that's the main reason why I keep my VIP status.

I can confirm the auto-pushing.
When I'm playing two accounts at once and both characters enter a mission one right after the other, I will often observe that they keep pushing each other after zoning even though I'm not moving either character. Given enough time, they will sometimes push each other quite a ways from the door without any help from me!

Well, how dare you.

It does still work, I've used /hide recently.

I also made the correct choice the first time around, but afterward when I told the contact what I did, I was told "there had to be another way." So next time through I picked a different option for the improvising part. In fact, I tried all the options.

No, there is no other way. That was a lie.

I would just like to point out that this is a really good policy--the default permisions only allow the highest tiers to pay rent, but it's good to set it so that anyone can pay. There's nothing more frustrating then when a group member can't use the base because the rent is overdue and no one who has permission to pay it is online.

The only reason I can think of not to give every permission to pay is because of the risk that some members might pay the rent early and waste prestige that way. However, I doubt very many members even think about rent until something gets shut off. Plus, rent doesn't eat up much prestige anymore anyway.

The fog in Dark Astoria made it difficult to see whether or not any buildings actually exceeded the zone ceiling. I only discovered it because I tried to fly over a building once and found I couldn't reach the top no matter how long I kept flying up--so there is/was at least one there. With the fog gone in Dark Astoria, it should be much easier to see if any buildings still exceed the ceiling.

Dark Astoria had buildings that exceeded the zone ceiling, but I haven't been on Beta so I don't know if that is still true after the zone revamp (my guess is no)

Maybe that explains why I see the fire chief run off into a sewer entrance after the fire is put out in Steel....

There are a few Elite Bosses in those arcs that can be difficult to solo, especially for a new player (maybe not Jim's arc, but the later ones). I remember doing the Faultline arcs on my very first hero and I had trouble with Captain Castillo and Arbiter Sands (although it was a good crash course on how to deal with EBs solo). However, there was no option to set the difficulty to -1 back then, which can really help inexperienced players take on a tough EB.

Haha! You know, I almost three in a reference to Frederic Wertham when I made that post. He actually did accuse Batman of trying to lure boys to homosexuality (but I believe Superman was merely accused of endorsing facism).

I can only imagine what he would have made of this thread.

Yep, got one right here
Honestly, it's tough to find any female superheroes who don't pander to male desires (the nature of the genre, I suppose) but here is one of the few that is defintely not overtly sexy, and yet she clearly sports the "panties outside the tights" look. (Also worth noting that this character's adolescent daughter wears the same costume design, as does the whole family).

Searching in google images, I also see both Batgirl and Hawkgirl have worn "panties on the outside" costumes, not unlike their male counterparts. Obviously this look was never as popular with female characters as male, but hardly unknown either.

Really, I think it's a double standard. Males wear this style and it's a body builder outfit, women wear it and it's lignerie. Yes, I realize attitudes were different in the 1930's, but gender-based double standards were the norm then--I'd like to think that's not the case now.

The question is, do you feel the "underwear over tights" look is sexy or suggestive when worn by gold and silver age heroes? (Considering that those books were mostly aimed at young boys, the idea that Superman or Batman were intentionally designed to be sexually suggestive to readers has some pretty serious implications).

And if not, then why do you feel Penny's costume is overly suggestive for sporting the same look?

I have serveral characters who are designed to have a silver age hero look and therefore have the "underwear over tights" thing going for them. It's classic, it's campy, it's even a little silly, but I never thought of it as sexy, on males or females.

I do agree with those who don't want Penny to be too sexy--I don't want to see it either. I don't have a problem wrapping my head around the concept of an older, more mature Penny--just because I've seen her in Faultline as a teen doesn't mean I can't picture her as an adult. I just don't think every female adult superhero has to be obliged to show a lot of skin--it works for some, not for others. And Penny strikes me as someone who would dress modestly at any age. Personally though, I don't think the new costume is too unmodest--the exposed belly is not really necessary, but not a big deal either. I think it's fine (although Zombie's alterations, especially #2, are visually a big improvement--the white of the upper leg looks out of place in the original. Personally I would like to see a combo of #2 & #3, with a black upper leg and a red belly region together).

But what have to wonder about after reading all the uproar over Penny's "sexiness" is: what do people think about Fusionette? Although no ages are given for either of these characters, it's always been my impression that Fusionette is about the same age as Penny or possibly a couple of years older at the most. She certainly acts as girlish as Penny, if not more so. Yet she has always had a costume which shows a fair amount of skin--certainly more revealing than Penny's new costume. Do people have a problem with that too? If so, I've never heard anyone mention it.

I don't know why there is a discepancy, but it shouldn't keep side switchers from getting the unlock.

If you start out as a hero, you can run the arc before you even start getting alignment missions. If you forget and switch over to villain before you run it, you can pick it up at 35 like all the other villains.

If you start out as a villain, and you switch before you hit 35, you should be able to run it as soon as you switch over to hero. The arc is available heroside from 10-50, so you can't outlevel it (I've never switched a villain to hero, so I'm assuming you get Monatgue as a contact as soon as you go blueside. If not, it's probably not WAI)

I believe you can miss out on the origins of power mission by side switching. I don't hear too many complaing about that, but there is a badge involved.

Making existing EBs more difficult than they already are would make a lot of content difficult to solo, at least for me, so I'm not in favor of that.

I do agree that the named bosses that are mission objectives should be tough enough to serve as a fitting climax for the mission. It's a bit odd when you run a mission where you defeat several random +1 bosses and then the target you actually need to defeat to complete the mission is only a +0 boss and goes down easier than some of the guys you had to go through to get to him. In some missions, the "boss" objective is only a Lt. even when you have the mission set to included bosses. I guess it makes sense that some of your targets are wimps who just have tough bodyguards to protect them, but it does seem more satisfying when the boss fight really feels like a boss fight.

Because that's never backfired before.

Isn't trying to reform a villain partly the reason why there's an openning in the Freedom Phallanx in the first place?

I think that's especially noticeable in the Frist Ward content (at least in the main story arcs). There was some attempt early on to allow for villains running the missions with less than altruistics motives in mind, but that got dropped pretty fast.

Sounds like you are inspired to difuse that bomb.