Samuel_Tow

Not at all, Rian Whether I take or refuse a suggestion, it still helps because it makes me think about WHY I feel the way I feel. Bringing up claws in a realistic example was very helpful, in this case in eliminating an option. And, honestly, when you eliminate all other options, the one that's left is usually the best

It's something of a cross between the uniform of the X-Laws from Shaman King and the robes of Father Alexander Andersen from Hellsing, but passed through my own style somewhat I kind of like the Order uniform, because it's pretty simple, and yet at the same time very iconic and even somewhat symbolic. If I can keep the people wearing it at least mostly presentable, it actually makes for a pretty scary sight. I remember once getting I think eight people online at the same time, all in the SG, and we ran missions together, all wearing the same uniform. I think it was pretty cool

Unfortunately...


The Order uniform pretty much makes that impossible. And believe me, I went about five rounds with Zombra on this one, but the Order uniform CANNOT change in any way, shape or form. He really wanted to have a black secondary on his gloves, and I really, really wanted him not to. Going sleeveless would be a massive disrespect towards the Order and everything they stand for, because in the Order of Salvation, members do not matter. Instead, it is what they represent and what they contribute that counts, with their personalities hidden from view. They must ALL wear the exact same perfect uniform so that they may be as alike as possible.

That, unfortunately, means that claws in their entirety are pretty much out, since I generally tend to want special gloves to use those with. It's not a bad idea, mind you, and I like your proposed design, but it's my self-imposed restrictions that really cut into my options. That's kind of the problem with this one.

Actually, the Shivans borrowing the name of Shiva IS a coincidence. I forget where I read this, but this name was given to them by the astronomer who discovered the Shiva meteorite and I believe found the intelligence inside of it. The thing's actual name is said to be unpronounceable, so she called it "Shiva" as in the devourer of worlds, because that's what the Shivans do. They land on a world and they devour it, and they cannot be stopped, as I understand it. You can kill the creatures, but the energy which creates them will just find another host.

I wouldn't put too much stock in the "style" with which canon characters speak, unless the narrative makes a point to express that this style is unusual, such as Tech Naylor or that extremely Southern woman in the new Atlas Park. A lot of the time, it's one person writing for all of these characters, and what you're reading as a similar style is jut the writing style of that one person when he or she is trying to be eloquent and mysterious. That's why Percy Winkley, Montague Castanella and Ashley McKnight speak in pretty much the same style, and also why everyone in Vanguard is an angry jerk, including Borea, which surprised me. It's also why most of the Post I19 contacts all sound the same and make the same grammatical mistakes - because that's how the person who wrote them speaks, evidently.

Now, I'm not saying that's evidence AGAINST a connection, just saying that writing style isn't necessarily evidence FOR a connection.

Are you talking about continuing to run ALL FOUR of your accounts at the highest level - which, yes, is VIP? In that case, you don't need to do anything more than keep subscribing for all four of them. If you want, though, you can run VIP on just one and let the other three lapse into Premium.

As long as your accounts remain VIP, they will nose NOTHING AT ALL. All of your characters, items and everything you've ever paid for will still be there. You may end up having to pay additional money for some NEW stuff, but everything your accounts have now, they will keep if they go VIP.

See the black sunglasses guy in the first pic? His name is Deacon Cross, and I think you pretty much described him in the above quote Of course, that means I like the idea (though Cross is Thugs/Dark), but it also means I've already used it, and already in the Order of Salvation. I'd be repeating myself.

Also - and this is purely my own curiosity - how can I use that for a scientist and/or engineer and someone to provide the Order with technology? I mean, it's more than a little eerie that you'd hit on almost the exact concept of another character in the group when I never even mentioned him and, to boot, a character I was just writing the Description for

*edit*
Also, I need a better collage pick of the Order. This one is many years old, as you can tell by the background. It's also saved at a very low quality, as the JPG jaggies clearly demonstrate. When I finalise Haggan (which is my operating name for this character I'm working on), I'll probably make a new one.

I do, and Axe/Shield in Vanguard form may not be a bad idea, come to think of it. I've been saving this for my pink winged bunny girl, but the combo is a bit too... "Heavy" for what is supposed to be a nimble fighter. This would be a good time to eliminate an option and reduce my indecision for her.

Would that I could, but none of the ATs which have access to the thing are playable for me. Defenders and Corruptors just aren't my thing, and though I really, really, REALLY wanted to make Blasters my thing, playing the AT just hurt me far too much to want to bother with it again.

Now, if they were to come out with a Rifle/Shield AT, that I could play (and probably pay money for, Freedom considered) but I doubt that would happen.

Still, Axe/Shield I like. Thanks I'll post the results when I get around to it.

*edit*
I'm saving Sword/Shield for the remake of a Scrapper of mine, but I can go along the same lines. Not really sure about Mercs/Traps, though... I kind of want to make this character more of a loner to explain her being evil. And I'll try not to make her justifiably so

Thank you I managed to catch a pretty nasty cold from somewhere and that messes with my head, but I think I should be good in time for work tomorrow.

I know that's not what you meant, but you just reminded me of another very good example: Switching costumes. Back in the day, the only way we could switch costumes was basically /cc 1, and your character sort of blinks into a new costume. I made the best use of this that I could, but I always had to look away from the screen when I did this because the sudden unexplained transformation bugged me, and I always tried to do it out of sight of my team-mates. It was just ugly.

Flash forward a few years and all of a sudden we have costume change emotes, and good ones. These days, I will never, ever, EVER do a costume change without an emote attached. In fact, I have shift+1 to shift+5 bound to, costume changes, say /bind shift+1 "cce 0 ccenergymorhp" and I use that every time I swap. A friend of mine recently complimented me on having this woman transform into this monster via a fiery evil laugh. Costume change emotes took what was a pretty immersion-breaking, out-of-character concept and made it much more immersive and in-character. In fact, these days I take it as a little mini-game to pick just the right kind of costume chance emote with which to swap costumes. My energy beings use Energy Morph, my super soldiers use Super Serum, my Slime Girl uses the Rapid Boil and so on. It's a lot more fun.

How this would reflect on Trainers... I honestly don't know. I suppose if I had the option to go to an ACTUAL training facility or, better yet, one of FIVE training facilities that match my origin, I so would. You know what would be cool? Have the basemen of City Hall still maintain the five origin locations, but instead of them housing contacts, have them house "trainers." Like, the MAGI place would have a large library in the front and I'd have access to the vault with the artefacts in the back, while the DATA place could have a automated robot factory on one end and a large calculation server farm on the other, while the GIFT place could an army obstacle course, a shooting range, a gym and a boxing ring.

Even if all the other "trainers" still worked as trainers, I would SO make the extra trip to City Hall every time I levelled up, because it would make sense why I'd go there to improve my powers. Your power armour scientist needs to level up? You go to the lab, make new parts, craft better code and, if you really feel like it, you just go over to the other Origin's shooting range and practice there. I would SO love seeing that. And if that were to happen, I wouldn't mind trainers being tailors since I wouldn't actually USE the existing trainers ever again.

I'll probably hate myself for saying this... But I think teleporters would have been a better solution. See, when Star Trek originally chose to save money by having people teleport down to planets instead of using the more expensive shuttle variant, they hit on an amazing idea - teleportation is both cool AND cheap. Of course, it's a bit tempting to make teleportation TOO cheap (Lineage II, I'm looking at you!) as one can easily see in the Vanguard base where their teleporters are just little doodads on the wall that you click. But at the same time, the potential for coolness and exclusivity is just too good to pass up.

Here's the thing - what bugs me about riding the trains isn't so much riding the trains in itself. Trains are cool. It's the fact that the best mode of transport I have access to is the same as every granny going shopping. Also, there's the "elevator" problem. Here you are, 10-foot-tall flaming spiked demon, riding for half an hour with an elderly couple trying to tell you their life story and that baby who just won't stop crying but you can't set on fire because you're a hero. It's less "batmobile" and more "family sedan on the road trip, with dad threatening to turn the car around every few miles." It's undignified.

Teleporters are different, though, and not for that much effort, really. I mean, the Portal Corp stargates are AMAZING, but you don't need quite this much fanfare. Something as simple as the Unreal 3 Generator Cores would have sufficed, just a large-ish building where the train stations used to be that you walk inside and click on a floating ball of energy. It gives me the sense that this is exclusive and reserved for important people (VIPs, if you will) and it also gives me the feeling that it's a cool way to travel. Best of all, it gives me the feeling that it's a BETTER way to travel than I could achieve by just turning on my own personal jetpack.

So, yes, teleportation is better than public transport. Yes, I went there!

It makes it worse. Maybe it's different for other folks, but for me, making a bad thing worse hurts more. I'm often accused of complaining about little things, like I going around looking for things to complain about. Here's the thing, though - almost everything I complain about consistently is the stuff that has been bugging me for several years in a row. The first time it's fine, but then it bugs me a little more, and then a little more... And then the development team go ahead and make it WORSE! The hell? Like it wasn't bad enough before!

That's kind of how I see trainers. OK, I get that this is an intentional time sink we inherited from every MMO ever made. I can live with it. But at least try to hide it a little better. Don't just go out and announce it's just a time sink and meta-game and attach even more nonsense to it. This is one step removed from being able to teleport between contacts and oh wait... Never mind...

First of all, no mission ever required me to open my Options menu to accomplish an objective, though the Tutorial asking me to buy stuff from the Paragon Market is dangerously close to that in a move I HATE HATE HATE. Seriously, pimping your real money store in the middle of what is supposed to be a fight of life and death has got to be one of the worst, most obtrusive things I have ever seen - and I've played a ton of F2P MMOs. Never seen that before. People are dying, buildings are falling, monsters are invading, but there's no more kayfabe, brother. All that stuff's fake, you know it's fake, I know it's fake. What matters is I want your money, and you should know how to give it to me. I honestly can't think of a worse, more tasteless way to promote RMT, and that's including Chinese gold farmer RMT spam.

Secondly... Yeah, I do hate the trams. In WoW or Lineage, yeah, I get that we'd need transportation to cover large distance. But in City of Heroes? We can frikkin' fly! In fact, the first issue of the original City of Heroes comic book paints a pretty good picture of exactly how absurd it is to have costumed super heroes riding the subway. I'm not quite sure what the solution to this could have been, but riding the trains bugs the hell out of me. Riding the ferry is a bit easier to swallow since crossing miles of open water with any other power than sustained flight may be problematic. But frikkin' public transport? This is one step removed from that old Daffy Duck cartoon where he's chasing a villain, hails a cab, yells "Follow that car!" and the cab takes off immediately, leaving him holding the passenger side door. Ugh...

Finally, just because there are other immersion-breaking aspects to the game doesn't mean we should be OK with adding even more. Just because I tolerate those hideous, out-of-place, no-backstory Merit vendors doesn't mean I've somehow accepted the concept and even enjoy it. No, I've merely complained all I had to complain about them and these days simply don't bring them up. But if someone were to suggest putting a Merit Vendor on top of the Atlas statue globe, I certainly wouldn't say "Well, they break my immersion now, what's another one in a place where he shouldn't be?" That's not a good thing.

I'm not saying we didn't fight their best, even if Hro seems to be their best and he's been stuck on the homeworld. I'm saying that we didn't fight their entire military, but mostly fought a smaller expeditionary force which was intended to cripple us by targeting areas of strategic importance, just by virtue of inter-dimensional portals having limited capacity. I assume that the Rikti would have many millions of soldiers and enormous stockpiles of weapons, especially when they mobilise for war.

The reason I say all of this is that we didn't win the first Riki War by beating the Rikti head on. We won it when the Omega team sacrificed themselves to seal off the Rikti portals and so cut off their reinforcements. If those portals had remained open, we would have lost.

Hmm... My bad, then. I thought for sure he said he was impressed with it.

Freak, Brutticus is on Victory I hope this doesn't mess up your schedule and is instead just a text error. I don't think I have any characters on Justice. Will PM you as soon as I can.

It's not the same window. Before, you had the option to "Train now" as soon as the window opened. Now you need to first click on the "Improve my abilities" button to be taken to the old Trainer window for builds, training and titles. And, yes, it bothers me, as well.

I get having a tailor in the initial zone. I get having a tailor in EVERY zone. I don't see a need to have trainers be tailors, however, any more so than I see a justification why there has to be a Merit Vendor per 10 square yards of land area.

That's what I wanted to ask, too - where are those numbers coming from? Last I heard, NCsoft don't publish subscription numbers, and haven't done so since 2009. And it wouldn't even be relevant if they did, considering they're moving to a hybrid model.

It could have been Anti-Matter. But while he's unimpressed by Arachnos' modifications, I recall him saying something along the lines of "This. This is interesting. Everything else is caveman technology but this bomb is FAR better than the rest." I could be remembering wrong, but I recall him being impressed.

Remote access to the costume editor as some kind of earnable reward is one thing - it doesn't attempt to explain its own existence in-universe. It's like the remote Market (I refuse to call it an "auction house) Access power - it's there to break the game, and we all know it.

This is different. This is part of the contact's dialogue and it's attempting to explain this to me in-character and in-story. And it's failing. I ask you again - what, precisely, can Miss Liberty do that will change my gender from a woman to a man? Both the Facemaker and Icon boast cosmetic surgery, but Miss Liberty does not.

Oh, right, the Echos, I completely forgot about them. Yes, for what they are (transparent rehashes of old models), the Echos are awesome. Time travel stories have the tendency to have events happen out of order as you AND your enemies travel through time and meet in a jumbled order, but the Echos appear to exist outside of time entirely, as time for them runs exactly as time for us does. They remember what they did in my dream of the future, and they reference that in my trip into the past. If I later on met them in the present, I'm sure it will be as much "later" for them as for me.

They actually remind me of the Elder God from Soul Reaver - no matter what time period you're in and who you're supposed to have met, the Elder God always picks up conversations exactly where he left off in the futurepast. He exists, in a sense, outside of time and can see all times simultaneously. A lot like Diviner Maros, as a point of fact.

Actually, have we considered Maros for the part? No... No, I suppose he wouldn't work. Maros seems to see all of time between his original experiment and the next "rising of the tower," yet the Letter Writer's letters seem confused as to exactly WHEN you find them. Wouldn't he technically know when you found which letter from what you tell him when you finally meet if it were really him? And would the next rising of the tower play some role in the Coming Storm?

I doubt it. The Shadow Shard reflections are separate creatures with their own consciences, confused as they may be. They say things like "I'm so cold." and "I don't remember something... What can't I remember?!?" They're clearly tortured, confused souls. The Echos, by contrast, seem like vessels of a single mind, sort of like how Nemesis can speak through multiple Fakes at the same time. I'm not making Nemesis allegations, just saying they're probably not related unless the Shadow Shard Reflections get retconned.

Put it this way - if I wanted to, I could write an epiphany into any one of my characters that would make sense within context and have him conform to the apocalyptic future scenarios. It would be stupid and ruin the character, but I can do it. So long as I know it's possible but I still have the choice not to do it, I will choose not to do it, and appreciate having the choice.

Doh! Of course! It's not like Ubelmann took the secret of the time machine with him. He'd have had to show it to Vandal to know what parts are needed, he'd have had to show it to Requiem to get his approval and so on. Seriously, we stop Ubelmann, but we do nothing to stop someone else in the Column from using the machine. Well, that explains how Requiem got to ancient Rome

Don't remind me...

And again, good point. That old letter from requiem is I think the only time we get one, and it is worded quite a bit like the Letter Writer. It is this letter which shows Requiem to be a master manipulator, to be able to plan ahead and to have access to time travel. And from him surrounding himself with lieutenants like Vandal and Nosferatu, we know he's good at putting teams together, so to speak.

That's an important point to make - we've never actually fought the full might of the Rikti's mobilised military. All we've ever fought has been a relatively underpowered expeditionary force, and even that kicked our *****. If they were to send in the big guns, we'd be SOL. In this game, two sources of technology are consistently praised far above all others - that of the Nemesis and that of the Rikti. Even Praetorian Earth, which is supposed to be far more technologically advanced than Primal Earth, still isn't anywhere near the level of the Rikti, with Neuron being speechless at the greatness of a single Rikti bomb.

Yes, the Rikti beat back the Battalion, but the Rikti could nuke us into a greasy spot if they could actually cross over to do so. Their having beaten such a monstrous threat doesn't really help us all that much since we couldn't even come close to beating them. The most we can do is keep their portals closed.

To be honest... This would be completely awesome I've always wanted to visit the Rikti homeworld, and involving the seemingly scary dogmatic aliens as our allies has always been one of my favourite plot points. I'd love to see that happen.

I largely don't remember this Morality mission because I haven't done it. With the hamfisted way in which morality in City of Heroes is being handled, with us fluctuating between a few states of grotesquely caricature morality that isn't in-character for pretty much anyone that I can think of, I simply gave up on trying to run these things and make them relevant to my stories. It's the same problem as with Praetoria - when you sit down to write morality or loyalty by itself and then wrap a story around it, it comes off like a parody. Morality needs to exist as part of self-contained stories, rather than being the central theme that a story is built after.

In this regard, I actually think the Letter Writer angle is pretty good. This is a story first and foremost and a moral choice only secondarily. Yes, we may end up having to make a choice in the end, but it won't be a mission specifically designed to present a tough moral choice and employing deus ex machina liberally to do so.

Sadly, I cannot disagree with you here. With all the storylines telling me what the story of my character actually is, ascribing motivations and desires to my character and generally defining how we act and behave... Yeah, I can actually buy that. Though, in the story's defence, I don't actually have a problem with how we come out in the future or in an alternate reality. Sure, it's character hijacking, but it's also something that can be changed now that I know the dangers. It's like the authors telling me "THIS is what could happen if you're not careful!" to which I can reply "OK, then I will be careful and it won't happen."

It's writing the story of my character's past and present that bugs the hell out of me.

Here's some food for thought, then - we are given access to the Ouroboros portal for having been exposed to time travel and being powerful enough to affect events. Ubelmann has been exposed to time travel, and he's a pretty powerful fighter. Are we sure Mender Silos didn't hand him a portal, too? Because if Ubelmann ended up in the Ouroboros Citadel, then chances are Silos' future technologies could have cured him of his radiation poisoning.

Or how about this interpretation: Ubelmann is dying, but he still has a few years to live. Who's to say that he can't put this all together in the last few years of his life? With time travel, he could have written all of his letters and done all of his deeds within a matter of days or weeks. In fact, he'd have a reason to abuse time travel if he's living on borrowed time.

Of course, Ubelmann doesn't really have much to do with aliens and the apocalypse and building large-scale conspiracies. On the other hand, he is a smooth-talking, smart intelligence officer who manages to outwit us and evade us at every turn in the Ubelmann the Unknown arc, he is always nice to his prisoners and the only reason we manage to foil him is because Requiem sells him out.

Requiem himself is a good guess, as well, based primarily on the letter you find in the Lazarus TF shortly before fighting Requiem and his two lieutenants. It says something to the effect of "I underestimated you. It is a mistake I have made a point to never repeat again." Granted, this could just mean that the Letter Writer didn't think I'd survive the fight, but when I did, he decided he wanted me on his side. It could also mean that Requiem arranged events such that I'd try to stop him and fail for... Some reason, but when I did manage to break his face, he had to reshuffle his plans right fast, something he wouldn't want to do again.

Requiem is also the only person in the game who has access to time travel by unexplained means. All other time travellers give us a reason for why they're travelling and show us what they travel by. Holsten uses a machine, Ubelmann uses a machine, Ouroboros use crystals of ice and flame and so on. So how does Requiem travel? WHY does he travel? We don't know. So it's at least a possibility. I mean, he does have a history of surrounding himself with powerful meta-humans and playing chess master in keeping their loyalty.

In the original 5th Column Ubelmann the Unknown, Requiem sells Ubelmann out not to spite his boss (because he doesn't have a boss), but rather because if the Nazi won WW2, there'd be no place for his 5th Column and he wouldn't have the power he does. We've seen that he's a manipulative *******, we've seen he's a shrewd leader, we've seen he's capable of orchestrating colossal events using time travel and we know he has an agenda. He's a good candidate.