Sardan

Just a quick note about Father Xmas's high end case suggestion, the Cooler Master CM690-II Advanced. What a great case! Super accessible, roomy, and the USB ports on top of the case are brilliant. It might sound silly singing the praises of a lowly case, but it's an item that can make a real difference in ease of assembly, cooling, and convenience.

For now I'm withholding judgement and not planning to transfer any characters. Some people appear to be working themselves into a froth over this, but we have no idea what it'll really be like yet.

Personally I remember with fondness how it was when I first started playing, when most of the people I met in CoH were new like me. As long as the jerk-to-nice-person ratio isn't too high, I look forward to teaming with the newbies. If it does get too high, there's always the refuge of the VIP server.

The existing name purge policy is far too conservative. The goal of such a policy should be to not alienate current customers or potential customers, with a reasonable assumption of what constitutes a potential customer.

With that in mind, a trial account's names should be freed if the account doesn't convert in 6 months. For regular accounts, if the account has been inactive for an uninterrupted 4 years, all its names should be marked as free.

The script should be run at a regular interval with no special notifications as part of server maintenance.

The ability to customize the look of pool and Epic powers.

.... Argh, can't limit to one thing...

I'd like to have much more detailed faces. When I see screenshots of our characters in MMO web sites, they look dated.

Asymmetrical costumes.

The ability to have a third color for some costume items like pinstripe glow lines.

Fingers with a bit of air between them, so they don't look like mittens.

To not be pushed by citizens.

The ability to form a voicechat room on the fly that connects you to teammates or a league, and have the UI show some visual indicator next to a teammate name when they speak so you can quickly tell if that's the tank saying to get ready to attack, vs. the impatient blaster standing at the back. For people without mics, they'd automatically just go into listen-only mode so they could hear their teammates, and they'd be given a teammate volume control if they'd prefer to play entirely voice-free.

To have a real "roll eyes" smiley in the forums. Who in blazes rolls their eyes by looking DOWN?!

I'd like to have world persistence on a per-player basis. If a contact dies, they aren't visible for that player any more. If a building is destroyed by fire in a mission, that player sees the rubble.

I'd like a new mechanic added so that a type of NPC could trigger chain aggro. When his spawn is aggro'd, he runs for help (and he can open doors). If he makes it to another spawn, he aggros them onto the players. This would be a special type of NPC that wouldn't show up all the time but you'd have to watch for him, like players do for our beloved Malta Sappers.

I'd like Lore pets not to be ghosts, or memories, or astral projections or whatever stupid thing they are now, and I'd like the option to choose a weaker pet on a much shorter timer so they could be perma or near perma. As a squishy it's a pain to bring out your Lore pet, die 30 seconds later, and not be able to resummon for 15 minutes.

I'd like all PvP zones become cross-server. This same tech would be used for Incarnate Trials, so that the team-up teleporter could pull participants from multiple servers.

I'd like more prestige costumes and auras that you have to earn. I know many players get hugely bent out of shape on this because they want to be able to pick a particular look from level 1, but I love stuff like the Nictus sword and Rularuu shield. Stuff that looks badass and says "Yeah, I worked hard to get this." Needless to say I like the concept of Incarnate-only armor/auras.

Disclaimer: this is just a pure wishlist with no regard to how hard things are to implement. It's just stuff I'd like to see in the game. So please don't bother explaining how hard/impractical some of these items would be.

This is a great experiment, Bill. I'm eager to see your results as you progress.

One comment on farm best practices: Bill if you're not already using insp-combine macros, you should be. You end up getting/using more damage insps in less time that way.

As was mentioned upthread, SS/SD is no longer the ultimate farmer (due to nerf of Shield Charge + Burn buff and the ability to set up AE ticket farms that are 100% fire damage) but it's still terrific combo and my favorite brute.

One downside to my SS/SD was that it was extremely expensive to give him a really first class build, primarily due to a couple of PvP IOs. But it's all just play money and I've had a ton of fun playing him.

He used to have a weakness in that due to extremely high recharge he is able to crank out AoEs like mad and drain his blue bar pretty fast. But when the Alpha slot came around, his endurance woes became a thing of the past.

So while SS/SD may no longer be absolute top dog, it's still an incredibly fun and potent combo.

Just a quick note on a single power: I consider Boost Range mandatory on a Fire/EM blaster. It can easily be made perma. The primary benefit is for two powers. First, Fire Breath. The longer that cone is, the wider the base is. So Boost Range really opens it up and makes it easier to hit an entire spawn. Second is Blaze. That attack hits like a truck but has quite short range. Boost Range gives it more tactical flexibility.

Man, reading this thread warms my heart. I love how helpful the forum peeps are on this game!

The other folks have pretty much covered the bases but I thought I'd chime in that once you get the Going Rogue expansion you can always side-switch to take your villain to the hero zones. I typically do this because I love villain classes but prefer the easier teaming hero-side.

Besides the global channels that were previously recommended, don't be afraid to start your own teams. Use the /search command. There are a lot of folks out there who want to team but are a little too shy to start their own and they'll leap at the chance to team up.

Here's a trick to make it easier. I like to create a button I can put in a power tray that will send a tell/whisper to whoever I have selected in the Search window. Here's the command:

/macro Inv, "tell $target, Hi, I'm level 10 running missions. Want in?"

That will create a silvery button labled "Inv". When you have someone selected in the Search window and click that Inv button, you'll send that message to the selected character. You can right-click the button to edit the level whenever you level up.

I like this approach because I can shotgun out quite a few polite invitations in a very short time using this technique and build a team quickly.

I appreciate getting a behind the scenes look at the design process. Kudos to the designers! I was going to buy the pack anyway, but it adds a little more depth to the experience to learn more about what went into it.

I'll be buying this pack as soon as it's available. Nicely done! And this trailer was awesome. Just the right mix of steampunk atmosphere, humor, and teaser. I just about lost it when I saw "The Latest In Pantaloons Swapping Technology"!

I'd add that you should specify if you're looking for a leveling build vs a level 50 respec build and what your budget is. If you leave it wide open you'll often get multi-billion Inf builds that won't do you any good if you don't have that kind of game money to throw around.

Finally, state if you have any preferences like "I want the build to be soft-capped to smashing/lethal damage" or "I want to have a perma-Domination build".

I believe last month's Producer's Letter contained vague language along the lines of "we've heard you about wanting solo options for Incarnate content and we're looking into it." So there's hope.