Scrier

Option 1. Without fail. A lot of the older pieces are looking their age, and frankly, if you're not changing the ideal of the piece, just updating the texture so that it looks good, there's no reason to keep the old.

Adding effects like with the metallic set, then sure, keep the old, the just the new is fine for basic texture overhauls.

Nice job!

I wouldn't mind seeing more options for Martial Arts, especially given the exceptional, fluid animations that Kinetic Melee and Dual Pistols have shown. It used to be one of the prettiest sets animationwise, and of the old sets it still is impressive, but it's lost a bit wowness with those two standing nearby.

It'd be good to be able to minimise the FX for it as well. Just kicking someone in the head without the flashing would be nice.

The main reason I'm posting though is Martial Arts' Assassin's Strike. It could use more options, in particular one that comes all the way from Pro Wrestling.

Shawn Michaels had an impressive finisher where he built up the crowd for a few seconds, lined himself up, and kicked his opponent in the head. This tapping anxiously, checking the angle/line and firing off a kick to the head would make for a neat AS for MA.

A relevant example.

It's got the build-up to the strike, the strike itself is impressive and it suits Martial Arts perfectly.

Very neat sounding characters! They sound like they'd be fun to play and interact with.

Also: Welcome to the forums!

Congrats on the first birthday, guys. I hope you guys had a blast.

The biggest question is if the demon is shiny or not.

I'm in a fairly similar boat. I got myself all excited that it seemed like for the first time in a long time they were specifically singling me out for Closed Beta access. I mean, I've never found a bug in CB myself (though I have on live), or really had one I was in a position to confirm/test, but I try. I try and break things, it just turns out that the things I try aren't broken.

The closer it gets though, the less it seems like a loyalty reward and the more it seems like a "instead of going to open beta, let's just target a large portion of the playerbase and call it a reward" - Should have just kept me out of it really. I'd have been less disappointed.

I hope everyone going has a blast! I'll have to make it out there one year.

NERRRRRRRD.

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

Plus, he doesn't use other people's body parts apart from his corpse armour and in his minions. He's still a regular guy, last I checked.

Awesome guide! I've been considering diving into commissions for a while but wasn't really sure how/what I'd get started with. Just reading over this has already helped a lot.

For those playing along at home, I did a headcount while servers were down last night instead of more distasteful things like leaving the house. Including people's runners up, here are the top 6 results, in a particular order (Numerical!):

#1 - Super Sidekicking
#2 - Inventions
#3 - Power Customisation
#4 - Rikti War Zone Revamp
#5 - New Faultline
#5 - Ouroboros

You may notice there were two number fives. That's because they each got mentioned 7 times. You have nobody to blame but yourselves!

A few conversations with other players has left me a bit curious as to what people have enjoyed most changewise since they started playing. So, what I'm asking people to share in this thread is roughly when they started playing, a list of their 5 favorite updates and why they were so awesome. It could be something as specific as an item in a booster pack, a whole booster pack, part of an issue or an entire issue.

So to get us started, here's mine, from the perspective of someone who started in December 2005, in the gap between Issue 6 and Issue 7.

#5 - Positron Task Force Revamp (Issue 17)
Don't get me wrong, I always enjoyed the Positron TF and this was the facelift it needed. Unique maps. A more cohesive story! References to other things that happen around it! I love some of the name dropping, though I'm doing my best to avoid spoilers here for those who haven't had a go yet. Rebuilt to be essentially the same with a solid ending and far superior motivation. Now all we need is for Synapse and Manticore to get the same treatments.

#4 - Mayhem Missions (Issue 7)
I remember being really, really excited when I first had a go at these in the Open Beta. They were exciting. I blew things up. I had a real superhero come and try to stop me from robbing a bank. This was exactly what I'd spent the last six months I'd been playing wishing for and now it was in my lap. I must admit, even with all the other content we now have I still really love these. I haven't done one in far too long.

#3 - The Crash Site becomes the War Zone (Issue 10)
Wow. Just Wow. I'd been to the Crash Site once to marvel at the area (which, admittedly looked nice) and a few other times to start Respec trials. That was an incredible way to take a pretty, yet unused and uninteresting zone to a whole new level. People go there, there's an interesting story to be had, a fun zone event and lots of little details like the Malta and Council bases.

#2 - Power Customisation (Issue 16)
We asked for it. We got it! I mean, sure as issues go it wasn't a big one. There wasn't a lot to explore or do, but even with only one major character it was a lot of fun. The amount of entertainment I got out of the simple fact that my character's regeneration powers didn't glow anymore was unnatural. I guess the biggest kick I get out of it though is that my supergroup has a few people that have similar powers (sonic resonance being a big example) but now, they all give a different atmosphere.

#1 - Faultline Revamp (Issue 8)
Another wow. Such, such an underused zone. Almost as much so as the Crash Site was at the time. Once this hit though, it became a hot place to be. Not as much as it was when it first came out, of course but for me at least, Faultline is still the place to go for a good story, for a visually pleasing, logically laid out zone and for a bit of the old heroic aspect of the game. What says hero more than taking back a part of the city and restoring life to it? Plus, there is the fact that this contributed to my #5. It also helps that this taught me how awesome War Witch is.

Most of the shots I've got of the old one are to remind us what rooms look like when transferring designs from test bases to live ones. With that in mind, they're not very good. Here's what I've got anyway.




On the plus side, at least the new beaker rack coming in opened up a lot of jokes about our hero group running a meth lab in the kitchen.

Not sure if other people have noticed yet, but the Beaker Rack is no longer empty. It actually looks really cool with all the chemicals on it now and would do a lot better if it were being used as a beaker rack. The only problem is though, in our base at least, only half of the uses of it were actually improved by it becoming filled with bottles.

The other uses of it were things like stovetops, workout machines and on a floor. I really, really wish I had screenshots because it was an incredibly useful item for us. Is there any chance we could see the old one back as a separate item? Both would have their uses, and this change seems to be a little against the devs' philosophy of adding new things instead of changing old things.

Any chance those of us outside the acceptable areas can submit something with the appropriate disclaimers and still have it appear in game, without being eligible for the prizes?

Edit: To clarify, I mean those of us outside the US, Canada and EU.

As has been conclusively provenish, RP SGs are still out there. The Reciprocators are doing some stuff for our 4th birthday this month, so we're a little more out and about in the community than we usually are. Generally we like to hide in our base, RP in small clusters and aren't so public about our RP.

Which can be a lot of fun at times. Public means you get walk-up randoms who add a new element. Public also means, though, that you get walk-up randoms who want to spam you with powers and the word 'LOL'.

I think a lot of groups are out there, just not as publically visible as they have been in the past.

I caught up with Mickey a moment ago, and she said I'm up to 7036 on Black Starbeam.

Or 293 days, 4 hours.

Or 9 months, 23 days, 4 hours.

Mind you, that includes the two times I accidentally left myself logged in and idle in a supergroup base while I spent 8 hours at work.