SeriouslyEvil

I'd love to see a temporary (re: maybe 5-6 weeks on live) TF that has you going back in time and actually SAVING one of the major "dead" heroes, like Galaxy Girl.

After the time limit for that TF is up then we get Galaxy Girl (or whatever hero it is) as a new contact with a TF about the true origin of her powers...She's the first Kheldian!

What? It could happen.

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Thank you. I hope to stay awhile, too. But probably the single thing that would improve this game for me would be if I actually had another RL friend playing alongside me. Unfortunately, none of them are interested, and my one friend is still bitter from his "City of Hospital" experience. So I miss being able to chat about game stuff with them like we did when we all played WoW. If I ever quit CoH, it will be because I choose to invest more time into my RL friends, whatever they're playing.

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One thing that I found very helpful after my RL friends all went on to play other games was finding a good global chat channel for my server (Liberty in my case, the LBx Channel). It allows me to have conversations on various topics as they come up, and it's always full of people wanting to do this TF or that Trial or just looking for a few more to team with. I solo most of the time personally, but it's nice to know I have an easily accessible place to go to when I want to or need to team up.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...rowcontact.jpg

So in a bout of insomnia I took a new alt through level 5 on Justice.
As you can see by the image above, it's not orange as I thought, but they do tell you that you do not have to do Wincott's missions.

But it is kind of vague, so maybe you miss it. They thought of that, as seen here.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ottwarning.jpg

Wincott himself makes it very clear that you can go back to King's Row anytime you want.


To the OP, I don't want this to seem like some kind of "Ha I'm right and yo're wrong!" attack, it just really struck me that some (some, not all) of your complaints were not really the game's fault.

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1. That wasn't an obvious question to ask. In no other MMORPG that I've ever played has it ever been necessary to ask for help at level 2. My analysis was: I'm supposed to work my way towards the mission by stopping purse-snatchers on the streets -- that's what they're there for.

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I'm more than willing to be a team player, but I just think level 2 was a little early for that extra help to be necessary.

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Also, I don't think it was NECESSARY for you to ask for help, but when faced with a tough decision (Do I fight these guys who can kill me easily? Do I run past them? Do I need to gain more levels?) I find it silly to arbitrarily make one of those decisions with no outside information and then complain about your decision as if it's inherently the game's fault.

But that's just my opinion. I hope that despite the rough start you enjoy and stay with us for a very long time.

It's been awhile since I've actually used a level 5-10 contact, even on my new alts, but don't they make it very clear in bright orange letters that you don't have to do Wincott's missions and can return to that contact and do other missions?

Don't they also send you straight to the police guy in KR, and explain, in detail, how you use the radio and what it's for?

Also OP, did you ever ASK other players for advice or help? I assume you knew what an MMO was when you bought into it (although back in 2004 when I started I didn't.) It helps a lot to be able to say in Broadcast or Request "Hey my mission door is really far away and there are some enemies I can't beat blocking it, what shoulfd I do?"

I bet a nice high level character would have cleared them for you, or at least someone would have told you that you could run right past them.

Seems like a lot of your complaints OP are not so much about how the game is set up, but how your own inexperience and/or unwillingness to try to get help impacted your gameplay.

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There's a secret 7th reason that I am not going to give you because of reason #7

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I blame War Witch for reason #7.
Or Ravenstorm.
Or possibly Sexy Jay...in fact now that I think about it it was most likely Sexy Jay, maybe rule #7 is why they won't give him a red name.

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Cast Away was horrid, Tommie boy didn't even put his heart into the role very well. Nevers aid he was a bad actor, quite a few movies I like that he starred in. However, Cast Away definitely was not one of his better pices.


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In order for us (ok, just me) to take your movie critique seriously, I must ask for your three "Best.Movie.Evar."s

Oh and a huge Kudos to WW and the rest of the team for one more hilarious pop culture reference, but we always need MORE, MORE!

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I'm not of the doomsaying crowd...

but, the state of the game address felt like usual political fluff than substance.

that is all.

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Wait...when has it not? It's not like they're going to come out and say "Well I think we're doing a pretty good job keeping you all giving us money, we've got a ton of new stuff on the horizon, now that we've hooked the loot crowd and the PvPers are starting to calm down, we're heading straight into an Issue that's guaranteed to make the story-driven folks pay us for at least another 9 months, and finally give people a new reason to play a character past level 38."

I've been here for every Issue and it's hilarious to me to see the same patterns over and over again. If I were the Devs I would have some posts printed out and hanging on my wall.

"What's going to happen when World of Warcraft comes out? We're gonna keep people around then?" - Issue 4
"What's gonna happen when the Marvel MMO comes out, we gonna keep people around then?" - Issue 9

I think you're doing a fine job Los Gatos crew. You make your mistakes like anyone else but I'm still having fun, with three characters waiting at ten to enjoy inventions from the ground up and four characters at 32-34 waiting for Issue 10 to give them new content to blow through!

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Whether I agree or disagree with the premise of invented wings (that were originally all inventions, vet rewards were a gift and a preview to inventions...) but regardless of that... forced? You're forced? How? Some nutjob comes to your house and holds a gun to your head demanding you play a game?

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You seem very confused. Your solution to not being able to build a fitting costume in the game is to... not play? Somehow, I'm not seeing how that results in being able to build a fitting costume.

With the current drop rates, the average player with a particular costume piece in mind will probably not see that piece this issue. Or for that matter, the next. How many issues do you consider to be an appropriate wait?

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Let us say that the current drop rates mean that only one person a day will find a costume piece on each server. There are 12 servers. The consignment houses are cross-server tech, so you see everything for sale on every server. Lets say that 50% of the costume pieces are kept, and 50% are sold at the houses.

Thats 6 costume pieces a day put up for sale, say 3 months between issues, so that's approximately 540 costume pieces sold between issues 9 and 10.

I realize those are completely made up numbers, but I don't think from what I've read that the costume drop numbers are low enough to believe that we wouldn't average at least one drop a day per server. Seems to me like a lot of people are forgetting the whole cross-server issue and how many more options that opens up for them to find what they are looking for then what they see on Test.

And Athena is right, City of Heroes didn't come with a "whatever costume you want or your money back" guarantee, so you're not being "forced" to wait for anything, either you make the new character or you don't, your choice.

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All I have to say is that I'm glad you enjoy it here. I'm not the fan of Paragon and Rogue Isles that I used to be. I find myself wanting to move in some direction that's not here, let the Age of Heroes take hold, and have some new hero take my place should one choose to.


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Different strokes for different folks as they say...I've got a friend who to this day still regularly plays and LOVES UO. I've watched him play and had to bite my tongue when he showed me all the "cool stuff". All I could think in my head was "Wow...this game might be cool if they updated it and made it look and act more like CoH."

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When we sat down to design CoH, we wrote on the white board: "fun." Seems obvious, but many games seemed to miss the mark. That's OK; some games don't need to be fun in order to be successful (I won't name them, but they're out there). We wanted to make a game that had fun moment to moment gameplay. Hard to quantify, but easy to identify when you find it.

Cool posts, BTW.

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Goddamnit. Please don't be so damned smug about that fun thing, when you've missed the mark in so many ways yourself. When you wrote that word up on the board you should have written 'caution: may be subjective' next to it, and used it to remind yourself not to judge your players for pursuing behaviors that you arbitrarily deem not to be fun. You put kill X tasks in the game, and then act surprised when people camp spawners.

UGh. I find it so frustrating when he trots out this 'we're so great' mentality. This game could have been the first *real* game MMO, instead it's become more canned, and more treadmill-like as time goes by.

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Wow, I had no idea that making mistakes meant one could not be proud of the end results.

I find a Superhero MMO, first of its kind, originally only released in America and gaining enough subscribers to keep itself in the top 5 MMO category after 3 years when many others have come and gone a damn fine accomplishment, whether you agree with every step along the way or not.

CoH/V made some glaring horrible mistakes tis true. The implementation of ED, the purple patch debacle, a slight misjudging of where new content should go first, getting players hopes up about systems that were barely past the concept stage only to have them disappear and disappoint.

But CoH/V also made some amazing strides in the MMO genre, strides that if I were a developer I would try to steal for my own personal use. The balance between an interactive world with threats to respond to and instances to prevent camping. The LFT system that makes finding others simple, the global chat system that allows you to recruit from ANY server if people are members of your channel. (Oh how sweet it is to be able to play on Justice and yet still respond to the call for that one badge mission I need on Liberty!), Flight, Superjump, Superspeed, Teleport...simply amazing.

Obviously CoH didn't fit your desire for an MMO, although you are still here playing so that says something in itself. But missing the mark on a few things while hitting it out of the park on a few others sound about par for the course in any endevor, and unless you're striving for a level of perfection you're never going to attain, I'd say its a damn good track record for the Devs out there in Los Gatos.

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Which is why I went on in my post to talk about what I expect to happen, which is all of us getting the smackdown laid down on us in a very heavy-handed way for at least a few weeks until we can no longer complain about "fairness" because we'll all be given the same amount of wiggle-room...namely none.


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Not true. Again, that would imply a fair moderation across the board to all parties at all times, but there isn't. It's not "heavy-handed", it can't possibly be because that would mean that there was consistancy in the application of the rules.

What we're saying, and I'm not sure you get the distinction, maybe I haven't been clear, is not that some posters are being treated diffreently than others, we're saying that anything you post at anytime is a crap shoot.

Again, I point to Athyna's example. That post is still up.

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You do realize that I'm talking about what I THINK will happen in the near future correct? I see your point and I actually agree, and I think it's going to lead us to a (hopefully short) time period in the near future where they're going to say "OK, you want fairness, here it is." and give us all no grey area at all to play in.

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Unfortunately modding these boards must be like refereeing a football game. You have a set of rules that you have to enforce to the best of your ability, but you are still free to use your own judgement about what is "just barely ok" and what is "over the line".


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Right, but the comments being made by those of us who've noticed these inconsistencies are saying that there are some calls that are right over the line that are called fair ball and others that are well within that are modded. When the ball bounces off the head of some dude in the third row how much "judgement" does it require to say that it was foul? Likewise, when it lands squarely on the numbers of the reciever standing in the centre of the end-zone how much "Judgement" is required to say that it's fair?

This is what we're trying to to say. There are some posts that are so blatantly innapropriate that the poster should probably have a little vacation fromt he forums, let alone have the post deleted. Look at Athyna's example, for instance. Whereas, the other day I had a post deleted because someone was acting like a troll in the Justice forums and I had the gall, the temerity, the very audacity to ask him how many friends he had.

Why is Athyna's example still up by my post asking "How many friends have you earned using this posting style?" is gone?

Do you see what we're saying?

Nobody's quibbling about semantics or rule variances. In fact, that would be preferable because to do so would require a precedent of the rules being enforced in a consistant manner, which is something we do not have.

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Which is why I went on in my post to talk about what I expect to happen, which is all of us getting the smackdown laid down on us in a very heavy-handed way for at least a few weeks until we can no longer complain about "fairness" because we'll all be given the same amount of wiggle-room...namely none.

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I am really not trying to get lighthouse to hate me, I am pointing out inconsistency through example. Would you prefer interpretative dance?

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Only if you can do one of the scenes from West Side Story.

If I was unable to understand your point in your post, I responded to, then at least some others won't either, and those others could be moderators.

Yes, in your later posts you calmed down and explained yourself better, glad to see it, I thought my poinst about authority and respect still stood though. Going out into the public forum and calling the Head Mod names, even "funny" ones, when you could have simply kept the discussion private with him (since you say he answered your PM) is quite rude in my eyes, and I can see why it would be deleted.

As for fairness...fairnesss is a concept, and therefore pretty hard to enforce consistantly from one person to the next. See my post on the whole referee thing. However if you still want to point ou the incosistancies in the modding of the boards then try doing so in a non-emotional, rational manner and I bet you'll get a much better response next time.

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We know that, and you should probably recognize that we know that. What many of us are saying is that the variance between what is sometimes modded and what isn't modded is so great that there is often no indication as to where the boundary is.

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Unfortunately modding these boards must be like refereeing a football game. You have a set of rules that you have to enforce to the best of your ability, but you are still free to use your own judgement about what is "just barely ok" and what is "over the line".

If you had only one referee doing the job, that would be ok, things would be consistant, but unfortunately when you have to have a bunch of them at all different times, one persons "strict" line is going to make another persons line look "leniant", and then people will start to think that there is no definite right or wrong.

When that happens, a global tightening of the rules is usually sent down and a lot of stuff gets smacked, just like the occasional week in the NFL where every game has 10-12 penalties called.

Its the powers-that-be saying "Hey, we know that sometimes we vary a little in our rulings, but remember the rules are still there." I expect that global modsmack rule-crackdown to commence shortly if it hasn't already with Lighthouse coming onboard.

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Your right it won't. But I have decided since I had MULTIPLE posts deleted without an actual explanation, and was not able to defend myself against flame posts, or EVEN DELETE the post that caused the flames, I figure I can change his moniker in a fun fashion. I have had my ID lampooned, I didn't sulk about it. And I don't want any favours. I want even handed and judicial use of the modsmack. If he nails me for crossing a line. Fine. No prob. But nail EVERYONE that crosses that line, and for Mod's sake (like that joke?, little play on the ol' power trip) TELL PEOPLE WHAT THEY DID WRONG!!! I don't mean some namby pamby BS answer, I mean an honest one.

So yeah LIGHTBEER can expect to not get a Christmas card from me.

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I teach elementary school age children...which in all due respect, you sound like to me right now. You see they have a hard time with what I consider a basic concept of respect and authority...namely that when someone is in a position of authority you should give them respect until such a point that they prove that they are not worthy of it.

You cite a bunch of your posts being removed, and I'm sure they have been, but since I never saw them in the first place I cannot fathom a guess as to why. However, I must ask, as I'm sure Statesman will when and if he takes your PM seriously, what proof do you have that Lighthouse is the one modding or deleting your posts? I count at least 6 moderators on these boards at all times...any one of them or all of them could be doing it.

Coming on here and making a bunch of posts that make you and your position sound even worse certainly isn't going to go a long way in making anyone you could complain to take you seriously.

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Heh, you're all correct of course. I never said that everyone who chooses to break rules they don't like is always a hero and all of society should back them up every time. It's even possible that someone who objects to a given law may be wrong to do so! I still don't think that means we should accept bad, stupid, or unjust rules.


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Ah, and there-in lies the rub. I don't think we should accept any laws that are unjust or unfair either, it's one reason I speak out quite vocally on such things in my own private journal, however the laws should still be followed even while you complain about it or rally against it.

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Uh, I don't think it is fair to draw a connection between the Civil Rights movement, Slavery, and the Underground Railroad with anything on the forums. For one thing the is the matter of scale, and another the gross injustices that those laws created or movements sought to undue. I don't think any but the longest and most strained corrallation can be drawn between Forum Moderation and any of the three examples above.

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So if a law is just a little unjust, it should be followed blindly under all circumstances?

BBhumeBB's examples are extreme, but why should his logic only apply to really really super bad laws? 200 years ago, those laws were not viewed as really really super bad.

Ever heard the phrase, "give an inch and they take a mile"? Just because a particular injustice is "small stuff" doesn't mean it isn't worth opposing.

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The problem is, if the law or rule is just "a little unjust", then theres a good chance you're not going to have a lot of support rallying against it.

If I think that the laws regarding speed limits are too strict and unfair to those of us who pay lots of money to boost the performance of our vehicles, and thus begin to go 10 miles over the speed limit wherever I go, I don't think I can rightfully expect the police to acknowledge my "protest".

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There are laws which individuals cannot, from their ethical standpoint, follow. Others may be dismayed or disgusted by the ethical stand in question, but that does not erase the right of a citizen to disobey a law he finds intolerable (even though he will face criminal or civil penalties for doing so).


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You're right, I misspoke in my last post. I should have said "A questionable law is still a law and SHOULD be followed UNLESS there is no other option then disobeying it." there is always a chance that the only option truly left open to a person is civil disobedience.

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Unfortunately rules are rules. They have to be enforced.

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All of them? Even questionable ones, or questionable interpretations of them?

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Like it or not the mods are final arbiters on interpretation of the rules. If someone disagrees with that, it should go on PM.

And yes. All of them.

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Never. Based on that logic (that of sheep under the crook of the shepherd) nothing ever changes, or ever can.

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Sure sometimes breaking a law that is obviously unfair or unconstitutional (in the US anyway) turns into a good thing. See Rosa Parks. However, that is the exception and not the rule. A Questionable law is still just that, a law. It must be followed. If you feel so strongly that it is unfair and/or biased then there are avenues at your disposal (in both real life and here on the forums) to make yourself heard without actually breaking the rules or laws.

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Though it wasn't even a "rant", here's an example of what I consider completely over-the-top censorship from about 2 weeks ago.

A poster read an official announcment saying not to modify .pigg files, and was curious what that means. He was quite clear that he had no desire to do so, simply wanted to know what they were. I gave an answer about what the files are and how they're used - that's it. Not only did I not say anything about how to mess around with them, I listed several reasons why it's a bad idea. We were both quite conservative on the topic, the intent being to end the curiosity.

Nevertheless, within an hour, thread deleted.

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Well quite simply, since there is an OFFICIAL post on the subject, starting a new thread is redundent.

Secondly, if I was one of the moderators or Lighthouse himself, I would simply PM a response (or even your response) to the guy and then delete the thread before it becomes anything. Problems solved on both sides.

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If I want to complain about the game, and I do so here, even if I'm not initially constructive it can lead to something when written in a place Devs can see it.

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and you are allowed to do so, as often as you want...just look at Part-Troll. But your criticism must be calm and constructive, not "OMGWTFBBQ U GUYS SUK!"

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First and foremost, I want to say great job on the new maps. The look and feel are fantastic, and I truly enjoyed going through the Faultline arcs. I do have one issue that I feel the need to mention, and since I haven't seen it in anyone else's postings, I can hope this is an isolated issue. In the last mission of the contact between Penelope Yin and Agent G (Doctor something...I can't remember atm), you rescue her and she follows and helps you. Unfortunately, in order to get to the door to the indoor portion of the mission, you must take a freight elevator up to the appropriate level of the map. When I entered the elevator, she followed me, but did not emerge at the top. When I returned to the bottom to see if she was left behind, all I saw were her auras by the elevator. Anyone else have this issue, or is it just me?

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Exact same thing happened to me, I even got her "I found you" message when I came back down the elevator, but obviously she was invisible and immobile there. I bugged it, not much else you can do.

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I like Flight, simply because it is the lowest Maintenance. Click the toggle, press auto-run and go AFK for a few minutes or chat with my SG.

I like Super Jump because of its combination of speed and vertical movement. It's also handy in PvP. It's a maintenance power, though. It's difficult to chat when you constantly hold down the spacebar. (Yeah, I know...remap the key!)

I like Teleport due to it's speed and PvP benefits. It takes a lot of getting used to, though.

I like Superspeed mainly due to speed. I typically take it in combination with another travel power, though.

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_Castle_, is there a Winter Lord's chance in Hades that we might ever see a unique 5th or 6th travel pool? Or is the travel power situation pretty much set in cement for the forseeable future?



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Burrowing...we need burrowing.

I think Spongecake secretly became a Mod and he's not locking the thread, just deletin the comments we put so that his is always the last one in the thread.

You can also go the "concept" route. You sort of mentioned it earlier with the no enhancers thing, but one of my favorite characters is a Scrapper I have on Justice who is Dark/INV and has only the passive defenses. He's still fun at level 18, in fact he's almost like a CoH Stalker really. I also have a Dominator with only the secondary powers, but he's not much past lvl 7 yet so its hard to say if it'll stay fun.

Getting your friends to come up with the wackiest concepts they can think of and then seeing how hard you can pump up their missions sounds like a lot of fun.

The best out of game COH/V moment I've ever had was getting a PM from you Cuppa, thanking me for a well thought out post. It was things like that that...one of the many reasons you made this community feel like a family that could actually influence the game we love, and not just a bunch of paying customers who would never be heard.

I hope the programmers and higher ups have the smarts to do what should be done and put a cute (but tough) female superhero somewhere in Paragon with the name CuppaJo.

I think Kings Row could use a second trainer. Or maybe the Hollows, that place is kind of like the forums, hehe.

Blesses to you Cuppa, you better not be a stranger after you're gone.