greatgarloo

I tend to marketeer w/ all my 50s and any current levelling toons. I moved a few 50s to different servers, these do nothing but marketeer, but they're mostly tied up in low turnover, high reward areas: lowball bids on good stuff mostly, but some work oddball niches with extremely low turnover and extremely high mark-up. When they hit the inf. cap they gleemail 500mil to newish characters on my 'home' server. They also gleemail crafted IOs to my home server when overfull of inventory, where they're sold by newer characters or socked into the base racks. I dont check on them that often, usually every 4-10 days.

Most of my active toons are merely selling drops from playing, or bidding on their own wishlists. But I usually find niches when looking for stuff, and I throw bids out whenever I see a niche that is not being actively bought and sold, I never leave market slots unused. It's a total of about 30 characters, each w/ about 700mil - 2 bil in ready cash.

I really want a dollar sign for a chest emblem. Had a couple toons who it wouldve been appropriate (one was a hero only for the lucrative merchandising contracts, another was a villain who wanted to install an plutocracy in the RI). Maybe have a "$" unlock on your account for hitting 2 billion, and I like the idea of buying the whole costume for 2 bil set sale.

The other day I bought a LotG+ for a very nice price. I planned to put another bid on the recipe, but instead of bidding, I offered my recipe for sale (for the same price I just bought it). It sold immediately, and luckily I made over 90 mil in profit since there were outstanding aggressive bids, but I WANTED it.

Yeah yeah, I know, boohoo, I made 90 million when I didnt want to.

Hard call, but if someone put a gun to my head, I'd have to say....

AR/NRG Blaster: This is one of my lvl 50 farming toons (but plays best in a full team, or at least with a tank). Insane mowdown of spawns. Stuns to protect me if it goes south. ANd I love boosting range and sniping a mob that is so far away I can barely see him (and I certainly dont see the orange numbers). And I like the fact that hes a glass cannon. If solo and I make a mistake - I die. Fun.

Plant/Fire Dom: I really like the plants set, a pretty utilitarian set. Fire does damage. Lots of it. Just like the play-style a lot on this. I also like that doms are (were) underrated, this was my 1st 50 redside. Lots of people saying doms sucked, and I just went out and played it, and didnt find the suck. Do people still say doms suck?

I think for both, its the playstyle, the element of danger and a lot of different tools to deal with it. My blaster can go exteme range and mow down spawns, or up close and personal with a boss. The dom has confusion, aggro control, a pet, its a little more controlled chaos than a stormie.

I have many 50s, and still play many of them regularly: Storm/Dark def, Fire/EM tank, Elec/Shield scrapper, etc. but those two are probably the most fun.

I never buy SOs, and I rarely buy much of anything before level 20 or so. I live on drops up to 17 or so, only buying the salvage I need for any recipes I can use. I sell all my other drops. Then I look for generic IOs and frankenslot for the next 10 levels or so. At 27 I buy generic IOs which will last me thru the life of the toon. I will PROBABLY replace them, but I dont have to. Note: sometimes crafted generic IOs are cheaper than buying the recipes & salvage, and crafting it yourself. Crafters are either A) crafting and selling at a loss to get the badge; or B) have memorized the recipe and can sell for less. So double-check the prices on recipes vs. crafted. At 27 I start thinking about what sets I want, and start putting lowball bids on some of the volatile items. Remember: if no one else is bidding, you might get a bargain. This wont help you for the really desirable sets, but you might be able to scoop up some low hanging fruit.

Great guide, only problem is you mixed and mashed the eras of comics, Golden Age is pre-1960 (roughly, I think the actual cutoff year is 1958 or something). Stuff like Spiderman, Dr. Doom, are Silver Age. All the examples you give as "Silver Age" were actually "Bronze Age". Bronze age is generally considered the 1970s. Not a big deal, but in a post about naming, it's probably best to strive to be as accurate as possible about terms.

Couple things to add back on the subject. As someone else already mentioned, alliteration is a great way to get a very comic-booky sounding name. And a thesaurus is your friend. I wanted to make a tank named Lava Lass, but it was taken. Finally decided on "Volcanic Vixen", which I thought was better for a brute than a tank. But there are tons of names if you use a thesaurus.

Homophones are also your friend and can help you find clever misspellings and give you a start towards a bio. F'rinstance, use Air instead of Heir for a stormie defender and get Air Apparent. (Oh alliterative too!) The wordplay suggests the hero is from a wealthy or royal background. Maybe he was usurped, or cheated out of his fortune, or maybe he's a rich playboy. A good name will almost always suggest a background.

Foreign names. This is a great way to get some good names and again it suggests a background. I wanted a dominator who disguised herself as a nun, and wanted to name her "Mother Superior". It was taken (naturally), so I turned it into Latin, and the Latin connection further suggested an ancient entity who was around when Latin was the common language.

Sort of a variation on your "common 1st name" motif, is naming a toon after a geographical locale: City, State, towns or even neighborhoods famous for some historical reason. Again it gives you a beginning on your background. Let's see, a stalker from London....or Whitechapel specifically....the Whitechapel One...mysterious, and dangerous-sounding. With the number used, it could change your whole concept, I started the stalker thinking of someone possessed by Jack the Ripper, but the "One" suggests a robot, or the 1st of many. So now, I've just changed my concept and changed the whole history of Jack the Ripper. This stalker is a now robot that was built over 100 years, it went rogue, killed its creator and now preys on mankind from the shadows.

Finally, on the same idea as word merging, but more like Jeopardy's "Before and After" category where you use a 3-word phrase, where the 2nd word is shared by two 2-word phrases. You can make some fun pop culture references like this. Unfortunately you can run the risk of making it fairly obscure. I have a brute named "Blood Simple Simon". I thought everyone knew the term "Blood Simple" - its the name of the 1st Coen Bros. movie, and was coined by Dashiel Hammett as the confused state of mind after a murder is committed. But few people seem to get it. *sigh*

I thought you were pretty accurate in most things. One thing I would add is "Always assign someone to point position". This is the person to follow, this is the person who picks the mobs to engage. It can be the guy with the star or not. Nothing will kill a group faster than 1/2 the group running one way and 1/2 the group running another and each bumping into large spawns. One toon is the point, usually a melee toon. Makes things real easy to have everyone know they should be following player x. This also frees up the leader (when it is not him) to concentrate on tactics or any personality issues.

Which brings me to the next thing I would add: don't be afraid to kick a non-productive or counter-productive player. I was on a team recently where the scrapper was complaining constantly about the tank: tank couldn't hold aggro, tank's build sucked, the scrapper got the tanker so flustered he really couldn't do his job correctly, and they were spending more time typing than fighting. And then the scrapper was complaining he wasnt being healed fast enough. Wah wah wah. It was clear the scrapper was just a crybaby, and an obnoxious one at that, I sent multiple tells to the leader asking him to kick the scrapper, leader didnt want to kept saying we needed his damage, finally the leader passed me the star and I kicked him. Team ran much more smoothly after that.

Finally, I wanted to agree w/ PrincessGrace re: adjusting the mission slider. In most groups I play with we are constantly adjusting the difficulties to accomodate diverse levels and still allow the lowest or highest members a chance to have their missions run.

Might as well mention a themed SG I'm trying to get going:
Secret Sisterhood - a reclusive order of super-powered nuns with a mysterious agenda. Order actively recruits and indoctrinates girls w/ powers or aptitude to become footsoldiers in the fight against evil.
Costume: Must be conservative in style and colors (generally black, white, grey, royal blue, burgundy, emerald green), and must have a hood as part of the costume.
Name: Name should start w/ Sister ei: "Sister_____"
Send tell to: Sister Steel or Sister Snowfall

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Storm Knights Local 23
Founded by that daring Weird Science hero from the Nile Empire cosm Malcalypse (the Youngest) ......

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I loved Torg! I actually wrote a full length adventure for that game that West End bought, but they cancelled the line before it was published.

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but you could roleplay some one who just shoots and moves on, like a hardcore fighter who just wants to kill, and dosent talk much and dosent get real involved with the other tema members. SO YOU HAVE BEEN ROLE PLAYING THIS ENTIRE TIME AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

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Actually, that is what one of my characters is like. She is a natural AR/Dev blaster based around a Punisher/Vigilante theme. She is motivated by vengeance and obsessed with her crusade. She NEVER dances. If waiting for other teammates, she will meditate or scout. She is terse and mostly says stuff like, "Enough chit-chat, time to kill some street-scum" and "These punks aren't gonna kill themselves y'know. Well, not fast enough to suit me anyway."

I wonder if people know I'm roleplaying?