When did your toon come alive for you?

Like Steelclaw, many of my characters come from offline first, so they're already "alive" in my head.

But the one that really came to life that originated in-game is my Bots/FF MM, VPAH-0. I had a vague idea in mind of who he was and how he came to be, but he was a magic-origin robot, and I hadn't reconciled how that worked yet. At some point I did my first Crey mission, and started thinking about Crey as a company what they did, etc, and boom: VPAH-0 had his backstory.

The V.P.A.H project (Verne Prototype Artificial Humanoid) was a Crey attempt to beat Nemesis at his own game, by incorporating steampunk tech with modern tech to create new bio-organic mechanoids. Unfortunately, they couldn't figure out a power-source, and ended up turning to a recently acquired (and little understood) magical artifact. After installing it, the unit failed to function to their expectations, and the initial model was junked. The magical artifact, however, had an expected side-effect and it bestowed consciousness on the 0-unit, who came to awareness with one overriding desire: To destroy those who had tried to destroy it.

From that point on, I took every Crey-based mission I could get. I'm currently leveling VPAH-5, the first mechanoid VPAH-0 successfully created as help in his war against Crey.

My main Hero (My only blueside level 50) is still kind of in limbo. As an Invul/EM tanker, theres just something that doesn't quite click. I don't know wether it's the sets and my expectations, or his character, or what.

My main Villain came semi-alive for most of his carreer, but really kicked off when he hit the 50s. He's had the odd hiatus, but now he's well and truly settled as the diabolical little MM he's meant to be.

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

When I'm not playing as my 2 50's I have two characters I'm focusing on that have had "AH-HA!" moments recently.

Break Stuff, my Arachnos Soldier, actually had two. His first was when he got his second costume slot, and I came up with a great look for him. The second was after he hit 24 and became a Crab. The magic of the character faded after his powers changed, so I comented about it one the forums and following several suggestions I respeced him back into a Wolf Spider and I really enjoy playing him again. He has a great feel about him when I play. I imagine his fighting style as "I'm going to shoot you repeatedly, then bash your face in a few times, them shoot you some more just to make sure you're dead."

Kaos Blak, a Claws/Nin Stalker, had his "AH-HA!" moment a few days ago. I get to Port Oakes, complete my paper and Mayhem mishes, then pick a contact. I pick Angelo Vedetti, because it's been a long time since I took him. I get to the last mish of his arc and go "Oh ****, this is the Vampyr mish!" I don't know about you, but every time I do this mish my character gets beaten repeatedly and I end up either leveling a few times or dropping it to beat it. I go for it anyway, find the Vampyr, and take him down in about 30 seconds. After that, I want to level him some more and see what else he can take out! I'm still in the process of finalizing his bio.

Melancton and I go back a long way. The Circle of Thorns are yet another subset of the Satanic enemies he has battled his entire life, and he volunteered to come to Earth to fight them. He was my first hero in CoH.

It was probably in Perez Park, or possibly Kings Row, that my capeless rookie was on the street in all of his lvl 7 or 8 glory in March, 2005. I saw the green fire billowing up and heard the terrified victim shriek, "Somebody help me!" I was that somebody, and in I rushed.

The CoT pulled some tricks I had not encountered before, and they very nearly finished me. I had no inspirations and very little life left, but the CoT were all down. While I marvelled at still being standing, I looked at the victim and she sobbed, "They were going to kill me!"

That resonated with me.

If Melancton had not acted, she would have been murdered. Nearly five years later, my heroes are still acting to help those that cannot save themselves.

Most recently, it's Jacob Shadow. And what made him crystallize for me was, of all things, Ninja Run.

I'd seen that power all over the place and wasn't overly impressed with it. Consequently, I'd never bought the booster pack. But then I saw someone with a set of boots that I really liked. When I asked him about them, he said they were the Tai boots, came with the MA booster pack, and I had to have them. So I got them.

Now, Jacob Shadow is a Claws/WP scrapper, garbed completely in black, with all auras suppressed. The first time he turned on that Ninja Run and actually engaged in combat with it on (I tend to do a lot of jumping to get over uninteresting targets), it was breathtaking. I finally had the scrapper I wanted.

It hasn't been the same since. This will be the scrapper I get to 50.

My Kin/Arch is the very first character I made upon entering the city of Paragon. She has always been fun to play but over time I learned more about her abilities.

She truly became awesome to me when I finally understood that Explosive Arrow was not just good for getting foes off of my ###, but to knock them on theirs, and if done correctly at the feet of the nearest damage dealer.

I really haven't found a pattern to this yet. I usually start out with a pretty clear idea how I'm going to build a character before I start. This gets tweaked a bit as I play around with the power combos and costume editor but, by the time I get to the registration page, I actually have some semblance of a back story--except for the silly characters.

But after I drop them in the game, some concepts that were intially cool begin to fade on me and I leave those characters idle. But a few of my character conceptions just win me from the start and don't let go. If I didn't have alt-itis, I'd spend all my time just leveling the ones I really like. But my weird sense of obligation requires me to split my efforts all of them. Such is alt-itis.

For one character, Trench Terror, it's all about the costume--this robot is just too cool looking for me to ignore for long. For two others, Quark Zombie or Robot Lenin, it's all about the back story. The origin story is just too rich to leave alone. I wanna brag about my cleverness to anyone who bothers to read my toon's bio.

But basically I can't spot any pattern.

Only one Ah-ha! moment really sticks with me.

I had a mid-level Mind Control/Emp 'troller who was my entry into my SG's teen dicision. I'd gotten a decent backstory for his powers, etc., but nothing really seemed to set. The group was fun, but I was about to add him to the chopping block.

I'm running a timed msh in Perez, only to have to abort because a storm rolled into my area. It rolls out, I log back in, and still have time left. I hate failing a mission for any reason, so once more into the fray he goes.

While he's wailing on the bad guys, a newer member to the SG comes on and starts chatting through the SG channel. The usual character intros, yadda yadda. The conversation quickly turns to powers; she mentioned she blew things up, mine mentioned he just made them think they got blown up. Telepathy can be very convicing.

And then the immortal line: "That must make getting dates pretty easy, huh?"

To this day, I have -never- seen my 'troller so flustered. Despite being a teenaged male, the thought of using his power like that had never crossed his mind - and now that it was brought up, he refused to think any further along those lines. He was a Good Guy.

That little encounter saved him from the chopping block and eventually got him to 50. (With a lot of ugly bumps on the road there, but meh. It's Paragon.)

I got two chars that come easy and alive for me.
I first made Lady Arete on the US forum on a trial. After fighting various villains (including Circle of thorns) I began weaving her story (took a few years) even if I did not continue with the trial subscription.
When I returned a year or so later her background story was there.
For me though she became properly alive when I joined a roleplaying group and began rping with her.

My other char is Cyrene. She was my first real roleplaying character in Coh. For I had two choices really of char types (had to wait with the Lady) that first could enter the roleplaying group. It was either a storm/elec defender or an emp/son defender (cause they where both around same level). I had to choose one of them as a primary rp char that was going to be fleshed out as it were.
Through the rp, the small situations, errors in writing, decision to give her an accent... it all gave her a life.
Where the Lady can be all about redemption, hard, seriousminded and Lady like
Cyrene can be the spirit of fun, the innocent yet determined and not broken spirit that speaks with a southern accent, having a Statesman hero crush etc...

Most of my toons that make it past lv 12 (or so) have an emotional attachment for me but there are 3 standouts.

GRAY GODDESS:

My very first attempt at ANYTHING in City. A Kat/Regen stalker. For the longest time I wasn't sure she was going anywhere. Then she developed her own voice in the middle of a routine newspaper mission. Suddenly I could see her stealthing up behind a security guard and kissing him on the cheek...just before stabbing him. She got a lot scarier and a lot more interesting after that.

DOC VENDETTA:

My infamous "One Trick Pony" on Guardian. This was my attempt to build a Villain "healer" in the pre Pain Dom days. As with Gray, she didn't really seem destined for anything special until I hooked up with a regular play group. They helped define her personality and (thanks to dying a lot) gave her a bit of a cynical edge. She also has the distinction of being my first 50.


CASSADEGA DELGADO:

One day, wandering around the streets of Atlas Park (Protector), I thought to myself "What this city really needs are street performers." Since there really wasn't a way to pull that off effectively, the idea just lingered until the Magic Pack was introduced. Suddenly, I could juggle in game and a wise cracking, bad joke telling, Ms. Liberty dissing, street gypsy was born. I was having fun with the concept but it took on a life of it's own the moment a complete stranger built a character to go along with her. It's happened twice now . Egad, what have I unleashed.

I'm in the same boat as synthozoic, in a way, as I don't really *know* what makes a character 'come alive' for me. For a character to even get made, I've got to be able to come up with a powerset/AT combo I want to play, a mid's build that works, and a costume/concept that I like. Sometimes one of these (the concept especially) may be a bit nebulous at creation, but all three have to be there in at least a rudimentary fashion.

However, that doesn't necessarily provide that extra spark to make the leap from 'a collection of powers with a name and costume' to 'elemental force that pulls me along for the ride and spits me out at 3 AM, shaken and wondering what the heck just happened and where the last 8 or 9 hours went'. Sometimes that doesn't happen at all, sometimes it happens at some point, sometimes it even happens more than once. Often, for me, it happens once for a concept and costume, and a second time for ingame power and effectiveness.

For example, my warshade came alive for me before I even created her, when I wrote a several thousand word backstory for her all at once on the afternoon that her concept suddenly came to me. She entered the game as a fully realized character with a definite story, which doesn't usually happen for my characters immediately. Powers-wise, she came alive again at level 6 when I got nova and again at level 22 when I had stygan circle and dwarf and first truly experienced the addiction that is a warshade. But I don't know *what* it was about her backstory that grabbed me so. It just 'clicked'.

Aside: Nova Knight, one thing you might try is dark armor. I never actually made the character, but I found that, colored with shades of foam green and pale blues, it really looks appropriate for an aquatic theme.

when I get the costume to have just the right feel, with a name that matches

I've only developed a full back story on a few of my characters. That said still most of my characters are created with a purpose other than "lets try out this power combo", usually because of a costume idea or a name.

Father Xmas - Ice/Ice Tank - Orphaned by an apartment fire in Kings Row. Adopted by one the firemen who rescued him. Sent to college on the west coast before the first Rikti Invasion. Returned to Paragon and works for Tony Kord on power armor for fire/rescue. The suit uses ambient water vapor to generate an ice "armor" to protect the user in fire. Took the prototype out for a "field test" when he heard the Hellions robbed a warehouse of Christmas toys for an orphanage. But not wanting to get caught "borrowing" the prototype he disguised it in an old Santa suit (later replaced with a solid light holography system).

Lady Kitsune - Ill/Kin Controller - Her father was a US airman (Irish-American descent) stationed in Japan during the Korean war. Her mother was a fox. Literally. Well a fox spirit. Her mother was banished by her family for falling in love with a human. Couldn't go with them to the US when her father's tour was over. When Lady K came of age (20) in the 70s she was summoned back to Japan by her grandfather for training of her powers for the trials to come. Since that time she ages approximately one month per year. She only thought 3 years had passed when she finished only to discover it was more like 30. Her father is in his 70s now while she still looks to be in her 20s.

My first character from May of 2004 was/is a katana/regen scrapper. He was my "guy" right out of the gate. Although I made a few alts here and there and I played him almost exclusively until he reached level 50.

It's a little disturbing now to think about how my devotion to that one character borders on almost a kind of "man crush".

He came alive for me pretty much right from the start.

I remember spending what seemed like forever in the costume creator trying to get the costume just right. This was the 2004 costume creator mind you...nowhere near as robust as the one we have today.

If I started playing the game today I would probably never even make it to Outbreak. I would look at the sheer number of design choices and probably just short circuit.

The only reason I'm able to do it today is since I have been here as long as I have and am relatively familiar with what we have available to us, I am able to kind of picture an idea of what I want before I even start.

Otherwise I'm afraid I'd have to be put in one of those places where you sit in a big room in your bathrobe with lots of other people in their bathrobes and are fed pudding while you watch "Wheel of Fortune".


Of course...I also remember after spending all that time on the costume in the character creator that I created the perfect costume.

It was without a doubt the pinnacle of costume design perfection.

I almost pitied everyone else who would have to play the game with costumes so obviously inferior to mine.

I knew as I stepped into the game world that I was destined to be an instant celebrity due to my design acumen.

I was confident that within hours at most, all women would want me and all men would want to be me.

Then a strange thing happened. About the time I reached level 7 or so I looked at my costume and realized it was stupid and I hated it.

Since there was no ICON at the time I was forced to muddle through as best I could on the character I loved so much since I had after all reached level 7 which meant deleting him and re-rolling would have been sheer lunacy.

In my head, before character creation, as my imagination has to give life to them or I'll feel no attachment and be unable to play them. My characters come alive long before I ever enter the Rogue isles or Paragon City with them. And I don't even roleplay!

There needs to be an available name I like, that fits the concept I've come up with to justify putting together two powersets I want to play, plus a costume that works for that concept, and the bio that unifies everything into a believable character. Sometimes I'll create them without the bio (because I'm still refining it), but they never get past the tutorial until the bio is finished and in place.

Admittedly my characters are not safe from deletion until they get past L20 - if something doesn't work i.e. I come to dislike the name, or don't enjoy playing them, or they just don't feel right (even if I can't put my finger on why), then they'll get deleted. But even if that happens, if I liked the costume/concept/bio enough then chances are I'll remake that character if I can, changing what I didn't like - or I'll re-use the parts I did like to inspire a new character.

So it can take ages for me to make characters I like - sometimes months - getting a suitable name I like that isn't taken is often the major delay - so I'm always running through character creation options and concept ideas in my head, making new characters sometimes months in advance of when I'll actually start playing them.

I find it much easier to make NPCs for my AE arcs - because I'm not personally controlling them, and they're not representing me in the game, I don't need to feel that same attachment, so I can be more objective and less subjective, which speeds up creation to minutes instead of months.

One of my first toons was a dual blades/dark armor stalker I named Gloom-Knight. Back then, I was having fun but didn't really know what I was doing, and I made lots of mistakes with all my early characters. At level 17, poor Gloom-Knight had no travel power, had not even begun taking the prerequisites for Stamina, and was mostly slotted with TOs and very few DOs. Infamy-wise, he was nearly broke.

Other early toons were in just as bad a shape, but I continued playing them and "fixing" them as I learned better. But Gloom-Knight got parked at level 17, there to stagnate for months, because of an even more unforgivable problem--I coudn't stand his costume. As a "dark paladin" type of character, I had dressed him in medieval armor. It seemed appropriate at the moment of character creation, but turned out looking so clunky and awkward that it was impossible to imagine him stealthing about like the sneaky stalker he was supposed to be. More than anything else, my dissatisfaction with the costume ruined playing him for me.

Later on, I discovered that stalkers were my favorite AT villain-side, which eventually led me to revisit the idea of playing my first stalker again. But still I cringed at the idea of having to look at his awful costume. However, by this time, I was much more familiar with the costume creator, and had purchased several booster packs to boot. I started playing around with the creator and made a new Gloom-Knight costume using the stealth armor and adding some parts from the martial arts pack. The new costume had a much more modern (and stealthy) look while still maintaining the medieval theme. Not only was I pleased with it, I had to admit it was one of the best costumes I had ever created.

I logged in with Gloom-Knight and after a quick visit to the tailor to pick up the saved costume, I started him on some missions. I couldn't believe what a difference the change made, it was like playing a new character. Despite all the faults and bad choices ol' Gloomy was still saddled with, it was suddenly a joy to play him. I breezed through the next several levels as I got him to Stamina and equipped him with DOs (and soon thereafter, SOs).

There have been other characters who've benefited from a costume make-over, and it always increases my appreciation of them, but this time was the most dramatic. Gloom-Knight went from easily my least favorite toon to one of my most favorite, all on the strength of new duds.

For me a character comes alive when I've come up with a concept that I like, usually before creating them in the game bur sometimes after playing them a bit.

One reason I've had trouble playing blasters and defenders is that I had never come up wirth a good idea for one of these ATs. I had made a Kin defender only because of what I had read about kins being useful and by seeing how teams always wanted a kin to join. But the one I have has never really clicked with me. I've never been able to come up with a bio for him or just really inmmerse myself in the toon, and it's because there just isn't a concept behind him, I made him solely because Kins are L33t.

I had the same trouble with blasters. None of them made it past level 12, until I decided I wanted to create a Natural origin ranged atacker that didn't use Assault Rifle as his primary.
I eventually came up with the concept of a marooned alien that uses his specie's inherent psionic powers to fight crime. Ans so my currently level 20 Eng/Mind Blaster was born, and I love playing him as much as I did my main at that level.

When do they come alive?

When I look at the costume after what seems like hours of tweaking (in some cases, it WAS about two or so hours in the generator) and I go "Yeah, that's EXACTLY what I was picturing."

While I'm building the character design, their stories practically build themselves. By the time they step into Outbreak, I know just who they are and how they got there.