Why no farming?

I mean like.. literal farming or mining or whatnot? Pretty much ANY sort of mindless resource gathering that does not involve killing? Let's face it, that sort of zen time spending is one of the things WoW got right... can't we have resource nodes of some kind here as well?

And not to make inventions, either. Perhaps these could be combined in recipes to create custom inspirations that last longer than the regulars, at the cost of needing to grind a skillset to make them?

I probably enjoyed resource gathering in 'that other game' way more than I should have- I'd be all over fishing or whatever here.

I'm thinking they skipped it because it's not thematic, but I wouldn't mind.

Not killing anything? That's crazy-talk.

I recently did a fairly comprehensive writeup on topics related to my experiences playing CoH, as contrasted with another game I used to play. The crafting thing certainly stands out. And here's the thing. I loved crafting... But I know a guy who viewed the lack of any kind of crafting or gathering as a big selling point of CoH. So I think there's people who really don't enjoy that, and I guess it makes sense that some games wouldn't try to provide it -- especially since, if you don't enjoy it, it's a pure distraction from actually playing the game.

You know, this would accomplish 2 things: non-combat gameplay and encouraging exploration.

I don't think that the market leader is worthy of emulation but this is 1 thing they could definitely use. It can be made thematic as scientific research, tech work, etc.

It's better to be NOT mindless, but it should be relaxing and involve exploration.

Why not make it 'researching'?

Instead of 'mining', you go into your 'secret lab' and 'experiment', coming up with new 'elements' and 'formulas' that create 'better' or new inspirations (perhaps combos).

Even the non-scientific heroes in comics often get goodies from some scientist's lab experiments.

You could use the X-Men style Danger Room to do the same thing - you train in your 'super-gym'.

Lots of ways to this without breaking the genre.

totally off the cuff idea- make badge markers something you interact with, so the 'you've got badge' announcement would also be a cue to click on it to some gameplay end, collecting it's 'drop', or unlocking a 'badge tip' mission with a story tied in to the badge.

yeah, that would be fun!

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think "instancing" the glowies wouldn't be necessary. If they're random and decently hidden you're unlikely to have "glowie-stealing" issues unless you're looking for them in Atlas park on Freedom or something. Keep the glowie spawn points far enough away from enemy spawn points to avoid the issue of other players coming in and sniping them while you're fighting off the enemies, and all is good.

Hmm, perhaps make glowies in hazard zones give a better chance of giving out the good loot? Of course since they're in hazard zones getting them would have to be more hazardous; maybe when you get one another one is marked on the minimap, which you must also click to get your loot, but it's surrounded by a fairly large group of enemies scaled to your level. Or instead of a glowie you rescue someone from a group of enemies, and then a glowie appears that you must lead them to (not too far, because that's annoying) and there are ambushes. Just throwing some ideas out there to maybe give people some more incentive to go into the hazard zones. The increased quality of loot would have to be worth the extra hassle required to get it of course. Yes, we're back to fighting our way through piles of enemies, but the hardest part would probably be finding the glowie in the first place.

Another idea: random NPCs that give out missions, or direct you toward loot, etc. They could be walking down the street mingling with the regular NPCs that tell you the time, only when you click on these NPCs they give you a mission. Or it could be one of the guys you rescued from the Tsoo handing you the relic he was fighting over because you're awesome and you deserve it. On redside, you could "rescue" people to take their stuff for yourself, or you could kidnap non-combat "captives" friendly to their captors (an Arachnos scientist guarded by Arachnos troops, a shady lawyer meeting with his Family clients, labor union advocate hanging out with Scrapyarders, etc). The rescues would probably have to be tied to player level though, else the 50s would sweep through the lower-level zones in a wave of carnage that would put the Great Pumpinhead, Reindeer and Underpant Gnome Hunt of i5 to shame.

I dunno - I loved the 6 issue story arc where Green Lantern and The Flash go fishing in Montana. Now THAT was some good comics!