Ooh, new splash screen.

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.

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

The Praetors are our job. States is just mopping up some stray mobs.

It sounds harse.. but Alpha is right. This is not the best art... it is not showing the core of the game at all.. There are several people having problems with the light back ground. And I honestly think the villains should be shown somewhere too.

The screenart is like an advertisement to the game. This one is focussing on Prateoria (which not all F2P players will be able to reach) and Heroes only (forgetting the fact there is more).

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.

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

Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
Arc: Coming Soon: The Incarnate Shadow Shard of Fire and Ice Mender Rednem needs you!
Massively.com opinion poll: Please Help Save CoH!

To be honest, I was one of the people shouting "Enough with Recluse! Enough with Arachnos! We want something else!" Having Recluse step down from the picture doesn't really come as a surprise to me, and I can't say I'm TOO disappointed. If you stop to think about it, Tech, I'm sure you'll agree at least somewhat that the suffocating, restricting Arachnos railroad had to go, and taking Recluse off the splash screen is one step towards doing that. It does have the unfortunate implication that "the devs hate villains," but I still feel that we can live villains and still dislike Arachnos at the same time.

Recluse is starting to turn into "the devil you know." When he was around, we pretty much all booed him. But he's been sort of off the radar for a while, and now we have other people to boo (Tyrant), so we remember Recluse with fondness not because of what he is, but largely because of what he IS NOT, and what Recluse and Arachnos are not is Praetorian.

Ideally, I'd like to get Jack Emmert, Jack Emmert and Jack Emmert off the splash screen if we can, by which I mean to get rid of Recluse, Tyrant AND STATESMAN. Keep them as heroes, keep them in the story... Just take them off the splash screen. I mean, you don't see Imeperious (Jack of the past) or Reichsman (Jack the M. Bison) on any of the splash screens.

I like what the Airhead (note: pick a name that doesn't make me sound like I'm insulting you ) said - the original splash screen's pile of heroes kind of does suggest that we, too, are also somewhere in that pile. This, to me, represents the original mentality of the game when it first went Live, and which hasn't really been back since - that the game is about US. Not me or you or anyone in particular, but about "us," the players. That pile of heroes, that's us. That's what's on the cover, that's what's on the manual, that's what's on the CD, that's what I see when I log into the game. It's a City of Heroes, not City of Statesman vs. City of Recluse vs. City of Tyrant.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

It's really sad that we have to keep saying that, but Leo is correct and anyone with an internet connection can see this.

"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

So, we swap one railroad for another? At least you could kick Recluse's faceplate in by yourself, and have his past self congratulate you on it, while saying "Right, not messing with you now."

I honestly prefer Recluse and Arachnos to Tyrant and Praetoria. Or maybe that's me getting sick of the Puddle of Annoyance and it's god-moding and railroading, along with the utterly Hax Praetorian mobs...

Edit: That, and Praetoria is paid for content only. Freedom should focus on the base game, the Heroes and the Villains, and THAT includes Recluse and Arachnos.

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.

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

I can't wait for an arc that shows what true villains the resistance are...
(*crosses his fingers for I21*)

The problem with choosing the devil you know over the devil you don't is you're still choosing the devil, and I'm not THAT big a fan of heavy metal. As I said, I don't believe Tyrant (or his BCU?) is a better choice for the splash screen. I don't believe Statesman is a good choice for the splash screen, either. I want to see the game become more about the players and their characters and less about a retread of the same old "monster of the week" methodology.

Speaking of the Splash Scree, you know what I would really want to see there? A picture of one of my own characters. Doesn't matter if it's the last one I played or one at random. If anything - and it pains me to praise that game - I believe Champions did that right. You log into the game, and what's the first thing you see? Your current character. No splash screens, no established canon characters, no storyline distillation. You log in, you see your own character standing in a city. That's what I want to see here, because at the end of the day, that's what it's all about: "Paragon City, where YOU are the hero!"

This kind of reminds me of professional wrestling, believe it or not. Though a goofy made-up sport, wrestling can still be fun and entertaining if you have two talented athletes in the ring playing their parts well. But all too often, the major wrestling shows - that's the WWE and especially TNA - seem to forget to book actual wrestling on their wrestling show, and spend 60 minutes out of a 90 minute show doing storylines, promos, storylines and generally "talking," instead. Which is fine, storyline is important. Wrestling is the soap opera for men, after all. But at the end of the day, it's still a wrestling show, and we still tune in to watch wrestling, not listen to the ******* GM! *ahem* Sorry...

My point is that City of Heroes is just that - it is a city full of super heroes, where the super heroes are us. Even if we do nothing else with the game, THAT is the one thing we can't avoid - adding to a city where we are the heroes. We. Not Jack Emmert's Mary Sue, not whoever's baby the Well of the Furies was, not Praetoria's god mode Sue. In all of this quest for overentangled storylines and railroading plots, the game seems to forget that at one point... It kind of was about us. It ain't any more. It's about the Coming Storm and the Praetorian War and Arachnos and the Rikti and all that other stuff. We're just extras in our own stories.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Er, this is the exact same thing in CoX. You log in and you go to the character select screen, where you see your character. The only difference is that the loading screens in CO are always flooded with canon characters and their events.

I really don't see how CO is superior in that respect.

Who the hell are you and how did you get camera's into my room?

I mean...uh...

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.

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

The "and go to the character select screen" should probably have tipped you off. The splash screen is the first thing you see when you log into City of Heroes. That's what you get bounced to if you get auto-logged, that's where you go when you log off and that's what you see first thing when you zone.

And rather than that always having the Statesman's face on it even though he hasn't been relevant in-game... Pretty much ever, I'd like it to have the picture of MY character on it. The game is very much capable of taking "on the fly" pics of characters and displaying them as pictures, as this is how you get your face on your ID card and how contacts get their faces in your Contacts menu.

You can still have it show the Statesman if I happen to be a brand new player logging in for the first time with no existing characters, but if I were a brand new player I'd probably be playing the game in a horribly stretched 800x600 resolution that I can't change unless I make a character, so I'm not sure how important that is.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Once the beta client downloads, I intend to test this to see if it still defaults to tiny*resolution upon a first run by clearing out its registry data. They've implemented staged downloading, comic book loading screens and in-game microtransactions, so I am optimistic that they will have added in EDID checking by now to ascertain the best / native resolution.

If not, then uh, it sorta gives a bad first impression.

Not really sure if that's a good idea to do automatically with no option to change it. I have, for instance, a laptop with a 17'' screen that's 1920x1200. The laptop generally can't handle current-generation games (or City of Heroes) at its native maximal resolution, so defaulting to that would be a bad thing.

I kind of think that they should institute the ability to tweak at least basic graphics settings at login somewhere, especially since the game wants to restart when you change them.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Well, you can fight some Crusaders on the Maria Jenkins arc - Just like we fight Longbow when they step out of line and become vigilantes.

You see splash screens with similar frequency in CO.

Take your pedantry somewhere constructive Sam, christ. We get it, nothing suits your standards.

Aha. So you come into a threat talking about the new splash screen - the one that's on the login menu - then insist on speaking about other splash screens, intentionally ignore all that I say, then insult me. Great. That's nice going there. Here's a hint - it's a discussion thread. I happen to enjoy discussing THE splash screen - the one that's on the login menu. Not the zone loading screens, not the mission loading screens, not the splash backgrounds for the editor or the mission architect, not the splash screen for the old or the new site. THE splash screen in question - the one that's on the login menu.

And if you'd taken a moment out of your reflex to bash me because it's me, you might have noticed that I said I like the splash screen. It's nice, bright and high-quality. It's better than what we have now for City of Heroes, which is a 7-year-old, low-resolution pic of pretty low-quality models that came out of pre-2000s prerendered cinematic, specifically that one City of Heroes intro that doesn't seem to be in any of the new releases, where the Statesman takes out a Rikti saucer.

But that's OK. You don't like me and prefer to sidetrack things I've said. I get it. Can we move on now, please? Like into a discussion about the splash screen? You know, the one that's on the loading menu, the one that's in Leandro's pic and the one that the thread is named after? Because that's the one I was referring to. The login menu is where I want to see either pictures of my characters or straight-up 3D models of them instead of a splash screen. That's on the login menu and not on any other splash screen anywhere else in the game. Just the login menu splash screen.

Am I being clear enough now or do you think there's somewhere else that Champions had splash screens that I failed to mention?

*edit*
For future reference, when you tell me I'm wrong, please ensure that I actually am. That way you won't have to retort with embarrassing backhand comments when I explain my position and why I'm not wrong and you simply misunderstood. But if it you'd sooner believe that I'm a dick than that you're wrong, then go right ahead. I'm more than willing to play bad guy for you to feel morally superior. No skin off my nose.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.