So are costumes and bases the last '2011' things to do? (non-rant)

I would happily start from scratch, so long as I didn't lose what's in storage.

Bases don't interest me in the slightest, especially with Matt Miller making it very clear that bases were meant to be TEAM content, so if they ever allowed you to invite offline characters, this would NOT extend to your own. Fine, Matt. You win. You can have your bases back. I don't want them any more, since I have no use for them any more. Not even a theoretical future one.

I say this not as a putdown (against base-fans, that is), but rather to provide context as to why I will only be focusing on discussing costumes below.

The importance and priority costumes in this game have been given since it was made back in 2004 astounds me. It took us, what, until I4 to get a SINGLE new piece entered into the game? Admittedly, it's a lot better these days. Prior to Freedom, we were getting about one full set in a Booster every three to four months. David has been very exciting about what Freedom will let the art team create in terms of costumes, but I have the feeling that's his enthusiasm speaking ahead of marketing and management.

The fact remains that SO MUCH MORE could be done with costumes, both in terms of the volume of costumes added and in terms of complexity of their design and the subsystems required to make them happen. But more is explicitly and intentionally NOT done because costumes as a general thing just never seem to be a major priority. Not even when we were shelling $10 for them, which surprises me. Categories like Robotic Arms, Assault Rife, Medieval Helmet and more have not had additions to them since farther back than my memory goes, and some have not had additions to them AT ALL. Weapon Sets like Assault Rifle have over half their inventory comprised of ugly, untintable, inappropriate stock weapons pulled out of NPCs and the only Robotic Arm with a big glove to this day remains Tech Wired/Steampunk, from seven years ago, with a whole of TWO extra robotic arms - Clockwork and Cyborg - added to it, both of which we had to pay for in one way or another. If I want to have an asymmetric large glove, it HAS to be Large Robotic Tech Wired.

Then we hear that power customization is not considered a priority and is not being worked on. Even if that's a rumour, it's what I was thinking before I heard it, anyway. The last attempt at power customization additions was the new Blaster animations, some of which were actually good, but which was faced with a profound cry of "That's it?!?" It's very much appreciated, but I know it for a fact that people wanted, and indeed expected much more.

I don't know what the art team is doing. I'm sure they're sunk up to their ears in hard work - I don't doubt their skill or commitment even for a second. City of Heroes has never looked this good. My question, however, concerns WHAT it is that they're doing and WHY it is that they're not making more costumes. Call me crazy, but I'm tired of new zones and new enemies. I want new things to put on my own characters.

For instance, have a look at this. This is Stardiver, and she could never have even existed were it not for I21. She's a combination of IDF and Celestial bits, with some Stealth and other bits thrown in. And I love this costume to bits! Yet without new costumes, it could never have happened. This is important. It needs to have a much higher priority than it does.

Quote:

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.

As much as I like seeing new things, I currently would prefer to see certain older content revisited, repolished, and redesigned as needed.

I'm a base-builder, and I'm in favor of starting my base over from scratch if it'd be necessary. The biggest problem I can see would be emptying-out all of the storage shelves and tables, but perhaps in the process of overhauling the base, a new, easier-to-use storage system could be introduced too?

As for Costumes, there's a number of little tweaks that can be made here, from old pieces being brought-back, to revamping existing pieces. There's a lot of older pieces that simply need a higher-resolution texture to bring them up to today's standards.

Aside from Bases and Costumes, there's a number of little systems in the game that could use fine-tuning. Some improvements to the e-mail system, for instance, so I can e-mail stacks of items (i.e. salvage) to myself would be a huge benefit. Maybe revamp the entire salvage system a bit to curtail the sheer number of salvage pieces. Even just going through all of the IO's themselves and fixing the large number of naming inconsistencies would be nice (as in how a recipe has one name, but the crafted IO from that recipe has a slightly different name).

Finally, with the precedent of Galaxy City's Echo being accessible from Ouroboros, I'd like to see some of the other, older zones also available, just from a historical standpoint. See Faultline, or the Rikti Crash Site, or the Hollows as they used to be (and be thankful for the revamps).