FlashToo

As a person who plays this game because it gives me enormous freedom to create interesting characters, I do both, because both ends of the villain spectrum can be equally interesting to me in a literary sense.

I have made villains at the "disgusting" end: my most notable in my opinion is actually my Darkside KotOR II character, who is pretty much exactly what you described in your first post. There's only so many ways to play that character though, and it gets a little boring after a while, so while I wouldn't say I have many of the glamorous Bond- and Batman-villain types you put at the other end (I do have one or two though), I don't have many of the exact character you describe either.

Actually, I don't think that the glamorous/disgusting continuum is a good way to describe it. The glamorous and disgusting categories you describe don't leave room for villains who have big, world-changing goals, powerful PR departments, the uncanny ability to keep coming back, and all the stuff you call glamorous but also have zero regard for human life, dignity, or beauty, and may be using all that power to shore up the empty, evil, depressing shell that you describe the "disgusting" villain as being. Characters like that are everywhere: Lord Voldemort, for instance, is a genocidal maniac and self-styled demigod with a cadre of minions and an obsession with grandeur, who tried to murder a baby because he'd heard that maybe the kid would grow up to be a threat, who thinks love, honor, remorse, and pretty much all concepts associated with good are delusions held by the weak, and who is driven by his own fear of death. I can't think which category to put a character like that in, but I'd lean towards the "disgusting" side. Others like this include the Jack Nicholson Joker (as opposed to Heath Ledger on the disgusting end and Mark Hamill/Bruce Timm on the glamorous end), Doctor Vazhilok (who's not far from what Voldemort would be if he were a mad scientist instead of a wizard), and Jabba the Hutt (you think he commits crime to help him sleep at night? Not unless it's smothering, or eating, a crying baby that's keeping him awake).

But really, what I like to play when I go for "disgusting" is what you call the easy way out: villains that do disgusting, revolting, horrifying things because their minds are not human, so they simply think nothing of it. Ancient undead creatures, infectious sentient mind-control fungus, predatory beasts, and sea demons all do plenty of the despicable, dark, villainous stuff people ask for, and they feel wimpy if they don't. I do have some "glamorous" villains as well, because mad science is so much more fun that way.

I want to know because I want to have a backup build in case my subscription lapses post-Freedom and my IOs stop working (yes, I know I have to pay to access the character while Premium, but it'd be a one-time fee and I'm okay with those). I'll use my Incarnate build and one of my normal builds for the IO'd Fort and NW builds I already have, and the other normal build for my oops-I'm-too-broke-to-pay-for-a-while SO build, so I can switch back to normal IO goodness when the money comes back. But since that leaves me with only one build to put SOs into, which progression should I go with? I'm leaning toward NW, but I'm never sure.

I am certain that the letters are from the Dream Doctor.

The Coming Storm is clearly a Rularuu invasion (just read the lore on Shivans - "Shiva" is a world-devouring entity whose first warnings appeared in the shadow of Ularu [sic], and that can't be a coincidence). The Dream Doctor, though not exactly a "rogue" Midnighter, is sufficiently detached in his current state that he might as well be, and we know he's searching the Dreamspace* for a way to stop the Circle of Thorns from "ascending to ultimate power." The Circle is a major enemy group in not only in the Shadow Shard TFs but also THE enemy group in Twilight's Son's TF.

Also, the Dream Doctor's writing "Why I Left and Why You Must Stay" is not only similar in writing style to the Letters but also mentions "something is coming and [he] must find it before it's too late" and that the Dream Doctor has "never been afraid to ask for help." I don't believe that his statement that it's "something [he] must do on [his] own" is sufficient evidence against his being the Letter Writer, either, since he follows it with advice to heroes (and villains!) to direct their own efforts to saving the world as well.

Not to mention the Midnighters have a crystal.


*Another notable bit of support considering Ayer's Rock (Uluru); just replace "space" with "time" to see the significance.

Yeah, that's been my story for about a year now and I'm going to stick to it.


EDIT: Ooh, ooh, and he even writes that he used a blade of some sort and shaved off a piece of himself! Fragmentary nature, and he calls Rularuu his counterpart - I bet Rularuu himself is an alternate-universe Dream Doctor who first drank from the Well, then continued to gain power all the way up to full godhood, which (as frequently happens with ex-mortals) resulted in madness. Everything is making more and more sense.

Not resetting the tray when you respec would probably be harder.

I'm all for the save/load idea.

For about a year, I've been playing a Grav/Kin controller called The Hour Thief. I will not be rerolling him - he's too much of a perpetual motion machine for me to want to do that, and he's also level 40 or so. I will, however, be making a second version of him that uses Time Manipulation, and if it proves fun enough I'll spend some Paragon Points on name changes so I can swap the primary name of "Hour Thief" to the new version and the secondary name of "Edmund Templeton" to the old one.

Still wish Time had been default-colored gold...

The one question that remains: Is its uncustomized appearance, as the coloring of O-portals and the inventory icon of Temporal Sands salvage has been suggesting for long before the set existed, gold?

Well, they still look like WoW, but at least they look like the Circle again.

Old designs are still better. Wish we could have just had the old designs with a little polish, but I didn't have my hopes up.

Crosspost from a different thread, where I posted a counterpoint to someone's explaining that Valkyrie should not use any Valkyrie armor parts because they don't look techy enough:



(Just pretend she has the correct chest detail and her spear, I didn't feel like shopping them in and I subsituted the Ring Strap).

If both she and Battle Maiden could look more like this instead of like the ICON advertizement for the Valkyrie items that Battle Maiden is now, that'd be supercool. Also, removing the back-of-neck shield from Valkyrie's helmet as I put it together here would help it look sleek and techy. I just wanted to have the cheek guards represented, because they look good and Valkyrie has them now.

You know who bugs me the most is Steven Sheridan.

For years, he's looked like this: Probably about 60 years old judging by his lined face and steel-gray hair. This is what he looks like. This is the character they have established.

Then, suddenly, the Going Rogue tries to tell me that this is the same person, despite obviously being twenty years younger. It's not even as if this is Praetorian Steven - when he introduces himself, he explains that he is from Primal Earth.

And the original Steven Sheridan standing outside the hospital in Brickstown remains unchanged.

WHAT.