InfamousBrad

Redside isn't dead per se, at least not on Virtue, I see people there every time I play there. (I play almost all my solo content there, because I loathe the heck out of the blueside content.) Villains just don't team much prior to the 40s.

If Stalker:Energy Aura:Disrupt doesn't break Hide, and Stalker:Ice Armor:Chilling Embrace doesn't break Hide, can we please get Stalker:Dark Armor:Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom also changed to match? If not, why not?

I'm also somewhat annoyed that stalkers don't get Ice Melee to go with that Ice Armor; Ice Armor seems kind of pointless without it.

On the other hand, I have to say that I'm somewhere between psyched about the AoE component to Mastermind:Poison:Envenom and Weaken, and terrified about it. My Demons/Poison is already pretty sick; with those changes, it may be a completely overpowered combination. (Demons/Sonic is going to be pretty sick, too.)

The iPhone/Android app "Wikipanion" (search for it in the app store) just added a feature that will let them add any MediaWiki site ... and this morning, they added ParagonWiki to the list of supported wikis.

OMG! Whatever they're looking at, it scared Back Alley Brawler white! Whatever they're looking at, it scared Sister Psyche so much the light-green panels of her costume fell out!

Love the idea of comic-book style loading screens, but I think the coloring on these is way off so far.

Bubblers aren't entirely useless. Their main bubbles are, yes, but Repulsion Field and Force Bubble are handy for people trying to hack the terminals in stages 1, 2, and 3.

But yeah, I built Destiny Rebirth for a reason.

While you're being generous with pricing information, a friend of mine who's planning on picking up a free subscription wants to know how much it would cost a VIP account to unlock Mastermind or Controller access?

Bought. One goth chick, one pirate-wannabe girl, one time-traveling gunslinger, one airship pirate, and one steampunk professor re-costumed.

Do you have any objection to a US player logging in during the EU test period? I'm busy Tuesday night, but free during the afternoon. If the Internet is not failing me, that should work out to 1:00 pm Central Daylight Time?

The enhancement system is the only part of City of Heroes that is at all complex and that is significantly different from whatever other games you've played. Here are the most important new-player rules of thumb, dealing with enhancements, that I've learned:

Slot most damage-oriented attacks for at least +50% accuracy. These should be the first enhancements you drop into any power that requires a to-hit check. (Yes, there are exceptions to this rule. If you need to care about them, you're not a new player.)

Slot all attacks with one endurance reduction enhancement, as soon as you get them up to that accuracy number. This, not your toggles or your lack of slotting in Stamina, is why you're constantly out of endurance and other people aren't; your attack chain consumes 3/4ths or more of your endurance per minute, and the classic beginner's mistake is to assume the opposite.

As a general rule of thumb, put your earliest slots into your primary powers. By definition, your secondary powers are "things you don't do very well," things where your base stats for those powers already stink. You get more bang for the buck adding +20% (or whatever) to a large number than to a small number.

If you sell all of your level 4 to 19 common salvage on the auction house, priced at 1 inf minimum bid, and vendor the level 4 to 19 uncommon and rare, you'll never lack for enough inf to buy store-bought enhancements. High level players, grinding crafted enhancements to earn badges, pay way more for that salvage than it's worth, to you, to use it to craft things you'll use. Craft on-the-fly, while very low level, and you'll constantly be out of inf until you're well into your 30s. Ditto if you vendor everything. Other than accepting a donation from a higher-level friend, the single most reliable way to afford to fully-enhance your character is to use the auction house to vend low-level common salvage.

One more nitpick, if I may: is it at all possible to have the clockwork wings fold up more tightly when at rest? They stick out a LONG way back as they are now.

Also, some subjective feedback: on a lot of these pieces, the layout of color 1 versus color 2 seems odd or unintuitive, like requiring the shirt color to match the jacket (instead of the vest matching the jacket).

And the Steampunk Victorian boots, well, I couldn't find a color combination that didn't look, well, just plain WRONG unless I made the two colors the same, because of the weird color-blending that's going on there.

I'm really disappointed that the male/huge pants are only offered under Tucked In. They really should be offered as Tight and as uppers on Monstrous Legs.

I'd also like to echo the opinions of those who said that the various bow ties and cravats that are part of the various jackets and vests need to be removed, and moved to Chest Detail with the rest of the ties.

And, as I was afraid would happen, all of these jackets need to be ported to also be offered in Sleeveless Jacket form. It's kind of mildly disappointing that you didn't think to test the Steampunk Pack costume bits with any of the existing Steampunk armor, such as the existing Steampunk gloves that currently can't be used with them.

These images were shot on a Male model, standard Athletic proportions:

http://infamousbrad.com/jacket-test-1.jpg
http://infamousbrad.com/jacket-test-2.jpg

Bug #1: The texture of the shirt sleeves doesn't even come close to matching any available texture for jackets OR the shirt that's showing underneath either of the vests.

Bug #2: There is a huge perceptible gap between the sleeves and the body, with all of the jackets and all of the vests.

Let me join the legions of people who are disappointed that the Jacket options aren't offered to female characters. Come on, Paragon, didn't you take enough grief over this with the Magic pack? I thought the Science pack showed that you'd learned your lesson here.

I'm mildly disappointed that there isn't a Victorian Steampunk Hat option as a Hair style or Hat style for female characters -- here in the midwest, that tiny little cocked hat is de rigeur almost-mandatory for lady steampunks.

I'll log in in a few minutes and check, but I'll be deeply disappointed if the vests aren't available under Sleeveless Jackets, as well -- I can't be the only one thinking of using that option and some striped pants with the existing big bulky "Steam" gloves.

One more question occurred to me: will buying this pack unlock the same costume parts in the Mission Architect?

Oh, I just spotted a minor issue with it. The first character portrayed is wearing the coat from the Magic pack - does it also come with the Steampunk pack? If not, there's a smidgen of false advertising going on here.

As an aside, every time they announce one of these costume packs, the same people come out of the woodwork and complain that they're not included in the subscription price. Look, people: the subscription price hasn't gone up since gasoline was below $2 a gallon and milk was $1.50 a gallon. MMO subscription fees have just plain not kept up with inflation; salaries of people working on MMOs mostly have. Unless you're interested in CoH going to $25 or $30 a month, don't complain about microtransactions and costume packs.

All the images of the steampunk pistols and rifle makes me wonder what, if any, secondary powersets wouldn't look jarring with them. I don't suppose there's any chance of steampunk machines for the Traps set? or Devices? You know, replacement pseudo-Victorian versions of the Triage Beacon, Acid Mortar, Force Field Generator, Targeting Drone, Gun Drone, etc? Because, otherwise, I have no idea what to use the guns with that wouldn't look just plain wrong as soon as you used one of your secondary powers. (Electric Manip, maybe, I guess? or maybe Energy Manip. But still kind of wrong.)

And (too ask for too much, I know) it makes me really, really wish we could use Nemesis Jaegers as the droids for Robotics. Because a steampunk bots/traps, with that rifle, would be awesome.

My number one request for all things animation is to tone down the particle smog, tone it down a lot. I would like to propose the following as a general guideline:

Before turning any player-character particle effect loose on the servers, please play it internally on a team with 8 people all using that particle effect. If you can't see the enemies to click-target them through the smog, redesign the effect.

(Demon Summoning, in particular, is especially awful about this, but none of the powersets are especially good about it.)

Personally, I've got a pretty strong preference for keeping the social-only channels, RP-only channels, special-function channels, and general-purpose channels separate and tightly moderated. If anything, I wish the /help channel had moderation.

You know what would be seriously cool, even if they're not going to do it? If during Praetorian zone invasion events, Loyalist player characters could fight for the other side.