NaoGal

I find it amazing how this thread gone from 'Hey, look at some new stuff' to 'OMG RAGE!!!'
And while I usually avoid posting here, I feel I just have to say something (because you know, so many other people have to give their opinion like its the only possible right way to see things...)

Here's a little something that seems to have been overlooked here. This is a picture done in a comic-art style. If you study anything at all about comics, you know that /everything/ is exaggerated.
Even before this picture, Back Alley Brawler exemplified this concept in spades.
He's friggen huge, even by CoH standards. The guy makes Andrei the Giant look small, for crying out loud. But, that is exactly what comic-book art is supposed to do. Same with lighting and color effects. Sure, in real life, his skin-tone would likely not be so lightened because of a nearby light source (Though, this could be argued.) But again, this is comic book art. The light effects are exaggerated to make sure the person looking at the picture realizes, that he's probably surrounded by intense fire, or maybe he and SP are facing down some terrible, monstrous Shivan that just erupted from the ground behind the camera (hence why we can't see it. And those things are supposed to glow, after all.) Or maybe they are looking at a burning building that is about to collapse, and they know there are people still in it, thus the expressions on their faces (Which again, is exaggerated.)
The expression on Sister Psyche, along with her posture. Again, exaggerated to make sure that anyone who looks at that picture knows without a shadow of a doubt that she's shocked and maybe even terrified in that one moment of time. Asteroids are falling from the sky. An entire area of the city looks like it has been destroyed (from what we can tell from the picture, anyway.) God only knows how many people are dead, dying or trapped. And as one of the premier psychics of the world, she's very likely experiencing all of that at once. Combine this with some of the possibilities of what they might be looking at. I don't care if you 18, 80, or 800 years old. Unless you are ultra-jaded about life (which is not the impression that SP gives me) then you are going to be shocked, surprised and maybe even a bit scared and terrified.
If there is anything that could possibly be pointed out as bad in this picture (personal preferences for art aside) it could be the proportion of SP's *ahem* assets... Sure, it could be argued that they draw unneeded attention, and I will admit, they could have been drawn differently. But I am not going to bash an artist and call his work sexist because of it.
I like the picture. I like the concept. I like how it came out. If you don't like it, then come up with something better and draw it. I bet a lot of you would find that it's not as easy as you think.

*gets off her soap box and puts her sunglasses on*
There. It's said. Let the flaming and hatred commence.

Okay, I'm not aiming this at anyone specific. But since this subject refuses to die, there is something that I have to get off my chest.
I'm not going to say anything besides my own opinion and what I have seen in my own experience. So you can all take what you want from it.
I've PvPed a bit, I know how it works. While I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, I'm not a total noob either.
I play a Katana/SR Scrapper (I can hear the expert PvPers groaning already...) Part of getting into PvP is the simple fact that, yes, you are going to die. People are going to actively try to kill you. That's the entire point of PvP. Kill or be killed. (Correct me if I'm wrong, please.)
While I could probably sit here and quibble about unbalanced ATs (which I /could/ say something about, but I won't. Thats not what I want to get into here) or 'uber toons' that have nothing but purple IO's, I'm going to touch on the one single thing that I personally think is the biggest problem of all time.
Player attitude.
It cuts both ways, really. If you loose a fight, you lose. Is whining about it in Broadcast going to change that fact? No. As it has been said before, stop taking every loss so personally. It happens. If it really bothers you that much, get out of whatever zone you are in for a while. When you calm down, you'll realize just how silly it is to get upset about it.
On the other hand (and I have seen this more then anything, sadly) is the verbal grief that players get from the winners.
'Hahaha! You looz! Get out of my pvp, noob!'
Now, I know that it's not a huge percentage of people that do that, but the few that do give everyone else a really bad reputation. It's hard enough for the person who's new to PvP to get used to things while getting ganked repeatedly by the same stalker, all the while having to listen to his crap talk.
(And no, that wasn't intended to be a jab at Stalkers. I was just using that as an example.)
People wonder why PvP is floundering, (although I personally don't see that, it's just something I keep hearing) I say that it has less to do with gameplay and more with the general idea that PvPers are a bunch of childish ***wipes who act like 12 year olds that need to have their parents punish them more.
There was one rather rude player a while back (I forget his name) that, after being asked to stop spamming the Broadcast Channel in RV with his crap talk, responded with 'Hey, I pay my 15 bucks a month. I can say what I like.'
Sadly, that mentality is what keeps more people away from PvP. They simply don't want to deal with the douchbags that seem to invariably go with it, no matter which game you play.
Now, does that mean that there are no jerks in PvE? Hardly. But for some reason, it shows a lot more in PvP.
I guess, all I'm trying to say is that the biggest problem with PvP is something that the Devs can really do next to nothing about, unless they want to get really totalitarian about banning people. (Which leads to a whole slew of other problems...)
Anyway, like I said at the beginning of this post. This is all just my opinions. Take it or leave it.

Maybe I'm wrong, but when I get hit with a travel suppression power, it doesn't last very long. Perhaps it depends on what travel power you have. A character using flight who gets travel suppressed /will/ drop out of the sky, but does that prevent you from turning on Sprint and continuing to run away?
Maybe it's my build and the enhancements I have on that factors into things as well.
I'll freely admit if I am wrong on this since, as I have said, I am not an expert in all things CoX, but as ransim up above has said, suppression doesn't seem to make /that/ huge of a difference.

You know, I have been giving MasterGabriel's idea a lot of thought and come to realize that it actually does have merit. It would certainly keep people fighting longer, and possibly keep everyone from becoming schizophrenic jumping beans. (Though to be fair, I have seen such behavior on other MMORPGs, so it's nothing new.) Now, while I say the idea has merit, I am not sure if it would really implement well into the game. As much as I loathe to admit this (because it means I agree with certain other people that will remain nameless here,) PvP zones are designated PvP for a reason. By going into one of these zones, even if it is for some reason besides fighting another player, you accept the chance that you will run into a villain/hero (or if you are in Warburg, just another player) who might try and fight you.
It happens. Not all of them are going to ask you for permission to attack. They just will. (In fact, I would be kind of surprised if somebody did that outside of offering a challenge for a duel...)
It's the nature of the game.
Now, i13 has made it a lot easier to run away from unwanted fights (or at least that what I have seen anyway... Maybe I'm wrong...) Does that mean that someone who really wants to get you can't follow you? Nope. Anyone with enough persistence will be able to nab a potential target. Sometimes it just takes some effort (god forbid!)

Okay, enough on that...

Since my last post, I have PvPed some more, and I have a few more comments to make on it. Generally speaking, i13 PvP still seems a lot more 'user friendly' then i12. I am still getting my tail handed to me, (especially when I am up against a VEAT) but not nearly as much as I used to. And at least I can usually put up a decent fight!
From what I can see, the people that are whining and groaning the most about the differences are the people that can no longer single handedly drop an opponent in 2.34 seconds.
Again, it actually takes a little effort to defeat another player (again, god forbid you have to actually put a few ounces worth of work into killing someone!)

Okay, I'm done now, before this turns into a rant about peoples behavior rather then just PvP.

Before i13, I had tried PvPing a few times and ran through the different zones only occasionally, and as such, I guess I could be considered a casual PvPer at best. But getting into fight's in RV was nothing but a lesson in frustration. Dying repeatedly is not so bad, but being dropped in 2 hits no matter what I did was aggravating. (And this was only farther exasperated by the childish taunting that some players insist on doing, take what you want from that...)
Post i13 has seemingly changed things a lot. I was hesitant to venture out into the seemingly unending sea of hostility that always seemed to accompany going out into RV, but I braved it, if only to say that I at least tried it. Lo and behold, it wasn't so bad. Much to my surprise, I was actually surviving longer then 15 seconds once I got outside of the hero's base!
I'll be the first to admit, I'm not one to sit here and measure the hard numbers difference between i12 and i13. But for me, the changes were pretty positive. This isn't to say that I went out there and started dominating every PvP fight that happened. I still have lost more times then I have won overall, but it just seems more fun and balanced (and anyone who said that there were not any balancing issues before is just outright lying.)
Of one particular thing I feel worth mentioning... NPCs in the PvP areas. In RV, they are all over the place, and I have heard both positive and negative feedback on how they have gone from hardly noticeable speed bumps to a force to be considered. Personally, I think it adds a level of strategy to it all and is a good change. An outnumbered player now actually has allies that they can retreat back to if need be.