Speed_Bump

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I don't think so. I've seen ice blasters and ice controllers freeze people in blocks of ice hundreds of times and have yet to see any of them arrested for murder.

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Of course not. They are licensed heros. And they are accurate enough with their powers to only freeze the people that they want to freeze -- I've seen ice controllers put 3 gangsters on ice without even giving their hostage goose bumps.

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My NPC villain never leaves the station with me. I exit and he doesn't come with. I re-enter and he's gone.
Bug? Intended? Pie?

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A friend of mine and I did a King's Row mayhem mission the other night. Our villian pet (spines stalker) disapperared when we exited the station. When we zoned into the bank map, she was already there, fighting guards. We zoned in right as she died.

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As I said before when you get bombarded by blind invites you type /hide and sudenly everyone thinks you're offline.

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Including people who I want to know I'm online, and not including random strangers who happen to see me. No, thanks.

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Seems to me "I'm not looking for a team" and "I don't want a team" mean the same thing and that meaning comes down to "Leave me the hell alone, I don't wanna team"

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You'd think that. But I can't count the number of times I have seen someone spamming broadcast begging for a team -- while set for "Not looking." Or looked at the search comments and seen "INVITE ME NOW!!!11" -- but when they entered the message, they apparently didn't notice the icon right above it.

Or the recent trend -- "Hey, does your team have room for a <level> <AT>?" "I'm not on a team, and not looking for one, but if you set your icon to 'Looking for missions' instead of 'Not looking,' you might have more luck."

People just don't seem to grasp the LFT system.

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8. People who have Seeking team on or request for a team will quit the team as soon as they're invited.

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It depends on the team, here.

Some people seem to think that "Looking for team" means "Looking for ANY team, no matter what level, and no matter what my search comment says." Those I leave in a heartbeat.

Like the time my (then) 40ish blaster got invited to what turned out to be a cape mission. Or the many times that I have been invited to PL, bridge, or farm when my search message says "No PL, no bridging, no farming."

There have been other times when I have been sorely tempted to quit as soon as I joined. "Hey! Pick up a rack full of wakes and bring them to us!!!"

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I may be late (so this might have been said already), but the original strategy guide (published before release) mentioned that the Terra Volta trial would allow you to change your powers.

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A lot of the stuff that you see listed in the Prima guide were not in the game at release. There were no TFs and no trials. Most of these were added later.

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And if, as someone else said, it was based on a design document, then respecs were in all along.

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I disagree. As players, we see the live versions of the game. And the test version, but that wasn't in the game initially, either (added to test I1). If the developers are still ironing out bugs, we can't play it. And if we can't play it, it's effectively not in the game.

Shortly after the game was released there was a graphics bug in Independence Port. Floating barrels and debris were floating about 4' above the surface of the water, and some of the speedboats were sailing around half swamped.

Very true. Unfortunately, the edit time has expired, or I would add that to the guide.

So, you've finally figured out what archetype, origin, and powerset your new character will have. Your Ice/Ice tanker is going to be the Winter Knight! You flesh out your character information, you hit the "Enter Paragon City" button... and you see those terrible words on that popup window. "The name that you have chosen is already taken. Please try a new name!" What do you do?!!

What's in a Name?
The easiest thing to do would be to add a random character to the name. I strongly recommend against playing the Winter.Knight. Why? Several reasons.

First, a name that is so close to someone else's name causes confusion. It is very easy to miss a period or a comma here and there. Replacing letters with numbers, or an upper case i with a lower case L, can be even harder to spot. I once sent a rather long tell to Hot Shot providing him with some information. "OK, but why are you telling me this?" After a few tells back and forth, I realized that the person who was asking for the information in Broadcast was HOT SH0T. I was trying to help someone. Instead, a third party and I got annoyed at each other before I discovered my error, and HOT SH0T never did get the information that he was asking for.

It also makes it difficult for people to invite you to teams. "Hey, team leader, invite Dr. Pepper." If your name is "Dr Pepper." the leader may give up after several tries to invite you, and invite someone else in your place.

Some players look down on those with "cloned" names. You may find it harder to get help (even if tells to you don't go to someone else). Some team leaders may refuse to invite you (even if they can figure out the spelling).

The purpose of this guide is to show you some of the tools that are available to you.

What About Me?
I preordered this game two years ago. As a confirmed altaholic, I have had dozens of characters at one time or another, on several of the servers. I took an extended time away from the game and lost several names that I had to replace when I started playing again, as well. But every one of the names that I chose is uniquely my own.

Multiple Choice
The first thing that I would recommend is having several choices in mind when you create your character. Unlike most RPGs, people want to have names that describe their powers, their costume, or both. Odds are good that at least one of the names that you chose will be taken.

Let Me Rephrase That
If you have a multi word name, try rearranging it a bit. Shadow Knight is taken? How about Knight of Shadows? Or, to paraphrase Statesman in the original Prima guide, Amazing Man is taken? Try Mr. Amazing, Captain Amazing, Amazatron, or even AmazingMan.

If that doesn't work, it's time to do some digging. Hit the Windows button on your keyboard and open up your web browser.

Randomizer
There are several random name generator sites out there. Seventh Sanctum is one of the better ones, IMO. It lets you put in choices about your hero's powers and gives you several suggestions. You'll probably find something you can work with before too long.

Look It Up!
Go to an online encyclopedia and look up the the name you wanted. The article might give you new ideas that you want to try. Wikidpedia is a good one to try. My main is Mercurial, an electric/electric/electric blaster. As you might guess from my icon, she is a girl in silver metallic armor. To come up with a Praetorean version of her (electric/electric brute when I7 comes out), I looked up "liquid metals" on Wikidpedia. Cesium will have the same costume, done in a gold and silver blend.

Look It Up 2
Try an online dictionary and thesaurus, like Thesaurus.com. When I was looking for a name for my fire/fire brute, I went there and looked up fire, flame, burn, etc. I ended up choosing Kindling as the character name.

Foreign Affairs
Still can't find anything? Go to a foreign language dictionary. I use Freedict.com a lot, but any good search engine will find you several. If you want to use a language that has its own alphabet, like Russian, Japanese, or Arabic, you'll need to look for one with Translit or you won't be able to use it (Freedict includes Romanized Japanese). If you use a foreign language for the name, that might help to mold the character's appearance, as well. When I named my ice/storm controller Buriza-do (Japanese for blizzard), she became short and slender with black hair and dark eyes.

Baby Me
Still having trouble, or don't like any of those? Try a baby name site, like babycenter. This one allows you to search by name origin, and tells you the meaning of the names. I was looking for a Scandanavian name for my ice/ice dominator and decided on Linnea, which is the national flower of Sweden.

The Search is On!
You can also try any search engine. I use Dogpile, myself (it submits your search to most of the well known search engines and gives you the top results). But check your favorite search engine. When I lost the name for my ice/ice tanker, Frost Byte became Nitrofreeze (a cryogenic equipment manufacturer).

I thought that Plutonic was "Of or pertaining to Mickey Mouse's dog."

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Post on this forum and say you're a new player who would appreciate teaming up with someone experienced who is willing to answer questions and show you the ropes.

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Or post on your server's forum down at the bottom of the main index.

I'd be willing to help* new players on Triumph, and as an altaholic, I have characters ranging from level 6 to level 41.



*by "help", I mean "Talk about the game and group with for a while," not "Give influence to and power level."

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Does anyone remember a fantastic sci-fi game called Traveller?

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I still have the boxed set.

Some time after GDW folded, the main designer of Traveller started it up again as a world set for GURPS. You might want to check it out.

Bah, that's not old. I don't remember much about the Transformers or He-Man because I was in college when those cartoons came out. And I didn't play Dragon's Lair much -- too patterened. I was over on the Joust machine. A friend of mine and I made a great team. He could outclimb the blues (I couldn't) and I could hover at the top of the screen (which he couldn't do). Between us, those buzzards were dead.

My main is in a small supergroup named C. A. P. E. R. It stands for "the Civilian Authority for the Protection of Everybody, Regardless." Does anyone else remember the show it comes from?

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any chance you've got a link or two for the random super hero name generators?

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I saw Seventh Sanctum in another post. I've never used it, myself, but if you are stumped on a name, it can at least give you something to work with.

I agree with all of this but one part.
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If your name is taken, break it up. If Zombie Lord is taken, try Zombie-Lord or Zombie.Lord.

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Please, don't. If you do something like this, or even worse, if you go with Z0MBlE L0RD, Zombie Lord will be getting tells meant for you. He got to the name first. Live with it and move on.

If your name is taken, pick something else. Use a thesaurus (there are plenty of free ones online). I looked up Fire for my fire/fire brute catgirl and ended up choosing Kindling.

You can also look for different languages. There are tons of English/whatever dictionaries out there on the web, free to use. Ice Storm and Blizzard were taken for your Ice/Storm controller? How about Buriza-do, which is the same thing in Japanese? It also gives you an idea for the look. If the name is Japanese, go with an oriental face and skin tone, and go for a Japanese look on the costume.

Or just Google whatever name you want. Criogenetic was taken for your mutant ice blaster? Google criogenics and see if you come up with anything that interests you.

You can also try a baby name site. Again, there are tons of them free on the web. Most of them include the meaning and origin of the name.

There are also random superhero name generators out there on the internet. Put in a few parameters and hit enter until you see something you like.

One thing that took me a while to discover -- you can use these resources while you are at the character creation window. If you open up your web browser, then start the game, you can hit alt+tab and open up the browser.

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Not very good for a power gamer viewpoint, but nice from a fun/rp viewpoint.

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I agree with the OP. Since I started playing at release and my highest level is 36, I am hardly a power gamer. But going into battle with both hands and one foot tied behind my back doesn't sound fun to me at all. I earned those powers, and I see no reason to give them up.

On the other hand, using the powers and slots at lower levels would be seriously unbalanced. Even if I exemplared my 36 blaster down to 10, I would still be using multiple attacks (6-slotted with SOs) against mobs that are supposed to be challenging to people with few attacks, minimal slotting, and training enhancements. My lower level friends would still be sitting there watching me kill everything -- they would just be getting exp for it.

I don't know if there is a system that will make everybody happy. But I don't intend to use this one.

Mercurial