Thirty-Seven

/unsigned

I think the idea is that you are barred from certain powers until you have accrued a certain quantity of iXP for purposeful balance reasons... kinda like how you can't get to level 32 (and a pet on a Troller), until you go through level 31.

Do you think enough of us have said the same thing yet?

*scratches head*

Hmmm... for me a character always starts in one of two ways: concept first or powers first. In the case of 'concept first' chracters, there is something that inspires me to craft a given character. That might be a name that strikes me (as when I was driving to class and got to wondering if the name "Corridor" was taken on Justice... it wasn't and so a character was born), an idea for a backstory that holds my interest, or almost anything that gets me to thinking. Once a rough idea is planted in my head, I explore it, ponder it, turn it over in my mind for as long as it takes to hone it down into a less nebulous thing and into something that starts to 'breathe on its own.' If that happens, I have a winner... and likely a character that I will enjoy playing. However, that doesn't always happen.

The second phase of creation for me is picking the appropriate powers. I have a rule that I will try to NEVER repeat a powerset I have already played (irrespective of what AT it was played on). So, crafting the right backstory and concept and combining it with sets I have yet to play can be a challenge... but oftentimes that helps to narrow down a concept I have... and make it better. In the 'powers first' version I mentioned above, this process goes in reverse (first powers, then concept... which will be what happens when I create a Time Manipulation character for an SG project once i21 goes live).

Third in my process is almost always costume. I can spend HOURS crafting a costume. Days, actually, if I continually shelve a design and come back to it. I find that invariably, if I don't have a solid concept, any costume I make will suck. I have tried desperately to make good costumes for characters that are not fully fleshed out, so that I might develop them as I play... this rarely works for me. It is hugely important to me that I come up with a costume that fits the character I have crafted, that I like, and that will allow for further development (so that I can make use of other costume slots).

Once all of that stuff is sorted out, I check to see if the name I (might have) created in step one is available. If it is... I am done and ready to play. If not, then I will consult my background, gaze over the powersets, look at the costume some more, use thesauruses, dictionaries, Wikipedia, and translation tools to see what I can come up with. Ultimately, I might rework the entire character based on what names are available. I will NEVER use a number in place of a letter (i.e. leet speak) unless the character warrants (ex: Freakshow). I try to never use punctuation if I can avoid it, and then, when I do, only where it belongs (i.e. like Spider-Man's hyphen or a period after doctor's abbreviation). I also have to have a certain 'ring' to my names. If it doesn't I have to go back to the drawing board. I have re-rolled several characters because the name I chose ended up rubbing me the wrong way.

Also, someone above mentioned Mids... It bares mentioning that in my creation process, not a single thought is placed on how powerful, or how ideal a character will be in the game. It is all about how I envision it, and how much I think I will like the given combo. Like how I will likely never play Empathy or Pain Domination. Like how I rarely play MMs. How I absolutely adore my TA/Sonic Defender... owing nothing whatsoever to his lack of heals or -Res in his attacks. To put it simply, character creation has nothing to do with numbers... if it did, I would feel like I was playing Excel.



A few examples:

• Project Alcatraz — He was created when I contemplated how an extra-dimensional shape-shifting entity of near Lovecraftian proportions would look in CoH were he to inhabit the body of a scientist after a botched experiment. Each costume was to be totally different than the last, but still maintain some evil, strange, somewhat horrific combination. The name was brought about due to the brilliant idea that the entity could have been imprisoned in an alternate reality (i.e. the Shadow Shard). This just happens to dove-tail with the name of the secret energy project the scientist was working on. And of course, I had yet to play Claws/Dark... so that got set early too.
• Corridor — This guy, as said above, came from me driving to class and happening upon the name. He developed into a foil for another character of mine from a parallel universe in which magic and not science was the predominant force. He developed into a nice villain, methinks.
• Soulforged — (Seen in my sig image on the far right) He was a true oddity. His entire bio and conception was based on a few lines of poetry I thought of while messing in the character creator. Eventually I worked out a certain rythmn and syllable count and constructed a full background in the confines of that poem. He was deleted, re-named and re-costumed at least four seperate times. Finally, he was paired with the significant other (my boyfriend's character) who resurrected him... and forged soul-binding armor to his recently dead corpse. Also, his Primal Earth counterpart was just created as a Fifth Column experiment named Geistlos.

The "lava lair" is dead to me. A relic from an older, lamer Praetoria.

No word on addressing whatever is causing the "memory leak" and the crashing reported by many players? Or for that matter the "you get kicked randomly from a league over 19 players" bug?

Pretty!

'Love'? What are you talking about?

I've never heard of this movie before... but it looks interesting.

I almost never go to Galaxy... so I won't miss a dang thing and don't have a single attachement to the zone. I understand being sentimental, but I guess I just don't have any personal connection to relate to this zone. Not really understanding what is so great about it.

Was it a /petition or a /bug? Petition is the one you want. Also check to make sure that your e-mail address listed in your Account Page is accurate. You should have at LEAST gotten some sort of automated response.

If you still can't locate it... then send a new /petition. Also, if it was published, do a search there, and go to Edit. At least then you should be able to re-save it and not have lost EVERYTHING, just whatever you did since it was last published.