That would explain it! (And that’s what I figured happened, once I looked at the group settings.)
Amusingly, that’s pretty much the exact way I became the guild leader of the Burning Dog Legion, the SDMB WoW guild. Blizzard implemented a feature that allowed somebody else to depose the GL and take their place if the GL didn’t log in for 60 or 90 days, can’t remember which. I was eventually the only one still playing the game regularly, so I took the throne once it was apparent that none of the other occasionally-logged-in were interested.
No, you need to come up with a whole bunch of character concepts. An account can hold a thousand different alts.
Are you having trouble with the powers aspect, the backstory aspect, or both? Like, I see a lot of patriotic-themed heroes, but those could have almost any sort of powers. And even if you decide, say, that you want fire powers, I think there’s a fire/fire option for every non-epic archetype, that would of course all play entirely differently.
Yes, lots of character concepts! I’m up to 83 so far, and the ideas just keep coming. Granted, some of them are mostly “joke” characters, like my “evil chef” villain who uses radiation and poison powers. His name is “Recipe for Disaster”. And I recently rolled up “Sump’n Claus”, inspired by this SNL clip
Recipe for Disaster could team up with the cthulhu- theme’d master of cuisine, Chefolopod!
But seriously. I keep thinking ‘lightning throwing mage’ (cos I love lightning / electricity powers) but I don’t want to do the ‘fantasy person transported into a superhero world’ nor do I want to do a joke character.
I also really dig martial artists. But again, the backstory aspects seem to come out super-cliche for me.
I also have Major Marinara, a Water Blast/Fiery Aura sentinel. Here’s his backstory: Major Enrico Ravioli was an officer in the Italian army. In his spare time he practiced the science of cooking, and after retiring from the army he dedicated himself to perfecting his marinara recipe. He was ultimately so successful that his sauce attained near-sentience and formed a rudimentary mental bond with Maj. Ravioli. Enrico soon discovered he could telepathically control his sauce, and his military background made him realize his sauce could be weaponized.
Now he works to rehabilitate criminals by exposing them to the joy of cooking!
No, Major Marinara is not a Pastafarian. He’s a Raguan Catholic.
His “water” blast is colored red (as close as I could get to the color of marinara; alas, there’s no way to match the consistency), and his fiery auras are colored blue, because he’s cooking with gas.
I got my space/time controller, Geodesic, up to level 24 or so, and realized… I don’t like the powersets. At low levels he was kind of fun, but at the mid-levels the VFX are just kind of ugly, and this offends my soul. I did a taskforce with a group, and found myself just spamming his heal power over and over while keeping up the Time’s Juncture aura. It was pretty boring.
Yeah, that’s my “main” character’s build, too. Where by “main” I mean my first character, whose name is used for my global handle. And like you, I got a bit bored by him, too. With the result that I now have four or five characters higher-leveled than him (I’m not sure off the top of my head whether Colonel Murphy has passed him up yet or not). And I have a tank that I got even more bored with, who is stuck at an even lower level. When that happens, just make a different character.
ArrMatey!, my lightning blaster is indeed a “fantasy person transported into a superhero world”, though she’s a fey, not a wizard. It’s a perfectly valid superhero origin. But if you prefer, you could have nonmagical lightning powers, instead: You could be an inventor who made an electrical glove, for instance, or have been struck by lightning 17 times as a child, or just be a mutant and not worry about trying to explain it. Or, heck, just be a Natural hero who’s gotten really, really good at shuffling his feet on the carpet.
Science Origin: A Frankenstein’s-Creature type animation process imbued new life and the power to control electricity into unliving flesh/chemicals. The newborn being either rebelled against its creator or took up its dying creator’s mission, depending on your alignment choices.
Magic Origin: A newly restored Oranbegan spirit is revolted by the way the Circle obtained their new body, and sets out to find a way to free/restore their host, while trying to atone by using their ancient wizardly powers to help others along the way.
Tech Origin: While sifting through antique documents for a thesis, an engineering student stumbled across the lost notes of Nikola Tesla, and implemented several designs before the notes were stolen by [Nefarious Evildoer]. Strapping on a Self-Exciting Dynamo and a pair of Wardenclyffe Gauntlets, he set out to get the notes out of the Wrong Hands.
Mutant and Natural Origin: Mutant stories are more about the consequences of developing the power, so it could be almost anything. Natural stories for a lightning flinger would almost all be jokey, I think.
You are a normal person. Your carpet, however, has super-powers…probably from all those years of Blasters lying face-down on it, drooling. (Perhaps you bought it used after an office park had a going-out-of-business sale.)
Walking on your carpet has built up such a prodigious static charge that you can now release lightning from your body for hours at a time before needing to head home and recharge (by pacing moodily on the carpet while brooding about your arch-enemy).
My magic characters have all either been someone descended from a magical being (like Igneus who is the son of an Ifrit) or a modern day person who learned magical skills, like a Dr. Strange or John Constantine. I’ve never been a big fan of “I escaped from Narnia” kind of back stories.
Only two full 50s, my beloved Storm/Dark Defender the Stormy Knight and a fairly dull farming Brute named Silver Dollar, neither of whom has been respecced for set builds nor have I dabbled in Incarnates yet. My playtime has been a bit less lately, and when I am online I don’t feel like I can commit uninterrupted time, so I do a few missions at a time or even street hunt. I will team but am also content solo.
Clearly I am not leveling optimally, but I do have fun just using the powers. Been playing my Grav/Storm Controller Windy (using gravity as an analog for barometric pressure and wind – she can hold people in place with intense PSI or fling a car at them). It’s a visually entertaining and (for a Controller) pretty hard-hitting.
Late to the party, but I like to make a fashionable entrance.
Ever since CoH was (unofficially) resurrected, I’ve been fit to plotz wanting to download and play. As a bit of a technophobe, I was reliant on my partner to get it up and running for me, but he had concerns about both the legal issues and security.
Bless him, he kept a close eye on the situation all these months, did diligent research, and eventually concluded that it was reasonably safe. What finally tipped the scales for him was Dredd’s excellent download guide and FAQ.
Of course there’s no guarantee that NCSoft won’t decide to thump us, but obviously that’s a risk we’re all willing to take for the greater good of saving Paragon City.
My global handle is HeroicBeing. Hope to see you all soon!
Personally, I think that a case could be made for legality, based on either the concept of deliberately-abandoned property, or adverse possession (AKA squatter’s rights). I doubt there’s precedent for either being applied to intellectual property, but then again, there’s also no precedent for them not being applied.
But welcome back, Licentious Ectomorph! I’ll be sure to invite you to C.E.C.I.L. the next time I’m on.
I’m now up to four level 50s, all of whom have incarnates as far as hybrid, and two more in the 30s. My mastermind in particular got a LOT more effective when I respecced and put some care into his enhancements, and I also realized that goldsiders can do Summer Blockbusters with Red or Blue, and that MMs are very effective in SBB, which make me happy. My controller is also improving, though his real breakpoint is going to come in one more level, when he gets Chrono Shift.
One of my old alts was a Natural MA/SR retired Green Beret who joined the Reserves to help fight the Rikti. Super Jump stood in for being dropped by parachute.
His backstory was basically two verses from “The Ballad of the Green Berets” adjusted for going solo.
I’m getting closer to my 2nd and 3rd 50s - “Stabby Steffi” (dual blades/super reflexes scrapper) and “Mandy Manslapper” (martial arts/ninjitsu scrapper) are up to 45 and 44, respectively. Still going to be a bit slow going on them, since I’m splitting my attention between them, for mainly RP reasons. They are BFFs who started fighting crime together, so I keep them leveled together.
Close behind them are Roentgen Bull (SS/rad brute) and Teardrops (SS/Inv brute), both at 37.
Last night I got my vigilante, Captain Apple (staff fighting/willpower brute), to 30. Captain Apple is actually a superhero I created, on paper, about 30 years ago, back when I was still collecting comic books. He was intended to be a local hero, based in my hometown, so his CoH bio reflects that: “Hailing from Wenatchee, Washington, the ‘Apple Capitol of the World’, Captain Apple started out as a low-level, small-town vigilante, trying to do his part to combat crime. After Wenatchee and its orchards were mostly obliterated in an errant Rikti attack (he has since learned that the mistake was due to the fact that the word “apple” unfortunately sounds very much like the Rikti word for “munitions”, and the aliens thought they were attacking a major military target), he moved to Paragon City where he continues his efforts to fight crime.”
I love Wenatchee. The Rail Station is one of my favorite restaurants ever. My wife and I like to visit Cashmere now and then and we usually visit Wenatchee and Leavenworth too. Oh, and the Pybus Public Market is also great, we’ve been there multiple times.
