Category: Character Design

You might check out the Titan Icon project, which opens up the Costume Maker and lets you play CoH Paper Dolls design characters with it.

Of course, some might find it too frustrating to be able to create characters visually, but not play them.  But others might not.

Note that directly working with the CoH files may violate the CoH Terms of Service (ha!) or cause someone at NCSoft to become quite cross with you (HA!).

(h/t to ZzzzSleep)

Continuing my series of City of Heroes characters …

Over the years, Margie did a lot of solo play in City of Heroes, on a variety of servers. She actually got four solo toons to 50 (including one the day before last of the game), and many others into their 30s and 40s.

One advantage of this is that it encouraged us to create SGs on all those servers, which served her purposes (base!), but also let us play new toons there as needed.

Here’s a collection of some of her major solo toons, followed by some other miscellaneous characters I wanted to write about.

Blue Point was a Broadsword scrapper that Margie soloed to 50. She played around with costumes with her quite a bit.

Day Old Shelf was one of Margie’s characters from the Devil’s Food SG on Freedom, a Zombie/Force Field Mastermind.  She actually pushed him to 50, too. Grats!

Old Star, on Pinnacle, was a Fire/Rad Controller. She one of the ones Margie got up to 50. While controllers are not high DPS, normally, this particular combo had striking Tanking abilities, and lots of AoE fire and rad control, both with damage. It was a methodical destruction of everything she encountered, but it worked.

Fantasy Enforcer was a Broadsword/Willpower Scrapper on Infinity. Margie dinged her to 50 the day before CoH went down.

Fallen Twice was another toon that Margie kept coming back to. A Defender, Kinetics/Electric, he was slow to advance, but apparently fun to play (he got up to at least 20).

Margie did a couple of versions of him. The last pic shows Second Fallen, with one of my favorite (conceptually) early toons, (“They Call Me …”) Mr. Thebes.

We never had much luck playing Kheldians, either teamed up or in mixed pairs. Which is a shame, because they were a really neat concept, just compromised in too many ways.  Above is Margie’s Cetus, who got to 22.  No idea about the pirate motif …

The Last Ice Dragon was … well, a Dragon (or, as I recall the backstory, a survivor from a primordial race of reptilians). And an Ice/Ice Blaster. She never dinged 50, but Margie played her a lot to get her to 37. Soloing with a blaster is not at all easy, but Ice, with its speed debuffs, is not a bad way to go with it.

Another Margie character, Blue Isles (Dual Pistols / Energy Manip Blaster 26).

A few miscellaneous characters, just because:  My Thyme (Scrapper 23); Darke Hope (Scrapper 24), Deep Charge (Energy Brute 21). Margie liked her High-DPS Melee Characters.

Jack a Lope made it to 29 (in her highest level version), but Margie wanted to take some Shadow Shard pictures, so here’s this mid-level Martial Arts/Invuln Scrapper … in ANOTHER DIMENSION!

Honorable mention to Margie’s toons Copper Mountain (several iterations), Ultra-Violet, Ultra-Violette, Exquisite Flame, Divine Retribution, Blue Tangerine, Crownless King, Eluwen, Lonely Angel, Lufwage, Midnight Death, Sa’Kage, Secret, Trixie J., Victorian Pride (Scrapper 12), Bad-Tough, Big Orange (Scrapper 20).

* * *

And a few last bits and bobs …

Sister Chinook was one of my original toons, an Ice Controller. I had mixed experiences with that set — lots of control, but also a lot of visual clutter.  I rolled several of them over the years.  She had a fun backstory as an Inuit student at University of Paragon who discovered she’d been gifted with powers from the Spirits of the North, etc. I liked the idea that she was wearing jeans and a gray sweatshirt for her costume.

She ran briefly with Kay, a Kim Possible scrapper that Margie rolled up.

I always liked the design here for Spangle (or Spangled, in different incarnations). I was much more into the “Civilian Costumes with a Bit of Decor” for the most part, rather than full-body Spandex.  I think I rolled her up as both a Magic-based Tank and as a Dual-Swords Scrapper. Neither went far.

Next to her is Old Saucy Jack, my Jack the Ripper reincarnated-to-make-up-for-his-sins.  Yeah, the broadsword was maybe a bit much, but I liked the red gradient on his white gloves.

Big Lungs was a Sonic/Sonic Defender. I found the power sets boring, but enjoyed the, um, character design.

OFFICER (yes, it actually stood for something) was law enforcement robot piloted by Paragon City’s Police.  Energy Blaster, as I recall. Soloed him for a while, but eventually scrapped him (so to speak) to get the slot back on whatever server it was on.

Snipehunter was another very early solo toon, another Energy Blaster, kind of my answer to Deadshot.

Suzy Atom and Star Protector were an early duo Margie and I ran, very four-color. She was an Energy Scrapper, as I recall, one of the few of those I ever ran. He was a Defender of some sort.

Cetus and Lunulata were Kheldians we rolled up. Never went anywhere, but, for the record …

For a good chunk of time, I ran with one of the on-screen add-ons that someone put together for CoH.  It tracked both buffs/debuff timing (this was before the buff markers flashed), as well as tracking experience and time to level.  This was Psi-clone (looking at the buffs and accolades), about 10 minutes from leveling to 50.

Eventually, the on-screen info provided by the game, plus the lag in this particular tool keeping track of changes between issues, and a general diminution of compulsion to know how long to level, caused me to drop this particular tool.

When you finally hit 14, you got your travel power (for many, many years). Since that was usually while running around in Steel Canyon, you usually celebrated by going to the top of the big statue in the middle of Steel Canyon, right where you leveled up.  Here’s Amorpha and Psi-clone.

Katherine ended up playing more over time, but never enough to warrent her own account. Early days, she’d play around a bit on Margie’s account (later on, on Test, since you could be signed into both).  This was her first character, Kitty Shoulder, a Defender on Guardian whom she got up to Level 6.

I think Protector (under Margie’s account) was one of the servers Kay generated a lot of test characters on …

One time when my folks were visiting, my mom asked what all the fuss was.  I walked her through building a character, Carey, a Fire Blaster. She never played it, but I kept the toon around, just because.

Kheldiel was another concept character, the idea of a Kheldian merging with an Angel, all glowy and hovering and all of that.  It would have worked beautifully, if Kheldians hadn’t been such a PitA to play.

And so, fittingly, we end on an angel …

* * *

And that’s it, a good percentage of the characters I (or Margie) cared about during our several years playing City of Heroes.  Where might they have gone on to?  Who else might have been created?

We’ll never know.

Thanks for your patience … we’ll resume regular blogging here about other games … soon …

Continuing my series of City of Heroes characters, server by server …

Our toons on Exalted were a more recent phenomenon, with the server opened up for play for VIP members only with the introduction of CoH’s Free-to-Play option. We weren’t interested it for the hoity-toity VIP exclusivity so much as it was another server to populate, especially with a variety of new power sets that came out in the last year of the game.

I think we also pushed a bunch of toons onto this server before they turned off new Level Pacts being created. (LPs were one of the greatest concepts in CoH, and I was very disappointed they never got them turned back on).

One problem with Exalted was that it was introduced late enough, and our character there young enough that I don’t have much in the way of photos of them. And Margie didn’t get more than just a couple of characters snapshotted during our last week.  Darn.

I had a half-dozen Jack Byzantine variations scattered across the servers. Not to be confused with John Constantine, the rain-coated smoking magician usually was a Mastermind, especially in this last edition (up to lvl 21) as a Demons MM. Margie’s counterpart was Brimstone Bound, a Brute.

The Grey Haunt was another one I had multiple versions of, the ghost from the 1930s who is out to seek revenge as a Mind Controller (or sometimes Illusion Controller), instilling fear in the hears of others. Air/Wind secondary, as I recall. This one reached 20. He ran with Imperial Jade, a Brute.

We managed to not get pictures of either of Margie’s characters.

Morgaine Darkchilde was just an excuse to create a buxom witch with the new Dark Blast power. Plus the name was fun. She made it to 18, along with her partner, Electric Lass, a Tank.

Golden God was sort of scary fun. He was a scrapper using the short-lived Titan Weapon skill set. He was another scrapper+scrapper combo, working with Golden Temptation. They made it up to 15.  We don’t have a picture of her, unfortunately.

Rifleman was was modeled after Chuck Conner’s TV character of the same name, crossed with a Cowboys-and-Aliens twist, as some interesting gauntlets provided an alien Energy Rifle (blaster, 12).  ER was an interesting combo power set. I wish I’d had more of a chance to play with it. He didn’t bat an eye running with Troll Babe, a Brute. And, again, no pictures.

In the 10-and-under set, Bacchante used the new Water Blaster power, combined with power customization, to make it look like she was a Wine blaster. I believe she was paired with Margie’s (unpictured) Minutiae (a Defender).

I also had another version of Velvet, going full-out for the trailer trash look (though reminding me here of Tandy from Strangers in Paradise). She was a SS/Willpower Scrapper, this time out, which was a lot more fun. To go with her was Agent Psiren.

And there’s another version of Tyger-Tyger, the burning-bright fire/fire scrapper. Alas, he was a Red-side character, so unlikely to ever advance anywhere. Ran with El Cid, a controller. They made it to 8.

Unified Fieldman used the steampunk costumes to good effect. He was a Grav/Time controller, which seemed appropriately physical, but never got out of Praetoria. Ran with Divine Retribution, a scrapper, up to 7

Call o’ the Wild was a beast elemental (and Wolves MM). Ran with Chaotic Order, a scrapper.

Last there is Calling Time, one of Margie’s toons (Lvl 12 Defender, obviously with the Time power set).

Some of these may have eventually become big successes, but that clearly hadn’t been thrashed out yet.

Honorable Mention on this server to Shadow Moll (perfect name for a Dark scrapper who had the power “Shadow Maul”) and, along the same lines, another version of Lynne Calodo as a solo Dark/Inv scrapper.

Continuing my series of City of Heroes characters, server by server …

If Champions was our first, best server home, Victory was where we moved afterwards.  It had some of our top characters, and also represented the period when Going Rogue came out and we generated a truck-load of alts to run through Praetoria. Almost all of those ended up Blue-side after they hit 30.

Rita the Cat and Runt the Dog were modeled after the singing duo in Animaniacs (indeed, that was the name of our SG on Victory).  They both got up to Level 47 as Scrappers — Rita was Claws/Regen, Runt was Dark/Regen, and both used Super-Jump as a travel power.  They were amazingly effective and fun, and we told lots of jokes with them. I would have loved to have gotten them to 50 …

Runt stayed pretty constant in appearance, once the monster/villain costume pieces were out.  (I was never quite sure about the kilt, but …). I was never happy with Rita’s appearance, though, toying with various costume bits and facial features over the years.

Gifted Kid and Special Educator were Level 44 Masterminds.  GK was Robots/Bubbles (very high-tech), while SE was Gangs/Dark (a very dubious teacher).  They were one of the very few Red-side groups we were successful with — the dual-Mastermind powers were just too much swarmy fun, and almost made the game play like a squad-level tactical simulation (with the two actual characters as the heavy weapons from the rear lines).

Bubbles — er, Force Fields — were a greatly underestimated power set.  Not only were they an easy buff for the whole team (especially once CoH allowed you to cast them on one team member and have it apply to everyone), but the push-back-knock-down power was highly effective at knocking most Bosses on their butts. Plus, combined with MM, it was a fire-and-forget combo.

I found Dark to be an annoying Defender power, too, but Margie showed it worked quite nicely with MMs.

Another pair that would definitely have gone to 50 with time.

I’d enjoyed Kitsune-Chan on the run up to 50, as a character, that I wanted to do another one. We took the Praetorian version of her — instead of an Illusion Controller beloved by all, Kitsune-Sama became a bad girl Thugs/Pain Mastermind.  She teamed with a re-rolled (alternate universe) version of Anne Koniki, here a Spines scrapper. They got up to 40, and were definitely on their way to being Heroes of the City.

Pistol Blasters rocked. Mine, Velorio, went to 38 alongside her fellow former Praetorian, Golden Judgement, a Shield Tank.  Velorio was blind, but possessed by magical pistols of vengeance.  Woo-hoo.  We decided ultimately to make the Vigilantes rather than pure Heroes, because we could, but never saw any real effect from that.

We would have eventually taken them to 50, I have no doubt.

Another set of one-time Praetorians, Ms. Crackle was that universe’s version of my solo Electrical Blaster, Miss Crackle — except her suit was set up to make her an Electrical Controller instead.  She teamed up with Positive Force, a Kinetics/Electrical Scrapper.  The two of them were awesomely effective, with their electrical powers basically sucking the juice out of their opponents.  Fun, fun times. This pair would have made it to 50.

Yet another Eliza Dee — this was was rolled up (in Praetoria) as a Super-Strength/Invuln Brute. She ran with Fragile Package (Rad/Kinetics Corruptor). They graduated from Praetoria, but jumped to the Villain side, making it up to 28. They were semi-regularly played.

Since we had done so well with Rita and Runt, we rolled up (when the animal makeup became available) two Brutes to try out along the same vein: Rhett Bull (lvl 26 Axe/Shield) and Phoenix Reburn (lvl 26 Fire/Fire). We colloquially called them “Cow and Chicken”. They worked out very nicely, even if the Brute bar had us running around like lunatics.

I’m really sorry I didn’t get pictures of them in action. In particular, he looked awesome with the axe and shield out.

Another fun pair we would regularly come back to, even if they were Red-side.  I wanted another Fire Blaster, but Margie convinced me to try a Corruptor instead to be more offensive.  We ended up with the horribly spoiled mage Finest Jade (23 Fire/Rad Corruptor), looked after (under orders from her parents) by My Lady’s Keeper (Zombies/Dark? Mastermind),

Shishiko was a Cat-person Thief I ran in a campaign many moons ago. I loved the idea of bringing her to CoH, and tried multiple times over the years. In this instance (probably the most successful), she was a Katana/Super-Reflexes Scrapper, teamed with a re-rolled version of Arctic Sugar, an Ice Defender who was always armoring Shishiko up in Ice … which was a good thing tactically, but sort of spoiled her look. They made it to 21, but never quite “clicked”.

We tried one pair of Arachnos troops — Cyanoglobin (lvl 10 Arachnos Soldier) with Wind-Up Spider a Widow-style Arachnos. They suffered from being Red-side, and not being very … exciting at low levels.

Motivation was a Kinetics/Will Scrapper I soloed up to 14. Kinetics was a fun melee set, but I just wasn’t in the mood for low-level solo scrappers.

We tried playing a three-player combo (with Katherine on F2P), right after the Steampunk costume sets came out.  I created a new Steampunk Mollie Magpie 12 (Grav Controller); oh, Lordy, I loved those wings.  Margie had Victorian Pride, a Scrapper of some sort.  I don’t recall Kay’s toon. We never had much success playing as a trio, and only got up to 12 with them.

Cammie Kandachi was a Lvl 14 Electrical Brute, Red Side.  I just loved the outfit, even if I never went far with her.  Margie had an early version of Anne Kojiki with her, who later would team up (rerolled) with Kitsune-sama (above).

Honorable Mention to (yet another) Jack Byzantine, and Egnarts of Rigel

Continuing my series of City of Heroes characters, server by server …

Triumph was a server we didn’t do a lot on as a pair — except for one very successful duo:

If at first you succeed, then try, try, again the same way. Having had a blast running Psi-clone up to 50 as an Illusion Controller, I rolled up Kitsune-Chan, also an Illusion Controller, except with Radiation as the secondary instead of Empathy.  She was a kitsune Fox Spirit, and so convinced she was the Prettiest One There Is (with plenty of Illusions to back that up).

She was one of the two long-term characters I selected Super-Speed for as a travel power.  There was a lot of visceral thrill to SS (and a Stealth buff), but zones with a lot of vertical movement were a real pain in the butt.

Margie rolled up Ex-Terra, a Spines/Invuln Scrapper.  Aside from the whole fun of Illusion, the AoE of Radiation and Spines both made them extremely formidable.  We dinged to 50 with them with very little trouble.  They were a great pair.

I eventually rolled a somewhat different Kitsune over on Victory.

It’s kind of weird that we had a level 40 pair on Triumph but never really did that much more on the server.

I did make one last effort at the whole Rad Blaster thing with Allie McGordo (an obvious variant on the various Al McGordo’s over time), a Rad Corruptor who eventually made it up to 21 with her companion, Widow Shade. I think they eventually suffered the death of disinterest that most of our Red-side alts suffered.

I have no idea what kind of Controller Mrs. Soccer Mom was.  She only made it up to Level 12 with her counterpart from Margie’s side (Mr. Soccer Dad).

I was always fascinated by Grav Controllers — at least in the “pull in a huge object from another dimension” aspect of their powers.  Molly Magpie was a favorite for her name and costume design, and I soloed with her for a while, but soloing a Controller is a PitA, and she never got beyond 11.

The idea of a Living Egyptian Statue (Stone Tank) with a Pharaonic headpiece named [“They Call Me”] Mister Thebes was way too fun to never write up, but a boring character to solo beyond 6.

Yore was an Axe Tank. I never did anything with him, but I loved his look.

Honorable Mentions to Warbolt, Amethyst Crown, Mister Drake, Unchained Lightning, Panda Attack, and Captain Antares.

Continuing my series of City of Heroes characters, server by server …

For some folks, Virtue was the server, and it was almost always pretty crowded.

Margie and I never got into Virtue as a pair, mainly because of the crowds/lag.  I think we did some Red-side gameplay, but that was about it for the two of us.

For me, though, it was the Server of Many Solo Toons.  Since what you want when you’re PUGging is a crowd, it seemed the logical thing to do.

On the other hand, since it is a soloist server (for me), I don’t have many in-action screen caps, just (as of today) selection screens.

If there had ever been a solo toon that I would have gotten up to 50, it would have been Miss Crackle.  Smiling and happy as the day is long, she was an Electrical/Energy Blaster (thanks to her hi-tech suit), and was usually pretty welcome in most PUGs.   I got her up to (the magical) 47, with no pictures. Crikey.

 

Lady Zebra was a hoot to play. Taken from a character I wrote up for a NaNoWriMo comic book tale, she was a cranky alien speedster who just happened to look like a terrestrial zebra.  She was a Martial Arts/Regen scrapper (44), and I loved playing her.  The MA kicks done with hooves looked great, and while I usually played supporting roles in duos with Margie, Lady Z gave me a scrapperly outlet when I was feeling in the mood.  I also had a series of tell macros that made a lot of bad combat-related puns that centered on horses, hooves, stripes, etc. Again, a hoot.

Again, one of the very few characters I ever took Super-Speed with — the necessary fit with the character, but a pain in city zones with a lot of vertical to them.

(The one action kick with her above is, sadly, when she had “normal” boots, before the hooves pieces were available.)

Alas, we never got a horse head costume piece, so she had to wear as long-faced a helmet as I could dig up.

Unlikely Ally was another fun concept — the Demon cast out to this world to do good deeds. I loved have a max-height hulked out guy with monster demon wings (a Fire/Fire Tank, I think) on the front lines.  Never got him past 14, since soloing tanks is a bore, but I really liked his look.

Another concept that never went far was Fr. Frank, a Catholic Priest turned Adventurer.  He was, of course, an Empathy/Sonic Defender (18), though, sadly, about the time I rolled him people decided that having Healers on the team was passe. It wasn’t easy cobbling together something that looked like priestly gab, but I was pretty happy with it.

Honor the Flag was another tank — Super-Strength/Invuln — but she got a decent amount of play. Never got her past 19, though, so she’ll be forever hanging out in Faultline.  Got a lot of complements on her uniform, which I thought was fun but nothing special.

These two were relative latecomers.  Tyger-Tyger (“… burning bright …”) was a Fire/Fire Scrapper, which was fun, but I just simply rocked out over this guy’s look (the armor covering up some of the seam weaknesses of the tiger / fur skin.  He made 27.

Woe Nelly was someone I just had to roll a toon for after I thought of the name.  Basically a fear demon, she was an Illusion/Rad Controller.  She made it to 24.

Honorable Mention (built but never run up to 20): Ice of the Tiger, Rose Spectre, Winter’s Darts, Falcon Roja, Molly Mae, Mister Ravenous (another), Scritchy-Scratch, Selene, and Professor Puissant, Truly Unstable, The Blue Shield.

Continuing a server-by-server look at the alts I played in City of Heroes …

In the midst of much drama llamaing, a group of us got together on the  Freedom server and created the “Hostess Heroes” — a series of snack food-inspired characters:

Bear Claws, Ginger Snap, twinkie Kid, Brownie Points, Cheesy Poof, Bazooka Josephine, Mmm Pie, Just Desserts, Oreo of Justice, Fig Neutron, Otter-Pop, Chunky Style, Creme Puff, Divinity Chu, Hot Fries, Pixie Stick, Pork Rind, Die Meiserzinger, Mooon Pie, Staypuft Marshmallow, J A W Breaker, Thin Mint, Kracker Jaxs …

And a few others, including Ho Ho, my Invuln/Axe Tank.  I was convinced that someone would register a complaint over the name, if not the concept, and I’d come back to find myself as UnnamedHero02347.  But nobody every did.

I also learned that Axe was a horribly, horribly slow power. Yes, great at knockdown, but, damn!

Margie played Princess Peep, a Rad/Rad Defender (the yellow woman in the pix above). She was awesome.

We actually had a regular team night (Mondays), and did a fair number of adventures together.  Things petered out just shy of 30, with changing participation and social circles on- and off-line.

Margie and I also created a pair of Cheetos Cheetahs, including my Chester Cheetah (teamed with Margie’s Chesty Cheetah). We never played them much, but they were still a fun concept.

The HH group, after all the other players fell away, became our default SG for additional toons on Freedom.

Maitre D’mon was a demonic French chef (Zombies/Poison Mastermind).  I loved the name. He was part of an abortive CoV counterpart to the Hostess Heroes, named, of course, “Devil’s Food”.  Margie rolled a number of characters for that, including Brussels Sprout (in the pic above, front right) and Frozen Leftovers. She also created a Zombies/Force Field Mastermind named Day Old Shelf who she ran up to 50.

Two throw-away concepts — Margie rolled up a character named Zestra (after a briefly widely-advertised sexual stimulation gel), while I created Satisfied Partner to go with her.

Kwai Havok, a Dark Melee/Willpower Scrapper I wish I’d done more with, noteworthy for both an awful name and being another Dave clone (with a ponytail, no less).  He teamed up, into the mid-teens, with a version of Margie’s Copper Mountain.

For the record, there was an Al McGordo character (Rad Controller) on this server, too.

The Paragon Studios team does a “Freedom Friday” weekly quasi-chat on Google Plus, answering questions that people pose, etc.  Today, after getting my actual game question answer, I made the following observation:

Just some feedback on the current splash screen, btw: it’s awful.  Not only am I less than thrilled with young Penelope Yin going from t-shirted and jeans-wearing teen to not-quite-dominatrix-geared hero, but you have her up there in one of those stereotypical super-heroine twisted-spine positions so that the viewer can conveniently see both her butt and her boobs.

Bad show. I expect better from Paragon.

Here’s the image (reversed, as it’s the current background for the cityofheroes.com site):

So some background. Penelope Yin first shows up in the game as the heroes are hitting level 15 or so, in Faultline.  She’s a t-shirt-and-jeans teenager trying to deal with some problems in that zone. She also can psychically control Clockwork.

Over time it’s developed that Penelope is one of the most powerful psychics in the world, and with recent events she’s joined the Freedom Phalanx as a full-blown hero.

She’s also managed to pick up an awful costume. It’s not quite dominatrix-wear.  Not quite.  But between the thigh-high red high-heeled boots, the not-really-bare stockinged legs under a red bikini bottom, and the gartered crop-top bare-belly look above the waist … it’s just a silly costume, almost as though she were trying to find a parody of a Sexy Super-Heroine Outfit to show off in.

And then there’s the picture above.

On the splash screen (which I couldn’t find an image of), she’s  leaping forward to go toe to toe with some villain (on the web page, he’s off facing the other direction to match her).  But look at it.  First off, her legs are impossibly long. But secondly, she’s in that all-too-stereotypically awful Contorted Female Super-Hero Display Pose.  The one where, through a twist of the spine, she manages to be pointing both her butt and her boobs toward you.

And this was a teenaged girl not very long ago, and now is one of Paragon’s pre-eminent heroes.  A role model, in-game and potentially for other teens (or tweens) in real life.

And this is now the splash screen that pops up for the next N months (until the next issue) every time you go into the game or change servers.

As Margie phrased it, “Probably not appropriate and an ugly costume.”

As Isaac Sher, a commenter on the same thread, put it:

Again, let’s set aside how her costume looks — her face does not say “I’m about to fight a dangerous foe”, it says to me “Tee Hee, I’m posing for a swimsuit issue photo shoot!  YAY!”  It’s really out of place.   Also, her body is, as others have said, twist so that she’s thrusting both her posterior and her breasts towards the camera, and it just looks grotesque and unnatural — and just seems like she’s there to Look Sexy For Male Players rather than Be An Awesome Hero For Justice.

Yeah, I actually engendered a reaction — a couple of commenters and some +1s on my remarks.

Now, I certainly don’t mind a bit of cheesecake (mmmmmm, cheesecake), though in general my heroines tend to be a bit more covered up.  But there’s two things going on here that bug me, and they’re somewhat intertwined:

First off, it’s just an ugly costume. And silly.  I mean, thigh-highs, and the bikini/stockings, and the armor bits on her arms and shoulders and face … and then a bare midriff (with straps holding up her pants?).   Nice costume pieces, but the whole is much less than the parts.  And it — especially as painted (and posed) above, just comes off as a tawdry sexualization.

Which even then wouldn’t be horrific (just a scosh distasteful in some fashion), except I still think of Penelope as a teenager.  I have no idea whether she is or not (she’s a “teenager” and a “girl” in the Faultline thread, and it’s ostensibly now 4-5 years later — though you can still find her there, I believe), and certainly she has gone through a lot of big experiences since then.  But I still associate her with being younger than I should be leching after (or being hinted that I should be leching after).

And even if it’s just “I knew her when she was young and innocent,” it still just jars seeing her in that splash screen every time I fire up the game, angling her butt and boobs at the viewer.

And what did Paragon have to say?

Thanks for the feedback! We’ll convey your thoughts on the art back to the dev team. We’re extremely happy and lucky to have a team of talented artists working on City of Heroes Freedom, and we’re grateful for all the hard work they put in to make City of Heroes an even greater game than ever before.

Um …

To which I replied:

The art team’s certainly talented, and that’s part of what makes the game a deserved success.  I just think in this case (and esp. for something as pervasive as the splash screen) there was some bad judgment (aesthetic and otherwise) involved.

Which, apparently, was ’nuff said, since the conversation faded out after that.

For more on this kind of contorted female posing thing, check out More super-hero posing goodness and Contorting a dead, sexy horse, two entries on my main blog from a few months back.

You would never have guessed that I22 came out yesterday, with the new Darkness Controller/Dominator power set.

I mean, there I was, standing in front of Ms. Liberty, and around me were:

• Dark Mistress
• Battle Shade
• Sorceress of Shadows
• Dark Spirit
• Dark Wanderer

Of course, I was there with my new (well, re-rolled) toon, the Grey Haunt, so I have no basis for complaint.  But at least I color shifted the power a bit …

It always makes Margie laugh when I refer to this new duo as that.

In reality, they are Rhett Bull (Axe/Shield Brute) and Phoenix Reburn (Claws/Fire Brute). Much balls-to-the-walls fun to play.

(Yes, I have been playing a wee bit of CoX. Just not writing about it much, I fear.)

(And, yes, we’re enjoying the Animal Pack.)

(Hey, look! A live post! Treat it gently kids — you don’t want to scare it off!)

So of course I purchased the new Animal Pack for City of Heroes. NCSoft makes it so seductively easy …

And what did I get for my $10?

Well, I guess I got my $10 worth. It’s neither as lame as I might have feared, nor as cool as it might have been.

The basic costume piece additions — the whole purpose of the upgrade — are okay. Two sizes of cat heads (ferocious, not cuddly), with some variations for tigers, lions, etc., and for patterning and a couple of ear styles and for (optional) sabre-teeth. A new wolf’s head (not the kind of mutant werewolf style previous available) with some variants. Additional tiger striping. Minotaur heads, with three different styles of horns (plus hornless) and four (!) styles of nose rings.

There are bird heads, too — eagle, hawk, vulture. Cue the Egyptian costumes …

They’ve also added cat feet and bird feet for the monstrous feet costume slots, and a minotaur tail and shaggy wolf tail.

What’s there is good, though the heads feel too small in proportion. Of course, the human heads sometimes feel a bit small on normal bodies. The effect is worse with the monstrous lower body, which still looks monstrously large/long compared to the rest of the form. I did a little experimentation, and the minotaur on the huge body doesn’t look bad.

(Apparently in the UK the pronounce minotaur with a long I — my-notaur — as opposed to the short I we use here in the States. Ran across that the other day on TV. Weird.)

Another new costume feature are some animal-specific auras. I didn’t play with the “fleas” aura, but there’s a beastly anger one that you can focus on different body parts (including breath), perpetually or just in combat. You know how bulls have that stereotypical steamy breath? Yeah, you can do that with your minotaur.

There are some nice costume change emotes.

I did not get a chance to play with the beastly running power. I’m hoping it’s as good as the Champs Online one.

So, is it a huge game changer? Nah. I don’t see Paragon (et al.) being overrun by cat girls or minotaurs or wolf-men, though it’s nice that there are now those options for those who want them. I may retrofit a couple of my feline characters to use the new heads, but not in all cases. And there are a lot of other possibilities here — I (or Lady Zebra) would love to see a horse head, for example, and certainly a monkey/gorilla would be used by some.

Good fun. Now if I can carve out some time to play for the next few weeks …

Well … maybe I will be!

I have … several toons that would benefit from this pack.

Yeah, think I’m going for this particular pack.