Thank you so much for working toward make CoT possible. A grab-bag of suggestions:

KICKSTARTER PERKS

1. Maybe add an a-la-carte package "Expander" deal item of in-game upgrades in the $30-60 level--an extra two rows in enhancements and inspirations, an extra couple costume slots per alt, plus an extra two character slots per account, or something like that. The purely cosmetic perks are great, but something of real in-game benefit under the thousands-of-dollars level might encourage the average player to bump up 50% or so.

OUT-OF-GAME ACTIVITY

Costume app. Great idea. I hope you get this to work on various platforms.

2. The auction house asset-trading metagame is also definitely something I would have enjoyed out-of-game, at work, or on a phone.

3. Similarly, sharing stuff with friends and moving inventory from character to character or base inventory would have been fun offline, as it was essentially moving numbers from database to database anyway.

4. It would also have been fun to track my incarnate (nontransferable) inventory online, just to be able to see where I was on different characters--being able to set up my incarnate slots and builds. Sort of a "canhekick.it" for alt development.

I am imagining a website where I could log in on any device, set up a build, trade/bid for inventions, see a MIDS-type numeric overview of each character (maybe with achievement-based and non-achievement-based badge progress), post the build codes to a supergroup forum, get comments on it, refine it online, click "export" to create a TXT or XML file, and click "import" in-game to assign it to a build during respec.

MANAGING MULTIPLE BUILDS

5. "Buildmaster" holding for enhancement/invention. It would have be fun to be able to allocate a single HO or purple enhancement/invention to several builds, so I wouldn't have to start from scratch on every build (it was easier to make a new alt than to make a new build, it felt like). Cross-allocation doesn't seem like it would be that difficult from a database perspective. Perhaps there could be a "buildmaster" screen where you can have 100 enhancements that you can allocate to any build on that particular character. Or, start at 50 and sell upgrades by tens to 100.

POWERS

One of the saddest things about the demise of CoX was that this was one of the last games where thoughtfully user-created *writing* actually mattered. Where people composed careful biographies of their characters. Where speech bubbles popped up comic-style above our heads and it actually mattered to people what we wrote. Where we could write in and have our stories published in a comic (I was really proud of the two I got printed during the first year.)

6. I had an idea for celebrating this aspect of our community as a "Power Words" power-set: What if the "Bam" and "Pow" and other onomatopoetic sight-smashes we see in comics and some television and movie superhero stories were actually a power set? You'd have a "Zowie" control power that would make a Zowie actually appear on screen as your speech bubble and fly out and spin the bad guy backwards and disorient him for a second. Or a Br-ZAP keystroke power that would go from your speech bubble complete with color and spikey outline and collide with the enemy's chest and make him flash the color you choose from your speech bubbles. Power words: celebrate the power of the written/spoken word that is part and parcel of the superhero genre's history. (Since these would basically be animated 2D SVG files, you could also have the character's symbol as one of the power words.)

7. I loved (LOVED) the travel powers in CoX, and think that the Beast Run/Ninja Run option was a great addition later on especially because it was closely connected to the art of the game world--you dodged the land, saw the developers' work often and close-up. I encourage this kind of run-and-jump travel--I think it enhanced the relationship between the gamers and the developers.

8. Acceleration-based flight. In the old 2D "Crystal Quest" game, your mouse/arrow keys controlled not direction or position of your cursor but the *acceleration* of your cursor. So if you were moving left quickly, mousing/arrowing right would make you move left more slowly, then stop, then move right. Maybe this could be a long-distance non-combat flight option for something like a Rocket Pack/Jet Pack. You can go faster and faster and WHOAAAAFASTER forward, but the faster you go forward, the more momentum you gain and the more precision you lose, the more you have to slow down before you can switch to hover. Maybe banging into walls hurts if you exceed the flight cap (or bounces you in a random direction). The flight cap would be doubled (or whatever), but the ability to "Combat Jumping" direction-change mid-air would disappear. Managing your momentum would be huge, and it would be fun (think mid-air Frostfire mission with more control).

9. Just-Above Hovering. Imagine an invisible level about 20 feet above ground where you can speed around on a hoverboard or similar power. Not exactly a Star Wars landspeeder (higher up) but maybe you have robot foot antennae or jellyfish tentacle spindles or a gravity-magnetic field that comes out of your feet and lets you travel (or maybe even *air swim*--swoon) at precisely this level. Out of aggro for most everything, but you still have to dodge higher buildings, mountains, some trees, etc. This invisible level could rise and lower gradually when there were medium sized objects, so you'd feel like there was a force field around everything and you'd be just above it. You could either have the level calculated on the fly (20 feet above running on the ground, ignoring most obstacles) or you could design an invisible "just above" surface for each outside zone so that these travel powers could be used.

MACROS and BINDS

10. I loved the macro language of CoH and being able to bind and rebind keys on the fly. Perhaps consider being able to sequence cosmetic (emote) macros so the alt can perform a complex sequence of moves for a victory dance or taunt or whatever, without having to bind and rebind a key so you have to push c, c, c, c, c, c, (or whatever) and time it perfectly. This would raise the bar in terms of the stylings a player could add more easily. Tiny old lady tanker drinks tea. Tiny old lady tanker digs grave with shovel. Tiny old lady tanker taunts lieutenant. As a community, I think we love stylings.

BASES

11. Instances might include small islands, caves, woodland clearings, hollow trees, icebergs, house-sized meteors, back-alley dead ends. If you'll allow me a minor blasphemy, I think Guild Wars 1 handled this nicely (the atmosphere of the instances, not the buildings). The little instances could border deserts or oceans or woodlands, and you could see the horizon out your window and outside the door. Showcase some of the great skyscapes/horizons you guys are working on by allowing them to be part of the "home" place we end up spending a lot of time.

PRE-LAUNCH COMPETITIONS THAT ENHANCE THE GAME

12. You should encourage community creativity in designing a few things. I don't have time to *be* a developer, but I would love to try my hand at a few things.

12a. Give the pixel and size specifications for an ad campaign (billboard PNG/JPG, park bench/bus-side aspect ratio image, handout flyer size image) for some make-believe hero-oriented project and see what usable stuff you get back. (Canned Turnips--Ideal for Your Sniper Roost Downtime!) Costume slot or costume pieces allowance prizes, or whatever.

12b. Invite people to write the backstory for an NPC, along with all his/her catchphrases. It should be very compact (200 words' backstory, maybe, ten one-sentence catchphrases). Give a general outline for who/where the character is and invite people to create the style and personality for that character in writing.

12c. Zone-change music. Lots of amateurs can create clean audio nowadays, and little 5-15 second clips to introduce the changing of zones might be fun to compete to create. Emote unlock type prizes, maybe.

BUFF-OTHER POWERS

13. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the Mystic Fortune power from Super Booster II: Magic. More than any other aspect of the game, I think this made me short-term and long-term friends. Or even just random people trading fortunetelling with me and we'd suddenly be like: whoa, you take the same sort of care and time creating a fantastic costume that I do... And you'd sit there for a second just enjoying the camaraderie of a kindred spirit, trading compliments a bit. A year of Mystic Fortune was better than a year of therapy, by a long shot.

KNOCK-KNOCK

14. Who's there?
Knock.
"Knock" who?
Knock up.
Did you say knock-back?
No, I said KNOCK-UP! *Thwack*

Anyway, some of these ideas are probably interesting and some are probably useless, but take what you like!