Hey guys, I was an avid CoX player from 2004 to mid 2012, primarily playing on Freedom and Guardian servers under the global name, @Dr G.I was an avid all-around player, often enjoying badge-hunting, PvPing, insane challenges, and making unusual power combinations shine, as well as running almost all the task/strike forces solo on my main, Soul's Blade, a BS/Invuln scrapper. Ever since I had to stop playing due to RL interference, I was extremely dismayed to find out that the game's sunset was announced, and had been outraged at NCSoft's callous treatment of their once-loyal fanbase and operations management of several of their games. And as such, I have yet to find something that scratched that MMORPG itch I've had ever since I wanted to return to CoX, but I have participated in the CoT kickstarter and watched the forums ever since it's inception and the Phoenix Project stages, although moreso of a silent watcher, as well as checking out Valiance Online periodically.

Now as this game draws closer and closer to it's eventual beta and completion, I wish to be more participating in the forums and provide what I can in terms of ideas, memories of CoH, and critique, as well as being a member of these forums! But I do have some questions that I would like to know answered, either briefly or in detail, by anyone who knows their stuff! I am really bad with the search feature in forums, so excuse my ineptitude (laziness*) and answer what you will!

1) I imagine the CoT beta may be released sometime in late 2016, or early 2017, what would an educated guess be on how long the beta may last for? And will it initially be a private-only beta for kickstarters and/or forum members, or will there be an open-beta for anyone at some point after a duration?
I feel like this could be a good marketing tool as I know some people that are interested in this game, but do not want to put money into it just yet, so if they can have a chance to play the beta for free, they could then make an educated decision on whether or not they will want to purchase the game and play for free afterwards/VIP subscription.

2) Is there a rough idea on when the costume creator system will be available and what kind of features will be involved? I read that people could create costumes prior to the gameplay, and even reserve a number of names for their soon-to-be heroes and villains, and have it all ready to go when the game goes live? Are there any limitations on what will not be involved at launch, such as capes, auras, wings, or the like?

3) Will there be a system as diverse and effective in terms of boosts, both temporary and permanent for your character like as in City of Heroes' Inspirations, Enhancements, IO's, salvage/recipes, and so on at the launch of CoT, or will it start off with more basic stuff like how CoX was prior to the Inventions update? I feel like CoX had nailed that aspect down nearly perfectly with Inspirations being an incredible system for quick boosts during combat, whereas certain IO sets and uniques were too gamebreaking/mandatory for all classes, though there may be nothing really wrong with that as well if done correctly. For example, the +Recov and +Rec/+Reg were pretty much essential for all characters post-IO's which were a good idea, but the system of LotG's 7.5% Recharge was sort of gamebreaking as well as being too overpowered on certain characters. Another issue I disliked were the system of PvP IO's and their respective bonuses, which I felt skewed the market a bit much, and encouraged PvP farming

4) Will PvP be available in some form at launch, or further down the road? Personally, I'd rather see an Arena system be launched first to further understand the dynamics involved with PvP in CoT and data-crunching in order to balance it as ideally as possible for zone/open-world PvP. Are there also plans to include various types of PvP modes or objective-based ones?

5) Will there be series of difficult missions/story arcs that are intended to be done with a team akin to Task Forces/Strike Forces? My main issue with some of CoX's earlier versions of those were that if played with the right characters and inspirations, one could theoretically solo any of them excepting the ones that required simultaneous glowies or with AV's that had substantially increased regen/boosts, making it impossible to solo (which I figured made more sense). I found that too many TF/SF's in CoX ultimately culminated in an anticlimatic boss that was really just a big ol' bag of HP to beat down, provided you can survive through his/her onslaught of repeated attacks.

6) Will there be badges exclusive to those that are Kickstarting the project or Forum members, or part of the development team? I ask because a friend of mine who was also an avid badge-hunter had not heard about the Kickstarter until too late, and he had expressed disappointment in not being able to get that one badge once he starts playing, and it also concerned me as well as I may not be a lore-writer/developer/code-writer for CoT, and as such, may be exempt from yet another badge that would be forever out my reach. However, if the position(s) are still available, I am proficient in creative writing and basic textures design, and would be more than happy to provide whatever help I can if so (just to get that badge ;P)

7) Will there be any form of minor support for modding or the like? In CoX, I know it may not have been allowed or per se, along the EULA, but prior to Power Customization, I had made and downloaded various texture mods for weapon/costume images, changing it from my own viewpoint only, and it was quite cool to play with a sweet greatsword covered with runes or an Assault Rifle based on a real-life gun rather than the frankengun while I knew everyone else could only see the legacy broadsword or the like. However, I stopped doing this ever since power customization what with the greater and better-looking varieties of options than those offered by 3rd party websites.

8) Is a side-switching or alignment system in the works for CoT? I know this is of an unpopular opinion, but the Going Rogue update involving the alignment system had left a bad taste for me for CoX. While I really enjoyed the idea of a neutral early stage with Praetoria and the like, allowing you to eventually choose whether you want to be a Hero or Villain, the system that then allowed Heroes to become Villains, and vice versa after doing only a couple of missions, and reverting back was a major immersion-breaker for me. I felt like, as a result, this allowed people to start off their characters in the CoH side for the earlier levels due to the more user-friendly and populated areas to level up faster, and then switch over to the villain sides for the cooler/more updated missions, and this also resulted in the eventual uselessness of certain classes, such as Dominators, Stalkers, Defenders in comparison to Controllers/Scrappers/Corruptors to list a few.

I think ensuring a definite boundary between two different worlds or environments of Heroes and Villains allows for more replayability value, as for those who have a main Hero, but want to play villain-side stories, will have to then create a new villain, and play the game all over again, but in a new light. Whereas in CoX, one could just play their main, switch over to the villain side, and use Ouroboros and play all the villain storylines from there on, missing out on the gorgeous zones and gameplay of the Rogue Isles. I also enjoyed the concept of the 2 groups of badge-hunters, with the top Heroes and Villains, rather than the penultimate best badge-hunters, those who switched alignments purely to get em all!

9) Will there be any forms of raids or Giant Monsters for players to combat against at launch in any of the zones? They were always fun and encouraged mass groupings of people!

10) Will the Heroes and Villains be divided into distinct and separate zones, or will it all be a mish mash of the same city? And are co-op zones expected to be in the game from launch?

11) This isn't directly a CoT question, but I am curious, is the team working on requisitioning/purchasing the rights to CoX from NCSoft making much progress? I thought I had read that they were related to the people involved with CoT development, so if they were successful, would that mean there could be a crossover from CoX and CoT in terms of lore and the like? Or will it mean that CoX will be playable fully, but without any forthcoming issues and whatnot, just locked in it's perpetual pre-I24 stage?

Thanks everyone in advance for your answers, and I hope to play with y'all soon!
I hope to be more active on these forums, and I occasionally frequent Paragon Chat under @Dr G if you want to hit me up!