Palatinus' OverPower Forum

I wanted a convenient place where I can reference what I've gotten done from my 2099 set quickly, and without having to sort through all the drafts and half-finished pieces in my folders. So here we go, hopefully y'all enjoy. Comments are welcome, but be aware of the following:

1) I'm not happy with the naming yet. I need to really nail down how to establish which characters are able to be on a team with their non-2099 counterparts (hint: all of them but Venom, as far as I'm aware). Because otherwise I'll have to make an addition for the Clone/Variant table to help people if they want to use these.

2) Not all art is set in stone. After figuring out how to extract the .jpegs from .cbr/.cbz files, I've been reviewing individual issues looking for art pieces. It's been a fantastic success for Punisher 2099 (who I was unable to find good art for with google) and Venom 2099, but is taking a while for more obscure characters or characters who infrequently appear alone (Vulture 2099... I have great art for his specials, but I'm driving myself batty trying to find a good character card image).

3) I won't know which characters need an inherent until I've figured out naming. Because Punisher 2099 really needs to have it understood that he can and will place and play any Punisher specials, but is not Frank Castle, without an inherent ability that says that. Why? Just look at the card. 3 Lines of Inherent is ugly. Conversely, Ghost Rider 2099 absolutely should not have access to Ghost Rider specials. He's a very distinct, different character. Hence his "Surfing the Web" style special and Inherent Ability. Stupid 2099, making things complicated.

4) Not all the names are positioned satisfactorily. I had to get the images up in the same page to see it. The spacing between Venom (and Punisher) and 2099 is appropriate. All others that do not conform will be altered.

Anyway, let's get to the cards. [EDIT: ADDED HEROES AND MADE TEXT ALTERATIONS]












Those are the characters that I've done so far. Some were just waiting for art (although now looking at them, I may make alterations to a few), while others just needed font and other edits. I see I need to put quotes around "Clonal Confusion" on Spider-Man.

Here are the Special Cards so far. I haven't made any updates, so things like the issue on Cerebra remain unfixed. I'll hopefully catch up on those tonight. My hands need a break from foil printing.

EDIT: I've posted an image of a new background/color scheme I'm considering for 2099. It is the Spider-Man:2099 Finger Talons special next to the original version. Thoughts/opinions are welcome. Also, some Halloween Jack specials!
















My goals tonight are: clean up these specials (fix fonts, positioning, etc), then get at least one or two more finished. Ideally, I'd like to get the other special for Spider-Man and Hulk finished, and then start on Punisher.

dont forget to put down power card

Totally planning to do that, it's high on my list for this evening (I mentioned it right above the first Ghost Rider 2099 special, which incidentally is how I figured I'd end up naming him... the assumption being that without the colon, it's understood to be a different character. Though by that logic, all the characters would not have colons except Venom, and I'd have to put inherents on them to allow the use of the original character's specials...)

I may also do a "reprint" Doctor Doom: 2099 (the other character who might logically have a colon in his name, since he is Doom, but who shouldn't have the Doctor in his name. He left that in the 20th century) with different art. I was just looking at my (actual legit printing of) Doctor Doom: 2099 card this morning, and the art is pretty abysmal. It's strangely got a lot of warm colors with grey armor and a green hood/cape, even though his armor was all silver and blue and the art was very dark in the comics. Not fitting at all, IMHO.

It's surprising that 2099 hasn't gotten love from the customs community here before. It was a great spin-off set of books, with some really interesting art design and future history (gotta love the Mega-Corps) and a lot of great talent in terms of artists and writers. Plus they weirdly seeded it with Doom 2099 and then never did anything more, even though Doom 2099 wasn't the only one having a crossover with current characters at the time (Spider-Man 2099) or since then (Spider-Man 2099), and he was never even close to the most popular character from the franchise (Spider-Man 2099).

If I can find enough decent artwork, I might try to use a Marvel Knights 2099 character as well (Daredevil). Or, since I just found out this was a thing going on, use some artwork of Spider-Man 2099 in the current era. Did anyone else know that Spider-Man 2099 had his own title again? It's pretty solid, actually. Anyway, enough rambling. I have stuff to do today, and then cards to clean up and/or generate.

Such an interesting dilemma you pose.  I don't think the makers of the original game ever foresaw anything like this.

1. For fitting IAs that are large, I guess it all depends on how insistent you are that your homemades look as much like the legacy cards as possible.  Shifting the frame down slightly gives more room below "Intellect" to fit 3 lines comfortably.  If the "2099" was left justified instead of right, and possibly reducing the space between the name & the "2099", the name text could slide down.  Also possibly reducing the font size on the name.
2. We had always seen it as if the character is "Name: qualifier", he cannot be on the same team as "Name", but he can play all "Name" specials unless IA says different.  (See Clone/Varient discussion in rules section for examples.)  If the characters have different names, they can play together.  So when we found a homemade set of cards with "Spiderwoman" (Jessica Drew, but without the qualifier), with an IA of "Does not count as a clone of Spiderwoman", you could play her and the legacy Julia Carpenter (Arachne) together.  (They should have used the term "variant", but we knew what they meant).  This solution wouldn't work for you, but a possible solution could be to add "(not a variant)" in small text after "2099" (left justified, see 1).  Text size of IA, maybe even fractionally smaller.  Separate text box, top to line up with top of "2099".
3. The problem with 2 above is that you then have to indicate via IA when the character cannot use whatever base character specials you don't want them to have access to, as you did with Hulk, Spiderman, and Venom below.  This makes the Ghost Rider problem worse.
4.  Tightening up the text on the IA is also possible, as you have with hulk and Spidey.  The character name (or specifying "their" team) isn't really needed since its understood its their IA.  For example, Punisher's IA can be reduced to "May not be KO'd by Fighting Power cards".  (Room to add "not a variant" if you wanted.)
5.  I realize none of this solves the Ghost Rider problem, but as neat as the gimmick is, you could always give him something else for an IA that "reads smaller".    Discard dupes isn't needed though, because dupes are discarded after Events are played.

Maybe one or 2 combined with your own and others will help.  Or maybe their all a bowl of crap, I don't know.  All depends on the restrictions you place on yourself for how the finished product looks.  Have fun with it!

Actually, those are all great suggestions!

I hadn't considered "Not a variant" as the IA. It might neatly solve quite a few problems, as you could then just put something like

May not play "Clonal Confusion". Not a variant.

for, say, Spiderman. Would also work great for Punisher, Hulk. Ghost Rider 2099, he's a problem. So are the X-Men, kind of. There's no overlap with the original, they don't have the same power set, etc. I'll let you know what I work out, and I will work something out. This is definitely my "pet" set, and I intend to get it finished to the point it would be print-worthy before I really dig deep into my other OP projects (like doing a full AoA set, including Blink, with enough content to be able to generate Sealed Deck tournaments with it).

To solve the Variant/Clone thing, just change the hero names from "Ghost Rider: 2099", which by overpower rules would mean he could play all ghost rider specials, to "Ghost Rider 2099". Now he is his own hero, can be used on the same team as normal ghost rider, but cannot play ghost rider specials. Just remove the colon. Its that simple.

Also, On GR2099's special "Ford Velocirator 900", adding the may be played from reserve seems a little weird. The reserve character is very very very rarely ever attacked, so it seems kind of pointless to add that ability to the card. What about "Avoid 1 fighting attack or attack made with a universe card. May draw one card from top of draw pile,  discard duplicates". That gives the card a little more power and adds to his theme of creating card advantage. Or maybe even something like "Ghost Rider 2099 or Teamate may avoid one fighting attack. May be played from reserve". Just a thought.

One more thing. On punisher's IA it says "Place and Play", and one everyone else's it just says "Play". Might want to clear that up for consistency.

Quote from: drdeath25 on December 12, 2014, 10:38:03 PM
Also, On GR2099's special "Ford Velocirator 900", adding the may be played from reserve seems a little weird. The reserve character is very very very rarely ever attacked, so it seems kind of pointless to add that ability to the card. What about "Avoid 1 fighting attack or attack made with a universe card. May draw one
Just a thought.

its a good thought

Drdeath's idea of removing the colon is also a good one as well.  Hulk, Spidey, & Venom would work as is.  For Punisher, you would keep the "May play all Punisher Specials".  Any that you would want to play the base character specials would need some sort of IA to cover it.
He's also right on the Velociraptor.  It would make more sense for it to specify "teammate" if you really want it played from Reserve.
On the "place and play", I personally find it redundant, as any character can place cards that they can play (unless something says different).  "May play" says it all and keeps the IA text shorter.

I have been thinking about the whole colon, not colon, not variant, etc. all night.

After a lot of thought, and then a lot more thought, and then some reviews of cards, and then some more thought, here's where I am:

I am pretty strongly opposed to having 2099 characters be variants, with the exception of Doom and Venom.
I also need to be able to differentiate between characters with near or complete overlap in abilities and names (Spider-Man, Hulk, Punisher) from those with total differences (Ghost Rider).
NG specials exist, and it seems utterly insane to me that you could be in battle and somehow Spider-Man 2099 can't shoot webs or wall crawl anymore because those are Spider-Man specials and it would be frustrating, time consuming, and unnecessarily redundant to print every Spider-Man special as a Spider-Man 2099 special.
Since this is a pet project, being done by me for me (and I guess slightly for everyone else) I have total creative control, up to an including rules addendums for the set.

After considering all that, here's where I've fallen:
Characters that are variants (Doom, Venom) will have the colon in their name and no IA they don't already have.
Characters that are not variants but are functionally the same (Hulk, etc) will have 2 IAs: Not a variant. May not play [X Special]. (the second one will only be applied as appropriate, i.e. "Betty Banner" for Hulk 2099). This allows them all the original specials with no IA that can be removed.
Characters that are not variants and not functionally the same (Ghost Rider, X-Men 2099) will have no colon. This indicates that they do not have the power set of the original character and cannot use any of their specials, and can be on a team with said character.


This of course means I have to go back through and redo some naming on cards. Fortunately I did characters for Tyler Stone, Ravage, Halloween Jack, and Vulture 2099 last night, so I was already planning to do some editing and then post them up here as well.

I'm quite proud of Tyler Stone. He's a 14-point 4-stat character (YUP, you read that right) who will have a decent number of specials similar to Lex Luthor. So why play him? His IA is: Tyler Stone's team may venture an additional Mission Card without penalty before each battle. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I wanted to try and make an ability that would incentivize playing a character with basically an unplayable grid (except intelligence). If it turns out to be mediocre, I may try it as "TWO additional Mission Cards" but that seemed really outrageously broken.

As for Velociraptor, I can make that change. I have to ask though: if it doesn't say "may play from reserve" and he's attacked in reserve, does that mean he can't play it to defend? Because if that's the case, the card stays as-is. There's an important flavor aspect to the Ford Velociraptor 900, if you read the comics the bike is basically a part of him. At one point, he's locked down in one of the Mega-Corps while they are trying to reverse engineer it, and he summons it to him and escapes. To me, that's about as "in reserve and playing it" as it gets. The idea is that he really doesn't save people on the bike much (I can't recall him ever picking anyone up on it, though I'm sure he probably does once or twice) but it always pulls his bacon out of the fire. Besides, Vulture 2099 has an aerial rescue special that's going to be playable from reserve and does specify teammate.

Let me go back through the specials and see if I can find something already coded I can use instead of the special I made, since I see the point y'all are making and it is a valid one. Maybe an LO, like Rapture? I know drdeath basically recommended that already, and he's probably right. It's much more on-theme for GR2099 as well, who should be all about card draw/filtering/advantage based on the heavy themes of net-surfing, data hacking, and high technology based on the comics and character specials that already exist (like robin's surfing the net or shadowcat's computer genius).

Y'all are right about the "place and play" too. It was late when I was doing that, and in reviewing characters with an analogous IA, I happened to see Black Canary. My poor brain, addled by the late hour and truly prodigious amount of pot I'd smoked (don't worry, it's legal here) immediately reached the horrified conclusion that Spider-Man 2099 and the rest of the gang couldn't place specials. Of course, I realized the next morning that was silly, but I never edited Punisher 2099. I'll have to do that tonight.

Of course I didn't get any specials done last night. I looked at my list and realized I hadn't even finished all my characters (also, Golden One is going to be Draco. I'd forgotten how much more of a main antagonist Draco is in the issues, because Golden One is so much more memorable... basically, he looks like a weird blend of He-Man and a BDSM submissive, but done over with a cyber-punk flair. Draco is basically The Leader, but looking like he got infected with the legacy virus. Seriously, it was kind of awesomely terrible... anyway, Golden One is now a special, just like Vulx and Anti-Hulk...)

Anyway, I almost finished the characters, I just have Glitterspike and Draco left. Neither is extremely critical (Glitterspike was only in like 4 issues, and Theatre of Pain was more of a main antagonist anyway... UGH, that card needs new/better art. I pulled the image from google, now I think I need to extract the image from the .cbr and re-crop and re-size it myself). So I may end up abandoning them if art becomes a serious issue. Unlike a lot of the customs guys here, I'm terrible at custom art and still very mediocre at art manipulation. So I'm stuck with finding, cropping, retouching images, and a lot of those come from comics. If I can't find enough good art, the characters are toast.

I'll keep things posted up here as best I can, but with the holidays making things progressively more stressful/busy, I can't promise the updates won't be more like info-dumps every few days as I post more of my drafts here to figure out what holes are left in my proposed set.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, you've been really helpful so far!

Gotta love the attitude, Dok (my house, my rules).  I feel the same usually.
The updated cards look good.  Glad we could help in some small way.
Question:  do you intend Vulture: 2009 to be a variant?  Would he able to use Vulture Specials from justabgkid's web site, for example?

Well, on a project like this, there's gotta be a bottom line somewhere 

But I'm going to be dialing back on the 2099 work for a bit; I'm doing art selection for Special Cards now (I have drafts of the first set of Universe Cards done, and I finished the Character set [will post soon] except for editing work on fonts and text placement) but have been asked if I can/will contribute to some other projects. And of course I will, because the karmic principle only functions effectively if you actively engage in it (so you know, when you get help, give it back out).

This set is NOT going to disappear though. I would say that it probably won't be ready for at least 3-4 months now, if not significantly longer. I believe this will be a general positive for the community and myself though.

I know you are taking a break from this, but while going through old posts, I found I missed the Halloween Jack updates. 
I had a few questions on V.U. Projector:  (As all 3 choices are 50/50 propositions, I would assume a "random determination" could simply be the flip of a coin.)
First - does the random evaluation apply to both teams?  (Seems like it should.)
Second - since the first random condition is that characters are KO'd or not, would playing this card apply to characters already KO'd?  (Seems like it should.)
This seems to be one helluva game changing card!  Interesting usage possibilities.

Sorry I've been away for so long, I'm re-habbing an RV with my wife and it's been taking up all of my time. Well, that and getting certified as a Magic: the Gathering judge.

To answer shortly: Yes to everything. The VU projector in the comics literally rewrote reality, and not as anyone expected (even Halloween Jack). So yes, it applies to both teams. Yes it looks at all characters, even already KO'd ones, and randomly (coin flip is fine!) determines if they are KO'd. The idea being that VU projector may reset the board to a completely different state, with different heroes active and KO'd from the original (and having different hit records, etc).

I know, it's pretty wild. It could easily be terrible, but the design space was totally unexplored (it seemed).

hey,dok!  justa wondering if/when we'll ever see Specials for Tyler Stone or Theater Of Pain (should breadmaster be involved?) or Ravage or any other 2099 characters may suit your fancy.  i understand life comes first, justa wondering...

After an extended absence, work is beginning anew on some of these. Had to "life out" a bit for the last year, focus on a bunch of those big changes that are kind of standard when you hit your early 30's and are married.

I hope to post Tyler Stone specials by the end of this week. I'm using Lex Luthor as a baseline guide, though I suspect I'll end up giving some kind of powerful draw special (think Robin's Surfing the Web special).

Related: I hope to dive back into AoA soon. The Secret Wars crossover provided a bunch of new AoA artwork, and my work on that expansion was nearing an end point. Maybe that's not exciting to anyone else, but Age of Apocalypse holds a special place in my heart.