look at your powers tab. See that throwing disc? There's plans for SOME kind of player to player interact in the future.
Don't make assumptions based on what you see in the client.
Paragon Chat sends exactly 6 powers, no more, no less:
void hackSendHardcodedPowers(MsgQueue *q)
{
bsAppendPacked(q->bs, 4, 4); // number of powersets
// Set 0 - Inherent
bsAppendPacked(q->bs, 5, 0); // level bought
bsAppendPacked(q->bs, 4, 3); // number of powers
sendPowerByID(q->bs, 1013339550); // Sprint
sendPowerByID(q->bs, 1765014394); // Walk
sendPowerByID(q->bs, 2172954564); // Ninja Run
// Set 1 - Pool.Speed
bsAppendPacked(q->bs, 5, 0); // level bought
bsAppendPacked(q->bs, 4, 1); // number of powers
sendPowerByID(q->bs, 1732896497); // Super Speed
// Set 2 - Pool.Flight
bsAppendPacked(q->bs, 5, 0); // level bought
bsAppendPacked(q->bs, 4, 1); // number of powers
sendPowerByID(q->bs, 3575737816); // Fly
// Set 3 - Pool.Leaping
bsAppendPacked(q->bs, 5, 0); // level bought
bsAppendPacked(q->bs, 4, 1); // number of powers
sendPowerByID(q->bs, 2336762267); // Super Jump
}
The ID numbers were manually extracted from powers.bin, since Paragon Chat doesn't load it due to the extra memory overhead it would impose.
If you're seeing other powers in the client, it's because the client is making assumptions of what powers it thinks you should have based on its own data files, what powersets you have, and the fact that all of the store unlockable stuff is marked as unlocked. On a real server, the server would be performing the exact same steps and would sync up with the client's view of things. This assumption of perfect lock step between actions taken on both client and server - and how horribly things can break when that assumption is wrong -- is one of the reasons that implementing any kind of server emulator is extremely difficult.
This case turns out to not be quite as extreme, as the powers implicitly assumed by the client get added after the ones sent by the server, so the indices still line up. Powersets aren't so lucky, and Paragon Chat has to work around the Inherent, Speed, Flight, and Leaping sets being numbered 26, 27, 28, and 29 in the commands sent by the client as a result.
Those extra powers don't really exist, so trying to activate them would simply do nothing because the server has no idea what they are.
It's even in the FAAAQ somewhere. Just... not for a while and probably not PVP.
Yes, under the 'maybe someday after everything else is done but don't hold your breath' section. I believe PVP
was mentioned there as it would be easier than creating an AI capable of approximating the behavior of COH critters (though masterminds would be SOL). However, it would depend on one of the clients acting as a server to host a game, and probably using some sort of realtime communication protocol rather than routing it over XMPP, none of which have even had so much as a design sketched out on a napkin for.
