Paladin, Paladin, where do you roam?

Got an @tell from Doyce last night that he’d spotted Paladin over in Kings Row. Turns out it was “spotted” by way of “two-shotted whilst reading the post-mission text.” Quick changed over to Lynn Calodo and hustled over there to meet Pummelcite and Sable Fist.
Searched unsuccessfully for a while, until Doyce noticed clockwork making a beeline in a direction. We followed, and up from below popped Paladin.
Bim, bam, boom. Took a couple of minutes to bring him down, and Lynn burned her last Christmas Present, but it was a good kill. (Pummy’s hard to see in the pic because of Sable’s glow and his color scheme matching Paladin’s.)
(Amused to discover that Sable was also a Dark Melee/Invuln Scrapper with Super-Jump as her travel power. Some sort of an echo in here. Though she’s a level higher than Lynn.)
No badge (you get that for stopping Paladin being built, it appears), but a nice chunk of XP.

How to tell if you are a superhero

A long, very amusing list:

For someone with several billion dollars who can sleep with anyone they desire you’re kind of a doleful son of a bitch.
When you say you’re driven by a “personal vendetta” you don’t conclude with “against Kinkos.”
You have to remember to say “Ow” when shot.
Your MySpace page has 43,287 friends, all in peril.

RTWT.
(via Solonor)

The Glory of the First Person Shooter

I’d start to quote this fabulous essay as to why the author (as I) enjoys Shootin’ Things Up Real Good, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to stop …

And it suddenly hit me that I was spending a Friday night doing inventory management. Last time I checked, I get enough bean counting at my day job; do I really need to spend my weekends pondering whether I should carry an extra set of warhammers just in case I run into a merchant who might be able to buy them off me? Sure, I enjoy having a virtual life — but as a virtual accountant?
Yeah, no.
Moments like that make me re-appreciate the true value of a good first-person shooter: its raw, modernist simplicity. Like a cool, refreshing glass of water on a smog-choked summer day, a shooter cuts through the fog of everyday life.
That’s what made Halo the top-selling game for the Xbox, after all. Everyone blathered on and on about the immersive story, the fleshed-out characters, the great script, yadda yadda. But that wasn’t why they played it. No, they played it because of what the designers called the game’s ability to deliver “30 seconds of fun,” over and over again. And those 30 seconds didn’t consist of moderating a frickin’ guild meeting, if you know what I mean. Nosiree: They consisted of wasting every last freaky alien that wandered anywhere near your muzzle.

City of Heroes isn’t quite your standard FPS, but …
Well, I enjoy doing RP in CoX. I enjoy some of the organizational bits and meta-play and all that. I enjoy the story arcs and plot lines.
But, y’know? A lot of what I enjoy about it is pounding the bad guys into the pavement.
‘Nuff said.

All your heroes are belong to us?

Interesting thoughts and legal assertions regarding characters you create in CoH/CoV:

What Cryptic/NC is concerned with are generally:
1) Image of character — if you build it in the character generator. I’m not trying to say “we” own blue half capes, and I’m not trying to say we don’t. If you build a character in the generator, and then have it drawn, if it’s 100% the same character and you are profitting from it, then you might have a problem.
2) Character name & history – technically the character names/history that you create for CoH/CoV are owned by Cryptic/NCsoft. You can use them in fanfiction, etc., but you cannot profit from them.
3) History of Paragon City and all her associated characters (this is the obvious one, of course, and causes least confusion).
Obviously there are many characters with the same names in comic book history. And many that look similar. But if you take a character who exists on one of the servers, and use the same name and same look, and try to use it in a commercial enterprise, you’re entering dangerous waters. I’m not going to say if this is right or wrong — but if you can avoid all potential legal entanglements, why wouldn’t you?
Note: in the case of a character that existed *before* being created in CoH, and this can be proven, then Cryptic/NCsoft is obligated to force you to change the name/look of the character. So Rubberlad’s character, or let’s say I created a character from the old superhero game, Silver Age Sentinels, that I was involved with. In an exceptional case (like the Warren Ellis example I created earlier), Cryptic/NC might be so tickled to have a guest star that they would find a way to allow it. But in most cases the legal mine fields, and lawyer costs, and bad press, etc. is not worth it.
So once again. If you want to write/draw superheroes in a commerical enterprise, make sure they are original and don’t exist in CoH/CoV.

That’s Arctic Sun, one of the board moderators, speaking — well, not ex cathedra, but leaning on one arm of it.
So much for that new Torchielle TV series … though (aspects of) Psi-clone are possibly safe.
Certainly #3 is solid, and #1 could be strongly argued. There might be more questions raised on #2, if it ever went to court, though the legal uncertainty of it all would probably kill any media deal that was in the offing, regardless of the rights of it.

Hostess Heroes vs. the Clockwork King!

Last night’s Monday Munchies, Starring the Hostess Heroes, was just a blast. It was Task Force night, with several of us doing Synapse, and others doing Positron.
The Synapse TF went (you should pardon the expression) like clockwork. Six of us originally — one tank (Ho Ho), one defender (Princess Peep), one blaster (Ginger.Snap), and three scrappers (Bear Claws, Brownie Points, and, initially, Ring Ding).
For a group lacking a controller we pretty much had the bad guys locked down. Only two deaths all night, and only rare senses of desperation (usually when we split the team).
Five hours and (for Margie and me) 2.5 levels. Now we’re well into 20, and wondering what sort of keen adventures await!

The crew takes on Babbage. The schmuck never stood a chance. He never even got a chance to run. He was locked down, debuffed, and carved into chutney. I didn’t time it, but I’d guess it took us no more than a minute or two.

“Hey! Where’s the creamy filling?”

The Clockwork King wasn’t really any bigger of a menace, to be honest. I certainly didn’t see any risky blue or green bars during the battle. Like Babbage, he went down in only a few minutes.

Hostess Heroes Triumphant! L-R, that’s Brownie Points, Bear Claws, Ginger.Snap, Ho Ho, and Princess Peep.


Many thanks to Doyce for helping organize the soiree. Great fun, and one of the best Synapse runs I’ve been on.

Ho Ho

Going through 2.5 levels (from 18.2 to 20.7) during the TF, I got two major build changes/evolutions for Ho Ho during the evening. First, the group was, as noted, control-weak, and I’ve been feeling unhappy about not having Taunt (what’s the point of being a Tank if you don’t have all the bad guys looking at you?).
Doyce suggested — excellently — that I just add a Taunt enhancement to my Invincibility (“Bite Me!”). Not quite as effective or targetted, but it did help me cluster them up better. And that freed up my power level for … Stamina!
Oh, sweet, deep blue bliss, thou are Stamina! I went from a tank who was wheezing her way through every battle and staggering after the group and running with some toggles down to someone who just hacked her way through Babbage and the CK with narry a budge in the blue. Faboo. Made me feel a thousand times better about the character.
And I take Taunt next level, anyway. Then, at 24, another attack, which will give me a decent chain. And while Axe is godawfully slow, I just love the knockdown. Not so much the knockback against the lighter-weight folks, but taking the big bots and keeping them on their rusty butts most of the battle was just da bomb.
On a side note, Princess Peep is having way too much fun acquiring all the Rad primaries, and we’re having way too much fun watching her do it. Choking Cloud is damn enjoyable to watch (and benefit from).

Happy Anniversary, Happy Anniversary …

According to the newsletter from CoH I just received, toons who sign in on Friday, April 28th (or “during the month of June” — which sounds like a typo), for the will get a special 2nd Anniversary badge. And, if you already have one from the 1st Anniversary, “the combination will unlock a special treat.”
Hmmmmm.
Also …

Two Year Anniversary Party at Pocket D!
Heroes and Villains are invited to come get your groove on at our Silver Age, 1950’s to the 1970’s theme party to celebrate two great years of crime fighting action!
The morning of April 28th we are going to toss all you cool cats a free costume token for some stylin threads to pay homage to the superheroes of old! Take all day getting ready (without violating any copyright laws) and then come get funky at the Pocket D. We hear some VIP heroes might be stepping out to dance with you, so donít miss out!
And don’t worry, we’ll throw you another costume token on the 29th so you can get back into your street duds and ready for action.
Where: Pocket D – All Live Servers (Not Test)
When: 7 – 10 PM CST, Friday, April 28th
What: Silver Age Anniversary Celebration
Why: To Celebrate the City of Heroes Two year anniversary!

And, finally, some trivia. In the last two years of CoX …
17,558,847 Characters have been created
551,287 Supergroups have been created
2,034,557,881,794 Influence has been earned

Weekend Update

Post-near-50-ding with PC/A, didn’t do much. Saturday was pretty much a wash. Did spend a goodly chunk of time on with Torchy and Hildy. reaching 27 with both of them. Switched over to Mister Ravenous and Charity for the evening, only to have the servers brought down after only one mish. Jumped over to Virtue with Honor the Flag and Copper Mountain.
Tired, though, so I wrapped up early, watched Doctor Who (while Margie, bless’er, busily shifted got on with Honor and solved her PUG-centric contact problems).
Hostess Heroes tonight, complete with an attempt to run Synapse. Should be interesting — almost like real work with that crew.
Still need to figure out when to do the Ding Party. Fact is, it looks like we’ll be unable to have it at a time and date when all who’d like to be there (or who we’d like to be there) will, in fact, be able to be there. Which means we should just organize it around when it’s good for us and let people make it if they can. /em grump

Countdown – T-Minus 0.033 and Holding …

And now to organize the Ding Party.
Next Friday night is out, but aside from that, after Monday night, we’re clear to navigate. Love to have as many friends along as possible. Any evenings up through next weekend anyone who’s interested and is a reader here cannot make it?
(Amorpha’s at the same level — 100 xp ahead of me, because, of, course, she’s that sort of competitve person, but that’ highly unlikely to cause us to miss a simultaneous ding.)

Zebra Crossing

Been having solo fun as Lady Zebra — MA/Regen Scrapper, over on Virtue — just as something relatively mindless to run. I’ve got her up to 9 so far. Much simple, mindless fun against simple, mindless opponents.
She’s actually modelled after a character I wrote up in my first NaNoWriMo — and, in keeping with that, she’ll be a (my first) Super-Speedster.

Phalanx Prestige Day

Got to run Velvet and P-siren along with the several other Phalanxers on some fine missions for PPD today. Velvet ended up a good half-level higher by the time things were said and done, and I was feeling pretty jazzed about how she did. P-siren had a rougher time, including two unfortunate “What the hell happened to my mentor and why the hell are these bad guys suddenly all purple argh” incidents.
Oh, yeah — Velvet got the Nemesis Staff after the first mssion. Which is ironic, since I probably won’t have a chance to play with it for the next few days, but I took full advantage of it today.
It’s even more fun with ragdoll physics …
Took down Shadowhunter and Infernal, et al. Nice afternoon’s work.

In the left picture, you can see Velvet administering a nice upper-cut to Shadowhunter. P-siren’s up there sticking a psionic throwing knife to his brain. Sword of Asgard’s to the left, Justice Stryke to Velvet’s right.
In the right picture, Velvet lays some Nemmie Staff goodness on Infernal, while Sword on her left and [the other tank who’s name I forget] on her right lend a hand.
Actually, in both cases, Velvet spent most of her time just locking down the bad guy. The Nemmie Staff doesn’t really do much more damage than her Knockout Blow, but it was another nice arrow in her quiver. Good times.

I7 powersets are announced

Here.
Includes the Thugs powerset for Masterminds (Pistols, Call Thugs, Dual Wield [pistols], Equip Thugs, Empty Clips, Call Enforcer, Gang War, Call Bruiser, Upgrade Equipment) …
… what the … Pistols? For a Mastermind? And not a Scrapper? WAUGH!
Electric Melee for Brutes (Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, Jacobs Ladder, Build Up, Thunder Strike, Taunt, Chain Induction, Lightning Clap, Lightning Rod), along with Electric Armor (Charged Armor, Lightning Field, Conductive Shield, Static Shield, Grounded, Lightning Reflexes, Conserve Power, Power Sink, Power Surge). All sound fun.
Stalkers are getting Dark Melee and Dark Armor (flavored similarly to Scrappers).
Masterminds will also get to designate minions as a Bodyguards, which lets them take a third of the damage taken by the MM (who only takes two-thirds). Nice.

Live and Direct – a new patch

Patch Notes Here.
Most of the stuff was already previously commented on (when it went to test). The items that caught my eye this time:

The maximum mission reward that a character can receive is now character level +3. Example: A level 10 character (not sidekicked) in a group running a level 20 mission will receive the equivalent reward of a level 13 mission upon completion.

Guess that will end the “you wanna bridge for us?” thang, if I understand it correctly.
Positron later noted:

Just so you all understand… The change is ONLY for the “end of mission” rewards, not the individual defeats of enemies. +3 levels was chosen simply because the level range for fair XP sharing during missions is around +3, that and when you are running at the highest difficulty level, +3 enemies will tend to show up.

Moving right along …

* Help Channel: New players will receive a new tab called “help” which defaults to a new server-wide help channel. We encourage experienced players to share their wisdom.
* Chat spam limiter: You are now allowed one message per second, You are allowed to break the rule 5 times. Every second you don’t chat one rule break is forgotten. If you break the rule more than 5 times you will be banned from chat for 2 minutes. If you continue to try to spam while chat banned, you will continually reset your 2 minute timer.

Cool. Previously said it, but cool.
Costume tokens were also handed out, finally.

Purple! Purple! Purple!

Hostess Heroes tonight. Kitten was dawdling and downstairs as we started, and as we were tied into the final Doctor Vahzilok mish, we couldn’t take the time off to get here up into bed.
So she instead ran back and forth between our computers whenever she’d spot a purple mob. “Purple! There’s a purple there! Look out! He’s purple!”
Very … um … helpful.

The picture shows (L-R) the HH team: Twinkie Kid, Bear Claws, J A W Breaker, Princess Peep, Ginger.Snap, Ho Ho, Otter-Pop. and Ring.Ding. Not shown, alas, is Capt. Funyun, who mapserved (though not before getting victory credit and the SO).
Ho Ho and Princess Peep both dinged 18 over the course of the evening. Invincibility for me, some sort of PBAOE radiation debuffer for Peep. Invincibility, as I demonstrated on the next mish, needs a little warning label: “INVINCIBILITY: Note, does not convey actual Invincibility” — though it’s certainly a fine defensive power.
Need to get taunt. Currnetly slated for 22 (20, of course, is the desperately-needed Stamina).
I’ll be out next go-around (somewhere over the Atlantic, in fact). Week after that: Synapse (1, 2, 3).

0.27 … and counting …

(The above to be said, of course, in a slow, German-accented voice …)
Damn. With travel and anniversaries and that sort of thing, surprisingly little CoX play for me this week. Finally got on tonight with Psi-clone and Amorpha and hit the mother-lode: 7th Generation Paragon Protectors, all orange and red and utterly snackable, 2600 to 3400 a shot, plus the boss and the missions.
By the time we were done doing the mission two and a half times (one of mine, one of hers, and one mapserv-interrupted of hers), we were averaging 13K/min, had about 1.3MM to go, were up to SL 49.73, and were at an estimated 1:45 to level.
I figure one more good evening’s worth of beating on stuff, and we’ll be ready for a “concluding” mission — something fun and party-like, invite the friends and colleagues. Should probably start sending invites out now, given everyone’s busy schedules.
Looking forward to it.

Speciallly made for Malta missions

Just what you need the next time Crimson gives you a call.

Thor Shield is a polyester fabric bonded to a conducted material that effectively loops the electricity coming from a nonlethal electricity weapon back to the weapon.
“If you are hit, the Taser gun won’t work,” said Greg Schultz, co-owner of G2 Consulting in Tucson, Ariz., which invented Thor Shield. “We return the voltage back to the gun.”
Tasers and other electricity weapons work by jolting a person’s body with enough electricity to overwhelm their neuromuscular system. When fired, a Taser launches two probes, connected to the gun by wires. When the probes hit a person’s body, they create a circuit and 50,000 volts that pass through an individual’s system.
A hit from a stun gun is incredibly painful and knocks individuals instantly to the ground in most circumstances. For maximum effect, the probes need to land four inches apart.
Because Thor Shield is conductive, it can complete the circuit with probes without having the electricity pass through an individual’s body. In a video submitted by G2–and not independently tested by CNET News.com–Greg Williams, G2’s other co-owner, takes a jolt to the head from a stun gun but remains unfazed. He is wearing a cap made of the material, according to G2. He also remains nonchalant in a Thor Shield windbreaker after being repeatedly zapped.

More I7 goodness

On the I7 hit parade:

  1. Freespec!
  2. Am I goofy for saying I don’t see significant graphics differences between these pre-I7 vs. I7 screen shots? Not enough to warrent, at least, the no-doubt ruinous added burden on my graphics card.
  3. UI changes in I7:

    [T]he protectors of Paragon will also have access to Global Chat upgrades such as an improved ability to switch between chat channels, default channels, and a channel search feature.
    Their new User Interface will allow heroes to fine tune control of their powers with buff icons that blink right before they go away, toggling of buff powers in the icon list, and the ability to access character and power information through the r-click menu.

    The Global Chat stuff doesn’t sound that exciting (it may make more sense once it comes out). The idea of having buff icons blink before they wear off is a nice one … though, now that I think of it, I think they mean the little personal “this power is up” icons under the health meter, which I don’t reference all that often. Adding some right-click context menu stuff would be helpful, too.
    Still, not all that thrilling.