Blog of Heroes

Well, City of Married Players, at least. Wouldn’t want anyone to be confused between a post title like that and a picture like this:

On the left we have my character, Sister Chinook, Magic Controller (ice control, empathy). On the right we have Margie’s K-Two, Natural Scrapper (martial arts, agility). These two bad good girls hit town in Paragon City last night, and the town (and the players) are still exhausted. We dinged up past 4th level by the time we called it a night, and I suspect we’ll be getting some more play in this weekend.
Fun stuff. Margie’s interesting to play with. As those who’ve RPGed with her won’t be surprised to hear, she’s a strong strategist and planner, and took advantage of the delay in installation yesterday to hit the CoH boards. She has strategies for who to hit first, how to maximize her powers, etc., and once she gets the interface down pat, she’s going to be a nightmare to the villains of CoH.
Especially with me to back her play. 🙂

Tuesday night, after Margie watched me got pounded into the concrete in City of Heroes: “You know, I might like to do that.” Followed by, “So tell me about the different archetypes and power sets.”
Wednesday morning, over the phone: “You know, you could set me up on one of the slots on your account, and then while you’re at your Search Committee meeting tonight …”

Continue reading “My Master Plan is Working, Bwah-ha-ha!“

Margie switched off the TV. “Honey, I’m heading up.”
“Okay, I’ll be coming up in just a minute.” I’d gotten back from the Vestry meeting, tidied up the kitchen for the cleaning people, and was finally getting down to some admittedly-brief City of Heroes play, running Velvet Jones around Steel Canyons, beating up on Outcast gangs.
“No problem,” she replied. She came over behind me, watching me play. She asked a couple of questions. I explained what I was doing, how I was balancing toggles, dealing with Endurance, what the various colors of villains meant, the difference between hunting and running missions, how the bad guys behaved, how the civilians behaved, etc. She pulled over a chair and sat down.
I got over near the south transit station, beat up on a couple of guys, then spotted a largish group. Four white, one yellow. Hmmm. I expressed a bit of concern over the numbers, but Margie said, “Go for it.”
Ah, well. So I powered up a bit, then threw myself into the fray. A minute or two later, five Outcasts down with no really serious threat that couldn’t be handled in-battle by healing and endurance Inspirations.
Catch breath. Look around. Hey, there’s another group, same setup. One yellow, four whites.
“Go ahead,” Margie said. “Impress your wife.”
So I made sure I was all healed up, powered myself up, and set once more into the fray.
Wham, bam, punch, munch. “You’re going critical,” Margie noted as my health flashed down to yellow, then orange. No healing Inspiration left, but Dull Pain should do it. Click.
Few moments later, I noticed it hadn’t gone off. And that — hey, that stun a moment ago must have knocked down my defensive toggles — son of a — gotta click aga–
Thud.
Just goes to show you, guys. Trying to show off for the women-folk in your life will only get you in trouble.

Okay, after this I promise at least three non-CoH posts. Really, truly.
City of Heroes trading cards, as mentioned yesterday.

Continue reading “Collect the whole set!”

While CoH has pretty strong solo play, even at higher levels, half the fun is teaming up (and more than half is teaming up with folks you know).
That said, teaming is a crap shoot. It’s difficult to tell, unless you’re doing the team picking, whether an invitation from someone to join a team is a good idea or a bad idea.
Rule #1: If the person couldn’t go to the trouble of coming up with an interesting comic book hero name, decline the invitation. “Fredasdfasdfasdf” is probably not who you want to run around with. It’s up to you whether proper capitalization counts.
That said, I dearly wish that there was a way to tell something about the person inviting you in, short of /telling them back to say, “Hey, what level are you, and what are you doing?” Which, I suppose, would be the proper and intelligent thing to do, but it’s annoying that there’s not some sort of facility to do that. (If there is, somebody clue me in.)
Rule #2: You do not want to be the highest level person in the group. Either your presence will skew the mission difficulty upwards (if you’re the leader), or else you’ll simply get the lowest experience rewards. In either case, it’s not a good thing. From a personal levelling standpoint you probably want to be mid-low in the group, though, obviously, not everyone can do that.
Now, there are things you can do with Exemplaring that I don’t yet fully grok. But, in general, if the rest of the team could either be your Sidekicks, or close to it, you probably don’t want to run with them unless they’re people you know you’re going to have fun with (because you know them).
Rule #3 (aka “Doyce’s Law”): Don’t be afraid to say “This is just nuts, let’s leave” about a mission — or, for that matter, about the team you’re on, if it’s clear that they’re not a disciplined group. Undisciplined teams are inevitably dead teams. Missions that start out all red and purple are not going to get easier further in. Teams that don’t recognize that aren’t smart, and dumb teams are inevitably dead teams, too. Suck up the time investment and quit, before you throw good online hours (and experience debt) after bad.
Okay, enough nattering for the moment.

Create your own CoH trading card. Coolness.
(via Doyce)

Well, since Champion just went down, current update …
I’ve narrowed my playtime to just four characters (which is still too many for quick advancement, but there you go).
Velvet is still my highest, at 11. She’s beginning to get a high enough level that she needs to start adventuring in scarier places, like Steel Canyon, or (again) Perez Park. She’s still a high-power punch-em gal, though she’s now had a couple of very bad team experiences in the Hollows that have given her a bit of debt.
Snipehunter, my previous hard luck case, is up to 9. Been on some good teams with him. The “snipe” power has come in quite handy. Torchielle, his fire-based sister, is up to 7, and I still like her best.
Psi-Clone has been the most fun, though, between his “hey, you, you now hate your fellow bad guy, so go whale on him” powers and his blind and his not-insubstantial spectral damage … plus, in case folks might think he’s a mean SOB, he’s doing heal stuff for parties, too, so that’s all good. Endurance-draining, to be sure, but a good excuse to stay far, far away from the action …
Mission-wise, it’s been a mixed bag past few. Had fun with Avocet on a larger mission, and with a number of Stan’s characters (with a number of mine). Stan and I SKed to Doyce and Jackie last night, which taught us both a lot about the fine art of weakling blaster/controllers and how to support the big guns effectively without being a target yourself.
I’ve had good teams and bad teams, the latter defined as either (a) not well managed, with nobody directing or nobody listening to direction, and/or (b) going up into missions that were way, way, way too overpowered for us, leading to grizzly deaths. And, of course, there’s the definition of insanity, which is trying the same thing twice, thinking the results will be different …
… but when it works — when you battle through, when the plan is followed, when it succeeds even after it all goes to hell, when the bad guys fall like chaff or fall only after repeated, desperate pummeling — then, damn, it works. And it’s a hell of a rush.
No regrets so far.

I’ve shied away from MMORPGs for years, realizing that, with aliases like “EverCrack,” it was likely to be too addictive and too much of a time sink in a life like mine that’s already 120% books. Add to that a distinct lack of interest in most of them (except to occasionally look over th shoulder) and that was pretty easy.
When Doyce, then Jackie, then others I knew started getting hooked on City of Heroes, and when I had a chance to see it, I knew that I was doomty-doom-doom-doomed.

Continue reading “City of Heroes – Random Thoughts”

Things that have happened or are happening:

1. Margie’s still off in Frisco with Jackie and Mary, having (it sounds like) a grand time. I miss her gobs and oodles, and am ever-so-glad she’ll be back tomorrow evening.
2. I’m doing a decent job (I think) of keeping the City of Heroes play time to a reasonable amount — not staying up too late, feeding the child, watering the cats, etc. I’ve a big post on the subject brewing.
3. Margie sounded bemused, in a teeth-gritting way, upon learning of my new addiction pastime. I think she blames Doyce, fortunately.
4. Went on our annual vestry retreat up at the Easter Seals Camp. Good time, as usual — lots of opportunity for bonding and planning and consideration of where we’ve been and where we’re going. It should be, I hope, a good year (which will be a nice finale to my vestry term).
5. While I was up there, and Margie was in Frisco, Kitten got to have a “sleep-over” at Doyce’s. Neither she nor Doyce nor Justin seemed much worse for the wear when I arrived back this afternoon.
6. That opened an opportunity for Doyce (on his PC) and I (on Jackie’s PC) to do some CoH team-ups, eventually roping in Lee on a rather nasty but enjoyable dungeon crawl mission. Good stuff.

And that’s been my life. Tomorrow: getting the house back in order.

So, in the tradition of the Amazingly Insane Last Second Trip to the SDCC Last Year, Margie and Jackie have reciprocated by fleeing to San Francisco for an extended weekend, leaving Katherine and me on our lonesome.
I am proud to say that not only did I finish the laundry, but I did the dishes today, not to mention taking the kid to pre-school (and picking her back up shortly).
And, for those times not soaked up with Incredible Domestic Duties (and Employment), I’m finding something else to while away the hours.

Surely, surely Jackie can talk him out of his City of Heroes addiction, maybe by using these tactics from good ol’ Pat Robertson:

Q: My 18-year-old son is hooked on computer games that have magic spells in them. I’m concerned, but what can I do?

A: Once they are 18, it is tough. Nevertheless, as a mother, sit down with your son and say, ‘We are Christians and love Jesus. This kind of conduct is hurtful to you and damaging. There are demons.’ You need to explain to him the reality of demonic possession. You begin with one of those games and it draws you in. Remember the stuff that happened out there at that tragedy in that high school near Denver when those boys had played a computer game and acted it out to their classmates? These things are dangerous. You need to sit down and talk to him and say, ‘I love you and this is the way it is.’

Bring the biblical verses that show him how these things are wrong. You can find a number of instances. Get a concordance and look up ‘spirits’ and ‘demons’ and look up the ‘devil,’ ‘Lucifer,’ and ‘Satan’ and show that they are not just fun and games. You need to show him the consequences and he will listen. And do a lot of praying that the spells he may be under may be broken, because it is possible for someone to get transfixed like they do with Dungeons & Dragons. They play those roles so much and it takes them over.
Hmmm. Maybe Jackie should talk to him about his addiction to D&D, too. Perhaps an intervention is in order …
(via J-Walk)

Now I know why Doyce hasn’t been posting since Christmas …