"'City of Heroes' character 'Twixt' becomes game's most hated outcast courtesy of Loyola professor"

Bullshit. I know I'm a little late to the party on this one, so be it:


Dear Professor David Myers,

Hi. You don't know me. We play on different servers. As such, I had no feelings for you one way or the other. So, I immediately take issue with this article that portrays you as some sort of infamous celebrity in the world of CoX. You're not.

Having seen a few dozen videos on YouTube of you getting killed in Siren's Call and Recluse's Victory, I take issue with the article portraying you as a good PvPer. You're not. Also, the article neglects to mention that you also posted on the forums of this game, purposely stirring up ill will. We call that trolling, dear Professor. The act of intentionally upsetting people to cause a negative reaction.

I'm sorry that you became a social outcast on the Freedom server by TPing into Drones. We both know it was more than that, but that's not the issue here. Droning people isn't particularly skillful, but at the same time, it's entirely the fault of the people being Droned. With how large the zones are, you have to be fantastically close to the enemy's base to ever risk it happening, and decent players rarely fall victim to it. So, in my opinion, anyone you ever Droned had it coming, cause they were base hugging.

I've received plenty of nasty tells from other players in my time. Most of them while PvPing. I've never Droned another player. I've killed people within their own bases. I've hidden inside their hospitals and killed them when they respawned. I've hidden atop high ledges and swooped down on them without warning, killing them in mid-air. I've hounded Heroes and Villains alike within multiple zones and inside the Arena. I've stalked players that gathered launch codes or meteor shards, and robbed them of their hard won treasures just when they were sure they would reap the rewards of their efforts.

But I've never Droned.

I've even gone so far as to lure the "robotic firing squad" away from an enemy base, with the help of my SGs sniper unit, to leave an entire Villain base undefended, so that my group could swoop in an occupy the whole base, preventing any players from entering on that side. Safely at least.

So, when I read this article, about how you are universally hated and reviled, when the worst thing you've done is Drone some players, or break up some Fight Club in SC, it makes me want to laugh. You're not grieifing anyone. You never did anything that good or bad. The real crime here was the trash talk and mockery that you lent to this conflict, that the article neglects to mention.

I guess the crux of my issue is this: There is nothing inherently wrong with Droning. The Devs, from day 1, have established that nothing save from trapping someone within the geometry of a map is griefing. So, when you TP someone into a Police Drone or Arbiter Drone, you're not breaking any rules. Once someone tells you they have a problem with that action, the dynamic changes. If you TP someone, knowing it will upset them, you are 100% responsible for their reaction. I'm not justifying how they act, most of them sound like very immature people, but you still knowing act in such a manner to cause that reaction from them.

For instance, when in Warburg, I ganked many, MANY other Heroes. It was even the subject of discussion on the Justice forum (that's my server). People talked about whether it was right or wrong for me, roleplaying a biped Police Drone, to kill other Heroes. So, at that point, I changed how I addressed other Heroes in Warburg. I would still attack and kill any player I could, regardless of faction. However, if any Hero ever asked me to leave them be, I would after the first kill. I took responsibility for the consequences of my action, regardless of whether or not what I was doing was wrong. Why? Because that's how all adults should act, online or offline.

Also, I should point out that my SG, the Paragon PD, was the subject of much hate and griefing, simply by existing. We were a top 10 SG for several years, with hundreds of players. Our mere presence spawned rival SGs (Anti-Drones, Rouge Isles PD, etc), our players were subject to constant griefing and harassment, and some (including me) were even kicked from teams for being who we were. On more than one occasion, I've had whole zones of players turn against me just for my name and uniform. Feel free to read my blog, Professor David Myers. I've fought massive battles against both Heroes and Villains simultaneously, outnumbered as bad as 4 to 1.

And not because I intentionally upset players as part of a study on small group dynamics or how the anonymity of the internet emboldens people. Just because I was me.

So, I hope you book is a success. I hope it's more honest and truthful than that article.


-Police Drone TH, lvl 50 Assault Rifle/Energy Manipulation/Munitions Mastery Blaster, Justice Server, Circa Issue 3, proud owner of the 400 Rep PvP badge, and server FFA Arena Champion for 7 Issues.


PS- Zone PvP wasn't introduced until Fall of 2005 with the release of Issue 6: "Along Came a Spider", not Spring of 2004 like the article would have people believe. Issue 6 is also when City of Villains was released. PvP didn't exist until Spring of 2005, and that was limited to the Arenas. The social environment that fostered peaceful interaction between Heroes and Villains existed for a year and a half before zone PvP was a factor, and 90% of the Villains that were created with the advent of CoV were initially Heroes. Again, something the article failed to mention. Furthermore, from Fall of 2005 till Spring of 2006, the PvP zones were the only place where Heroes and Villains could meet face to face, making the only zone where social interaction was possible between the two factions. Pocket D, Cimerora, and the Rikti War Zone didn't exist at that point.

Set the pace.

Normally, the success of a group isn't measured by how many enemies they beat, or how good the XP per hour is; merely how fast the team perceives itself as moving through spawns.

Don't get me wrong. When I'm gaining multiple bars of XP per mission, leveling more than once with the same group post lvl 20, yeah, that group is badass. However, in general, the teams I remember most are the ones on which I felt like I was unstoppable.

Now, as awesome as my Blaster (Police Drone TH) is, he is made stronger by good teammates. Specifically, Tankers and Defenders.

Now, this isn't some post extolling the virtues of the "Holy Trinity" (Tank/Healer/Mage). Instead, I'm saluting the people who control how fast the team rolls. In CoH, it's the Tankers and Defenders. Tankers who eat alphas and manage agro, and Defenders who buff (not heal).

Tankers get a bad rep sometimes. They can be regarded as glory hounds, or seen as trying to do all the work just to show off. However, the real strength of a Tanker is in his ability to embolden the team, and make them strike harder and faster, having faith in the Tanker to keep the agro off them while they rain hell. This applies equally to all classes, not just "Mages". It's safer to debuff once a Tanker has moved in. It's safer for a Scrapper with a mandatory agro aura to engage the foes. Additional agro is less of an issue if the primary spawn is being adequately managed. Tankers, when performing their job properly, help set the pace at which a team does it's job. The better the Tanker, the faster the pace, without team safety being sacrificed.

Any player can tell you that they feel much stronger when an Empathy/Thermal/Pain Manip/Kinetic/etc buff is cast on them. The very nature of buffing powers in CoH lends huge strength to a team. Strong characters are bold ones, and a buffed team is more confident going into battle. While they may still be numerically inferior, they will most times still press on, putting faith in that extra +18.5% def the Defender gave them, or the extra +500% regen the whole group has. Knowing that they are backed by a vigilant Defender (no pun intended), a team is more likely to stand it's ground when people start to fall. More likely to keep fighting when they would otherwise run away. I've seen more team wipes resulting from premature retreat then from failing to run away fast enough.

When solo, I know my own limits. I can ride the razors edge, and tackle odds far greater than most other players. Most players perform better when solo, as they only have themselves to consider in any given situation. When teamed, everything changes, because up to seven other people can be impacted by what you do. When teamed, I have to exercise restraint, since more than my own fate rests in the balance (and usually, the odds are vastly stacked against me). However, when teamed with the right people, when there is the right combination of agro management and buffing, I can once again become the engine of death that I know I am. And this applies to the rest of the team as well.

MMO Manners

People online are notoriously rude. Whether or not one is actually being rude, it is usually how they are interpretted as acting anyway.

Two days ago, I was running some RWZ (Rikti War Zone) missions with my friends. We had a team of heroes and villains, are were doing the story arc where Longbow (think S.H.I.E.L.D.) tries to steal Vanguard's (think an even more badass S.H.I.E.L.D.) thunder. One thing leads to another, and much to the delight of the villains on the team, we start busting Longbow skulls. Fun.

Eventually, our battle takes us head to head with a Longbow Hero (Archvillain), who could make Chuck Norris's blood run cold. He smashes into our group like an angry bull, and we wipe. Once. Twice. Three times.

Finally, we re-order our team a tad, trade one or two of our players, and lower the difficulty. We go in for round four, and we start to win, but then our tank panics, jumps into the backline, right as the Hero fires an AoE at him. The result is a lot of dead support characters, and a fifth wipe. We rally, and keep the fight going. The tank runs back in, then gets knocked back into us. Again things get hairy, when I realize that our tank has no KB (knockback) protection. I try to get him to stand in a corner, in order to negate the KB, but he won't listen. As a result, he keeps getting bounced back into the team, who then eat AoEs in the face.

It doesn't take long before I flip a monumental shit, and start screaming at the guy. A few moments after my tirade, he falls in line, and we are able to take the Hero out.

We exit the mission, get ready for our next run, and I apologize to the guy. It turns out he was brand new to the game, so I took the time to explain what was going wrong, and what could be done in the future to fix it. As it turns out, he did have KB protection, he just failed to use it. I give him some slotting advice, as does the scrapper. As I wrap up with our tank, one of the villains chimes in:

"Wow, that's the first time I've ever seen someone apologize for something like that."

And that bothered me, because he was right. Online, far too many people are not accountable for what they "say" or how they "act". I play games, online and offline, in order to relax, not to yell at people. I don't enjoy acting like that, and it's important to me for people to understand that.

That's why I apologized, because I meant it.

Um, what should I call you?

One of the things that I've always found fascinating about playing MMOs, or any game with online multiplayer, is how people choose to interpret the names of others. That is, how a persons name, or the name of their avatar/character/toon is changed/shortened/altered to make it more convenient in conversation.

Now, character names break down into five rough categories:

1. Actual names
2. Long multisyllabic names
3. Statements as names
4. Plays on words
5. Other
6. Actual names are easy enough to work out. Guild Wars requires you to have a first and last name for any of your characters, so usually you simply need use a player "first" name. I have a Warrior named Roland Dresden, a Paragon named Rook Enassi, a Mesmer named Freya Dresden, etc. Whenever I played them, people simply addressed me by my character's first name.

Longer names pose a small problem. When I played WoW briefly (Up to level 33), I had a Troll Warrior named Alavatus. While not a huge name, it is four syllables, and in general, people addressed me as "Ala" or "Al". Then, you have other names I've used like Kammorremae, which people shortened to "Kamm". I know people like Quatermain, or Abraxxus, who's names are shortened to "Quat" and "Brax" respectively.

Statements as names is where is gets weird. If you hook up with a mage named "Fase Pwner", what do you call him? "Fase"? "Pwner"? Generally, people will just use the first part, and call you "Fase", but every once in a while you get someone who recognizes "Fase" as the adjective, and "Pwner" noun it describes, and then everything goes to hell cause the whole team except the smart ass healer is calling you "Fase", while he is calling you "Pwner". Ass.

Plays on words sometimes overlap with Statements as names. For example, my Defender is named Combative Medic. My old friend Patrick had a Defender named Apathetic Empath. I have no idea what people called Patrick (other than asshole, cause he was one, not that I'm not), but people refer to me as "Medic" or "Med". Why they shorten it to "Med" is beyond me...

Finally you have Other. And honestly, most names these days are Other. My sisters-in-law ran characters named "Super Funky Peach", "Snuggle Bunnies", "Gorgeous Tsurugi", "Panda Mei", etc. My most recent Guild Leader in GW had characters like "The Devil Himself" and "The Devil Herself", while a friend of mine from CoH has toons like "Molten Slowa", "Insane Slowa", or "SWAT Drone SL-OW".

And frankly, that's the best way to go; having a common theme amongst your names that allows people to use the same moniker for all of your characters. These was an asshole from my old guild who had the name "Cangzhen" as a preface to all his character, with their. profession following it (Cangzhen Monk, Cangzhen Warrior, etc). Of course, that naming convention can defeat the point of some MMOs, like City of Heroes or Champions Online, where the point is to create a truly unique avatar that represents precisely the type of character you want to play.

Crab Battle!

Firstly, I squandered yet another Double Xp Weekend, having fun instead of religiously powerleveling my toons. How dare I? All told, I gained a scant 16 levels across all characters (and that includes a Brute I soloed to 12 on Virtue). I even teamed with Icey Pants 2 again. During my absence, the ability to "rate" players was introduced. I currently have it set so that all my personal rankings are displayed above a players head, and the game tracks these ratings across the player's account (So if someone rates me a well deserved 5 Stars, that rating is reflected on all of my other characters). So, upon joining a team with Combative Medic, I saw that my team leader was ranked 1 star with the comment "Hates tankers and scrappers". However, I then saw that there was a lvl 28 Martial Arts/Regen Scrapper on the team (and better yet, the Scrapper was a brand new player!). Icey Pants 2 certainly had her rating go up after that.

Regardless, last night, I decided I wanted to take one of my mid-40 characters up to 50. After a brief debate, I settled on Police Drone TH-01, my human-form Peacebringer. In short order, I was teamed up with the Vampire's Coven SG (none of whom seemed to be vampire themed, oddly enough), saving the world.

No, literally, the name of the mission was "Save the World".

After a lot of fighting, and I mean a lot, we finally reach the +4 AV. After a pitched battle, waves of ambushes start spawning and attacking us while we're still engaged with the first AV. Once he drops to 1/3rd HP, and cutscene triggers and we get to see a second +4 AV approach, promising much doom. The battle continues, we defeat the first AV, and engage the second. This AV, not to be outdone, also triggers ambushes on us.

After much gnashing of teeth, and player death, we finally work him down to 25% of his HP. So he triggers Personal Force Field.

A collective groan issues forth from the team, as we watch him regenerate much of the damage we dealt, but then the force field drops, and we start working him over again. And again, at 25% HP, the field goes up.

Such is the battle for the next hour. Whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate...

You get the idea.

It reminded me of the fact that City of Heroes is functionally very similar to dozens of other RPGs, in that at the beginning of each fight, either you are, or aren't, strong enough to win. Where as, in some games, pure skill can overcome a statistical disadvantage, it usually cannot in a game based almost purely on preprogrammed percentages.

So, despite the fact that we were all very competent players, with powerful characters, our team was mechanically insufficient to handle the task at hand (we needed either massive regeneration debuffs, or large amounts of stacked holds to prevent him from casting PFF).

It's a shame really. For 95% of the game, a group can get away with having an unbalanced team, since competent play wins battles, not powersets and ATs.

"We don't team with your kind here."

With the release of Issue 16, Defenders were given access to the Assault Rifle secondary set. My heart leaped with joy when I found out I could finally roll up an Empathy/Assault Rifle Defender, so first chance I got, I did.




At the time, I had been trying to find a way to turn this picture into an outfit, as a way to lure a friend of mine into playing CoH again. In the process, I fell in love with the idea of playing a medic from a Warhammer 40K or Starcraft scenario, so I rolled up Combative Medic (and I changed the outfit, along with color scheme).

Combative Medic is now level 26, blasting and buffing his merry way through all manner of task force, AV battle, and general tomfoolery. I'm still trying to find my inner Defender, but having a Council Assault Rifle to blast my way to said inner Defender with helps.



So, yesterday, after having some trouble finding a team, I end up grouped with two Controllers, whom we will call Icey Pants 1 and Icey Pants 2. Both were Ice Control/Cold Domination 'Trollers from the same SG. Upon joining them, the leader (Icey Pants 1) laments how few people are within our level range, and how none will join. I comment that I have a friend who will join us, to which the leader reacts favorably. After a few minutes of plowing through Sky Raiders at +1, I mention that my friend is now ready, with his Tanker.


And so it starts.

Icey Pants 2: Oi vey.

Icey Pants 1: No tankers, no scrappers.

Combative Medic: As a policy?

Icey Pants 1: SG rule. We don't allow them.

::After a few moments of politely testing the waters of the issue (while
still performing my job admirably), I address it directly::

Combative Medic: So do you also exclude Brutes, Stalkers, Blappers, and
Kheldians?

Icey Pants 1: No, just tankers.

Icey Pants 2: And tankery storm defenders,

Combative Medic: Why?

Icey Pants 2: We deal with enough of it on PUGs, so we don't allow it when
our SG runs a team.

Icey Pants 1: Chasing a tank around as it runs blindly into spawns get old
fast.

Combative Medic: Why not ask them not to, and boot them if they refuse?

Icey Pants 1: Have you ever asked a tank to listen to you?

The rest of the conversation is more of the same, but you get the gist. Rather then exclude all melee or melee capable classes, they simply exclude the two ATs most suited to deal with the damage they will inevitably take (I love my blapper to pieces, but anything less than perfection when I play him at +4 results in bloody violent death for moi). And this exclusion isn't truly against the ATs, simpley how some people chose to play them. But rather than having 30 seconds of patience with a player to see if they will play nice with others, they discriminate against a large portion of the player population, then lament that there aren't enough people around to join their team.

In the end my response to them was this: I will give almost any player and any AT a chance. Unless my team absolutely does not need, or will be hurt by the presence of a particular AT (a team with 6 blasters doesn't need a 7th), there is no reason not to include another player. If said player causes issues via their play style, I speak with them. If they adapt to the needs of the team, they can stay. If they refuse, I politely ask them to leave, and failing at that, I simply boot them myself. Conversely, when I play my Tanker, or any other AT for that matter, I almost always defer to the judgement of the team leader. If he has a problem with something I'm doing, I'll stop. Sometimes this means I end up doing stupid shit cause the leader sucks, but other times it means that I help the team running better by accepting the fact that my way isn't always the best way. Maybe I should be corner pulling on a Nemesis map, or maybe I should be on the opposite side of the AV from the team to protect them from melee cones (these are things I already do, btw, but that many Tanker neglect).

However, at no point can I ever expect another player to accommodate to my wishes if I refuse to do it in turn. Icey Pants 1 & 2 refuse to play with 40% of the available ATs, based on what they perceive as an issue with the classes, when in truth it's an issue with play style (one that can be found in every AT, Red or Blue side). I have no time for people who discriminate, but at the same time, to their credit, Icey Pants 1 & 2 were very polite, and answered all of my questions. So, rather than leave in a huff, I finished the mission with them, politely excused myself, and went off to team with my Tanker bud who had been left out.


This applies equally to all classes, ATs, professions, in any game, MMO or otherwise.

Level Cap=/=Fun Cap

I don't play World of Warcraft, for many reasons. Almost all of them are personal preference; as much as I don't like WoW, I can't say that it's bad. Far too often, people mistake their own opinion as fact, and I want to go ahead and put that out there before I go on.

Now, there is one thing that Blizzard has done, that I hate, and it's the repeated increase of the level cap in WoW. Also, by proxy, how this practice has lead to droves of people carrying over a faulty logic to other MMOs that, in increasing the level cap, one can make a game more fun.

Firstly, why I dislike increasing the level cap in an established, persistent online game. It tends to invalidate the work and effort of a player. If I've spent the last two months raiding with my guild, to complete my Tier # armor, I'd feel pretty shitty when the developer of the game decides that everything my character owns (and that I thought was good) is now worthless junk, because there are ten more levels for me to grind out, and each one has gear more powerful than the last.

Now, increasing the level cap certainly isn't bad for newer players, or ones who haven't dedicated depressingly large amounts of time to pimping out a character. It sucks for the hardcore players. Of course, they are also hardcore enough to suck it up and grind out those ten new levels, and work up to the newest Tier of gear. I sit somewhere in between casual and hardcore, where I care enough and play just enough to be well equipped, but I haven't religiously cleared the same instance dozens of times to earn a particular set of gear (this doesn't exactly translate into CoH and GW, but close enough).

This brings me to the crux of my rant; I'm tired of hearing people suggest upping the level cap as the best way to make a game better. Wrong, bad, fail. Firstly, not all games revolve around high level play. Secondly, not all games have an endgame the involves endless grinding for loot. For example, City of Heroes is more about the (admittedly downplayed) story of a world recovering from a massive invasion, and your role as a fledgling hero trying to save it. You start as a scrub fighting riots and taking down low level drug dealers, to traveling between dimensions, defeating evil super-powered despots and liberating entire worlds from tyranny. The scope of such an evolution is hard to appreciate if you blast past low level play to get to high levels, and it's completely lost when you replace one plateau of power with another one.

Guild Wars is another great example. While Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall vary greatly in their PvE application, it's undeniable that the endgame in Guild Wars is PvP. Lots of PvP. Coordinated, uncoordinated, pro, scrub, hardcore, softcore PvP. Wanna do small scale? Arena. Large scale? Alliance Battle. Ultra cut-throat internationally competitive? Guild vs Guild or Hall of Heroes. Increasing the level cap offers absolutely no benefit here.

What can make a game better? What can extend it's life? Additional content, not at the expense of the effort players have already invested in the game. City of Heroes publishes a new issue of the game every three to four months, adding more content each time (including but not limited to: New Powers, New ATs, Inventions, New Zones, Power Customization, New Villain Groups, etc). Guild Wars released an expansion meant almost exclusively for max level players. Additionally, they added (early on) the ability to play all the low level areas as elite lvl 20+ zones.

Invention Origin enhancements: The mandatory option.

You ever found a really sweet free to play game online? Maybe it was a simple 2D flash game, or a really badass 3D freeshare FPS, but either way, it was way more fun than it should have been.

So you play this really sweet, free-to-play game for a few weeks, at which point you find out, "Hey, there is a whole 'nother level here I've yet to touch!" But then you find out that level comes with a $15 price tag to it, or that you can buy in game money (which takes forever to earn), or that in order to access a certain realm, where all the good items are, you need to purchase a subscription?

Yeah, IOs are like that.

They don't cost money (real money, at least), but the principle is the same. You don't NEED them to play. Quite the contrary; most players have been dominating in City of Heroes/Villains for years without them. However, the gulf of power between a Hero without IOs and a Hero with them is staggering. Furthermore, you can see exactly which bonuses a player possesses by looking at their powers tab. If you click on a Scrapper and find out he has 3 Ultimate Recharge Bonuses, you know that this Scrapper is filthy rich, as he probably has billions of influence worth of IOs slotted into his powers (::cough::Karou Non' Drak::cough::). Using this, people are able to pick characters which are seemingly more powerful, or at least wealthy, based on how many IO bonuses they have (Within SGs, this practice is nearly unheard of. In PUGs, in can be, at times, rampant.).

Now, I have no problem with IOs. They add a new level of depth to the game, and allow a person to make their unique Hero (or Villain) even more unique. However, I think it's a tad misleading to say that IOs are completely optional. By that same logic, all gear is completely optional. You don't need it, it just helps.

And I think we can all disagree with that (barring Vow of Poverty).

Issue 16: Power Spectrum

Powers Customization:

Hundreds of powers have been updated to allow new color selections and customization. Players can now pick new Themes for each powerset, adjusting colors, appearance, and even animations for some sets.

Key Features:

• Thousands of Tintable particle and geometry effects for powers, such as Energy Blasts and Stone Mallet colors.
• Customizable Primary and Secondary colors for powersets, with color choices themed to match the selected powerset.
• Powerset Themes selectable for a complete set, or individual powers.
• Powerset Themes selectable at character creation, as well as in the tailor screens.
• Independant Theme selection for each character costume.

New Theme selections:
New Themes of Spines and Thorny Assault available, including themes of Thorns, Metal Spines, Crystal Spines, and Slate Spines. New Animation Themes for Super Strength and Martial Arts.Huge variety of customizable powersets, including Cold Domination, Dark Armor, Dark Blast, Dark Melee, Dark Miasma, Devices, Earth Control, Earth Melee, Electric Armor, Electric Assault, Electric Blast, Electric Melee, Electricity Manipulation, Empathy, Energy Assault, Energy Aura, Energy Blast, Energy Manipulation, Energy Melee, Fiery Aura, Fire Assault, Fire Blast, Fire Control, Fire Manipulation, Fire Melee, Force Field, Gravity Control, Ice Armor, Ice Assault, Ice Blast, Ice Control, Ice Manipulation, Ice Melee, Illusion, Invulnerability, Kinetics, Mental Manipulation, Mind Control, Necromancy, Plant Control, Psionic Assault, Psychic Blast, Radiation Blast, Radiation Emission, Regeneration, Sonic Resonance, Sonic Blast, Spines, Stone Armor, Storm Summoning, Super Reflexes, Thermal Radiation, Thorny Assault, Traps, and Willpower.
_______________________________________________

New Character Creator:

* The Character creator and Tailor screen have been updated to be easier to use and even preview the animation and color choices for powers!

Key features:

• Tabbed Character Creator: Jump between Archetype, Power Sets, Costumes, and Character ID in any order without losing progress.
• New Powers Customization screen, for adjusting powers and previewing animations.
• Select colors and themes for each individual power, or apply it to the entire power set!
• Preview live animations of all powers, showing the selected Theme and color choices.
• Save and Load Theme settings for each powerset, saving colors and selections for all powers.

Costume slots: Your active costume slot is stored when you log off will be the costume slot used when you log back in. It will also display that costume in the character selection screen. _______________________________________________

Powerset Proliferation:
More power sets are now in the hands of Archetypes who couldn’t use them previously!

• Archetype - Blasters * Radiation Blast
• Archetype - Brutes * Claws
• Archetype - Controllers * Cold Domination
• Archetype - Corruptors * Archery * Trick Arrow
• Archetype - Defenders * Assault Rifle * Traps
• Archetype - Dominators * Earth Assault
• Archetype -Masterminds * Thermal Radiation
• Archetype -Scrappers * Electric Melee * Electric Armor
• Archetype -Tankers * Electric Melee * Electric Armor
• Archetype -Stalkers * Broadsword

_______________________________________________

Enhanced Difficulty Options:
The old notoriety system has been removed and replaced with a new difficulty system of independent settings. You can now fine-tune the difficulty levels of the missions you play by telling the game exactly how you want to be treated:

* Choose to fight monsters between a -1 to +4 level difference from the player's level.
* Choose to set your personal team size (1-8).
* Choose if you want bosses to scale down to Lieutenants when soloing or not
* Choose to have AVs scale down to EBs.

The difficulty settings of the mission owner dictate how the mission is handled. Actual team size overrides any difficulty setting, so you will always get Arch-Villains if the team has 6 or more members. The difficulty setting is per task, so personal team member sizes do not add together. You can change your difficulty settings at any Hero Corp.’s Representative in Paragon City or Fateweaver in the Rogue Isles.

_______________________________________________

Sidekicking Changes: Super-Sidekicking! One player can now sidekick or exemplar the whole team, everyone can always play together!

• Each player in the group's level is set to the level of the owner of the active team task. If no team task is selected, everyone in the group's level will be set to the level of the team leader.
• When the team level changes, players will be notified via a dialog and have the option to quit the team or immediately accept. The dialog will time out after 30 seconds at which point acceptance is implied.
• While in the pending state, players cannot receive rewards and any critters they damage will be worth no experience.
• Players can choose to auto-accept team level changes 0 to 50 levels above or below their current level.
• Exemplars will now earn XP and a level capped person will get XP converted into influence like exemplars used to.

_______________________________________________

New Badges: Last issue we announced our future plans and design direction for new badges. Here’s a list of the new badges that can be obtained in Issue 16:

• Master of Reichsman Strike Force
• Master of Reichsman Task Force
• Master of Imperious Task Force

_______________________________________________

Epic/Patron Powers Pools:

The balance between the Epic/Patron power pools has been revisited. Now all Epic power pools have 5 powers to choose from.

• Force Mastery (Blaster) Existing Powers * Personal Force Field * Repulsion Field * Temporary Invulnerability * Force of Nature New Powers * Repulsion Bomb - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Moderate Damage(Smash/Energy), Foe Knockdown
• Flame Mastery (Blaster) Existing Powers * Bonfire * Char * Fire Shield * Rise of the Phoenix New Powers * Melt Armor - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe -Res, -Def
• Fire Mastery (Controller) Existing Powers * Fire Blast * Fire Ball * Fire Shield * Consume New Powers * Rise of the phoenix - Self Rez, Special
• Psionic Mastery (Controller) Existing Powers * Mental Blast * Indomitable Will * Mind Over Body * Psionic Tornado New Powers * World of Confusion - PBAoE, Minor DoT(Psionic), Foe Confuse
• Dark Mastery (Defender) Existing Powers * Oppressive Gloom * Dark Consumption * Dark Embrace * Soul Drain New Powers * Soul Transfer - Self Rez, Special
• Power Mastery (Defender) Existing Powers * Conserve Power * Power Build Up * Temp Invulnerability * Total Focus New Powers * Force of Nature - +Res(All but Psionics)
• Blaze Mastery (Scrapper) NEW Existing Powers * None New Powers * Ring of Fire - Ranged, Moderate DoT(Fire), Foe Immobilize * Char - Ranged, Minor DoT(Fire), Foe Hold * Fire Blast - Ranged, Moderate DMG(Fire) * Melt Armor - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe -Res, -DEF * Fire Ball - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Moderate DMG(Fire/Smash)
• Body Mastery (Scrapper) Existing Powers * Conserve Power * Focused Accuracy * Laser Beam Eyes * Energy Torrent New Powers * Physical Perfection - Auto, +Regen, +Recovery (50% of the values offered by Stamina and Health)
• Darkness Mastery (Scrapper) Existing Powers * Torrent * Petrifying Gaze * Dark Blast * Tenebrous Tentacles New Powers * Nightfall - Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Negative), Foe –To Hit.
• Energy Mastery (Tanker) Existing Powers * Conserve Power * Focused Accuracy * Laser Beam Eyes * Energy Torrent New Powers * Physical Perfection - Auto, +Regen, +Recovery (50% of the values offered by Stamina and Health.
• Soul Mastery (VEAT) Existing Powers * Gloom * Soul Tentacles * Darkest Night * Dark Obliteration * Summon Widow New Powers * Darkest Night - Toggle: Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe -DMG -To Hit
• Leviathan Mastery (VEAT) Existing Powers * Spirit Shark * School of Sharks * Bile Spray * Summon Guardian New Powers * Arctic Breath - Ranged (Cone), Minor DoT(Cold), Foe -Speed, -Recharge, -DEF -Res, knock down
• Mace Mastery (VEAT) Existing Powers * Mace Blast * Web Envelop * Disruptor Blast * Summon Blaster New Powers * Shatter Armor – Melee, Superior DMG(Smash), Foe –Res
• Mu Mastery (VEAT) Existing Powers * Mu Lightning * Electrifying Fences * Ball Lightning * Summon Striker New Powers * Static Discharge - Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Energy), -END Mu Mastery (Brute) Existing Powers * Mu Lightning * Electrifying Fences * Ball Lightning * Summon Striker New Powers * Static Discharge - Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Energy), -END

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Mission Architect:
Check out the improvements made to the Mission Architect:
Custom Critter XP Scaling

• Custom Critters with Custom powers now reward XP proportional to the number of powers added to the critter.
• Critters with no powers are allowed, but they are worth no XP.
• Standard and hard critters are worth less than extreme critters.

Mission Browser Improvements

• Author Hyperlink: Author names are now hyperlinked and will underline on mouseover. Clicking on the name of the author in the Mission Browser will do a search for all the other arcs that author has also published. Clicking it will search for arcs by that author only

Mission Creation Improvements

• Runaway Boss Dialog: The boss now has dialog when he runs away.
• Health Dialog on Allies: Allies and Escorts can be set to say things as they lose health.
• Betrayal Options: Allies and Escorts can now be set to betray on any normal objective. They can also say something when they betray.
• Drag & Drop Mission Goals: Goals in Architect missions can now be dragged and dropped to change their order.
• Objective Counts: A count is listed on each detail creation button of the number of details that can still be placed.

Custom Villain Groups

• If a player has all three basic critter types in their CVG, they will receive full rewards for the mission. If one critter type is missing they will receive 50% rewards. If two critter types are missing they will receive 25% rewards, and if none of the core critter types are in the CVG, there are no rewards. o This applies only to critters auto-spawned by the mission, not specific bosses called for by objectives XP Curve Adjustment

To go along with our new changes to sidekicking and exemplaring, we've made some adjustments to the experience awarded from minions, lieutenants and bosses in the level 5 to 24 range. In short these enemies are on average receiving a 20% experience and influence increase. This will slightly speed up the pace at which heroes and villains advance through the 5 to 24 range

"'Burailion' Red!" or "I dream of heroes"

Last night I had a dream, in which I came into possession of a decoder ring. However, it matched up catchphrases in addition/instead of keycodes. As I examined the ring, I saw that one of the movable options was "'Burailion' Red!"

Needless to say, this stopped me dead in my tracks. I then spent the rest of my dream trying to get in touch with NCSoft or someone from Paragon Studios, so that I could collect my royalties.

Good times.

<---Original outfit, sans Piston Boots

Police Drone TH

Posting pictures in this blog is always a crapshoot; either I screw up royally and it looks terrible, or everything fits together supremely well, and it looks like a work of art. Anyway...

Police Drone TH, level 50 Assault Rifle/Energy Manipulation Blaster. He was my second character to hit 50, and by far my favorite character. Even with the PPD long gone, and most likely being one of the last "drones" patrolling the City, I still feel proud to wear that outfit.

As you can see, TH has been fully outfitted with IOs (on his primary build). Among other things, he has Sting of the Manticore 5-slotted, three sets of Positron's Blast 5-slotted, two sets of Thunderstrike 6-slotted, three sets of Mako's Bite 6-slotted, Gaussian's Synchronized Fire Control 6-slotted, Essence of Curare 6-slotted, and a few other unique IOs tossed in for flavor.

I specced him for ranged defense, and I succeeded. With Combat Jumping on, he has +32.88% defense to ranged attacks. Math time!

Base accuracy for an even con minion is 50%. With my defense applied, an even con minion has a 17.12% chance to hit me (effectively, I take 66% less damage than other blasters, at range). Of course, it's always important to understand the difference between positional defense, and typed defense.

All attack are classified by "position" and "type". An attack can only have one position (ranged, melee, area of effect), but it can have multiple types (smashing, lethal, fire, cold, energy, negative energy, toxic, psychic). For example, if a Council mech fires an energy blast at you, it's a ranged attack that deals energy and smashing damage. Resistance is applied separately to each type, however, only one defensive value is applied. If I have 30% ranged defense, 15% energy defense, and 10% smashing defense, the game will roll to hit against me using the highest relevant value (in this case, ranged defense). If the same mech runs up to me and tries to back-hand me with its' gun arm, the game then rolls to hit against either my melee or smashing defense (which in this case, my smashing defense is probably higher).

This is more important for melee characters, because different sets run different defenses. Super Reflexes is all positional defense, while Invulnerability is mainly typed defense. Knowing which you are when slotting is paramount for making sure IO set bonuses synergize with your character.

Battle Suit Justice Burailion

An insane anime mecha, Burailion has almost no IOs slotted up, but is still one of my favorite characters. I went Invulnerability/Energy Melee because I wanted him to be a PvP character, but interest in him PvPing gave way to mild RPing with him.

This isn't his original outfit, but it's my current favorite (mainly because most of the pieces didn't exist when I stopped playing). It's a combination of Cyborg (arms, legs, shoulders, belt, hat, face plate, and chest plate), Enforcer (gauntlets, chin piece), and Techbot pieces (torso and head), with Piston Boots tossed in for good measure.

I'll be adding some binds and macros to him later, fleshing out the whole deluded crazy robot angle. Such catchphrases to be added:

• "Burning finger!"
• "Battle Suit Justice beatdown!"
• "I've seen this episode; it's the one where I kick your ass!"
• "Last time on Battle Suit Justice Burailion: I was awesome!"
• "Battle Suit Justice Burailion has high insurance premiums."
• "You are a fly in the soup of justice!"

That last one seems more in the vein of what the Tick would scream out, but you get the idea.

Oh, what's that you say?

Rather than apologize for months of inactivity, and pledge to remedy my ways, I'll just act like there was no sizable gap in my posting.

Sup.

So, not only has Blizzard announced a fourth class for Diablo 3, but NCSoft has released a trailer for Guild Wars 2. Huzzah! The trailer depicting the new D3 class, the Monk, was very reminiscent of Fist of the North Star. I was initially skeptical of introducing such a decidedly eastern flavor to D3, but given the art I've seen, he fits quite nicely. Meanwhile, the trailer for Guild Wars 2 may or may not have turned me on (just a little). Z-Axis, Norn-bears wearing armor, Charr with guns, Asuran mechs. Let's just say, I hath been sated.
---------------

But forget all that, I have real news to share:

I renewed my subscription to City of Heroes.

BOOYAH. I never really realized how much I missed that game. It's been almost five issues since I last played (I stopped in I11, and I16 is nearing release). But now I'm back, many of my gripes have been addressed (Invul balancing, Kheldian performance, etc), leaving me with less room to bitch, and more things to enjoy.

Starting tonight, I'll be posting character bios for everyone I still play, to give some reference to everything I babble about.

"Last year, on the Justice Server" or "Hollow Words pt 2"

Last year, on the Justice Server, myself and about 30 other players engaged in a 5 stock Domination Match, to celebrate Wintereenmas. Basically, a standard FFA Deathmatch type game, but each player only has 5 lives.

I faced Broad Sword/Regen Scrappers, Radiation/Psi Defenders, Ice Armor/EM Tankers, and one very stubborn SWAT Drone SL-OW, who brought an AR/Dev, and made it into the Top 5.

In the end, I faced WWII, a Stone Armor/Super Strength Tanker. He couldn't even begin to damage me, and I couldn't beat his regen. So, we both turned off our toggles, took our mezzes off the power bars, and faced each other as Statesman intend; like really stupid men. I triumphed, and not only was the last man standing, I claimed the most kills of anyone in attendance.

It's rare that I PvP for so long without taking a brief respite (drink, snack, bathroom, etc), but this kept me glued to my seat for almost 1 1/2 hours. It's things like this that makes me miss CoH the most.

Good times.

HA!

On a completely unrelated note to my previous post, an excerpt from the I13 patch notes:

"Peacebringers damage adjusted
Increased Melee Damage to 0.85 from 0.75
Increased Range Damage to 0.8 from 0.625
Increased Melee Dwarf Form Melee Damage to 1.0 from 0.85 "

The rubberband is on the other claw now! I'd been lobbying hard for a change like this for quite a while. The post was lost in a forum purge, otherwise I'd transcribe it here.

For those unfamiliar with CoH game mechanics, I'll explain a little.

Let's say we have a Defender, a Tanker, and a Blaster, all with the power Total Focus. Despite the name, this is a melee attack, and it's one of the top 5 most potent in the game. Let's also assume, that the base damage for this attack is 100, at the heroes current level. The Defender has a melee dmg mod of 0.625, the Tanker is set to 0.85, and the Blaster is 1.00. Translated:

Defender=62.5 dmg
Tanker=85 dmg
Blaster=100 dmg

Simple enough, right? You multiply the intended damage of the power by the ATs modifier, and you get the damage. The intended damage is called "damage scalar." The scalar for Total Focus is 3.56, which is very high.

The scalar on Kheldian ranged attacks is abysmally low. The three single target ranged attacks they possess (in human form), rank in at 0.6, 1.0, and 1.64. Compared to a Blaster using the Energy Blast powerset, who's three single target attacks rank in at 1.0, 1.64, and 2.12. Obviously, the Blaster will do more damage hit for hit.

Now factor in the fact that the modifier for a Kheldian used to be 0.625, while for a Blaster it's 1.15 (Blasters have a different modifier for ranged attacks than the do for melee attacks). A huge performance gap appears, as the Kheldian has to deal with a low modifier, and a low scalar. My argument against this was that even set to an equal modifier to the Blaster, a Kheldian at damage cap would always underperform to a Blaster. Thusly, it was more than fair to at least adjust the modifier to let them outdamage a Defender under normal mission conditions (standard +96% dmg from slotting, +40% dmg from Cosmic Balance, and a misc +15% from team buffs).

I was accused of trying to turn Kheldians into Tank-Mages, and that I wanted far too much.

Guess the Dev team didn't think I was that wrong.

City of Heroes PvP

Before I begin, everything and anything I'm about to say might soon become completely irrelevant, as major changes are soon coming to the City of Heroes PvP system. Anything I say below is referring to PvP from Issue 4 to Issue 12.

The most fun I've ever had PvPing has been in City of Heroes. It's also some of the most imbalanced PvP, but that doesn't mean it wasn't fun. However, those imbalances are really most glaringly obvious in high end, competitive PvP. I'm talking about zone PvP. The middle ground between Arenas and World PvP. In zone PvP, everyone has a chance to win. A skilled player can take a very sub-optimal powerset combination and make it shine. A lot of avid PvPers disagree with me on that, but hear me out:

Through a combination of usage and general skill, a good PvPer can take an underperforming character and win consistently with it.

Consistently being the key point. Not always, not most of the time, but consistently. Now, the immediate response I tend to get is, "An AR/Dev will NOT beat an Ice/Nrg, it's just not going to happen." Sure, in the Arena 1v1, I agree 110%. But this isn't the Arena, it's a zone. It has NPCs, multiple exits, huge expanses of terrain, with the chance of outside interference at any point, for either side, whether you want it or not, and most fights start with one person ambushing the other. There are too many variables to make blanket statements as to the outcome of a fight. Police Drone M8 and I used to tear a bloody swath through Warburg, wrecking anything in our way. I played an AR/Nrg, he played a Stone/Emp. Not exactly FOTM power builds. I can recall times where we steamrolled Ice/Rad and Ice/Dark corrupters, as an afterthought. If either of us had fought them in the Arena, we'd have been toast. But we outplayed them in the zone, and trashed them repeatedly before they left.

Prime example: I was playing my Invul/SS tanker, King's Rook, in Warburg. Super Strength is a great choice for Siren's Call, or even Bloody Bay, it is not a top performer in Warburg. Energy Melee, even after the nerfs, is still way to strong hit for hit for SS to compete in higher level PvP. Same with Invul. Solid against spikes, but in a sustained fight, every other Tanker primary is liable to outperform it in sustained combat.

I found myself fighting a EM/Stone brute, and an Ice/Dark corrupter, near the villain base. I was losing, and the ice blasts were destroying me. I spotted a pair of Zeus Titans in the distance, +5 to myself and the villains I was fighting. I queued up Hurl, and pegged a Titan, then moonwalked behind a piece of rubble, positioning the Brute in line-of-sight with the Titans. They came running to attack, but hit the Brutes aggro aura first. They turned on him, causing the brute and corrupter to shift focus. I pulled back, let the debuffs fade, then rushed the corrupter, taking her out why the brute was distracted. I then turned and finished the brute off with the help of the NPCs. Got full credit for both kills, and saved my own hide. It was more luck than anything else, but unorthodox and underhanded tactics can level the playing field.

And that's what made PvP in CoH so unique and appealing to me. It wasn't cause I wanted to pull NPCs onto people in PvP, but that I had the option. Ambushes were a possibility, almost anyone had access to stealth powers, giving them greater freedom of movement in a zone where others hunt you. You could stand atop a sky scraper, looking down on others, and leap down to instantly join the fight, or merely steal a kill. You have foes flying, leaping, teleporting, or just plain super speeding around in a mad craze, trading blows and firing at each other.

I scored countless kills in Warburg by resting on ledges, looking down over the zone, waiting for a target to fly by the blind corner, unaware of my presence. I'd target them, leap over them, fire a beanbag into them to stun them and drop their flight toggle, then free fall with them to the ground, where I finish them in melee while their helpless. Done properly, they don't realize it's me till I land next to them on the ground, already attacking them. A prepared player breaks the mez before impact, might even retoggle flight to pull out of the dive. But usually not. I'd hit them with Power Thrust to knock them on their ass, and use my melee attacks to finish them fast. Again, it's underhanded, and doesn't even allow them a chance to fight back, but that's zone PvP for you.

Despite playing AR/Nrg, I was considered the top PvPer in my SG. The SG leader put a bounty out open to anyone who could beat me in the Arena, in part to encourage newer players to PvP with us. We'd do weekly Arena FFAs, with everyone exemplared down to the level of the lowest Drone participating. Even then, I almost always came out on top. Most weeks we'd take a team of Drones into Siren's Call, and dominate the zone for an hour or two, until the villains got tired and called in their own SG mates.

However, the few times I participated in a high end, organized PvP event, I received a hot ass-whipping. It's just how it is.

That being said, one of the other aspects of Zone PvP in COH was that everyone could try their hand at it. They certainly weren't guaranteed, or even likely, to win, but they had a shot.

Kaiser's movie quote mania

On the City of Heroes forums, there is a subforum for each server. My home server was Justice, and in the Justice forum, we had a game, "Kaiser's movie quote mania."

Take a quote from a movie, change it to fit CoH and the Justice server, then make other try to guess it. If you guess it correctly, you get to post the next quote. So on and so forth. It started in February of '07, and it's still active. Non-active accounts can't post in those forums, but we can still read, so I combed through and picked out a few quotes, mostly PvP related.

-----------------------------------------------

Police_Drone_TH:

Police Drone TH: [paces back and forth on the deck of the Paragon PD King's Row HQ as he addresses his new recruits] "Greetings. Police Drone X9 has chosen you to serve your server in Warburg. Those of you who continue to profess a belief in "badging" will receive the standard substandard training that will result in your eventual ganking. Those of you who renounce this superstitious and hysterical belief will be eligible to join the warrior elite of the Paragon Police Department. Each of you will be given a Paragon City Registration Card."
[Displays his own card to the crowd]
Police Drone TH: "Whatever you do or whatever you learn will be imprinted on this card. If you lose your card or fail to follow commands, you will be subject to immediate ganking. That will be all."
--


Folonius:

Kaiser: "I've done far worse than kill you, Folonius. I've trapped you. And I wish to go on trapping you in inescapable places. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her: marooned for all eternity in the hotdog stand with no way out, buried alive. Buried alive."
Folonius: "KAAAIIISER!"
(echo)
Folonius: "KAAAIIISER!"
--


Mender_Frog:

"Give up, just quit, because in City of Heroes, you can't win. Yeah, you can try, but in the end you're just gonna lose, big time, because the world is run by the Gnome. The Gnome, oh, you don't know the Gnome. He's everywhere. In the White House... down the hall... Katfood, she's the Gnome. And the Gnome ruined base raids, he's gankin' folks in Warburg, and he threadjacked the Prophet's thread and turned it into PWNZ! And there used to be a way to stick it to the Gnome. It was called PVP, but guess what, oh no, the Gnome ruined that, too, with a little thing called Recluse's Victory! So don't waste your time trying to make anything cool or uber or awesome 'cause the Gnome is just gonna call you a fat washed up loser and crush your soul. So do yourselves a favor and just GIVE UP!"

Bubble: "Man, why don't we just do his job, so we can do our job and get the [censored] out of here? "
Frog: "What do you mean, "do his job?" What am I, a cold-blooded stalker? I'm not a cold-blooded stalker."
Bubble: "Now, wait a minute..."
Frog: "No, you wait a minute. You want to gank the hero but not be the villain. Doesn't work like that. You have to wait until the villain ganks the hero, then when you gank the villain, you're the hero. "
Bubble: "So - just to clarify - if we do his job we're the villains, and if we do our job we're the Heroes. "
Frog: "Yes."
Bubble: "That's... great."
--


Emma Peel:

"Plasma Warrior: All right, listen up. You heroes will not die on me in game. You f’ing noobs will do everything you can to prove me wrong. You'll ask for bio breaks in the middle of combat, give sbs when they’re not wanted, pull agro you can’t handle, eat cheetos and diddely-bop through Paragon City like you were back on the block. Or when you’re supposed to be healing and rezzing in combat you'll send tells, play with your mouse, and think of your girl who’s playing WOW. Forget her. Right now, some Orc has her on her back and is telling her to play WOW for peace. This is Emma. Those of you who are foolish will think of her as 'ditz,' 'bimbo,' 'twit' or 'bleeptch.' She is your enemy. She came over on the “Let a Crazy Person Out of the Psych Ward” Program, and after she fattens herself on Cabernet and Dark Chocolate she will be hunting your young butts in Siren’s Call. Now forget about this noob PvPer stuff. What you'll encounter out there is hard core PVP, Player Versus Player. Highly motivated, highly trained and well equipped. If you meet Emma or her cousins, you will give her respect and refer to those little beastards as 'Echo Papa.' Meet her twice, and survive, and you will refer to her as 'MISS Echo Papa.' Now people, I am sick and tired of filling body bags with your dumb f’ing mistakes.Emma is super jumping in on your position. It's night... Look at me! I'm gonna save your life and your gonna save mine. It's night, it's raining. While your thinking about Salvage, cheetos and whether or not we should be watching Heroes on NBC, Emma is going to crush your f’ing gonads with her Gravity powers. And your afk. You've been playing this mission in Peregrine for hours. It's your turn for a bio break, you're allowed to pee. What do you think Emma is going to do? Is she going to wait for you to come back to the keyboard, TJ? And smile? And talk about men? MISS Echo Papa gets all wet watching you die. Some of you think you have problems because you're against the in game advertisements coming up. You demonstrated in Atlas Park... you wear Statesman symbols on your costume, and you have attitudes. I'm a noob, my brother plays SWG, the RWZ got the clap from my sister, Mom drinks, Dad coughs blood, I have ringworm, imersion foot, the incurable crud and COH ruined my chances of being a brain surgeon. People, you are in CITY OF HEROES. You have no problems. Except me. "
(points to Emma who is summoning her Singularity and grinning)
"And her."
__


Bohmfalk:

"Oh, the reason I called... Could you find out who else is in Warburg? I've made two Tanks and a Stalker already, so if they've double-booked the mish, and/or they're going to ambush me, I'd like to know. If you could find that out, that'd be great."
__


Kaiser_Soze:

"In the year of our Lord two thousand and seven, patriots of Justice, low on endurance and outnumbered, charged the fields of Siren's Call. They fought like hardcore PvPer's, they fought like heroes, and won their server, forever."

Police Drone X-9: "Shall...we...play...a...game? How...about...a...nice...game...of...pvp?"

Soloing

Ah, soloing.

Be it forced or chosen, it's almost a completely different game from teamed content. However, soloing isn't possible in most MMOs. At least, not soloing story based content. One can easily farm, or grind out a few levels solo, but eventually, you'll end up needing a team to tackle high level instances or end game missions.

Not in City of Heroes though. With the ability to adjust the difficulty of your game on a mission by mission basis, you can crank up the difficulty to where the spawns are double sized, and +3 your level, or turn it down a notch, making them even con (the five difficulties in order being Heroic, Tenacious, Rugged, Unyielding, and Invincible). Even in story arcs, turning it down to Heroic causes Arch-Villains to spawn as Elite Bosses, allowing everyone a chance at solo glory.

But where's the fun in that?

Let me introduce you to my scrapper, Pale Tiger. He solos AVs. Not solo as in "Lemme use 15 temp powers, and summon a billion allies", I mean solo, as in, just me and the AV. And this is post ED, pre claws buff. Huzzah. In fact, he soloed his first AV at level 24, without IOs. He's been pimpin' since been pimpin' since been pimpin'. You wouldn't think that such as thing is so easy, after taking a spin in the Scrapper forums.

I had planned on attempting every AV in the game. My subscription ended while I was on the story arc to fight the Envoy of Shadows. I was slowly IOing him, and even with what little he had, you could feel the bonuses. Definitely wanted to get some inherent +acc on him, it's painful fighting +3 Devouring Earth with only one accuracy IO per attack (Terra was worth 44k XP solo at level 37, that's almost twice what a level 50 hero gets for completing a mission on Invincible).

I don't like soloing in Guild Wars. I use that term, even though I'm technically teamed. I don't consider doing missions and quests with seven NPC teammates being "teamed", I call that solo. However, I'm forced to do it most of the time, since PUGs are a dying breed, at least from what I've seen. Maybe I should try looking for groups in the International dist, or European dists. I hear that you can find high quality teams that way, and that there are more people willing to PUG with you.

I guess what I'm really lamenting is that my guild is sorely inactive, and that my alliance has one too many douche bags in it. I'd drop guild and solicit myself to a mid ranked PvP guild, but both of my sister-in-laws are in the guild, and play constantly. The three of us comprise 60% of our active members. Although, honestly, even if 100% of our members were everyday active, we'd still have a small ass guild with only 13 people.

Le sigh.

Sincerest form of flattery

Each game over time creates terms, phrases, and mannerisms uniquely generated by its playerbase. Some stay unique to that game, others spread to different games. For example, did you know that "woot" stands for "Warrior out of Targets"?

Leeroy Jenkins, lern2play, lolmad?, "in ur base, killin ur doodz."

Likewise, each game has it's own version of a sincere compliment, even if not intentional.

In Diablo 2, it's usually taken as a compliment when your opponent in PvP leaves the match an returns with a character 30 to 40 levels higher than you, and then demands a rematch. Anyone who's ever PvPed in D2 has probably had this happen. They rage-quit cause you won, and now they've skewed the numerical equation of combat so far in their favor, they feel they can't possibly lose. And it always seems like the bring a Hammerdin, or a FoH Pally, someone to whom there is almost no defense. Then they go hostile, and gate camp, taunting you to come out and fight them. If this happens, you should be smiling, cause no matter what, you've won.

In Counter Strike, or almost any online FPS, it's usually taken as a compliment when you get called a hacker. Score a headshot at 80ft with a shotty? Hacker. Score a headshot in midair? Hacker. Scored multiple headshots in rapid succession with a deagle? Hacker. Score a kill while presumably blinded by a flashbang? Hacker. Never mind that your score is 17-23, or that they killed you the round before while you helplessly sprayed an AK-47 at them, dealing no damage. Never mind that you were blind, but you were spraying with an M-60. And hacker can be such a buzz word with some people, that when they hear it, they don't bother to spectate the person in question to see, or check the "hackers" score. Nope, they just type "voteban" in chat and goad others into doing the same. But hey, put a smile on, apparently you're that good.

In City of Heroes, if someone files a petition against you for griefing in a PvP zone, you've just been handed a virtual trophy. Don't worry, the petition will be deleted by the GMs, as PvPing in a PvP zone isn't griefing. It's just some kid who's angry that you killed them while they were badge hunting, and how you didn't ask if they wanted to fight before attacking. Or someone who's mad that you interrupted their "duel", even though they're fighting in the open, and made no attempt to say over broadcast "Hey guys, we're dueling, just let us finish before attacking the winner." At least if they do that they have the right to be annoyed, even if their request was silly. I've been petitioned more times than I can count, but most were filed by other Heroes that I killed in Warburg, not by Villians. Free-for-All PvP ftw.

In Guild Wars, it's a little different. In Guild Wars, if someone takes the time to learn and copy your build, you should take pride in that. As in most MMOs, there are favorable skill sets and tactics for various enemies (a Druid has to tank in the instance, kill the Nemesis Lieuts last, spread out to avoid AoEs, etc). In Guild Wars, while popular builds exist that dominate certain aspects of PvE and PvP (Imbagon, Shock Axe, Bunny Thumper, Toucher, etc), a person can be plenty powerful and effective with a unique skill selection and attribute spread. So much so, some people covet their builds, and refuse to divulge any details of them to others, for fear of having them made public and popular. For example, last August, I made myself a new hammer build for my warrior, centering around the elite skill Backbreaker. I used it with Pulverizing Smash, Protector's Strike, Mighty Blow, Flail, Enraging Charge, Lion's Comfort, and Grasping Earth. Pulverizing Smash was picked to make the build more energy efficient, Protector's Strike was put in to help spike a KDed target, and recover adren faster after using BB+PS. Nothing fancy, a lot of core elements (IAS, IMS, self heal, snare), just a different spin on a hammer warrior. I ran the build exclusively in AB, RA, and TA for two months, and received some praise from teammates for it. When running in RA and TA, I'd sub out either Grasping Earth or Mighty Blow for Rez.

By the end of September, my build was on PvXwiki.

http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:W/any_Pulverizing_Backbreaker

Edited slightly to put it in line with the PvP meta, but with the same usage and reasoning. I highly doubt that I'm the only person in all of GW to have ever ran that build, but the timing is too perfect. I might be paranoid, but I'd put money on one of my teammates copying it and putting it in the wiki.

But it doesn't bother me. If indeed it was taken from what I used, I'm flattered that they found it effective enough to borrow (saying they stole it implies I can't use it anymore, which isn't true). It even scored a 4.52 out of 5 in overall effectiveness. Thanks guys, I love you too.

It doesn't stop there. My builds have been used by almost every warrior in my Guild, and in my Alliance. Mine certainly aren't the only ones being borrowed (a fellow warrior by the name of Jak Chain created a nifty little W/A build that quickly got borrowed), but it's kinda funny seeing so many people running around with the same skills and gear as me. Sometimes I encourage it, like with my FoW Beach build. I like taking all warrior teams into FoW and farming certain areas. And frankly, my FoW Beach farming build kicks the shit out of the ones on wiki. I might get around to posting it in there someday, unless one of my guildies beats me to the punch.

But then again, it's really not that earth shattering of a build. It's not like I discovered that Cyclone Axe+Ebon Dust Aura=Profit, or that I created a 55 Warrior. But I don't see anyone else using it, and I don't see it on the wiki. Who knows, maybe I did split the crust just a bit.

However, I am prone to being stubborn, using what I'm comfortable with over what's better. For the longest time, I ran this abysmal W/R build. I also refused to use Bull's Strike, with the reasoning "it's hard to time it."

Lame.

Hollow words.

I mentioned a 3 vs 11 skirmish in a previous post, and was able to dig up this screenshot. One of the stalkers started talking smack over broadcast, so I gently reminded him that I'd already killed him, three times. He denied my claim, so I took this screenie, as proof.

Huzzah.

My teammates in this battle were Police Drone M8, a controller, and Shadow Man, a scrapper. Good times.