"'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.

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.

The PvP is weak in this one...

• Jumped on Guild Wars for the first time in a week or so and got trounced in an AB.
• Jumped on Counter Strike: Source for the first time in a week or so and ended up with a negative KDR.
• Declined to have an argument even though I knew I was empirically correct.
• Had a staring contest with an 8 year old and lost cause he kicked me in the shin.

Needless to say, things aren't going well for me right now.

My work schedule is doing me in. I don't dislike my job, and what I do, so much as how often I do it. I've been working 65 hour weeks lately, and it's wearing on me. Now, I don't mind a long work day. I worked 13 hours yesterday without complaint, other than the extra 3 hours shouldn't have been sprung on me the day of, I should have had prior notice. This week, even with all the extra hours that got tacked on (at least of them 10 of them) I only worked 58 hours, and next week is looking like a liesurely 45.

I need a full nights sleep, which isn't liable to happen anytime soon. I was planning on getting it tonight, but Leyna and I are getting up (relatively) early in order to meet someone about a litter of rat pups (I'm building a cage at the moment, and she wants to raise some rats from infancy, rather than buy an adult from a store).

Anyway, due to my inability to compete with the living, I've been playing a lot of of console games in place of my PvP fix. Metroid Prime 3, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Shining Force Neo, all pretty good games. Shining Force Neo is pretty much 3d Diablo, with how gameplay, loot, and avatar are handled. Voice acting is pure shit. I mean really, I thought that Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders (also a good game) had the worst voice acting of any console game, but I was dead wrong. Even worse than the fact that the voice acting is bad, it's pervasive and they won't shut up. Every time dialouge starts, you have to slog through at least 5 minutes of it. Even worse, every character you've recruited thus far, even ones not currently in your party, contributes. I fear building my party, and shudder to see what 11 characters worth of dialougee will be like.

But Disgaea, still one of my favorite games. It's a tactical RPG. Rather than facing off with randomly spawned monsters, taking turns whacking each other as both you and the enemy simply stand there waiting for the other to act, a tactical RPG is played out on a grid of sorts. While still turn based, you have the ability to move units around the battle field, as you try to out manuver your opponent and gain the edge on them. Think chess with Final Fantasy characters. Because of it's free moving nature, team size isn't limited to 3 characters in Disgaea. You can field up to 10 units per battle, and can have as many as you want in reserve, as part of your "army". This allows you to custom pick your team for each battle, after seeing what you are facing, and how they are deployed.

What really makes Disgaea cool is how it handles character classes and leveling. With a level cap of 9,999, and damage capped at- well, I don't know if there is a damage cap. Anyway, as you level different classes up, you unlock stronger versions of the same class. This in itself is nifty, but then you have the option of transmigration. This allows you to take a character and revert it back to level one, while retaining a percentage of it's original stats and skills. Even more, you can make it a level one of any class. So, your lvl 93 Ninja can become a lvl 1 Shinobi (Shinobi>Ninja), with anywhere from 30-95% of his original power. That, and if you transmigrate your Priest into a Warrior, he'll keep most if not all of his healing spells, same if you transmigrate your Mage/Skull into a Warrior (0MFGT4NKM4G3!!!1!).

Quite obviously, I'm having fun playing around with my units (that sounds dirty), creating quirky, powerful soldiers.