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April 29, 2005

ALT-MANIA! ALT-MANIA! ALT-MANIA!

With word that all characters would be getting First Anniversary Free Respecs today, Margie and I spent last evening cranking out a truck-load of alts (which seems a bit ironic to do -- creating new characters with an eye toward respecs -- but, what the heck).

Lots of fun, and I didn't take nearly the number of pictures I should have. Such may-someday-be-greats like Yore (the Lost Viking), Captain Antares ("To the future!"), Warbolt ("Zap evil!"), Stormdark ("Using the Dark Arts in the service of the Light since 1873"), Suzy Atom (all primary colors, all the time), and, last but not least, Scritchy-scratch (the inevitable cat girl).

That's not all of them. And that's not counting the alts that Margie was working on, many of which are fun, too.

I ended up filling up my remaining slots on Triumph (where other characters are already waiting in the wings) and spilling over onto Infinity. And, just to be fair, I ran all of them through Outbreak (and, in a couple of cases, beyond).

The problem is, of course, I want to play with them all. Most of them have some fun backstories. And I still have a number of vibrant and enjoyable alts already as my mains.

Ah, well. Someday ...

Posted by Dave at 6:20 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design

April 28, 2005

No free respec with Issue 4 ...

... but, if I read this correctly ... a free respec for the First Anniversary of CoH (going into place tomorrow, though the anniversary is today).

In preparation for tomorrows Anniversary Respec being released on the live servers, we will be testing this feature today on the Test Server. We will be testing this feature in a few minutes. The Test Server will be brought down to enable this functionality.

NOTE: If you still have your free holiday respect, the anniversary respect WILL replace it. If you have respecs banked from running Task Forces or Trials, they will not be affected.

Thanks once again for a year of heroic testing!

Shiny!

This ought to seriously reduce a lot of the griping re "My power got nerfed with Issue 4!" once that goes into place (which looks to be fairly imminent). Especially if that means a respec using the new character design stuff, too. And for those who don't think Ish 4 will "ruin" their character, it's a nice gift (as well as the new Badge to be given to everyone who signs in during the month of May).

Posted by Dave at 3:43 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

Group fun

Tackled Dr. Vahzilok last night with a large group. Much fun. Different play for Psi-clone, who got to be more of a supportive controller than team leader (which was kind of nice, even if the sewers are absolutely ruining his good clothes).

That, in turn, was an extension of the next chapter of the Skyway Rec Center thread, which involved a very fun "discover the body" bit, in which I enjoyed playing Velvet.

Big groups in both cases, which was a refreshing change, if a bit difficult to manage. Since they were all good players, though, it worked out nicely. P-Siren dinged up during the adventure, and PC went up multiple bubbles.

Posted by Dave at 6:52 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

April 27, 2005

Golder archers

Based on this forum post from a dev about the "Surviving Eight," we learn more about archery:

Due to the upcoming Power Sets Manticore is actually a Trick Arrow, Archery Defender.

Hmmmm. Given that most Blaster primaries are available as Blaster secondaries, that implies that Archery will be a Blaster primary. That lets us have both "I pierce/punch/explode/attack you" arrows and "I use my net/screamer/glue arrow" types of powers, which is a nice way of splitting it up in classic comic terms.

I like. Not planning on getting one, but I like.

Posted by Dave at 3:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

Heh

(via Ipse Dixit)

Posted by Dave at 12:00 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Humor

Our level best

Last night was All Cape Mish, All the Time!

Well, twice -- once for Psi-clone, once for Amoprha. Puck Bunny accompanied us on both versions, one of which was in the northern islands of Talos, the other of which was in Perez.

The odd thing is, the first version of the mish was the hardest we've done -- much more powerful Aberrants, more bosses, etc. Well, it was harder from that aspect -- it was actually easier doing it with Psi-clone than with Velvet, since I just Deceived the key baddies, and Invised the group, and all went relatively smoothly. When things got hairy, my Phantom Army helped, too. Even the final battle never got desperate.

But, still, the difference in level between the two missions -- with no difference in personnel -- was odd. Welcome, but odd. (Same mission XP for each -- 1000 -- though.)

Mission leader? I think PB (at 19) led the first (harder) one, and I (at 20) led the second. And I can't imagine the site zone in question made any difference.

A puzzlement.

Posted by Dave at 6:26 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

April 26, 2005

Costumes

Got home last evening to discover Margie was already playing with one of her new replacement characters, Amazonite, an ice/ice blaster. Seemed to be having fun, and it's a nice costume (pics to eventually follow, no doubt).

While she was doing that, I went onto Triumph and built Molly Magpie, a grav/FF controller -- which, yes, is the same build as Puck Bunny, which I said I wasn't going to do, but I did it anyway. The name and costume are something I've been thinking of for a while, and I enjoyed the build a lot.

My understanding is that server transfer will be available under Ish 4, so I expect we'll be seeing MM come over to Champion at that time (and that might be a good opportunity to "archive" off Honeygun to someplace where I can get to her if I change my mind).

Spent the evening clearing a couple of needed mishes with Psi-clone and Amorpha (with Puck Bunny along for the very helpful if occasionally-running-into-a-room-full-of-Abominations ride). Need to clear some stuff so we can do our costume/cape series together.

Been thinking about a revised costume for Psi-clone. Tempted to wait for Ish 4 to provide some better casual jacket choices, just to give him a relaxed look. On the other hand, what with the Consortium getting more public attention, it may be that he'll feel the need for an honest-to-God Real Hero Outfit -- which may be ... amusing.

Posted by Dave at 6:54 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design , Gameplay

April 25, 2005

The next wave

Okay, so this will be old hat to the CoH veterans, but ...

I love how , over the course of the game, you have breakthrough moments, tied to real estate (and to missions you are sent on).

You start out as a noobie, wandering around Galaxy and Atlas, with occasional harrying forays into Kings Row and the Hollows.

Then you start finding yourself in Steel Canyon -- bustling with activities, stores, and a wide array of foes -- and Skyway -- drear and difficult to navigate but not to find trolls and clockwork in. Perez Park and Boomtown and Faultline become the hazard zones.

And, as that begins to pale (or grey out), abruptly -- and this is where our higher characters are now just getting in -- Independence Port and Talos Island and Striga start being the focus. New foes, new geography.

At each stage you start off by running down the middle of the street, then hopping into back yards, then hunting down the red zones and street sweeping. And by that time, you're ready for the next set of zones.

Fun stuff. Nicely done. Can't wait to see what's next.

Posted by Dave at 8:44 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

Sunday update

Got a fair amount of time in yesterday with our top-level alts. Velvet assisted P-Siren on her cape mission, along with Puck Bunny. Interestingly, the final battle in that door mish seems to be at a variable location (rather than in the far south of Talos Island, like it was for Velvet, this one was by the Green Line station in Steel, which was a lot more convenient).

Velvet managed to ding 22 on that outing.

After, we brought in (again to run with Puck Bunny) Psi-clone and Amorpha. Jackie's Shock.Therapy ran with us for most of the time, though it was all taking place right about when we had to deal with various Kitten meal and bed time issues. Eventually Agent Seven showed up, which made for some nice RP fodder.

Ended up doing two duplicate Tsoo missions (and PC ended up pulling it again for himself as he checked in with contacts after it was all over). The building missions went fairly well, despite a couple of rushing-in-oops-there-goes-the-invis face plants. (Well, the Tsoo in the Cave mish was pretty nasty, but that was largely because we didn't play it well, and it's a nasty map, and there were some system problems in the middle that broke up the team, but not completely). PC dinged during the evening as well, but he (like Velvet) is in the late teens/early twenties doldrums, where the Stamina and Haste tracks are chewing up slots from more interesting powers.

Actually, by hitting 20, Psi-clone now qualifies for a new outfit. Should he go for a more formal black business suit to replace his sports coat? Or will the PR department decides that he needs a more "heroic" (Spandex) image? Time will tell.

One interesting development was Margie beginning to consider some new alts to play, and prepping to drop a couple of her old ones to free up slots. As I have business travel coming up next week, I think she's targeting that period for some quick levelling to come up with new partners for OFFICER and Truly Unstable. I have some thoughts in that direction as well (including dropping one character who's seen some heavy rotation of late, and possibly rehabilitating another one who's stagnated). Again, we'll see ...

Posted by Dave at 6:29 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

April 23, 2005

New places, new faces

Champion was seriously laggy again last night, so Margie and I (after dinging up with Truly Unstable and Carilian) went over to Triumph to develop a few alts.

First off, Mr. Thebes ("They call me Mister Thebes!"), my stone/stone tanker, alongside Fallen Twice, Margie's spine/dark scrapper. (Margie's decided that spine powers are really cool -- except for the visual.)

Then, for something completely different, my Flamelle, a fire/fire tanker, and Margie's Cat Toy, a kinetic/dark blaster.

Feelin' elemental last night ...

And then Margie wandered off, saying something about wanting to bring in a character she'd done up on Triumph earlier, so Flamelle stood there for a bit, watching the traffic, taking some pics, and then this really annoying blue and grey troll came over and started ogling her and hitting on her, and jumping up and down to get her attention, and Flamelle started getting all snarky (because, well, she may be a demon, but she's got standards, dammit), and ...

"Hey! Is that your character?"

Margie's still giggling about that one.

Posted by Dave at 11:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design

April 22, 2005

The Forum is Live

The CoJ forums are live and active. Many thanks to Margie for reviewing stuff before I put it up (and for come up with some marvelously droll folder names).

For those already part of the Consortium, at your convenience (and to set a good example) check out the stuff in the Portfolio folder, and create a profile/dossier for your character (even if it's just your ID card biography). I 'preciate it. I'll be slowly filtering my own alts in there over the next week or so.

Y'all who are currently in the Consortium, thanks for all you've done, participationwise, and for helping take this to the next level. Should be fun.

Posted by Dave at 8:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Consortium of Justice

"It's wafer-thin!"

We had a good gameplay evening last night, running Psi-clone and Amorpha. Got started pretty early, and, around 10:30 or so, finished our last door mission, both of us dinged to 19, both of us ready for bed.

"Wait," Margie says, as Amorpha phones in to her contact. "Get 15 Outcasts. We can do that right now."

Well, yeah, it's only a few minutes, and we're in the NE corner of Steel Canyon, so there are some nice good-eating Outcasts around us.

About five minutes or so later, we have it all done, and I'm ready to head off to Blyde Square, level up (prolly two slots of recharge into Grant Invis., though, damn, Phantom Armies is fun), when I notice ...

"... Hey, what the -- timed mission!"

That's right, finishing a hunt had triggered a timed mish.

Now, we could have just said screw it and gone to bed. But timed missions are usually good eats. Sooooo ...

... around 12:30a or so (the frickin' place was crawling with yellow Outcasts, not to mention a variety of Tsoo and CoT, so even though we passed up a lot of tasty XP, it still took us a while, especially since the "Auctioneer" was kind of well hidden), we wrapped up (and I decided to save the levelling for next outing).

The annoying thing is, for some reason, Amorpha didn't get the mission complete XP -- and it was her mish.

On the other hand, she'd gotten out of debt (after two deaths that evening), and I'd gone up net 6 pips, so ...

So ...

Soooo ... tired ...

Glad it's Friday. Even more glad that Margie has Kitten duty tomorrow morning, and I can sleep in ...

Posted by Dave at 7:23 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

"He doth bestride this narrow world as a Colossus!"

Hey, look! OFFICER got the new Issue 4 Enlarge power already!

Actually, it's just a particularly vivid example of the zone-into-mid-air bug (where you pass into a zone, find yourself hovering in an odd place, then, as soon as you take a step, you're where you should be). But I thought it was pretty cool.

Posted by Dave at 6:40 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Humor

April 21, 2005

The Consortium moves shop

There's now dedicated forum space for the Consortium of Justice over at the Alliance forum. I still need to get the various folders there set up, with instructions on what goes where and so on and so forth.

By the nature of our shift over to the Alliance, the Consortium will be changing some. It will, for example, no longer be just the hang-out place for folks in my and Margie's orbit of friends. That's regrettable on one level, but, on another, it's exciting.

It's also an opportunity for further RP and journaling of gameplay (IC) for the multitude of CoJ players already with us, particularly those of you without your own webspace.

Something you can do in the next few days, whilst the CoJ forum is being set up. We'll be asking every member to put something for their hero into the "Portfolio" folder.

1. Minimum: A paragraph to describe your hero (probably the same as what you have in your ID card).

2. Preferred: An outline dossier, similar to the FP template (but without the optional player info).

3. Even better: As above, but with a link to a Crey Threat Analysis of your character.

Until the furniture is moved in, you can be scribbling something up for your characters.

The other odd thing about the Consortium in the AoC forum will be the idea of matches between forum IDs and heroes. Given the highly "alt" nature of the Consortium heroes, I don't expect a 1:1 ratio of logins to heroes. You might want to consider, though, making an ID (or two) for your "main alts" in the Consortium, so that their cute little picture and name will show up next to your biography and such. I've already done this for Honeygun and Torchielle. (Let me know if you need a space for your forum icon, or need help pulling one together, since I have most of you in screen caps already.)

The Blog of Heroes, though, isn't going anywhere. I have plenty of intention of continuing to do OOC gameplay descriptions and notes and CoH news here. I've already been doing most of my IC stuff over in the forums, and that'll continue.

Posted by Dave at 3:14 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Consortium of Justice

April 20, 2005

They like us! They really like us!

To: Consortium Members
From: Graham (Psi-clone) Thorne, Consort Prime
Re: Bully for (and Bullish on) the Consortium!

I'm pleased to announce a personal communique from Patriot One that the Alliance of Champions has formally accepted the Consortium of Justice under its umbrella.

This is a very proud day for me, and it should be for you as well. We'll be setting up forum and web space for the group at the Alliance site in the next few days (alas, personal commitments this evening prevent me from immediately hopping on it), and be making further announcements at that time.

Again, you should all be very proud of this achievement. I'm sure that, in conjunction with our brethren in the Alliance, the Consortium will become an even brighter star in the firmament of Paragon City's heroes.

~~ G. Thorne

/GT:dch

Posted by Dave at 3:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Consortium of Justice

April 19, 2005

"Oh, we make a peach of a pair"

Margie and I tend to duo a lot, which is tremendous fun (indeed, it's a great thing we do together, as opposed to a lot of other hobbies we do in parallel). Here are the combos:

1. Velvet (21) and P-Siren (21) - Tank and Defender. Our "elder statesmen" and Freedom Phalanx toons. Beginning to break into the IP/Talos area.

2. Psi-clone (18) and Amorpha (18) - Controller and Scrapper. Current faves to run together. Co-leaders (as Peppermint Patty and Marcy) of the Consortium.

3. Honeygun (15) and Kazima (15) - Blaster and Scrapper. Perennial favorites at the Cavern of Transcendence. Also fun, though we run into aggro problems (of both our making).

4. Torchielle (15) and TT (13) - Blaster and Tank. This is one where Margie should be doing soloing to get TT up to level (Torchy got a bonus running through the one successful Transcendence trial.)

5. Truly Unstable (9) and Carilian (9) - Defender and Controller. Our slowest group, but still fun to play (and hard to stop).

6. OFFICER (8) and Deep Dark Earth (8) - Scrapper and Controller. A strong pair as well. I enjoyed running them last night.

That leaves Selene (Scrapper 9) and Sister Chinook (Controller 8) as currently "unattached" from my stable, and Hot Shotz (Blaster 10) and K-Two (Scrapper 6) in Margie's. Which means those are the folks who, when we have a chance, we should be soloing with -- or else the slots that, come Issue 4, we'll be filling with new people.

UPDATE: It's worth noting that we often add some excitement to our duos by inviting in one of BD's characters to make it a threesome. Variety is, after all, the spice of life ...

Posted by Dave at 9:43 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

It's good to be a bot

After the trial, Margie and I did some "palate-cleansing" by running our lowbies, OFFICER and Deep Dark Earth.

While running about Kings Row (and being discoed every few minutes, dagnabbit), we ran into one of of the "Police Drone" SG. He ran over, greeted us, then gave me 90K influence. Which, for a 7th level toon, is no small sum. (He gave DDE the same, too, which was gracious.)

Ran into another one of them a while later at Atlas Park, but he only said hi.

Dinged up with OFFICER (DDE did, too) to 8, which led me to discover I'd not done a Hero Planner setup for him yet. Pulled out the guide I've been using as an inspiration (which feels a bit offense-heavy, but, heck, he is a scrapper), got that set up, and took on another attack. Might do some more with him over this week, though it's not like I don't have other active alts that need game time.

Posted by Dave at 8:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

Fourth time's the ... aw, hell

Once more into the Caverns, dear friend ...

Solid team, this time, on the Cavern of Transcendence trial, and, though we didn't make it, I felt more irked than crushed about it.

• Liberty Bill and Tanker-belle as the tanks, Kazima as the scrapper. Brave, well-focused, solid aggro-pullers.
• Dubh Bas and Darkness Heals and Darkthorne as the controllers and defenders. Solid support. Excellent heals. Good TP/recall tactics.
• Honeygun and Avocet as blasters. Good pulls and well-targeted blasts.

In point of fact, we did everything pretty well. We had a friend (Hang Time) clear the troll tunnels on the way in. We pulled small groups. We never let the melee spill over into an adjoining mob. We stayed healed up, the mobs were controlled, nearly everything was perfect. And the proof of that was a minimum (two) of deaths, even with the ultimate failure.

(As a point of info, when the time runs out, you get booted back out into the Troll Tunnels, and a nasty read "Mission Failed" sign comes up.)

So, why did we fail? We ran out of time. We had seven obelisks covered, and Dubh was trying to get to the last when the last seconds ticked off.

Why did we take too long?

1. Too many mobs. All but one of the tunnels was occupied, which is something of a crap shoot. But that dragged the whole mission out way too long, especially given the next point.

2. We were -- well, not dawdling, but also not snappy in moving from mob to mob in the main cavern. That meant our Endurance was all back up, but it also burned valuable time, especially given the previous point. This wasn't helped by some excellent single-mob pulls by DH, which was a lot safer but, as it turned out, a lot slower. (The irony was that both LB and HG advised caution and slow-steadiness as we entered the Cavern, given that previous problems have come from going too fast and too rashly.)

3. We were not sufficiently methodical in clearing the caverns -- we started with L2, then L1, then R1 -- which is where I stayed, so I didn't get a good sense of where the group went from there. But by the time the last person -- Dubh -- was trying to get into a tunnel, there was confusion over which tunnel to go into.

So, since there will be a next time -- everyone was unanimous on that, though grimly exultant that our failure had not been disastrous (as the last one was), what were the lessons learned?

1. Pick up the pace a little in the main cavern. Once a mob is cleared, make sure of heals and then move right on to the next. We had sufficient strength that, even if some folks had been forced to drop mid-battle from endurance, it wouldn't have been critical.

2. Strength in numbers. The side tunnels will, over time, repop. To avoid that, we left folks in tunnels as we went along, which weakened the group each time. In the one success we had, that was okay, because we had only half the tunnels occupied. This time it was a disaster. So, next time, quickly move en masse to clear the tunnels, then move to occupy them; the TPers and Tanks rove to help anyone whose tunnels have repopped.

3. Orderliness. We did well sweeping up one side and back to clear the main cavern, but we were less organized in clearing the tunnels. So, decided on a direction (L4-L1, R1-R4) to sweep the caverns, assign someone to each, and then move in.

I'm not sure any of this is fool-proof, especially if we have that many occupied tunnels and they repop quickly. But it's the best I can think of to avoid what hung us up last time.

Again, it's interesting. After the previous failure, HG (and I) had a sense of just being crushed, that we'd blown it, that we never wanted to see the Caverns again unless we really had to. It was more stubbornness that dragged us back for one last (and it was to be the last) try.

This time -- between working on a good team, and withdrawing in good order, it felt more like a setback than a retreat. "Better beaten than bitter," as Avo put it, and "Live and learn, and we did both," as HG said. So we'll be going back.

And this time, we'll win.

Posted by Dave at 7:09 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

April 18, 2005

Powers to come ...

So Issue 5 (already under discussion, since Issue 4 is just in "let's try to get the frickin' bugs out so we can release it" mode) will include (ta-daaaah) new power sets.

Statesman has (from what I read) indicated that power sets to come include bows, sonics, brawling, pistols, staves, shields and magnetism.

Oooooooh. Fun stuff.

Posted by Dave at 1:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

Phantom Menaces

Psi-clone levelled up Sunday night. His current track was to go up in Fitness aiming for Stamina, but looking at how the gameplay had gone with Amorpha, his Endurance was really not a huge issue.

Which left him gleefully free, as inspired by Rose.Red on the Synapse TF, to take Phantom Armies.

Can't wait to play with them.

Posted by Dave at 8:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design

April 17, 2005

Synapse Task Force - Mission Accomplished

UPDATE: Inserted thumbnail pics. Click to see full-size.

Ran the Task Force last night -- starting at 7:30p and running muuuuuuch later. Various notes follow:

1. We had a tight, fit team. One crunchy -- a tank -- plus two blasters, a controller, and a defender. Both the good blend of ATs and the good people behind them made it a successful outing.

2. The plot line focuses on the machinations (so to speak) of the Clockwork King, and many, many, many missions against clockworks. I am officially sick fo the critters, though the payoff set piece of the CK's lair was excellently creepy.

3. Velvet Jones, the tank, was in her glory most of the time -- untouchable, taunting, keeping the mobs under control and pounding away at them. Most fun was, as the balloon went up in each encounter, unleashing a taunt and drawing everyone's aggro -- and lightning bolts. "It tickles."

   And, in fact, it did. Between Invulnerability powers and Bubbles, not to mention support of the others, Velvet took very little damage, almost never going below 75% HP.

   Much fun. She even got to wear her cape for part of the evening, before various jealous comments prompted her to put it away for a while.

4. The blaster contingent was made up of Avocet and Boulder Dude's MoFo Firefly. Good blasting was had thereby. Avocet's Energy knockback was minimal, and his AoE attacks were perfect for wiping out Gears from fallen big clanks. MoFo did well, too, though his Electricity blasts occasionally confused me (OMG, there are clockworks behind me!).

   Both are Ice secondaries, which made for additional Controlling of the mobs.

5. Margie's P-Siren was one of the unsung stars. While her psionic blasts were effective, but slow, her Bubbles were one of our lynchpin powers. While they were up, Velvet, at least, was in hog heaven. When they were down, it was more problematic. Indeed, the one time Velvet got in real trouble was when we were independently hunting clockworks, and an ambush found her. Had to SJ away at the last second, which, alas, left MoFo, who was coming to the rescue, to bear the brunt of their fury.

   As it was most of the time, though, I was able to leave down almost all my toggles but Unyielding. As long as the bubbles were up, all was cool.

   (And as long as I was running HeroStats, I could see exactly when the bubbles were going down ...)

   It's worth noting that Margie's organizing the TF was pretty spiffy as well.

6. Doyce's Rose.Red was the utility player as Controller. His Group Invis was up most of the time, and really helped our defense and attack planning. It also let him scout ahead on mishes that only required limited accomplishments; coupled with Recall Friend, he could sneak up to where hostages or the final bosses were, teleport us in, and we could finish the mish in a quarter of the time of slogging through the whole thing.

   As an Illusion Controller, though, he did an even more useful job in using Deceive to cut down on the enemy numbers, and Phantom Army to add to our strength.

   And his tactical abilities and previous experience on the TF were pretty handy, too.

7. I have no idea how folks do the mission in 6 hours, as some report, let alone the 2½ that others claim. We didn't race madcap from spot to spot, but neither did we dawdle. We took a couple of levelling and selling breaks, and Margie had one in-mish 15 minute Symantec-induced problem, but generally speaking we moved swiftly and skipped killing all mobs unless the mission demanded it.

   We met at 7:30p, we started at about 8p, and finished a bit after 3a. That makes for 7 hours.

   I refuse to believe anything under 5.

8. TFs are XP-heavy, and this was no exception. Velvet went up 17-odd pips; since she was just barely at 20, that raised her to 21 and most of the way to 22. W00t.

   That came in handy against the baddies; the initial mobs looked an even mix of yellow and white, with orange bosses; changing that down to white-blue with yellow bosses (with the exception of Babbage and the Clockwork King) made the missions a lot easier. And still good eats.

9. Ah, Babbage. Hovering outside one mission, we tackled him head-on. Problem is, even though we managed to knock him down to between 1/3 and 1/2 XP, that took pretty much all the Endurance in the group. Velvet was basically the aggro magnet for him, but eventually she was reduced to watching her End and hitting only when it wouldn't knock down all her toggles. Eep!

   The battle was also complicated by his running around periodically and so dragging us through mobs of Lost and Trolls, both of which pursued.

   We would probably have ground him down, eventually, but we got kind of tired after a while. A couple of other heroes had spotted us, and, with our permission, launched into the fray, sealing Babbage's fate. Still great XP, all told.

10. The only deaths that occured were both MoFo's. The first came when he came racing to Velvet's "rescue" when she'd been ambushed by clockwork and had dropped down to orange. I was bugging out, but MoFo arrived just in time to get them all on him. By the time Velvet got there, he was toast.

    And, during the Babbage battle, he drew a bunch of fire from trolls. Damn.

    Aside from that, no deaths in-mish, which is pretty impressive.

11. Especially because we couldn't see. Between shady warehouses, group invis, various auras and bonus effects, and bubbles (double-bubbles plus the big bubble), it was like trying to run around in a pea soup fog.

    Not that I should complain, because all of those effects were affecting the baddies more than me. But sometimes it was sure confusing ...

12. The last battle with the CK was almost anticlimactic. He's tough, but not on a par with Babbage. He just has a lot more friends (which we had to both carefully clear out first and use a gadget we'd received to help keep him from summoning more).

    The initial plan was to super-buff Velvet and let her do a tank pull back to where the rest were all standing (the idea being that she could take a licking and keep running for her life, so to speak). After all that prep just outside of the CK's lair ("See that? That's his arm there.") it turned out that it wasn't the CK's lair yet.

    The actual battle with the CK was a lot less, ah, planned -- we had the ground selected, but the actual pull back to it was, um, less organized (involving a couple of characters, not the tank, and mad-oh-crap-I'm-orange dashes back to the others).

    Wham, bam, thank you for helping us rid the city of the Clockwork King, ma'am.

Great fun. Went longer than I'd expected (Doyce pointed out that, had we started at 5, we could have wrapped by Midnight. Of course, we'd have had to take 45 minutes or so in the middle to put down Kitten, so ...), but I still felt excited and eager by the time it was all over.

Good team. Good experience. Makes me want to do it over again with the next tier of alts in my stable ...

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April 15, 2005

An investment opportunity

The application of the Consortium of Justice to join the Alliance of Champions has been submitted.

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Filed under: Consortium of Justice

Rusty

Pulled out Psi-clone to play with last night, after I'd gotten as far as I could on taxes -- first time in a while that he and Amorpha had been out on patrol.

Rrg. PC takes a very careful hand -- much different from Velvet (a tank) or even Torchielle and Honeygun (blasters). As an illusion controller, his touch is more subtle -- the strategic selection of Deceive, the big gun of Blind, the polish-off of Spectral Wounds. And, oh, yeah, forgot I had Group Invis. Little thing, that.

And, oh, yeah, forgot I was a freakin' empath, so I had heal abilities. Which came in really handy when I finally did remember.

Yeesh.

Our duo ran around a bit, then BD's MoFo Firefly invited us in on a fun Tsoo door mish (Sorcerers are fun to Deceive, since they put all their healing and buffs into our side of the combat). I bailed out of the team after the mish was over to go to bed -- and instead worked on implementing the Fly/Hover keybind set for PC. I'll see how it goes; I've had a distrust and inherent dislike of multi-file keybinds, but this one looks like it should work pretty well.

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April 14, 2005

Synapse Task Force - Plans

UPDATED: Added time zone, Avocet. Corrected P-Siren & Rose.Red's levels, Jackie's status, powers, BD.

----------

Okay, making a note of the, well, notes here, the plan is ...

Saturday, 7:30 p.m. MDT

Current Lineup:

• Velvet Jones - Inv/SS Tank L20
  
• P-Siren - FF Defender L19
  
• Rose.Red - Illusion Controller L19
  
• Avocet - Energy/Ice Blaster L21
  
• MoFo Firefly- Elec/Ice Blaster L18

(Jackie's decided to sit this one out.)

TF range is lvl 15-21.

Give a yea, a nay, or a "Hey! What happened to my character?!"

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Ding-ding

Got a latish start last night, but figured it was time to run Kazima and Honeygun again and work off some debt from Monday night's bloodbath.

We eventually ended up in a nice Vahzilok door mish, with many yellows and occasional whites and oranges. Lots of vomit, plenty of danger, and pushing to the HP/END limits, but we finally freed all the hostages in the office building, during which we both dinged to 15, which gives us that much better power (and slotting) for the next time we try the Cavern of Transcendence (which we are now at max level for).

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April 13, 2005

PvP

Okay, I love PvP -- as a comic. As a way of playing CoH, not so much.

I guess one of the things that really attracts me to CoH is the cooperative play -- the sense that, yes, we really are all heroes. Reading the tales of griefing in other MMORPGs, I'm glad CoH has the restrictions it does.

Now, that said, I can understand why some people would like the PvP challenge. Live brains + complicated builds = exciting challenge. Me, I'd rather team up with others and bop the bad guys. But, then, that's me.

I am worried, a bit, about what I read regarding how PvP is (a) forcing changes in the basic game system, even for just PvE, and, worse, (b) changing how folks are doing builds to make them more PvP, vs PvE, competitive. The latter shouldn't really bother me (it doesn't affect me, after all), but it's still disturbing. It turns CoH into Mortal Kombat.

Does that mean you'll never see any of my alts in the Arena (once Issue 4 goes live and the thing actually works)? No. If there were a group of friends doing it, it might be fun, strictly as a one-off change of pace. But as a "this is why I play the game" sort of thing, as I keep seeing people write? No.

On the other hand, it will be interesting to see if both the Arena and the upcoming CoV draw off some of the more raucous of Paragon City's denizens. That might be a good thing.

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What's a cape without, well, a cape?

Yes. Yes, I did go ahead and buy a cape last night. So there.

Velvet tells the story herself ...

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April 12, 2005

Synapse Task Force

Since it looks like this is in the hopper, here's some info I've started collecting:

• RPGExpert Guide
• Greystone Anom's Guide
• GameAmp Guide

Key points:

1. 4-8 heroes, starting in Skyway.
2. Level 15-21. Cannot SK up into the range, but can SK within the range. Exemplaring down is possible, but may cause problems if the anchor gets discoed.
3. 2½ to 6 hour time frame.
4. SO reward at the end if you have space (+1 SO randomly to someone n the group) (and possibly another fighting Babbage just before that).
5. Lots of Clockworks, so watch that Endurance drain and Energy Resistance.

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It's the journey that is important, right?

Nice post (if, as the discussion points out, a bit flawed here and there) on travel powers and their relative speeds and slotting.

I currently have two heroes (Velvet, Torchielle) with Super Jump, and one (Psi-clone) with Fly. And Margie' P-Siren has Teleport.

My observations ...

Super Jump:
Speed: A
Control: C
Safety: C
Fun: B
Summary: Good fun and great speed, but you run the risk of touching the ground on a regular basis (and possibly getting Mezzed or shot), and you inevitably find yourself bouncing down right behind some freakin' wall.

Fly
Speed: B
Control: B
Safety: A
Fun: A
Summary: It won't get you there as fast, but it will get you there in style. And you can (with some up-front messing about with keybinds and the like) control your path and speed with precision. Safety is very high, at least at low levels (though you can draw agro as you come in for a landing, ahem, and you need to watch for rooftop nasties). But, damn, it's flying, and who can beat that?

Teleport
Speed: A
Control: B
Safety: D
Fun: B
Summary: With practice (a good caveat) you can really move quickly, and accurately. But anything that lets you easily fall great heights isn't very safe.

Honeygun's Sprint+Swift power is almost travel-worthy (DADC), and she'll be getting Super-Speed next up, so I'll let you know how that goes.

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April 11, 2005

Third time's the ... um ... never mind

Went on the Monday night Session 3 of the Cavern of Transcendence. And ...

... well, it all went to hell. Twice.

First time in, all looked like it was going pretty nicely. Good team -- Darkthorne the lead, Kazima, Honeygun, Dubh Bas, Avocet, Dr. Meson, Tanker-belle, and Liberty Bill. Made it through the troll tunnels with no sweat (thanks, Kinetica) and only one death (mine, dammit, too close to a troll TNT stash when it blew). Got in, battled our way forward. Good thing to have two tanks along this time, drawing agro. Cleared out the initial group, most of the groups to the left, started working around to the right, then the center ... we were doing great, ahead of schedule ...

... and then made our first mistake, as we tackled the group at the top of the ramp, without clearing out the last group on the left. Which got pulled into it, which overwhelmed us, leaving half the team dead on the ramp.

After several minutes of fruitless pulls, abortive resurections, and general additional debt incursion, we gave up. The deaders went to Atlas for hospitalization (we had nobody with Rez, except for one who could do it in battle). The livers stayed in place to prevent a re-pop.

Except that, nearly to the mission entrance again, somebody discoed out. They got back in, but the TF was broken, and we all had to exit and restart. Which was disappointing, but doable, and the mission clock reset.

We went in again, no problem. Got to Cavern ... and found the enemies had popped up a level. Swell. Fought one group. Fought another group. Fought the next group. Fought the ... crap, pulled some extras, or there was something off with the healing, or ... well, half the party went down. More than half. All but two. Honeygun, fleeing to the exit, ended up embedded in the rock next to the lava.

And most of the deaders were smack where the Igneous were milling about, stepping on their corpses.

One unsuccessful pull (and death) later, and we realized that was about it for the night. The last person threw himself on the enemy (so he could get a death-teleport back to Atlas), and we called it an evening, with promises to try it once again, maybe next Monday.

On the bright side, we got a couple of new Lessons Learned.

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Balance

Statesman speaks out about the balance goals of City of Heroes, in terms of what sort of opponents should be solo-able, and where the devs think the current state of the game needs to be changed. Much interesting conversation (if not necessarily anything that seems to be changing Statesman's mind) ensues.

Meanwhile, some changes on tap for Issue 5:

1) Instead of the first five levels being debt free, the first TEN levels will be debt free.

2) XP debt will be halved on mission maps (that includes outdoor mission maps, too).

#2 should encourage mission play, vs. street sweeping (which goal is near and dear to the devs' hearts). #1, though, only delays the Ceremonial First Major Debt Face-Plant to moments after dinging Level 11 instead of moments after dinging Level 6 ...

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Cute

Katherine, feeling cabin fever being shut in with the snow, called up (or asked for someone to dial on her behalf) Jackie and Doyce, and then proceeded, in her sweet way, to read them, Uncle Bear in particular, the riot act regarding our recent hobby. To summarize:

"Ever since they got City of Heroes, they play and and don't play with me, and if you stop playing then they won't play. And tell Justiin to remember to tell you that if you forget." Or words to that effect.

As Doyce put it to Margie afterwards, "That was cute ... in a gut-wrenching and guilt-inducing way."

It wasn't tearful, or angry, more of a "wheedle" manner of speech. If we could spend 24/7 focusing on her, that would probably not be enough for her desires (nor healthy for her, for that matter). The reality is that we're trying to be careful not to let City of Crack lead us to neglecting Kitten. We go for walks. We worked together on the yardwork on Saturday. We took time out yesterday to, the three of us, play some games with her. We try not to use the TV as a babysitter.

But the fact is that, like other hobbies and interests, it does take time from her -- not more than before, I think, but it's a more readily identifiable chunk (i.e., it's replaced several other time sinks, rather than creating a new one). And the time it takes tends to be less interruptible and bigger-blocked than reading and gaming and blogging. Hence Katherine's good-natured reprimand.

That said, it's worth bearing what she's saying in mind. And we'll continue to try to spend quality (as well as quantity) time with Katherine. That's where the real heroism in our lives comes in, after all.

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Meet-and-Beat

UPDATE: Added some photos from Margie, and reorganized the post to put all the photos at the bottom.

After an afternoon of Psi-clone/Amorpha running about (clearing older mishes at breakneck speed via Group Invis), Margie and I hooked up with the Alliance of Champions Meet-n-Beat (Second Session) for an evening of ...

... well, a lot of standing around, actually. :-) Took a while for things to gel up, especially as we were waiting for occasional additional people to drop in. The time was not a waste, since we were able to do the "meet" part and get in some RP -- sort of the Brian Bendis approach to comics adventuring (only not as realistic or witty, my own contributions included).

The group eventually split up in two, with P-Siren going off with one group to do an intense timed mish with various nasty demon-looking types (lots of explosions from Margie's PC, and much laggy high-graphics action), and Velvet going off in another group to ...

... well, stand around a while at the park (NE corner of Atlas Park), then stand around at the Atlas statue (lots of ugly costumes, a very few good ones), then, finally, a quick mission (see picture) in Talos (at which point, like every hero does, I was filled with It Must Be Mine Lust for the Sky Raiders' jetpacks), at which point we returned and ...

... sat around. And chatted.

Eventually, the other group returned, bloodied but unbowed, and then we stood around figuring out how to balance the levels in the group again, at which point I realized I needed to get up in 6 hours or so and bailed out for bed.

Not sure if I am on tap for tonight's third run at the Caverns of Transcendence -- depends on if they need another right-level (Honeygun). May be an interesting group, looking at the participant list.

The Meet-n-Beat (late slot) team: (L-R) Velvet Jones, Shock.Therapy, Dr. Meson, The Hushman (back), Black Mynx, Liberty Bill, P-Siren, Puck Bunny, Darkness Heals.

Velvet's "Beat" team: Velvet Jones, Dr. Meson, Darkthrone, and Darkness Heals.

Some of P-Siren's "Beat" team: (L-R) Shock Therapy, P-Siren (legs only), Black Mynx.

Back to the Meet part: (L-R) Darkthorne, Velvet Jones, Darkness Heals, Zepher-Storm

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April 10, 2005

Lessons Learned in the Cavern of Transcendence Trial

(Below be spoilers, me hearties ...)

We ran through the Cavern of Transcendence Trial a couple of times last night, with two different teams. Here were some resources we checked out first (though I didn't read the CoH Forum info):

• CoH Forum discussion of the Trial
• Backstory to the Trial
• Notes on the Trial (incl. spoilers)

The following are some lessons learned we took from the trial efforts (one of which was successful, the other of which wasn't). Hopefully they'll be helpful to others. A lot of these apply to Task Forces in general, too ...

(UPDATE: After the third try, we learned a couple of new things, identified as "NEW" below ...)

BEFORE THE TRIAL

1. If you're building a TF and scheduling when you're going to get together, make sure that everyone on the team has the Global Chat @handle for the team/mish leader. Better yet, share those handles around among team members, so if there's a schedule glitch at the last moment, you can talk to each other. (Our first team ran way long; most of the folks had alts for the second team, but there was at least one second team person we were never able to contact when we got together, and who didn't know the alt that Margie was running in the first team.) That info also comes in handy if you get separated/unteamed at times.

2. Teleport, Recall Friend, Stealth, and Group Invis are like gold in this mish. You can do it without (a lot of) them, but they make things infinitely easier.

3. If you are going to have a mix of level-appropriate and exemplared (or, I suppose, sidekicked) players, make sure in your planning that you have enough level-appropriate team members. Everyone, including the mission leader, need to be in the 12-15 range when the mission was taken, and stay inside of it for the mish.

   Note that this mission seems to be very popular for higher level folks to exemp down to. That's fine, but make sure they're familiar with what that's going to do to their powers (and, thus, tactics).

4. Decide on where you are going to meet. Off to one side or the other in the Hollows by the Wincott (Atlas) gate is good. Right in the middle of the street there is not good, since you'll have endless folks bouncing over and asking to join in. (On the bright side, I discovered that healing someone will interrupt their boombox ...)

5. I don't care how organized you are, plan on at least 20-30 minutes at the beginning getting folks together, doing shopping, planning strategy, giving the briefing.

6. Team balance is always good, but not essential. The second team we had, the one that made it, was made up of five Defenders, two Blasters, and a Scrapper. No Tanks or Controllers -- though they would have been handy in places.

7. Bring Awakens (rez pills). Everyone. Two, at least. It's a timed mish, and running back from hospital in Atlas is no fun.

8. Communication is your friend. Use the chat channel extensively. Make heavy use of the standard F7 ("Ready!") key to coordinate actions, and pay attention to folks using F6 ("RUN"), too. Respect the call to RUN -- better to prematurely leave a battle than to incur more debt.

STARTING THE TRIAL: THE TROLL CAVES

1. The Cavern itself is at a fixed point in the Troll Tunnels in the Hollows. You can get there from any number of TT entrances; having someone along who's mapped out those tunnels is valuable. Everyone can gather at a Troll Tunnel entrance except the leader; you can (and should) choose one close enough to Karsis (the fellow who gives you the mish) that the leader can easily get there if they don't have a travel power.

2. Stick together. Keep up bubbles and other defenses. Charging forward, or getting separated, or engaging in multiple combats in different sub-teams is a great way to lose folks.

3. The Troll Tunnels are an interesting area -- they aren't the mission directly (so you can do the next bit of advice), and if you get kicked out of the mish you end up back in them, but you have to form the task force from outside of them.

4. Bring in ringers to help clear trolls from the caverns. It pays to have good friends, and they don't have to be part of the TF (and so don't have to be exempled down).

5. Use your map. It is very easy to get lost in the troll caves. One answer is to appoint someone as navigator (who has the map up).

6. The trolls repop pretty quickly. Don't dawdle.

7. If someone drops (disconnects) any time during the mission, you are hosed for a while. Everyone must quit the TF, leave the tunnels, then rejoin a team, exemp down, and have the team leader take the mission again. This takes time, but isn't a show stopper (especially since the mission clock will reset).

   The best way to do this safely, if you have exemplars in the group, is to quit the task force at the mission door, join back together as a team, and invert the SK/Exemp pairs (this lets you easily handle the trolls on the way out). You can swap the SK/Exemps back around before re-taking the mission.

INSIDE THE TRIAL: THE CAVE OF TRANSCENDENCE

1. Though the Troll Tunnels can be mapped (which is very handy), the mission itself cannot be. That makes coordination solely via chat, which is challenging. Remember your F7 key.

2. If you used a set of ringers to assist getting through the Troll Tunnels, they have to stay behind at the mission door. Take advantage of any buff those friends gave you by moving quickly to the first encounter inside the mission door -- but still make sure everyone is ready before attacking. Watch out for lava!

3. Lava bad. Don't jump into it. Fortunately, the mages take damage in it, too, so if you can blow them in (or taunt them in), it's good. Alas, neither the spectral nasties nor the Igneous take damage from lava.

4. Inside the main mission is a large central chamber, and nine tunnels -- four to the left, four to the right, and a ramp up to the main tunnel (where you'll proceed once the obelisks have been triggered). For the sake of communication, agree on labels for the tunnels before people go running off into them. One scheme is clockwise from the bottom (1-4, exit, 5-8); another is Left 1-4, Right 1-4, exit. Again, agreeing on this before you start running around will make life a lot easier.

5. It's almost impossible to separate a group of the bad guys by pulling. Just bring them back to you. All you can do is choose the timing and the ground (which is nothing to sneeze at). A moat of lava between you and a cluster of bad guys can be good or bad, depending on how you get knocked back, have to retreat, or have to advance.

6. Make full use of the defensive buffs your Defenders et al. have. Stick together. Concentrate fire. All the standard stuff. But, especially in the central chamber, there's a lot of open space, which can make for attacks from multiple directions.

   And, to that end, make sure you don't attract more than one group to you at a time. Watch that knockback, AoE, and target-next stuff. And slap down folks who don't maintain combat discipline; if someone is starting the next fight before the last one is finished, or is running off and getting killed on their own, it slows down and endangers everyone.

7. The mobs in the central chamber of the true mission do not appear to repop. Those in the side chambers, however, do, though it takes a bit of time. Clear the main chamber (including the ramp), so you can maneuver in it easily. Then note which tunnels are empty (remember your labels), blast into the ones that are occupied, leave folks behind in them (to prevent or hide from the repop), and leave the stealthiest/teleportingest folks to slip into the last couple by themselves.

   (In retrospect, it was unclear whether the repops were in only the tunnels that had mobs in them to begin with, or if it was random.)

8. (NEW) Clear out the flanks before you clear out the ramp in the central chamber. The groups of Igneous on at least one side (the left), but likely both, will spot any combat on the ramp and dive in to help. Hilarity, and debt, ensues.

9. (NEW) When attacking the groups in the main cavern, pull them to you, rather than rushing up to them. That way, if things go south, the monsters will eventually wander back out of range, letting you rez. If you charge in, they'll go back to just milling about on top of your body, which is both uncomfortable and impractical.

10. Use the mission clock to time triggering the Obilisks. Coordinate whether you are ready by asking who isn't next to an obelisk, ready to go (that works better than asking who is).

11. You don't need to take down the arch-villain, Koago, after the Obilisks are triggered. Rescuing Sam will end the mish, earn you the badge, stop the clock, and give you a safety valve ("Mission Accomplished"). The rest is (dangerous but profitable) gravy.

12. When you mish out, you end up back in the troll caves. Use the tactic above (invert EX/SK) for the trip out, blasting through the trolls on the way out.

The Cavern of Transcendence trial is very rough, but it's also a blast to succeed at. The rewards aren't huge, other than the badge -- but you'll treasure that badge for a long time.

(Crossposted to the CoH Forums)

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Transcendent!

The Cavern of Transcendence trial is, frankly, quite the trial -- long tunnels mobbed with trolls, then a cavern complex mobbed with igneous, regenning mobs, coordinated actions, a very nasty boss at the very end ... and timed. Yikes.

Margie coordinated putting three groups together to do it, from three people who had the mission ready to go. It's evidently pretty popular, since one of the juggling jobs she did was trying to fit in both folks within the specified level (12-15) and folks up higher (some much higher) who wanted to Exemplar down to do it.

Two groups ran last night. Team 1 took a while to get initially coordinated (both teams did, but the mix of personalities and the "first out the gate" complications made Team 1 more awkward). Of the locals here, Jackie's Shadow.Cat was mish leader, I was running Honeygun, Margie was in as Kazima, and BD as Puck Bunny.

Utter disaster.

The initial troll tunnels were mobbed a lot higher than we were expecting. Half the team tried to fight, half tried to run, and lots of people died.

*sigh*

We eventually reorganized, restarted the team (to overcome a disconnect), and pulled in someone from the outside to clear the trolls for us. Once in the main trial, it was hard slogging, too. Eventually we had five of the team in place behind an obelisk ... and the last trio got themselves killed by pumicites down one tunnel. Honeygun stealthed in and managed to get one of them rezzed ... and then we all died again in the ensuing battle.

Ah, well. Quit the TF (which dumps you back, alive or dead, at the troll caves again).

Second TF got started, but we were a lot more coordinated with the trolls (having brought in two ringers to help clear). Again, looking just at the local names, I was in as Torchielle, Margie as mish leader P-Siren, Doyce exempling down Hang Time, BD as Ciunas Bas.

The bad guys in the final caverns were nastier than before, but we were more coordinated in our attacks (Doyce did some good leadership there). We slowly cleared out the side passages, and the main cavern, went to get in position ...

... and the side caverns had repopped.

Cleared out a few more, got people into position, stealthed/tported into the last few ... and triggered the main door.

Battled our way in, rescued the kid, battered at the purple villain ... and heeded the call to "OUT!"

W00T! Transcendent badge!

Some final blasting through trolls, and out. Fresh air! The stars! Yay!

Good adventure, and I plan on noting some Lessons Learned here later today (along with pictures). But kudos to Margie for doing the heavy lifting with organizing this thing -- it's almost as much of a bitch to get the adventure put together as it is to actually execute it!

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April 9, 2005

DING!

Velvet hit 20 this afternoon. She and P-Siren were hanging around, waiting for the rec center groundbreaking to gel, and eventually ended up at Velvet's favorite lvl 18-19 hangout, near the Boomtown gate at the north end of Steel Canyon. Velvet hit 20, P-Siren hit 19, and I discovered that Serge at Icon won't even bother talking to you if you have a full mission plate.

(Velvet is seriously jonesing, so to speak, for a cape. I think she'll consider herself to have "arrived" if she has one. Even if it's kind of silly.)

Oh, she took Swift, on the all-too-slow path toward Stamina at 24 (will likely take Hurdle at 22 to compliment the Super Jump).

P-Siren will get a chance to do some catch-up in level tonight during the Cave of Transcendence trial, assuming that Margie's disco problems this afternoon don't come back to haunt her.

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Filed under: Character Design , Gameplay

Post mortem

What's wrong with this picture?

Mmmmm ... carpet ...

Well, all the usual wrong things happened. We got split up, we hesitated too long in the face of Serious Damage Being Ladelled On Our Respective Asses, and we got confused as to where we were which made getting away from the damage dealers more problematic.

The one amusing part of the above photo is that, in both of our cases, we had (separately) staggered into the elevator with our last breaths, and plopped out a floor below, dead.

We eventually (right after we rezzed and regrouped here) went in and finished off the boss that did this, but it was (especially after we discussed what went wrong over dinner) more entertainin in retrospect than annoying, especially with that picture ...

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Naming of names

Cuppajo has passed on a fine resource for naming your hero: The Phrontistery, a collection of great and often obsolete words. Just on one page, I found some great names whose meanings would make for fine hero names:

Gablock, Gadarine, Galanty, Galeate, Galliard ...

Hey, it's gotta be better than dYYN0m8te! or something like that, and a lot less likely to be taken than Captain Thunder.

Posted by Dave at 1:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

April 8, 2005