Eight and counting

The other night was the official start of the anniversary events.   I did get involved with a Nemesis invasion, something I saw continuing last night.This had the strange benefit of getting a surprising number of Fake Nemesis toward that defeat badge on Blue Ward, who hasn't even hit 20 yet.   I did notice some rubberbanding off and on that night.   I hope it is only temporary.

als of note, during May they are giving out the Rhapsodic badge for the 8th year anniversary to anyone logging in.   Another reason to re-log on to a lot of my stored characters that aren't on Virtue at the moment, like Blue Rook and Crusading Cavalier.

I've currently got 5 slots open on Virtue --the most I've had in ages.   I've one more holding a name for a possible robot character if they ever roll out MECHA costume stuff.  I was half hoping that would be this week, but alas not.  I would hope it occurs in the next 2 or three weeks.   I did some work in on Atomwave the other day.  I think I need to pin down my 4 or 5 Virtue toons that I'll be focusing on.   That is hard to do when you have over 30.   Sadly some groups will make that easy.   I see too many full groups of 40 to 100 members that only have a half dozen ACTIVE players.   Not a good sign.

Playing the last few days has been odd.  I've been having trouble with my knee since September, and evidently had pushed myself out of my office chair one too many times as the arm rest, a hunk of solid plastic, snapped in two.   Still held together by the cusion, it of course provided little support.   Especially if you used the elbow on it.   Forgetting yourself in the middle of combat, placing your arm on the rest only to have it fold up underneath you is a tad distracting.   I managed to find a replacement at Office Max.   My wife liked it so well she wanted me to get her one too.

I like the new transport ship temporary power.   Shame that wasn't put in the game AGES ago.   Typical Longbow colors I notice.   Now they'd REALLY sell if they gave you the chance to repaint the ships.   I could SOOOO see supergroups going crazy with that.  

One thing I've been noticing in the last week or so is some weird stuff going on with fallen foes in the game.   Where they used to just fall, now they twitch after they are down.  Sometimes embedding themselves into objects, floors, and walls very easily, or getting hung up more often.   Some others twist in peculiar ways that anyone outside of Mr. Fantastic or Plastic Man should find painful if not fatal.   I find that a little disconcerting in a game where we are supposed to be good heroes that my mental whammy is doing permanent physical harm.  I heard tell that there was some tweak to the rag doll physics to reduce lag.   I've not been seeing lag all that often, but I can't say that I like this tradeoff.   Anyone else noticing/reacting to this?

This one is so painful to look at...downed with pyschic blast... ???

I'm continuing to stockpile toon images to stretch out my backlog of covers.   I really want to get at least one image published to this blog daily, running as long as possilbe.  My target is to go through the summer right up to Dragon*Con itself, if not beyond.   I won't have something to say daily, but I do like showing off my covers, as well as the WILD costumes and characters I see in game.    Spread the word and keep watching -- If you play on Virtue, you might see yourself here.

Weekend & More

I've had some fun over the weekend -- I have axed a few toons on Virtue, freeing up some slots once again.   I did restart Darkbrand as a Dark/dark Controller rather than a Scrapper.   The costume got a slight mod, but I had several people comment on the costume once again.  Thanks to several Death From Below runs combined with Positron 1 and half of Positron 2 (the leader went AFK before one mission and never came back.), I got him up to 19 relatively quickly.

I came up with a nice Purple/red/gold costume with the New Statesman helm and emblem that is available.  Costume is saved, but I've not found the right powerset to run with him.  Again this look got nods and random tells so I really do want to run with it.

I also reactivated a one-eyed costume.  I like the effect and have always wanted to try it again .  So keeping with the red/purple blend with gold/white highlghts, I redid him.  His original build was skinny, with a tail.   I beefed him up, gave him a half mantle cape, with gold disk broaches holding up an Arachnos cape done up in mono color.  You get that cape at level 1 -- If you make it the same color on both sides, you can do a normal cape before level 20 without having to buy it.   His is gold inside, white outside.   Given him the name Psideways, something I've used once before, I got him on a few DFB runs, getting him to level 14 in short order.  Both Psideways and Darkbrand need groups.

Swift Mantis got a little play over the weekend, attending the Recruitment Faire.  That was a fun event, and it almost immediately filled KR.  Attendance spread over into a second then a third zone.    Dawn Patrol hosted, with Justice Corps, Eternals, Tessaract Castle, Hero Dawn, and other groups in attendance.   Although Swift Mantis's group "The Heroic Society" saw no recurits, it was obviously VERY successful for the larger groups.    I took a lot of shots of toons in attendance.  I'll be intermixing toon shots with cover shots over the next month.   I've already got images lined up for the next 10 days, waiting to publish.   I'll add more as I make covers.   I'm trying to make sure that I'm publishing SOMETHING each day, without going too heavy either way.   After the leader gave up on the faire, I returned as Ice-Agent and did land a spot on the Eternals.

Sidebar got an update yesterday -- Adding the Goodreads images.   I got involved with it through the Sword and Laser Podcast which I've been following.   They do their discussions on Goodreads as a group.  I DO so need to read more.  Most of the books I do "read" are done through Audible and their downloadable spoken books.  Sometimes when I'm through all my podcasts I do so love to LISTEN to a good book.  But alas, getting two books a month through them has proven a bit much, as I've several books built up that I've not listened to.   Another thing that is filling my iPod.

Of the three new character sets I've no Beast controller in play .   I started one, but didn't like it so gave it the axe.   More from his appearance & name than the powerset itself.

One fluke over the weekend -- I noticed that I had a few unturned Cards on the account.   I went ahead and did turn them over.  One of the things to pop up was the Dark Wolf companion pet, which is now appearing on all my characters.  I've only got a few that it fits, but it is big and gets noticed.   Apparently they are very rare.   I may have to start a Beast controller with it in mind.

Wish me luck.

Back again.,,

Sorry for the lag of late. Several things contributed. 1) I ran out of covers. Surprising, but it does happen. 2) I have had problems with my PC. A hard drive failed and I'm having sound card troubles as well. I've had it lock up my computer with a solid tone three times out of my last two City sessions. Since this forces a reboot when it happens it is increasingly irritating. Finally, 3) I got Skyrim for my 360. Great game, but it definitely took a bite out of my MMO time.

Last night, I got the new staff fighting power on my account. I made another kid mutant character for it , a tactic I'm using a bit too often lately. Swift Mantis was his name, using a green/green motif, Mantis emblem, cape, and no insect body parts. No martial arts costume parts either, except maybe the folded cloth belt. I went with a wrapped staff, and super reflexes for the secondary. He so far has proved to be fun. I got the main powers first, and flight. I'm getting the secondaries a tad late in the game. However he has proven to be quite fun to play. I do like the fact the power set gets cone and area attack powers so early. The animations are cool, and I am hoping that it will lend itself to some cool covers. Or at least some NEW ones.

I definitely think I favor it over the other new powers of late, but then I do a lot of melee characters. I have started a beast control character, but really haven't gotten into it really. Nor do I have a darkness control character.

I still have one thing floating around in my head. Dragon*Con 2012. I am to be THE panelist for the City of Heroes session. I'd like to do something for that, something special so it doesn't seem that we put the session together at the last minute. Recent events and wants are always a subject at these, but I'd like more. So far my inquiries with the devs have gone unanswered. I don't know if it is too early or they just have some bad blood against the convention or what. If you have a clever idea, I would love to hear it.

With a little luck I'll be posting some new covers shortly. I also want to thank those that have left some comments of late. Nice to get some feedback.

Updates

Updates to the site continue, as I try and find everything I can add, how to implement it, and what still is needed.   So far it is going far smoother than I would have thought.   There is lots of testing to be done.  The new blog software also exists on my iPad, which means I can add content a lot easier than I've done before.  I hope this means that I might even be able to do some photos at Dragon*Con, move them to my iPad and add them directly to the site from the convention.   It will be something to try.

If you have an SG site, especially for servers other than Virtue, a Villain group, a City Radio station, any reference or tool sites that I may have missed, please send me an email at the link at the top.  I've been going through all the links from my old site.  Several SGs and sites have gone dead recently, or at least inactive.   Anything that hasn't had recent activity, I've not added back here.  

I'm still trying to get SERVER STATUS back here -- but so far no go.  I'm trying to drop whatever isn't necessary.   It is one of the things I miss.  But there are some new features I plan to implement.  For instance slide shows can be easily added -- so don't be surprised if I get a cover gallery working DIRECTLY on the sidebar

Beginning again...

Well the old pLog software I'd been using has packed up and given me problems for the last time. I'm not going to bother trying to ressurect it again. I decided to move on to newer software -- something that will make adding updates FAR easier. At least. That's the plan.

I had been having Google Reader do a news feed for me as well -- AND thanks to them going to Google Circles -- that no longer works either. So I'm going to try and add it to the normal stuff I was doing. It may take a while.

I hope to have several different types of updates in the future.

• Cover screenshots -- I've a backlog of at least 30 or so


• Toon screenshots -- Other players with names, costumes, or even supergroups of interest.


• Game comments -- The usual stuff about in-game events, tactics, trends, what not.


• News -- Links to News entries concerning CoH on the forums, MMO sites, etc.


• Videos -- The occasional COH Machinima gems found , usually from Youtube.

With the above in mind, I hope to be doing daily updates. As I said -- THAT'S the plan