Dark_Respite

QUITE intriguing... do keep going with this!

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

*laughing so hard that she's crying*

Owwwwwwwwww...

These are just so perfect. I cannot WAIT to share these with John when he gets home.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

You can try either Imeem or eSnips and see if folks have the songs uploaded.

Easiest bet, though, is YouTube, and let them just minimize it so they can hear the music while reading.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

I only just now saw this... been horrendously busy.

I can probably create something for you in PhotoShop to use as an overlay. If you use something like Sony Vegas Movie Studio, which allows you to import .psd files, you can then pair that with their Pan/Crop feature to zoom in on it, move it around, etc, and simulate your 'lock on' feature.

I don't have time to give you a mock-up before I haul out of here to HeroCon, but I'll see what I can do when I get back.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Yes, it's the same thing.

And I don't know if you can keep chat without keeping player names too... I'd have to double check.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

If you're using Zloth's Demo Player, you can tell it to turn off all the heads-up display stuff, including player names.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

It may also be that when she left Olympus, her followers' faith might have been a bit shaken, weakening her powers (if you accept a direct correlation between number of followers, their faith, and the god's power).

You can also spin it that the closer to 'mortality' she gets, the weaker her power is. And it's not until she begins to harness the true potential of humanity that she makes up what she's lost.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Zoomed through this all in one go... keep going! Please!

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

And here we go with Part 4!

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

*****

THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE, PART 4

The chaos of the attack was almost overwhelming - no matter where one turned, Rikti seemed to be teleporting in. Soon the air was filled with the hums of drones and the cracking sound of Rikti cannons, but the heroes gave as good as they got, refusing to back down from the incursion. Their job was made harder, though, when Guardians began appearing and creating forcefields around their allies, but Raymond was relieved to see there were healers among the gathered heroes as well, using magic or technology or raw talent to keep their own allies on their feet and in the fray.

Although riding the familiar adrenaline rush as his armor blasted away at the Rikti, Raymond's mind was all too familiar with the concept of multi-tasking, so while laying down some cover fire, he found himself watching Sorina as she led her own small team against the Rikti.

"Downcast, Galebringer, keep them off their balance, we need every advantage we can get!" She immediately ducked as a drone targeted her and nearly blasted her off her feet. "Damn it, I... REALLY... HATE... DRONES!" With a growl, she raised one hand, pointed it at the drone, and clenched her fingers into a fist. To Raymond's astonishment, a shimmering energy field seemed to surround the drone for a split second before it collapsed on itself in a ball of flame.

"Keep them locked down, Tava!" Sharpe yelled over the noise as more Rikti materialized and immediately began opening fire. He suddenly let out a startled yell of pain as two Rikti infantry brought their swords down with vicious strength, but Raymond unleashed a series of concussive antimatter blasts and hurled the Rikti several feet away, giving the hero some much-needed breathing room. Sharpe gave him a quick thumbs-up, then mystical energy surrounded his fists and he started beating on the nearest Rikti.

Sorina, however, was busy directing her own team. "Taek, Scourge, you heard him!" They and Sorina lifted their hands, and moments later, the Rikti quickly found themselves on the receiving end of several restraining powers. Buffeted by tightly contained snowstorms, gravity wells, and energy fields, the Rikti were powerless to move, and several of the more hands-on heroes quickly waded in to pound on then. Sorina never seemed to stop moving, her hands darting around her like birds - one moment gesturing toward three Rikti and lifting them off the ground, the next moment slamming one of the Rikti's few mentalists facefirst into the pavement.

Suddenly the ground began to shake underneath their feet, and Raymond looked up to see six enormous energy fields begin to materialize over their heads.

"BOHZE MOI, WE'VE GOT INCOMING HEAVIES!" Raymond heard Sorina yell over the fracas, and sure enough, six Rikti Heavy Assault Suits appeared above them, their fusion cannons opening fire on the crowd of heroes below. Several heroes went down from the sheer ferocity of the Assault Suits' attacks, screaming in pain and frustration and anger, and a sick feeling of helplessness twisted in his stomach. But before he could react, he saw Blake nimbly dodge between several Rikti soldiers to stand in the very middle of the heroes, and raise her hands as if in offering.

"No sleeping on the job, you guys!" she laughed, and as Raymond watched, darkness seemed to coalesce around her hands, then flow from her body to a nearby Rikti Communications Officer, which had been right in the middle of summoning reinforcements. But at the touch of the dark energy, it stopped and reeled as though struck, and now the darkness was radiating from it instead toward the fallen heroes.

Who, one by one, were lifted off the ground in a swirl of darkness and light before landing on their feet, fully healed.

Raymond wasn't sure what chilled him more - the sight of that Netherworld energy surrounding Blake like a mist, or her laughter over the sounds of battle.

"Thanks, Andrea," Sorina called out, her voice filled with relief at seeing that the other heroes were all right. Blake flashed a quick victory sign before pivoting on her heel and unleashing a painful psionic scream straight into the minds of a group of Rikti, doubling them over in pain.

Raymond's attention was yanked back to Sorina, however, when he heard her suddenly scream in agony, clutching at her head and rocking back and forth.

"SORINA!" he shouted, and whirling around, he saw a Rikti priest pointing at the woman, waves of psionic energy pouring off it and pulsing around its hand. Sorina was howling in pain from the priest's psychic assault, until Raymond snarled, raised his own hands, and blasted the priest into nothingness. As the mental connection was severed, Sorina staggered briefly, one hand against her temple, then she lifted her head to dazedly look around her. Noticing him watching her, he saw her nod and mouth the word "thanks" before focusing her attention on the battle once more.

"Tava, you all right?" Andrea turned back to her comrade, but Sorina waved her off.

"I'm fine... don't worry about me!"

"We need to take down those Heavies!" another hero shouted, but as if on cue, two more appeared over them, their lasers sweeping over the crowd and blasting heroes off their feet.

"All right, you Rikti bastards!" he heard Sorina yell. "Dovol'no!"

Sorina raised both hands over her head as if reaching for the Heavy Assault Suits brutally assaulting the heroes, and the circuitry that ran from her shoulders to her fingertips glowed with power. Instinctively, Raymond triggered his armor's scanners to start analyzing what was going on, and he realized that she was somehow folding space/time in on itself in some sort of gravitational anomaly. A second later, all eight Heavy Assault Suits were surrounded by reddish-gold energy, and Sorina closed her fists and yanked downward, and the Assault Suits briefly flickered out of existence, only to re-appear much closer to the ground, their weapons systems offline and their forcefield protections down.

"Nice one, Comrade!" Soviet shouted as he and several other heroes began attacking the vulnerable Assault Suits.

"Thanks!" she called back. "And for my next trick..."

Carefully positioning herself to get a clear line of sight on the nearest Assault Suit, she flung one hand out at the machine, and for a split second, Raymond's armor picked up what appeared to be a stream of energy moving from Sorina's hand to the Assault Suit. He blinked in surprise as pale blue energy seemed to suddenly radiate from the Rikti Assault suit, only to be suddenly absorbed by the heroes battling nearest it.

"Oh, yeah, Tava, thanks for the recharge!" Lustrious and Hinomizu, who only moments ago had been panting for breath, suddenly seemed reinvigorated, and quickly rejoined the fight.

"It's not possible..." Raymond whispered to himself. "It's just not possible..."

But it was - God only knew how she'd done it, but somehow Sorina had figured out a way to exert a fantastic control over the forces of gravity and kinetic energy. What he'd done with antimatter, she'd done with dynamics. He channeled his power through his armor, focusing it and adapting it through the suit's circuitry, but he'd had no idea that Sorina'd had a similar power within her - it was almost too much to take in.

As the battle wore on, Raymond's mind was divided between taking out the Rikti and the implications of his discovery. Between blasts, he wondered what exactly Sorina's true power was... it wasn't control over antimatter, that much was for certain, and his armor's scanners confirmed that. No... this was something different. But where did her raw power come from? And was that why she'd left Vanguard? With effort, he forced his speculations to the back of his mind and focused his attention on the combat.

"The War Walls are back!" he heard Divine Scourge call out, and glancing to his left, he saw the familiar bluish-green haze of the War Walls' forcefields once again stretching up toward the sky. As if realizing that they'd soon be trapped, the remaining Rikti began teleporting away. The slower ones, however, were quickly dispatched by the heroes, who chased down any that tried to run.

A few moments later, it was over.

An hour ago, this all seemed so much simpler, Raymond ruefully thought to himself, watching Sorina conferring with her friends, issuing orders, and congratulating the other heroes on their courage in battle. An hour ago, he'd thought he'd known Sorina Tavarisch... just another researcher, another hero in a city full of heroes... just another woman.

But as she turned and glanced at him over her shoulder, giving him a rueful and chagrined smile before turning back to the other heroes she'd been teamed up with, he felt a slight shiver run down his spine. No, he thought, he might not know what she was...

... but he did know that he wanted to find out.

To be continued...

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This is for invading Earth! *FLA-ZAPP*

And this is for ganking the newbies! *ZZZRAK*

And THIS is for ruining my DATE! *FREEM*

Looking forward to the next installment.

[/ QUOTE ]
*grin*

For whatever reason, I heard that in the Transformers Animated Starscream's voice. "You interrupted my SPEEEEECH!!!"

[/ QUOTE ]

*laughing*

Great, now I'll have to find that sound clip and do a quick video shot of Tava in Steel Canyon, shaking her fist at the sky while the Rikti are invading...

Hopefully the next chapter will go up later today!

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Possibly a codec error for AVI. I know that if I try and play a DivX AVI file on a computer that doesn't have the codec installed, I can only hear the audio, I can't see the video aspect of it.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

*grins* I should have known... Gregson-Williams is one of Zimmer's proteges.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[ QUOTE ]
I like all your videos Samuraiko, tell me what you think of mine. Thanks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4JTbArmNRU&fmt=18

[/ QUOTE ]

I like it! What music was that? I'd swear it sounds like something Hans Zimmer or James Newton Howard would do...

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[ QUOTE ]
This is for invading Earth! *FLA-ZAPP*

And this is for ganking the newbies! *ZZZRAK*

And THIS is for ruining my DATE! *FREEM*

Looking forward to the next installment.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wonder if I can get ChaseArcanum to do that as a comic...

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Another person to ask is Hero 1 - he is supposed to be the "Story Guru", after all. And he's the one I usually go after for questions like that.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Listening to it now... very nice.

[/ QUOTE ]

Very nice indeed!!

Edited: Samuraiko that "City of Heroes - Incarnate "video you did was very top notch. I wish the game actually had that kind of story telling "feel".

TA

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks very much for the compliment - I've always felt the game had that storytelling feel to it, this was just my way of bringing it out.

[ QUOTE ]
A song called Fort Blood once fell out of Statesman's ham sandwich, maybe you could dig that up somewhere. <ahem>


[/ QUOTE ]

Continuing my reputation as the "I can find anything" geek... if I remember right, the same music was used in the single best damn trailer that Cryptic/NCSoft ever made for this game... I don't suppose THIS is what you're looking for?

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

And here comes part three!

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

*****

THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE, PART 3

Moments later, Raymond and Sorina arrived at the shimmering base portal access in Blyde Square, and he carefully set her down. The second the ground was under her feet, Sorina dove at the portal, vanishing in a haze of blue, and Raymond knew that the portal's system had scanned Sorina's DNA and hero identification information, then routed her to the correct base.

About two minutes later, she re-appeared, and at first, he almost didn't recognize her. He had forgotten that since leaving Vanguard, she had been recruited by one of the specialized branches of the Freedom Corps. Now she wore a red-and-white uniform and mask, what looked like shoulder braces, gauntlets, and a belt of a titanium alloy, plus high-tech goggles. A closer look at her hands and belt revealed the faint glow of microcircuitry engraved in the metal, and as she turned her head to look at him, he saw a sophisticated tracking laser system attached to the left side of her goggles.

She looked good in uniform, he thought, before he abruptly figured out he was staring at her. Even though it covered her almost completely from head to toe, there was no mistaking the feminine form beneath that skintight outfit... he mentally cursed and glanced away.

Then she tilted her head as though listening to something, and Raymond suddenly realized she was listening to the radio broadcasts throughout Steel Canyon. Quickly tuning in himself, he could hear various heroes through the city communicating with one another, calling out locations of bombs that needed to be neutralized, or escorting civilians to safety. However, he could also hear several younger and less experienced heroes trying not to panic.

"Damn it, they're hitting heroes just as they leave the hospital!"

"We got a rallying point yet?"

"Brass Cannon, reporting for duty..."

"Bombs here by the University..."

"What the hell is going on?!"

"We've still got Outcasts and Tsoo over in the Copper District, they won't leave..."

"Auramancer, you in Steel yet?"

"GET BACK, THAT BOMB'S ABOUT TO-"

"Oh, hell, reports are coming in that they're hitting Talos as well..."

"Latvian Lass, you okay? I saw you get nailed by that dropship..."

Raymond then heard Sorina's voice come over the channel. "This is Commander Sorina Tavarisch. Do not panic - heroes in Steel Canyon not currently assisting with UXB removal should report to Blyde Square. Do not, I repeat, do not attempt to engage a dropship in combat."

"Tava!" came another voice over the radio. "Hey if you're looking for help, let me know!"

"Good to know you're here, Agent Tavarisch... we're on our way."

"Greetings, Agent Comrade! Want a hand or three?"

Raymond looked at her in surprise. It seemed that quite a few of the superheroes on the scene knew who she was, and were interested in joining her efforts to repel the Rikti. She gave him a faintly sardonic grin. "You up for helping?"

"Try and stop me," he replied. "You think I'm going to miss the chance to see a Vanguard operative take on the Rikti?"

A moment later, two other heroes, a man and a woman dressed in uniforms similar to Sorina's dropped out of the sky to land beside her, and she glanced over at them in surprise. "That was fast."

"We were just over in Brickstown, taking out a few Council soldiers that were getting out of hand," the man replied, looking with interest from Sorina to Raymond and back.

"Positron, meet Agent Sharpe and Agent Blake. Ray, Andrea, this is Dr. Keyes."

"Ohhhhhhh, that's right. That was tonight! Hell of a way to spend your date, huh, Tava?" Sharpe teased, and Sorina gave him a look while Raymond again reddened. Remembering his own teasing at the hands of the Phalanx, he couldn't help wondering what sort of comments the other members of Sorina's group had made when they'd found out.

Blake, on the other hand, gave Raymond a long appraising look, then turned to Sorina.

"So much for getting him out of that armor..." Blake winked at Raymond, a slow smile appearing on her lips.

"Shut UP, Andrea!" Sorina growled, but Blake just chuckled.

Thankfully, several other heroes then arrived, and Raymond watched as Sorina, Andrea, and Ray began forming teams, providing support and direction while coordinating their efforts with other veteran heroes. The warm, open personality he'd seen in Sorina earlier was gone, replaced with the cold professionalism of a veteran soldier. It was almost as if she'd forgotten he was there, so busy was she with making sure the heroes were ready to repel the Rikti.

"Sharpe, Blake, I'll leave you two to each coordinate your own teams." Sorina glanced around, nodding to some of the heroes standing around before lifting one of her gauntlets and speaking into her wrist computer. "Command. Accept Ally Identification Signal: Soviet Garden." She briefly winked at the other Russian hero, then went on. "Spasibo, tovarich. Accept Ally Identification Signal, repeated command: Divine Scourge; Lustrious; Downcast; Hinomizu; Galebringer; Taek M. Down." At that last, she paused for a moment, but the hero just grinned at her.

Raymond saw her look all of them over, then she nodded slowly. "Right - most of you know the drill. Once they're done bombing, they'll start teleporting in. Stay together, it's the best way to make sure that the healers can keep you alive. Andrea!" The other petite Star Patrol member turned around from where she was forming her own team. "Think you can keep an eye on this group as well?"

"Don't I always? You just turn stuff into pinatas, and Sharpe'll blast them into next week."

Raymond frowned, wondering what that comment was supposed to mean, but an ominous silence suddenly fell over the square, and the heroes all looked up at the sky.

"Bombing run is just about over," Sharpe said quietly. "Which means that..."

Sure enough, five seconds later, the sharp tang of ozone filled the air as the first wave of teleportation portals opened.

"INCOMING!" Blake shouted, lifting one hand and materializing a large patch of dark energy on the ground under the incoming Rikti troops to slow them down.

At first there were only a handful, but as if realizing that the heroes intended to make a stand, dozens more opened virtually on top of them. Raymond tensed, and began sending the mental commands to his armor to start tracking targets as soon as they fully appeared.

For a split second, he was surprised to admit that he was actually glad - because if his date had to get screwed up, at least now he had something to vent his frustration on.

To be continued...

That's why I have a page on MY website specifically dedicated to nailing spammers - and my email provider is quite good about blocking spam.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

95% of what I have is from the ftp.coh.com site, the other 5% comes from me parking myself in a zone and recording the music.

The only other thing I can share is the Samuraiko Productions remix of the Heroes1_Loop piece I did for "The Etiquette of Assassination," and you can get that here.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Actually... yes.

For those of you who make videos (or provide nifty stuff for those of us who do), if you have tips and tricks you'd like to send me, please email them to josinclair@samuraiko.com (rather than posting them here).

I'm going to be making a PDF of my presentation and it'd be nice to have all that stuff in one place.

However, please get them to me by Friday, October 10th, AT THE LATEST, because I have to get this stuff laid out and ready to print before the 'con.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Glad to see this thread of mine is still getting attention - I was able to grab a LOT of useful information on what the players want to see out of this thread, and am working on what can really only be called an uber-video based on this.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

And I see what you mean about trying to keep them 'in character' - you really do write Posi and Synapse (and hell, all of the Freedom Phalanx) so well! Damn, I hope do half as good a job in mine...

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Read the whole thing in one go. Two words for you -

I LIKE!!!!!!

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Oh, I have a list of questions for the devs about how to improve the ability to make movies in CoX. Since it's possible that a few of them might even be coming to my workshop, it might spark some ideas on how they can make things easier for those of us who do vids.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite