Hospy

I don't think it's a good idea to drag out the history. Our chief dramatic element for years was Dirty. Since Dirty's gone anyways, I'll cite him as an example.

Dirty was someone who wanted to lead others and gain respect. In the SG he founded, he was VERY respected, and with good reason: running his own show on his terms, he was awesome (if a touch Tyrannical). But Dirty wanted the approval and acceptance of the community; he wanted the kind of respect leaders got for leading the Hamidon raids. When he declared himself running a Hami raid, people outside of his SG who found his leadership untenable rejected him.

As I understand it, very early in the game, when he complained about things he found unfair in the game, he was given advice to help him level the field, but rejected it. He started this terrible path of, "If I can't get the respect of others handed to me, I'll get in the way until they can't ignore me."

Dirty was the kind of fellow who deliberately planned to grief public Hamidon raids so that he and his SG compatriots could have exclusive rights to Hamidon, at a time when Hami-O's were the best enhancement in the game. And someone trying to ruin the gaming experience you pay for strikes me as a good reason for the drama you refer to, MajorPrankster.

Eventually, the bad blood began to simmer a bit, and someone had the awesome idea to put out an olive branch and try to make him understand.

For a hot minute, this looked like it was gonna work. He was getting trained by some of the best Hamidon runners in how to run a raid for the good of everyone. Midway through the process, he quit, because it was too much like bowing down to someone else for him. Which it was, in a way: others had better knowledge of mechanics and community leadership. Pride got in the way. He wouldn't apologize for trying to disrupt raids before; he put his own pride above the well-being of the community, and it cost his SG their respect. And things were as silly as ever between Champion and Dirty. We all lost something that could have been really cool, we lost seeing what could have come from Dirty and SF being a respected power on Champion with Dirty working WITH the community. Think about what that might have meant for us in terms of server population. Champion was wrong to force an apology out of Dirty; Dirty was wrong to refuse to give it.

Bud isn't Dirty. Bud is Bud. When I migrated here and joined Earthguard, I didn't inherit any prejudices against Bud because of things he'd done in the past. I still remember the PoN SG raid attempts where newbies like me were sent the raid invites, not knowing how big and organized PoN was at the time, and for that, I have retained a skeptical smirk when Bud pops up, but even that has softened over the years to affection for a clever rascal. (Yes, it's been YEARS since I came here. Wow.)

Bud is proud and can be a touch arrogant at times, but he's also a heck of a guy. I have never allowed his history to stand between him and I having fun on our toons; I have only held him responsible for things he has done directly to me or a friend, which is NOT that much, honestly. I have never failed to call him out on things I see as wrong.

I say this as much as a defense of Cobalt as of Bud. Sometimes, people just can't get along. Bud does a lot for Champion; Cobalt does a lot for Champion. I'm on both their Global channels. But I don't pitch fits on either channel and if I did, I would expect to be kicked, and to have to come hat-in-hand asking for a reinvite if I wanted back in.

Publicly, if Bud wants to lead something, GREAT! I did not offer to join his recent CoP effort because Earthguard's been trying to put together our own, but if he was leading something I wanted in on, of course I'd join. He IS a community leader, and someone I enjoy hearing from. And I'm not shy of saying I look up to Cobalt and consider him a role model.

MajorPrankster is right to say that this is drama we don't need. If he ever was, Bud is not the enemy of the Champion community. We don't need to make peace between Cobalt and Bud. Cobalt and Bud need to make peace in their own time and on their own terms. Individually, if you are holding a grudge for long-ago slights, if you're ready to drop them without an apology, do so. But let's not try to force these things. Remember the lessons of what we lost when we tried to make peace for Dirty.

We need to let peace come in it's time and do what we can to encourage these guys to share a beer, not an olive branch.

I think it's called "Death Mask". The new Robot pieces are full o' win.

I'm having the same trouble with screenshots, Gattaca... Up until two days ago, the top 33% of my screen had this weird pantone effect going on.

Before I forget again, thanks so much for posting this, Silas. The auto-updater is broken, your link made this quick and easy!

I'd be happy to waste some time testing this theory with you on the weekend.

I hear this now and then and think, when did YOU get on?

This past Saturday, I thought about making a MoLGTF attempt. Turns out, there were a lot of interested parties who happened to be working Lusca back into the IP bay. By the time Lusca was finished, we had nearly enough people for two teams.

My Global channels are almost always busy. BMT of Champion, Champions United, Alliance, Earthguard, Black Brigade, and so on... it is rare when I get on and don't find conversation going on. Only a little less rare when I get on and can't find teamage for exactly what I want to do.

In terms of population, Freedom still dwarfs us, but we're still a thriving community here on Champion. Look into more active SG's if you want to do more, but rest assured, there's fun to be had.

Think I'm gonna need to make a list of stuff going to Freedom and alert Turgenev! Need some room for fun new characters.

Ryan Hurst. I was watching The Postman with some friends and someone pointed him out and said, "Hey, it's you..." (Which I greatly appreciated, because the last time anyone said I look like anyone was back in middle school when someone said I looked like Chris Makepeace in Meatballs-- which I could live without.) He played one of the two team captains in "Remember the Titans".

Oh, I did! (I really love one of the "Black, White, and Red"s too, the one where one-word captions to a series of images tella story of Grendel taking out his competition, with a cute little poem Hunter offers a mob boss who crosses him.) I just meant that Wagner had to stop what he was doing in the middle of something big and didn't get to finish it for years.

There are two moments in "Batman vs. Grendel" which I tend to offer as proof that Wagner is both brilliant as an artist and a writer... the first is when Hunter reviews villains to copy, and while he offers reasons to himself why not to impersonate each one as he narrows his selection, when he gets to the Joker, all he thinks is, "No." There's a lot you can imply from very little said there.

The second is the fight with Batman, which isn't epic by any means, but Batman attempting to take off Hunter's mask is. I giggled like Lo-Pan for three days.

Awesome... knew there was a reason I liked you!

I preached Willingham even through the scary, explicit, dark days of Ironwood. Now that Fables has hit the big time, we need to get more people to go read about Dave Dragavon's early adventures and the coolness that was Tommy. I still laugh when I think about his run-in with Saddam Hussein.

It's a shame Comico died just as that book became a game-changer for comics everywhere. Ditto with Grendel, where Wagner was just starting to explore Grendel's effect on an entire planet.

Well, I do like Invulnerability and War Mace in the Tanker set... I like Matt Wagner's Kevin Matchstick more than any other hero I can think of, but Batman is probably my favorite hero of all time, as a concept (not necessarily the execution-- although I love how he was written in Kingdom Come). I think the single best comic issue ever written may be The Elementals Vol. 2 Issue 15, a.k.a. The Conversation.

http://www.comicvine.com/elementals-...tion/37-32909/

I'll work to get Lascota as a DB/WP Stalker hero.
I have a Energy Tanker named Ruined Promise who was created specifically to be a Villain convert.
I think that's it-- my heroes were mostly meant to be heroes; my villains meant to be villains. I might make a Hero Ninja, though, or maybe a Hero Robots/Force Field Mastermind.

Whoops... that's base raids, not SG's. Apologies.

http://community.livejournal.com/cit...s/3321322.html

"Base raids and Items of Power being repurposed and fixed, no ETA."

http://www.newsarama.com/games/city-...ax-100327.html