Vol. 2, Issue 18
October 10, 2008

The City Scoop a publication for Supers by Supers!

Read the latest publication and then join in on the community discussion!

[*] If you have concerns regarding the content of the Scoop please direct your comments via PM to Lighthouse or Ex Libris.
[*] If you would like to do a feature article, have an event covered, or join "The City Scoop" team please PM Snow_Globe
[*] If you need some “Advice” contact Lady_Athyna or would like to “Ask The X” contact LiquidX
[*] Finally if you have a Classified Ad or Recipe you would like included please contact: MistressNoire[/list]

The City Scoop Staff Editor-in-Chief Snow_Globe Editors / writers By Popular Request, Point/Counter Point Bowfling Under the hood TopDoc Comic Lattice Content Watch Plater Rogue Isles Legend Blood_Spectre Fashion HexGirl Why I joined... Otterine Food ~Mistress Noire~ Humor Hostile_V The People On HumanMiracle Spandex Spotlight EmperorSteele Bases EnnVee Advice, Horoscopes Lady Athyna Advice LiquidX Fan Fiction Spotlight Mr_Grey PvP Correspondent Neuronia Wentworth's Advice peterpeter PvP Correspondent Acanous_Quietus Event Reporters White_Gravel More needed! Behind the Scenes Lead Layout Layout assistants Mantid Frost Snow_Globe Copy Editor PhoenixRaz More welcomed. Additional Staff Lemur Lad Bonker Marcian Tobay SpaceNut Positions needing staff Puzzles Art Correspondents Event reporters Writers The City Scoop is always seeking comments, suggestions, and articles from our readers. Just send them to the corresponding department or one of our Editors-in-Chief.

Classifieds

ARTIST WANTED Published author seeks superhero artist for politically progressive comic book project. Speculative: no money up front, any profits to be split 50/50. Character designs to start; full script pages will follow. Interested parties should PM DoctorJ through the forums or @DoctorJ on the game. Better Base and Fortress Otto is seeking volunteers for upcoming episodes of Better Base and Fortress. Do you think your base has what it takes to get 5 out of 5 Otto's from Otto Plair? Contact Mindscythe in game @Mindscythe to arrange a base tour and discuss the details of becoming an upcoming episode NOW HIRING Paragon Underground Radio is now hiring bouncers and bartenders. Please send an in-game e-mail to DJ Durango on the Virtue server for more information or an application. WANTED Fan Artist to draw my character. I cannot offer much compensation other than any of the wares I would otherwise sell on the Auction House. If you are interested, please contact Hakuro de Killer on the Virtue Server. Want your character to be interviewed by Scoop Man? Send a PM to HumanMiracle! Want your character to be interviewed by Patty-Sue Ivanova? Send a PM to Emperorsteele! Want to be part of the VEAT Army? Yes we are an offshoot branch of the FUSION empire in the Protector dimension loyal only to Ghost Widow. We are destined for greatness. Ghost Widow has ordered my organization to form a new sect in support of special operations. I will recruit within our ranks as well as go outside of our known coalition. These chosen members will go to an academy for training as various Arachnos soldiers. While I do not like to be told how to run FUSION, Widow assures me that I will be rewarded for forming this group. My first order of business is to choose villains among my organization that display some of the following qualities: Mind control, knowledge of poisons, stealth, acrobatics, weapons fighting, and most importantly do not display fear and that would die if I ordered them to do such. I have at least 20 in mind from my 150 Villain organization that fit this criteria. Over the next few weeks I will begin listing them in preparation for training. This training will consist of a series of trials and strike forces ordered by Ghost Widow. More to follow soon. Want to know more? Please come to the Veat Army Project. Need to sell something? Post it in The City Scoop Classifieds. Send a PM to a scoop staff member. DO YOU LOVE MUSIC? Well, so do we! KJSR.net, the Voice of Jello Shooters, is a relatively new internet radio station, and we're looking for new DJs! So if you love all kinds of music, and want to "share the love" so to speak, contact either @Kyo-chan or @Steampunk Charlie right away! And for our devoted listeners, we've got MORE shows, and MORE prizes coming up, so tune in! Introducing Two-for-Tuesday at El Super Mexicano! All regular quesadillas just 2 for $5 all day Tuesday! Lost One Oscillator Overthruster. Needed to destroy world, those heroes will never know what hit them! - Dr. Aeon. Ok, now send this... Lost Paradigm Shift Device. Contact Demented Cynic at Portal Corp. by Friday. Remember to bring Hawaiian shirt. HELP WANTED Writers for The City Scoop. Please contact Snow_Globe or Marcian_Tobay for submission details. Do you have an event coming up? Are you going to attend an upcoming event? Do you want to see or even write an article for The City Scoop? Drop a line to an Editor-in-Chief a week in advance, and you too could be a guest writer for The City Scoop.

Food & Recipes

Hey again folks, Hope you enjoyed the things I came up with last week. This week I have more to share! My next one comes from Ex Libris, Ex sure loves Chicken with creamy or cheesy sauces on it, and Peanut butter as well as lemons and grapefruit.... Let's see what I can whip up on this one. Chicken Broccoli Alfredo Sauce 1/2 cup butter 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese 2 teaspoons garlic powder 2 cups milk 6 ounces grated Parmesan cheese 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper Melt the butter in a medium, non-stick saucepan over medium heat. Add cream cheese and garlic powder, stirring with wire whisk until smooth. Add milk, a little at a time, whisking to smooth out lumps. Stir in Parmesan and pepper. Remove from heat when sauce reaches desired consistency. Sauce will thicken rapidly, thin with milk if cooked too long. Chicken 2-3 good size boneless chicken breasts Lemon Pepper seasoning (if you have it) If you don't have the seasoning you can take 3 1-2inch thick slices of Lemon pepper Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Rinse off chicken breasts and place them face down in a pam sprayed baking dish. Add enough water to cover the chicken 3/4. Place lemon slices or sprinkle the seasoning over top. Whichever you choose. Bake for 45-60mins or until no longer pink. Pull out and let cool enough so you can cube it up. Toss in with the sauce. Broccoli Frozen or Fresh whatever you choose, cook in a pot with boiling water and a teaspoon of salt until cooked to your liking, add the floret parts to sauce, stir. Pasta Your choice, cook to the back of the pasta package. Drain. Add Pasta sauce with Chicken and Broccoli and stir. A great side to go with this, my personal fav is Caesar Salad. Personally I been staying away from Croutons all the carbs and stuff, I usually take a few slices of apple and slice it up on top skin and all, quite refreshing! Now for dessert! Yes, has to be ....... COOKIES! Peanut Butter Cup Cookies 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 cup butter, softened 1/2 cup white sugar 1/2 cup peanut butter 1/2 cup packed brown sugar 1 egg, beaten 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 tablespoons milk 40 miniature chocolate covered peanut butter cups, unwrapped Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Sift together the flour, salt and baking soda; set aside. Cream together the butter, sugar, peanut butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in the egg, vanilla and milk. Add the flour mixture; mix well. Shape into 40 balls and place each into an ungreased mini muffin pan. Bake at 375 degrees for about 8 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately press a mini peanut butter cup into each ball. Cool and carefully remove from pan. Hope that helps! Stay tuned next week! Until then keep those recipes coming or those kitchen meals you need help with! Thanks! Mistress Noire [/color]

The People On...

Time Travel By The Human Miracle Well I think it's about time we here talked about something scientific-y. You guessed it, time travel. If you didn't guess time travel you need to lower your standards of me. I'm not THAT well informed, and frankly the reason I chose time travel is because it is the one topic I can comprehend to some degree. Granted I know as much as a chimp and all the experience I've had has been from comic books and movies, but come on. I'm a middle class journalist with a degree from community college. AND LOOK AT ME NOW! Ha! They said I couldn't make anything of myself, and they were WRONG! Back to time travel. Here in Paragon we've been host to some spooky phenomena, ghost ships and such to prove a point. But time travel is quite possibly the most fascinating thing to happen to this place since the Rikti came back, at least in my opinion. I tried to get my own first-hand experience and travel back in time, but to no avail. Apparently I need to be either a Midnight Club member, or have a hero license. Since I am neither a hero nor a Midnighter, I settled on hunting down a hero who would tolerate me enough to talk. Luckily I ran into a familiar face, Avengening Speceter. Now I know, I know, it's not spelled right. But there are apparently 18 Avenging Specter-type names in Paragon so he had to settle for this one. Rest assured however, he is well informed Scoop Man: Ah! Avengeing Speceter isn't it? Avengening Speceter: Indeed. SM: Thanks for taking the time to talk with me. AS: My pleasure. SM: As you can see, I've been standing outside this place for some time now. I'm not a Midnight Club member, but I wanted to see what this whole deal was with the time travel in there. Unfortunately I can't. Can you shed some light on the whole issue for the rest of us who aren't privileged to experience this wondrous thing? What's it like? AS: I personally puke every time I go there but other than that it is quite pleasant. SM: O-oh Well let me ask you this. Does the whole idea that you are able to fix things that happened in the past seem a little godly? AS: Yes, and no. No because when you think about it, everything we do everyday might be considered godly. SM: Ah I see. Isn't it dangerous to play with the fabric of time though? AS: Yes it is. Fortunately there are certain safeguards in effect to minimize the danger should something go wrong. SM: Like what? AS: Well I don't trust them at all, but supposedly the organization known as the "Ouroboros" recruits heroes to fix these mistakes. But even then things can go screwy. I've got a PhD in advanced physics and it's tough to translate the dimensional research to time travel.

SM: Why don't you trust them? They seem to be recruiting the people who are the most capable at handling the situation. Heroes have shown threat they can handle a lot. Why not this? AS: Well the phrase "Who watches the watchmen" comes to mind. And remember, it only takes one rogue cape to change it all and I heard they may even have black masks working for them now. Ask yourself, are you comfortable having villains screw with time? SM: Villains are there too? It seems that there isn't anything they can't get into. Have they proven a threat so far in the plans? AS: Well as I said before, there are plenty of heroes to keep them in check most of the time SM: Let's rewind a bit here and go to the Midnight Club again. I hear that there is a portal in there that leads to Roman times? AS: Indeed a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there. *he rubs a bruise on his left side* SM: Rough kind of place? AS: Yeah. I got into a scrap with some locals after a "visiting" villain convinced them I was some sort of demon sent by Hades. SM: Why is there a portal to that place and that place alone in there? AS: Well one of the head Midnighters managed to "borrow" a portal from the Ouroboros I guess. Apparently he feels the same way I feel about them. At least that's what I think. SM: Gotcha. I guess we'll really never know then huh? AS: You know those magic users and their secrets. SM: Totally. Thank you for your time AS. AS: Thank you. And those that would do evil to others should remember my name Well that sure is a lot more than I knew before. As for this "Ouroboros" organization, I'm not sure how I feel about it. It sounds a little too omnipotent for my tastes. An organization that has the power to travel in time and change history, that employs villains and heroes to do IT'S work sounds way too sketch. And what is the point of this organization in the first place? Sure fixing time is all well and good, but why have they felt that NOW was the best time to talk to us? So many questions and not enough answers for my taste. My kind of scoop. Now I'm going to see if I can find more answers for you all. Like I always do, I find someone from the less reputable side of the law to give me their side of the issue, and I plan to deliver

Base Showcase By EnnVee

Spring Knights

Who is your base designer and who are your supergroup leaders? I (Redlynne) have done most (but by no means all!) of the work of designing the Spring Knights base, and actually implementing those designs in the base editor. If anyone is "held captive" by wanting to spend hours and hours just "playing with the editor" that would be me. That doesn't mean that this is a one-horn-band sort of effort though. I routinely solicit the ideas and advice of my friends and SG-mates as to what they think should happen next (base-wise) and whether things are "working" or not as far as appearance and usability go. This means that there have been more than a few offhand comments tossed around that inspired something that has actually been done. The Control Room for instance, complete with Loft Library and "Treehouse Effect" ... I blame entirely on Nostromo for giving me the idea to do in the first place. And yes, before you ask, what you see in there now is in fact the result of an off-hand comment that the room "looks a little sparse" as a big empty with almost nothing in it beyond the absolute essentials. Right now, in just the last month, we've added a new 5x5 Meeting Room to the base, which actually represents more than half of the usable area of the entire base plot. It's intended to be used as a "sandbox" for base design by the SG members, not just myself or other "senior" members of the SG. This means that the biggest room in the base is essentially reserved for people to try out their skills at base design and working with the editor should they be so inclined. The intent is that "every now-and-then" when we get tired of looking at the big room, and we agree that it's time for a makeover, the right to delete everything out of the big room and start from scratch will be awarded to whomever shows the most interest in undertaking such a project ... and we all get to participate in the creative process by offering feedback as the rebuilding progresses. As far as SG Leadership goes, right now Spring Knights is small enough in membership that there's no real need for a hierarchy of leadership. Although my main, Redlynne, holds the only Rank 5 (Liege) position, all of the other members in the SG hold Rank 4 (Champion) ... so it's not as if there are "leaders and followers" in the SG. Nostromo and I are the most active players though. What server is your base on? Virtue server. And although Spring Knights isn't in a coalition with Hero Dawn, the most prestigious SG on the Virtue server, that's mainly been a function of the fact that Hero Dawn's coalition list is basically full. That said, all of the players with membership in Spring Knights have a long (and in my case, going all the way back to Issue 2 (or was it 3?)) history with Hero Dawn, which continues through to this day. When was your supergroup established? 20 June 2007. Oldest member: Ms Givings (SG Founder) Unfortunately, a friend of mine discovered Tabula Rasa in the fall of last year and "infected" me with interest in playing that (which was a bit of "Revenge!" since I'd gotten my friend into CoH back in Issue 3), so we wound up playing Beta through Launch together and on into Deployment 8 of TR until around April/May this year. Then I decided I missed playing City of Heroes, because you couldn't customize stuff in TR like you can in CoX ... and besides, I'd had all these (outrageous) ideas for (what I thought was) a really nifty 3D base design for over a year by this point. Those plans would never see the light of day if I kept playing Tabula Rasa all the time. So I came back to Paragon City and started building up my SG's prestige account ... enough to start actually *doing things* beyond having an Oversight Room. Once I actually had enough prestige to start "being cool" and 3D in my designing, it kind of snowballed from there in a sort of virtuous cycle, where I was motivated to play just so I could add the next bit of amazingly nifty piece of architecture and functionality to my SG's base. As of this writing, Spring Knights has no coalition partners ... although my partner in defeating crime, Nostromo, did briefly toy around with the idea of creating a coalition SG for Spring Knights. The motto for Awesome Incorporated was, "Why be merely 'Good' when you can be AWESOME!" How many players are in your supergroup? Five players, two of whom are heavily active (myself and Nostromo), who combined contribute a grand total of sixteen alts to the roster. Three of those players have only a single alt in the SG, so the membership is mainly Nostromo's and my alts. At present, the SG very much a laid back and casual thing for me and my friends, with no real obligations in terms of demands or duties. We're just doing this to have fun. What is the approximate value of your base? At last check, it was just a few thousand over 1.6 million prestige. It's still not "complete" yet though, so as prestige rolls in more workshop services are getting added. I fully expect the Spring Knights base to tip the scales somewhere around 2 million prestige when it gets "completed" though, when we've got all the workshop services we'd "need" for a PvE SG base (and they subsequently get Lifted Into The Sky, just to make it more interesting because 2D is boring). I'm guessing that of that ~2 million prestige approximately 30% of it will have been spent on decorative items by the time we're done. That's a not inconsiderable chunk of change when talking about a (mere) 8x8 plot of space holding only six rooms. Good thing rent is cheap at this size! How much time do you spend working on your base? How much time have you invested so far? Depends on how much prestige is available! ^_- Personally, I tend to prefer to just "zone out" and have fun messing around with the editor. There have been times when I've basically spent an entire week doing the prep work for laying out a room and then spent all day implementing that plan. That's ultimately what happened with the Control Room. I literally spent about a week building and re-building and re-re-re-re-building the uppermost level of the control room in, of all things ... Notepad. The reason for using Notepad was because it evenly spaces all characters equally, so it was perfect for keeping track of spacing and doing layouts on "scratch paper" before moving into the editor. This also meant that I could be doing layouts for my base while I was at my day job (with no one the wiser!), so that when I got home I'd actually have time to play ... rather than work on my base (prep). So far, the Control Room has been the most intensely planned part of the entire base, and it took the most time out of all of the rooms to actually implement. I actually spent pretty much the entire double XP weekend for Positron's birthday implementing the Control Room you see in these screenshots in the editor. Just getting the uppermost Loft Library and the landing on which the Magic Axis is located finished took approximately 18 hours that weekend on Sunday ... and that was how I spent my double XP weekend, building a Control Room. Typically, I like to do base editing in long stretches when I can get away with it ... like 4+ hours at a stretch when possible. By now, what with all the building and re-building and re-re-re-building that I've done as I've gained expertise (through making mistakes, and lots of them!) and coming up with better ideas after finishing a revision and so on ... I'd estimate that I've spent at least 2 man-weeks just editing the Spring Knights base since May when I came back to playing CoX. What is your favorite base item? Least favorite? Favorite Base Item (currently): MAGIC DESKS Specifically: Rustic Flattop Desk Without the Rustic Flattop Desk, I quite literally couldn't do even half of what you can see in my base. It's borderline impractical to do right now ... but because the Rustic Flattop Desk can be stacked pure vertical, it's merely tedious rather than excessively onerous to lift things off the ground. I'm also quite fond of Bookshelves, Shoji Lamps and Trees. I make extensive use of these three elements in my base designs for everything from suspended floors (Bookshelves *and* Shoji Wall Lamps), to controlled lighting (Shoji Lamps), to carefully placed visual blocks so as to keep the starkness of the stairs and open spaces in my layouts from being so deplorably bleak/obvious. The trees especially allow me to hide/camouflage some of the more egregious compromises you simply have to make when placing stairs above the ground. Plus, when you're building in 3D, the inclusion of trees can give you a very definite "Treehouse Effect" depending on how you design your layout (in 3D, naturally!). That said, if Positron (and friends) ever develop an editing tool which allows you to rotate *and* translate through X, Y, Z in 1 foot increments selected items *freely* ... let's just say that as a layout artist I'd never touch the Rustic Flattop Desk ever again. Least Favorite Base Item: RAID PATHING To be honest, a lot of the limitations that Raid Pathing puts on you can make you want to scream at the monitor and give it a good shake sometimes (or in my case, all the time). Raid pathing is the one thing that can turn a perfectly good room layout that works on paper into something that can't possibly work inside the editor. As far as I'm concerned, Raid Pathing is "2D stupid" as far as algorithms go ... although I can understand why, from a programming perspective, it works the way it does. I just wish that Raid Pathing was a "feature" of PvP enabled bases only, since for PvE bases all it does is get in your way and prevent you from doing everything you might otherwise be able to do. What is your favorite thing about base editing? Least favorite? The sheer creative scope of what you can do is simply awesome. Even something as simple as atmospherics and the "mood" of a room can be controlled to an astonishingly exacting degree. In the Spring Knights base, I wanted to create a sense of "vastness" in space ... even though I'm only working on an 8x8 plot with a bunch of 2x2 rooms. I was able to achieve this through a carefully considered combination of heights, styling and (most importantly) lighting. By carefully controlling the lighting (global lighting completely "off" and only local light sources illuminating things) I was able to achieve a sort of "islands of warmth and comfort" type of effect, while at the same time de-emphasizing the walls that bound up the various spaces into their (little) boxes. That's why even though the Spring Knights base is *objectively* small (a mere 8x8 plot), it actually *feels like* it's far larger than that. This is because your attention is drawn away from the walls bounding the space of the rooms ... resulting in far more value being given to "walkable area" rather than just the raw square footage given to each room. Needless to say, I'd never have been able to do the sort of stairway access you see everywhere if I hadn't figured out a way of using the arcane Stone Plinths you see in the base to be able to have my stairways "reach" all the way down to 0' height through a "bridging" floor object which can lift you up within range of walking naturally onto the lowest (elevated) stair (at 3 feet high). This then allowed me to have minimum height floors and maximum height ceilings throughout the base, thus yielding the most "spacious" of possible bases (given my limited plot size). My least favorite thing about the editor is the way that it sometimes seems to have been purposely programmed to drive me bat[CENSORED] insane! Hotspots to "grab" things (such as floor and ceiling heights) are in THE MOST bizarre locations ... and since there's no visual indicator that the (wrong!) hotspot is THERE it can be extremely frustrating to find the right camera angle to avoid grabbing hold of something you don't want snag. And Magic Desks can be absurdly finicky about both cursor AND camera position when you're trying to stack them. It seems like you can't keep them from stacking when you DON'T want them to stack, and like they'll absolutely REFUSE to stack unless you put the cursor on *EXACTLY* pixel X,Y (margin of error, zero) on your screen. Oh and the fact that there's no Undo/Redo feature in the editor is a sticky sore point for me. What is the highest thing on your wish-list for new base items? Water Fountains Windows (to the outside world) Telescope/Observatory NPC Staff A Pipe Organ (cue Toccata and Fugue in D minor...) Emplaceable sound effects A Mission Computer that does more than consume power and control If you could give just one piece of advice to a new base editor, what would it be? Don't be afraid to DREAM! It sounds simple, but it's really a lot harder than that. It's actually somewhat easy to get discouraged, when it comes to base editing. Sometimes it feels like you're never going to get finished ... and even if you do, almost no one is ever going to appreciate (fully) what you've built. You think about all the hours and hours of your free time that you're sinking into this endeavor, until eventually you start thinking about what you could have accomplished (and earned) in that amount of time if you'd been playing the Game instead of messing around with the Editor like this. The thing is ... all of that blood, sweat and tears (and yes, rage) that you spend playing the "mini-game" that is base editing will in fact pay off if you're willing to invest yourself in it. I've been giving base tours to friends of mine that I know, who aren't SG members, and just watching their reactions as they wander through the place in stunned amazement is worth every minute I've spent wrestling with getting everything "just so" in the editor. As I like to tell visitors, especially first time visitors, to my base ... Your pleasure is my reward.$$em fancybow Ultimately, if your base is going to be about anything beyond being a transportation and/or storage hub, it's going to have to be something ... a space ... that "moves" people on the emotional/artistic level. It's going to be about mood and atmosphere and (yes, dare I say it) ... dramatic staging. And you can't pull off that sort of an effect on people if you aren't willing to "dream a little" yourself. The flipside to this of course is to not be afraid of (and also, not beat yourself up over) mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. The trick is that not every mistake is a complete waste of time. I know that I've spent hours and hours trying to get a particular feature to work "just so" only to find out that it doesn't "fit" with some other element or there's a Raid Pathing issue that prevents it from working out the way I'd like it to or SOMETHING that makes stuff not work out right. The trick is to learn from those mistakes in ways that actually add to your repertoire of skills, rather than getting upset with yourself over how much time you've (now) wasted. Because I'll tell you this much. Sometimes, you need to make a really spectacular mistake in order to make a discovery that will open up whole new possibilities and give you new ideas for all the cool things that you can (now) do. Anything is easy so long as you know how. It might be *tedious* ... but that's a whole different problem. Half the burden with having (big) dreams is knowing how to make them a "reality" for other people to enjoy. But with inspiration and motivation ... everyone can share their dreams, even despite the setbacks you'll inevitably encounter along the way. So my advice is ... don't be afraid to dream ... because you may be surprised to see where your dreams can lead you, and the sort of impact they can have on other people that you share them with. After all, it's the dreams that inspire more than ourselves that make this all worthwhile ... even beyond our own wildest dreams ...

Congratulations The Model Citizens (Triumph) would like to congratulate and show or sincere appreciation and love for our very own Syndralina. This amazing hero has just reached the monumental achievement of earning 3 million prestige for our SG!! Syn joined our little family about two and a half years ago and has been a constant source of fun, friendship, support and the more than occasional wisecrack ever since. Making this achievement even more spectacular is the fact that the majority of her earnings were accumulated well before both prestige and influence were given while in SG mode. Her willingness to sacrifice her own pocket book in favor of supporting her Super Group is a fine testament to her unselfish attitude and her generosity toward others. You can always count on Syn to be there when you need help, listen when you need to talk and make you laugh when you need cheering. She will even stand by your side and suffer through an entire days worth of endless and brutal Carnie missions to get you to your goal. All the while keeping you alive and full of juice. Now that痴 a hero! We consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have such a fine hero in our ranks. Syndralina has, in our opinion, indeed set the bar on what a hero should be. Thank you for joining us Syn! Thank you for all you do and for allowing us the privilege of calling you our friend and fellow SG mate! WE LOVE YOU SYN!!!

Pinnacle Event Click for more information.

Community

Fan Fiction Spotlight Presented by: Mr_Grey The Last Prince of Mars By: Dark_Harrier Gashanatantra strode into the sensing room like he owned the place; because, basically, he did, and everyone in it as well. Robots scurried to and fro, carrying data readouts between stations that were manned by increasingly-alarmed technician-slaves. Ras Thavas sat at his wide viewer consol, hunched over the readouts, his frame visibly shaking. He turned as the Prince entered, almost shouting for his attention and haste. "What is this now?" the Prince demanded, "I am almost ready to launch against the Kashavok. Even now, my ship Ajax has my personal Tripod loaded and r-" "My lord, please." To interrupt a Martian Prince in this way could mean a Whim Death for the slave so arrogant as to speak over his lord. But there was that tone in Ras’ voice. The Prince stayed his hand. "The readings my sensors are showing.. cannot be possible. But, I am seeing the same readings from our secret splices in the sensor arrays of three other families." With a trained eye, Gashanatantra shouldered in beside his servant, glancing across scrolling lines of text from a number of different antennae across the world, all showing more or less the same odd things. Alarming things, impossible things. "This cannot be correct," gruffed the Prince, "Perhaps the Kashavok are feeding false readings to disrupt our plans." "No, my lord! I have run remote systems checks on all feeds. These readings are showing true! The data is not corrupted nor simulated!" The small-bodied scientist was so agitated his was wringing his slim, delicate hands together most roughly, a gesture that would, for Martians, be tantamount to cutting oneself in grief. No Martian slave was ever allowed to wear hand covering to protect this delicate feature. Threat of harm to the hands allowed their owners to keep such slaves in line, death at the whim of a superior notwithstanding, of course. For a few seconds more, the two stood in silence as the data unfurled before them. What it was saying was beyond apocalyptic. But the Prince needed to hear confirmation. "Tell me your conclusions." The scientist-slave barely could be heard now. "I believe that the gravity-wave device the Kashavok have been working on has malfunctioned in an irreversible and fatal way. Just as I said it would if our spies were correct!" The Prince grimaced at the pitiable display of emotional weakness the scientist was jabbering through. "An uncontrolled reaction that is self-generating. I told you they could not control such a gravitic reaction if they ever initiated it!" He swiveled in his seat to face his lord and look him squarely in the eyes, a gesture of defiance that would surely be worthy of his immediate death, if only under other circumstances "They have destroyed the world! According to our devices, they are turning the crust of the planet inside out!" His voice was a shriek. To the Prince’s trained eye, this assessment appeared to be correct. Even now, from it’s initiation point on the other side of the planet, some disastrous runaway effect was uplifting the entire crust of Mars, and rolling it over upon itself. Material from miles under the surface was being flipped over, while the surface was being immediately inverted or subducted. The wave was spreading in a ring, expanding outward from the center of Kashavok territory, flowing around the world in an inexorable calamity. "There is no escape from this," the Prince whispered, even as he pondered quite selfishly, that his brilliant preparations for war had been rendered pointless. I don't have much to say as far as a review for this other than the fact that it gives me a chuckle. This story is chock full of classic "Martian" clichés, and they're done well. Everything from Mars being a lush Eden to the main character being the ubiquitous "Little Green Man" is downright Victorian (and amusing), and Dark Harrier does a pretty decent job at making it his own and a part of the CoH/CoV world. Now, this isn't to say there aren't some serious moments. There are some pretty good descriptive sections detailing how Gashatantra's hands work or how Mars was turned inside out, but they play well with the overall tone of the story, which is largely "Fish out of Water... But that Fish is Jaws... With Ray Guns." It's definitely fun to read. I hope Dark harrier keeps writing it. Rocket Boy by Irving-Zero

The Redeemers By Mr_Grey Olive felt like she was in a dream. It was just like when she was trapped inside the body of one of the Devoured. People didn’t understand what that was like Not unless you were a former victim who survived, and there were scant few of those. In the support group she was a part of she knew five others, just humans, and they all had such a terrible fear of plants of all kinds that she had to wear makeup to conceal just how altered she really was. Her misery at being unable to truly connect or help those people or herself was going to have to be pushed aside. She knew what had led to this moment, and she had to figure out how to get out of it. One twitch of her wrist and she would be able to- She felt herself get hefted into the air and something was digging into her arm. Somebody was shouting harshly, and suddenly there was light everywhere. When her vision cleared, she saw the Freakshow all lying all the ground, pushing themselves up, and there was fire everywhere. She cringed away, until she felt a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Relax. It’s mine and can’t hurt you. The floor’s yours for now," her team leader, Mider Caid, murmured, "Better hurry, that good feeling you’ve got doesn’t last much longer than a minute " "It’ll be a good minute," she replied before she flexed her forearms and a number of special seeds were deposited into her hands. She hurled the seeds into the midst of the Freaks. One leveled a shotgun on her but his blast went wide when a burning vine shot out of the ground and batted his arms aside. He looked up in terror at the fiery, sinewy thing and screamed as it wrapped around his waist, lifted him into the air and, in the same motion, slammed his head to the floor. Other burning vines did the same to the other Freaks with varying results. One turned his shotgun on the vine facing him and blasted it apart. No sooner did he do this than Danny Strik leaped over the machinery, his katana drawn in an aggressive manner, and deftly slashed through the gun. The ninja followed up his attack with a handle strike to the nose and a knee to the gut that put the thug down. Another Freak, this one armed with a submachine gun, started firing short bursts at Danny, and he twirled his sword about to deflect the rounds. "No way!" the man screamed as he swatted the weapon, "Come on you piece of-!" His sentence was interrupted by the glowing fist of Tommy Strik, who happened to have been a follower of the Green Ink training. He wailed on the gunner for a few more rounds before finally leaping up, whirling in the air, and dropping his fist right down on the goon’s head. The Freak bobbed his head up and down a little before falling over in a heap. A couple of the Freaks tried to escape, and they ran into their old friend, Johnny Slag. He was flicking his claws in and out of his wrists absent-mindedly, but when one ran by him, he kicked his foot out, tripping the man, and slashed out the Excelsior feed tube at the same time. He glared at the Smasher and looked over his one cybernetic arm. "One-on-one, punk," he growled, "You don’t stand a chance." The smasher rushed at him, his big hammer arm in the air, ready to strike. However, this was just what Johnny wanted as he sidestepped and let his opponent crush a nearby crate. He then smashed his claws through the wrist and severed the heavy weight from the arm. The smasher stumbled backwards and fell on his rump, looking up at the extended claws Slag kept pointed at his eyes. "Why’d I become a hero, you ask?" he growled, "I like the upgrades." The front doors to the factory smashed in, signaling that Martin’s crew had arrived. In a blur, the Freakshow goons were defeated and piled up in a neat pile next to the machinery Mider Caid and his crew had previously been taking shelter behind. Thinking it was over; they started to attend to their injured and wounded. "You did really well there," Mider said to Olive, "Are you okay?" "I don’t ever want to be knocked out like that again," she muttered back. "We’ll work on making sure of that," the wizard favored her with a rare smile; "Any chance you can get any of these guys back on their feet?" He gestured to the remaining unconscious. Crag and Cinder remained on the floor. Unfortunately, Olive shook her head. "I have spores that can heal, but none yet to help revive friends." "Does anybody have any Lazareen?" Martin asked. "Yeah!" a voice shouted from the machinery as cyborg bodies started tumbling off the pile, "I got your Lazareen! Right here!" The heroes watched in mild concern as Blender pushed his massive bulk out of the wreckage of his goons. There was something different about him, though. Steam hissed out of his appendages and they looked "fragile" for lack of a better word. Suddenly, his arms popped open and an array of blades were spinning from the points where his forearms should have begun. "Something I’ve always wondered about heroes," he growled sadistically as the blades sped up, "Will they blend?" He was like a walking buzzsaw. Worse, he was his namesake. They were tough, even Garm had earlier demonstrated that Trolls could stand up to Freaks when he took a Swiper’s hooked blade to the chest and promptly broke the man’s cybernetic arm off at the shoulder and started beating him with it. However, this was worse than anything anyone ever faced before. This would be like taking a Nemesis Mole Machine’s drill to the face. Worse, there would be no way to stop him before he seriously hurt somebody. "Ideas, anyone?" Martin asked as he took a stance. Somber pulled the scrapper back and knelt next to Crag and Cinder. As Blender started to approach, the former Skull started muttering. If Sanders didn’t know any better, he would have sworn it sounded like a prayer. [/color][/color]

Advice from the X By LiquidX Greetings boys, girls, and beings of indeterminate gender! It's your favorite advice givin', woman lovin' man about town, LiquidX ! Now, I know what you may thinking... " LiquidX , you handsome studly liquid based sentient lifeform, how come you never call or write anymore? I miss you and your super manly advice!". Well, that's a very good question! Y'see, being the super stud that I am, I've been quite busy kicking butt, taking names, loving women, and getting the T-Shirts. And it certainly has nothing to do with the fact that Snow Globe threatened to sue over things like "Breach of Contracts", "Deadlines", and that Noodle Incident from last month. Anyways, with that out of the way, let's get this advice giving show on the road! "Dear LiquidX , I've been wondering... I spend a lot of time working with various superheroes, and constantly hear the word "Retcon" being used. What's it mean? -Sincerely, Detective Junkers" Dear Detective Junkers, So glad you asked, Detective! You see, "Retcon" is slang for "Retroactive Continuity", a side effect that's commonly found due to time travel. Essentially, Retroactive Continuity is the phenomenon of present or future events being changed because of changes to the past. For example, if someone was to go back in time and change it so that all the plaques in Paragon City started referencing "That other villain group" instead of "The 5th Column", then that would be a Retcon. Retcon's can be both small changes (Such as a person's name changing from being spelled with a K instead of a C), and large changes (that involve infinate crises on infinate earths with the occasional Civil Wars and a Secret Invasion or two). Of course, there are also quite a few members of the Mystic community that believe Retcon's are actually the result of a mythical pantheon of "creators", who introduce Retcon's as a way to change parts of history that they no longer like or have an interest in. (Though if you ask me, that would be rather lazy of these so called "creators". And really, what's up with that? I mean, anytime you ask one of these so called "Mystics" about these so called "Creators", they get all Cryptic and start babbling things about "Champions", "Arctic Suns", and some nonsense about a Backwards Bishop always trapped in a box. It's quite stupid, if you ask me.) ...Anyways, lazy gods aside, the phrase "Retroactive Continuity" was originally used in reference to comic books, of which most Super's and Scientist types are typically fans of. The very first Retcon took place in "Stupendous Comics" issue 255, when it was revealed by the evil Babysitter Girl that Stupendous Man was actually the son of supervillainess Mom Lady. However, this was in direct contradiction to issue 35, where it was revealed that Stupendous Man was the only survivor of his planet when it exploded. This would remain in continuity for awhile, until issue 656, where it was revealed that Stupendous Man was also half brother to the hardboiled gumshoe Tracer Bullet from their very own "Detective Noir Comics" line of books. "Dear LiquidX , What's the secret to eternal life and happiness? -Sincerely, Captain Napalm" Dear Captain Napalm, So very glad you asked! It just so happens I know the secret. And it's so easy that you won't believe it... All you need to do is

The Top Ten Reasons you should attend Hero Con By Rastafari_Man Hero Con is Next week, maybe? I think? I dunno I've been gone a long time. Not really, but no one reads what I type here anyway. Seriously. I could say, if you contact me and tell me what the 79th word I used in my article was I'll give you a free crate of Turtle Wax, no one would respond. But that deters me not, be cause this is the internet and your facts hold no power over me here. Anyway here you have it, the Top Ten reason YOU should attend Hero-Con. Number 10 - The Statesman Dunk Tank. Number 9 - Carnie Costume! Hello? Price of admission, covered! Number 8 - You've mocked your fellow players costumes, builds, and play style, now, you can finally go full Simon Cowell and mock their singing! Number 7 - Banquet Dinner = Best chance of your life to recreate the food fight scene from Animal House. Number 6 - Sushi and Sake Bar. I rest my case. Number 5 - Put *insert Dev name of choice here* on the spot when you *insert action of your choice* about *insert topic of choice* Yeah, I just went Mad Libs on you. Number 4 - Keep the camera rolling cause you never know when that 1 billion hit youtube clip is going to happen, and odds are, it will. Number 3 - FREEM! Number 2 - Because I'm going to be there, and you can walk up to me in person and quip about how unfunny I am. And I in return shall throw a biscuit or perhaps a corn muffin at your head as you walk away. And who Doesn't wanna be the guy or gal who Rasta hit with a Corn Muffin? Or for that matter the innocent bystander who I inadvertently hit. Maybe It will be Posi! And the NUMBER ONE Reason you should be attending Hero-Con is... It's your chance to finally meet some of the wonderful folks, and the brilliant game staff who have made this your favorite game for the last 4 years! Ok maybe it's just me, but I doubt I'm the only person who feels this way. Starielle by imagesbyalex, color by Spinomania

The City Scoop

Behind the PvP Mask MaXimum Interview by Neuronia Can you tell us a little about yourself? Age, occupation and your natural habitat? Well a few things about me. I am 37 years old and live just south of Madison Wisconsin. I worked for General Motors for 9 years until 2 and half years ago I took a buyout and went back to school to be a computer/network technician. I now work for TDS Telecom as a technical support advisor. I sit in front of a computer all day. I have been happily married for 10 years and am a proud father of 3 little girls ages 8, 6, and 4. Have a favorite movie? My favorite movies have to be the Star Wars and Matrix movies hands down. How about musical tastes? I don't listen to much music but when I do it's the groups from my time Metallica, The Beastie Boys, Run DMC. When did you first discover PvP in City of Heroes? I have been PvP in City of Heroes since it hit test server. My first toons I PvPed with where my Perma Elude Martial arts scrapper and an Illusion Storm controller. Any PvP experience outside this game? I have always loved player vs player more than PVE. I guess it started sitting around playing Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Killer Instinct on console with my roommates. The first computer game I played and PvPed on was Star Trek Birth of the Federation, which I played for many years and was considered a top player on it. After that I played Command and Conquer Generals and the Expansion, along with Battlefield 1942 for a long time. Which Test PvP groups have you been a member of; could you tell us about them? My first test PVP group was the Freaks of Legend which eventually I became PvP Captain with Ajax and Aura. The Old Freaks where possibly one of the best teams I ever played with. The entire roster had all star players through it. The Freaks accomplished a lot on the villain and hero side and I will be always be proud to be part of that group. It was a good ride but losing a lot of core players hurt us in the end. After a short stint with Goraths Most Wanted I joined Renegades and have since became PvP Captain of that group. The core of Renegades came from liberty from a villain group named Bedlam. Spec and Raz also recruited a lot of other players and Renegades where born. The Renegades are a lot of good people who will help in any way they can. There are some people who have never been in an official match ever that I know of but offer to power level and work out in practice. One of the key to success of the Renegades is the how much all the members care about one another. I also a few months ago joined Old School hero side. I wish the group would of stayed around for a while there was a lot of potential there. Your favorite role in the Arena and most challenging? My favorite role in the arena is the Stalker. It used to be a lot easier but now is the most challenging position I have ever played. The reason it used to be easy was I was on a Regen for years but that doesn稚 work anymore so I had to switch to Energy Aura. Having Mastermind pets, storms, and enemy Veats chasing you around makes it very hard to land an assassin strike. What is your most memorable Arena moment, team or otherwise? My Most memorable moment was when we beat VORI for the number one title. When I was with the Freaks we only lost one villain vs villain match ever. I felt a little better after avenging that loss. Your villains seem pretty "Max"ed out. Any story behind that? My first villain I named Maximum and the name kind of stuck. Now most of my PvP toons have that in their name. Maximum Strike (VEAT), Maximum Spike (Blaster), and Maximum Warfare (Stalker). There is really no story behind the name.

Vol. 2, Issue 18 October 10th, 2008 This Issue: Advice From the X The Top Ten Community Fan Fiction Spotlight The Redeemers Community Notices Base Showcase The People On... Food & Recipes Classifieds Comic Upcoming Events: October Weekends Champion Shardtober '08 October 11th Triumph Guardians of Soul Society: Faathim the Kind Champion Shardtober 08: Sara Moore SHARDTOBER '08: Masochist Party October 12th Virtue Puppy Appreciation Day October 18th Santa Clara, CA Hero-Con '08 Guardian PvPEC: Gimps Against the World! Justice The Three Amigos Event Triumph PvPEC: Gimps Against the World!

Hey everyone,

Just a quick beta update for those keeping score from home!

Friday Invites
As you know we started the closed beta test of Issue 13: Power and Responsibility this week. We've sent out an additional small batch of testers invites this afternoon, Friday Oct. 10th. So, check your e-mail

The Beta
Right now in the beta, the testing is pretty focused as a number of features are disabled for public testing as they aren't ready to have additional eyes on them yet. So far we've received a lot of good input and the bug database is hummin as our testing team enters the bugs and our developers bust out fixes for them and get new builds with said fixes ready for deployment.

Beta Message Forums on vBulletin
Also, I wanted to comment that we are using a separate vBulletin message forum for feedback and discussion in the beta. This is also a good way for us to iron out any issues with vBulletin prior to our coming big move off of UBB for the Official Message Forums. Don't worry - you'll all have the chance to check out our new vBulletin based forum home in the near future and well in advance of our move.

So, if you do receive a closed beta invitation, now or in the future, please be sure to make a note of the URL for the beta forums and visit them for additional information about the beta.

The Beta Selection Process
I just wanted to reiterate that we know that a good number of players would like to get into closed beta. However, we really want to make sure the features are ready before we let a ton of people pound on the goods. In may cases, there is still a good bit of work to do. While Issue 13 is shaping up, we are still weeks out from open beta. Open beta will be everyone's chance to play the new issue before release and to provide direct feedback.

Thanks in advance for your understanding and as always for your continued support of City of Heroes!

Have a great weekend!



To discuss this announcement, please join us in the Training Room Forums

In the newest Dev Diary, Game Designer Phil Zeleski explains the new Day Jobs system that will be introduced in Issue 13: Power and Responsibility.

Day Jobs takes the concept of offline character progression to a new level, incorporating a variety of potential rewards and allowing players to add further depth to their character's identity and back-story. Is your Hero a Banker when not out stopping crime, or maybe a simple Shop Keeper? Is your Villain an avid Clubber, or perhaps a Smuggler? Whatever you choose, Badges and Accolades await in addition to other bonuses!

Click here to read the Dev Diary: Designing Day Jobs.

In the newest Dev Diary, Game Designer Phil Zeleski explains the new Day Jobs system that will be introduced in Issue 13: Power and Responsibility.

Day Jobs takes the concept of offline character progression to a new level, incorporating a variety of potential rewards and allowing players to add further depth to their character's identity and back-story. Is your Hero a Banker when not out stopping crime, or maybe a simple Shop Keeper? Is your Villain an avid Clubber, or perhaps a Smuggler? Whatever you choose, Badges and Accolades await in addition to other bonuses!

Click here to read the Dev Diary: Designing Day Jobs.

To discuss this announcement, please join us in the Developer's Corner

Hi everyone,

As we announced previously the Training Room Test Server will be unavailable during the closed beta testing for Issue 13: Power and Responsibility.

The closed beta test of Issue 13 starts in the afternoon of Wednesday, October 8th.

For those unfamiliar with closed beta testing, players will be able to patch up to the Training Room, but will not be able to proceed past the character select screen to log into the game.

The initial pool of closed beta testers consist of a very small pool of testers. While we know that a lot more would like to be involved in the closed beta, our tester invitations are dictated by our testing needs. We appreciate everyone's understanding with this. Everyone who want's to play Issue 13 before it goes live and provide feedback will have the ability to do so in the several week open beta period that will come before Issue 13 is released to the live servers.

To discuss this announcement, please join us in the Training Room Test Server Forum.

Please use this thread to discuss the below announcement

Last week Senior Designer Floyd "Castle" Grubb described what's going into testing as part of Issue 13: Power and Responsibility in the article Issue 13 PvE Powers Changes.

Now, Castle talks on the Jester's Court Podcast about these changes! It's a 41 minute podcast, but if you are interested in these changes, it's well worth the listen!

Click here to visit w00t studios and listen to the podcast!

Last week Senior Designer Floyd "Castle" Grubb described what's going into testing as part of Issue 13: Power and Responsibility in the article Issue 13 PvE Powers Changes.

Now, Castle talks on the Jester's Court Podcast about these changes! It's a 41 minute podcast, but if you are interested in these changes, it's well worth the listen!

Click here to visit w00t studios and listen to the podcast!

To discuss this announcement, please join us here.

In early September we introduced Bruce Harlick to you in an "Ask a Dev" article. Since then, we compiled questions from across the game's community and below you will find Bruce's answers!

Enjoy!



Bruce: I was asked a lot of questions about Mission Architect. They were a lot of good questions, but I don’t think it’s really appropriate for me to answer them, since Hero 1 has been doing the design work on that feature. So I’m going to concentrate on answering other things.


Question from Neuronia - When you script missions, is there a 'standard script' for various mission objectives that you can 'cut and paste' or does each mission require individual tweaking?

Bruce: We have standard mission objectives built into our mission template; we can select which of them (and how many of them) we want to use when designing a mission. We can also do quite a bit with custom spawn definitions and scripts to make interesting things happen. That takes more work than just using the stuff that’s in the template, but lets us really fiddle with the mission setup and design.


Question from Lady_Sadako - With the Mission Architect coming in Issue 13, the bar of player expectation from the Devs is going to be raised, because we'll be able to see how the basic missions are done. We won't be able to go into some of the old missions any more without thinking 'Map type: Warehouse, Enemy Group: Council, Mission Type: Boss Defeat... hey, I could have written this myself!'

So what new tricks and features are the incoming missions going to have, which players CAN'T access? In other words, how are you going to keep Dev-made mission content special, other than just through the quality of the writing and the canonicity?

Bruce: Well, the mission designers have access to a much larger set of tools then are included with the Mission Architect. While you’ll be able to do plenty of fun stuff with Mission Architect, we at NCNorCal have access to programmers and artists who can tell us if our really neat idea is worthy of having some custom programming or art done for it. Of course, all of those people aren’t at our exclusive beck and call, and have to balance the reasonableness of our requests with the demands of their other work. It’s all about tradeoffs. With that in mind, we’ll push the envelop as far as we can here and use the resources we have, and the new resources we can get, to create kicking new Story Arcs and missions that go beyond what you can do in Mission Architect.


Question from the EU: What missions /storyarcs already in the game are you responsible for?

Bruce: I wrote the new Cimerora Story Arcs for Issue 13. That will be the first of my work in the game.


Question from the EU: What do you mean by "systems to help support missions"?

Bruce: I probably should have said “…systems to help support stories.” Being a mission designer involves more than just writing missions; we work on the various game systems that go into making missions as well. One example of that would be something like the Mayhem missions. Those puppies are quite different than the normal mission, and required some new systems to support what they do, such as the side missions you get on them, the timing stuff, etc. A more extreme example is the Mission Architect. The way that system works was mainly designed by Hero 1 who worked with Pohsyb and others to get it implemented.

The systems design may include small enhancements to the way our mission encounters work to larger systems as mentioned above. I can’t talk specifically about the large systems I’m working on (as it hasn’t been announced), but it’s a combination of new systems and mission content to bring you all some fun new stuff.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to find small stuff I want to do in missions, write up a design for it, and see if I can’t get code to implement it for me. For me it’s the perfect balance of content and systems creation. It’s all fun stuff and I’m glad I get a chance to do both.


Question from Cosmic_Herald - Bruce, where will City Of.. be going direction wise from a story writer point of view such as yourself?

Bruce: Well, one thing I really want to do is further explore some of the back story of existing characters. You’re going to see some missions from me that deal with that. I hope to get a chance to move between characters and get more of their stories into the game.

Speaking of stories, I’m a big sucker for classic superhero stories, of heroes facing overwhelming odds and being forced to make tough moral choices, and of villains being offered a chance to walk the path to redemption. I like to explore what makes good good, and what makes evil evil, and just how hard it is to walk the narrow line between the two. You’ll certainly be seeing stories about that kind of thing from me in the future.


Question from Lady_Athyna - If you can answer, is there any possibility of branching stories, where a different mission depending on the outcome of the previous mission is offered next?

Bruce: Oh, I’d love to see branching stories in the game, where the player choices dictated what came next in the story. It’s a thorny problem though. For one thing, it greatly magnifies the number of missions needed for any story arc. Any time you have a branch, you’re doubling (at the minimum) the amount of content you need to create and you end up creating content that only a fraction of the player base is going to see. There are also technical issues; for example, branching stories work well in single-player games, but can lead to trouble in a multi-player game. What happens if half the team goes down one branch and the other half down the other? Do you just let the team leader make the decision? What happens if the TL makes a decision that the rest of the team doesn’t agree with?

I think there is a way to solve some of the technical issues. It would be fun to write an arc that branches in the middle depending on the success or failure on a mission. (Of course, players understandably hate to fail, but it would probably be acceptable if the failure lead to something different and cool…) It’s all fuel for future missions.


Question from Storm_Revenant - The use of cut scenes in a very sparse number of missions is a shame, will this feature be supported for the Architect system for I13?

Bruce: There’s a reason why cut scenes are sparse; they are extremely time intensive. They require the use of specific maps, access to the map editor to set up the cameras, and a lot of scripting work. So you won’t be seeing cut scenes supported in the initial release of the Mission Architect.

We’re looking to streamline the process and make it easier for us to create cut scenes, so we can use them more effectively to help tell fun stories in the future.


Question from Obsidius - As a formerly avid P&P fan, often characters and themes from my P&P sessions have inspired me in CoX, even though the genres between my P&P games and CoX are completely different.

As a creative thinker, does this happen to you? From what kind of P&P ideas have you drawn inspiration? Do you find yourself using elements from P&P sessions in your storylines, missions or writing? Do you find yourself taking some old P&P ideas and turning them on their edge to give them a new spin?

Bruce: Oh, definitely. One of the beautiful things about computer RPGs is that they are not pen and paper RPGs. That means you can take a great idea from a pen and paper game and figure out a way to use it again in a computer game. It might be a story, scenario, or character – whatever. Its fun to run into characters you gamed with in a computer game. I remember playing the campaigns that spawned Positron, Synapse, Infernal, and some other characters now in CoH.

Of course, you likely won’t be seeing some of my classic characters in CoH; they were created during my days working for Hero Games and I no longer have the rights to any of them. But I have plenty of characters and stories left to draw from, and I can’t wait to begin to start infusing them into CoH.


Question from MentalMaden - What is your forum persona going to be?

Bruce: Well, I want to find a Red name that’s personal to me. So I’ll wait until I need to post on the forums to choose my Red name, and it will likely be some character I’ve created.


Question from the EU Do you play any other pen & paper RPG like DD4?

Bruce: I’m a big fan of pen and paper RPGs and still actively play them. These days, our games fall more into the once every two weeks to once a month schedule as opposed to the once a week (or more!) schedule we used to have. I’m currently playing Dungeons & Dragons (both 3.5 and 4th), Amber Diceless Roleplaying, a World of Darkness game, and a few others. I also run a couple of D&D games, one a long-running 3.5 campaign and one a new 4th edition game for some of my co-workers here at NCNorCal.


Question from Hellsminion_CoH - The picture on your cube wall looks like you had a rockin' fu manchu/pornstache! What happened to it? Or is that not you?

Bruce: Yeah, about that... so when I was at LucasArts working on the upcoming Indiana Jones game, one of the other designers was challenged to grow a “Sonny Bono” mustache. This lead to a lot of speculation on what various people would look like with mustaches and other facial hair. This lead to a lot of Photoshop pranking. I foolishly mentioned that I had had a mustache when I was 18, which prompted Rob Clarke, our lead environment artist, to create that little art piece you see in my picture. It’s a souvenir of my time with the Indy team.


Question from Star_Sentinel - Which summer super-hero movie was your favorite?

Bruce: I loved both Iron Man and Dark Knight this summer. Two excellent superhero movies. We’re really in a place where they are making some great superhero movies. I think Dark Knight was probably the better movie, but I found Iron Man to be more fun. So, my nod goes to Iron Man.


Question from Ozmosis - If you could have a super power in real life, what would it be?

Bruce: I love to travel, so I’d like to be able to teleport. I want that awesome long-distance teleport; the kind where you can just think yourself from San Francisco to Rome in a heartbeat. That would be awesome. If I could do that, I’d be eating a lot of meals in Rome and Florence...

The other super power I want is super-wealth!


Question: Blue or Red?

Bruce: Blue. I’m a hero at heart.


Question from Definitive - Who is your fav character in comics, ever, from the beginning of comic books?

Bruce: I have two, Spider-man and Batman. I’m a huge fan of the Dark Knight and I love the soap opera of the Spider-man saga (at least, I did before that One More Day stuff.) Spider-man feels like the most real superhero to me; he’s an everyman given great powers... and great responsibility. The concept of Batman, the highly trained guy looking for revenge on the faceless forces of crime that killed his parents is also very cool, and I really enjoy the well-written Batman stuff.


Question from Manbearpig - It seems that all past pictures of the team are taken from the knees up. Is this an attempt to hide the ball and chain or shackles?

Bruce: Feet are boring.


Question from EternalGreen - your desk is WAY too neat! Did you clean it up just for the photo?

Bruce: Nope. That’s just the way it is. It gets messier at times, and neater at times. Right now it’s covered with papers, comic books, a D&D book, and a cookbook.


Question from Arcanine - I wanted to ask what advice you have for those of us who want to spend our careers creating market quality stories and adventures such as those that appear as COH story arcs and task forces (or just make extremely good story threads using the coming COH mission creator). In short, how do you develop and enhance the skills necessary to create compelling and driven plots for the COH missions?

Bruce: I’ll give you the same advice I give to everyone who asks me that question: just do it. Writers write and designers design. It’s the only way to get practice. It doesn’t matter if you don’t do anything with your writing or your design. The more you do it, the better you’ll get. Your first stuff will likely be horrible; that doesn’t matter. In the act of creating something, you’ll learn a lot. And you’ll get better and better.


In Closing:

Thanks to everyone for the excellent questions; I had a blast answering them. It’s great to be working with such a great dev team and on a game with such a fantastic player community. It’s a real privilege and pleasure to have this opportunity to work on City of Heroes/City of Villains; it’s wonderful to be back working with super hero (and super villain) games (my favorite type of game) and to be working on such an excellent project. I can’t wait to hear what you all think of my missions.

Fight the good fight, and if you don’t want to do that, make sure you don’t cut those do-gooders an even break.

Click here to discuss this announcement

Ask a Dev
For those of you who may not be familiar with the "Ask a Dev" article series, here is how it works: periodically, we'll introduce a member of the City of Heroes Development Team and open a reply forum thread where fans can pose their questions for that developer. Then a few weeks later we'll close the question thread and go through and pick out the best and most appropriate questions and the developer will provide the answers!

As part of our ongoing "Ask a Dev" article series, we are proud to introduce to you our next developer: Senior Animator/VFX Artist Chris "Back Alley Brawler" Bruce!


City of Heroes "Ask a Dev" with Senior Animator/VFX Artist Chris "Back Alley Brawler" Bruce

Introduction:

Hello. My name is Christopher Bruce, but most players know me as Back Alley Brawler from the forums (where I spend entirely too much of my ‘free’ time). I’ve been given the opportunity to be the next victim of the ‘Ask a Dev’ series and directly answer some questions from the community, but before we get to that, let me take a minute to tell you a bit about myself and what I do on City of Heroes/City of Villains.

I’ve been working in ‘The Game Industry’™ for a little over 9 years now for many different studios on many different types of games. I’ve done just about everything that there is to do on a game including modeling, texturing, lighting, animation, visual effects, etc…which makes me a Jack of all trades, master of none (though often better than a master of one).

My favorite thing to do though is animation and visual effects, which actually have a lot in common. I’ve played City of Heroes/City of Villains since launch, so when the opportunity came for me to be a part of the team working on my favorite game doing the two things I really enjoyed doing, I pounced with the ferocity of…something…that’s very ferocious…when it pounces on things.





Animations and Things:

I started working at Cryptic on City of Heroes/City of Villains shortly after Issue 7 went live. The very first task I was given was the teabag emote, which also lead to my introduction to the infamous Positron. He was extremely confused when some person he’d never met before meekly poked their head into his office to ask, “What exactly do you mean by a ‘teabag’ emote?” Now, I’m apart of the same team on the same project working for NCSoft and excited to be a part of the huge plans for this game and franchise.





What Chris does on the City of Heroes Team:

Today, I am the Senior Animator/VFX Artist on City of Heroes/City of Villains as part of the Art Department. My main responsibilities are working with the Power Designers to create new NPC or player powers for the game. They will define new powers and then I will then set up the visuals for that power including the animations that play on certain events, such as ‘Activation’ or ‘Hit’. I’ll also make any visual effects (FX) that are associated with those events and create all of the scripts that ties those three things (powers, animation, and VFX) together.

I’m also responsible for FX related player costume pieces, which include things like Auras, Custom Weapons, and soon Shields…so I also work very closely with Jay Doherty (who you may know as “SexyJay”). Other than that, anything in game that is animated or related to visual FX generally passes through my hands.

So now that you know who I am and exactly what I do…on to the questions!


Click here to go to the thread where you can pose your question to Chris!

Questions will be collected on October 21st from both the North American and European forums and not long after that, we'll post Chris' answers and introduce our next dev and ask for your questions for them.

It's a new month and a good opportunity to change your desktop to the October City of Heroes 4 year anniversary Calendar!

Click here to view the 4 year anniversary calendar wallpaper page.

Choose the October calendar and save the image as your desktop and enjoy a retrospective view from City of Heroes!

Issue 13: Power and Responsibility includes a whole host of new developments! Not only are there significant new features, but there is also ongoing development to the existing game. A big part of the game is the balance of all the Archetypes, their respective power sets and how they compare to each other. Maintaining a level of equity between everything is also a continual goal. In this article, NCsoft NorCal Senior Designer Floyd “Castle” Grubb gives us the scoop on some proposed powers changes that will be in testing with Issue 13. Please keep in mind that there is still the entire testing and revision process to go through with these changes. The team is excited to see how these refinements stand up to player feedback, datamining, and the beta process!

Click here to read the full article

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Ok! Winners are in! Drumroll please!


Freaky Desktop Art:

Best: Shock Therapy by Envious


Freakshow Recruitment Poster:

Best: Subvert by TheBobbyLlama

Worst: Get Your Freak On by Relentless


The Device Has Been Modified Movie Poster:

Best: MODIFIED by Darksun75

Second Best: The Device Has Been Modified by Leandro


Congratz to all and thank you to everyone who participated in this contest! It was very hard to pick the winners. :-)

You can read more about it on the w00t site Here. As well as being able to check out some of the other entries that were such fierce competition to our winners Here.





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If you haven't checked out the winners (and worst) from the recent w00t studios contest, well what are you waiting for!

As we close in on this fall’s gathering of super powered game players, Hero-Con ’08, the City of Heroes Community Team has been busy revealing additional details about the action packed event. If you’re not familiar with Hero-Con, it’s a one day City of Heroes extravaganza meeting of the Development Team and Players. Click here for the Hero-Con overview.

It’s amazing all the activities and fun stuff we have lined up for Hero-Con. Here are links to all the latest details:

[*] Hero-Con Costume Contest
[*] Karaoke at Hero-Con!
[*] Come to Hero-Con and get into Closed Beta!
[*] Player Workshop – Making Movies!
[*] Obtain a Carnival Harlequin Costume Power![/list]And we still have more to announce, including

[*] Details about the developer led discussion panels about the game[*] Details of the store and the merchandise available[*] Details about the Banquet Dinner [*] More information about the fun and exciting Scavenger Hunt![/list]Tickets are going fast, so register today to join us at Hero-Con ’08!

Please use this thread to discuss the below announcement

Palit and AMD have partnered with City of Heroes® to offer the "Create a Character" Costume Contest! Now through October 17th players can submit screenshots and bio of their character and be entered into the contest to win great prizes, including award winning Palit video cards and the grand prize of Custom Gaming PC!

Additionally, players on the North American servers will be able to participate inside the virtual City of Heroes world to win prizes during an in game event.

Click here to enter and for full details

Palit and AMD have partnered with City of Heroes® to offer the "Create a Character" Costume Contest! Now through October 17th players can submit screenshots and bio of their character and be entered into the contest to win great prizes, including award winning Palit video cards and the grand prize of Custom Gaming PC!

Additionally, players on the North American servers will be able to participate inside the virtual City of Heroes world to win prizes during an in game event.

Click here to enter and for full details

To discuss this announcement, please join us here.

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Hmmm...I was under the impression that the boards and site were running on the expression engine platform...

edit: nvm i seen the bottom "powered by UBB.threads"

which makes me ask is the site in EE? or just the Euro COH site? Just curious as im a web designer

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I'm pretty sure they're all in Austin. On the same machine. A Commodore.

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The EU CoH website uses the Expression Engine, but not for forum software.