Steelclaw

I have specific tournament rules for Double XP Weekends...

A page in my spreadsheets chooses 3 (4 this time around) servers; one is the lowest total experience levels of all characters on that server (team) the others are random. I play each one for a full day. I will be playing the team Captains on each server so I can get them closer to level 50 since 50th level characters have different rules than lower levels in the tournament structure.

This weekend's paricipants shall be:

DShan Steelclaw(claws/regen scrapper) on Champion
Draconic Rage (superstrength/fire aura brute) on Liberty
Passive Aggression (empathy/psi defender) on Justice
Shadow's Secret (ninja/storm summoning mastermind) on Triumph

Not necessarily in that order.

Oh what the heck... I'm in...

* You sit at your computer to write a letter and your fingers go to their game home positions.

* Every time you see a car approach a hill you expect it to do a slow-motion Dukes of Hazzard jump over it.

* The sight of an actual bus at a bus stop amazes you.

* The sight of a child walking down the sidewalk amazes you.

* On Halloween you pass out candy to the kids in the original costumes and Generic the ones dressed up as existing characters.

* On Halloween you stand out in your front yard and hold a Costume Contest for your block. You can't understand why the kids egg your house when the first prize is 1,000,000 "influence."

* When sending your own kids out to trick or treat you tell them that if they knock on a door, hear a low DONK sound and see the word Trick float in front of their eyes... they should run like heck.

* You tell your kids they can keep all the candy... but the event salvage is YOURS.

* You know you've had too much CoH when you just did so many Positron Task Forces in a row the diminishing returns system is now taking Reward Merits away from you.

* Your boss offers you a raise and promotion and you indignantly insist you don't Power-level.

* You can't look at a mailbox without picturing it exploding.

* When you're running late for an appointment your eyes immediately start searching out parking meters, parked cars, mailboxes and other things that could give you more time.

* The police want to know why you were caught wearing spandex under your street clothes to the High School production of West Side Story.

* You see your son running around the house wearing a towel for a cape and you ground him for not being high enough level yet.

* Your teen ager returns home from back-to-school shopping to inform you Sears doesn't accept Tailor Discount Tickets as a method of payment.

* Your method for trying to pick up an attractive member of your preferred gender is to drop hints about your "secret identity."

* For some strange reason you see everyone at work as walking around with their name in blue hovering above their heads and the company name where the SG title would go.

* You refer to the IRS as the "most successful Nemesis Plot ever."

Freaking amazing... very nice indeed... I give you Kudos, 9 out of 10 stars and a rare Lithuanian pre-moistened Lollipop.

Well... since you're blaming ME for this debacle... I guess I should go first..

On November 2nd this year I will be turning 40 years old...

What I'd like to see in the Time Capsule:

* The remains of Hero 1, fingernail marks all over the inside of the capsule door and a scribbled note on a scrap of paper reading: "I never should have trusted Nemesis to handle my hospital port coordinates!"

* The Praetorian Blue Steel.... .... .... pissedorf.

* Pohsyb... finally ready to be let out of the box.

* Elvis and Jim Morrison arguing about the existence of the Loch Ness Monster.

* Left-over turkey.

* The blue prints for the construction projects in Steel Canyon and Port Oakes with a sticky note on them reading "get these to Greg IMMEDIATELY!"

* The Complete Book Of Nemesis Plots... .... ..... Abridged.

* Several notes including: "Remember to tell Statesman the trolls have been shipping explosives just east of Atlas Park", "Note to Self: Keep an eye on Temblor... check if that rumor about someone gunning for him is true" and "Tell Positron that his entire task force can be shortened to one mission if they just go to this address first..." all in Synapse's handwriting.

* You see a new List on the first page of the Forums, notice that it's yours but can't remember writing it.

* Customer Support creates a recorded message just for you to remind you what your log-on password is.

* Your arthritis is so bad you just pick one favorite power and link all the keys on the keyboard to it.

* You see a new List on the first page of the Forums, notice that it's yours but can't remember writing it.

* You buy the Technology Booster Pack and are upset that your computer isn't working any better.

* You've spent THREE HOURS in Wentworth's and STILL can't find that recipe for Apple Cobbler!

* You see a new List on the first page of the Forums, notice that it's yours but can't remember writing it.

* Your Regeneration Scrapper reaches level 38 and you get very depressed because your own Moment of Glory was 50 years ago...

* You watch a Rikti invasion and it takes you ten minutes to realize it's not your latest High School Reunion video.

* You see a List on your screen that appears to be a work in progress but can't for the life of you remember writing any of it... Oh what the hell... you hit Submit Reply anyway just to clear it away...

Because of my undying respect for Dark_Respite I shall not immediately leap into a list of silly, non-sensical answers...

Ahem... The movie should be written as a Trilogy. The first movie should encompass the Well of the Furies only change it very slightly to make it appear that when they got their powers it opened the door for powers everywhere on the planet. Focus on Statesman and Recluse's rise but also bring in the world-wide adaptation to super beings in their midst.

Second movie reveals "Why" those powers were released. A mysterious being is revealled to have opened the Well. Hero and Villain conflicts are reaching a critical mass when the Rikti invasion happens. As respective leaders of their camps; Statesman and Recluse direct their sides to join forces against the common threat.

Final movie involves Hero 1's sacrifice and the end of the first major Rikti war. The world celebrates but not all is good between the Heroes and Villains. Though one might be tempted to end this on a "oh, we're all really good friends now" theme, it actually ends with a brawl between the major players hero and villain side. The battle is inconclusive; the villains retreat but are not destroyed. The final scene of the movie is Lord Recluse laying claim to the Rogue Isles and the President of the United States explaining to Statesman that politically they can do nothing.

Now that THAT little bit of ugliness is over with...

* City of Horror: Focus on the Zombie invasion! It's like every Zombie Apocalypse movie you've ever seen... but the survivors have super powers!

* City of Chick Flicks: A movie about how Manticore and Sister Psyche fell in love! It's a romantic comedy where Synapse plays the "dumb but endearing" friend and Swan turns in a supporting actress effort as the "sexy and distracting potential second love interest"...

* City of Sports Come-backs: The 5th Column has formed an evil, total-domination baseball team! A group of misfit superheroes, barely out of the tutorial, decide to stop them. The group of misfits try to harness their new (and sometimes faulty) superpowers and channel them into baseball and teamwork. Hilarity and heart warming camaradarie ensue until finally it all comes together at the last possible instant. The heroes win the pennant, the hearts of the baseball fans and many valuable lessons are learned.

* City of Space Operas: The evil Empire controls most of the Galaxy! It is up to a small band of rebels led by Luke Stateswalker, Princess Leiaberty, Han Synapse and Chewbaccalley Brawler to defeat the evil Darth Recluse and his Storm Spiders!

Depends on how you define "strongest" I suppose...

For Pure Indestructibility:
Ninja/Storm Summoning Mastermind (25th level and no deaths yet)

For Pure Armageddon-Like Destruction:
Fire Blast/Devices Blaster

For Awesome One-on-One Boss Battling:
Claws/Regen Scrapper

When I was in my teen years my buddies and I would play a free-form roleplaying game I called "You Wake Up"... It required no dice, no papers, no character sheets.

My friends played themselves or at least a close approximation there-of... They were either in the "real" world or the Marvel universe depending on how much that person knew about comic books. The concept was they were actually mutants and had reached the point at which their powers started to manifest.

Strangely enough... the powers always seemed to manifest at night... hence a roleplay might start like this:

"You wake up... your bedroom is well lit even though you distinctly remember having turned off the light before trying to fall asleep... blinking the sleep from your eyes you notice that the light is not coming from a bulb.. but from YOU... more specifically from your bones which are glowing SO brightly they actually shine through your very flesh. What do you do?"

The whole game was basically them discovering what they had for powers and then deciding what to do with them. For a silly little game it was rather entertaining.

Further proof AE is evil...

* That evil wench who sells inspirations there doesn't sell wakies... forcing you to use their in-house hospital... so they can milk the insurance companies for every spare cent they can... driving insurance premiums up through the roof... making insurance that much more difficult to get for the common man... giving the Canadians yet another reason to laugh at us.

* Holograms my rosy-redness... if they're holograms then why do they make you take those "special" pills right before entering the "data-stream"?!

* The prizes you get for your tickets aren't even carnival grade... I got some salvage yesterday... my Deific Weapon had Made in Taiwan stamped on it... the time feature on my Chronal Skip was all 8's and blinking... and my Synthetic Intelligence Unit never graduated Middle School...

* The actors playing your "enemies"? Underpaid migrant workers.

* During the worst of the Farming epidemic they changed their advertising slogan to: "AE Corps... The Blue Pill is your friend..."

* There's a room in the basement where... if you give the correct password to a guy named "Eddie"... you can violate the Teen Rating... among other things.

* Given the fact that there is an AE in every single non-hazard zone... it has become increasingly obvious they are a cover for Starbucks.

This year's Halloween event is not confirmed to include the following new features:

* Small children going door to door for candy... Villains have the option of testing the theory "easy as taking candy from a baby" for the first time!

* Baby New Year... dressed up as Snaptooth.

* The new "Throw Toilet Paper" temp power... that leaves streams of TP on whatever its thrown at for 20 minutes time... if thrown at a building has a 10% chance of causing the "old man screaming get outta my danged yard!" encounter.

* The new Frankenstein's Tower Task Force... Heroes break into the tower of the mad doctor only to spend hours agonizing on whether or not it's morally right to destroy such an innocent creature... Villains just go in and kill everything.

* New Snaptooth mission... Snaptooth has stolen all the candy from the children! Save it before he eats it all! Note: If he DOES eat more than 60% of the stolen candy then when the team encounters him his name will have changed to "Soretooth" from cavities and he will have a damage buff from the pain and frustration.

* In honor of the King of Pop's recent passing... each time the Zombie Apocalypse spawns... the entire zombie population will perform the Thriller dance before shambling into battle.

* Eochai will now spawn with a new High Priest named Linus... who is in possession of the new Security Blanket defensive set.

Here and there on the boards over the years I’ve noticed suggestions of having City of Heroes go over to a Pen and Paper Roleplaying game.

While I love the idea of getting together with a group of friends (if I had any) to play my favorite video game in AD&D style; I can’t help thinking there may be more than a few bumps in that road…

• “For the last time, Carl… this isn’t Dungeons and Dragons.. you CAN’T run a multi-class… so give up your dreams of a Tank Mage and roll your character!”

• “Yes, I KNOW you have Super Speed… I KNOW it doesn’t make any sense… Super Speed is a travel power… it will NOT give you an initiative bonus!”

• “No, I am NOT going to make the glowie sound when you get close to the crate you’re searching for…”

• “Carl... for the last time… you can make your character an elf… half-elf… freaking changeling! You STILL can’t run a multi-class!”

• “Oookay… so you’re attacking with a sniper attack two slotted with Accuracies… you have a to hit buff from your Targeting Device… and the defender buffed your to hit while the controller debuffed your opponent’s defense… umm… oh for Pete’s sake… anyone got a f***ing calculator?!”

• “Paul, seriously dude… I know your ticked off about what I did to your car… but you agreed as GameMaster you wouldn’t bring personal issues into the game! How do I figure you’re doing that? Gee, I dunno… The twelve Sappers in this 5th level spawn all wearing ‘Let’s Kill Dave’ tee shirts may have been a clue!”

• “Alright, now that we’ve FINALLY finished creating our characters let me go over the ground rules… First rule.. anyone who Rezzes Carl’s character will get a session-long accuracy, damage and defense debuff…”

• “Yes Bill… it’s fine if you use your action figure to represent your character on the map… No Bill.. I’m not going to generic you for using Wolverine…”

• “We play by the rules in the book Carl… No, this version of the rules is NOT pre-ED”

• “Okay, I still love City of Villains on the computer and all.. but I have to admit there is a strangely satisfying feeling in robbing a bank and actually having a monetary amount of how much loot my villain got away with…”

• “Stan, for the last time… this isn’t like other roleplaying games you’ve played before.. the inspirations, enhancements and such that you ‘find’ aren’t physical… they aren’t actual objects… so PLEASE stop searching every danged crate in the warehouse for loot… oh… and stop checking for traps too!”

• “Alright!! Fess up! Who told Carl they would power-level his character?! Whoever did it had better tell me right now… this hammer ain’t gettin’ any lighter!”

• “Yes, I understand that we have to be lenient with the non-combat applications of powers that in-game are for battle only… but I’m still not sure that means I should allow your Controller to use his Total Domination power to force the President of the United States to sing ‘I Like Big Butts’ in front of Congress…”

• “Yes, you no longer have to take a train to get to different zones of the city… well… sure… I guess you could have a sports car with your hero logo on it… sure… you can have a motorcycle the same way… a Pony? What would you want…? Oh fine… you can have a pony… Tom… Stop hugging me.”

• “Allow me to explain the first difference between playing the game on our computers at our own homes and playing it around this table together… Every time you run around a room screaming ‘I am scrapper hear me roar’ and aggroing every spawn in the place… I’m going to smack you in the back of the head… like I’ve been wanting to do for the last 3 years we’ve been playing together… if you’re lucky the next mob will drop ibuprofen instead of inspirations.”

• “Okay… little bit of exposition time folks… smoke ‘em if you got ‘em… ahem… ‘The crowd gathered around the grave grows silent as Statesman raises his eyes to the heavens and begins the epitaph. ‘We are gathered here to honor a fallen comrade. He never once shirked his duty even in the face of greatest adversity. He surely would have earned his cape, had he made it past fifth level of security clearance. We shall never understand the strange force that teleported his team’s Empath to Detroit the very instant he fell in battle. Nor shall we likely ever find the thief who stole all the party’s wakie inspirations and the third of any matching color they had. It is truly tragic that cruel fate chose that day for the annual Kings Row Hospital Green Program to shut down all power to the teleportation system in an effort to save energy. I’d like to think that the hero we all knew as CarlPwns69 is in a better place now.’ Yadda, yadda, yadda… and he’s dead and buried. Now… the rest of the team was about to enter… what’s that Carl? >SIGHS< No… No you can’t re-roll your next character as a multi-class.”

Prior to Issue 16 going live if you'd asked me what I thought would be the greatest part I would most certainly have stated the Power Customization.

Now that I've played it for a bit... I have to change that opinion.

The best part of I16 for me is unequivocably the new Difficulty Settings. The ability to customize mission difficulty for each character has revitalized the game play for me. I don't care so much about the loot as I do the challenge factor.

Definitely 10 out of 10 stars.

Welcome aboard! Please make yourself comfortable.. there's dancing on the Lido Deck and Karaoke will be going all night in the crews' quarters...

Since everyone else seems to be offering support regarding the game itself I figure I'll help out with the true danger to your sanity/free time... the Forums.

Forum Advice/Guidelines:

1) The word Soon has been trademarked; please be aware that use of the word Soon in these forums, especially by a Game Developer should be treated the same way as would the words "yeah, we'll be completely done remodelling your bathroom in 2 days" by any contractor.

2) Any forum name that appears in Red is either a Moderator or a Developer. You are required to read each and every post made by a Red Name; if only to drive up the view count of the original poster of the containing thread. Also, if you happen to the be the next person to post directly after a Red Name post, you must point out this fact, just in case anyone missed it.

3) As a Rookie to the CoH Forums you are obligated to share the load of Noob posting. This shall include but is not limited to: posts of "when is the next issue coming out?", "when is open beta going to start?", "what the heck is Freem?!" and "Why are all you people so obsessed with Pie?"

4) In order to be an official Forum member... you must be obsessed with Pie.

5) In order to wear off your New Poster Smell as quickly as possible, you should up your post count as camoflage. We suggest the Forum Games section.

6) The Forumites are helpful, courteous and friendly. And if you want to maintain this illusion we suggest you never check out your Anonymous reputation comments.

7) Don't worry about using the search function first to check out whether a suggestion, question or announcement has already been mentioned elsewhere when you start your own thread about it... trust me... several people will only be TOO happy to inform you of the fact.

8) Please feel free to explore all the Forums and post within them. We ask that you watch where you step in the Pinnacle Forum as even those passed out from drunkeness don't appreciate being stepped on. Also don't be frightened by the Virtue-goers; they're role players and don't live in the same reality as the rest of us.

9) Don't feed the Lemurs.

10) We recommend that you not read an Ultimus or Westley posts without first donning the approved Safety Glasses.

11) We don't recommend reading a Steelclaw post AT ALL.

12) Since you have obviously already completely ignored our advice regarding suggestion 11 we realize you are simply going to abstain from all our valuable information in the first place... so we are not going to continue... go ahead and just do ANYTHING you want in the Forums! Don't listen to us... FINE! Now, if you'll excuse us... we'll be in the corner sulking.

Wierd Al...?


Garak...?

Hmmm...

::checks driver's license::

Nope sorry... You have answered incorrectly... however don't feel bad... You won't go home empty handed! Tell 'em Biff Pardue!

That's right John! Our runner's up today have won the Steelclaw Home Game! Ostracize your friends! Be disowned by your family! Be a pariah of society! That's right; it's the Steelclaw Home Game!

Actual conversation that happened this morning as I was running my Stalker on Triumph:

RandomJerk: wanna team

Me: No thanks; I prefer to run my stalkers solo.

RandomJerk: u suck

Me: yeah, those vowels are tramps

Me: yes, but only on Tuesdays

Me: sorry, I don’t do requests

Me: well… not usually.. but for 1,000,000 infamy I’ll consider it

Me: I’m going to need an Object in that sentence before I can commit

RandomJerk: WTF?!!?!?!?!!!!

Me: Water Transfer Facility?

Me: Worried Father Tarantula?

Me: Wombats Faking Tourettes?

RandomJerk: Wut wrong with u?!?!

Me: Well doc… it all started when I was a child…

Me: Sorry, my mind is all filled with things like spelling and grammar rules…

Me: My right hand has a mind of its own and it does all the typing.

RandomJerk: im put u on ignore

Me: but… but… I thought we had something special!

Me: what will I tell the children?!

RandomJerk does not exist, is hidden, or is not online at the moment.


I decided that broadcasting at that point would be considered impolite; if not outright grounds for the Mod-stick.

You know, sometimes this spontaneous list thing of mine comes in handy. Maybe I can use it as a self-defense the next time someone tries to mug me?

Let's face facts... the recent AE boss farming environment has made people used to door sitting... in fact it's trained them to do just that... we have a whole "generation" of level 50s who did not have to earn their character's level.

It doesn't surprise me at all that people are not wanting to lose their powers to run a TF. That might actually take an effort... or involve a risk of some sort.

All the veterans of the game often say they thought ED was bad.... IG is much, much worse. IG being Instant Gratification.

Possible reasons I call myself Steelclaw:

* A horrible accident with a drunk driver and a prosthetics company with a sick sense of humor.

* Because TinFingernails just doesn't sound that impressive.

* Because at first I planned to rule the Forums through terror and the awesome persuasiveness of my logical argument.... yeah, THAT didn't last.

* Because PhiloticKnight was taken...

The REAL reason I chose Steelclaw:

I wrote a book a few years back and the main character was a half-human, half-black panther who had been magically altered to be the ultimate assassin of his world. When I played CoH he immediately became my first character. In the book he only had the first name D'Shan, so I added the last name Steelclaw and the rest is history.

So there’s the possibility that Issue 16 will go live today… hmmmm…

Things to do if Issue 16 DOES go live:

• Immediately assume issue 16 going live so early had something to do with Positron getting Swine Flu… leap to the conclusion that if we give him Bird Flu we’ll get Going Rogue next week! Yeah, right… Avian Flu… Swine Flu… Going Rogue…. In other words: When Pigs Fly.

• Go out and buy stock in Icon; watch the influence just ROLL in as everyone in the game runs to alter the appearance of their powers.

• Also buy stock in Paragon City Potent Potables and Winery Inc… ‘cause ol’ Serge is soon going to develop a drinking problem.

• Stand in Atlas Park and tell the 1,000 50th level characters who have never left the AE building how to get to Icon.

• Watch the system crash repeatedly until the developers eventually set all Icon doors to send players into instanced maps.

• For the next week or so when teaming with other players do NOT actually help in combat. Instead stand off to one side and rate each person’s power color scheme with the judge emote. Anyone daring to use the default colors gets an automatic 2.

• Tell everyone in broadcast that you’ve had customizable colors on your powers for years… you just had to fiddle with the tint settings on your monitor.

• Start a thread in the forums demanding to know when Issue 17 is going to happen… but then realize there’s still Going Rogue… unable to decide which overpowering urge to follow in your trolling your brain seizes up and two days later your friends break down the door to find you staring at your computer screen… a puddle of drool in your lap… at least… your friends HOPE it’s a puddle of drool.

• To your utter mortification discover that the other Empathy Defender in your team has used the exact same colors for their power set! Ohmigawd! This is … like… so TOTALLY worse than that time Suzie Denniker wore the I-Dent-Ick-El dress to senior prom!

• Why bother to choose a new color scheme for your powers? You don’t use the danged things while door sitting your AE farm anyway.

• Stand in the AE building and slowly realize after several attempts that your favorite farms don’t give hardly any xp anymore. Suddenly become aware that your 50th level super hero has acute Agoraphobia.

• Despite tinkering with your Martial Arts Scrapper for hours you still feel unsatisfied. You realize then that until they give you an emote of Bruce Lee’s “come hither” finger jerk you just won’t feel complete.

• Now that stone tanks can have crystals as armor… bug the living bejeebies out of your friends to make a 12 member super group for each birthstone.

• After all your efforts… throw a truly stupendous snit fit the next time you hear someone throwing a costume contest under Atlas say “no powers.”

• Stand in the AE building and offer your services in Local as a “grief counselor.”

• Spend the first 5 minutes per character watching the “Badge Earned” message flash on the screen over and over and over…

• Just for the heck of it get a chart of what different fuel sources cause fire to burn in what color. Find a good one… like methane burning blue… then find a hero or villain flame thrower who is using blue as their chosen color for the fire. Question the origin of their powers. Especially if their origin is Natural.

• Explain to awed level 50 characters that there are more enemies in the game than Maniacs, instanced maps other than a single city block and that Atlas Park is actually a BEGINNER zone.

• Spend 2 hours agonizing over every little detail for every power you have and may possibly one day choose to have… only to decide you like the defaults better anyway.

• Stand outside BAB’s office and listen to him cackle wildly “You think you can do it better!? Be my @*%(*$% guest!!”

• Stand around eagerly while one of the forum math-gurus figure out exactly how many different heroes/villains can be created without repeating given the new customization possibilities.

• Laugh along with Steelclaw when someone can’t resist actually trying the above suggestion.

• Realize you just wasted 5 minutes of your life reading a stupid list when you could have been on the Training Server pre-screening all your power customization choices!

Cleric/Theif

I mean Come ON... Cleric/Thief? What do you do? Steal from your own offering plate?!

I don't get upset about the negative rep so much as the rude comments that accompany them.

These comments are the reason I haven't written a "funny" post or list for the past two or so weeks. Quite frankly it's hard to be in a funny mood when I suspect someone will take advantage of the system's anonymity to be a deliberate jerk.