TonyV

Just as a side note, it doesn't. The sad truth is that even if you have something that is universally regarded as fun in the game, and then add an exploitable shortcut to get the reward for doing it without actually having to do it, people will flock to the exploitable shortcut instead of doing that fun thing.

As another side note, "fun" is in the eye of the beholder. A lot of people in this thread keep trying to state as fact that Monty's missions aren't fun. While not as fun as other things in the game, I've never found them particularly dull or onerous. They're just something I knock out along the way as I'm leveling up, no fuss, no muss. For new players, it's something neat they get to discover and unlock.

If they started selling access to the Midnighter's Club/Cimerora in the Paragon Market, it wouldn't unduly distress me, I really don't care that much. However, I am glad that they closed up the exploit, something I'll always support.

Yeah, that is a low down dirty shame. I used to like Chris Dodd a lot. I know a lot of Congresscritters sell out in the end, but this one is kind of depressing.

That is so Ironik.

Don't forget TonyV. I've rescued her many times, and I'll keep on doing so as often as needed. Mess with Fusionette, I'll kick your ***.

Agge's right on the money. The primary domain name is paragonwiki.com. I have .org and .net registered mainly to keep someone else from registering them and confusing everyone, and I had them set up as a simple redirect to paragonwiki.com. (Unlike the wiki.cohtitan.com, the .org and .net names would actually redirect you to paragonwiki.com, whereas wiki.cohtitan.com actually serves up pages under that alternate address without modification of the URL.)

And yes, it looks like it was wired into CloudFlare wrong. We fixed it, so .org and .net should work now, too. Still, I'd suggest using the .com address, as it's the one we make sure to test and support.

This is true. One of the features of the service is that it uses the Honeypot project to check if machines hitting their customers' sites are part of a botnet or otherwise malicious (e.g. comment spam, e-mail harvesters, etc.). If so, the visitor will receive a CAPTCHA that must be successfully passed before serving up the site. In theory, this will help to keep traffic from hackers, spambots, and other unsavory elements out of our hair. In reality, of course, we still have to be vigilant. At some point, if this really works well, we might even be able to configure some of the web sites to only answer to CloudFlare's network and to otherwise be inaccessible to everyone else.

True. We're being bitten by Sentinel expecting a specific set of headers and CloudFlare serving up a different set. They're both legal, and browsers are robust enough to handle either one, but again, when we developed the interface that Sentinel uses, we assumed that we would have very fine-tuned control over the content that was served. With an intermediary like CloudFlare, that's not true. We've tossed around some ideas, and we should have a fix out shortly. In the meantime, like I said, Sentinel will continue to operate correctly because I've taken CIT out of CloudFlare's list of domains it handles, but of course, that means that everything else at CIT isn't optimized yet.

It's definitely interesting technology. I admit that I've had fun playing around with the configuration and dashboards.

Oh, one other noteworthy thing. In addition to the CloudFlare stuff, our resident guru Codewalker found a nasty little bug actually included in the server-side distribution we use that was periodically causing a back-end app to spawn off threads without end. It was causing our CPU utilization to spike uncontrollably every 30 minutes. He fixed it this morning, and everything's been pleasantly normal since.

This. I used to be a critic of Paragon Studios/NCsoft for not doing more conventions and such, but over the course of time, I've changed my mind. I think Zwillinger explained it best that really shifted my perception. Basically, if they travel somewhere to host or participate in an event, you're not going to get much presence because of how expensive it is. Also, they have to schlep or ship everything they use, such as giveaway items.

At the Player Summit in November, they had over half the crew there and it was awesome. Not that I would object to seeing Zwillinger, Positron, and maybe a couple more devs in my hometown, but given the choice, I'd rather see dozens of devs, reps, managers, QA people, artists, etc. by going there than five or six people here.

If I could change one thing, though, it would be the costume codes they give away. It's simply not fair to give away in-game perks to people for being in a certain geographical location, because for most practical purposes, it's simply impossible for some people to make the trip. Physical swag I don't mind so much. T-shirts, posters, etc. work really well for this kind of purpose. Or maybe codes to get some Paragon Market swag (e.g. cards that can be redeemed for a few hundred Paragon Points?) But in my humble opinion, unique in-game swag shouldn't be something that costs person A $40 and a quarter tank of gas, but person B $thousands in airfare, hotel costs, transportation, etc.

So unless something changes and they start rolling in dough, I'd just as soon we have a big shindig each year in Mountain View/Palo Alto.

NOOOO! Fixed the URL for you. Bad Anchor! BAD Anchor!

I might have made sure that the word "unofficial" or "fan" were in there somewhere. As it is, people might get it confused with the official CoH Facebook page run by the Community Relations team (Zwillinger, Beastyle, etc.). If it gets taken down (not saying it will, but if it does), don't take it personally, and don't be discouraged to create one named something like "CoH Defiant Fan Page" or something instead. If Z and the others see it, they'll almost undoubtedly say the same thing to themselves that I just said, that it could easily be confusing to people trying to find the official site.

No no, I'll vouch for her. She's very cute. She did post a cosplay picture a little over a week ago, and she also posted a some pictures on Faces. That's really her. While I disagree with her on some things, that part is true. At the risk of encouraging her on tangents that I disagree with, to be honest, I kind of like her posts. They're usually from a different angle--sometimes amusing, sometimes insightful--but hardly ever outright bad. But then, I like Golden Girl's posts a lot, too.

The nice things about Skype are that 1) I *will* eventually see your message, and 2) if we need to, we can actually talk via voice to dig much deeper into any issues.

Personally, I think that it's petty and juvenile. But morality aside and talking only strategically... There are three huge problems you're overlooking in glorifying what Anonymous is doing:

1) These efforts have a high chance of backfiring and turning public opinion against them. Sure, they've pulled off some "Robin Hood"-esque endeavors, but all it takes is for one highly visible, sympathetic figure to get hurt along the way or one scummy member to do something in its name that negatively affects lots of people for the public to suddenly shift their opinion of Anonymous from Robin Hood to Osama bin Laden. The latest effort in getting people to unwillingly become part of a DoS attack is one such example. When innocent people start getting shut off from the Internet because of something that Anonymous did to them, how will that bolster Anonymous's reputation?

2) These efforts give lawmakers exactly what they're looking for in ammunition to further curtail our rights. Right now, there are a lot of good things about an open Internet: free speech, democratization of access, etc. There are also a lot of bad things: scams, trolls, propagation of hate, etc. With bills like SOPA and PIPA, the lawmakers try to make the argument that yes, it will cut down on the good Internet stuff, but they NEED that power because the bad Internet stuff is so, well, bad--the trade-off is worth it. When people become more afraid of Anonymous than they are of the people Anonymous is fighting, a severe overreaction isn't just possible, it's inevitable, and with public support at that, and that's not good for anyone.

3) Within such an unstructured group such as Anonymous, there's no one to act as a "safety valve," a conscience, a last best chance to keep from doing something really stupid. As a result, the group can be relatively easily co-opted by those who do not have the group as a whole, or the public as a whole, interest at heart. Sure, it's kind of amusing in a dark kind of way when Visa or the RIAA or the DoJ gets shut down. But what happens when someone decides that a hospital site should be taken down? Or a charity? Or the Titan Network? We have literally thousands of port probes and hacking attempts every day, one of which was depressingly successful. Will you be as gung ho to support their efforts when some random schmo takes a shot at something you need, use, or support?

Now, don't misunderstand me. I don't hate Anonymous. Some of the things they've done have actually been extremely worthwhile. But at the same time, the ends do NOT justify the means, and they HAVE hurt innocent people. This is why I don't support them, either.

Our ability to provide this good service will be significantly compromised by these laws if they are passed. They are aimed squarely at sites that host a lot of user-generated content, which is almost exclusively what the Titan Network is.

Hopefully even if you think this is a "lame internet protest," you can see what kind of position it puts us in. By making web site owners personally responsible for everything that is posted, it would dramatically hamper our operations. We could no longer allow the City of Heroes community to edit the Paragon Wiki, upload avatars to our forums, allow player-written bios in CIT, or any other unvetted user-generated content because we would be at risk of someone posting copyrighted material. This would result in us--not the infringer--losing our site, getting sued, and possibly even thrown in jail.

Believe me, if I thought that personally going to Washington and declaring these bills dead would do any good, I would. I've already contacted my Congressmen, and I've been preaching about the issue to friends, family, and coworkers. Maybe you see this protest as pointless, but 1) we are hoping to reach even more people to help educate them on the very real possibility of the Titan Network being gone under these new laws, and 2) we want to add our voice to the numerous companies, organizations, and individuals who want to make it clearly known that we oppose this legislation.

Hope this explains a bit more. If not, then we apologize for the inconvenience, but it's the first time we've done something like this, and the sites will be restored to normal functionality at or around midnight on January 19.