TonyV

It might be worth mentioning that in the not-too-distant past, a few weeks ago, there was a relatively large ban net spread for something that NCsoft suspected was happening with a bunch of people's accounts. My roommate's account was banned, although she is one of the most helpful people in the game.

Point is, unless your friend was doing something he knows was wrong, there's a very good chance that it was banned by mistake during that sweep. Be sure to convey to your friend the message not to panic, Ocho will help get it fixed. It was a day or so after I raised the issue that they got hers unlocked.

They were the Ghost Ships of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future, duh.

I have a question. Are you by any chance behind a proxy? At work, I have a LOT more problems with the forums than I do at home, and the obvious difference is that at work, I'm behind a proxy server.

The typical problem I have is getting logged out. That wouldn't be so bad in and of itself, except that when that happens, 1) any message I was writing is irrevocably lost, and 2) all forum threads are magically marked as read.

When I'm at work, when I try to post anything longer than a one- or two-paragraph message, I frequently get a message saying something like, "Bad characters, please do not use characters such as <, >, ..." (although I know good and durn well that these characters are allowed). If I hit refresh a few times and resubmit, resubmit, resubmit, it eventually takes my message and posts it.

To be fair, when they were considering new forum software, they actually asked people what their thoughts and experiences were with the forum software they used. There were a lot of people swearing by vBulletin, saying that it was commercial-grade, bulletproof, high-quality software. Personally, I'm more of a fan of PhpBB, which generally got comments like, "it's not secure" (not true), "it's not commercial-grade" (lots of bigger forums than these run it), etc.

Oh well, I honestly can't imagine that they'd switch again. I don't know what is causing the current problems. They must have done some kind of upgrade or work on the back end, because it hasn't always been this bad. Or maybe the commercial-grade, bulletproof, high-quality software can't handle the load. Whatever the case, I too hope that someone on their web software support team can take some cycles to troubleshoot what's happening soon.

This really was the reason I set up the Ouroboros Portal, as a place where anyone can put information about their heroes, supergroups, or whatever. For example, here is Taxibot Belle's page. Notice how her page links to the Infinity Paragon Taxi Service's page, which in turn has a category link for Infinity supergroups, etc. (Wow, reading it, I need to get her to update that...)

There are some vague rattlings at the Titan Network of working on a more robust and social networky Portal site, but right now, it's in very early planning stages. In the meantime, the Ouroboros Portal is pretty nifty, if I do say so myself.

I like the auction. Such sweet, sweet, swag, and some of that stuff went for a steal. I swear, if I had a rec room, I would have bid up that Star Wars wall art higher, it was just gorgeous. As it is, though, I snagged a hardcover collection of The Watchmen, and I'm really happy about that. I got it a few days ago, and I haven't opened it yet. It will be my post-Christmas indulgence. And if my numbers add up right, it added over $3,000 to the bottom line, which is huge.

I'd love to see this expanded next year with even more swag. Maybe Black Pebble can convince the marketing goobs to turn loose of a few more costume codes, those seemed to score really well. Whoever got ThinkGeek involved is a genius, that is such an awesome site. Maybe next year we can get some more retailers like that involved.

Dear Santa... You know.

I hate it when people bug the developers about adding features, especially when it comes to holiday events. But can we please get a level 90 Saint Nick next year? (And if so, you have to have him say, "Merry Christmas, you n00bs!" after the carnage.)

I know this is going to fall on deaf ears, it always does, but... Keep in touch, ya know?

I get so tired of people we've known and grown fond of just disappearing off the face of the earth after they're gone. If you're let go, I can understand that, as I've been laid off and bitter before. But others, they seem to have left of their own volition, which is apparently the case here.

Some of them have said what has essentially amounted to, "I'll still be around." CuppaJo even posted a message or two after she was gone, but she was the only one.

I can understand that they don't want former rednames posting as rednames and confusing people, or *gasp!* someone who used to be a redname doing something to the detriment of the game because they were bitter and the company just didn't know it. And I get it, I really do, that once you're gone, you don't want to answer questions about the game or have to send out a continual stream of, "I don't work there any more, please contact so-en-so." Yes, I know that there may be one or two former rednames still playing the game in relative anonymity.

Still, it's just such a harsh thing, to go from, "I'm part of your gaming lives!" to complete abject silence.

So seriously, talk to Empulse (is he still here?) and tell him to make you a... um... whitename? and stick around. I'd love to team up with you sometime even if you don't have godly dev powers to spawn--or instantly kill!--Hamidon. Set up an "I don't work there any more, please contact so-en-so" keybind. We know what you're like a dev, some of us are genuinely curious what you're like as just a regular schmo like us.

This reminds me of a time that Belle ran across a new player in Atlas Park from Brazil. He was asking some question in Portuguese in the broadcast channel, and no one was answering. I fired up Google Translate to find out what he was asking and how to give him a reasonable response. They teamed up and between the three of us, we were able to get him trained up on the game's basics. She even directed him to some Brazilian supergroup's web site so that he could find some friends he could converse with in his native tongue if he wanted. I still wonder whatever happened to him, if he's still out there somewhere still playing.

At any rate, it was a pretty cool and different experience for both of us.

Okay, one more video for the day, because no one asked me to stop.

This video has been posted a few times before, and it is--I think--the earliest demo video of City of Heroes. It was made and posted to the City of Heroes web site way back in October 2001. At 0:41, you can see the old character creator. At 0:52, you can see the old, old GUI. At 0:56, you see a list of the original enemy factions--some of which made it to release unchanged, some of which were renamed or (?) disappeared altogether. At 1:19, there's a split-second glimpse of the Atlas Statue--with the "Death Star" globe--in the background



The thing I find really interesting is how the game was apparently designed with some elements of Ultra Mode--note the rendered shadows.

Another early video for your enjoyment. This one is from a year later, at the 2003 E3 trade show. It's a pre-rendered CGI trailer for the game. There's no gameplay for comparison, but you do get a really nice, pre-rendered version of the hollow globe, plus some backstory and a few glimpses of old-timey Statesman, Miss Liberty, Back Alley Brawler, etc.

Oh, and Sister Psyche kicking some Rikti tushkus, too.

Here's a blast from the REALLY old times also rescued from antiquity. This is a presentation from the E3 trade show in May 2002. "Rick" is presumably Rick Dakan, one of the founders of Cryptic Studios and original head developer. The presenter is Jack Emmert.



LOTS of interesting changes to the game; it was very different at launch. That combat system was--how shall I put it?--interesting.

Enjoy!

Here are some more screenshots from pre-beta days. I dug them up in the Internet Archive and saved them to a Photobucket album so you can browse them. Some of them seem to be lost to antiquity (or are probably buried in Matt Miller's or Jack Emmert's basement somewhere), as the Archive doesn't literally keep everything, but there are still plenty enough to amuse and astound--or at least, passively interest--you.









Browse the whole album for more.

Yes, that's from early in the beta. I can't dig all of this up because I'm at work right now, but the Atlas statue used to be a lot smaller, and the zone was laid out WAY differently. That's the "Death Star" ball, one of three that I've seen. (The other two being the hollow globe and the existing globe.)

If you go looking through Internet Archive sites, you can actually find some of those really old pictures back in CoH previews posted on gaming sites.