TonyV

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While I am admittedly hesitant about the idea of a PS3 port of Co*... it may be a good idea to incorporate a stable platform for gaming and a mass of people that haven't played it yet, infusing the game with more people (and maybe new servers? One could hope) and more money to give everyone even more awesomeness...

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If they're going to release CoH on another platform to attract a mass of people who haven't played it yet, I would highly suggest that the platform be native Mac and Linux clients instead of a console. There would be a fraction of the work involved. And I know that CoH runs under Cedega and I think Parallels, but not as well as a native client would. (I haven't tried Parallels, but I have and still do run it under Cedega, and there are graphics card detection issues that keep the game from using some advanced graphics settings.)

I think they would capture a pretty decent share of the Mac and Linux gaming market right up front, and the publicity generated by it would increase the subscriber base by quite a bit.

I think they only come from opening presents around the city. Even if you could get them from opening presents from other people, it would be much, much faster to get them from the presents in the city.

Oh, and if you want to get candy canes, consider looking at the prices at Wentworth's. They've gotten pretty low lately.

I just wanted to add to this.

There are a total of 13 gates, including the starting gate.

The first three are relatively lined up and easy. Sure, you can miss one on a fluke, but after a few practice runs, you should be able to make it through relatively consistently. Just remember as you go through the second one that you need to bear to the right to make it through the third one.

Gates four, five, and six are also lined up more-or-less in a row, though by the time you get to the sixth gate, you'll probably be going pretty fast, and it's tough to make the turn. This is where that speed boost or super jump comes in handy for control. Still, you suffer little penalty for overshooting the fifth gate. You'll swing out a little wide, maybe hit the rocks and bounce off, and you should still be able to make it through the gate.

After the sixth gate, things get a little hairy. The next gate is at almost a 90 degree angle, and off the edge of two short drops. There are two main ways to make it through the seventh gate. The first is to fall off the first drop onto the second one, get oriented in the right direction, and then go off the second one to the bottom. However, after some practice, you might be able to go through the far left side of the sixth gate and drop straight to the bottom at full speed. I won't lie, it's hard to line it up and nail that seventh gate using this technique, and if you're using both a super jump ability and a speed boost ability, you'll probably overshoot the seventh gate every time. If you can nail it, it shaves a couple of seconds off of your time. If not, though, you blow your run. If you choose not to try, you can still make it, though you will have a very small margin of error.

After going through the seventh gate, line up with the right side of the eighth gate. The reason why is because the ninth gate is waaaay out to the right side of the next drop. This is where speed boost or super jump comes in really handy. Without one of those powers, the ninth gate is almost impossible to hit. This is what happens if you don't have speed boost or super jump.

The tenth gate is relatively easy. Just nudge to the right slightly after going through the ninth gate, and you should be lined up. Same with the eleventh gate.

For the twelfth gate, you'll need to bear to the left. Depending on how fast you're going, it could be a little or a lot.

As for the thirteenth, it's the other gate that's almost impossible to make without speed boost or super jump. After passing through the twelfth gate, you have to bear hard right. The problem is that the slope will be pushing you hard left. Here is a video of Taxibot Belle demonstrating this. You've got to overcome the push. If you're pressing the forward key to try to make a good run time, you might want to consider letting go of it and just strafe right to coast through the last gate. Of course, if you have super jump or inertial reduction, it's easy.

Here's a video I took of Taxibot Belle in a sporting mood making a complete run. The only buff she has is one Inertial Reduction for control, and she turned in a respectable 22.5 seconds, even getting credit for missing the third gate.

Belle had already done a lot of work on a year-end edition of the City Traveler article before knowing that there wasn't going to be an issue this week. I kinda hate that this is buried in a thread that probably not many people read, maybe it can be linked to later or something. At any rate, she really wanted it out there for everyone as a holiday gift before the year ended, so here it is.

Year-end City Traveler column

In case anyone's interested, I've also posted an index to all of the City Traveler columns, including a "sneak peek" at the next column submitted for publication. For now, it's posted it off of the Paragon Maps web site. I've also done some minor editing to format them in a standard way and even embed a couple of videos in the articles that were linked to originally.

City Traveler column index

Enjoy, and happy holidays!

Just to be clear, I've sent several PMs about this specific issue over the months, both to the Scoop staff and to the community reps. Each time, I've gotten very apologetic responses, I've sometimes gotten assurances that weren't followed through on, and the problems continued. In my last PM when the column wasn't published on December 7, I even specifically mentioned that I was tempted to talk about this continuing problem publicly, but I didn't.

Believe me, I do not like airing stuff like this out. There is a lot more that I wanted to say in that post that I chose not to in the attempt to be as diplomatic as possible. The first time, I simply let them know, hoping it was just a glitch in the system. That was when I started submitting the article in the exact HTML format they use to publish stuff to make it as easy as possible, trying to be constructive in my efforts to make sure that the article was published.

Since then, with each PM, I tried to express that I was getting more and more frustrated. After more than two months, it's still going on. After the column wasn't published on December 7, I sent a PM saying that I was seriously questioning whether I'd ever submit another column again. I did anyway (at 11:16pm Central on Wednesday, Dec. 19, for the record), and here we are yet again, only two weeks later, the column still not being published.

You have to understand that this is not how I wanted to resolve this situation. I know that by posting this, I'm running just as great or greater risk of being attacked than of getting support. But I've tried everything I know to no avail, and as I said, it's really embarrassing when Belle has to explain to people, "I don't know where the column is, Tony submitted it and they just didn't run it." I feel like posting this was pretty much the only option I had left other than simply quitting altogether.

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We are volunteers, and many of us have extremely hectic real lives. We cannot be expected to check our PMs every second of the day.

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I understand that, and if this were an isolated incident, believe me, I would not have said anything here. But I have to reiterate that five of the last nine weeks (four of the last eight published issues), Belle's column hasn't been published. After four of those, I sent PMs about it to the Scoop. (Not you specifically, but I don't like naming names, especially since I don't think the person I sent them to was responsible.) After two of those, I sent PMs to Lighthouse and Ex Libris, hoping they could say something to help resolve the situation. After this one, working with a completely different Scoop staff member, I'd just had enough. The "hectic life" explanation only works for so long, especially when this week's is the only deadline I've ever come close to missing and I've personally witnessed articles that weren't submitted until the day of publication make it in.

I think it's a little unfair to make my deadline earlier than everyone else's in order to be published, but if that's what it takes, I'll start having Belle's submissions in by midnight on Tuesdays. In return, I ask for some kind of assurance that you guys will make a more consistent and earnest effort to actually get it on the page. I never asked for perfection, but less than 50% for over two months is just plain unacceptable. If there's some editorial reason it can't be published such as issues being too long, let me know and we can make it a biweekly column or something.

Guys, I'm biting the hell out of my tongue right now.

As I sit here looking over the columns that almost always make it into the Scoop, the Horoscopes, the recipes, the Base Spotlight, the Behind the Mask, the Artist Spotlight... There's one that's painfully missing yet again: Belle's City Traveler column.

I am responsible for proofreading, editing, taking pictures for, formatting, and submitting the City Traveler column. On the surface, it looks like I've been doing a really crappy job. Belle's article has only been published in four of the last nine weeks, less than a 50% of the time. This is much more than an "oops, simple mistake." People have actually approached Belle and asked her when her next column will be published and where her column was in weeks past, and it's downright embarrassing.

For the record, I have not been laying down on the job. Here's a brief rundown on what has happened in the past nine weeks:

<ul type="square">[*]On October 26, the article ran, albeit with a misspelled title that was thankfully corrected.[*]On November 2, everything ran okay.[*]On November 9, even though I submitted the column on time, it just plain didn't run. When I asked about it, I was told, "it may have been overlooked."[*]On November 16, the column that was supposed to run on November 9 finally ran.[*]On November 23, there wasn't supposed to be an issue published according to a note in the previous issue. Because of that, I didn't submit the column that I had planned for that issue. To my surprise, an issue did in fact run on November 23, sans City Traveler, of course.[*]On November 30, there wasn't an issue published at all. I was told, "We'll run it next week."[*]On December 7, City Traveler was yet again not published for the third straight week. I wasn't really given an explanation why, I guess it was just overlooked again.[*]On December 14, the column that was written for November 23 was finally published. The significance of this is that the column was supposed to be timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Faultline renovation (November 28), but because of these repeated mistakes, the anniversary was missed by over two weeks.[*]I submitted the column for this week (December 21) around midnight Eastern on Wednesday. (Having been a former staff member of the City Scoop, I know this is by deadline, and I have personally witnessed many articles submitted after that deadline still make it in.) At noon the next day, I was told, "this will have to go into the next issue."[/list]In short, if you're wondering where Belle's column is this week, it's in the hands of the Scoop staff, as all of her others have been (or would have been, in the case of the Thanksgiving "surprise" issue), on time.

I think it's a good, well-written column that deserves a chance to be read, and Belle has gotten some great comments about it, for which she is very appreciative. She desperately tries her best to make Paragon City a fun and interesting place to be, and I've gone through extraordinary efforts to make sure that the City Traveler column is in before deadline and in a format that is extremely easy to publish.

I'm trying to decide what to do. On the one hand, I want to continue supporting the community, and especially Lighthouse and Ex Libris, who have invested a lot into the City Scoop project and who I have immense respect for as community representatives. On the other, I'm extremely tired and frustrated with the politics and randomness that is the City Scoop with no hope of things improving. As a reader, the Scoop may look interesting, but as a fan writer trying to get stuff published based on merit instead of who "nomnoms" on whose ankles in the staff forum, it's extremely demoralizing.

At any rate, I wanted to let everyone know why the City Traveler column has been missing so often. If you like the column, I would appreciate it if you would let the Scoop staff know that "overlooking" it like they have been is very uncool to any writer. Feel free to PM me or Belle with any comments, questions, or even criticisms of it.

I'm able to access both fine. Do you have javascript disabled?

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If you dont like my post fine your entitled to your own opinion, just dont bother posting back at me as I will ignore you. For those who have a solid reason/opinion to why you think Cutest little hero should have one by all means do post.

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Well, here's the problem. This was supposed to be a fun event, and we were all supposed to be celebrating the ones who won. And frankly, your opinion didn't amount to diddly in selecting the winners, the judges' opinions were the ones that counted. Personally, I think they got it right, but you know, that's my opinion. I don't know what you expect from your post. Nothing constructive can come from it, only grief. Honestly, I hope they delete it, as it completely undercuts the spirit of the contest and the extraordinary time and effort that both of these ladies have put into making it fun.

And if you don't want people to respond to your opinion unless they're "I agree 100%" sycophants, you shouldn't have posted it to begin with. It doesn't work that way, and that whole Freedom of Speech thing cuts both ways.

Still, to answer your non-question about why CutestLilHero deserved to win, her costume is dead on. Check out the wings. Even the colored panels match up. I don't know if she made the stuffed panda bear herself, but it definitely added a nice finishing touch. Her hair looks fantastic, and check out the makeup. In short, I think it's perfect, and she more than deserves to win. It also doesn't hurt that she also lives up to her name. I didn't know it before, but I'm definitely a CutestLilHero fan now.

Having said that, I don't want to take away from Komic Kitten. Her outfit is perfect, too, and her attention to detail doesn't deserve to win any less. Had they picked her to win, I would have fully agreed with that decision, too. I wish they both could have been Best Overall winners, but unfortunately, that's not the way it works. They had to pick one, and only one, so they did.

Oh, and I have to echo my hearty congratulations to the winners. You did an absolutely fantastic job this year, all of you! I wish I had that much talent in designing costumes!

And finally, just a quick FYI, if you like these costumes, be sure to also check out the winners of the 2006 contest, the 2005 contest, and of course, the original contest in 2004. GREAT stuff!

Couple of notes:

1) I've put this as a news item on the front page of the Paragon Wiki.

2) It's not just a City of Heroes thing. Tabula Rasa is also auctioning off some cool loot, including having an NPC named after you in-game! Be sure to check it out too.

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I have a QUESTION! U guess we've all seen the emails from ppl offering to sell inf for like $9.00/10 mill. Has anyone bought from these guys? Are they reliable or is this is a scam? If it isn't a scam just how do they get it (the inf) to you?

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This is a scam, plain and simple.

They are deliberately breaking the Terms of Service, repeatedly getting their accounts banned, and they are resorting to the scummiest of marketing tactics.

If you purchase influence/infamy in this manner, please keep in mind that if it is discovered, your account will be permanently banned, too. Also, all of these sites are Chinese sites. That means that if you pay them and they don't give you your influence, there is absolutely, positively no one to help you. Your money is simply gone forever, in the fat wallets of crooks. Actually, it's much worse than that, since you would be paying them by credit card. It means that your credit card information is gone forever, in the fat wallets of crooks. Even if you got your influence, is it worth knowing that your private financial information is in the hands of crooks who would just as soon sell it for a few pennies?

Even if you can afford the most expensive of lawyers to fight for you, you will be royally screwed, dealing with a "company" that doesn't give a crap about you except how much money they can get from you in a country with zero oversight of the industry.

If, in spite of knowing all of that, you decide to foolishly hand over your credit card number and billing information to these people, you deserve whatever consequences come from it. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but it's really important you understand who these people are.

I was wondering just the other day about the contest. I didn't enter or anything, but I always enjoy seeing the results, too.

If you guys are too backed up, how about just sending me what you've got and letting me pick?

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I don't know who I think I'm kidding that this post won't be one of the anonymous million that get posted in this thread, but...

I can't imagine anything but good things coming from this. The fact that NCsoft was willing to invest what had to be a lot of money into purchasing the complete IP from Cryptic AND hiring an entire development team says to me that they are VERY serious about making City of Heroes a long-term investment.

If they weren't 100% committed to the game and making sure it is more successful than ever, this would be the most stupid business move ever. I genuinely don't think that they're stupid, I think they're smart. Very smart. And that this move will pay off for them big time.

Hey, all that stuff they said? Ditto. (But with more sincerity than they said it.)

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......but even to his last day alive, many many fans of the band (Deadheads, or more properly dead freaks) referred to him as "the new guy" and they HATED him.

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Of course, there are counterexamples, too. Like that new Ringo Starr guy, who had a hard time replacing the Pete Best we know and love.

Who knows? In 20 years, we may all be sitting around saying, "Cuppa who?" while waiting for Issue 71 to come out. (Patch Note: We updated the smellovision module for the Vahzilok. It turns out that it was a little too realistic, and causing players to retch and vomit uncontrollably. —Positot)

I know, I know, "What's the big deal? Press Print Screen and be done with it."

Well, I've seen several questions in the Player Questions forum lately asking details about how to make screenshots, so I wrote a whole guide about it. It covers both the basics in a "Primer" section at the top, and several advanced topics such as how to create screenshots in demorecord files, how to save images as tga files instead of jpg files (ooh, lossless!), gamma color correction, and so on. I tried to make the article informative to new and advanced gamers alike, so I hope you'll read it even if it's always just "hit Print Screen" to you.

Oh, and the thing is, I want it to be community-editable, and I don't want the post to be frozen in time or to have to PM Lighthouse if it needs to be changed or updated, so instead of posting it here, I'm just going to link to it on the Paragon Wiki. That way, it's not really TonyV's Screenshot Guide, it's the CoH Community's Screenshot Guide. I highly encourage other players to consider putting more guides in the wiki like this.

So with no further ado, here it is: Screenshots

Enjoy!

Hey all, I just wanted to remind everyone that this ends at the end of the day on this coming Saturday. If you want to submit any entries, be sure to send 'em on in before then!

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Hey TonyV, I moved your post over to the Screenshots and Fan Art section. I think you'll find more people here who may be interested in your logo contest.

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Wow, I'm just thrilled that my post is showing up in the Community Digest!

I certainly won't turn down submissions of less than 12 logos. I definitely plan on setting up a page in the wiki that shows off all of the submissions, complete with designer credit. Maybe not an Ed McMahon-worthy prize, but at least it's something, and yes, there's a decent chance I'll rotate individual logos in the mix, too!

The main reason I picked 12 was so that I could use a different logo each week and have enough for a quarter of a year. Also, I want to reward someone for going through the effort, thus the prize, but I have only so many prizes to give out. (Bummer!) Plus, I have some other contests in the pipeline to improve the site in other ways, too. (NOT a bummer!)

Your art? Heh. My logos are really just manipulated fansite kit art. I don't want to give the impression that I'm expecting individually hand-crafted masterpieces, although I don't want to discourage it, either.

Seriously, I'm just looking for logos that are new and interesting. They can be hand-drawn icons, Photoshopped screenshots, in-game graphics tweaked for logo-iness, or anything else. No specific genre, the sky's the limit!

If I do hold the contest again in a couple of months, I'll keep any submissions that don't win around so that you'll be eligible to win in the future, too. (Unless you ask me not to, such as to make them more fancy and resubmit them as a new entry.)

Hey all you artistic people! I'm running a Paragon Wiki Logo Contest, with a grand prize of four months of free City of Heroes/Villains gameplay.

I don't want to cross-post too much, but this contest might interest any fan art folks out there. The nitty gritty details are posted in the CoH Discussion forum here, and in the Paragon Wiki forums here.

Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions!

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Okay, I know the mathematical "proofs" that can make ten = 12, but maybe this needs some fixing?

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Egads, you're right! I'm glad I put the actual number out there too! I was originally going to say ten, but I changed my mind, figuring that twelve would make them last a nice, even, three months. (Give or take a day or two.) Thanks for the correction! (Maybe my posts need to be wikified. )

And just to clarify, each of the logos will last on the site for a week, so twelve logos = twelve weeks. The intention is to run the contest again in a couple of months, give a month of leeway to submit and judge, and in three months, have a whole new set.

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You should make sure the kids over the in the Screenshot and Fan Art section see this. Who knows what they'll turn out.

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Great idea! For some weird reason, I didn't even think about that. It's done!

Hey all, I've decided to run a little contest to help publicize the Paragon Wiki a little more, and even improve the site!

Grand Prize:

Four months of free City of Heroes gameplay!

Nutshell Version:

Design and send twelve logos (135px by 135px) that appear in the upper left corner of the Paragon Wiki home page to me at tonyv@pcfreepress.com. We'll pick the set we like the best, and the winner will score the loot.

Ramblings of a Mad Mind:

A while back in the wiki forums, I mentioned that I plan on running a few contests this year to try to improve the site. Well, here's the first one!

The Paragon Wiki logos were designed one afternoon by me. I mercilessly stole stuff from the fansite kit (hey, they asked us to, right?) and threw them together with The Gimp. I think they're really cool, but I'm just too used to seeing them now.

So the first contest I'm going to run is a contest to design new logos for the Paragon Wiki. The prize: A couple of game card codes to score four free months* of playing City of Heroes!

The Nitty-Gritties:

<ul type="square">[*]Submissions must be in the form of twelve (12) awesome logos that will be rotated on a weekly basis. If you're just so inspired that you submit more, that's cool, too, but no less![*]If you want to submit multiple entries, you can, but each set must consist of at least twelve unique logos.[*]Each logo should be 135 pixels by 135 pixels. I prefer them in .png format (alpha channel for transparency is fine), but if you give them to me as .jpg's or .gif's, I'll convert them.[*]Submissions must be received by midnight on Saturday, March 17, 2007. (That's the wee hour between Saturday night and Sunday morning.) I'll announce a winner within a week.[*]The winner's logos will be publicly available under the FreeDoc license, so if you plan on selling them later for a billion dollars, don't submit them.[*]How will the winner be chosen? Hmm... Well, I could just unilaterally decide myself, but that probably wouldn't be very cool. I'll do this: I'll poll the wiki admin editors which ones they like best, and the logos that get the most votes will be declared the winner, booyah. If you are a wiki admin editor and you want to submit logos, you can, but you don't get to vote for your own. [*]You can submit your logos by e-mailing them to me at tonyv@pcfreepress.com. Be sure to include your global name, and be sure you send them from a valid e-mail address! No, I'm not going to use your e-mail address for marketing purposes. I swear by the lips of Mick Jagger that it will remain our little secret until I die. (Or the cops come beat it out of me...) But if I can't get in touch with you, I can't give you the game card codes if you win![*]Offer void where prohibited. Oh, and on Easter Island, too. I'm sorry, but those statues creep me out.[/list]I posted the sweet logos I designed way back when at the bottom of the Paragon Wiki forums message. You don't have to make them look like this. They don't even have to have the site name on them if you wish. But, of course, if you send me logos of puppies, it's a pretty good bet that they won't win. (Apologies to puppy lovers out there.)

If the contest goes over well, I'll probably run it every quarter or so. That way, we'll always have fresh, new, and exciting logos. If you have any questions, feel free to reply here or in the thread linked to a little earlier in this paragraph.

*Technically, it's 120 days, not four calendar months. But if hard drive manufacturers can act like a gigabyte is exactly one billion bytes, then surely I can get away with acting like four months is exactly 120 days!

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Why didn't you just use the ingame dice?

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Oh, we do. The problem, though, is that the graphic of the die goes away after a second or two. So the process is that we roll our dice, then quickly hold up a card with whatever the number was so that the player doesn't have to instantly memorize what everyone had.

Hey all, just thought I'd take a few minutes to post a few updates.

First of all, some of the links need to be corrected. The Paragon Wiki has, for a while now, had its own domain name instead of just being a sub-site of the PC Free Press. The old link still works and will eventually get you there through redirects, but the new one using it's native domain name is much faster.

Speaking of the PC Free Press, it's dormant and hasn't been updated in over a year. I still harbor a desire to come back and make it exciting again, but while I was writing for it, I just never got a very good response from the community. If you're interested in writing for it, or you just really like reading it, let me know.

The Kings Row Taxi Service site has changed URLs. The Taxibots also have their own domain now also, though the old one still works too.

There are also a couple of CoH-related radio stations that I'd be remiss if I left out: w00t Radio and Split Infinity

As for hosting space, I've actually moved my sites from PeopleHost to DreamHost. They have a lot more space and goodies for less. If you use a referral code of PARAGON, they'll waive the setup fee. Again, I've found them to be a really good hosting provider with tons of space, bandwidth, and features; your mileage may vary.

Since I posted this guide, they've also released the next City of Heroes novel, The Freedom Phalanx. Learn about the first adventures of Synapse, Positron, Sister Psyche, and more, as they try to reform history's greatest hero team!

I think that's about it, feel free to add your comments and additions!

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2007 Pocket D Jubilee Event Guide (also known as Valentine's Day Event)

Paragon Wiki Guide to the Valentine Event, 2007

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&lt;tangent&gt;

Hey, I just wanted to post a short note to say thanks for putting this on the wiki! There was a discussion a while back about getting more player-created information on the wiki, and this article is a sterling example of why (aside from probably a little bias) I think that's a Good Thing™.

As you can see from the article's history, ZombieMan was just one of many contributors to that article, which was originally created January 26 by SisterLeortha when we first had an indication that there would be a Valentine's Day event. Since then, it has had a lot of additions and tweaks to it by a lot of editors (40 edits as of this post), each one making it better than it was before, until it's a very thorough and complete guide that we all can be proud of.

Very nice job, ZombieMan and the rest of the authors/editors, and I highly encourage everyone to post more guides and information to the wiki. (And if you—gasp!—have yet to see the wiki, do drop by; I think you'll be surprised at how much information is already there!)

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Hey all,

I've been running behind on getting the safeguard information into Paragon Maps, but I just wanted to let you all know that both the site and the overlay is now updated... At least, sort of.

I still need to put the safeguard and mayhem maps up on the front page and create the articles for the mayhem maps, but at least the safeguard maps now appear at the bottom of the list of city zones for you to refer to before charging into a safeguard mission.

Also, if you use the latest version of the Paragon Maps overlay, all of the badge and key locations are now marked on the safeguard mission maps in addition to the city zones and mayhem mission maps that were marked before.

Oh, and I also fixed the Founders' Falls map. "Fixed," you asked? Yes, as I mentioned in another post, the scale of the default in-game map is off so that locations on the map are all screwed up. I adjusted the scale and the offset of the map so that everything lines up right now. For more info on this, see this post that I made in the Paragon forums.

Enjoy, and more coolness is coming!