TonyV

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You know, I understand it's a difficult concept to grasp, but sometimes people *do* go AFK to deal with things from RL....not -just- to keep you from collecting your precious bounty.

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If this happens, the solution is simple:
<ul type="square">[*]If something comes up that demands your immediate attention, simply type /quit and hit enter.[*]If you have at least a few seconds or so before you have to leave, then get out of the zone and go AFK all you want.[/list]There is a huge difference between being rude an obnoxious to a character and being rude and obnoxious to a player. That difference is what I consider "griefing." Going AFK in the Siren's Call hospital is the latter.

Oh, and when it's happened to me that my bounty goes AFK in the hospital, in every single case, it's also happened to other people on my team who had the same most wanted. So when one does it, they're not just being rude and obnoxious to one player, they're likely being rude and obnoxious to a bunch of players. Worse, on several occasions, it's happened a few times with players who were there for an hour or longer, either using a autoclicker or manually nudging their character enough to keep them from autologging. I remember one night in particular, my team and a whole bunch of others fired off somewhere around 20 or 25 petitions (one each, of course) to get the person kicked.

Hey, now, my story was about defending someone who was being totally nonagressive, so that makes me a little bit better than the normal run-of-the-mill bashers!

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This was greifing for sure... i saw a an MM afk in the res Pad...

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Dude, griefing is going AFK in your own damn hospital in Siren's Call, keeping anyone from collecting bounty on you. The MM deserved what he got, and even though I've played many villains in my time, I thank you for doing what you did.

Oh, this is easy.

So I'm a RIGS 'bot named RIGbot Tango (the CoV equivalent of a Taxibot), and one of my groupmates and I were in Bloody Bay. We were just poking around, not looking for trouble, and RIGbot Ninja tells the group that a hero is coming over to attack her.

RIGbot Tango is a Stalker, so I fly over to see if there's anything I can do to help. I get there just in time to see Ninja, a Mastermind with all of her robots set to passive and a hero standing in front of her, say in the local channel, "We are not here to fight, we just want to be left alone."

Well, of course, that doesn't mean diddly to the hero, who starts wailing away. Ninja just says, "STOP!" as I get in position and pop a few Enrages and an Accuracy.

BAM! Hero goes down with one hit, and Ninja's robots never even fired a shot. I walk around the dead hero's body and /e wave, just as I see Ninja in the local channel say, "I told you" and we left.

My second favorite moment would have to be when the Taxibots, including me, Taxibot Belle, were doing our first ever badge tour of Bloody Bay. We made the mistake of broadcasting an ad for the badge tour, which we have since learned is the equivalent of yelling, "Hey, villains! Come kill me!"

I happened to be the Taxibot that got to witness an interesting escalation of violence. A hero and some villains started fighting, and as villains figured out that there was a kinetics defender just standing at that location, they kept coming. As heroes passed through the tour, they typically came back to my location to join the battle and help out.

Next thing you know, there was a raging war at my location. The villains were trying to kill poor little defenseless me, and the heroes were bravely defending my position. Meanwhile, we were continuing the tours all the while.

We ended up getting a valuable new recruit from our tour/war that night, and it ended up being a lot of fun, but it was really dicey there for a while. There's a complete writeup of the event in the Taxibots forum.

Guys, you can't link directly to their site, it won't work! You've got to save the heart picture somewhere else (Photobucket, ImageShack, your own web host, etc.) and link to it there. After you generate a heart, read the paragraph right under it...

Ooh, I've decided to (temporarily) change mine to an even more obnoxious shoutout to my group, this time with a flair for marketing!

Now, who needs a teleport?

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crap my avatar got owned

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'Cause you can't link to the avatar on their site, Griff, you have to copy it to your site. On the site, after generating a heart, it says:

"If you want to use this one, then copy it to your own web site. Don't copy the URL, copy the .jpg file itself. Links from external HTML pages to these image files are disabled. If you try it, people viewing your page will just get a broken-image icon and..."

Well, I'll leave out the rest, but I won't think too badly of you. Here, I used my insane skilz to get your avatar, and I've uploaded it to Photobucket because I'm such a nice person. You can either use this URL or copy it somewhere else yourself:

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...riffCannon.jpg

All I ask in return is that you do something nice for someone today. Cheers!

Count me in with a shout out to my group, spreading some of that Taxibot love!

http://taxibots.guildportal.com

I'm not in the habit of bumping my own threads but I saw a recent conversation related to this topic in the General Discussion forum, and I also wanted to add a couple of things.

First of all, I can't edit the guide. It seems that after a period of time, it won't let you edit your posts any more. Bummer.

Also, in the vein of the "Host a Contest" suggestion, a bunch of Taxibots and I got together a week or so ago and played a game of Taxibot Yahtzee on Virtue using ourselves with the dice and score# emotes, and wow, was it fun for both players and 'bots! I don't think it's ever been done before in the game, and it went really well. I even got a few pictures of the event.

My point is that you shouldn't limit yourself to the same old stuff that everyone else does. Try to use a little imagination and creativity and do something that no one else has ever done! Who knows, you may be the next great trendsetter that everyone else follows! (Now if I can just get Taxibot Yahtzee to catch on and become wildly popular. I want a TonyV statue! )

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A real nice idea is to actually /bind [choose a start key] demorecord demo and /bind [choose a stop key] demostop.

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This is a good tip; however, I would change one thing. As it is, when you press the key that starts the demorecord, it will overwrite the previous demo.cohdemo file you demorecorded, unless you rename it after each recording.

I actually don't specify the filename completely in my demorecord bind. I have it set up like so:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>/bind SHIFT+[ "show chat$$beginchat /demorecord CoH"
/bind SHIFT+] "demostop"</pre><hr />
Or, for a City of Villains character, I use CoV instead of CoH.

That way, you'll get the demorecord command with a prefix to the filename on the chat command line, and you can type something to complete it and make it unique.

For example, sometimes I'll see a cool animation. Yesterday, I saw an NPC rolling a barrel and thought, "Hey, I can use that for something, I'm sure!" I hit shift+[, which brought up demorecord CoV on my chat command line, typed Barrel to finish it and pressed enter, then hit shift+] to stop it. Now I have a file called CoVBarrel.cohdemo that I can munge to get what I want, and I was ready immediately to record another demo file without switching out to Explorer and renaming the old file if I wanted!

First of all, your question would probably be better addressed in the Player Questions forum.

Second of all, you're probably not going to get much of a positive response to a post titled "stupid badge." Why couldn't you have gone with something a little less trollish, like "is the lackey badge bugged?" or "problem getting lackey badge"? It is with some degree of reservation that I'm posting a response at all to your question, but since I'm just such a nice guy...

Third of all, admonishments aside, I think these badges are now rigged so that you have to actually be doing something to earn them. (How exactly the game defines doing something, I don't know, and it's highly unlikely the devs will ever say.) Simply standing around inside a mission instance won't cut it. I've gotten that badge without a problem after having several lackeys and working on missions. In fact, I got one as soon as a week or so ago.

I've noticed that for most historical events and such, City of Heroes assumes that they still happened the way they happened, but that events having to do with Paragon City and the superheroes (and supervillains) are added to the timeline.

For example, there was still a World War II, and everyone who was on one side in our timeline was on the same side in the CoH timeline, and the same side won, but lots of other stuff was going on, too.

I assume that everything outside of Paragon City is still the same. George Bush is still President of the U.S., Tony Blair is still Prime Minister of Great Britain, and Iajuddin Ahmed is still President of Bangladesh. But presumably, there are heroes and villains in those places fighting the good (or bad) fight as well. And you don't want to mess with those Bangladeshi villains...

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Ok ia m just wondering Is there a Walk command Not strife or jog but actual walk like the Npcs?

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Not in-game. The best you can hope for is the non-sprint jog.

However, if you're looking to make a movie of a character walking, it is possible to rig up a .cohdemo file so that your hero (or villain) appears to walk just like an NPC. If anyone's remotely interested, let me know by posting a reply and I'll post more details. (I'm just really tired right now and don't want to dive in...)

As far as I know, there are no commands to change GUI elements on the screen other than whether or not they're displayed. You can't resize, zoom, move, or otherwise alter the windows.

I wish you could. Every time I roll an alt, I always go through the following dance:
<ul type="square">[*]Enable profanity[*]Enable prompt for team teleport[*]Unhinge my map and move it to the upper left of my screen[*]Unhinge the contacts window, expand it, and move it to the upper right[*]Unhinge the badges window, expand it, and move it to the upper right[*]Unhinge the clues window, expand it, and... aw, you get the idea[*]Hit the right alt key to stick the second power slot tray open, and change it from &lt;1&gt; to &lt;2&gt;.[*]Move my run power from its default slot to the Alt-0 slot.[*]Move punch from its default slot to Alt-5.[*]Invert the mouse controls.[/list]Oh, how I wish I could automate that into one command (/bind_load_file config.txt) followed by one keypress.

...or, "What do I do now that I've won?"

The following is a list of things to do when you inevitably get sick of "the grind." Feel free to add more ideas as you see fit!

Roleplay!

One of my standard MMORPG gripes is that too many people, especially young people who never knew how cool pencil-and-paper RPGs were, just play them as MMOGs and completely forget about the RP. Try running a few missions speaking only as your character would. Go to one of the lower-level zones and broadcast some complaints about how bad Recluse's treatment of his minions are. Or answer newbies' questions in imaginative in-game ways. Stop feeling so silly and get crazy!

Write a story

This is one of my favorite suggestions because I host an online CoH RP newspaper called the Paragon City Free Press. If you've got some imagination, make up some stories to report from in and around the city and submit them online or e-mail them to me (tonyv@pcfreepress.com). Don't like the reporter idea? Try the CoH Writer's Guild. (No affiliation) Need some kind of official recognition? Write something in the Roleplaying Forum right here. Or submit something to the comic book. Or just make some stuff up for your own personal fulfillment. At the very least, make sure all of your characters have interesting bios!

Document the game

Not into fiction? How about showing off your extensive knowledge of the game? Write or edit some articles in the CoH/CoV Wiki. Contribute some helpful comments here in the Player Questions and/or Player Guides forums.

Help the Newbies

Hang out in a low-level zone and exemplar/malefactor for some low-level characters. You'll be amazed at how fun it is to rehash some of your old missions, get gobs of prestige or influence/infamy, challenge yourself to succeed again without all of your fancy powers, and help out another player in the process. One nice thing about it is that although you only have the first few powers you started with, you will probably have them highly slotted with enhancements so that unlike when you first started out, you'll actually be able to hit stuff now!

Roll up an alt

Yes, it's cliché, but it's a good idea. Playing the game as a defender is almost an entirely different experience than playing as a scrapper. Even within an archetype, there are vast differences in strategies. There are lots of differences between playing as a Kinetics defender and playing as an Empath defender. Take some odd powers that you've never tried before just for fun. Have you ever actually tried Group Fly?

Volunteer

Roll up a Taxibot or a RIGS 'bot (the CoV Taxibots) and cast off your grinding ways forever. Or try the Paragon City Search and Rescue. Or the Kings Row Taxi Service. Or start your own volunteer service group. (Anyone I left out, feel free to reply below.) Sure, you won't reach level 50 with the character anytime soon, but if you enjoy people grovelling with appreciation, you'll really enjoy hanging out in the Hollows and dancing between teleport requests.

Host a contest

So your cup runneth over with influence or infamy. What to do with all of it? Give it away as prizes! Host a costume contest. Or a trivia contest. Or the the Paragon City/Rogue Isle Olympics. Or make up a totally new and original contest. For a unique challenge, be sure to do it in-character. (I.e. think of some evil motivations behind villains needing to have a sharp-looking costume.) What else do you think all that loot from robbing banks is good for?

Lights, camera...

Learn how to DemoRecord files and make a cool movie that we can all enjoy. Since you know they'll be running another movie contest at some point, the more work you can put into it all along, the more likely it will be that you may score some sweet real world swag! If nothing else, you can snap some awesome screenshots that can't be taken any other way.

Become a Talk Show Host

Record a 30-minute old-timey radio detective show podcast about your hero's exploits. Or a villainous stand-up comedy show. In a supergroup? Record an interview talk show with some of your members. Don't like the fictional stuff? You're an überplayer, record your commentary on the game. When you're done, send your audio file to The Cape Radio or MMORadio (not affiliated) and see if they'll broadcast it.

Fight in the PvP zones and the arena

Try PvP in Siren's Call. 95% of the time, it's in the hands of the heroes. Where are you when Arachnos needs your services? Lord Recluse is not pleased with your lack of progress in helping his incursion into Paragon City. Or help your fellow heroes take over firebases and earn their Shivan Shards. Don't like the crowd there? Try the arenas. Gladiator matches are a hoot.

See what other fans are doing

Browse some of the Fan sites that are out there. A lot of them are really cool. Are you more motivated than that? Create your own. A simple hero's or villain's blog can be set up using Google's free Blogspot service. More motivated than that? Do what a lot of us have done: Get yourself some cheap hosting space, register a domain name, and put out a full-fledged fansite. (Those services have been good for me, your mileage may vary.) Be sure to read the guidelines and submit it as an official fan site on the portal when you're done.

Read a book

There is now a City of Heroes novel out called Web of Arachnos. Not to sound like a commercial, but it's not bad, and it's got some good background of the people and places you see in Paragon City. After reading it, you'll have a better sense of Paragon City as a place and not just a bunch of polygons.

Take a break

NCsoft will probably hate me for suggesting this, but sometimes absense makes the heart grow fonder. Around the beginning of last year, I had played so much that I got rather burned out. I didn't cancel my account, but I did go around a month without touching the game. When I came back, everything seemed a little new and fresh again. I had regained what I thought made the game really good and shed some of the monotony that caused me to just be ho-hum about taking out yet another mission. Just make sure you come back after your respite, of course!

That's a baker's dozen suggestions to get you started. By the time you get done with all of that, you should be just about ready to start playing the new Issue 37 that will be out by then. Feel free to add your thoughts below. If I see some good ideas, I'll add them to the guide.

And be sure to remember the most important suggestion of all:

Have fun!

Whatever you decide to do, make sure you have fun doing it! (Unless you're a griefer, in which case, stay miserable...) See ya in the city!

Thank god your grandfather wasn't a serial killer. I shiver to think about what kind of story we'd be reading about you.

I like it. Great holiday-time story, and cool pictures. I think it's great that you and your grandfather share such a common interest. If he has a computer, you should see if he'll join us in person in Paragon City and share yet another common interest. After all, there's always one more mission for the Neutron Knight. I hear that some heroes are closing in on the location of David Wincott's son in the Hollows. A grandfather-grandson team would have a unique understanding of how important it is to bring Sam Wincott back.

Remember when...
<ul type="square">[*]The Kheldians came to Paragon City?[*]Heroes had to fight back the hordes of wintery minions, but without shiny presents in return?[*]Heroes started battling each other?[*]A new movie about the Council took the country by storm?[*]A long lost community named Salamanca rejoined Paragon City?[*]The reconstruction of Siren's Call was suddenly halted when a flood of new evil arrived?[/list]
As the heroes and citizens of Paragon City settle into 2006, it is once again time to look back at some of the major news stories of the past year. The Paragon City Free Press is honored to be a part of Paragon City's history, to bring you stories of the present, and to look forward with all of our readers to what the future will bring. In Paragon City, for good or evil, it seems that this era is the era of superlatives, and we wish you nothing but the best of times for 2006.


Read the full story in the Paragon City Free Press online newspaper.

The latest story in the Paragon City Free Press from reporter Antonio Vazquez:

—ATLAS PARK, December 23, 2005

“It’s just insane,” said Dr. Warren Gifford of the Chiron Medical Center. “We’ve had more frostbite cases over the past week than we’ve had during the past fifty winters. People have to learn to leave these boxes alone!”

Dr. Gifford is not alone in his concern. Beginning on Monday, mysterious gift-wrapped boxes began appearing throughout all zones of Paragon City after an equally mysterious broadcast by someone calling himself the Gamester taunted citizens and heroes using an unauthorized radio broadcast to “Come find out what fate has in store for you.”

Blue Steel of the Paragon City Police Department immediately issued a statement urging citizens, “Please do not touch these boxes. Many have proved very dangerous, even to longtime heroes working in Paragon City.” Ms. Liberty later confirmed Blue Steel’s statement by verifying that several heroes were indeed in the city's hospitals because of icy attacks by strange animated snowmen that spring forth from some of the boxes.

Read the rest of the story and keep up with what's going on in Paragon City by reading the Paragon City Free Press today!

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I'd really like to see Origin Stories.

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Can we be presumptuous enough to write Origin Stories of in-game characters instead of ourselves? I mean, I suppose that Statesman and the like are off-limits since some guy named Robert Weinberg recently published a 358-page novel about that. But, for example, a while back I wrote what I thought was an interesting origin of the Clockwork King. I even included a plug from the in-game clue gathered on a very early Clockwork mission. This particular one was for an online article called the Hero Beat, and the diary format of the article probably isn't very conducive to fan fiction now, but I could easily tweak it into a more narrative format instead.

Or are you all keeping all pre-created characters strictly under control?

True, also check out Manticore's posts. He's taken a lot of forum space to clarify CoH universe issue and break stuff down for us. Of all the devs, he appears to be the one who's the most into the fiction behind the game, and I've found his info invaluable.

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Why do the contacts never move? I mean come on, they have to stink by now!

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What? Sure they move, you must haven't been invited to the right events!

[[ I feel your pain, a definitive resource would be cool. The problem is that such a resource would have to have at least some kind of nod from the devs, otherwise, it would be just another fiction. Would they be willing to give it to a third party? Are they willing to undertake the task themselves? I'm guessing probably no and no.

If you're looking for documentation that it is, indeed, Rhode Island, check out almost any Paragon Times article. The byline on almost every one is "Paragon City, Rhode Island." I haven't seen any reference to Maine. ]]

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To bring down the console just click the ` key (should be the same as the ~ key)...

You can also do cmdlist and see a whole ton of commands, none of which work at all.

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I just found out one that works: screenshot will create a screenshot in your current live CoH screenshot directory.

Also, bind works, at least in a limited capacity. Even though it says, "Failure to bind key" when you try to use it, it does work if you try the following command:

bind sysrq "screenshot"

That will let you capture screenshots in a demo file just like you do in a normal game: by hitting your Print Screen key.

Unfortunately, every time you run another .cohdemo file, it seems to forget that bind so you have to type it in next time, too. I haven't figured out a way to have that bind load up at the start of all demo files. Maybe someone else knows of something clever. But for now, I'm just glad I can create a frickin' screenshot without -demodump'ing the whole file into .jpg's. (I'm guessing that the .tga file commands will work too, though I didn't try it.)

Thanks for the info Z!
TonyV

Hello all,

I am the site admin for an online RP newspapr called the Paragon City Free Press that covers events in and around Paragon City. (No, I didn't copy that name from the Web of Arachnos novel, though I do think it was a cool coincidence. The site was launched around six months before the novel was published.) If you've got some time to kill, come by and check it out. I'm always looking for good reporters, so if you have a nose for news, please submit your articles!

The site is also home to the PC Free Press Wiki, a non-RP game information site. I'm always looking for good authors and editors for it as well.

See ya on the streets,
Tony V

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protest - Hold hold up one of several randomly selected mostly unreadable protest signs

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Although the protest signs are unreadable in the game, in the graphic file that is used as the texture, they are readable. They all say some variation of the following in a handwritten font (misspellings are deliberately replicated here): "We are generaly discontent with our current situation &amp; would like to show our discontentiveness publicly! (If that's OK with you)"

Ah, those zany Luddites...

I just added an article in the PC Free Press CoH/CoV Wiki based on the information in the original post. (With a link to this thread, of course!)