Tubbius

Great! Congratulations!

Oh, wait. I just saw your latest post. I'm sorry about that. Here's hoping it gets back up to 5-stardom soon!

Ok. Looks like Justice is down again? First noticed at 2:43 pm Eastern time on August 5. . . . Still getting "can't connect to DB server message" at 3:02. Anyone else having a hard time, or is this just me?

Poor Justice.

I keep getting ye olde "Cannot connect to DB Server" message. It's 3:35 pm Eastern time on Sunday, July 25.

Sad. I want my Justice. Time's 11:07 pm Eastern.

Thanks for the input! We'll keep our eyes peeled for further developments!

So we had a five-person team tonight running through an outdoors "find 5 hostages" mission involving freeing people from Nemesis in another world tonight. It's a 2 hour timed mission.

At one point, after about an hour and ten or fifteen into the mission, my girlfriend noticed some brief, considerable flashing on her laptop's screen during a particularly busy fight. We were reasonably close to the Blue Wall. She was, if I'm right, surrounded by a lot of Nemesis goons--Jaegers and Lieutenants. She was playing an ice/energy tank (I think; she has ice armor, and her punches stun people). There was an ice-slick-slinging empath on the team in the vicinity.

She's worrying that her laptop might be damaged from a short drop earlier (around 4:30 p.m. Eastern time on Friday the 16th). I'm insisting that if her computer (a new Asus laptop less than a month old) were damaged, it wouldn't have started up and/or run Windows 7 properly (we tested the machine and COH almost immediately after the fall), or it would have been giving serious issues long before one random fight in about four or five hours of playing (and, yes, we played for about 30-45 minutes after with no further ill effects).

The game displayed fine tonight other than this single fight and other than some jerkiness/lag stuff. Sound worked fine. The game apparently ran its usually smooth self overall.

I can't really give specs for her machine or anything--I'm no tech whiz, and her comp is in her car on the way home right now, so I can't say about model numbers or anything--but. . . it SHOULD be ok, overall, right? wrong? Is it possible that she just chanced on a so-called "perfect storm" of visual effects and we're jumping at shadows?

The only thing that might have been an issue was that there was a small, plastic thing--maybe almost credit card sized?--popped out of the front left corner of the laptop's side after the laptop fell (front left facing it like you're going to use it, where one's left hand might rest at the corner). That small plastic thing slid right back into place no problem, but we don't know what it IS.

Got any insights or suggestions? We're going to try to keep playing the fool out of her machine this weekend as time permits to make sure everything's good to go, but any reasonable input (even given this limited information) would be MUCH appreciated. The laptop's new, as said, and cost close to two grand, so she's rightly scared about this.

A harsh comparison, Lazarus, but true. For me, I have an arc I could probably cut (my one real villain arc, Fox Hunt), but the fact remains that I put time and effort into it, and I do enjoy it on some levels. . . but if I can't take the time and energy to make MORE without deleting something, that kinda stinks.

So, in short, Wrong Number. . . fat chance of anyone seriously getting Hall of Fame?

If you're still in the poster-doing business, sir, I'd very much like to see if you could do one more!

My global is @Tubbius.

The arc's title is "Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City", arc ID 351727. It stars the heroes being called in to study the disappearance of two Soviet-era agents turned heroes named American Hammer and New York Sickle. It turns out they've been captured by the 5th Column, who are secretly wanting to use them as part of a plot involving a chemical weapons attack on the Council. It's up to the heroes to stop all the madness!

As for a basic idea of the poster appearance itself. . . you can see what the two signature characters look like in the arc itself. I'm a sucker for simple elegance; I'd be pleased with a single shot of the two of them standing centered in the image, back to back, facing opposite sides of the frame--something similar, I suppose, to the Mr. and Mrs. Smith movie poster, but with much more severity and boldness to it. In a shot like this, the two of them would be in a position similar to two gunfighters about to duel in the Old West, each one being totally focused on his or her own next moves.

Alternatively, a shot of just the two of them going at it could work, perhaps. Either way it goes, I think I'm picturing them with American Hammer on the left, New York Sickle on the right, and the Hammer and Sickle logo in the background, larger than life. Depending on lighting and overall use of color, a solid white or a solid black background might work best--it's hard to say off the top of my head. They each have a little too much red in their outfits for a red background to really work, in my opinion.

Too much? Too specific? Don't have time to knock it out? Would rather not tackle it? Can't get things in the poses mentioned above and need to set things up differently? That's all A-OK. Just let me know what you think, if it sounds like something you'd try out!

Thanks a million for even considering such!

Though I hate to say it, my friend's computer somehow just started working with COH. We don't know why. It just DID.

Oh well! At least he gets to play! =)

Magnifying glass? Sounds like my copy of the OED.

All these WiPs flying around. . . .



Anyway, I reckon this explains why PENGUIN Part 3 is a month or so old with only 3 plays (despite being 5 stars).

Ok. Thanks. Found out he's on HughesNet, which is a satellite hookup, and he's watching this thread from time to time. Any specifics you can give me/him regarding that much?

Latest info: he's also unplugged the router and is trying to run it straight with his modem with no change. Friend is also trying to reinstall the game as I type this.

By the way, thanks a million for your assistance so far, Mandu! You're the Man. . . du!

EDIT TO ADD: Reinstalling didn't help anything at this time.

He might just try calling up HughesNet tomorrow and asking them what's up.

I'm not sure how he's accessing the Internet (satellite, etc.). I'll find out.

I do know that Firefox is his default browser. I believe that IE is installed, though.

Would making IE the default browser potentially fix the problem, or would it not matter? It sounds like you're saying that it would show the pictures, but it would still fail to connect?

Ok. Thanks for the information, but from a less technical standpoint. . .

How do I USE any of this information? How could I ping the IP addresses, what is "UAC," why does it need to be disabled, and how could I do that?

I'm not trying to sound ungrateful. It's just that my friend and I are both largely clueless regarding any of this. =(

Thanks for the help so far, though! Please, keep it coming!

So I just installed the Architect Edition on a friend's desktop pc running Windows 7. He has an account set up and everything, having upgraded from the trial, BUT when he opens up the COH Updater, it shows a placeholder "x" icon instead of any pictures, and it fails to connect, cycling through "Connect. . . 1" and so on very slowly. We've tried following the instructions on one of the Support articles about adding one of two different port numbers to the end of the COH Updater command string. We've tried allowing City of Heroes to work with the Windows Firewall. We've tried turning off the firewalls on his computer. We've even tried a shut down and restart.

No progress.

Any suggestions?

Also, if you have any good links that might pertain to this, please let me know. I tried searching for stuff relating to this, and all I'm seeing that might be anything is Avatea's recent post regarding UDP ports, but that sounds more like an in-game thing than an Updater window thing?

Hi there!

I noticed you're getting a few hits to the thread but not any feedback, yet. While I've not had time to play much COH lately, and, honestly, I've not had the time to glance at the arc thanks to work, I felt I might be able to give a few suggestions here.

First off, what level ranges does your arc play in? Giving that information can help bring in a few players who might not be willing to try an arc "blind"; if they're the wrong level to play it, then they either will have to log out, change toons, and log back in, or they will find something else to play.

Also, what types of villains (or heroes) do you have your protagonists taking on? Some villain groups are pretty well loathed because of various factors--Malta for the Sappers and Gunslingers with their End Drain and hold attacks, Knives of Artemis for their Caltrops, and sometimes Winter Horde for all the slow attacks. Again, knowing what folks might be up against can help get some attention. If it's a custom group, then give the basic ideas behind that custom group in the thread--again, so folks know what kind of characters to run.

What are the power setups for the EB and the AV? EBs alone can be painfully tough to take down by any toons less than the mid-40s; AVs pretty much require heroes who know what they're doing and are used to working as a team.

Finally, do you have any particular allies or captives to rescue in this arc? Some folks simply refuse to play arcs that have such, simply because of the penalties allies put on experience gains and the negative Stealth hit that captives put on players.

I'm not trying to hurt any feelings or flame the thread or such. If you give some more information on these lines, though, you might JUST get some more responses into this thread--and hopefully great ones!

Good luck!

Darn your saying you want our best.

Try PENGUIN, arc 29205. It stars a lot of Crey from 30-54, as well as some Winter Horde. It's not too hard to beat, and, if you enjoy it, the arc starts off an ongoing story that goes through the next two, obviously named (when you search up stuff by @Tubbius) arcs in the series.

While I have arcs that are arguably better written (including the later ones in this series!), if you like a good, fun story with a little of a kooky approach, this is the one for you.

I can certainly attest to the difficulty of keeping a 5-star arc at 5-stars. "Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City" (351727) stayed at 5 stars for most of its first hundred or ratings or so. Since then, the arc is now at 132, but it's sitting at, at my best estimate, 4.3-4.4 stars, which is just shy of a 5 star rating. Even if it does get back up to showing 5 stars, a single 4 star rating invariably knocks it back down.

I used to push this arc pretty heavily, but because of the above facts, I've backed off for the most part. I believe it's a solid arc overall, and folks seem to have enjoyed it. . . but it's in 4 Star Heck right now, and because of that, it's never seeing plays--and it certainly doesn't have a chance at Hall of Fame at this rate if I can't get it up to a 5 star rating and hold it there, at least for the several 5 star rates needed to get a higher overall average and more recognition.

Not meaning to divert the thread or send in a whaaaaambulance. . . but there you go!

You might also enjoy my "Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City", arc 351727. Two former Cold War era Soviet spies turned American heroes have gotten themselves captured by the 5th Column, and it's up to you to find out what's going on!

Yayyyyyyy.

At least I have the 7 HeroClix figures. I can swap those in for store credit at the local gaming shop, so it's not a total loss. I guess.

Ok. Long story made short: I picked up the COV DVD collector's ed for reasonably cheap on that famous lil' auction site everyone knows. However, I missed the part that read "UK Import" on the seller's description, and now, on trying to redeem the access code, it wants me to make a COV Europe account.

Sad.

I reckon I'm hosed in terms of getting to simply add this access code to my current American account, right?

Thankee thankee. And I do touch on Toxin more later in a largely standalone arc, "Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City." I'll fix that about the number of frozen bodies, too. Thanks!

Oooooooo. PENGUIN Part 2: Waddle's Revenge is next! Whee!

Shame you've stopped accepting applications, as it is. I came up with a PENGUIN Part 3: Waddle to the Big Top in the interim. Oh well! Enjoy Waddle's Revenge!