jwbullfrog

Um, can we get back to the Pocket D point?

Well, as a counter point, as we sure Statesman would appreciate being brought back to life? After all, he died after an unnaturally long lifetime of watching his friends and family die and the world change around him. How do we know he would welcome the chance to come back?

Yes I know, fictional character and all that, but still.

as an example, I give these lyics from another hero who had that very thing happen to them...


"there was no pain.
no fear, no doubt, till they pulled me out
of heaven. I think I was in heaven.

so that's my refrain.
I live in hell, 'cause I've been expelled from Heaven
I think I was in Heaven."

Sometimes the only reward a hero gets is the final one.

my two cents in the coinbox.

Just adding a side observation here.

A nice round of applause to the developers for creating a story that people care about.

Note: I said care about. I didn't say like.

The hallmark of a successful piece of fiction is whether or not people talk about it. In this case, the sheer number of words that have been posted on the forums about this is quite amazing. It seems that everybody has an opinon (except, me. I never have an opinon about anything.)

Whether or not you liked the story, people are talking about it, analyzing it, and breaking it down looking for nuance. People are discussing the possible motivations of the characters involved and how they might have written it differently.

People simply don't do that unless they care about the story. So, with that thought in mind, Bravo to the dev team for deciding to do this.


just my two cents in the coinbox.

Greedo was a creep, to begin with. This you must understand or else nothing I tell you will seem wonderous....


Yes, I'm paraphrasing Dickens there but, hey, I could.

Anyway. I happen to be old enough to have seen the original version of the film in the theaters and I never had any doubt that Han shot first. It never really bothered me either.

In fact, I think myself and most of the theater laughed about it.

He gave Greedo (note the rather descriptive name) a chance to take a bribe and walk away. Greedo didn't. In fact, Greedo made it very clear that he intended to kill Han and cash him in for the reward.

Well, what's a good, slightly disreputable, smuggler to do? There seems to be only one option left and, in fact, you knew this was coming because we see Han unsnapping his holster.

Now, I will admit to being a little put off by the rework of the scene done in the '90's (?) Not that it changed my opinions of the characters any, but more that it just didn't seem necessary.

Oh, well. This will probably be argued about for years and years to come.

Thats my two cents rattling down into the coin box, please feel free to return to your forums with a clear conscience.

(ok, just rewatched the scene and Han does not offer him a bribe but, the little green creep still had it coming.)

OK, just a side note I'd like cleared up...


Pocket D?

Have I been missing something potentially important there?

An hour and a half in the air was plenty of time for Susan Kane to get her mind focused on the job ahead. She never claimed Zen training or any of those other, more esoteric arts, but she usually found that a brief bit of meditation usually cleared her head.

"Captain? It's time to wake up."

Then again, it had been a long night with little sleep.

She could feel the lightness in her stomach that told her that the helicopter was descending. That meant they had reached the secured area of Galaxy City called the Longbow safe zone. It was an area roughly three city blocks in diameter located midway between the end of the Kings Row tunnel and downtown. Here Longbow had used bulldozers to turn property damage into barricades, converted a mini mall parking lot into a helicopter landing facility, set up a field hospital, added satellite and radio transmitters, and turned an old hardware store into a command post.

Despite the fact that Longbow had gained law enforcement powers through the influence of some very powerful patrons, Longbow was essentially a rather large army. It was nice, thought Captain Kane, to see them acting like a professional one for a change.

Her sergeants had already given the necessary orders so that her unit was just waiting for the wheels to touch down and the ramp to drop. Landing space was at a premium so they would only have minutes to disembark and clear the field for the next arrival.

The loadmaster had gotten to his feet and started the ramp in motion three stories above the landing pad. The sunlight streamed in temporarily blinding Captain Kane's meditation blurred eyes. Ahead of her stood her troops in two parallel lines, gear over their shoulders, sergeants behind them.

The moment the wheels reached pavement, her Sergeants started shouting in unison and the unit moved forward. As they reached the end of the ramp, each soldier ducked down in the time honored (and properly paranoid) method of exiting an idling helicopter, and jogged out to a safe distance on the field. Captain Kane herself cleared the end of the ramp exactly 73 seconds from touchdown.

Waiting for the Captain at the edge of the airfield was a slightly stocky redheaded Corporal in olive drab field coveralls. It was a common public misconception that all Longbow personnel wore the red and white battlesuits all the time. Like most militaries, Longbow had adopted the all-purpose style of coveralls that had worked for decades for their support personnel. The battlesuits were good in the middle of a fight, but they were a little impractical for doing things like changing the transmission in a truck.

Captain Kane had always appreciated the battlesuits as one of the things that Longbow got right. They were made from a combination of Kevlar, Nomex, steel wire, and other, more exotic fabrics which made them impervious to small caliber firearms and strongly resistant to damage. As an added benefit, they happened to be form fitting enough to disguise any small imperfections in the wearer's physique. Captain Kane knew for a fact that she had never been centerfold material, even when she was younger, but she got more offers for dates while wearing her battlesuit than when she wasn't.

Some of Longbow's female recruits had signed up with that in mind.

The corporal waited until the roar of the departing helicopter's engines died away before snapping off a quick salute. "Good afternoon Captain, welcome to Galaxy City. It's Hell on Earth right now, but it's still better than Mercy Island." Susan Kane found herself smiling at the man's irreverent Southern accented observation. Some things about the military would never change. Good officers gave ground crews and mechanics a fair bit of leeway since they were the ones who actually kept the whole machine running.

Susan Kane returned the salute. "Thank you Corporal. Do you have the gear I requested?"

"Yes Ma'am. I've been asked to get your team set up as soon as you get here. Sergeant Wakefield sends his apologies for not being here in person but he got requisitioned for some project over in warehouse 25A."

"Anything serious?"

"Nothing that anyone has told me. But you know how that works. Given how hush-hush everything is, it's probably closer to your pay grade than mine Ma'am."

Captain Kane laughed at that summation of standard military tradition. "I'll let you know if I hear anything. But, right now we're on the clock."

"Yes, Ma'am. If I can get your team to follow me we'll get you ready to go."

The Corporal led Captain Kane and her people a short distance away to a section of the parking lot surrounded on three sides by walls of sandbags. Steel racks were spaced evenly with tool cases and at the back of the area, three other technicians we're busy stripping the electronics out of a downed Chaser.

"Here you are Ma'am, " he said indicating four jetpacks laid out on a table, "four Eagle packs checked, fueled up and ready to go."

Six of her team, including both her Sergeants, were qualified to operate the single man flightpacks called Eagle units. Captain Kane's plan for this operation was to use the Eagles, led by her junior Sergeant Benito Reyes, as advance scouts for her ground team.

The damage from the meteor strikes was bad enough that she knew she couldn't really trust any established maps for Galaxy City. The Eagles would be equipped with tactical mapping software that would be overlaying new information on her existing electronic maps. This would help her keep her team out of blind alleys and mazes that weren't there before. More importantly, they would be her early warning system for hostile forces.

Thanks to the poor MOUS, she knew that Arachnos had forces near her planned search area. As if that weren't bad enough, there were the usual list of vandals, thugs, lethal cults, and clockwork robots to be concerned about and, to top it all off, new versions of the alien creatures known as Shivans had been spotted all across the city. Susan Kane wasn't afraid of combat, but she did prefer to avoid it as much as possible.

It took twenty minutes for her Eagles and the base staff to recheck and get the suits properly strapped on. While they did that, the rest of her team made sure their weapons and gear were ready to go. At thirty minutes from the time they arrived in Galaxy City, Susan Kane and her troops were ready to set out into the streets.

"Benny," she said addressing Sergeant Reyes, "get your people in the air. Give me a staggered arc to our front and sides out to a half mile. Constant feedback on anything that even looks like a problem."

"Ma'am," he said as he saluted and waved to his fliers. As one they rose slowly off the ground and spread out into a semi circle.

"Master Sergeant?"

"Ma'am"

"Assuming Arachnos didn't shoot our fugitives on sight, they're out there somewhere. Let's go get them."

"Yes, Ma'am. Team, Move out!"

you know, I've had a lousy couple of days. This really did help put things in perspective.

Now, I'm more depressed than ever knowing that not only are my problems insignificant, apparantly, so am I.


Oh well, it's still good to know where I stand.... right next to the giant earthworm...

Am I expected to actually fight her, or does running in circles trying not to get hit count?

In either case, I might be in trouble.

It depends upon the character. Most of the time I don't have a solid enough story behind them so they exist in a perpetual 'early to mid 20's' state.

The few that actually have aged usually have done so in real world time . For example:

Valentina Rose started off her hero career at age 17. Now, 5 years later (and I have had this character for 5 years) she's about to hit lv 50 and retire and start looking for a real job.

Doc Vendetta didn't even become a villain until her mid 30's. Now, 7 years later, she's in her 40's and has made her personal fortune and has decided to leave the whole villain game up to the younger fools of the Rogue Islands.

I guess it all comes down to whether or not their story needs them to age.

I'm usually on the lookout for the perfect badge for each character I play. Just a few that I've hit so far are

"Woman in Black" for my Alien Loathing Corruptor, who, as it happens, dresses all in black.

"Woman Scorned" for my Widow who has been trying (unsuccessfully) to catch Recluses' eye for years.

"Celebrity" for my Controller who actually makes a living as a popular street performer.

"Technophobe" for my Blaster who works for 'the office of inadvisable technology'

and, perhaps the most perfect, for my Corruptor who, when she's not being a Super villain, actually works shifts in the ER in Cap Au Diable. Her badge... "Physician"

I don't know about a perfect badge for everybody, but there are a lot to choose from.

Empathy.

yup, I guess you could call me a scrapper enabler.

I don't recall them ever doing so, and thery're sort of my stock in trade.

So, if we're getting spacesuits and Moon Bases....


ROCKET TRAVEL POWER!!!!

so, if I throw it jellybeans will it do tricks?

I'd like an "all doors are one" travel power. That way, no matter where my next mission is, I could just use the door nearest to me to get there. Why, with this, I wouldn't need any form of mobility other than the basic jog.

This would fit with my character concept for The Lazy Avenger.

Defender of the weak, Champion of the Downtrodden, Enforcer of Justice....


just as soon as he feels up to getting off the sofa...

I'm kind of wondering why people seem to be in a hurry to kill off CoH.

Yes, the game engine is old and something of a patchwork mess.

But, it still works.

Yes, Some of the content is showing it's age.

But, we still get new content.

Yes, There are newer and flashier ways to do things.

But, do we really need to?


I agree that will happen eventually. And when that time comes, I'll judge it based upon it's merits and make my decision then. Until we know for a fact that it's coming around, I'll just enjoy what we have.