jwbullfrog

and this was Tycho's commentary...


Looking over the FAQ for the City of Heroes shutdown reminds me of the time I found (and subsequently consumed/obsessed over/used as the template for a grim new religion) the documents which obliterated my parents’ marriage. It is an utterly, cruelly, unsentimental, unsparingly frank assessment of the things people never, ever talk about until it’s time to close the store.

Before I died so many times in rapid succession that my XP Debt functionally entombed my main, the time I spent in City of Heroes was characterized by wonder and amusement. It was Cosplay: The Videogame in a lot of ways - I’ve never seen people take their characters so seriously, and invest so much. Regular servers were the equivalent of any other game’s dedicated RP shard. The peoplewatching was unparalleled, and you were almost guaranteed a reward for looking at someone’s profile. I saw my backstory field as an opportunity to reward such Trick or Treating, and I did my best to treat liberally while keeping tricks to a minimum.
Not everybody played it, or understands “what the deal,” and since character creation is locked down they probably never will. It seemed like it couldn’t possibly be expensive to maintain it, but I’ve had it explained to me that it’s not about maintenance costs; it’s about turning that money, the people behind it, and the equipment sustaining it toward something new. That is no comfort, of course; people rarely think of their loved ones as fungible organic compounds. But, there you have it.
I went to Card Kingdom to get a copy of Android: Netrunner, and I was not able to because the game no longer exists outside of people’s collections and the occasional overlooked shop. When I was visiting Brenna at college every other week, there was an exquisitely appointed game store by the dorm that sold piles of “failed” games for pennies on the dollar. I mean, like, a box of boosters for five bucks. That’s how I got into Netrunner, maybe fifteen years ago, and I found the one other person in Spokane who liked it and we played it into the ******* ground.
It was filed firmly under “Too Beautiful To Live.” The game’s asymmetry - one player is the Corporation, and one player is the “noble” ‘Runner - proved too gnarly for players and the retail edifice. They were really two unique games, here. It’s one thing to purchase a booster pack for Magic and get colors you don’t want. It’s another thing, as in Netrunner, to open a pack and gets cards for a game you don’t especially want to play. It would be like ordering the incredible Asian Chicken Ranch but instead of the Chicken you got a tightly folded leather belt. Even if it was a great belt, and you got a lot of belt for your money, that’s not what you wanted to eat. And now there’s ranch all over the belt. There are no winners in this scenario - only hungry wretches whose pants need perpetual adjustment. I played another game whose intoxicating asymmetries doomed it - Warhammer 40k - and the rise of deckbuilding as a genre and table gaming as a pastime means that we can explore this type of play in a way that’s both less mercenary and also, well, possible. That second one really helps.

Overall it's sympathetic and even complimentary. The fact that we made enough noise for PA to notice is a GOOD thing. Lets hope this keeps the snowball rolling and growing.

I'll throw my two inf in (in a little while they may not be good for much more...)

I would like to see a RP/Arts section for things like drawings, vids, RP threads, stories, and all of the other community created wonderful weirdness.

Although it might not mean much, It might be nice to retain something like the server specific forums.

Bravo VG.

That was gorgeous.

not really a never noticed before but a just learned.


Shadow Shard observers make a 'glomp' noise when they try to eat your head.

Makes me feel like a pacman ghost

My gut feeling is that we will see a black screen and a 'disconnected from server message' right on schedule.


My hope is that after a second or two it becomes a cutscene showing a sunrise and a website address for the new owners of the game as well as a date.

I've been noticing in my not-at-all-obsessive-search for CoH information on the web, that almost everything we do now is getting almost immediate coverage.

I will admit that most of it is 'they're doomed but they have spunk and we kind of hope they succeed" kinds of coverage but, hey, it keeps the word going around and really thats the best thing we can hope for right now.

We just checked and we have recieved a refund on our credit card.

Granted, my account prorates to $1.45 but...

At some point I and the USS Mercy Island will be looking for you.

I will renew a promise I made to myself many years ago...

I will continue to play this game as many days as my real life schedule allows, for as many hours as is practical. And, when the end comes, I will be there to offer to sweep the floors and stack the chairs and switch out the lights.

And a new promise from just a few weeks ago...

Should things turn out better than we expect, I'll be there first thing in the morning with a coffee and a bagel and a to-do list longer than my arm.

But for now, there has to be a task force or strike force or even a DBF that needs doing. We still have two months to enjoy the game as much as we can. While we're waiting for...anything... we might as well pass the time playing the game.

He also said that the game was effectively in Maintenance Mode so it's unlikely we'll be seeing more Double XP or things like that.


Viva Hit Streak and the team.

Just found this on youtube. It looks like more members of our community have hidden talents.

from the band Thatbandcalledghost...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRZVY...hannel&list=UL

the song is called We are Heroes and is dedicated to us.

I might end up on TSW, but not quite yet. I have a few things that need wrapping up here in Paragon before I go.

Spectacular.

Excellent work. Thank you so much for doing that.

I always said that I'd be willing to pay for a lifetime sub if one were offered. Since it's on par with other games, $500 seems reasonable to me for that. Considering that we have two accounts in our household, theres the $1000 you were talkiing about.

Where the game would make money from me is in all of the bits and extras. To be honest, I have purchased just about every booster pack (remember those?) costume set, power set, and sparkly the game has ever offered.

I did not see this thread in the list (I might just have missed it)

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...hlight=stories

Started by Heroid as a short RP thread. Might be worth including

You've done what I have been intending to do but (sadly) real life has prevented. I'll keep looking for others with what little search fu I posess.

here are a few I'm not sure you have

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...hlight=fiction
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...hlight=fiction
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...hlight=fiction
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...hlight=fiction

Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here... at least, I think I am...

I must admit, I've spent way too much time unconscious in my lifetime. Don't misunderstand me readers, I'm not talking about the time I've spent asleep. That, I am convinced, I haven't done enough. I freely admit that, given my choice in the matter, I will sleep ten to twelve hours a day. Sadly the basic necessity of making a living prevents me from doing that more often. No, I am actually speaking about a loss of consciousness due to physical injury or trauma. Most people don't have this problem and there are days when I envy them. But, then again, most people have never had the opportunities I have.

Now I suppose that I'm a little odd as defining the word 'opportunity' as being the chance to get into a losing fist fight with an animated refugee from a 50's Hawaiian lounge, but honestly, how many people even get to see something like that? True, this kind of thing is sort of normal in Paragon City, but not for everybody.

One of the surreal things about unconsciousness is that vague amount of time when your senses are busy rebooting. There's the rough tingling as your fingers negotiate cotton sheets or concrete and the dull murmur of sound that resolves itself into street sounds or the vaguely disturbing beep-beep-beep of a medical monitor. There's the bitter taste of secondhand diesel fumes and the astringent dryness of antiseptics. There's the dim glow of moonlight and the first blinding glimpse of incandescents and the smell of bacon over the campfire...

Wait a second...

From my experience, I've learned that suddenly opening my eyes after a blackout really does nothing more than give me a major headache. But I figured it was worth it since bacon was far, far down the list of things I was expecting.

"Awake now?" came a light soprano voice from my right. "Good. Please sit up slowly. It would be terribly inconvenient for me if you were to die now."


Inconvenient for her? Well I suppose, but I had a bit more personal stake in that arguement. Still, sitting up slowly sounded like a good idea. I could feel the pull of the gauze wrapped around my ribs as I worked up onto one elbow and then the other. Sitting by a small fire (made of pieces of tiki I noticed) was the same auburn haired girl I had seen before.

She had her rifle propped up against a nearby tree. It was within easy reach but, since she had her jacket draped over the barrel, it didn't look like she was expecting to use it any time soon. She looked way too casual for somebody that was having a picnic on a zombie covered island. I suppose the glowing blue field surrounding us might have had something to do with that.

She noticed my glance and nodded her head as she handed me a plate.
"It's a time distortion field," she said. "I won't confuse you with the math but basically, everything inside of it is moving at a 1000 to 1 ratio compared to the time outside of it."

"So about 16 minutes to the second then?"

She looked impressed. "A little more than that but...yes."

I had impressed myself as well. Normally I'd have needed calculator or a friendly engineer to work something out that quickly. Math and I are old adversaries. I decided to leave that thought behind for the moment. There were a few more important things I neded to know.

"So how long was I out?"

"About 3 hours relative time. You looked like you could use a nap. And, maybe, a surgeon. Fortunately, we have tools for that."

I hadn't really noticed how little pain I was feeling until she said that. Neither had I quite processed the fact that she was casually talking about manipulating time as if it was something she did every day. The part of my brain that just has to ask questions woke up at that point but, before I could get the words out, she casually reached into her pocket and pulled out a little blue and silver box that looked familiar.

"That's ..."

"Your Blackberry? Not really. Yours is still in your pocket." She tossed it into the air and, as it tumbled end over end, I saw a very familiar silver bird logo on the case. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my own Blackberry. Questions were starting to stack up behind my eyebrows and I figured that it would be best to ask them before I developed a massive headache.

I figured I'd start with the simplest one. "What's your name?"

"Zandra. But I suppose you'll want the long version. I'm Doctor Zandra Alexander-Reyalde, professor of Time and Related Studies at New Paragon University."

"New Paragon University? There's no such place."

"Not yet."

Not yet. Readers, I suggest that, if you are ever offered to opportunity to travel through time, you pass it up. It creates far too much confusion.
I suppose I should not have been surprised to meet somebody from the future. After all I've met aliens and magicians, demons, vampires, werewolves, and just about everything else to have graced the pages of centuries of fiction. I was due for a time traveller.

"So," I asked, "Doctor, why are you here?"

She laughed a bit before answering. "Please don't call me Doctor. It makes me think I should be running around in a 14 foot scarf or something. Call me Zandra. I'm here because you and the members of your crew shouldn't be." She paused a moment to gather her thoughts. I could tell by the look on her face that she was trying to find a simple way to explain something very complicated. Most of my math tutors had that same look whenever they tried to explain calculus to me.

"I suppose I should explain a bit. You and your crew ran afoul of a semi-stable, localized, time space distortion wave."

I tried to take a moment to work through that. I could feel my headache getting worse so I gave up. "What?"

"Oops, sorry. Fell into shop-speak there. The area around the Caribbean is a weak spot in time. Normally, everything is fine. But every now and then the energy levels get out of whack. A really powerful Hurricane or solar flares or something like that happens and then that weak spot tears a bit and you get..."

"The Bermuda Triangle."

"Exactly. We, the organization I work for that is, have all of those disruption points mapped. We know when they are going to happen down to the second. Those maps are so reliable that we can use the disruptions as a power source for some projects." She ran her fingers through her hair and stood up quickly, starting to pace around the inside of the bubble. She was waving her hands in front of her as though she were trying to shape her thoughts.

"The wave you were caught by was not mapped. It should not have have happened and we want to know why. Something or somebody has radically screwed up the energy flows in the here and now and if I can't figure out why, it's going to cause all sorts of problems with History as you know it."

History as I knew it? That didn't sound good. In the movies, a moment like this would have called for a musical sting or a clap of thunder or something. All I got was the crackling of the fire. It was a bit anti-climactic. I suppose that I should have asked some more important questions but the only one that came to my head at that moment was, "So what now?"

She turned, clapped her hands together, and smiled at me with that same maddening Cheshire grin.

"First we finish breakfast. Then we find your friend, rescue her, figure out what the zombies are all about and then we save the world.

After that we can think about lunch."

Andy,

You always did right by us. We will not forget that.

I fully expect to see you pop up again somewhere in the gaming world. And when you do, expect us to remind you of all of your faults and faux pas and mis-statements...

And should small miracles happen, we'll always welcome you home.


Godspeed.

"il nous faut de l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace"—


"We need audacity, and yet more audacity, and always audacity!"



You ever here the phrase "That's so crazy it just might work?"

Welcome to our world.

We're not dead yet.

starting the game for the purposes of demo playback?

I've seen this point brought up briefly over on the titan boards and it prompted a question or two.

1) Would hard copies of the game made before everything switched over to the NCSoft launcher contain the original programming?

2) could that programming (if it exists) be used to revert existing copies of the game back to the 'old' way of doing things once NCSoft ends it's involvement with the game?

I am not a programmer so I honestly have no clue if this would work. Anyone have any thoughts about this?