Angel of Retribution

She's got looks(That hair! Those eyes! That body! Those cheekbones! That smile!), but she's got brains beyond that.

National Merit Scholar
Turned down an appointment to The Julliard School of Music
Double-major valedictorian in Music and Mathematics at University of Texas-Austin

I spent literally days going over the costume, getting each piece to 'fit' with the others, trying color scheme after color scheme until it 'felt' right. She was also given an alternate costume with wings("Angel", remember) to use in boss battles(...I'm such a geek), hell, I even colored her longsword differently for that outfit(...I'm really a geek). This was the character that showed me how truly fun and different this game was. I can honestly, no-BS say that the time I've spent playing as her was some of the best I've had in over 25 years of playing games(I'm 35). Dropping out of the sky and busting out a Whirling Sword on a group of mooks never got old, nor did standing toe-to-toe with EB's and mashing their faces in. She was my first, and she'll always be my favorite, the one I ran around with, the one, when I was bored, that I'd simply fly around and explore an entire zone with.

My third character, Pale Fallen Angel,

was created on a lark. My best friend -- who was actually the one that got me into the game -- sent me an email about Peacebringers and Warshades being on sale, and I thought "Why not?" I immediately created her and reserved her name(got burned on that with AoR, which wasn't her first name choice, though I honestly can't remember what was), then just left her in Icon for a few days while I tried to figure out an outfit. But while I was doing that, I ended up writing a story for her, though the name comes form Hideyuki Kikuchi's eleventh Vampire Hunter D novel; it's not a 'by the book' PB name, but darn it, I wanted to use it.

Yeah, I'm a sucker for tragedy, sue me. I died more than my fair share of times while learning the difference between a Scrapper and a Peacebringer. Although I have to admit that hovering in mid-air over Nocturne, blasting her while she ran around raging impotently below me, made up for all the Void Hunters. For a time, she was my favorite, I think more because of the "newness" of getting used to a ranged powerset instead of melee, though I did get used to it enough that I can switch between her and AoR effortlessly. But she was the one who gave me the deepest emotional connection to the game, someone who'd had it all and then lost everything, with only revenge to hold onto. I even went back later and gave her a "business suit" FBSA outfit.

So there you have it: my three characters. In closing, what did they mean to me? TheCommander, almost nothing. AoR showed me how easy it was to immerse yourself in this game. And PFA demonstrated how effortlessly any story that the players could come up with would fit into this world. That, if this does end, will be the legacy of City of Heroes to me. A game that let you be anything you wanted, and yet still made you feel like you belonged.

Hear, hear! "Paragon Publishing" does have a ring to it.

This! That was actually part of the email I sent to Gabe Newell(who knows if he ever read any of them); I advised that many people would probably be willing to double the subscription fee, and floated the notion of a 20-30% price increase in the market.

Hey, I subscribed to FFXI for almost three years at $15/mo, and for literally a year of that, I logged in mayyybe twice a week. I will gladly pay $30 a month subscription if it will save the game. Hell, I'd consider it a bargain.

And the idea of crowdfunding? Works for me! I've got a bonus coming at work(in the range of several hundred $$), and I'd gladly sink it into this in lieu of putting it in the bank to earn 1% interest annually.

Hey, whatever it takes. As Cap said about Dr. Doom during Onslaught: "I know him. He wants to make sure the world's still around for him to take over."

The major comparison I can make from ME3 and us(I saw no reason to quote the entire post), is how differently the community managers handled it. The devs have been all over the board here, Zwill most prominently. BioWare's CM, Chris Priestly...was an absolute ****ing jackass. I was there day one, and at one point when someone chided him for saying nothing of importance, he actually said "How would you like it if I didn't say anything?"

My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe someone in his position could get away with that, and there can be no greater contrast between that forum(along with the immediately-pre-ME3-release-rulechange-hey you can't make fun of the developers or we'll ban you from the forum and Origin announcement) and this one.

I've actually carried on a few Twit-conversations with Felicia, and I've been trying to get her attention about this, but in the wake of DragonCon, she's probably been flooded with messages. Anyone else in the halls of Geek Royalty we can manage to bring this to their attention; Gabe & Tycho from Penny Arcade, Scott from VGCats, Wil MF'in Wheaton, Rob from ToplessRobot, anybody. Send 'em an email, a Tweet, or a blog comment.

Actually, you are. You may be able to evoke a reaction sometimes, but don't you ever wonder how much what you say really matters when other people who've been here just as long as you say "ignore him"?

I'm here to talk to people who have more to contribute than half-baked insults. My post may have been inspired by you, but it was not about you per se; it was about the culture of rudeness that exists in most places on the internet. You are utterly without any significance to me. You are, in closing, nothing. I would say that from now on I'm going to ignore you, but you can't ignore nothing. It's not there to be ignored.

Obvious troll is obvious.

I would ask if you could be more of a jerk, but the answer is probably 'yes'.

I've dealt with your kind since 56.6 was cool. And sad to say, with only three weeks in I've also met a few of you in this game, which I had, probably foolishly, believed was different.

Just because you've been here 8 years doesn't make you better than anyone else, nor does it make you some kind of game god. More the better for us, I think.

Someone comes in, gives the canon description of where the Rogue Isles are, and you probably just clicked on the profile, saw a relatively short-time player, and decided to get your jollies. Despite your blustering, you had not covered that in this topic, so how was someone supposed to know? Not all of us can commit every factoid to memory, not all of us have the time to scroll through years-old thread archives that discuss where the Isles are. Not all of us, but apparently you.

I've seen this happen so many times -- on the FFXI boards, with Bungie.net, hell, even on the repressive BioWare forums. New player comes in, asks a question, gets attacked for being a "stupid noob". New player comes in, joins a conversation that looks interesting, and gets flamed for being a "stupid noob" and not knowing something. People give up playing games over things like this, they willingly forgo some tiny little bit of joy just so they won't have to deal with idiots like you.

Newsflash, jackass: just because you think you're all that doesn't mean you are. You're no better, and from the tone of your posts most likely a worse, person than most of the people on these forums. But I have to give you this; you're the one people remember. When they're deciding whether to try out a new game, go back to an old one, or join a new message board, you're the type of person who influences their decisions. A troll.

An ill-tempered, mean-spirited, sad, powerless little troll.