Alissara

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Castle, one thing that would be very helpful for this kind of discussion would be some numbers that we don't have access to. For example, the question of replay value of the PvP zones in CoX could be well demonstrated by looking at the number of a couple of badges.

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I cannot release those numbers. That would have to come from someone above me!


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To be 100% honest, I'm not convinced badge counts will be a fair metric.

Fact. I have three badge-"ladies of the evening" ( ).

Fact. I do not like PvP.

Fact. Two of the three (that are high enough level) have a good may of the "PvP only" badges, because I'm willing to put aside my distaste of PvP long enough to get into the needed PvP zones and get the badges.

So what you may get is a measure of the combined numbers of PvP folks, and those that will tolerate something they dislike long enough to get something they desire.

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Do you have the reputation badges? If so which ones? I've been under the belief (perhaps mistaken) that most people interested in badges avoid those, but do pursue the you've been in X zone for Y time which doesn't of course mean you have to PvP.

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Ack - my original may show as deleted, mostly because it was a bit necromantic vs Castle's post, and because it didn't bring that much to the table, IMHO. Worse yet, my reply is likely to cause a MAJOR flamefest. If you do want to complain about what I'm about to say, please don't because it's not applicable to this discussion - there are threads that cover it elsewhere.

I have about a 200 rep on Alissara, although it'll have decayed with my temp transition to test for I9.

All I'll say is that even rep badges are not an accurate metric, and wander off mumbling something about a small group of people keeping to themselves in a corner of Warburg.

It bears repeating:

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... and those that will tolerate something they dislike long enough to get something they desire.


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Post deleted by Alissara

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Can't remember which MMO's devs said this. I'd hazard a guess it was either CoX here, EvE or Ryzom.

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The best way to be a success in the MMO market place right now is to explicitly be different from WoW.


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The logic behind this is that if you copy WoW (as Lotro have done, to a degree), you're going to be fighting the 10,000 pound gorilla on its home turf. Meaning you'll be competing directly with WoW for subscribers. Lotro has a niche they can tap: J.R.R.T. fans, but I don't know if those people will be enough to keep the game alive.

However, if you do things differently as the three games I first cited have done, you have a chance, simply because you have the chance to attract players that do not want the phat-lewt centric nature of WoW. Witness the fact that CoX and EvE both have around 170,000 subscribers.

Ryzom is in trouble, as far as I know its subscriber count is in the single digits of thousands, and Nevrax, the company that develop it filed the French equivalent of Chapter 11 in the last year or two. I have a hypothesis that Ryzom Ring was a desperate effort on the part of the devs there to get a rapid injection of content, which that game badly needed. There was talk that good player created modules would be vetted by the devs and made part of the game. Even if only 20% of the subscriber base tries it, and only 1% of those that try can create decent content, and that's still 4 to 6 unpaid content developers.

So that means even being different is not a guarantee of success, but I contend that it has a higher probability of success for a new game.

One other last comment. We've been talking about the relative starting order of MMO's and other games with persistent state (server chars in NWN and Diablo 2 realms for example). The only one comment I'll make is that we should not forget that CoX had a six to seven month head start on WoW.

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Alissara, what do you mean by 'ghastly'? Sometimes my mouse pointer comes up grey instead of blue but that's all I've noticed.


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Interesting. For me the cursor goes to a dithered black and white monstrosity. It's the right shape, but after the nice colored cursors in game (blue hand, gray arrow, etc), monochrome black and white just don't cut it.

Mind you, that's on an Nvidia 7400 Go in a laptop. For better or worse, my desktop runs XP, and I have absolutely no plans to upgrade in the near future, so I can't comment on how a higher quality card would do.

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-compatiblecursors 1 works, but looks ghastly.

Initial testing seems to show this works. Y.A.M.M.V., standard disclaimers apply and all that.

1. Hit Win-R (or start/run)
2. Type sysdm.cpl and hit enter
3. Hit the "Advanced" tab, then under "Performance" click "Settings".
4. Disable mouse shadows.
5. "OK" your way out.

No

Chapter 5.

Vengeance.

Next morning I was in our base, sitting across from a thoughtful tanker, dressed in his customary black business suit.

I'd spoken with Solak, leader of The Heroes of the Black Rose the previous evening, and he'd agreed to come along. Most of the rest of the Roses had voiced their support, so it was quite a large force that left the base and headed for Wes's bar in Steel Canyon.

Solak had indicated that he wanted a word with me before the two of us left, which puzzled me a little.

"Alissara. I've spoken with the leader of the group we'll be working with today. They've agreed that although they are the larger force, since the investigation has been largely your efforts alone, this can be considered a Black Rose operation."

He turned away, and I gasped as he deftly cut a single bloom from a potted plant on the table behind him. The rose's petals were such a dark shade of violet that in anything except the brightest of light, it looked black.

"I think that it would be appropriate to send a message to the 5th. Column that they are not welcome in Paragon City, and that they never will be."

He carefully wrapped the flower in tissue paper, and put it inside a box for safety.

"Alissara. You'll have to hurry, but before the meeting, go to the store at this address. The lady that runs it knows me well. Tell her that Solak needs a vase. She'll give you one."

I didn't argue, instead I took my leave and made my way as quickly as possible to a rather nondescript store in Kings Row. From the outside, it looked like what many people would have called a junk store, there were all soorts of odd paraphernalia in the window.

I almost had to stoop to enter, and was greeted by a wheezing breath from the back.

"Can I help you, Missy?"

I blinked at way she addressed me, but then remembered what Solak had said.

"Ma'am, I'm here because Solak asked me to come and see you."

"So you know Solak, do you Missy." she went on. "You can't be all that bad then. What does that young lad want?"

After hearing how she referred to Solak, I decided not to worry about telling her my name, and simply relayed his request. She looked back at me in silence for several seconds.

"Solak wants a vase. What's the young lad planning?" It was as if she knew what we were about to do today. Maybe she did. Then she caught sight of the box under my arm.

"Yes, he would need one, wouldn't he." She rummaged around for a few moments before producing an exquisite crystal vase. Within seconds, she'd wrapped it up, and handed it to me.

"Just tell him that if he's going to put a rose in it, to crush an aspirin and add it to the water. It makes them last much longer."

Then she looked at me again.

"Are you a Black Rose too?"

"I am, Ma'am," I replied.

She looked at me with an expression that I couldn't quite decipher.

"You look after yourself, Missy. Take care of Solak too. He's a good boy."

I wasn't sure, but it was almost as if she cared for him like a parent.

"I will Ma'am. And thank you for the vase."

The meeting in the back room of the bar was remarkably short. There wasn't much that needed to be covered about the operation itself, we'd all taken part in hostage release actions in the past. Once Wes had given us a brief description of the area, and what we could expect inside the warehouse, we broke up into smaller groups, both to help with managing the raid, as well as to ensure that mentors and sidekicks were well matched.

The trip to Brickstown was uneventful. Most of the villains that caught sight of the large army of heroes moving thropugh the streets decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and quietly slipped into the shadows. Of the few that didn't evaporate at the sight of us, none started any trouble.

We pushed the door open and moved inside.

It wasn't a surprise to find that they knew we were coming. They'd gathered every soldier they could find to defend the place. They knew that it was do or die for this operation. If we succeeded today, it would cost them tremendously.

The first wave were dealt with, but hardly had the last one fallen when another huge group of 5th. Column soldiers attacked. Relentlessly, they kept coming at us, but as time progressed, we made our slow and steady progress through the warehouse.

Half an hour after entering the warehouse, we came upon a makeshift prison. All of the inmates were in somewhat bad condition, some worse than others. Senji-San immediately called a halt to the main operation to collect their names, and to ensure they were lead to safety.

His policy was a little different from ours about who was selected to stay and guard, but nobody was going to argue. They simply rolled dice, losers stayed. Sure, they wouldn't see much more action today, but their job was vital. The safety of the rescued hostages was of paramount importance.

"There's one thing that worries me." said Senji-San to me, after he'd checked the names of all the prisoners we'd found. "I had the PPD cross check this list, and mark down the names of everyone who was still safe. That left the people the 5th. had captured. We've found all but four of them, and two that are still missing are Alan Durham and his wife."

"I just hope we find them and the two others here."

We'd just finished clearing out an esepecially tenacious group, when we found a locked door behind where they'd been standing. It was a steel rolldown, and rapidly proved to us that we could not break it down.

"We'll have to find a key for it." said Senji-San, who was coordinating with Solak. "Note where this is, we'd best move on and come back here later."

Half an hour later, we'd eliminated every last enemy this side of the steel, door, and no sign of a key.

"I bet I know where it is," piped up Xanthia, who was a Black Rose tanker that had lost her arm to a Rikti blade, weilded by one of the Lost. "We found that desk a while back, let's try looking through it more closely."

She lead us back to the desk, and we went through it again. Nothing.

"This is futile," she fumed. "Stand back."

With a strength normally reserved for defeating Paragon's enemies, she swung her huge stone mallet at the desk. The result was spectacular, if predictable. With a loud crunch, the top was reduced to toothpicks, at which point the ends fell inward on what remained of the top. But was caught everyone's attention was a quiet "clink" as something made of metal landed on the concrete floor.

After sifting through the pile of wood for a moment, she triumphantly held up a small key, and promptly handed it to Solak.

We all headed back to the locked steel door, and in moments it was rolling up towards the ceiling, revealing a small section that was mostly comprised of small offices. Doubtlessly the section of the warehouse that dealt with administration and bookkeeping.

It also revealed a vast force of 5th. column soldiers, so we set to work again. They knew that there was no half way house. Either they stopped us, or we would defeat every last one of them here in the warehouse, bringing the operation to a certain close.

Other than this initial force there were hardly any other soldiers visible save for a small contingent guarding two more prisoners. The 5th. Column were dispatched in short order, and Senji-San checked their names. As expected, they were two of the missing four, but unfortunately for me they were not Professor and Mrs. Durham.

Searching the remainder of the warehouse, it rapidly became apparent that the people leading this operation had blockaded themselves in one of the offices. As soon as we'd cleaned out the rest of the area, we gathered around the locked door.

"We ought to take a moment to get fully rested and buffed." said Senji-San.

"Agreed." replied Solak, and then he glanced at me.

"I've got what you sent me to get," I said, in reply to the question his eyes asked. "One other thing," I continued, to the rest of the force. "No one else touches Schwarzherz. He's mine." These last two word were uttered with enough venom dripping off them that people got the hint.

As soon as we were fully prepared, Senji-San nodded to Black Archon, and the diminutive tanker proceeded to reduce the door to tinderwood with one swing of his fist.

I was surprised that so large a number of 5th. column could fit into so small a space. But through the ranks of recruits, enlisted men, NCO's and officers, I caught sight of a single man at the back. If looks could kill, his expression would have dropped me in my tracks.

I waited exactly two seconds for the tankers to get in and start holding the attention of the "cannon fodder", and then sent a shockwave into the room from where I was standing in the door. Not with the intent to do damage, although it did, but to get a clear line of sight to where Schwarzherz was standing. I looked at the ground just behind him through half closed eyes, and then activated my teleport power to land exactly where I'd been looking.

As strange as it sounds, we were back to back the instant after my arrival. I immediately spun a half circle to face him, and found him already turning to me. Doubtless the sound of my arrival had alerted him, Teleport self is not the quietest of powers by any stretch of the imagination.

We stood there, face to face for a couple of seconds, locked in a tableau of hostility.

"Schwarzherz." I snarled at him.

"You must be Alissara," he said, with as much contempt as he could muster in his voice.

Nothing more was said, as we joined the battle. It was almost like a dance, but a very grim dance indeed. I had numerous powers at my disposal, but he was a formidable opponent. Clearly, he had received excellent training in martial arts. I grudgingly admitted that for someone fighting bare handed, he gave a good showing of himself.

In the end, the support that I had from my allies made the difference. It is doubtful that had we faced each other in isolation I could have won. However, the preparations before combat, and the healing received during the fight were enough to tip the scales in my favor. Ironically, it was perhaps the weakest of my attacks, a strike, that dealt the coupe de grace. He crumpled to the floor, and with his last breath before unconsciousness took him, he whispered, "You cannot win, we will eventually prevail."

A lot had been going on in the mean time. All that was left standing were a few other high ranking officers, who were rapidly dealt with. In addition, two of our number were standing in a corner, watching over a very frightened couple of civilians. I pushed my way through the remnants of the carnage to them.

"Professor Durham?" My tone of voice asked the question.

"Yes, and this is my wife, Elizabeth."

Before she could even open her mouth, I interrupted. "Kathy's safe. She's been staying with me for the last few days."

The last trace of fear was removed from her face. It would take a while for them to get over this, but for now all was well.

I had one last thing to do. I carefully unwrapped the vase and the flower, and was just about to put the stem of the rose in the vase, when Solak tapped me on the shoulder by way of interruption.

"You'll probably need these," he said and handed me a small plastic bottle of water and a small piece of paper, folded into a rough envelope. I poured the water into the vase, and then opened the paper to find a tiny amount of white powder.

"It's a crushed aspirin. Add it to the water." I slowly turned to look at him with an expression of total puzzlement on my face. Then I thought better of asking the obvious question about the storekeeper in Kings Row. Some questions are best left unanswered.

As we left the room, I glanced back in. It looked so incongruous. Despite the removal of the bodies, the room clearly looked like it had been the site of a major battle. Yet standing peacefully in the middle was a lone flower in a vase that would have been more at home on a coffee table in Beverly Hills, CA.



Epilogue (1).

We knew that the authorities would want to talk with the captives we'd released to gather as much information as possible, however for Professor and Mrs. Durham, that would have to wait. I had a more important task to take care of. Our trip to my apartment was positively sedate by comparison with my normal rate of travel, but I had to admit that walking from the tram to my apartment building was a nice change of pace once in a while.

The elevator made its interminable trip up to the 28th. floor, and moments after the doors finally opened, I unlocked the door to my apartment. The three of us walked in, and I suppressed a grin when I caught sight of Kathy, wearing a miniature version of my outfit, with her back to us, obviously deeply engrossed in the book she was reading.

"Kathy," her mother quietly called to her.

Her reaction was a rather startling counterpoint.

"MOMMY!" she bellowed, the chair tipped over backwards as she jumped up, and like a small purple and white bullet, she flew across the room to wrap herself in her mother's arms.

Elizabeth Durham had taken the last hour or two remarkably well, but this was too much for her. She broke down and cried, tears of relief streaming down her face.

Professor Durham looked at me, clearly happy that his family was finally reunited, but then he glanced at what Kathy was wearing, and looked back at me with raised eyebrows.

I grinned back at him and then whispered, "Something I had made for her, it helped to take her mind off things."



Epilogue (2).

I decided against my signature set for the evening, and instead put on a rather nice charcoal grey and blue set that Serge had made for me.

The school auditorium was packed with parents, graduation was always a happy event. I hadn't yet told the professor what I'd bought for Kathy, I wanted it to be as much a surprise for him as it was for her.

The ceremony progressed, until the announcer finally said "Third grade, Miss Brady's class." Kathy stood up, and along with a dozen other students, she nervously approached the stage. The class was recognized for having all successfully graduated, and then the Honor students were named.

"Mathematics, Caroline Carper." Applause ...

"Science, Frank Waters." Applause ...

"English, Katherine Durham." Applause ...

"History, Paul Kwok." Applause ...

Each student received a small gift, usually suggested by the parents. Not surprisingly, the professor had suggested a book. However, there was a second book there for her that I'd quietly slipped to the principal.

Professor Durham's eyes widened when he saw her returning with two books. The look on his face became almost puzzled as he saw the title, "The Oddyssey." Again, I grinned at him.

"I know your main interest is classic English literature, Professor," I said to him. "But give this a try, you might just like it. Homer does spin a first class yarn."

Chapter 4.

Breakthrough.

Wes was in his usual place when I walked into the bar the following morning.

"Here's what I have for you," said Wes, cutting the pleasantries short. "There's a group that have been working on this new operation since we first caught wind of it. They've made a lot of progress, and have a mission today to gather some data files from an office in Founders' Falls. They think there's a good chance of turning up something about the mysterious Kommandant during the raid. If you get a move on, you should be able to catch up with them at the Talos Island Tram station."

I headed north across Steel Canyon, making the shortest time possible to the Tram station up there. No more than a couple of minutes later, I emerged into the morning sunlight on Talos Island.

"Alissara, glad you could make it!" boomed a huge voice, belonging to an equally huge body. "I'm Nightgun. Assault rifle blaster at your service. Senji-San is leading the team, he's one of the best defenders I've ever met. He and the rest of the team are at the gate to Founders' Falls, someone should be able to summon us there in an instant."

Almost as soon as he'd finished speaking, I felt the familiar tugging of a teleport, and I was instantly taken to the gate in the south wall of Talos.

"Someone's going to have to take you in as a sidekick, Alissara," said Senji-San, as soon as I'd arrived. "You'll be in way over your head otherwise."

"It'll probably be best if I work with either a tanker or another scrapper. If I do my usual 'up close and personal' thing, I don't want my mentor too far away from me."

"Good idea. Black Archon, any chance I can convince you to be mentor?"

"Sure thing, Senji-San," replied a small figure in a black robe.

"Don't let his looks fool you," said Nightgun, trying to fake a whisper with a voice that could be heard 20 feet away. "He's as tough as nails."

"On the money, big one," replied the small tanker. "I'll keep them busy while you cut them to pieces."

I could tell from the banter that they were eager to get started, and in under five minutes we'd arrived at the door of an office building deep in Founders' Falls.

It was clear that these heroes worked together well. I quickly settled down to the task of concentrating on the stronger foes we came across. There was plenty of firepower for dealing with the 'cannon fodder' minions that filled the office building, my strength lay in the ability to go one on one against a tougher opponent.

All of a sudden I heard a yell. "Runner!"

It was almost a reflex action. I looked up the hall at the back of a villain, running as if his life depended on it.

"Oh no you don't!"

A few seconds later, the very startled 5th. Column recruit was right back where he'd started, and was on the floor unconscious a moment later.

"Nice catch, Alissara," commented Senji-San, "If he'd got away for help, who knows what would have happened."

We moved forward, as quickly as was possible. Our rate of progress could have been better, but since we were here to gather information as much as anything else, time was spent looking through any desk or filing cabinet we found. Many of them held nothing of interest, but one by one the clues collected.

As we progressed through the building, the picture painted by the information we were gathering got more and more grim. It became apparent that Schwarzherz was highly concerned by the lack of acceptance of the 5th. Column by the public. It seemed that he had made it his personal crusade to make them a recognized organization, no matter what the cost.

I began to suspect that there was a hint of his signature on the men we were fighting. For all their other faults, they had a loyalty to the 5th. that went above and beyond the call of duty. Such a pity it was misplaced.

We'd just finished clearing out a large contingent of 5th. column, when we found a very frightened office worker cowering behind a filing cabinet.

"Thank goodness you arrived!" she gasped. "They were talking about all sorts of terrible things. Brainwashing me, and who knows what."

As if the wound the 5th. had created wasn't painful enough, here was someone pouring salt into it. They were brainwashing people as part of the new operation.

"We've got to get you out to safety." said Senji-San to the woman. "Black Archon, can you and Alissara escort her out. The two of you should be able to deal with any stragglers we might have missed."

"Not a problem," replied the diminutive tanker. "We'll call for a summon when we're done."

It only took a minute or two to make our way back to the front entrance of the building, and we only encountered a single patrolling recruit on the way. He lasted all of three seconds before collapsing to the floor.

I took the time to ask her if she knew anything about what was going on.

"Not much really. I think there's two reasons why they'd captured me. I'm just an accountant, but I've been doing it for a long time. I can see why they'd want that. And since my husband died last year, I think they figured that nobody would miss me. I got the impression they were planning to brainwash me and make me work for them."

Yet again, the puzzle did another lap round my mind. Assuming the same fate awaited Kathy's father, why did the 5th. Column want to brainwash an English literature professor, so that he'd work willingly for them. What did he have to offer?

As soon as the accountant was safely outside the building, Black Archon requested that we be summoned back to the main force.

"We're definitely on the right track as far as you're concerned Alissara," said Senji-San once we were back with them. "We found this list of names. I'll be going straight to the PPD with it when we get through here, since it is probably a list of people they want, or have already captured. It's got Alan Durham's name on it."

We pressed forward, and after another fourty five minutes of action, we reached the top floor of the building. There wasn't too much left up here, since most of the forces guarding the operation's leader had already been sent to try to stop us. We found them in a room, more intent on starting a fire in a wastebasket than in trying to stop us.

Realising that they were making an effort to destroy information, a quick thinking ice bolt from a blaster had the fire extinguished almost instantly, at which point we turned to the men.

The fight didn't last very long, but as the last one fell, he uttered the words: "You may have won this battle, but we will win the war. Schwarzherz cannot be stopped."

As if we needed it, this was confirmation that we were on the right track. Senji-San started working through the contents of the wastebasket. Some of the papers in there were damaged beyond recovery, but despite that, we'd found the mother-lode.

"Good thinking, Ice finger," he commented to the blaster. "You almost certainly saved a vast amount of information from being permanently lost."

There were a couple of papers that covered various brainwashing techniques, plus a long discourse on the importance of successful propaganda. Which dovetailed perfectly with Schwarzherz's desire for public acceptance of the 5th. Last but by no means least, was a partial address.

"Give this to every contact you can think of that might be able to turn something up." said Senji-San. "There can't be that many 3624 East 1-smudge-th Streets in Paragon City. See if anthing shakes loose that connects this address with the 5th Column."

We parted company, and I made my way as quickly as possible to the Icon store in Steel Canyon. Serge beamed at me as I walked over to the counter.

"I have the costume for you. You must make sure to bring Kathy here, she's going to look fabulous wearing it."

"I'll be sure to do that, Serge. Thanks again for your help, you may have just made a young girl's day for her."

My next stop was Wes's hangout. I recounted what we'd found in the offices.

"It looks like you hit paydirt there. I'll put that address out on the street, and see what turns up. Someone's got to know something."

I headed back home, and found Kathy looking over my book collection.

"We're getting towards the end of my current story. Help me chose the next one to read."

My eyes quickly roamed over the shelves. Romeo and Juliet? I decided to let her father lead her into tragedies. Then an idea came to me.

"You've read several book with your dad that were written in English. Have you ever read any of the really old books that were originally written in Greek or Latin?"

"No I haven't. My dad tends to stay with the ones we've talked about."

"I'm going to take a chance, and try one written ages ago. It's called "The Oddysey", written by someone called Homer."

"I've never heard of that. What's it about?"

"It tells the story of a hero that went away to fight in a war. He got lost on the way home, and just about everyone thought he was dead. However his son went looking for him and found him. The story's about that, and what happened when he finally got home. Hardly anyone recognised him.

"Gosh, that sounds fun." But then her expression changed. "Suppose you find my mom and dad before we finish my current book?"

I didn't say that there was a good chance she'd see them within the next twenty four hours. The last thing I wanted to do was get her all excited, and then have something go wrong.

"I'll think of something." I already had something planned to cover what we likely to happen.

"Now, changing the subject a bit, I got something for you."

"What is it?" she asked excitedly.

"Just some more clothes." I said, suppressing a grin.

Kathy looked at me a little darkly, obviously expecting me to remember her distaste for new clothes.

"At least I didn't take you with me to buy them. Go try them on in the bathroom, while I start cooking supper. You might even like them."

With a rather sullen expression, she headed for the bathroom.

Exactly ten seconds later there was an excited squeak from the bathroom, the door slammed open and she came running across the room to wrap herself around my legs.

"This is just amazing! It's a real superhero costume!"

"Yes, and if you check the label, it's the personal work of Serge. He's the tailor that makes all my outfits. So it really and truly is a superhero costume."

I'd hardly finished speaking when my cell phone rang. Again, the caller ID indicated it was Wes Schnabel.

"Hello?"

"Wes Schnabel. We've got a lead. 3624 East 18th street in Brickstown is a disused warehouse. I sent someone over to take a look at it, they reported a fair bit of 5th. Column traffic in and out of the place. It'll be a big operation, but the group you were with today are setting up a raid tomorrow."

"You think they'll mind if I get some of the other Black Roses to come along?"

"Not in the least. The more the better. I've spoken to the barkeep here, he's agreed to let us use the big back room here to plan it out. Anyone that wants in needs to be here by eleven o'clock tomorrow morning."

"Thanks Wes. You know I wouldn't miss this for the world."

"Also, pass along the word that we know that Kathy's parents are still alive. The fact that the 5th. want them so badly gives them a certain amount of safety."

"That's another one I owe you Wes."

"See you tomorrow, Alissara."

"You too."

"What was that about?" asked Kathy, after I'd hung up.

"That was the man I'm working with to find your mom and dad. We've made a lot of progress, and that call means we're a whole lot closer now. The other important thing that he wanted you to know is that he got word that your mom and dad are still OK."

It was as if a dark raincloud had vanished from above her head. The relief that Kathy exhibited was almost tangible.

With the news and her new costume, we didn't read much that evening, and I'd just got Kathy tucked up in bed when my phone rang again. I was slightly surprised to see the caller ID indicating the call originated at PCU.

"Hello?"

"Alissara, this is Jim Wilson."

"Yes, Dean Wilson. What can I do for you."

"I think it's more a case of what I can do for you. I finally found Alan Durham's C.V. There's two things you need to know about it. Firstly, he was in the debating society while he was getting his master's degree, and people I've spoken to say he was an incredible public speaker when he put his mind to it. Someone described it by saying he could easily have convinced John F. Kennedy to run for president as a Republican."

"What's the other thing?"

"Someone else asked for a copy of his C.V. about two weeks ago. We've checked the name, he was a registered undergraduate student, reading English, but hasn't attended any classes since two days after requesting the copy."

Everything fell into place. It was a safe bet that the missing student was a 5th. Column recruit. The 5th. didn't care in the slightest about the Professor's knowledge of literature. However, if he was that powerful of a public speaker, the idea of them brainwashing him, and forcing him into their propaganda engine was a concept that I found truly frightening.

Chapter 3.

Information.

I reflected that the relocation of PCU from Founders Falls to Steel Canyon had some definite advantages. It took me a couple of minutes to cover the length of Steel Canyon from the Boomtown entrance to the campus. I walked in to the main admin building, and asked the receptionist for Dean Wilson.

"Who can I say is calling?"

"Please tell him Alissara is here to see him. He may be expecting me."

She dialed a number, spoke quietly for a few seconds, then glanced up at me with a slightly puzzled look.

"The Dean's offices are on the 6th. floor. He asked me to send you straight up. It seems he's in a bit of a hurry to talk to you."

"Thank you," I replied, and turned for the elevators.

A small wisp of a man was waiting for me as soon as the doors opened on the 6th. floor.

"Alissara?" he asked, extending his hand. I shook hands, and discovered the small stature belied considerable physical strength. He had a grip like iron.

"I'm Jim Wilson. Peter Cutler told me you'd be coming, it seems you know something about Alan Durham. We're tremendously worried by his absence. Let's go to my office for some privacy."

As soon as we were seated, I told him a summary of what had happened. I decided to skip what I'd found in Boomtown. The harsh reality of situations like this was that 'need to know' sometimes trumped 'freedom of information'.

"I've got a contact looking for leads now, but what has both of us completely puzzled is the 5th. Column's interest in Professor Durham. Why would a paramilitary organization have any interest in a classic literature professor? Dr. Cutler suggested I talk to you because you've known the Professor for many years. Perhaps there's something you can tell us to help uncover what's going on."

The Dean looked at me, his eyes focused on the middle distance as if deep in thought.

"The professor can tell you anything you'd ever want to know about any of the works of the classic authors. Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain. The complete set of Harvard Classics. You name it, he knows it. There's a private joke in the English department here that he has the entire text of Merchant of Venice memorized. That's known to be his favorite of the classics. All of which is completely useless to the 5th. Column."

"He would have sumbitted a C.V. while being considered for tenure here. Let me see if I can find it. That covers more than just his straight academic knowledge. Maybe there's something there."

"Thank you Dean Wilson. Let me know anything you find."

I left the office feeling that this line of investigation had dried up. Something just wasn't right here. Maybe Wes would turn something up.

I headed back to my apartment, determined to take care of some comfort matters for Kathy. She needed some changes of clothing, that was certain. Washing the one set she had every day was going to get old in a big hurry. Plus I had an ulterior motive for getting her some new clothes.

I'd hardly made it through the door before Kathy raced over to me with a smile on her face that threatened to split it in two.

"Will you please read my bedtime story to me tonight?"

I looked at her in amazement. I knew the books on my shelves, and nothing struck me as bedtime reading for a girl her age. But then the words of Dr. Cutler echoed through my mind again. "... her reading skills are many years beyond of her age."

"I will, but what story is it?"

"I found it on the shelves here, I've been reading a bit while you were gone. I've put a bookmark in where my dad got to, so we can carry on from there."

I wasn't quite sure what to say, as she held up a slightly tattered book. "Far from the Madding Crowd", by Thomas Hardy.

Again, the strangeness of the situation reared its head. Here was that knowledge of English literature coming through again. Why was it so important to the 5th?

"I'll read for you. But first we need to go out and get you some changes of clothes. You can't survive on one set."

"Do we have to?" she pouted at me. "I hate shopping for clothes."

It occurred to me that there was perhaps an advantage in her being so young. Had she been twice her current age there would have been a risk that she'd have spent the rent on clothes, given the opportunity.

"Yes we do, because I probably can't wash this one set every night," I replied, making it clear that there was no room for dissent. "If you have to go several days between laundry sessions, you're going to get gross."

It took an hour or so to get her set up with some new clothing, and as she was being measured by the store clerk, I made very careful mental notes.

After dropping her back at the apartment, I left with the excuse that I needed to get some food as well, and asked what she was interested in.

I knew the groceries would take no time at all, but I had something else to take care of first. I quickly entered Steel Canyon, and made my way to the far northwest corner, stopping at the entrance to the Icon store.

Serge waved as I walked in.

"Hey Alissara, you're looking sharp today."

"Thanks Serge. Your handiwork does fit nicely. And you were right, the short cape is just a perfect match with this skirt, much better than the full length one I tried."

"Wonderful," he gushed. "Are you here for another makeover?"

"No, I need to ask a very different favor of you Serge."

"For you, darling, Serge will do anything."

His eyes widened as I described exactly what I wanted.

"I can do it, but I must say you have taken leave of your senses," was his pronouncement. "You want a miniature version of your signature purple and white set, to these exact sizes? What on earth are you up to?"

I gave him the 'Cliff notes' version, describing how I'd rescued Kathy and that her parents were kidnapped by the 5th.

"She's taking it well Serge, but missing her parents is eating away at her. I'm hoping this will cheer her up."

Serge's face softened, and much of his effusive nature drained away as I told him what was going on.

"I will do this for you, Alissara, and for Kathy as well. You sent the Tsoo packing when they were troubling me, for which I am eternally in your debt. And you do not ask this for yourself. You ask this for the unfortunate girl you have taken under your wing. I still have the patterns for your set, so it will be the work of an instant to adjust the sizes. I will have them ready by the time we open tomorrow."

"Serge, you're a gem. Any time the Tsoo even think about bothering you, give me a call. I'll straighten them out, and explain to them which end is up in Steel Canyon."

Fifteen minutes later, I'd made a quick stop for groceries, and arrived back home. Kathy was already getting ready for bed, and she settled down so I could read to her. She didn't seem bothered by what was described as the shepherd lanced the bellies of the sheep that had gotten into the clover, she just took in the story like an adult would.

"But why didn't Gabriel Oak come as soon as he got Bathsheba's first message?" asked Kathy, as I slipped the bookmark into the beginning of chapter 22. "He must have known that the sheep would die without his help."

I blinked at her insight. Dr. Cutler hadn't been joking about her reading skills.

"He wants to marry her, just like the other two men. He wanted to see if she was willing to swallow her pride when it really mattered. How people behave when they're really under pressure is what counts."

"Who do you think she'll end up getting married to?"

I knew how the story ended, so rather than give a direct reply, I punted.

"Each one of them has something to offer. You'll just have to wait and see how it turns out."

I was just about to turn out the light in my own bedroom, when my cell phone on the table beside me rang. The caller ID told me it was Wes.

"Hello?"

"Alissara, Wes Schnabel here. I've got something for you. I've been in touch with some heroes that have been working on the 5th. Apparently they know something of this operation that Schwarzherz has going. Meet me first thing tomorrow, I'll get you hooked up with them. They should be able to turn something up for you."

"Thanks Wes. I'll be there.

Chapter 2.

Investigation.

Next morning, I told Kathy that she'd best stay at my apartment.

"What about school?" she asked.

"I know, you ought to be there. But if those men are watching your house, they may be watching the school you go to as well. You probably want to stay here. If you tell me which school it is, I'll have a word with the principal, and explain where you are."

My first port of call was a contact I hadn't spoken to in months. Wes Schnabel was a retired cop who'd started working as a private eye. I'd lost track of the number of missing persons cases he and I had worked on over the years. And it certainly didn't hurt that he could turn up a lot of information on the 5th. Column. If anyone could find Kathy's parents, he could.

Arriving outside the bar at the south end of Steel where Wes usually could be found, I saw a few of the 5th. Column, doing their typical thing. Normally I wouldn't have given them the time of day, but today their presence made my blood boil.

I walked towards them, making like I was headed into the bar. They ignored me. Right as I passed between them, the claws extended from the backs of my wrists, and with a tremendous spin, the lot of them fell to the ground to be transported to "The Zig". The poor fools never knew what hit them.

Walking into the bar, I headed over to the booth where Wes was always seated, and sat down opposite him.

"Did I hear you making a bit of noise out there, Alissara?"

"Yeah. One too many 5th. Column out there for my taste."

Wes looked at me with a surprised expression. Normally heroes of my security level would leave the 5th. in this area to those with less experience. They could actually benefit from learning how to fight the goons outside.

"What got you so mad at them? That sounds like vengeance, if you don't mind my saying."

"You're not so far off, Wes. Let me give you the full story." I quickly recounted how I'd found Kathy, and what I'd learned of her how her parents had been taken.

"The 5th. have kidnapped an English Professor? You're right Alissara, while there's no visible rhyme or reason to it, they have what they think is a good reason. They must do, otherwise they wouldn't have gone to all that trouble."

"I don't have anything to go on right now. Let me make a few phone calls, and see what I can turn up. Can you meet me back here in an hour or so?"

"Sure thing Wes. I have a few other things to take care of."

Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in the principal's office of the school that Kathy attended, talking to worried looking man.

"So what's this about Katherine Durham? She's one of our best students. For her to be missing for four days, with no explanation, is a very serious matter."

"Dr. Cutler, her parents have been kidnapped by the 5th. Column. I had a look around the area here before coming into the school, and there's an unusually high number of them out there. I'm certain they'd try to apprehend her if she were to come to school."

He looked at me with a surprised expression on his face. "So that explains why we've been seeing them around here for the last few days. I had no idea of the connection. You tell me that Katherine is safe?"

"She is, Dr. Cutler. She's staying at my apartment in Atlas Park. Since nobody saw me with Kathy, there won't be a connection. She'll be safe there until this is resolved."

"That's a great relief to hear. It would be terrible if anything were to happen to her. But what I don't understand is why the 5th. Column would have any interest in Professor Durham. He's a brilliant academic, with a phenomenal command of the English language. His main area of expertise is classic English Literature. Katherine inherited some of his brilliance, her reading skills are many years beyond of her age."

"I agree. It just doesn't add up. However, the 5th. Column are incredibly well organized. This is not a random kidnapping, they simply dont't do that. They have a reason. We need to figure out what it is."

"I can't help you too much, Alissara. What I can do, is give you a name to contact at the University. Ask for Jim Wilson. He's now the Dean of the University, they couldn't have a better man for the job. Jim and I go way back. More to the point, he was head of the English faculty at the time Professer Durham gained his tenure. I'll call and tell him you're coming. Since he was on the board that approved Professer Durham's tenure, he might know something."

"Thank you for your help, Dr. Cutler. I'll contact Dean Wilson as soon as I can."

I decided that the Dean would have to wait, and returned to the bar at the south end of Steel Canyon. Wes was waiting for me.

"I don't have too much here," said Wes, "but there's rumors going round of a new 5th. Column operation setting up somewhere. I don't have a direct lead on it, but if you were to hit up their training operations in Boomtown, you might uncover something."

I knew what Wes was talking about, at least as far as training in Boomtown meant. You could always find squads of 5th. Column recruits using Boomtown as if it was their private training ground.

"I'll head on up there, and see what I can find out. It'll kill two birds with one stone, I'll have a chance to turn up information on that operation, plus it'll get a few of them off the streets and behind bars, where they belong. You want me to call you if I turn anything up?"

"Please do. You've had my cell number so long, you probably have it permanently etched into the memory on yours."

I grinned at Wes. "You got it."

Within minutes, I reached the gate out of Steel Canyon into Boomtown, and was soon in what remained of what had once been one of Paragon's nicest boroughs: Baumton. I wondered if we'd ever be able to restore it to it's former glory.

While it didn't do much of anything to help with my training, dealing with the 5th. in Boomtown did have the two other benefits I'd mentioned to Wes. Cleaning them off the streets never hurt, and I was hoping that sooner or later I'd find something.

For two hours, I patrolled the streets of Boomtown, taking down 5th. wherever I found them. At long last, I found a hastily scribbled note on the unconscious body of one of the officers.

"If any recruits show special promise, have them report to Kommandant Schwartzherz immediately for assignement.

In a matter of seconds, I teleported to the top of a deserted skyscraper. From the safety of this perch, I called Wes.

"I've got a name for you Wes. See what you can turn up about someone called Kommandant Schwartzherz."

"Schwartzherz. Schwartzherz. That name rings a bell. Haven't heard it in a while though. From what I remember, he's bad news. If he's running this operation it's going to be big. Now that I think about it, I do remember that he's an absolute master of running things on the Q.T. I'd bet that almost nobody else in the 5th. knows that this is going on."

"I'll start digging up what I can about this, Alissara. It may take me some time to get more details. I'll call you the instant I have something."

I knew that Wes was as good as his word, so I hung up and left him to find out what he could. Meanwhile, I had other things to take care of.

Editorial remark. This story was first written around the time of Issue 2, when the 5th. were still an active force in the city. It also provides a little of Alissara's back story, most notably that if the 5th. ever make a return to Paragon, she will go after them with a special vengeance.


Chapter 1.

Rescue.

We climbed out of the sewer grate into the relative peace of Steel Canyon. The sky was clear above. but only the moon and a few of the brightest starts showed against the street lights of the city.

"Good work," said the team leader. "That's one more artifact rescued from the Banished pantheon. I need to report back to my contact, I suspect the rest of you are going to head for home, get cleaned up and take a rest."

"You got that right," replied one of the tankers. "I'll go into the sewers if asked, but I flatly refuse to like the smell in there."

Most of the rest of the team nodded in agreement, we all smelt a little 'ripe'.

Everyone else headed for one of the two tram stations, but I decided to go through the tunnel that directly linked Steel Canyon and Atlas Park.

A few moments teleporting through the cold night air cleared my head, and I soon was on the ground at the tunnel entrance.

I was just about to walk through, when I noticed a heap on the ground, right underneath one of the police drones. It almost looked like someone had dropped a bag. I started towards it, wondering what it might contain.

By the time I got to the heap, it became apparent that it wasn't a bag, but a small girl huddled inside a coat that was clearly several sizes too large for her. I gently shook her shoulder to wake her up, and was confronted with a dirty, tear stained face.

"Who are you?"

"Relax sweetheart," I replied. "I'm Alissara, one of the good guys. Now please tell me who you are, and why you're sleeping under a police drone."

"My name's Katherine, although everyone calls me Kathy. I can't go home, someone took my parents."

"Another kidnapping, just what Paragon city needs." I thought to myself.

"The first thing we need to do is get you inside out of this cold, and then get you cleaned up a little. Then we need to start figuring where your parents are, and how to rescue them. The first part is relatively easy, I've got a bunk bed in my apartment that you can use for the time being, and a washing machine and shower that will take care of the second item."

"What about my mom and dad?"

"I have some contacts in Paragon that can make some discreet enquiries. Something is bound to turn up."

We walked through the tunnel into Atlas Park, then I picked up the child, and held her in the world's gentlest bear hug.

"Hang on round my shoulders, here we go."

I knew the route to my apartment, via teleport hops, so well I could do it with my eyes closed. In under thirty seconds we'd arrived outside, gone in, and taken the elevator to the 28th. floor. A short walk down the hall brought us to apartment 2802. Home, sweet home.

I aimed Kathy at the bathroom, with the following words. "Dump your clothes in the basket in there, you probably want to use the robe that's hanging on the back of the door. It's way too big for you, but it'll have to do for now."

Kathy looked up at me with a grateful expression, and within seconds of her vanishing into the room, I was rewarded by the sound of a shower running.

Running my eyes over the contents of the fridge, I reflected that I might want to get some ideas about what she liked to eat. For now, I took a chance, put a couple of steaks under the broiler, and some fries in the microwave.

"Gosh, that smells good." I spun around on the spot, surprised by the voice.

"Steak and fries, it'll be ready in just a couple of minutes."

"Good. I've hardly eaten anything in the last three days, I'm hungry enough that I could eat the whole cow."

That answered a question I hadn't yet asked, when her parents had gone missing. Presumably during the evening or night, about 72 hours ago.

Faster than I'd have believed possible, she demolished the contents of the plate I'd given her, and we turned to more important matters.

"Kathy, this is very important. I need you to tell me everything you possibly can about what happened the night your parents were taken. I don't care how small or unimportant it seems, the more you tell me the easier it'll be to find them."

"There's not too much to tell. Some men started breaking down the door to our house, yelling that if anyone left the house they'd be shot. My mom told me to hide, and not to come out till after everyone had left. She also told me not to come back to the house after I'd escaped, not until she and dad were safe, because it was too dangerous.

There's a loose board in the back of my closet that has never been fixed. I can get from there to the crawlspace under the house. I hid there, waited till morning, and then just ran for it. I've been moving round the city slowly, trying to stay away from the men. They know I escaped, and I'm sure they're looking for me."

"Tell me everything you can about these men."

"It doesn't make any sense to me. They looked like they were in the army, but I know that our army would never do something like this."

My face hardened. The 5th. Column.

"I think I know who they are, and if I'm right, I know who to ask for information. One last question before we head for bed. Do you have any ideas at all why they took your father?"

"That doesn't make any sense either. My dad's way too old to be a soldier, and he's never been in the army either. I have no idea what they want with him."

"What does your dad do?"

"He's a teacher."

"Which school, and what does he teach?"

"He teaches English, and it's not a school, but at the University."

"Thanks - that should give me enough to go on."

This last remark puzzled me. I was willing to bet it wasn't simply English language, that was elementary and grammer school level. He had to be in some other more specialized area of study. But what did the 5th. Column want with an English professor?

In response to the problem with the forced "co-ed" grouping, here's a germ of an idea for the dev team. They have to pick it up and run with it, but I'm certain they've got people that can do it.

Set up a mid-sized Task force type of thing. Six to eight missions feels like about the right length. It'd have to be run completely from Pocket D to allow hero/villain grouping. My initial idea is to skip Valentine's day in 2008, and instead wait for St. Patrick's. That'd put another month of buffer between this and the Winter event.

As for the TF story, one of two options. Either a leprachaun has gone rogue and you need to track him down - this guy ends up being the AV you fight at the end of the TF. Either that or some villain group (or groups?) have kidnapped someone, and you need to rescue them. Yeah - I know there's tons of blanks to fill in.

Now, to allow maximum accessibility, here's a completely wacky idea for handling level exemping. Take the average (mean) level of all players in the group, and the whole group is either SK'ed or exemped to that level. It'd take some new technology to do that, but it would not limit players at all in terms of accessibility to this content.

The other thing I want, but can't immediately see how to get is some small to medium benefit for a co-ed group. This means that an all hero or all villain group CAN complete the TF, but a mixed group will have some advantage. Needless to say, this will be a balance nightmare, but that aside, it would be cool.

Oh yeah. Toss Snaptooth in the Zig and leave him there for all eternity. If I never see him again, it'll still be too soon.

[ QUOTE ]
The weird thing is - if set IO's really turn out to be rare - as in "wait til Issue 17" rare, there's no way in hell they'll ever be at the consignment shop. No amount of influence will ever be enough. Yep, you guessed it, we've entered the realm of "Trade only". God, I hate those words.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not necessarily true. Think about this. I am extremely likely to be interested only in some small number of rare IO's, out of the entire set of rares that can drop. While waiting for the ones I actually care about, I am quite likely to see a good number dropping that count as rare, but are no use to me. For example, my claws/regen scrapper has no powers that can meaningfully use a defense buff, and only one that can use resistance. Taunt? No use. Hold duration? No use. Buff Slow powers? No use. She could be waiting for a rare IO to slot into Integration, and see one or more going by that drop into Elude or Unstoppable, Tanker taunt, controller mez powers, and so on.

It's somewhat the same as the 51 SO's that drop from Hami buds. Again, these are used as an example to make a point, but of the "non-gang-of-5" 51 SO's I've dropped from those buds, about 90% statistically have been useless to me. Either due to origin mismatch or not being applicable for my powers.

In your scenario above, those are the ones that would wind up at Wentworths.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In both cases you most certainly can. However the [ilikelyhood[/i] of getting complete sets w/o using Wentworths is likely to be significatly lower, just like the likelyhood of getting completely slotted with 50 SO's is significantly lower without use of NPC vendors nowadays.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, but we have the vendors, so we can get fully stocked with SOs. The stores also provide very quick and reliable places to buy and sell. I don't need to fully slot with IOs. I can take whatever IOs I pick up in my adventures.


[/ QUOTE ]

The italicised part of your quote is true, but leads on to this .....

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, you can get the "gang of 5" without breaking a sweat - that being Dam, Acc, Endrdx, Rchrdx and Range(?). However, the rest of them are remarkably rare. How many 51+ SO's do you have slotted that are for Defence, Resist, Heal, Endmod (as in stamina), Tohitbuff, Taunt, Mez, et al. I sure don't have many, and I've got a year or two under my belt.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not applicable at this point. I can't use anything past level 50.


[/ QUOTE ]

You're missing the point. I'm not talking about whether 51's are necessary, I'm talking about the NUMBER of SO L51 enhancements that drop that are not the "gang of 5". The reason I cite 51's is that they are drop only, which is where the rare IO's will be for you if you don't use Wentworths. I'm also not talking about fully slotting with IO's, I agree that'll be as likely as fully slotting with HO's in today's game.

However, if you need a certain rare IO to complete a set, my point is that you may be waiting till issue 17 if you're going to only use what drops for you, and not visit Wentworths.

If you believe that Wentworths will not speed up the process of completing IO sets, then I have to tell you that you are very sadly mistaken.

[ QUOTE ]
If they got rid of all the vendors where you can buy SOs, then the consignment shops would be far more important. [And I would be very grumpy.]

[/ QUOTE ]

You've just described exactly the state of affairs for IO's. I'm not sure why you're not grumpy about it.

[ QUOTE ]
Player A1 puts up a Level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.

Player B1 puts up the same Level 12 TO for 1,000 inf.

Player A2 (trying to transfer funds) offers to buy that level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.

Since player B1 wants less, and is obviously trying to move his items faster, his "for sale" is processed first, so he ends up with 5,000,000 inf (minus fees).

[/ QUOTE ]

What I totally fail to comprehend in this scenario is why the transfer doesn't go through for 1,000 inf.

More specifically, Positron, why does making the transfer go through at the offered price rather than the asking price improve my gameplay experience?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What this all amounts too is that people will feel like they are walking into a casino rather than a consignment shop. Even looking to make the simple transaction, you will be worried about getting somehow screwed either by the system itself, or another player, or the lack of knowledge on how it works and screwing yourself. My thinking...pretend I9 never happened and just hope I10 brings some useable content to the game.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can still make full use of the Inventions system without using the consignment shop. The consignment shop is an optional extra. If you don't like it, don't use it. I plan to use inventions, but I don't plan to use the consignment shop.

[/ QUOTE ]

True.

However that is a bit like saying that:

[ QUOTE ]

You can make full use of the enhancement system without ever using the NPC vendors.


[/ QUOTE ]

In both cases you most certainly can. However the [ilikelyhood[/i] of getting complete sets w/o using Wentworths is likely to be significatly lower, just like the likelyhood of getting completely slotted with 50 SO's is significantly lower without use of NPC vendors nowadays.

Yes, you can get the "gang of 5" without breaking a sweat - that being Dam, Acc, Endrdx, Rchrdx and Range(?). However, the rest of them are remarkably rare. How many 51+ SO's do you have slotted that are for Defence, Resist, Heal, Endmod (as in stamina), Tohitbuff, Taunt, Mez, et al. I sure don't have many, and I've got a year or two under my belt.

Since we HAVE to get 51+ via drops, you begin to see the problem.

[ QUOTE ]
How about the "Glowie spawning inside office staircase" bug? Can we see some fixing on that one?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hell if I know. I have a green name, therefore I'm not a dev.

[ QUOTE ]

Frankly I am Just curious as to whats going on with the Frost Fire Mish. Obviously the game stills sees the ice there since people go sliding around, Im just curious as to if anyone knows why the ice turnned invisible etc? I know this may seem like a silly question (If they knew why itd be fixed by now etc) But to be honest I am a curious sort, I like to know how things work, so with something like this it just seems like a fun puzzle.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's two sets of geometry in the game: The visible geometry that gets drawn, and what's known as the collision geometry, which is used to determine if you bump into something, or if you can slide on a surface.

As far as I can tell, the collision geometry remained unchanged throughout this, while the visible geometry stopped being drawn. There are two reasons something might not draw: firstly the data is sent to the card, but due to some sort of misconfiguration it does not appear on screen, or secondly it doesn't get sent to the card. In the case of Frostfire mission ice, it was the second: the data wasn't being sent down.

Why that happend is almost impossible to determine, unless you're a dev. It might have been removed from the source artwork (unlikely), the exporter that prepares the data could have had an error that caused it to reject that particular set of artwork, or something went wrong in the game engine itself that caused the failure. Or something else - this is not an all-inclusivelist of causes.

As noted, it's now largely academic since a fix is coming down the pike at us .....

[ QUOTE ]
Weird that I've never DCd, but I did once get the lego effect... Cerise had on a Baroque cape when it happened... Switched her to the Trench, and everything came back as if that lego never happened.

So... I think there's something wrong with Alpha Blends then. May be the key? She's the ONLY character I've ever gotten the Legos with.

[/ QUOTE ]

You realize that by now, the devs are probably looking in on this, and grading us on how close we are to the probem. Possibly grinning a lot while doing so.

As of right now, my personal suspicion is that the mix of an alpha blended (cape or trench coat (*) or skirt) and certain auras is causing either the lego effect and/or the cape crash.

(*) I'm not online, so I don't know whether to include trenches in this. To be 100% sure I'd need to throw a trench coat on someone and then do a linedraw job. Although I seem to remember them having a deep slit up the back, which is a strong suggestion of alpha blending going on. Not a 100% proof though.

Has anyone seen lego auras when not wearing a trench coat or cape, but on a female char with a pleated skirt?

Enquiring minds want to know.

Bottom line is that alpha-blend keeps rearing it's head in this issue. I'd say the problem's somewhere in there. I just don't have any clue where.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The fix for this is a little uglier, either two delayed queues of alpha stuff, one for character stuff and one for scenery, or some sort of priority system, so that even though character stuff is added later, it gets drawn first.

[/ QUOTE ]

Couldn't you just re-create the capes with the cut-out portion built in to the geometry?


[/ QUOTE ]

Highly undesirable, for two reasons.

1. Physics. Right now, they only need one physics routine that places the vertices for the rectangular cape, all the other shapes will have their movement happen correctly by default. It's highly likely that messing with the geometry would entail tuning the cape physics for each shape. That falls into the "You just don't want to go there" bucket.

2. Some of the capes are partly see through - kinda a lacy effect. That requires alpha blend. Period.

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You seem to know a lot about the 3d graphics stuff, so can I ask: I thought alpha blending stuff was a really expensive operation. If they're doing this to acheive effects like different cape shapes, could this explain why this game has such big performance issues around things like Arachnos lab maps, where it seems like they might be using the same strategy?

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Could well be.

Cliff notes answer. A non-alpha blended write is a single operation against the framebuffer memory: a write. Alpha blend requires a read-modify-write against the framebuffer, effectively cutting your framebuffer bandwidth in half.

In practice, there's a lot of other factors involved - caching, pipelining etc, so you can't simply say "alpha-blends slow down drawing to 50%".

The bottom line is that alpha blending almost always costs something, but it's not at all easy to say exactly how much. Worse yet, the cost will vary from one card to another. That's probably why different people see different amounts of slowdown, anywhere from hardly any at all to "it just went from fine to unplayable."

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I had my miniskirt disappear underwater yesterday too. It was the one with the rectangular cutouts on the sides. I was left with a black bikini that was obviously not from costume design, but from wanting to keep a teen rating. =)

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That's another issue: they're simply drawing the skirt too late.

Cliff notes explanation.

Most everything in the game updates the "z-buffer" when it's drawn, this allows the driver to know how far away it can see. That way if it tries to draw something else in the same place on sceen, it'll draw it (and re-adjust the z-buffer) if and only if the new object is in front of the current object.

This includes the surface of water, and certain other items (see my post above for at least one other).

If you draw skirts and capes AFTER water (etc), as the game is doing now, the driver will faithfully say "Humm. This water surface placed a value of 1000 in the z-buffer. Someone's asking me to render this skirt with a z-buffer value of 1010 (because the skirt is behind the water surface), so I'd better not draw it." Boom, vanishing skirt.

This is a gnarly problem because the water surface is transparent - the general best solution to this is to move all transparent objects as late in the draw order as possible.

Possible hacks are to turn of the water draw completely - doing so does cause skirts to render, but of course the water vanishes. The other hack would be to disable z-buffer writes for water. This would turn skirts on under water, but they would appear to cut a hole in the water's surface.

Neither of these will look good. Trust me.

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There's more to this one than meets the eye (literally as well as metaphorically).

The char that had the problem is Amarone, my L35 is scrapper. Keeping that in mind, Alissara (L50 scrapper) was running with a costume that has both a cape AND a skirt, and neither of them vanished under water.

Needless to say, that got me to thinking. Only some skirts and capes vanish underwater. Pleated skirts vanish, while "plain" or "straight" skirts don't. Straight rectangular capes don't vanish (as Alissara has), while Amarone has the "swallowtail" cape, which does.

And there was the blinding flash of inspiration. So, I added a quick hack that drops the game into line draw mode, and the results are hugely interesting, albeit completely unsurprising to me.

Back view of Amarone w/ swallowtail cape

On the left is what we normally see. I've highlighted the "bottom" of the cape in blue. The right shows linedraw, the cape comes out in purple. As you can see, it's drawing the entire "short rectangular cape" area and using alpha blend to create the shape.

Which explains why it's where it is in the draw order. Guessing now, but this would suggest a system that (correctly) delays drawing of alpha blended stuff to the end of the frame. The problem now becomes the fact that characters are drawn after scenery, therefore if they maintain draw order within the delay, character alpha stuff gets drawn after scenery alpha stuff, leading to what we see.

So, it's still a problem of being drawn too late, but the reason for the lateness is becoming clearer.

The fix for this is a little uglier, either two delayed queues of alpha stuff, one for character stuff and one for scenery, or some sort of priority system, so that even though character stuff is added later, it gets drawn first.

Note also that this fix WILL introduce other artifacts, but they will probably be less objectionable. Consider the space that's created when the bottom of the cape is "cut out" by alpha blend. It's a sort of half circle shape below the blue line. If that half circle would have water drawn in it, the water would vanish.

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I am listening to your ideas, but a Flashback system is simply not something we can implement in a timeframe you would all be happy with.


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Maybe I'm missing something here, but when the rubber actually hits the road, how much difference is there between a story arc and a task force? They are both nothing more or less than a sequence of missions.

The presentation is different, but the content is close to identical.

Given this, why can story arcs not be handled via a flashback system that presents them using the current TF technology?

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Instead we are looking into other options to get you the Pool B choice so level 50s don't feel gimped.

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Keep us posted.

Please.

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I had my miniskirt disappear underwater yesterday too. It was the one with the rectangular cutouts on the sides. I was left with a black bikini that was obviously not from costume design, but from wanting to keep a teen rating. =)

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That's another issue: they're simply drawing the skirt too late.

Cliff notes explanation.

Most everything in the game updates the "z-buffer" when it's drawn, this allows the driver to know how far away it can see. That way if it tries to draw something else in the same place on sceen, it'll draw it (and re-adjust the z-buffer) if and only if the new object is in front of the current object.

This includes the surface of water, and certain other items (see my post above for at least one other).

If you draw skirts and capes AFTER water (etc), as the game is doing now, the driver will faithfully say "Humm. This water surface placed a value of 1000 in the z-buffer. Someone's asking me to render this skirt with a z-buffer value of 1010 (because the skirt is behind the water surface), so I'd better not draw it." Boom, vanishing skirt.

This is a gnarly problem because the water surface is transparent - the general best solution to this is to move all transparent objects as late in the draw order as possible.

Possible hacks are to turn of the water draw completely - doing so does cause skirts to render, but of course the water vanishes. The other hack would be to disable z-buffer writes for water. This would turn skirts on under water, but they would appear to cut a hole in the water's surface.

Neither of these will look good. Trust me.

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So how soon until someone starts up the posts of 'Please run without your trenchcoats/wings/capes for the time being, to help reduce random crashes of everyone, TYVM!'?

Seems like it'd be a worthy goal, try it out for a bit, see if it helps. Anyone want to sound the alarm?

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Something that would probably get a huge amount of Hell Yeah! support from a small but vocal minority would be a config option that simply says:

[ ] Do not render other player's capes, trenchcoats and wings.

The small vocal (alright not so vocal) minority are those like myself that regularly attend hami raids.

The nice thing about this is that would also provide a stopgap fix for the cape crash problem - if I don't render other player's capes, and turn my own off, it seems to me that it'd reduce the likelyhood of a cape crash quite dramatically.

IMHO, of course.

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... To make matters worse - this in all liklihood is NOT in the code.

The code could be just fine - but how it talks to your graphics card may have changed. (Driver updates - you name it.) And did I mention that the implmentation engines (code called by the code) may be dependant on differing versions of drivers for you hadware?


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Hopefully you'll forgive me if I put a bullet through this proposition, and lay it to rest this instant. I spent some time looking at another cape problem: that being disappearing capes and skirts underwater and when obscured by artifact cases in the magic store in Talos.

One thing that came out of this is that as far as your video card drivers are conerned, there is no difference at all in how a cape is rendered vs. how your character's right arm is rendered. So it's highly unlikely to be a driver problem.