Atiaxi

I had a British colleague who was complaining the other day over how Americans pronounce the letter 'Z'. For those unfamiliar, the British/Canadian/Everywhere But America way to pronounce it is like "Zed" whereas here in the US it's "Zee"

I think the crux of his argument was "It's the English Language! We invented it!"

PM'ed, and not a moment too soon!

Arc Name: Catastropic Betrayal
Arc ID: 1140
Factions: Arachnos, Rogue Isles Police, Council, Crey, Hero Corps
Creator Global/Forum Name: @atiaxi
Difficulty Level: Medium (One EB)
Morality: Villanous
Synopsis: "Heroes are the ones who are always willing to give people a chance. Time to exploit their good nature by pretending to turn to the light side, and then hitting them where it hurts"
Duration: 5 missions, maybe an hour or two

I rarely post. I don't want to be negative here, but this announcement just touched a nerve. Specifically, this part:
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Trust us, it's coming; we're working on it.

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My initial reaction was: Really? Trust you that it's coming? So will it be coming "very very soon" like the City Vault or will it be coming regular soon like the Cathedral of Pain? (We only have to wait until I8, guys!)

On a lighter note, I like how the things you announce are going to happen are always the ones that run late, but the ones you don't announce (and here I'm thinking VEATs) end up early

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I have a problem with badges being awarded to only the team that does the most damage to the monster, or any other competitive scheme, because it favors AT's that do damage over many support AT's...


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...Why can't the Giant Monsters work like Hamidon? Everyone who gets even on hit on Hamidon gets a Hamidon Enhancement. Why can't everyone who gets in at least one hit get the monster badge?

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I'd just like to chime in to second this idea. The entire idea of fighting the giant monsters, as I understand it, was that zone events were meant to replace one-time events (like winter lords, etc), because it's less work for the devs and we can do them all the time as opposed to just at a particular time of year. To restrict winning the badge to even as many as four teams seems contrary to the idea of having a zone event. When I hear that the Kracken is in Perez, for instance, I think of it as a call-to-arms for all heroes. It's collaborative, we're all banding together to fight a greater power. To introduce a mechanic like this which, intended or not, makes it more competitive just seems to me to be spoiling the idea.

From a more practical standpoint: It's just a badge. As far as I know, no giant monster badges are required for accolades, there's nothing to be lost by giving a badge to someone who really didn't earn it. (As opposed to a HO in this example, where someone who was leeching the entire time could earn an actual, tangible reward that enhances their power)

I'd like to suggest that anyone who so much as scratches the bad guy gets a badge. After all, if you're going to try to brawl Babbage, you've earned it

Reminder to budding authors: November is National Novel Writing Month!

It was a reminder like this that got me writing last year (for the first time), and a friend is writing his novel based out of Paragon City. It's hectic as hell, but very rewarding

I, like many folks out there, am constantly refreshing my inbox and the CoH pages for any new news about the CoV beta invites. Until today, I was doing the same thing for I5, too.

"But Atiaxi! There must be an easier way!"

Now there is! I'm happy to present my own home-grown RSS Feed of the dev digest. Painstakingly screen-scraped by dozens of poorly written regular expressions, it nonetheless looks pretty darn cool. Automatically updates every 15 minutes

[On a side note, what other boards would this be appropraite to? For now I just plan to keep it in general, but I'd like it to see a bit more of an audience]

Enjoy! If there are any problems, feel free to PM me and I'll see if I can't sort them out, but keep in mind this is my first experience with anything RSS. I've tested it under a variety of linux and cross-platform RSS readers, in addition to making sure it passes the validator and all's been well, but this is the internet, so who knows what'll go wrong.

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Soooo.... am I the only one wondering if there's going to be a private /tell Cyber-Session goin' on to consumate the marriage?

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Oh come on. To resort to such tired cliches, I mean really. These people could be normal everyday players, and you accuse them of having a cyber-session in /tell?

Everyone knows that the proper place for a cyber-session is via a private global chat channel. I mean, really

A quick addendum to the guide: A recent patch has changed the chance TP Foe has to aggro the whole group; it's now quite a bit less. You don't have to do nearly as much planning to get singles, and it's an excellent way to go.

(Another way to use TP foe is to stand somewhere the enemies can't get to. I used to solo Lost in Terra Volta easily this way, by teleporting one onto the pipes where it'd take the others at least a few minutes to run up to)

((Terribly sorry to bump my own origin story, but I was hoping to get some feedback. I personally think it's one of the stranger ones i've ever seen, possibly to the point of being complete gibberish, so I'm naturally looking for some input))

One evening a woman went to bed, and she dreamt of herself as someone else. We will call this woman Alyssa; the name she is known as by the Dreamed. In this dream, she posessed three things unfamiliar to her, the claws in her hands being the foremost of these. Rapidly discovered afterward was her speed. Most subtly, there was a sense of purpose where none was before.

All dreams have an adversary, even pleasant dreams. Whether the terror of a nightmare or the fear that one might awaken, an opposition always exists. In her dream, this place was taken by the Harpies; dark manifestations of the worst of human nature. They were invisible to the people they preyed on, but not to her. They were intangible to all things, excepting her claws. Their grip was firm and, once gained, nearly impossible to lose. She quickly learned to dodge them, to know their patterns and weave her own that left them defeated.

The world of the Dreamed was filled with abilities beyond simply hers. Magic was a real force, and technology would gladly fill in what the shamans of the world could or would not. Once she realized her third gift, that of purpose, others came to realize it as well. She gathered to herself a number of like-minded Dreamed who sought to free their people from the Harpies and their unknown masters. Together, they were formidable.

All dreams have a balance. Pushed too far one way, the dreamer awakes. Most dreamers only know this push, the one that compels them to wake, either through the rude pull of external force or the gentle slide into conciousness. Pushed too far the other way, however, and the dreamer sleeps eternally. All dreamers know this push, but only once. The balance of this dream had been upset by Alyssa's purpose. She was to free the Dreamed, to rise up against the unknown and unknowable ones who held themselves to be the true masters of this world. She had far more power than she had thus far known: She was the Dreamer, and thus the rightful master. She would realize this too soon.

The unknown and unknowable commanded forces far more heinous than the Harpies. These forces they kept in reserve, knowing that their rule was a false one but holding on to one hope. Their power, that they kept to themselves and gave to no being on their behalf, was greater and more terrible than anything imagined. If they were to capture the Dreamer before she realized her true place and mastered her true power, she would not be able to withstand them. With her as their puppet, they would become more than mere rulers - they would become Gods.

A darkness covered this world. The Harpies gave way to horrors which petrified Dreamed in fear and agony. Alyssa and those still faithful to her fought, and well, but to little avail. It was one who she had saved from the onrushing darkness who gave them the knowledge that would both save and destroy them all. So as the unknown and unknowable were aware that their rule was false, so were the Dreamed, and the one who Alyssa rescued from burial in shadows knew this. Only the Dreamer could fight back the horrors as she had, the rescued had said.

Alyssa knew now, but she knew too late.

She was not the only Dreamer. There had been another, long ago, who had fought a dark war against the false gods of this world, and that dreamer as well had realized the truth too late to save the Dreamed. That Dreamer created a book which detailed a method which would stop all of this, which would push the Dreamer harder than any impetus known down one of the paths of imbalance. Should this cause the Dreamer to wake, this would would end, living on in only memory. Should the Dreamer decide not to take the book's way, and instead remain in the dream, the dark powers would subvert her and rule truly. None was written of the result should the dreamer forever sleep.

It was a war that had been fought and was being fought and would forever be fought, against the Dreamer who was and who had been and who would be. Alyssa had the book this Dreamer had created, as it was hers as much as it was any who dreamt of this world, and she saw no other way. The darkness was closing and subverting her world already, and she was too new to her knowledge to be able to stop it.

She read from the book silently, absorbing everythng every dreamer had done or was doing or would do, knowing their ways and their power, and fully realizing the unescabable fact of the technique which would either save her or kill her, but doom this world beyond a shadow of a doubt: It was impossible to know which path of imbalance that she would be pushed upon, even after the fact. She might wake and think herself asleep, or sleep and never know she was not awake.

As she read this warning her voice began to become audible, for it was too late to turn back and the darkness whirled all around, striving to put an end to all thought and coherence. She focused on the text before her, willing herself to unbalance the dream, to end the dark world that it had become, to slide down a path of reality or fantasy. Her voice became louder until finally it pierced the howl of the unknown and unknowable, as she read the final word of the book:

Awaken.

--
Alyssa D'Eldess
30 Claws/SR Scrapper, Justice

None of these is my main, but that's because my main didn't have much of a story besides I wanted a character that had ice powers. These are the characters I made because I got inspired

Character Name The Pessimist
Server Virtue
Archetype Defender (Rad/Kin)
Inspiration The name came first, then the backstory. A great many characters seem to be of the cheerful helpful variety. More are the dour helpful variety. Some are the dour solo variety. But what all these characters had in common was the fact that they were optimists. Not many people ask for a group with the reasoning that "we're all going to die, it'll just take longer if I'm on the team". The backstory is that she's a mutant from a dimension where the rikti won nearly totally; the inspiration for that was simply me wondering what it /would/ be like for the few people left.

Character Name Sock Johnson
Server Virtue
Archetype Scrapper (Kat/Reg)
Inspiration A co-worker of mine wants to name his child, when he has one, 'Sock'. His wife has discouraged this heavily. Thus, I have ensured that the name will live on. Sock is a talented Natural scrapper because he's taken so much trouble for his name

Character Name Buzzword
Server Justice
Archetype Controller (Ill/FF)
Inspiration I wanted a character that I could roleplay that was different than me. One that, above all things, talks in a very different way. Thus, I decided a manager whose magic words were meaningless management-speak would be easy. Thus his LFT requests are usually along the lines of "Grade 10 Manager seeking collaborative like-minded individuals goal-oriented to re-educate the criminal element"

There are more, but I don't want to hog the thread

I created my main on Virtue back when the game first went retail; I'd chosen Virtue because I'd heard it was the Roleplay server. I then proceeded to forget all about roleplaying due to the game itself pulling me in.

I started reading these boards more recently, and one night I thought to myself that it would be fun to give roleplay a shot so I logged into the character I felt had most RP potential (The Pessimist) and headed out to Atlas City and mingled under the statue.

Being new to this, I mostly stayed back and emoted my thoughts. I figured this was a good way to get started but not be overly intrusive, and I got a few conversations that were very entertaining. Then I wandered around some more and ran into someone emoting martial arts moves. I watched and wondered what it was about when he began talking to me - I'd been spotted!

An IC conversation began, and before I knew it an entire team had been formed, consisting of my mentor, his friends, and some like me who were low in level but high in promise We were taken to the city of the Circle of Thorns, and were treated to an entire mission done in-character. I did my best to roleplay throughout the entire thing, and rather enjoyed myself.

The most interesting thing was that the character had changed from my initial idea upon creation; Pessimist suddenly had a sense of humor, she liked the open air, and was friendly overall. She did retain the outlook for which she was named, of course, but took a much less fatalistic look than I had originally thought. (Even though her battle cry is now, "I should have seen it coming...")

Previous to last night, I'd not played Pessimist much. I tend to solo and, as a defender, she's not the strongest at that suit. Now I've found a much more entertaining pastime.

So I'd like to say a quick thanks (too late!) to those who taught me what a role-played mission is all about, and also to say a quick hello to the boards. I think I'll be staying around here for a bit