Atlantea

Oh thank you! Thank you for reminding me of these! Definitely snagging these before they go away!

Oh god... *HEADDESK*

...of course.

My lack of skill in parsing acronyms comes back to bite my *** AGAIN.

Thanks so much for enlightening me.

And...you remember me? Really? TANK boards? I don't recall being on the tank boards. I was always playing scrapper. Was I on to ask about tanking? Refresh my tattered memory?

FPARN???

I don't want to focus on something so inane in my wallowing in the boards the last couple of days (and probably for however long they stay up)

But I keep seeing that the last couple of days as I go through the threads. What the HECK IS IT???

It seems like a rather important forum in-gag. And it pains me somewhat that I am not enough part of the culture of the board (especially now) to get it.

Sorry to take up anyone's time on this.

My absolute first MMO. The one that got me started on the genre.

And while I do find pleasure in other MMOs and have enjoyed WoW, Champions, Star Trek Online, DDO, Rift, and others, this was the one I always returned to.

It is...

was... *sob*

...home.

Thank you so much for everything you have done and accomplished War Witch!

Thank you again - Melissa.

I wish I could meet you in person to give you a hug. I'm thinking you need one. I hope you are getting lots of them.

I was mostly a lurker here. I played the game with my friends more than I ever perused the forums. But I had friends who were here more and told me all about how much of whatever zone we were in was your ideas and work. I saw several videos of you on youtube especially in the run-up to Going Rogue. And your explanations and enthusiasm (And that of the team!) was infectious.

Striga, Faultline, so many others. AMAZING writing and detail! And PRAETORIA. And First Ward! And Night Ward! And Dark Astoria revamp! All absolute TRIUMPHS.

So thank you. Thank you. THANK YOU!

I hope you have great success in whatever you do in the future. You absolutely deserve every bit of it.

Just a quick one here. I have limited access to the forums since I'm "only" premium at the moment.

I've been in-game just now talking with friends. I thought I'd share a little chunk of chatlog for you from our personal channel (that's "The Legendary" tags)

[The Legendary]Atlantea: You know... damnit. It's the small things that really get me. CO and DCUO are good ACTION games. But they really aren't good ROLEPLAYING games. COH has THE. BEST. CHAT. SYSTEM. of all time.

[The Legendary]Ankhani: Agreed.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: And just that little ability to type in "/afk for food and drink" And SEE "For Food and Drink" in the bubble above your head and know that if anyone PMs you that they'll see that same message?

The Legendary]Atlantea: That's golden. That's someone thinking about the small things. That's a dev who - year and years ago, coded that. And he or she probably thought "How many games have I been in where I could've used that?"

[The Legendary]Atlantea: And they put it in.

[The Legendary]Music To Live By: That's one of the things that kills me about all of this. The best offering in the genre - and one that's profitable, to boot! - is shutting down, while the competitors that don't measure up will still be running.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: And it's just... damnit... scuze me.....

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Sorry.... had to pause and well... you know....

[The Legendary]Music To Live By: ::hugs At::

[The Legendary]Atlantea: *hugs*

[The Legendary]Atlantea: I was saying earlier today - "Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls." I mean - what OTHER dev team would put a FORUM GAG into the game like that? But someone would get that badge and go... "Huh? Can someone explain that to me?"

[The Legendary]Atlantea: If they weren't there you know?

[The Legendary]Atlantea: And INVARIABLY. Someone in the game would KNOW. And would TELL THEM.

[The Legendary]Atlantea: And they'd -get- it. And they'd think it was awesome too. Just because it was! You know?

[The Legendary]Atlantea: Ascendant - who hasn't heard of his one-sided phone calls? The devs sure did.

The Legendary]Atlantea: And sometimes when you walk into the tram station, there will be an NPC nearby and if you're paying attention, they'll be saying, "Ascendant who? I'm sorry, you have a wrong number."

[The Legendary]Atlantea: WHO ELSE DOES THAT? NOBODY!


Nobody.

And two things I totally agree with:

One - some kind of zone tour is appropriate if it can be fit in. ALL the zones. (And try and hit some of the "secret" parts of some zones, like the Cryptic Lounge in Faultline and the Dev cages under Grandville.)

In fact I kind of think that a Zone Tour might make at least one good video all on it's own. Obviously you don't want to spend all your time showing someone traveling through the zones. But definitely hit the highlights with fade-ins and fade-outs as necessary.

A flying perspective is almost required for this. But a high-speed speedster run through the streets might also be cool.

The other major thing I agree with is the characters and the people matter the most. However they are presented, there should be a montage.

I think that perhaps each server should get a couple of them? Because not everyone is in Virtue or Freedom or Justice.

(One last thing: Please get Ascendant prominently in one of those montages. He's achieved celebrity status like no other player has other than yourself.)

Characters of mine have been in your vids before. Name a place and time and I'll be there to lend a hand and a character for filming.

I've been here since October 2004. I want to be here for the final hurrah.

Practical question: I agree with the idea of Heroes lifting off into the sky. But some leap and others Superspeed and some teleport. How do we handle them?

Okay - what the heck is this?

"Could not load file or assembly 'UnRar.Net, Version=1.0.4461.28482, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. The module was expected to contain an assembly manifest."

This is what comes up instead of the launcher. Has two buttons. "Okay" and "Exit". Both of which remove the error message box and the launcher doesn't even come up?

How do I fix this with no access to the launcher? Do I have to re-install?

I tend to play with the overall game sound cut to 50%. Sometimes down to 25% if I want to listen to specific music for a fight/scene. But I almost never cut out the sound entirely, just because I think it's important to be situationally aware of one's surroundings in a fight, and that includes sound.

As for music - oh yes. Love to find appropriate music for a zone or fight or sequence.

Two recent examples spring to mind -

Was running First Ward arcs and found that the soundtrack to the movie Inception worked amazingly well as background for both the zone and the overall story. The dreamlike quality of the music even in it's more urgent/action oriented works wonderfully.

A couple of examples:

Inception Soundtrack - "The Dream is Real" Music Compilation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKz_BUL-X_s

INCEPTION - Dream is Collapsing (Long Version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1_4f17QBlA

In Nu Dark Astoria, I find the music from Hellsing (either TV series or OVA) works quite well.

Hellsing - (TV Series) OST - Sea of Chaos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OTZ7sQ3qPs

Hellsing Ultimate (OVA) Soundtrack - 02 Target Insight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3MUr1ExE60

And yeah - liking the slightly edgy Captain America/Steve Rogers. It makes sense. I mean, wouldn't YOU be pretty down after waking up to find that most everyone you ever cared about is long dead or at best in an old age home somewhere? And you've got to adjust to MASSIVE social and cultural changes as well.

As optimistic and resilient as Rogers is, I can't help but see him as still working through some issues as of the time frame of this film.

I've always had a love-hate thing with Tony Stark. It's like, he has a heart of gold, yeah. And the character is entertaining as only RDJ could do it. But good god man, every other thing he does when not in the suit (and sometimes even in the suit) makes me facepalm and go "Oh John Ringo NO!!!"

("Let's face it, this is not the worst thing you've caught me doing...")

Thor probably despite his discovery of humility and self-sacrifice still has some of the arrogance of being a god among mortals.

So yeah - lots of character conflict. But if they can balance it all and give us an evolution of teamwork where they all learn to work together in epic fashion... Oh yeah. This'll be one hell of a movie.

As to Ant-Man and Wasp: I think the special effects logistics both on the set and in post production -- You've either got to portray two tiny people (Wasp & Ant-Man) on the same screen as the regular sized heroes, or you've got one tiny (Wasp), and one HUGE (Giant-Man) character... yikes... try being the director trying to frame THAT sequence!! -- plus adding two MORE characters into what's ALREADY a crowded film pretty much precluded them being in this one.

Plus, let's face it, Wasp and Ant-Man/Giant Man are pretty obscure to the general public. Thor? Hulk? Iron Man? Captain America? Instant name recognition. Black Widow, Nick Fury and Hawkeye less so, but see above in regards to logistics in direction and post-production.

Forget about it. They will NEVER fix anything with bases. I've already removed all items in The Legendary Base that use logos and will never use anything that uses them again.

If the bio-hazard logo is annoying, you'll just have to live without the glass panels, holograms, floor tiles - anything. I've already resigned myself to that.

There are no devs that work on bases. There are no devs that listen to base builders. This forum is ignored utterly by the Paragon Staff. When was the last time a Dev posted in here?

Here - I'll answer my own question: I used the Dev Tracker both collectively and for each individual Dev.

There are the most recent responses by any Dev that have been posted in the Base Construction forum:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...7&postcount=57
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...3&postcount=19
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...85&postcount=3

The most recent post by ANY Dev in the Base Construction forum was CASTLE complimenting someone on figuring out how to build a giant robot in their base. And that was back in 2008.

That's it. Aside from a few posts from Positron that predate even the one above, that is ALL.

Do you GET IT?

Base Builders are in the basement with PVPers. We don't exist. The only way that devs will pay attention to or fix bases is if the bases become utterly broken and unusable. And probably not even then.

Here's my prediction - There will be a City of Heroes 2 before there will be any bug fixes or additions to bases.

So forget about it. Let it go. Move on. Figure out other solutions. This bug will stay unfixed until NCSoft finally at long last closes down City of Heroes for the last time and the last server goes dark.

This is my farewell tribute in pictures to Galaxy City.

The first set is screens of Galaxy itself. A few weeks ago I went around the zone taking screenshots. Trying to get the best angles of iconic areas, plus ground level views of little nooks and crannies that were familiar.

Yes - I could still have taken screenshots of Galaxy after I-21 launch via the "echo" but there are certain things that will be different. BABs won't be there. And strangely, neither is the Gate to Perez! Just a blank wall. So I wanted to make sure I got these shots before the real Galaxy went away for good.

The last set is of the gathering in Gemini park right as the servers were about to close, the Cape was broadcasting live. Surprising how many people showed up at the last minute. (Ascendant was there!)

If you see your character in shot, feel free to point out where you are.

Goodbye Galaxy City. Things move on. But I always liked the somewhat quieter option to solo level some of my lowbie characters. And of course there was the RP history (which I was never really part of, but it should be mentioned.)




























































































I thought it ironically appropriate that the sky went to night time just before the servers quit on the old version of CoH for the last time.

I hate to be negative about what is otherwise a fantastic creation. In Beta I've loved seeing the thing moving around the zone and that low moaning roar it produces is amazingly creepy! Seed of Hamidon is a fantastic design in concept and audio-visual execution.

But...

I haven't tested this on Beta yet. But from the description this sounds like a fight that's "LOLMelee". It sounds as if all the various parts of this creature are ridiculously deadly at close range. ten to one I bet their attacks are auto-hit as well, which means Defense-based melee is double-screwed.

You've got one type of enemy that forces players to separate to stay alive, another that forces them together, and another that confuses/mezzes.

In short it sounds too much like the kind of design ideas that went into the Keyes Trial. And we all know what an absolute JOY the Keyes trial is. (Yes, that's sarcasm - Keyes is an absolute nightmare. Which is why most people, once they've got their badges, never bother with it again and instead farm BAF and Lambda for their Incarnate threads.)

Can anyone who has tested this in Beta with a melee with a defensive secondary (Brute, Scrapper, Stalker) tell me if I'm wrong/overreacting on this? (I'd like to be.)

Inspired by an earlier pic, here's my own version of a Carnie.

Since my desktop is capable of rendering in full Ultra mode, I thought I'd go in and find EVERYTHING in the new set and display it. This is not a "creative" shoot. This is more informational. You want to know what ALL the options are? Here's 99% of them on display!

Here's the parameters of this shoot:

All Graphics set on high end Ultra so as to display the maximum amount of detail (and boy is there a LOT of detail!).

I used the Praetorian Character create menu so as to accentuate that sort of "brassy" look. The costumes are all set with two main colors. Nothing complicated. The colors are a deep brown and a gold. Some pieces were colored individually, but most were just fine with the default "set to all" switch on. All body proportions are set to defaults. I used "Male" and "Female". With the assumption that "Huge" would be a duplicate of "Male" I omitted taking shots of that.

There is "Classic Steampunk" and "Victorian Steampunk" as a theme. There was nothing in the way of a set theme set into the costume generator as a default. So I went menu hunting. I'm 99% certain I found everything.

I've taken shots of each as it's own set. Either all "Classic Steampunk" or all "Victorian Steampunk". No mixing of the two. This is only to show off the set pieces themselves. (Though obviously mixing of elements would create some even niftier outfits, that's not the point of this shoot.

Backbacks and Wings are displayed on the male characters. I omitted them on the female models for clarity.

There are no "Steampunk" Blade sets. And no powers that have different effects based on Steampunk. The only powers that have skins for Steampunk are the Assault Rifle and Dual Pistols. So they are displayed here.

There are two different Auras. "Clunker" and "Victorian Effects". Clunker is on display on the "Classic" set. Victorian on the Victorian, naturally.

There are slightly more costume options than what's shown here. There are a couple of alternate coat options for the Male Victorian and a couple of different belt options for the Female Classic Steampunk. But what you see here is at almost everything. If it's not shown, it either doesn't exist or there are only a couple of variants of the piece to show anyway.

The last Costume set I was taking shots of was the Female Victorian. Partway through, something went wonky with my snip tool and I could only get an all black screen. But that's ok, since I was meaning to take some shots of emotes and such anyway. So I made the actual character and set her into Mercy Island for the emote shots.

There are three Steampunk Emotes: "Inspiration" (Which I tend to call "Eureka"), "Hot Temper" (stomping the ground, steam coming out of ears) and "Steam Whistle", which is exactly as advertised. Heh.

So - Voila:

Not a problem. As Necros go, this is one of the most deserving.

And here's another thing -

You can pretty much forget about any meaningful data mining for this thing if you decide to try and draw us to the PVP zones by having Praetorian Event mobs there. The majority of players who know anything about those zones are going to - RIGHTFULLY - say "to hell with THAT noise!" and stay away.

Listen. You've heard this all before and didn't listen - a thousand times a thousand, so you probably won't HEAR it this time. Many people have beat their heads against this wall. But maybe SOMEONE might get a clue over there. So I'll give it my own try just this once. To wit -

We do not CARE what you do. PVP is DEAD. And YOU killed it! It's not coming back until you rollback the I-13 Changes and/or implement the suggestions made by the old PVP crowd.

Trying to trick inexperienced players into coming into the PVP zones with Praetorians visiting there during the event is not going to make PVP any LESS DEAD. People don't LIKE having their powers cut in half, ESPECIALLY when they're trying to fight full-strength NPCs! It's a waste of time.

If you've got time to futz around in Warburg and Siren's Call, you've MORE than got time to place Praetorians during the event somewhere where they will do more good in stressing the servers. We hate the PVP zones. We hate going there. We WON'T go there in any numbers significant enough for your data-mining. So do NOT bother putting future Event Praetorians in the PVP Zones.

Or perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps I'm looking at this from the wrong end? Based on the neglect and what little attitude any of the players has ever seen, it has seemed for a long time now that the Devs hate PVP and want it to go away. Granted, this game wasn't designed for that in the first place. And it would require a major amount of time and effort to make it work with this system. Kind of like trying to fit a 454 Hemi V8 into a Pinto. It may simply be more trouble than it's worth.

Maybe this is just your way of ensuring that PVP Zones stay dead? To make sure that people don't forget how horrible those zones are? So that you never have to do any work on those zones or that system ever again? I can see the conversation now: "See? Data-mining confirms no one will go there even during a big event that happens there. No point in throwing good money after bad. No need to pay it any more attention."

Maybe in a couple more issues you could just quietly remove the PVP zones from the game entirely. It's not like most people would notice.

If that second scenario is the correct one, then consider it "Mission Accomplished". (golf clap)

"Ja, Ja! Explain ze joke! That makez it funnier!"

(NO idea where I got that meme. But it seemed appropriate. )

Same here. No log in. We're coming up on a three hour down time here. If not more.

**KLONG**

(sound of jaw hitting floor percussively)