BlueBattler

1. A resolution to the Rikti/Human War ... with perhaps a Task Force or storyline on the Rikti homeworld itself!

2. A resolution to the Penny/Clockwork King relationship one way or the other.

3. Penny Preston (the Founder Falls Mutant Store) FINALLY getting to grow up.

4. A Time Travel Story that had us meeting some of the Golden Age Freedom Phalanx.

1. Were there plans for any kind of payoff with the Penny Yin/Clockwork King relationship?

2. What would the the Vigilante/Rogue storylines have been like?

3. Was there a plan to bring back Statesman if it seemed like the situation warranted it?

4. What's the one thing you guys were working on-- even if only in the planning stages-- that you think really would have blown our minds?

I'd wage the Devs are already resigned to the fact they are moving on. Even if Sony or someone else buys the franchise, they are probably going to run it cheaper with fewer Devs just in order to save money after making the initial investment.

I could handle starting over again so long as the gameplay and options remained mostly the same. (It'd even give me the chance to reroll a few of my mains into something I might enjoy more!)

I have a lifetime subscription to their other super hero game. I love the graphics but I find character creation and gameplay limited.

Perhaps if they buy COH they will port some of the COH innovations into THAT game as well.

And honestly, for a company that could afford it, earning the loyalty of a fanbase like COH-- not huge, but VERY VERY loyal-- could be worth the trouble.

I guess the question would be if the people who want the game would be willing to make an offer that would bring in NcSoft more money than they could gain from a tax write off...

Zwill, I think what you and the others are doing (staying at your post after the post itself has deserted you) is a testament to your character and professionalism. I hope that somewhere out there is a perspective employer saying, "Dang, these are the kind of people I need moderating MY forums!"

I don't know what kind of "Final Event" we might get the last day.

Not really expecting much since there's not much of a staff left.

But how about the NPC respawns are shut down on the final day or part of the final day so we can finally CLEAN the streets/Take over the Rogue Isles once and for all?

Another bit with the COTs.

Eventually I wanted to reveal that Ermeeth was actually the immortal Bentely Berekely.

There always seemed to be more to Benteley's story than we ever found out about.

One of a few stories using one of my PCs. The main reason I bring it up again is because I wanted to eventually reveal that Kidd's Elfin kind were the same Elves that served Santa ... and that just as the Redcaps "fed" upon misery ... Kidd's people fed on joy and goodness.

When Stefan Richter won, he created an ash heap of the world. Stefan knew that he was not the man to rebuild the world.

Marcus Cole was.

But Marcus was dead. (In the story it would have been at the hands of Recluse).

So more than 100 years after the death of Marcus Cole, Stefan would have cloned a son for himself using Stateman's DNA. Cole Richter would gradually discover his true origins and ally himself with the rebels to put an end to his father's reign ...

Exactly as Stefan intended.

Justine was the great granddaughter of Sister Psyche and Manticore, and a secret member of the rebels. An aged Shalice would have revealed the true origins of Cole Richter to the boy.

Other things I wanted to show:

Scirroco still lived, albeit greatly aged. His curse would not permit death to end his suffering.

Arachnos endured, so too did Ghost Widow.

Black Scorpion would have gradually replaced all his organic parts with cybernetic replacements so by Col Richter's time he would just be a robot that thought he had once been a man.

Mako and Barracuda would be long dead, but their granddaughter Lady Mako would be a Patron. She would be new to the title, deeply in love with Cole, and resentful of his relationship with Justine. She would have the potential to go either way in terms of hero or villain and I never got around to deciding which.

There's a mission you're given from Crimson where you learn that Malta plans to incriminate a young hero to cause him to lose his license and so would up in Malta's clutches. I wanted to tie that into Frostfire's backstory, revealing that Leonard didn't ACTUALLY freeze the shopkeeper (that would have been the work of Deep Freeze who had sold out the Outcasts to Malta). The fire that destroyed the shop would have arisen from their battle.

Landslide would have died in the clutches of Malta with Frostfire promising to always look after his little brother Keystone.

Char would also have died at the hands of Deep Freeze, but her fire imps (when she learned to make them) would have become Frostfire's.

And it probably goes without saying that Mr. Lee would have been the shopkeeper who perished.

Citadel is such a cipher to me. Crey built him to emulate Statesman in some fashion, but nothing about him reminds me of Marcus at all.

I thought it would be fun to show the life of the "average" Paragon citizen using one of its android defenders.


I did think it would be a neat idea to have it come out that Citadel sounds EXACTLY like Statesman. If I had found the time, I would have loved to have shown Ms. Liberty becoming closer to Citadel after Marcus' death because he was the closest thing she had left to Statesman.

This is one of my greatest regrets; I did not get this one finished.

It would have quite possibly been one of my most elaborate stories.

Akarist was going to narrate the story of the Fall of the Council of Thorns. We would see him with his greatest friend (the Mage who would ultimately become Baron Zoria). We would see the woman who would have been the love of his life become a creature a darkness, a demon incarnate ... Lilitu.

We would see Akarist struggle to preserve the soul of his people in the face of damnation itself ... and we would see him fail.

I think that's why I wasn't able to finish it. It was going to be an ultimately dark and depressing story and I wasn't at a point in my life where I had the energy to spare for that.

I haven't written much COHfanfiction over the last couple of years, but some of what I consider my best writing wound up here. There were a number of stories that I started that for whatever reason I didn't get to finish. There's no way I can possibly finish them now ... not before the end.

But I can at least tell you what I had planned.

So for each of my unfinished stories I'm going to update them with a summary of what I ultimately hoped to accomplish.

I don't know how the New 52 Wonder Woman has been portrayed, but I have never thought that Batman and Wonder Woman would work out.

Batman will NEVER accept an equal partner ... either in marriage or any other relationship. Wonder Woman will NEVER accept the kind of treatment Bruce would give her. "This is MY City. Do things MY way. You're just an ignorant Babe in the Woods" blah blah blah.

Superman, on the other hand, has nothing to prove to anyone, especially himself. In fact, I'd argue that Superman is attracted to strong willed women. (Which is about the only reason that his relationship with Lois ever worked for me.)

I don't think Superman and Wonder Woman would last as a couple, though. She would ultimately find him too passive.

I'm starting to think I'm going to have to call Comcast.

The rubberbanding is getting worse. It's pretty much at the point where I can't play at all.

I'm not as tech savvy as you guys, but since Monday I've been having massive amounts of lag as well.

I'm also on Comcast.

CPU usage is running better than 50 percent and has been as high as 79 percent.

It's happening on two different PCs.

Every other program is running fine.

Was there some kind of patch on Monday?

My first PC was a Commodore 64 ... all told I think I wound up owning two or three of the beasts and that was what I wrote most of my college papers on. (Ah, Word Writer 3, I remember how awesome I thought you were.)

I got a used Amiga 500 in Grad School and I got my first Windows Machine right out of training for my first job. Widows 3.11. I eventually upgraded and gave that PC to my folks. It eventually died, but not after putting in about 15 years as a Solitaire machine for my mother.

I remember when I started this job back in 94 the For Sale column of the local paper was filled with people selling their old C64s ...

If they reboot the FF I wonder if they'd use the same motion capture thing they did for the Hulk on the Thing. It'd be kind of cool to see what a CGI version of the more contemporary Thing would look like...

Those of you who have read The Chronicles of Amber know what I mean by "Trump." In that series, the Amberite nobility had the ability to travel from place to place using a Trump Card that was a representation of the place they wished to travel to.

So I was thinking... why not add a "Trump" card to the Super Packs? A sort of one time dedicated mission transporter card.

I see three possible alternatives for the missions...

1. The Trump could take any level toon to one of the Safeguard or Mayhem missions as a chance to catch badges they may have missed.

2. The Trump takes you to a Holiday Event mission.

3. The Trump takes you to a regular Badge mission.


I don't know if there's a technical issue that'd prevent this, but it struck me as a nice little idea...

I have always been a teacher.

Oh, to be sure I have had my fair of poor students-- the unwilling, the unable, those who simply refused to learn. No teacher is blessed to never know what it is to try to teach someone who does not wish to learn. That is the risk we take.

But the reward-- oh, the reward!

When you find a willing student-- someone who not only wants to learn, but needs it! When you find someone like that it makes teaching worthwhile.

A teacher is not necessarily the same as a scholar, though the two are not mutually incompatible.

Tielekku, my mentor, was a scholar. She enjoyed learning for its own sake-- and she would share with anyone who asked of her, but she did not seek out students. She certainly had no intention of sharing her discoveries with the mortals who worshiped us.

I, on the other hand, could see no reason not to.

Mortals had minds that thought and hearts that felt. Indeed, their mortality, their fragile flesh-- it made them more ardent students than any god could ever hope to be. They were not immune to the elements. They could not create comfort with but a thought and a wave of the hand. Humans had to build, to make ... they had to learn.

And I had to be their teacher.

At first, Tielekku was pleased-- and even Hequat saw no reason to gainsay me. The more we taught mortals, the more they stood in awe of us ... the more they worshiped us.

And worship is most appealing to a god ... even a god as kind as Tielekku.

So no one spoke against me as I helped mortals learn how to forge metal, to record their language in a written form. No one opposed me when I taught them about weaving, about agriculture. No one stood against me when I even told the humans something of science....

But then I showed the mortals magic ...

Tielekku-- kind, caring Tielekku-- grew angry at me. And Hequat ... her fury was like unto that of a storm. She struck me and swore that the people I had shown favor to would be wiped utterly from the face of the Earth. She would destroy all that I had built, all that I loved ...

Perhaps my people would have been served better if I had been more of a warrior and less of a teacher. Hequat overwhelmed them, cast them from their lands. Razed their cities and slaughtered their young like cattle.

And I ... fled.

I took the survivors and led them across the sea to a land unknown to my fellow gods.. We built a new city, grander than all the ancient ones combined. We created-- or rather, they-- created Oranbega.

And for generations, my people learned and thought and grew wise.

And I thought they were safe ...

But I had spent so many years among mortals that I had forgotten just how patient a god can be. Hequat spent generations making a nation of sorcerers, a race of warrior mages that could kill with lightning, with hatred, with a fury that would not be slaked until the last drop of Oranbegan blood was gone.

And I failed my people.

I knew that we could not overcome the Mu on our own, so I went back to my mentor, back to Tielekku. I asked her to intercede for my people-- I begged her-- to save them....

And in response, she bound me, stripped me of my power, leashed my magicks so I could do nothing for my people ... not even lead them to flee once more ...

But I could watch.

I watched my people die.

And what's worse, I saw them become ... twisted.

Akarist, Archus, Senestrus-- the greatest scholars of their time, my most promising students-- when they saw that heaven could not-- would not-- help them, they reached out to the infernal regions.

They made the pacts that damned them all.

And I could do nothing but watch.

Tielekku released me when the Great War was over. When my people were destroyed-- worse than destroyed-- when Hequat's Mu had likewise been devastated, she let me go. When there was nothing I could do, she pronounced the sentence of my exile and stated that I would never again possess my full might, that I would never see my celestial home again.

No ... I would spend the rest of my immortal life among the mortals that I had taught. Stripped of most of my power, I would walk among them and watch them fall into darkness again and again. Thus would I learn the folly of helping mortals, of believing in them ....

Thus spoke Tielekku ...

And she was right.

Under countless names I have seen humans rise to glory time and again. Cimerora, Athens, Rome, Camelot ... always it seems that human frailty, human hate and fear, destroys whatever they build ...

And yet they rise ever again.

They still build. They still dream. They still learn.

And I am still here to teach them.

I am Ermeeth of Oranbega.

I am a teacher.

And now I live in a City of Heroes.