ChaosRed

"I got the heel of a boot on my chest dude, otherwise I'd oblige," came Red's reply.

"Seriously, I just wanted to tell a group of strangers, that I need to quit drinking again and wandered into the wrong place. Have mercy on a penniless drunk will ya?"

Red deactivated his electrical aura. Then he blinked at Rose, cleared his throat and stated plainly, "Oh, is this not where the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting is? Damn, I've lapsed for two years, my schedule must be horribly out of date. So unless you got free donuts, coffee and a nice little prayer about 'one day at a time', I'll just be on my way."

Then he paused briefly and added, "Damn, nice suit girl. Where'd you get that?"

As Red entered the building he could sense there was something going on - and he knew, he had once again stumbled into trouble, and probably invited himself to a place he was not expected or welcome.

"CRAP!" he suddenly blirted, and quickly tried to grab the spiderling.

Red’s ability to fly was sloppy and slow. He jerked into the air with a sudden stop and start motion, (making a lot of noise along the way as the electricity around him sparked and sizzled). Red was strong, but he was never nimble. He was also never neat, never quiet and never subtle. In fact, he was “trouble walking” in every sense of the phrase.

“Maybe the robot’s not worth it,” he thought to himself. “Maybe, once again, I’m letting my love of technology get the better of me. Maybe I should just go straight and get a job as a computer technician.”

He shuttered at this last thought, and bit his lip as if to bring himself out of his self-pity.

“No damn it, I’m Chaos Red. I can do anything.”

And so he flew into the window, crackling like a greased frying pan.

((For what is worth, many characters of mine "park" themselves at level ranges, to match who and what they are in roleplay. I don't have a single level 50 on any server (my highest is 39), and I've played since December 2004. Sigh, yes I know, I suck!

So Red's staying the 20-something for at least a year, and in fact has been at that level range since 2007. Also he's the kind of character you should be able to push around. He's a punk - a technical wizard punk - sure, but he's not *awesome*, he's just trying to survive as a low-level outlaw.

I hope that won't muddle things too much. I just want to offer up a character others can push around, intimidate and even defeat if they want; or maybe employ to do things "beneath the dignity" of greater characters.

If that's gonna mess things up, I'll adapt. But Red isn't omnipotent. He's smart, he's savvy, but a real heavyweight should be able to make quick work of him if necessary.

He's also broke, penniless and destitute, that helps drive a lot of 'drama' for him.

Again, I hope that doesn't mess things up, or that I am not acting like a problem child. I just like Red being secondary/tertiary in both power and importance.

And Red can just assume the spider is unique, only to discover it is a basic bot. He's prone to mistakes anyway, no problem there.))

((Villains if you choose to spot Red and "deactivate" him, feel free to smack him to kingdom-come. Just don't kill the poor guy of course! He's level 20 in-game, which gives you a crude idea of his level of power if you'd like a barometer))

Chaos Red stood astounded at the dexterity of the robot spider he had spied coming out of JW's Lounge.

"God damn, if that ain't the coolest robot I've seen," Red thought to himself and he smacked his lips in admiration.

It was time to feel a little pain, and undergo a process Red loathed, but was often necessary. He took a deep breath and then flexed his biceps, and kept them fully flexed for half a minute. The muscles stretched, his heart rate surged and this activated the biomechanical tattoos on his arms. This ionized his blood so quickly, so that electrical arcs began to form and swirl around his body.

At first, it was just wisps of lightning dancing briefly around his shoulders, but as his muscles surged with power, eventually he was surrounded in a circle of crimson electricity. He could then direct the ions at will. In this case, he would direct them to bombard the ground at alarming speed, creating loft and eventually a reasonable semblance of flight. His black leather jacket contained a substantial amount of rubber to help provide some protection from the swirling electric arcs around his body.

Red hated these powers, he had crafted them hastily and then had crudely improved their technology as time went by. It used a combination of the electrical manipulation techniques he had learned while he was a member of the Freakshow gang and the "living tattoos" used by the Tsoo.

So he just refined the Freakshow's powers so that it didn’t require massive generators strapped to his back. A real scientist would scoff at his crude hacks, but for Red this was the best it got. Mostly he hated them, because they were damn painful, and if he stayed in this state for any real length of time, he’d be covered in burns and scars afterward.

He drifted up slowly towards the window and apartment to see what the robot was off to. He was an easy mark for any *real* super-villain. For Red was just a kid with a crude homemade hack for a “super power”…

((You are awesome sir, you've given Red something technical to admire and prize. I appreciate it, greatly))

-- Just Outside JW's Lounge --

A strange robot is not the most uncommon site on the Rogue Isles. A robot that climbs a vertical wall with little to no effort however, was something Chaos Red took notice of.

Red loved tech, it had fascinated him since he was a kid. His obsession with tech always got him into trouble, and sadly, it seemed to keep him impoverished too; and yet like an addict he kept going back always wanting another technical challenge.

He studied the robot and couldn’t tell if it was of Arachnos design or not; he assumed it was, but he couldn’t be sure. Arachnos networks were extremely challenging to hack, not like Freedom Corps. The problem with the Corps was, they liked their employees too much, gave them too many chances. As a result, a lot of incompetent system engineers were kept on the payroll. Red once opened a security worm into one of Corp’s mainframes that took weeks for them to discover and eliminate. He stole a lot of valuable tech that day, how come he didn’t profit from it all?

“Because I’m an idiot,” he said to himself in disgust, buttoning his coat to fight the cold. “It's freezing again and I’ll have to scrounge for a squat to sleep,” he thought to himself.

Dreading another cold night, in a condemned building, he decided instead to watch the robot. If the time was right and the opportunity was there, he’d snatch the thing, deactivate it and then sell it on the black market – (and finally make the kind of money he deserved).

It seems the addict, had once again decided to obtain another fix.

((If you need the spiderling to complete its 'mission' I can ensure later, its defense mechanisms teach Red a lesson. Or you can write that part yourself if you prefer. Just don't kill the poor guy obviously. ))

Looks like the site is back online folks, much to my relief.

From a roleplay perspective, I think just about any of the MM types could work. The biggest stretch might be Necromancy (why would a rich guy go digging in graves and/or studying the occult), and the easiest to explain would be robots of course, and of course mercenaries (military) blends perfectly with a “James Bond” villain.

I would argue that if Greed is truly your theme that Robotics is probably the easiest fit, since to extremely greedy person robots don’t require a paycheck!

One thing I want to caution you about MM is it is a fairly passive gaming experience. Mastermind’s in general are very easy to buff/build into a creation that largely runs itself. Your sole responsibility will be to heal your “army” and pull them back before mob spillage can cause any real danger.

The advantage is you can roleplay a lot (while your “army” decimates the opposition), the disadvantage is, you might feel a little disconnected from the action. I know I did. Also, my understanding is MM’s are fairly inept at PVP, if that matters to you.

One other small rant:

I like the villain side better than the hero side, because the enhancement/invention market is far more reasonable; levels 6-20 have a much better design to them, there’s far less “zone to zone” travel to complete or setup missions, and the smaller player pool, often means you become more familiar with other players.

However, one thing about villains is, you rarely feel like a villain in the mission arcs and if you do, it feels like obscure and trivial “work”. Mostly, you are either just being paid to do someone else’s bidding, or you are kidnapping people, or you are robbing a bank. For someone who hopes to make greed the “centerpiece” of the character, the standard mission arcs might feel frustrating; especially when you realize that for five levels you might be nothing more than a “stooge” and “lackey” for Frank Sinatra and his casino. This is your situation when you are but a level or two away from getting epic powers.

Your powers and ability rarely, if ever, are reflected in the work you are asked to do.

Ah, but you mention Issue 14, and now suddenly we can get some decent writing infused into our game.

The game has great writing and stories and parts, and then clearly a muddle of missions thrown together without much thought or effort to fill out the game.

This is why I think I14 might be a real boon to the game as a whole. There's nothing like being able to cater your RP vision, with actual content creation.

One notation I have that *might* help, is the SSL certificate is out of date, so if someone is trying to edit via SSL (https as opposed to just http), browsers will probably warn of the certification situation and that might harm the ability to edit.

Just something I noticed a while back - and may not be the issue at hand.

Also, I made significant edits last night, with no problems at all, I could test again if you'd like if that is of any use.

--St. Martial: J.W.'s Lounge--

Red had enough. Demons arguing about bathroom freshners, shotguns, sandwiches and distant explosions which everyone seemed to ignore as everyday occurence.

He may be a homeless scoundrel, but even Red had limits to his discomfort.

He made his way to the exit, walking right past a creature that would give most teenagers his age hellish nightmares.

"God damn Hallow'een here every night. What happened to all the normal people?"

He stopped briefly, preened in front of the mirror behind the bar, waved at it, and then began a heavy walk to the door.

--St. Martial: J.W.'s Lounge--

Chaos Red stood up after hearing an explosion not far off from his comfy booth.

He stood 6 foot 3, with an impressive frame. He had a crimson Mohawk haircut that was so stiff, one wondered if he used glue to hold it straight. He wore black Doc Marten boots, laced tightly with an almost fascist precision. Draped over his shoulders, was a long, black leather coat, well-worn and smooth with age. The sleeves of the coat were crudely cut off, exposing arms that were probably his most unique feature. Dancing and twisting from his shoulders to his wrists, were tattoos that seemed to flow and pulse with each beat of his heart. This was an old trick of the Tsoo tattoo artists, creating tattoo ink that seemed to ebb and flow (some called them ‘living tattoos’). A closer inspection however, would reveal that Red’s tattoo’s moved in a much more mechanical rhythm than anything the Tsoo would craft.

Red bristled as a second explosion could be heard. Every hair on his body stood on end, and his eyes narrowed; he was clearly both nervous and eager to see what caused the sound. Like a young solider in a fox hole, he wanted to be brave, but didn’t want to die.

“Did anyone else hear that?” he asked, snatching his laptop and stuffing it inside his long leather coat.

--J.W.'s Lounge--

Red thought the question of cameras was interesting as well, but kept such thoughts to himself. The scene playing out in front of him was way out of his league and he knew it.

Still, with nowhere else to go, (and the possibility he could squat here after hours) it meant he would stick around for as long as the others would let him...

((Figured two things: 1) Someone far more attached to the story arc can make the decision on the security cameras. 2) The way the bartender answered the question, meant even Red realized there was a chance of a lie in there, and he became curious to the answer. I'm just providing sidebar here with my posts, and bumping the thread. I feel I am not engrained enough in protocol/tradition/characters here to twist the story in any strong direction))

--J.W.'s Lounge--

Red snickered at the bartender, leaned his boots on the table (which he knew the staff hated) and reached for a Marlboro.

Then he remembered he was out, and had nothing but lint and pennies in his pocket.

--St. Martial: J.W.'s Lounge--

Chaos Red pounded his laptop. He was playing Italy for the first time in A&A and having a hard time of it. It didn't help matters that the idiot playing Germany wasn't supporting southern Europe and England had just secured Egypt.

"Time to hack the site again," he muttered and he used a simple SQL injection technique to buff up his defenses.

The bar was settling down, shifting from shotguns to sandwiches within the span of a few minutes.

He gazed at the oddball sights around the bar.

He hated this place, but he never seemed to get kicked out. He thought it was because the bartender knew Red was useful in a fight if things got rough. Well that, and he had shown the bartender how to hack iTunes.

The bartender was quite the L.A. Guns fan apparently.

So awaiting his next turn on A&A, Red kicked out his steel toe Doc Marten boots and watched what would happen next...

--St. Martial: J.W.'s Lounge and Bar--

A drunken punk, with a crimson mohawk and a sweaty black leather jacket, snickers as Eddy pulls out his gun.

"Just once I'd like to get drunk here, without seeing someone shot or beat into a coma. Just once."

Then the punk belches loudly, and goes back to playing Axis and Allies on his laptop. His Dos Equis, sits next to his computer untouched.

It's obvious that the poor kid is milking his last beer, so he can use the free wireless bandwidth inside the bar. This makes him clearly penniless and pathetic, and the laptop is probably stolen.

Demon Wing is at level 39 and doing great, he's just leveling too fast! So I've started an alt, to play when Dudley is sleeping...

Cobra Fist (VirtueVerse)

...and some updates to Demon Wing (he could use an RP super-villain group if anyone has a recommendation for him)

Demon Wing (VirtueVerse)


...and my user page, pretty crude but features all the characters I have:

User:Tyranno (VirtueVerse)

It's too bad Lunar Lad is level 45.

For ages, I've been wanting to find a home for my "I was a teenage robot" character named Saturn Boy...

Saturn Boy (VirtueVerse)

Basically all Saturn Boy is, is Pinnochio - except as a super-powered robot, instead of a wooden puppet.

Lunar Lad, (I think) would get a kick out of him, perhaps treating him like a great big toy. But Saturn Boy never really advanced much, because he was purely an RP device, and could never seem to find a groove.

If I ever get him closer to LL's threat level, I'll be sure to let you know.

Oh, and awesome page by the way, I loved his concept and bio.

Thanks for the kind words, Spartan I love what you wrote about carebears.

And I think I agree with you, although nobody begrudges others having a good time, focusing solely on popularity and tea parties, gets tiresome too.

VV is just a gem of a resource, the stewards of that site are to be commended, I frequently browse it, even when my account is not active.

KISS stands for Knights in Satan's Service, just ask Dudley Winger...

Demon Wing (VirtueVerse)

Can I get a big round of applause for schizophrenic super-villains?

...and that's why, my friends, why the entire system needs to be torn down.

This is a new breed of theocracy, where instead of priests dominating the masses now it is super heroes.

Dig the new breed. It's the church of spandex folks, and it will swat you with a super powered fist if you dare to defy.

"All animals are equal, some are more equal than others," said the pig, and how very, very piggy you look in that spandex and super suit of yours.

Anarchy is the only solution, it is the means by which justice will be restored.

Anarchy is the true nature of all things.

And if we can't have revolution, we might just settle for revenge.

Rise up citizens...it's time to take this stench of a city down and bring a new dawn to the tired and huddled masses of Earth...

ANARCHY NOW!

* Chaos Red grins at his own rhetoric, belches out his last can of Mountain Dew (with a deafening roar) and then walks away knowing his work is done for the day.*

((Wow that last one (evil geniuses) was one of the better guild ads I've seen in a long time. I love the tone, voice and humor throughout. Good luck with the guild.))

I don't think any of the people complaining here about the costs of this game have any idea how CHEAP it really is compared to the cost of developers, servers, code, software tools, marketing and so on.

I think some of us have an idea.

The thing is COH doesn't have the subscriber numbers to justify releasing an expansion that was 1+ year in the making without charging more per month.

EQ did it all the time for just the price of the CD with the new code/expansion on it. But EQ could take the profit off the CD, multiply it by the number of expected buyers and turn a profit.

COH knows it can't, because it's not that big a game. It also needs (I think) need to push the envelope of its subscription fee to get more revenue in. COH *might* be profitable right now, but juding by the number of people I see playing each day and the fact they haven't had to add new servers in FOREVER, I'd wager its not making a lot of coin.

Also COH2 has to start sometime and that will take a lot of $$ to get off the ground. If they can cultivate some of that $$ by taking the current player base and making them pay another 10 dollars a month, then so much the better.

My worry is COH is banking on COV acquiring lots of new players and I really don't think it will. There will be an influx of new players out of curiosity, but I don't think we'll see a population explosion beyond the first 8 weeks.

At a minimum people will see an under-developed game compared to the competition that actually costs more than the current industry leaders. And to me, that translates to them bailing on the game a month or two after purchase.

I could be wrong, I hope I am wrong and of course, time will tell.

I don't disagree with your frustration, but we are in the comic book medium.

On that note, let's ask the question, does anything in comic books truly matter? How many times has the Joker been put away? Heck, Spider-Man was a clone for years, and entire years of storylines and 'progress' were wiped away.

In fact, other than Crisis on Infinite Earths, I can't think of a mainstream comic that's had an everlasting effect. Even with Crisis, we eventually saw the return of Supergirl and Kid Flash.

The comic book medium has a way of perpetuating its conflicts, characters and storylines. It's just part of the genre.

Again, I understand your frustration, but realistically, we should not be surprised that mere days after we put Dr. Vahzilok away, he seems to be out on the streets again. It happens in comics all the time. Nor should be surprised that you know two hero groups fighting a particular villain at the same time, because Daredevil and Spiderman clashed with Kingpin in issues released at the same time as well.

The *only* thing I'd like to see is a longer life line for stories and characters. After I defeat Vahzilok, why is it I never get another story line with him again, with a new story? Why does he not remember me? Why isn't he hunting me?

I know those things are a challenge programatically, but while I can concede I can't make a different to the universe my character lives in, I would like it, if I at least annoy and become true enemies of the villains that I thwart.

The *real* enemies too, not the COV vs. COH battles that are coming, which for my money, will likely descend into games of DOOM pretty quickly after the COV release.

I promised I would elaborate on the origin of Spiked Venom and so I have.

Yet, I have only begun to give you the nuts and bolts of his genesis. The real question, "does Spiked Venom possess a soul and does he have the same rights as true human", is a matter I shall leave to a famous psychologist another time.

Still, I do elaborate a little on the mystery that is Spiked Venom...

Origin of Spiked Venom