Chompie

What hurts most.. is seeing how much it hurts all of you.

I left the game, pretty much for good. I left with good memories, with so much love.. but the designer in me felt it was ailing, old systems holding it back, making each step forward harder and harder. I couldn't bring myself to stick around.

I've since found a new MMO to love, just recently... But I won't forget City of Heroes. How could I? It was an experience like no other. It gave me the inspiration to create so many characters who grew right in front of me- in power, in personality, in character... Nothing else has ever made me feel so at home in making a character. Everything from the outfit choices to the sublime community to the wonderful multiverse Paragon City was set in- it all added up to bliss.

And despite all that, I'm not nearly as attached as all of you. So the thing that hurts most, is seeing how it affects you guys. I love you.


Maybe some day, another world will come along, one that tries to strive for the community and character this game had. Maybe I'll see you again.


<3 Chompie (Arblis / Scantily Clad / Sunsoldier, and many, many others. May Virtue rise again)
*A wave goodbye, from the first picture I ever uploaded to imageshack*

I will be everyone's friend for ever and ever... Unless they leave me alone and watch Virtue crash into the ocean, whales moaning in fear as it destroys EVERYTHING in its descent.

Uh..

What I'm saying is, I'm staying on Virtue, because it's VIRTUE. And it'll stay that way, if it knows what's good for it!

I'm not worried about weapon sets being boring, really.

When I make a character and go "hmm, I want a neato weapon", I don't have many choices. Axe and Mace are horribly generic attack sets, and Broadsword and Katana, while containing a game-changing neato build-revolving power, are straight-up copies of each other.

But nowadays, we get actual differently-playing NEW sets- Dual Pistols and Kinetic Melee and Electric Control oh my! I don't really care what a new set is themed around anymore, I KNOW it's going to end up being fun and different.

With the latest sets we've gotten, I have confidence in the powers that be. <3

I can now take Grant Invis whenever the hell I want to. Hmm. Maybe I'll get around to trying a supportive character again...

Personally, I'm going Spiritual.
Eventually, to the Radial path, I think. Recharge to round out my attacks (So I have a near-full chain of both AoE's and Single Target stuff), Healing for my beloved hoarfrost, Slow Duration and Jump Power because I grab aggro by tagging everything with Chilling Embrace using CJ/Hurdle and it is a lot of fun. Wheeee!

My other option I was mildly interested in was Nerve (radial as well) - Accuracy is fairly nice, taunt duration also helps with my reliance on taunt auras, and the un-reduced Defense Buff madness is very tempting....

Thing is, I don't do much in the way of TF's. If I was interested in hardcore tank powah I'd probably get Nerve. Or actually attempt to softcap my defenses.
However, I'll have a lot more fun with Spiritual, as the things it buffs fit my playstyle and common activities far better.

EDIT: I realize not everyone knows this ole chart I've been mulling over.

Hmm. A few things I think deserve additional mentioning-

Mass Hypnosis. For reals, this power is amazing, so long as you know how people work. There are SO MANY maps where a second or third group of enemies is pretty much inevitable.. well, people tend to aim at the first thing they see. Let folks attack the visible group, Hypnosify the ones squinting at you from that side hallway.
Fighting rather high-level or high-defense foes? Mass Hypnosis gets even better. It has naturally high accuracy- if you open with this power, aiming at the back of the spawn, you can sleep a LOT of foes. Again, since the melee and ranged both will be AoEing the front of the spawn, they'll hit target or range caps without breaking too many sleeps, and there's a good chance any stray AoE's will still miss half the sleeping fools in the back. Very, VERY nice to have on a team with few debuffs.

Mesmerize: Particularly on a Dominator- Hits as hard and fast as a t1 straight-up attack power, has higher-than-normal accuracy, and the sleep, no matter how soon it gets broken, will detoggle the target.. Ruin Mages just aren't that scary. Also stops a boss from pummeling you or another squishy for a few precious seconds. Never underestimate the power of a solid spammable attack with a Mag 4 sleep attached.

Rise of the Phoenix. It needs to be said again: If you can't handle a group of foes, this will make you more than twice as strong to mow them down. If you make a mistake, this will make up for it and more. This is the only power that helps me remember to use Hasten, which I usually forget about and not bother with.
That bit about making you more than twice as strong: It lets you fight to your dying breath, the fullest extent of your power, then deals damage, stuns, and lets you fight back down to your dying breath AGAIN. Anyone who finds that to be not-useful is insane.

What the hell? When I heard a new mysterious sound effect, everyone just said I had brain cancer.
Jerks. >:(

I continue fighting. I generally do it at +2/x8 with nobody to help but just a couple AFK folks who need a respec while on my tanker.

I don't understand why someone would deliberately play something they know will be boring!

I haven't met any of me in-game friends outside of it. But I did get one of them to sew and mail me the WORLD'S MOST AWESOME HAT EVER!

And honestly, isn't that almost as good?

I only have the character slots given by default and vet rewards, and only play on one server. This makes organizing pretty easy!
First page is heroes and heroic-flavored praetorians. Heroes are on top, sorted in order of how much I am currently interested in them, then praetorians, sorted the same way.
Second page is those poor saps stuck in the rogue isles, also sorted by how interested I am in them at the moment.

I have to clear out a couple slots soon. I've got only one or two left, and several characters I just don't play.

So I seem to have some trouble actually playing this lovely game lately.

See, soloing is boring. I really enjoy playing on teams! And yet, I can't seem to do that either.
I have lots of time, and none of it is very close together. If I want to join a team I either A) Hope to dear god that I see one looking for people and have a character I actually want to play with them, or B) Start a team, spend more than half the time I have forming it, then have to leave halfway through the first damn mission.

And hell, C) Finding a steadier group of people to join up with whenever I'm on doesn't work either- In addition to liking team play, I also like actually following the story of story arcs, and with the completely random times I can be on or have to suddenly leave.. well, nobody has the patience for that kind of sticking around, and It'd be cruel to want someone to.

So I end up doing E) A jar of almonds.
Er, D) Solo for a minute or two and then get tired of being level 7, or 11, or 27, and fighting nearly-identical groups of foes a hell of a lot because I can rarely up the difficulty solo and live.

Global channels? Yeah, I keep those up, and once in a while I'm glad I do, as Virtue LFG makes A) up there actually possible. But only once in a while. Most of what's there is task forces which, if you hadn't guessed from my description of available playtimes, are right out.

What the hell should I do?


And I swear to god if you tell me to join a Supergroup I will bake your innards into a quiche and feed it to your SGmates.

The blue is too dark for me, and the red is unspeakably dim. And I keep my monitor as bright as I can! You guys are weirdos.

Though honestly, I think it's more of a "how each person sees a color" thing. The vast majority of blues are rather dark and obscuring to me, the powerful bright gold is so welcome to my eyes!

I am so late to this thread. But I will still throw my opinions in!

If I had to choose between the two, I'd say big explosions. But in all honesty, I like combat that paces itself, that has a fair share of believable stuff finished off with something absolutely ludicrous.

My taste in fighting games really helps reinforce this- my favorite fighters are games like Super Smash Bros and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. Some normal fighting, some admittedly ridiculous fighting, and some HOLY CRAP THE ENTIRE SKY DARKENED AND THEN I THREW A SPEAR MADE OF PURE LIFE ENERGY THROUGH YOUR HEART!

And I would be in full support of flashier situational T9 attacks. Things like Head Splitter and.. well, most of the Melee Attack T9s really are underwhelming.

Hmm, well...

I use Radiation Blast as my go-to for "pretty zappy lights of doom yay!"

Energy Blast in yellow and black (or was it black and yellow) makes an excellent BEE BLAST!

Earth Control in garish blues and greens with black, using the Crystal type.. well, you get to trap people in 1970's cyberspace polygons!

Also I have a character whose allergies manifest as Sonic Blast/Fire Manipulation. She's really, REALLY allergic. To everything.

That's all I can remember for now!

In Praetoria, I've actually bothered to buy TO's. Cause there-

The enemies are harder (Some even have defenses argh)
I spend time soloing (so I can putz around reading story and wasting time)
There was a third reason, I swear.

I got three each of Acc and Recharge TO's on my new stalker and WOW when I put those suckers in, everything was noticeably easier!

Reminds me of when I was walking to an ice cream store, and came across Darth Vader playing violin music to advertize his new CD.

That was freakin priceless.

That is awesome!!
And.. when I saw JohnnyBlazeEm there, drug reference was not my first thought.. no, I think it's a bit more personal of a reference than that.

*giggles uncontrollably*

It makes me SO HAPPY how well-done the alignment stuff is. I mean, look at this thread, it's proof of greatness, right here.

At the same time, I'm not happy about how well-done the alignment stuff is. I won't be able to do a large number of the missions! I am just not a fan of evil, and I can't properly roleplay a character who is. I'd delete them, for being horrible evil people. >:(

But.. wow. Yeah, the alignment missions and everything surrounding them are SO well done. Bravo

I feel your pain, my brother in arms.

I have people-yakking on the top part of my chat window, with about six lines on the bottom section for Defeat, Reward, NPC Chatter, and Cutscene Captions. Though I may be used to using it to read the game-enhancing dialog, it doesn't mean I enjoy the method of delivery.

I wave my flag in support of this issue.

So, a couple days of heavy webcomicing followed by a couple days of just being really spacy, I retuuuurn!

About four years or so (somewhere over a thousand strips) through Bob and George I just.. gave up. Just not my type, I suppose. It's not you, it's me.

I can't believe I hadn't spotted Fey Winds before now because seriously it is awesome and like the same style of thing I wish I could write if I were any good at making comics. Which I'm not, so I more just wish I was moderately okay with comicmaking. One step at a time you know?
Unusual setting with nifty stuff to find out about during the story? Check.
Somehow is both a humongous joke and a serious great adventure tale? Check.
PRETTY!!!!! ? Check.
Seriously, how could it exist without my knowledge. Not okay! Well it's okay now. Thanks wonderslug!

anti-HEROES I read through too, not bad at all! Though at the same time, not much to mention about it either. Above average would be a good term to use, I think!

Also this just in I found out I suck at linking on this forum what the hell.
I'm gonna.. go fix that... >_<

Aw, man! It does my heart extra-good to see some of my favorite not-very-well-known comics mentioned. ( Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name, Antihero for Hire, Buck Godot, Keychain of Creation )

But yes, YAY COMICS!
Looks like I'll be catching up on The Zombie Hunters from wherever it was last I read through it, and reading through Fey Winds, and for some reason I never did read through Bob and George (probably the extreeeeemely slow start) but I'd better do that too...


And I suppose I aughta throw a suggestion out there too, instead of just eating everyone else's! Nobody Scores is one of those not-well-known ones. Episodic in that each comic is out of the continuity of the others.. and yet there's not the sense of stagnation that you normally get from "wacky antics" that have no real repercussions. And let me tell you, I hate wacky repercussionless antics that sitcoms have trained writers to write. This comic is awesome, and you should feel awesome.