Dr_Mechano

TV screens across the land flickered, replaced by the now infamous skull and cog logo. This was no advert, the standard old school method of Mechano was showing true.

Edward appeared on screen and he looked angry, really angry, possibly angrier than anyone had seem he before...a righteous fury etched onto his face.

"This is a warning to those heroes of Paragon City, stay out of our way...this is far more personal than you could imagine...since you have failed at cleaning up this Humanity First filth, who preach hate and lies within your own city, to ignorant, uniformed citizens who have no right to decide on ANYTHING!"

Edward took a deep breath, "People of Paragon, by now you know of Project Chimera, I will say this...Project Chimera is Alpha and the Omega. She will be the start of a new breed of superhumans and she will be the end of Humanity First..."

"Ordinary citizens, you have nothing to fear, you will not be harmed this is personal business...the same goes for you caped crusaders out there, as I said before...stay out of her way and the only ones that will be hurt are those faschists in Humanity First."

"If there's one thing I cannot stand...it is bigots...whether they discriminate against gender, age, skin colour, religion or the empowered...I am a fair man, I have no bias against those wishing to partake in the New You program...any and all are welcome at the Toasty Dreams private hospital, I never turn a soul away because of who they are...I am empowering those who are informed enough to make the right choice...to choose freedom..."

"Paragon City...consider yourself warned...."

With that the signal cut out, returning to your scheduled programming.

Edward was not best please, loudly cursing at the fact his best shot hadn't done anything but leave a large crater.

Edward looked over his shoulder to Toy and gave a thumbs up before returning to sweeping the giant flying thing for any weakness with his scope...hmm there was something that would normally allow his shots to find a place.

"STEVE, ATTACK PATTERN OMEGA!"

He was obviously still partially deaf from the last shot fired.

The Shivan begun it's work, clambering up the trees and seeing the Harvester, the skull of the Shivan was, as ever, impassive and impossible to read. Steve loosened his red and black tie a little, this was going to be interesting.

Now this thing was obviously too large for the Shivans inherent radiation to weaken over all...even Steve didn't have that kind of power, he'd need a pack of Shivan friends to do that.

However he could make a soft spot, it would take all his concentration to maintain even the large spot needed to weaken a part of this mighty mechanical behemoth. Raising his hand outstretched the cosmic radiation begun to manifest as a bubbling, boiling point on the Harvesters armour, the center of the beetle like head seemed like an obvious choice.

Edward switched on the laser targetter, a risky move since it would give away his position...if the large boom and muzzle flash already hadn't. He tried to yell at the incoming crowd and hoped they would notice not only the Steve's radiation but the bright red beam lancing through the trees, marking the same point.

If they were to bring this thing down they needed to work together, This thing was like a bigger Jade Spider...and Edward had taken out that with help from some friends...and Steve. Admittedly the Jade Spider was focusing on a big brute of a man at the time and not him...

"I wish I'd packed some of those nukes from warburg for this..."

Edward had already unslung Betsy at the sight of the cake and animatronic birthday cards appearing...he did not like surprises least of all ones like that. He accepted that eating the food would turn him a different colour but then he was already grey skinned so being blue or orange would make little difference to him...and he needed all the supplies he could get.

Watching the Marbles disappear he sighed, so much for raising a standing army on this world, he enjoyed a good prank though. He knew he would probably see them again, probably the moment he ate that food, they would be there, laughing like hyenas...no matter.

Hearing Mar he smiled, "at last...technology...one does not run from technology my good friend, one embraces it...Mr Fluffers...to the trees, I do not wish to see you harmed...I suggest you find somewhere to hid as well my wounded friend, myself and Steve shall hunt this big game!"

The spider followed his instructions and clambered into the nearby trees, Steve had heard the kerfuffel and already arrived back in camp, he moved quickly despite his slow, ponderous steps.

"Betsy, time for the big dog to bark...."

The rifle spoke in a sweet yet generic female computerized voice, "Barrett mode engaged..."

The rifle seemed to switch and grow until it resembled the mode name rifle, Edward was forced to lay on the ground, there was no way he could fire this thing standing up, even with his cybernetic arms it'd wrench them out of their sockets and fly him several feet backwards. Unfolding the tripod and looking through the scope to see if he could locate this 'flying machine' of alien origin.

"There you are...Betsy...depleted Uranium rounds...I want to hit this thing as hard as I can...."

"Ammo type selected, spawning....spawning complete...ready to fire..."

He took one deep breath and steadied his aim...to be fair the target was large enough for anyone remotely competent with a gun to hit but the trees continually blocked the line up of a good shot, he waited for a gap in the trees and fired...

...the ground shook around him, kicking up dust and dirt. The gunshot peeled like thunder as it rumbled through the forest, flocks of exotic birds would probably be startled into the air for miles around as the large calibre round fired. Those familiar with gunfire would recognise the noise as a large gun being fired. Edward would probably be deaf for a few moments but it was a good price to pay for a good shot.

Edward cocked the firing bolt back, shouting as to be sure he heard himself "Betsy...another round!"

"Spawning..."

((sorry people...different timezones and all))

Edward eyed the food given by these strange tribal looking people suspisciously but seeing them drink and eat it he shrugged.

"Thank you kind people, I shall save that for later, for we have already eaten tonight, you are welcome to accompany me on my journey of exploration and scientific discovery!"

He felt the ground shake and rumble, "hmm could be a meteorite or a drop pod of some kind..."

He turned to Mar, "If you are fine walking on six legs for the next day or so you should be alright...but let us not beat a hasty retreat at a mere tremor, Steve, you go investigate the source of the tremor, I shall load the gracious gifts of our new friends onto Mr Fluffers."

The Shivan nodded and begun heading in the direction of the source of the tremors. Edward loaded the food and drink gifted to him into the Howdah ontop Mr Fluffers. It had come at an opportune moment, lacking food supplies after eating the beef jerky and down to only two days water meant he would take what he could get.

I'd also like to note that advertising that far ahead is pretty dang common with expansion packs for MMOs.

Burning Crusade/Wrath of the Lich king/Cataclysm have all be advertisted more than a year in advance.

So if it's good enoug for old WoW, it's good enough for us.

I'll be honest and say ignore the SomethingAwful forums. A wretched hive of scum and villainy pretty much sums them up.

If it's not EVE or WoW they'll hate it.

Any somethingawful forum member is free to prove me wrong but they do kind of try to live up to the stereotype of basically being made up of internet trolls and griefers from what I've seen of them in action.

Actually Union did get a Double XP weekend once for the markets completely frelling up but that was because it was focused purely on Union and didn't effect any other servers and it was a bug that lasted about two weeks which required multiple rollbacks of Union...not a couple of days if I remember correctly.

This was back when we had EU representatives and EU located support staff admittedly.

Hmm more ideas on the whole factional groups, namely Freakshow as they've got a good example of a wide variety of types. Lets make use of the new branching technology.

Base ATs
Tank: You're so far gone with your obsession with cybernetically enhancing yourself that the only part of you that is actually you is your head and you're still figuring out ways to replace that.

Hit points: High
Melee damage: Medium.

Primary: Cybernetic Blades (lethal and a version of Claws instead replacing Eviscerate with Saw blade and replacing Focus with M30 grenade) or Cybernetic Hammers (Smashing, uses the same animations as Super Strength).
Secondary: Cybernetic Armor (variation of Invunerability but has an energy damage hole instead of a psionics hole).

Stunner:
Not as tough as your melee focused brethren but your control over electricity allows you to detain, fry or otherwise harm your foes.

Hit points: Low.
Damage: Medium.

Primary powerset: Electrical control.
Secondary: Electricity assault.

Champion:
While not as tough as your tank brethren the years of drug abuse has boosted your regeneration levels through the roof and your cybernetic arms make you a dangerous foe indeed. You're far more likely to keep going and lack the weakness to energy blasts suffered by your bigger metal brethren.

Damage: High.
Hitpoints: Medium.

Primary powersets: Same options as Tanks.
Secondary powersets: Regeneration.

Meat Doctor:
You're not as physically tough as most of your Freakshow companions but what you lack in physical strength you bring in medical prowess and cruel efficency.

Damage: low.
Hitpoints: Medium.

Primary powerset: Surgical training (a clone of Pain Domination).
Secondry powerset: Meat Doctor backpack (it's an amalgamation of the Crab spider backpack with abilities like Arm Lash, Frenzy and the Meat docs abilities like poison dart and Poison dart blast).
__________________________________________________ ______________________

From those Base ATs each one can split off at level 24 into a more specialised area (like the SoAs can become Bane/Crab) or stick with their normal version (like SoAs who choose to use a Huntsman build).

Tank: Noise Tank (Sonic Blast, a variation on the crabspider style with Blast/Resist instead of Blast/Defense), Rikti Tank (Energy Melee), Shadow Tank (Dark Melee).

Juicer: Rikti Zapper (becomes Radiation Emission/Electrical Assault), Juicer Sniper (Electrical Blast/Electricity Manipulation).

Chieftain: Sneaky Freak (turns Chieftan from Scrapper to Stalker), Rikti Freak (becomes energy melee/Regeneration), Shadow Freak (Dark melee).

Meat Doctor: Chemist (changes primary to Poison), Radiologist (changes primary to Radiation emission).
__________________________________________________ ________________________

Now while every group won't have as wider ranger of bosses and areas to specialise into (Malta for example all start out as Assault Rifle/Devices but can become a Dual Pistols/Traps Gunslinger or go completely out there and go Hercules Titan offers more AoE and resistance) and some can't specialise at all (Carnival Strongmen sadly can't specialise but they remain Mace/Invuln with Mask of Weakness thrown in at high level).

That's part of the fun though.

Hehe my inital reactions were, "OH you did NOT just pull a Metroid on me!"

Yeah I do love the badge reward for that mission is the 'man leaping through the air action hero style with explosion behind' art...it just fits that arc.

On test saved the clone, just took the money wire option (Arachnos soldier reasoning of "I can rob a bank any time...I'll only ever get this kind of revenge once...)" and told the clone to get out of there and go live her life...

Unlike most Arachnos soldiers she isn't evil, it's a paid stable job...

Now it's a really random bug and I've only ever encountered it ONCE ingame myself but it does happen.

It seems to strike if you keep a mission from prior an issue update to after an issue update and something happens with the enemy group database (they add new ones for example) but you'll walk in to your apparently carnival of shadows etc. radio mission and be greeted by Siren's Call Phantoms

Edward smiled, "ah...give me a moment..." he pondered for a second on what to do to help his wounded Arachnid companion, noting that Mr Fluffers appeared to be having the same problem with regards the solid state of the food.

"Aha!"

Reaching for the jerky he flicked through his all in one rotating hand attachments, "hmm saw, no, knife, no, blender...yes!"

Well it wasn't so much a blender as a set of rotating blades. Taking a bottle of water, cutting it in half and placing the jerky inside. The whirr of blades as he blended the jerky into a fine watery paste, spraying everywhere and finally placing it infront of Mar, "hmm should be liquidy enough..."

Using another bottle of water to prepare the watery jerky paste for Mr Fluffers to consume.

"Bon appetite!"

Edward bit off a chunk of jerky enthusiastically, "So tell me my good sir, would you know of any place where machines and techology dwell?"

He chuckled, "I am something of a scrap merchant when it comes to old technology, I like to tinker and salvage."

My favorite line from him was...

"That's worth a high five or atleast a fist bump!"

I could picture my Arachnos Soldier (who does it because it's a stable paying job, not because she loves Recluse or causing evil) just sighing and putting out her fist for a fist bump.

We did share an intense high five at the end though...

It was strange how my dialogue choices slowly moved from 'finding you annoying' to 'actually finding you endearing and likeable' through the course of the arc in a very natural way, Dean earned my Soldiers trust and she grew to like him, at the end of it I could quite easily picture her just rolling her eyes and deciding to give Dean a chance of a date...

Nice to know I wasn't the only one who was put to shame by their supposedly flawed clone...

ooooh that makes sense with what was said about Going Rogue missions not using contacts on the US test Q&A.

My Arachnos Soldier when I played it on test was a thugs/Dark miasma...the damn thing did better than I did!

As soon as the last device dropped she debuffed Ajax every which way from sunday and took him out like a punk before I could even run back!

She moped up the Wyvern ambush too.

Seriously scientists...I said a FLAWED clone...not one that does a better job at kicking backside than I do!

heheh most badass level 1 character known to mankind.

First hero: Wow cool utility belt, what's in that pocket?
Second hero: Revolver.
FH: and that pocket?
SH: Plasmic Taser.
FH: and that pocket?
SH: Envenomed dagger.
FH: and that pocket?
SH: Meow mix....it's personal
FH: oh...and that pocket?
SH: Backup radio...

((use [img] [/img] with a URL inbetween the two brackets))

Edward called Mr Fluffers to a halt at the sight of the wounded spider, taking note when the creature begun to talk.

"Good sir, I am a man on a scientific expedition and I do not cherish the thought of eating intelligent people or creatures, infact I would be a bad scientist if I did and while your death would present a fine opportunity for an autopsy of large Arachnids I am not that sort of man...well I am but not today!"

Edward hoped down off of the howdah, "sadly we do lack medical supplies though if you can survive for a few more minutes I'm pretty sure I can reprogram these nanites for medical use..." he flipped down a panel on his cybernetic arm, unreeling what looked like a USB cord and plugged it into the back of the nanoserum, his eyes seemed to go blank for a few minutes as he stood stock still staring into the middle distance. He shook his head and smiled a few moments later.

"There...now hold still while I inject you with this and you'll be as good as new in a day or so..."

Edward cautiously approached the creature, his Shivan bodyguard not far behind and would inject the nanoserum if the beast would let him.

If allowed the nanites would immediately set to work patching up the bullets holes, however the rebuilding of the two missing legs would take a full twenty four hours, science can work miracles, it just takes time.

"Steve we are to set up camp here to keep an eye on our new companion, I declare tonight, BEEF JERKY NIGHT!"

Steve took the single days supply of beef jerky and by single day it was beef jerky for breakfast, lunch, dinner and evening tea style single day. Steve distibuted the beef jerky amongst the group, including some to their wounded new companion.

Steve pushed over a large tree, breaking it apart into smaller chunk and using the highly concentrated radiation of eye lasers to make a large fire.

"Allow me introduce myself good sir, my name is Doctor Edward Johnson, some call me Doctor Mechano...you may choose yourself which you wish to call me, my large travelling companion is Steve and the other giant Arachnid we have decided to call Mr Fluffers...so what would be your name?"

Sharkshead Isle: Unionverse:

Edward aka Doctor Mechano cracked his mechanical knuckles.

"Right, seems we have our provisions all prepared for this proper dimensional excursion!"

He smiled, "Now, you six," he gestured to his robot family, "are to stay behind and watch the house, the last time I left it alone for some time Tony decided to blow thing thing up...don't worry I've done dimensional travel before and this time prepared for dimensional scaling."

A teenage female voice, the sweetness vastly mismatching the fact it was coming from the big assault bot of the group, "it's dangerous to go alone, atleast take Steve with you!"

Edward nodded, "good idea, I shall need a talking companion and someone to chart my discoveries of this new world and who better than my faithful Shivan friend!"

If Shivans could sigh, Steve would have. Steve was a Shivan with a difference, not only was he non-hostile to pretty much everyone (he liked people), he had a few cybernetic enhancements and he also wore a tie, it was red with black stripes, he liked it.

"Right, equipment check, a months supply of field rations, a months supply of drinking water, a few vials of Bees, Betsy..."

Betsy was the name he'd given to his assault rifle, modified with a mini nanolathe to produce ammunition within the gun itself of varying types from basic assault rifle rounds to depleted uranium shells for big creatures or armoured vehicles and grenade or large shotgun rounds for the underslung grenade launcher.

"...a nanoserum injection tranquilizer to quell any native animals into service, three shots only, goggles and respirator, winter coat, summer coat, spring coat, warm trousers, shorts, several changes of clean underwear, three clipboards, coloured pens, four notebooks and Steve...yes all seems good and ready...and nifty pith helmet to impress the locals."

Edward gave the nod, "alright Dave, fire up that wormhole gun and lets see if that things works...remember I do this FOR SCIENCE!"

Where his last words as the portal gun fired and a flash of light consumed Edward, Steve and all their baggage.

On Patches:
Unfortunately the Portal gun had decided to drop everything the expedition was carrying over a very, very vast area thanks to it being the invention of a mad scientist. So those currently sheltering with the Elves could expected to be bombarded with things ranging from underwear to a vial of very angry bees...and a Pith helmet may land on someones head if they were lucky enough to be that stylish.

Those who could read energy would show that the 'portal storm' was of a universe of Paragonian/Rogue Isles nature, however it may not be their own but a slightly different version. It was also incredibly rudimentry by dimensional travelling standards.

Elsewhere Edward faceplanted in the forest with a grunt, just as he had done the time he ended up in the 'virtueverse'. Letting out a sigh as he was hauled to his feet by his Shivan companion.

"Remind me to tell Dave the gun needs tinkering...lots of tinkering...and next time we send monkeys through to test first..."

A rather audible hiss came from behind them, turning around they saw a spider, a very large, impossibly gigantic spider...


"Well it looks like this place ignores cube law," Edward tossed aside the book of physics he'd been holding onto, "useless here..."

"Steve, it appears we must parley with the beast for it may be intelligent!"

Steve, once again, wished he could sigh but despite that he moved towards the gigantic arachnid with Edward not far behind.

Edward decided to try the universal greeting, "hmm Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong?"

The large spider lunged at the pair to which Steve merely uppercutted the beast, knocking it onto it's back, legs flailing for a moment.

"Hmm sadly not intelligent...oh well, it shall make a fine beast of burden, I shall call you MR FLUFFERS!"

Edward injected the nanoserum, the spider, now Mr Fluffers, calmed down, Edward gave it a few test commands to assure the nanobots had rewired the rudimentry brain of the beast so that it would act as a beast of burden, it left Edward down to two shots on his nanoserum but it was better than having spider for dinner, a thought he did not cherish.

"Hmm sit-rep Steve..."

The Shivan gave gurgles and gargles to which even Patches failed to translate as anything remotely understandable...some people did claim that Edward heard what he wanted to hear from the Shivan, others than Edward was simply mad enough for it all to somehow make sense.

"Hmm so we have three days water left, a single days rations of beef jerky, a pet spider, a pair of shorts...which I shall change into now...the nanoserum, Betsy, a selection of coloured pens, a clipboard and a book of A4 paper...not the greatest of provisions but a true scientist makes do with what they have...firstly to construct some kind of sadddle for if I am to be in shorts I do not wish to be riding a giant spider without a saddle.

Some time later
Now wandering through the forests on the back of Mr Fluffers, Steve and Edward had constructed a very basic wooden Howdah with which to carry themselves and their remaining supplies and strapped it to the beast using strong vines. Now Edward was in his shorts and enjoying the warm forest air.

"Mr Fluffers, halt!"

The spider stopped moving.

"Steve, I shall dictate our situation, Day one of our expedition, having subdued a local giant arachnid in the name of SCIENCE and easy transport, I am now riding through a forest, it appears to be the home of many fantastical creatures normally only found in the likes of the Dungeons and Dragons monster manual...the advanced monster manual kind, you know, back in the seventies...we have yet to come across any advanced technology, infact it appears to be all rather primitive here. I shall name this dimension...Dave...after the person who got us here."

Edward ended with a nod, "hmm sounds good Steve?"

Steve looked up from his writing and nodded.

"Very well, onward Mr Fluffers...let us see what we can find!"

With that the giant arachnid continues its trek through the forest.

((yes he's insane, yes you just got showered with underwear, angry bees and a pith helmet if you so choose to do so and yes he is heading your way on the back of a giant spider))

Well if you don't object to one mad scientist and his Shivan business partner/bodyguard being dumped into the Patches universe I may give it a go.

Edward and Steve are pretty inseperable pairing, in cases where he lacks his mechanical family (being bots/FF) Steve provides the muscle he would normally have while Edward provides the brains, though Steve isn't dumb muscle (check out his blog on all things Unionverse, Shivan Steve Types!).

Noticed it on test as well.

Ran the Posi taskforce (parts 1 and 2) on live on Wednesday and managed to get the Backup Radio and the Plasma taser power, before temp powers were as rare as costume pieces, you saw them occasionally but you weren't getting one every couple of hours.

BaB claims he could have Ghost Falcon in a fight.

And to answer your question Tech, the sit emotes all come from NPCs, so that's why they don't have as many.

With that the EU Q&A session is over.

95% of the questions were either "Can't answer that" or just general chitchatting.

Hmm dev of the session award goes to...

TELEVISION!

For generally staying IC and mucking around something chronic, to the point he was winding up Positron.