Ex_Libris

Very nice post Xurbax. Just wished everyone would have read this. I've just started with a secondary character, an empathy defender. I had some trouble keeping our team alive in Perez Park yesterday. A triggerhappy blaster in our group certainly should have read this. Always running of and pulling in new red-conned mobs while I was still recovering endurance or waiting near someones corpse for resurrection to recharge. And I must have spend a lot of healing on him, I think even more then on the tanks in our team.

Name: The Icons
Motto: The Bold, The Proud
Leader: Senator
Player Type: all
Number of members: 8, max of 20
current levels: 6-17
Normal gameplay time: 4pm central-2am central
Other info: we are a close knit group that likes to hunt together whenever we can, and would love to have other players that we can hang out with and get to know.

This is an account of how my hero came to be. Going to try and tell a good sotry...

"Ryan Kage looked around the massive stadium, taking in the surroundings. The crowd was huge and more people were arriving every minute. Ryan and his friends had come to participate in the Paragon City Martial Arts Tournament, the largest display of fighting prowess ever held. "Scared man?" Ryan turned and looked at his friend Jeff, who was a little taller and a year older than him. Jeff had always been Ryan's friend, ever since grade school. Ryan smiled, "Nah, just a little shocked at the crowd. I've never seen so many people in one place before." Jeff slapped Ryan on the shoulder and wandered off to talk with some girls that had gathered nearby. Ryan shook his head and went to find his team's bench. The tournament would be starting soon.

Dodging the kick aimed at his head, Ryan came in low and fast at his opponent. Ryan noted his oppenent had been using mostly kicks, relying on his size to keep Ryan at bay. "So he doesn't like it up close eh, let's try something then," thought Ryan. Swaying past another kick, Ryan spun to his right, bring his fists around in blurring arc. His oppoent tried desperately to counter the move, but Ryan was too close. Both fists impacted squarely into the chest of Ryan's opponent, blasting him from his feet. The referee was on him in an instant, declaring him down and Ryan the winner. The crowd erupted in cheers. Ryan smiled and walked over to help his opponent up. "I'm Ryan. That was a great fight," he said as his opponent stood. "Thanks, though I thought I had you there at the end," his opponent said. "By the way, I'm Chris. Nice to meet you Ryan." Ryan nodded and turned to walk to his team's bench when he felt, more than heard, the explosion in the stadium. A section of the wall had been blasted away scattering debris and people everywhere. Ryan watched in stunned silence and shapes began to appear in the dust. Armored figures poured through the breech, wicked rifles clutched in their hands. "Get down!!!", came a shout from behind him and suddenly Ryan was shoved to the ground. A second later the stadium erupted with gunfire. Ryan watched in horror as the figures opened fire on the gathered people in the stands, mercilessly cutting them down as they tried to flee. "Who are they?!?", asked Ryan. "The 5th Column!!!", said Chris, helping Ryan behind some blasted concrete. "Why is the 5th Column attacking here, there's nothing of value here?", said Ryan, still trying to comprehend what was going on. "I don't know," said Chris, "but we better get out of here fast." Ryan looked around for his friends and spotted them near an exit, helping people to get out. Jeff looked and and waved to Ryan, smiling like always. Ryan and Chris ran over and took cover with Jeff and the others. "This is crazy man!!! What do these guys want?", asked Kat, one of the few girls on Ryan's team. "I don't know, but we have to do something or they'll kill everyone here.", said Ryan, glancing around the doorway toward the carnage on the far side of the stadium. Facing his friends, Ryan looked at each of them in turn. He didn't have to ask the question, he could see it in each of their eyes. "I'm not going to say this is going to work guys...", Ryan started, but Kat raised her and stopped him. "We're the only ones who can do anything Ryan, and that's what we have to do." Ryan smiled and slipped out the door, followed closely by Jeff, Kat, Chris and several others. They spread out into a wedge shape, and on signal from Ryan, they charged the soldiers of the 5th Column. Ryan, his heart pounding in his chest, crashed into the nearest soldier, smashing him to the ground. "For the citizens of Paragon City!!!', he cried. The soldiers turned to see six teenagers before them, each with one emotion on their faces. Vengance...

That's just what I could fit here without being stupidly long, but I'll post the rest here if youd like.

Name: Mall Security
Motto: "Keeping customers safe since Tuesday"
Leader: Sea Wolf
Player Type: Any
Number of members: 14
Current member levels: 4-22
Normal time of Gameplay: 3PM-8AM CST (Some one is almost always on)

We are currently recuiting, contact Sea Wolf, Post Trauma, or Sainlty Steel for info.

Name: Legion of Honor
Leaders: Carrion & SkriptoR
Play Type: Any
Player Level: Any
Times of Play: Varies, usually early afternoon (9am - 12pm) until early morning (2-4am) PST/CST
Description: Our main purpose is to play with friendly gamers and kill some bad guys. We accept heroes of any level and archtype. We will always do our best to help each other, and work our way upward.

Legion of Honor is openly recruiting at this time. Feel free to email or /tell (in game) any questions or inquiries to either Carrion or SkriptoR.

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i just created my first character on Virtue... Agent Tom Sawyer... You inspired me... I have wanted to play the LXG character for quite awhile.. He has little history in the original books and very little history in the movies.. We don't know if the name is a code name or it is the real Tom Sawyer but I am creating my history for him after he left Allan's grave.. I am using a mystical portal to this world to find Quartermain who left the LXG world to fight evil on another plane.

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Although you may want to change the name (like i did), but either way I can't wait to RP with you in game. That should be an interesting conversation the 1st time they meet again. hehe

The Underground

play as you wish..lots of people to group with..we will rule this server.

members 40-50+ and climbing rapidly

Formerly Major Sabrina Weathers of the space corp ...my friends call me Stormy ....

Stormy Weathers that is ..

OOC: don't know if I should read the whole topic or not but
since I am Tom now he wouldn't have known what has
transpired so I wouldn't if any one would
like to catch him up please do.

IC: Background: Galaxy City

Sitting in cold alley with two dead cadavers and a
reaper corpse embedded on the end of my shotgun
I try thinking about how I got here. I remember that last
day in my world
very vividly, Allan had died bringing down the dreaded M and
his sinister plot of world domination. We all stood there in
Africa wondering what we were going to do now that LXG had
been officially disbanded by our governments.. As the others
walked away I could see something happening at Allan's grave
It was as if 3 feet of dirt suddenly sunk in to the earth and
standing above the grave an old doctor stood there.. I
walked toward this man cautiously and reached for my pistol
he turned toward me and said what are you going to be doing
with that and I said, "Nothing mister if you can explain what
just happened." He mumbled a few words and everything
around us disappeared. "you Mr. Sawyer are an interesting
anomaly, I have looked into the very fabric of this universe
and it seems like you are in a place that you should not belong
as did our Allan. It is what makes it possible to give him
life again and again." i asked the man, "So I don't belong here
then where do I belong, if not here." "Mr. Sawyer we don't
know where you belong but it seems like the universe has
plans for you and Mr. Quartermain in another world, they need
your help and we helped Allan along you must make a choice
now do you wish to go or stay here in a world you don't
belong in." I thought about it and decided that I had nothing
here anymore and God or whatever was out there had
always taken care of me and it seemed like this was my
path and I would let it take me wherever the river would take
me. The one thing I remember from my youth was that no
matter how bad a river seemed underneath the surface there
was a calm this may be a bad patch of the river but I would
find the calm and my place in the universe.. "Send me out I
will find Allan and do what is needed.", I told the mystic..
"You will have help when you arrive.. Allan may arrive before
you or after you but be patient.. Look to others for help and
you will find your way.. Good Luck Mr. Sawyer."
I felt the world swirl around me and as I fell into the
world I felt different. It was like being reborn.

i just created my first character on Virtue... Agent Tom Sawyer... You inspired me... I have wanted to play the LXG character for quite awhile.. He has little history in the original books and very little history in the movies.. We don't know if the name is a code name or it is the real Tom Sawyer but I am creating my history for him after he left Allan's grave.. I am using a mystical portal to this world to find Quartermain who left the LXG world to fight evil on another plane.

Seeing the object of his rage finally weakening, Lobe, oblivious to the aid his friends have given him, explodes into a renewed fury of pugilism. Tears stream from his mad eyes as the beleagured thorn mage begins to wilt under the onslaught.

My God! What is this monster? thinks the mage as his conterattacks go completely ignored. I know I have hurt him, but he just keeps coming. And now his friends are helping him and that one with the advertisements has drained some of my energy! The mage realizes he is running out of options and needs to force the big brute pummeling him back if he's to escape. Collecting one last massive charge of mystical energy, he readies himself to discharge it in his opponents face, blinding him. Just as he stretches out he's hand to release the blast it is intercepted by a chair. Trying to fathom where the errant piece of furniture could have come from he looks up to discover that oblivion looks a lot like a fist.

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FROM: she_dreams_in_digital@coldmail.com
TO: therebellion_group@csi.hedgewood.net
SUBJ: Anyone up for a striptease?

Hey fellas; I know, it's been awhile, but I need a favor. I have a car that needs a B&E job, but the fuzz have shields the size of Texas. I think I'll be needing a striptease for this one. Any takers? This won't be easy; newest model, P.C. Elite, top-notch alarm system. I need to get an envelope into the glovebox.

Serious takers only!

- *the_iceangel*

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From: cultureshock@yahoo.co.uk
To: she_dreams_in_digital@coldmail.com
Subj: Re: Anyone up for a striptease?

Iceangel -

Anything for a tease. Count me in. Is this a favor favor, or something you'll want a rate quote on? PC is bloody well dead on the scene lately, regardless, so no doubt you'll get offers, but...

Give us some details, yeah?

- Lore

--

After clicking send, Doug sat back, reaching blindly for what was now lukewarm tea. He glanced about the coffee house he'd spent the day loitering in -- God bless wi-fi! -- but, finding nothing more than fellow geeks and caffeine addicts, his attention soon wandered back to the notebook balanced atop his knees.

Since flying into Paragon City via Heathrow, the native Londoner had been at odds. He was safely settled in the country on a student visa, but was far more interested in heroing than school. Unfortunately, there was a lot of red tape that foreign heroes-to-be were required to wade through, and so Doug Corbett -- he'd yet to really settle on a codename, sad as that was to him -- had spent more of his time trolling the local hacker scene and wandering from cafes to occult shops and back than being a productive member of society.

The "return" of this Iceangel girl had stirred up quite a bit of noise amongst the natives, however. That and her request combined had piqued his interest, and while there was no guarantee of a response, Doug rather hoped she would. If nothing else, it would be a welcome change. There was only so much schoolwork a bloke could take before he started getting desperate, and it looked like he wouldn't be a registered hero anytime in the near future.

Figured, that. Come to America for an education in how things really worked, and get stuck with paperwork. Wasn't that the way of the world?

hehe Realy The core of Rping is ...Anyone? Ahhhh
Acting out a Char you or someone else have made.
Basics ................its acting! ....some can and some cannot..............If you can take a rock and turn it into a funny witty Freaked out Kitty from the planet Bee Boop ...And everyone who sees or hears this ...Belives that the rock is that cat and can now Picture the Cat in you mind doing these things ..ANd relate to it and have feeling for this ROCk...well then sir you might know how to RP....But as you know most people only see a rock...and most only know how to throw it in the pond...Where there it sinks never to be found again...

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Set77, I would never shun you, unless you commited a really heinous act

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only IRL, never in game!!
LMAO

OOC: BTW, having a blast RPing with you on the forums Wraith, i can't wait to do some of this in person on Virtue. We'll give em all a show - then the non RPers can see why we do this.

OOC: I'll probably be one of the first characters to switch sides as soon as CoV comes out! But, i'm not really into being a typical villain either. It's more about dealing with an unwanted mutation and what that would do to an unstable mind in the first place. Yeah I agree they name is still kind of silly looking (and i get mad grief on the broadcast channel frequently- to the point of 'I don't group with l33t d00ds FU man, go play a different game) but it really was the best I could do to make the name look like graffiti. In case you are interested the story is under the thread Origin of CURS3D K40S - i'd put it in a cute link - but i'm HTML inept . Sorry if i came off short on the name issue - but i'm tired of people taking it the wrong way. In fact i may just restart the character to deal with the problem.

IC: Why Night Raven, am I mistaken or are the boyscouts threatening me? Oh no, don't pelt me with cookies - I won't know what to do with myself. OOOOOOOO I'm shaking and quaking with fear!! Don't hurt me with your merit badges!!

As for harming innocents, I'd never hurt an innocent. But how many people are truly innocent? You? Me? The mundanes?? Seriously man, innocence is dead by your teenage years. Probably sooner for most. Society has killed it! Innocence, bah!

Better than gangers? Of course I am. How else could I beat them into submission, If i was not indeed better than them? HMMMMM? So obviously i'm much better than them.

Boogieman? Dude are you a hero or a bedtime story? Uh Oh, i better watch out or you will be hiding under my bed when i get home. hahahahahahahaha

CK

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[What server are you guys on?]

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We're on Virtue.

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All of this said, your criticism is appreciated. I look forward to whatever guide you elect to author based on your wealth of gaming, beta, and CoH experience. One cannot please all tastes. Nor can one be a perfect author. It's far easier to be a critic than it is to be the subject thereof.

May life bring you all that you deserve...

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Oh, it has!

I look foward to one day writing a useful guide or three, but not yet I fear. I certainly know about recieving criticism, too.

I would suggest though, that whilst your guide provides useful advice to players if you ever revise it, you may want to broaden the focus from merely what other can do to help empaths, to also include what empaths can do to help others help them, with the sort of advice 1st_Aid gives. Guides that aren't to how to "uberize" your character rarely get read as much as they may deserve.

As an experienced MMORPG healer in a variety of games, including the high-pressure environment of DAoC RvR, I have say I find your post somewhat hyperbolic, didactic in the extreme, and generally showing what I regard as a "bad attitude" in healers, as it appears to attribute all failure in healing to the rest of the party, not the healer themselves. Perhaps this is the nature of the beast, as this is a guide for working with what you demand we call "Empaths", but at the same time, it needs to be recognised that healers, or "Empaths" are human, and vary extremely widely in skill. It's all very well to claim people should ask for "Empaths" instead of Healers, but the fact is, someone who has only the PBAoE heal, but uses it skillfully, keeps their end up, and so on, may in practice be a far greater asset to the party than someone who has carefully taken every healing power but it is less than stellar at using them, particularly if they like to overheal and blow their endurance whilst failing to bring End inspirations.

Whilst I think it IS very important that people know these things and realize how to make the healer's life easier (I know from DAoC there were dozens of things one could do or not do to help me out), the way your "definitive guide" is written, were I not a healer and sympathetic to some degree, I would be rather offended and offput. Try to avoid "talking down" to people and *assuming* they are in the wrong. They aren't always. Quite often the failure will be in my fellow healers department, or at the very least a joint failure.

I think 1st_Aid gives very good advice to healers, in using chat to make sure people are aware of the situation and as he says "manage the flow of battle". Don't rely on people reading and remembering this guide. 9/10 players will NEVER see it, and of those who do, only a small fraction will fully hmmm, integrate it into their playstyle (of course others will already be playing this way). Take charge yourself and let people know what's going on. Tell people, politely, when they make your life extremely hard.

For RPers, you've left out two very helpful acronyms:

IC: In-Character
OOC: Out-of-Character

It's been a little while. Sum things up - old powers are stonger, and new ones are coming quite frequently (although not as when I first obtained them). The latest and greatest is the ability to hover. I'm not exactly the fasting thing off the ground, but it sure can be a time saver, especially in such city zones as Steel Canyon.

A lot of my time has been spent in Perez Park; there's certainly a lot of strange stuff going on in there. As many can already attest to, it's not for the faint of heart. Even for the experienced hands, it can get pretty hairy. Someone should seriously consider zoning off that area for good - caving in every possible entrance would be a good start.

Things like that get me wondering. As much as I improve... heck, as much as we all improve, the fight we face gets tougher and tougher. So much evil out there! Like the stars in the nightsky, it is endless, and I lost count a long time ago. There are honestly times when - quietly retrospecting in the company of my team during the calm between the storms - I think that it's all hopeless. Nothing I do matters! Maybe we're all kidding ourselves.

Then I hear the cries for help in the darkness. Looking over my shoulder, I see the massive forms of the statues in Atlas Park, giant silent sentinels gleaming in the gloom. Put there to remind us all of the sacrifice of a select few for the betterment of Paragon.

Then I remember just how wonderful this city can sometimes be... when evil isn't happening to infringe on that particular moment. And it was the sacrifice of heroes like me that made that little moment possible.

I've got a job to do. Quitting time is when the battle has been won.

Yi

Name: Midnight's Children
Motto: "A type of Justice the Devil could admire"
Leader: CitizenX(With Freek Show and Babeal having leader status also)
Player Type: All walks(mostly people from Southern Louisiana)
Number of members: 17
Current member levels: 8-18
Normal time of Gameplay: ANy time

My personal choice of macros involves my character talking to his targeting drone 'Widge'. I have it cycling through about 20 different brief conversations every time I pull him out or put him back into the utility belt. I hope it doesn't annoy anyone too much, but I haven't gotten any complaints yet

Currently I'm adding a bunch of conversations to cycle through while I'm on the move and he happens to be out, but I'll probably use those more rarely. It's fun, but I have to keep myself in check lest I give in to the desire to become a Minsc/Boo ripoff. (Which is especially tempting given Widge is armed with laser pointers ) "Go for the eyes Widge! GO FOR THE EYES! RAWWRR!"

Advertisement in the Paragon Times

Professor “Deuce” Penshire, former Research Fellow for the Paragon School of Magic is seeking like-minded, educated and mature people to start a School for Hero training. Several positions for instructors are currently available. Please send an E-Mail for more information to either:

Deuce Penshire – Professor of Magic
D’Ram – Martial Arts Instructor

Thank you!

******

The Penshire Academy was created to build a team of casual players with a desire to role-play and just have fun. We are affiliated with several old Shadowbane Guilds including The Penshire Street Bakery, The Hands of Providence and Sanguine Wild.

See you in game!

*******

Some things to add:

oic-Oh I see
IRL-In Real Life