Ex_Libris

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How many slots? Perhaps I don't fully understand "To Hit Buffs" because the descript is pretty nebulous. Fully slot it or is it good enough without adding more to it?

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Mashiara, it isn't necessary to write all your posts in bold.

Your posts are not any more special than anyone elses. Trying to make them stand out just makes you look arrogant and selfish.

Good post. I also am attempting with no success, to find a supergroup in which I may enjoy roleplaying. An avid fan of the genre I thought that maybe the uber-comic geeks such as myself would run kicking and screaming towards such an opportunity. Alas, that is not the case. But since you're on Virtue look me up in case you want to group my name is Krogard there.

...sigh...

Ok. I just created a .bas with blastoff. Wasn't hard to code, but adds files. Anyway, I went to add it to my site, and I have apparently exceeded the data transfer rate of my free Geocities site. And my personal (paid for) site has had problems for some people. So, Falstaff offered webspace, and I'm taking him up on it, and hope to get these distribution problems worked out soon. Will test Blastoff tonight.



Gnarly

“Crap, crap, crap!” Sky-Hawke swore as he tore through the air above Talos Island. “For being the fastest flier in our team, you’d think I wouldn’t be late to every mission..” He’d gotten the call from Tesseract almost immediately after she’d gotten the call to investigate a Freakshow meeting in an old office . Gray Fox, Harm, Greyloch and Shaka Chou had also gotten the call and were already on the scene with Tess. Sky’d stopped several times to stop various street crimes he’d happen upon. “I can hear them now, ‘Hey, it’s Sky! Glad ya could make it…what? No mission’s over, thanks for asking.’”

As he flew, he spotted the tell tale glow of Harm’s Fire Aura. Pushing himself as hard as he could, Sky picked up the pace and summoned up his Temp Invulnerability field. “Just in case”, he told himself.

As he came in closer, Tesseract spotted him and let loose with one of her Kinetic Speed Boosts..it hit him in mid-air….and pushed the throttle of his speed even further.

He barely had time to yell “Gangway!” as the sudden increase in speed sent him hurtling towards the front door of the office building. Shaka ducked just in time to miss being run over while Harm and Greyloch both lept almost 5 stories straight up to avoid the impact. Sky flew like a bolt of lightning past the others and right through the door and the first wall of the office building.

“Oops”, Tesseract said. “Guess I should’ve waited till he was on the ground…” Shaka smiked, “Ya think?” “Ya’ll think he’s ok in there?”, asked the Gray Fox. “Let us hope so, from what I’ve seen, these Freakshow are very deadly…if we’re lucky, they’re further in the office than where Sky landed” said Harm. Greyloch just watched the hole wearily.

WHAM! The sound split the air followed by the body of Sky-Hawke thrown through the air like a rag doll. Seconds later, a huge Freakshow Tanker appeared in the hole that Sky had made. “Um….I think he got their attention Harm” Gray Fox whispered.

As one, the heroes lept forward to attack the Tanker. Only Tesseract left the scene to see how Sky had fared. Three blocks away, Tess found him in a pile of rubble. “You OK Sky?”

“Yeah, when I went through the wall, I smacked into that Tanker…didn’t even have time to collect myself before he sent me flying again”, Sky-Hawke said as he slowly rose to his feet…”good thing I had my Temp Invul field up..” “Sorry about that….it didn’t register that you were going full speed until I’d already speed boosted you.” Sky smiled then winced from the pain it caused…”No prob Tess, did I miss anything?”

The sounds of battle answered his question before Tesseract could and Hawke immediately launched himself towards the clamor. There were patches of fire all over the place, “Heh, Harm’s been busy it looks like.” Then, he saw his comrades fighting not just the tank but, a whole gang of Freakshow.

Greyloch had three Freaks with metal claw arms surrounding him. Pausing only a moment, Greyloch summoned up dark powers that litterly drained the Freaks of their strength and used it to refresh himself. Shaka Chou was throwing quips as quickly as he threw his fists and had the foes not really knowing if they were coming or going. Harm’s fire patches and his mystic stone mallet kept the Freak Tanker busy while Gray Fox unloaded round after round into him.

As he zoomed into the battle, Sky moved like a human pinball…punching, kicking and shoulder slamming every foe he could while the speed boost lasted. “Finally decided to help out eh whitebread?”, Shaka Chou grinned. “Yeah, yeah…I know…late as usual…”, Sky said as he Crane Kicked a Freaker away. Minutes later, the members of the Hrafn Warband stood triumphant.

Gray Fox looked over at Sky-Hawke…”Next time, let the police handle the muggers Sky…then, maybe ya’ll would be on time for a mission.” “Right, let the Man handle it….riiiiiight….”, Shaka smiled, “They spend half their time being mugged.”

“Well, at least it’s over now.”, Greyloch spoke in his low, thunderous voice. “Truly, a good battle by all”, Harm added. “Easy for you to say, even with my mutant metabolism, I’m gonna ache for a days.”, groaned Sky.

Here is The Toxic Weevil's build (character's personality is patterned after The Flea on Mucha Lucha if you've ever watched it.) Couple quick notes. First, I solo or duo more than I group, so that's why I took Gloom. Second, the Leadership pools didn't fit with the character concept. Third, yes I know I have 2 travel powers and there's a couple reasons for that :
A. I'm really tight on powers pre-24, wanted a travel power by 14, and didn't want to push back haste too far.
B. I wanted the status effect resistances from CJ/Acrobatics, but Jump Kick didn't fit. Plus, having two travel powers since I have space for it, makes for some versatility in travel depending on the zone.

And fourth, I haven't finished slotting because I'm still trying to figure out the order of importance.

Feel free to comment as you see fit. I'm hoping the original author of this thread can shoot me some pointers as well. TIA!

Level 1 (Starting Primary) : Radiation Infection /HitDeb,HitDeb
Level 1 (Starting Secondary) : Dark Blast /Acc,Dmg,Dmg
Level 2 : Gloom /Acc,Dmg,Dmg
Level 4 : Moonbeam /Acc,Dmg,Dmg
Level 6 : Enervating Field /EndRdx,EndRdx
Level 8 : Hasten /Rchg
Level 10 : Accelerate Metabolism /Rchg,Rchg,Rchg
Level 12 : Lingering Radiation /Slow
Level 14 : Super Speed /Empty
Level 16 : Tenebrous Tentacles /Empty
Level 18 : Swift /Empty
Level 20 : Night Fall /Empty
Level 22 : Hurdle /Empty
Level 24 : Stamina /Empty
Level 26 : Combat Jumping /Empty
Level 28 : Super Jump /Empty
Level 30 : Acrobatics /Empty
Level 32 : EM Pulse /Empty
Level 35 : Mutation /Empty
Level 38 : Blackstar /Empty

Ok, version 1.0 of my executable bind maker is up at a new place:

Gnarly's Binds

It is a biggish download (approx 1 meg) because of the DLLs required to make it executable. But it is fully configurable without downloading BASIC... just answer the prompts to configure the following features:

- Keys for movement, run, fly, autorun, follow
- do you use superspeed or prestige powers, or just sprint?
- auto-mouselook when moving?
- installation path

The .bas file is included, however, for those who want to tinker a bit more. Also included is a quickstart guide on the webpage, and a readme.doc with more detailed instructions included in the zip.

This is just version 1, so please let me know if things don't work for you. I appreciate positive feedback, but am specifically looking for problems with the following functions:

-anything that makes the binds break

- downloading. Any problems?

- auto-mouselook: I added feature to the basic file just today, and the binds look good, but not yet tested in game

- Super Speed - I don't have the power, so can't test it.

Thanks to all for any testing you can provide!

Gnarly

Excellent post.

"/yourewelcome" to be renamed to "/yourwelcome" and finally, "/urwelcome" in 3..2..

Errmm....not sure if this question has been asked before but is there any way to get rid of the bind messages when ever you change direction? I get a whole lot of spam on my screen after using Az's binds

Note: When i created the character I spelled it "Sargent" but unfortunatley this is incorrect. Correct spelling used in story. Also I'm not sure if this i situation, it's slightly graphic but doesn't go into to extreme detail Anyways here it goes:

Sergeant Psycho’s Back-story.
I see their faces every time I close my eyes. Souls screaming for Justice. Not the kind of Justice that comes through a court and a trial.
Eye for an Eye, Tooth for a Tooth.
The kind of Justice that comes from the barrel of a gun, a swing of the sword, or the blade of an Ax. Quick justice, Final Justice. I see all their faces, from the latest victim of Paragon’s streets, to the villagers of Viet Nam.

My name is… was Michael Sikowski. Now they call me, Sergeant Psycho. And this is my Story.

That day will haunt me for the rest of my life. The first village to go up in flames was horrifying enough - there’s something about seeing the charred remains of another human being that guarantees you’ll be a vegetarian for life – but that second village... was far worse.
My unit had been deployed to capture an NVA commander who had been raiding and terrorizing the locals into submission (including burning one of the villages and all it’s occupants to cinders), for the good of the people as their rhetoric goes, and it was our job to stop them. Contrary to popular belief, the soldiers of Viet Nam were not baby killers; those were the people we were fighting. The village elders were they first ones to greet us. They smiled at us and welcomed us into their homes. The other villagers treated us like honored guests. The men of my unit quickly came to know them as friends. Several days after I arrival, we were out on patrol made contact with a number of NVA soldiers. In the ensuring fire fight, we were able to rout the enemy back into the jungle, but not until I saw our objective among their ranks: the NVA commander. I had him right in my sights. One pull of the trigger would have ended it all but….
But I had definitive orders to take him alive at all costs. Not only would taking him alive yield a treasure trove of intelligence, but they’d be able to get a propaganda victory for forcing him to trial for his crimes.
And so, I held my fire like the good little soldier boy. And he got away.
Several days after that, we were running another patrol through the jungle. When we got back, I saw something I would never forget. The huts and buildings of the village were all on fire, but there was nobody hurrying for water. No body fleeing the flames or trying to but them out. Then it dawned on me: the NVA had watched us the whole time, and waited till we were gone. Then they had rounded up every last man woman and child into the huts and set them on fire. People we had come to think of friends, people we liked almost to the point of affection, had met the most horrible death imaginable. The next thought that hit me was that it was my fault, if I had killed the Commander when I had the chance, none of this would have happened. The feeling of guilt hit me like a bullet through the abdomen. I’ve never forgiven myself for my mistake. It’s a burden I’ve had to carry all with me all these years. The Commander who ordered them burned was never caught and was awarded a medal for heroism after the fall of Saigon in 1975.
I saw a lot of this kind of thing as my years ‘Nam dragged on. Mostly it was the NVA or the VC who committed these atrocities. For awhile I thought I was simply the wicked nature of our enemy (and by implication, the just nature of our cause). But then rumors of massacres like My Lai came out and I knew it wasn’t a simple matter of our way verses their way. It was a matter of criminal and victim, robber and robbed, murderer and murdered. This wasn’t about ideology, it was about Justice.
After the war, I enlisted to a SEAL Team. I spent the period from the early 1980’s to the late 90’s helping to fight the so called “War on Drugs” in South America. Most of the guys we took pains to capture alive were able to see the light of day again. There was always some way they got off. Some times they bought a jury. Some times they black mailed a jury. Hell, they even threatened a jury. You’d be surprised out easily you can get an innocent verdict if you recite a person’s home address along with the name and address of their kid’s elementary school. All via an untraceable phone call of course. And then of course there were the lawyers. They always found some stupid loophole or technicality. Once a guy - who I know killed several people- got off because we had to go into the ladies’ room to find several pounds of coke.
And then it all came to an end. In 1998, I was in a mission in Peru. We had chased one of the big guys to his villa in the middle of a jungle. I followed him into his basement where he promptly gave up. Unfortunately for him, there was a farmer and his family in the basement. Except they had all been lined up against a wall and shot. I couldn’t let this stand. They might court martial me. They might even hand me a blind fold and a smoke and say “this is it”. But I wouldn’t let this stand. Not even giving it a second though, I put my rifle to the drug lord’s head and pulled the trigger.
I was labeled a disgrace to the SEALS and dishonorably discharged. It was only my record of loyalty and service for countless years that kept me from getting worse. After that I was became something of a drifter until they came.
Nobody really knows anything about them. But they all know their name, the Ritki. For reasons unknown, they came here from some other world, blasting away at every one and everything. I was able to get some weapons off the black market, and I became a guerrilla fighter of sorts. I’d fire a well aimed shot here, lay a booby trap there. Nothing major, just doing my part to help the human race. After the war, it became apparent that I was what I always had been. A soldier. I decided to take my skills and help clean up the trash of Paragon. Of course I do it my way. Unlike some of the other “Heroes” of Paragon City, I don’t spin the wheels of a broken justice system. I dispense Justice right on the streets. I remember the first thug I took out. After he tried to surrender, my final words were: “Surrender? Do I look like a cop to you?” And then I did my duty as Judge, Jury and Executioner. I pulled the trigger.

Hi Volt-Man,

Thanks for the test. It's good to hear you have similarly good results. But I finally DID manage to get them to break last night by hitting as many of the 6 direction keys as fast as I could, and I finally got sprint on while not moving. But as soon as I pressed forward (any key would have done the same) it turned it off properly again, because the forward 1/0 is called explicitly. Anyway...

The only reason your Right Mouse Button doesn't work as it did is because of a pet feature of MINE. I like to have the right button do mouselook when I'm holding it down, EXCEPT when I'm in autorun... then I like to be able to hit and release the rbutton and stay in mouselook, so I don't have to hold the key down for traveling. I will remove this (or maybe add an option?). I shouldn't be messing with people's mouse buttons. After I take that out, then your rbutton will work as before. Yes, it will get my binds broken for a second, but for the reasons I stated above, just using any of 'my' movement keys would fix it. And if you use them separately, pushing and releasing rbutton, before pressing your forward/back key, then you shouldn't have any problems at all. Have you considered just making rbutton your forward key, and lshift+forward your back key? I am adding functionality to so that mouse-look can be toggled on (optionally) while moving.

So, on to the changes I have been making:

- I'm going to make an executable, and I've added lines which prompt for the different keys and configuration settings, rather than requiring code changes. This will let everybody set things up JUST how they like it, without me having to make lots of versions.

-A new setting will allow you to choose automatic mouselook, on or off, like Wasabi Joe's Binds. This might fit your 2nd request, Blue Volt.

-An option for a second ground movement power. You can set this to nothing, or super speed, or a prestige power. Basically, the primary power is listed second in all binds so it's turned on instead of the secondary power if the character has it. This should do the trick for you, Greyhawke

- I've tested Follow now, and it works fine.

-I've changed the +command which I use to +zoomin$$-zoomin instead of turnleft. It didn't interfere anyway, but this is shorter. So, Massive Jotun, no worries... you can still turn without mouselook!

- added a reset function like Ahzurdan's. This file is created dynamically, depending on which keys you select for the different directions etc. It set's the key you chose for forward to simply +forward, etc. Ctrl-R toggles between this and Speed on Demand.

-Blast off - This would take 64 files, and isn't too hard, but I'm hesitant to do it when it can already be done with another combination of files. I can do it after I get the other functionality taken care of.

Hope to have the exe and a webpage that will serve it reliably this afternoon.

Gnarly

Got to level 7 last night with The Toxic Weevil and so far this is one seriously fun build. So, lock up your dried grains and cereals, Evil Doers! The Weevil has arrived!

My wife's character was trying to help my character level, and we had crates that were giving experience during a mission so she let me pick them all up. The mission wouldn't complete even though the counter went down correctly as I grabbed the items. I don't know if my opening the crates was the cause, but I can't think of what else the error might have been.

Very nice post! I've already chosen my powers up to level 10, but I'll use this as a guide from here on out!

Thyde stood in the face of Big Ben, looking out over the city of London. Without flinching the clock sounded out loudly twelve bongs, striking midnight. Thyde blinked before answering the unheard and apparently unposed question:

"I have been alive since 1806, spending the majority of my time in London. I've seen news articles about Jack the Ripper, who surprisingly turned out many of my meals. Following that chap around was like following a victim that never died."

The man who posed the question, a short man with brown hair, a tie, and a briefcase held tightly to his chest, stepped out of the door leading to the ledge of Big Ben. He peered over, wiped the sweat from his head with his tie, and began speaking:

"What did you say your full name was? I.." He was cut off.

The other man answered, "My name was Louis Johnathan Remmington III, but that was a long time ago. Most think that Vampirism is a curse of undeath that is given to you from one who is already in the state of undeath. In fact, it is not, but rather is a state of unlife. I have been this way since I can remember, and I have not died yet, nor did I die when I was brought into this lifestyle."

The man held tightly to the side of the clock, obviously making mental notes of what was being said. He cleared his throat and continued speaking:

"Could you turn so that I can see your face?"

Thyde turned suddenly, glaring at the man, bearing his fangs:

"You mean so that you can see these? I have been shunned simply because of these, you know. I am called a prowler, a menace. Who really is the menace, Mr. Zaltosky? You're an American, are you not? And you come from Paragon City. You're here doing a report, treating this like it would be like that movie, but oh no. You are having your interview with a vampire, but in no way will I be docile as Brad Pitt was!"

Bob Zaltosky looked out over London, the sun was beginning to rise, and with confidence he spoke to Thyde:

"The sun is coming up! You have no place to go and hide now, except inside this clock. And then I'll notify the police and you'll be dead before tomorrow night!"

Thyde stared at Zaltosky with his chilling grey eyes, a grin spreading across his face:

"Please Mr. Zaltosky, do you think that those tales you read are true? Do you think that sunlight really kills us vampires? If that were true then half of us would be dead already. No, my friend, it does not kill us. It has the same effect on us as it would any other being. Well, there is one difference, Mr. Zaltosky, and that is the fact that it makes it terribly hard for us to see when we stare into it."

Thyde laughed and made his way toward the now frightened reporter. Zaltosky gripped his briefcase tightly, backing toward the door, which was already closed.

Thyde stalked toward the man, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt:

"And now, Mr. Zaltosky, your interview is over. You'll be leaving for good, where as I, I will be making my way to your pathetic city. Goodbye Mr. Zaltosky."

And with that final goodbye Thyde threw Zaltosky over the ledge of the clock, sending him into the traffic below where it was later deemed a suicide.

(More to come. Feedback is of course welcome.)

Some red herring boxes, like the ones standing around that aren't a part of the mission give the same amount of xp as an even level minion. And the clues always go to the mission's owner.

Fall in love.. hmm. Its really just a game, can't establish a relationship with the player.. don't know them, and Role playing is just acting for fun. But I can easily understand how some people may not be able to disassociate the two. Girls, Guys, or just plain non-gendered it makes no difference as long as they can portray the character well enough. I do agree with the OOC chat though, can be a nice way in showing that your still a person, that is different than the character. I find it helps ease off the odd factor when a character players gender is mentioned. Good post, with some good points.. and I agree with most of them.

Honestly it is hard to know how far in development they really were. They originally had said that beta was going to happen Dec. 2003. When Dec. 2003 came and went, they finally admitted that they were still in alpha and beta was something like 6 months off. That was in February '04 they said that.

Personally, I always had my suspicions about the game not being released. I was the ASM (Assistant Site Manager) on Warcry's Warhammer site and after looking at their screenshots day in and day out I started noticing that they were wall taken in the same little patch of world. Moreover, not a single shot had a user interface on it. How can you be so close to beta and have no working UI? What I concluded (correctly I'm sure) is that they took all these screenshots at the same time from a tech demo and we hadn't seen anything new since.

Even after E3 where they had a booth, we saw nothing new. We got a new video that contained the video portion of the world that had been used to create the screenshots. Again, nothing new.

So, sadly, the game will never be. I think it had some potential to be a different MMORPG (like CoH is) and have a nice nitch market. But I guess that "nitch" market wasn't going to be enough money to cover their costs.

RIP

Excellent post. I agree now about Dark Pit. I was planning on taking it before so that I could disorient and then jump in the middle and light off Blackstar but with EM Pulse, you don't realy need it. With AM/Hasten, your timers on both these 9th level powers should be certainly less than 90 seconds.

Tactics and Manuevers make great additions to this build as they accentuate greatly what Radiation Infection does, only they work on your group versus the mobs.

A good Rad/Dark is all about making the bosses and significantly higher level minions something that you can take down without lucking out or worrying about precision group tactics.

The bow and arrow I think is a holdover from when they were planning on a bow and arrow power. It happened if you used ;bow when in combat mode, and I believe it has been removed.

Going to try this out tonite. Thanks!

Blue Volt writes:
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Other than that, I do have a couple questions. You mentioned 'other features'. I was curious what you had planned. Personally, I've gotten addictied to my variation of the 'blast-off' and 'landing' binds. They are essentialy the same as was presented, bjut just needed to work them into my own set of files. In any case, I'd be interested in knowing what your planned end-game is.


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My most recent posts details (and links to the .bas file for) most of the features I have planned. Creating directories is added, and Blastoff can be achieved with the current setup. Just hit the spacebar to jump and hold it down. Then hit the fly key to change to flying and keep going up. If your fingers still try to hold down the fly key, I don't think it'll interfere. I'll see how hard it would be to add it on the fly key, though.. it may be easy, or it may double the amount of files (already 384 now with the follow modes!!) But give it a try with the spacebar this evening, and I'll bet that you like this way better... you get that initial quick Jump-Launch, which looks cool if nothing else

Thanks for note that you can DL my files. Still working on that one.



Greyhawke writes:
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Ok a minor request

I would like to see a 3rd toggle key added for superspeed as well as the G & T for ground and flight, then I don't have to worry about modifying all the files for superspeed just for one character.


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Ok, adding super-speed-if-you-have-it (like Azurdan's binds, so you won't even need to change anything for your SS character) will be something I can easily add just by changing a few lines in my basic code, and re-running it. I want to test these recent new additions, and then I can start cranking out different versions. So maybe tomorrow, Greyhawke?

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LOL, I will personally post the final and definitive best fly/hover binds ever..... just as soon as I am done writing them.



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Well, would you hurry up about it, Joe?

Seriously though, every time we think we're getting the best binds possible, somebody comes up with better ones. If you want binds that work great, read from the bottom up to find Ahzurdan's binds. But we seem to be losing people from this post as people find "good enough" binds and actually go back to PLAYING the game, rather than programming it If mine prove as unbreakable for others as they do for me, and I work out the last bugs and test them, then I may start a new post so people don't have to wade through our billion posts to get to them.


Ok, back to the present. I've modified my BASIC file:

-It now makes follow-run, and follow-fly files.

- It creates a reset file which is basically a single small file which you can bind_load to get back normal movement on the keys which were used for the Speed-on-Demand binds.

- All the paths and directories are made automatically now, if they don't already exist.

- While the basic program compiles and runs, and the binds LOOK good, I have not tested the following binds in game. Run, Fly, Autorun and Autofly have been tested and work very well.

Here is a link to the .bas file only (zipped) since I still haven't resolved the downloading issues. It's short enough that it hopefully won't be a problem.

BindMaker

Gnarly


PS. If anybody can help me out with the problems I'm having serving this file, I'd appreciate it. The files don't seem to donwload completely. I'm not sure if it's the server I'm using, or this firewall at work, or what. Is anybody else having this problem? Is anybody able to download the files I've posted correctly?

Flashing items also sometimes give bits of storyline info in the screen of the person who picked them up.

Update
I fixed a few more minor typos, and I believe that everything is now fully functional.

Future Changes<ul type="square">[*]I'm going to implement a toggle key to switch between having '~', 'C', or both keys cycle through teammates soon.[*]I've begun work on a visual basic program that will generate the binds given a directory and key(s) to use.[/list]