FloatingFatMan

We'll never know, now... Unless they share their concept art.

This pretty much says what I want to say, and how I feel...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFQQVEd5LoM

... The Coming Storm was the Battallion. This has been known for ages...

Looks good, buuuuut.... Probably isn't a lot of point in naming him any more.

Wow... That would have been awesome...

Tried Will Wheaton and the Big Bang Theory crew?

Indeed. Remember folks, we may have lost a game, but the devs just lost their jobs. I hope they're all able to get other work pretty quickly.

I'm totally gutted about losing my fun, but I'm more gutted for the people that gave me 7+ years of enjoyment.

Likewise.

NCSoft will never get another penny of mine, and I'll make sure all my friends know about this, too.

... I'm lost for words...

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd guess that the folks at Paragon Studios have only just been told, too...

As long as they're not panda's...

Those of us formerly of the GG meets tried it. It was rapidly overrun with non-RPers taking the mickey. We never went back.

Near Earth Orbit

Ellie studied the vista below her carefully, her armour's targetting systems tracking her target below her and feeding her speed and vector data, allowing her to keep pace with a precise point one hundred and fifty two miles beneath her feet. Energy crackled silently around her as she continued to build to her maximum charge and a small smile lingered on her lips.

"Almost time." She thought, "Just a few more seconds now..."

Her attention wholly on her target, she whispered a soft word inaudible in the vacuum of space. Beside her, a small sparkling point of light flickered with alien energy and, obedient to the silent command, flared once and vanished.



*********************************

Etoile Islands, Necrotech Industries Headquarters

Edward Mechano hummed softly to himself as he tucked into a meal of roast lamb with all the trimmings. Spread before him, or rather to one side of his meal platter, and covering the remainder of his luxurious desk, detailed plans for the Ellie mark three clone where under final review.

Ed suddenly paused, his fork halfway to his mouth, as a tiny flicking light suddenly appeared a few meters away from his desk. He had barely begun to frown, the realisation that somethong wasn't quite right just starting to register on his mind, when his ears were caved in by a hideous sound.

A voice, magnified many hundreds of times into an almost mind shattering cacophony, smashed the windows as it thundered.

"BOO!"

Three seconds later, a terrible beam of light burst through the roof and bore down on him; engulfing his meal, his desk, and the plans for his next creation in a staggering column of raw energy. The thick beam slammed through the antique wood, slowed down not one bit, and carried on through the floor below before suddenly winking out less than a second later.

A faint sound came from Ed, almost a squeak, as his stunned eyes stared at the gaping hole burned through his desk and the floor beneath, exactly six inches from where he sat.


*********************************

One hundred and fifty two miles away, Ellie shut off the beam and smirked softly to herself before turning and flying towards home.

Nope. Nothing in the chat windows either.

Not terribly important for now seeing as Windows 8 isn't out yet; but I tried the SSA2.1 out today on my Windows 8 install, and the cut scenes are missing all speech bubbles. This kinda makes it hard to follow the story!

Speech bubbles work fine in the rest of the game, and the rest of the game seems just fine in Win8 as well, it just seems to affect cut scenes.

I'm running an ATI HD5770 video card, using the Win8 preview drivers from ATI.

"MECHANO!" The scream of rage was followed seconds later by a crash as a wine bottle slammed into the centre of the large plasma screen TV, shattering both and causing a shower of sparks to spray from the destroyed screen.

"YOU SON OF A *****!" Ellie stormed from her position in the sofa and headed to the bar, picking up her cellphone laying by several empty bottles. Dialling quickly, her expression one of fury, she jabbed at the screen, dialling rapidly.

"Detective Parks? Ellie Stoneberg. I need to see you. Now."

“Good afternoon, and welcome to your lunchtime segment of Entertainment Today.” The attractive newsreader smiled into the camera. “The city of Paragon is today buzzing with the news of the latest antics of the well known fashion designer and part time hero, Ellie Stoneberg. Famous for her work in fashion and infamous for her work as a city hero, the feisty English girl was last reported to be acting in a far more outlandish manner than we’ve come to expect.”

The camera view changed to show archive footage of Ellie tearing through a group of gangers and stuffing several of them into the same garbage dumpster whilst the reporters voice continued. “Much controversy has been generated over recent years by what some would call her excessive use of force, which can be seen clearly demonstrated by her treatment of the various gang members in the city. However, up until now, her methods have been defended by many law enforcement officers, citing that humiliation in the face of their fellows is a far more effective deterrent than a few nights in the cells, and much less likely to be treated as an initiation rite.”

The camera cut back to the studio and the anchor woman smiled again. “All that may have come to an end though, as last night, in the extra-dimensional nightclub known as Pocket D, a favourite haunt of many of our city heroes and of Ms Stonebergs’ in particular, she was reportedly observed not only in a drunken condition, but was also seen to be verbally abusing the other patrons, making threats of violence against them, and even coerced one patron into a fight using the clubs arena facilities. What happened during that incident is not clear, but Ms Stoneberg was later observed to be leaving the club in a state of disarray, having apparently lost the altercation badly.”

Today, we attempted to contact Ms Stoneberg at her tropical island home for a statement. Initially, our telephone calls went unanswered, but after much perseverance we were able to obtain a short conversation with her and this is what she had to say...”

The camera view shifted again, this time to a still of very dishevelled Ellie taken just as she was exiting the arena fight, and her recorded voice began to play.

“Sorry, who did you say this was?” Her voice sounded rather sleepy.

“This is Elaine Candou, from Entertainment Today, Ms Stoneberg. Do you have any comments regarding your reported behaviour in the extra dimensional nightclub known as Pocket D, last night?”

There’s a short pause before a hesitant voice replied. “I’m sorry? I don’t know what you’re talking about... I was in there last night sure, but I left about half past ten, after some guy wouldn’t put out his cigar...”

“So, you’re claiming that you have no knowledge that you verbally abused several patrons of the nightclub, and were involved in a fight with the Russian ambassador for dimension Eka Upsilon five two, a fight which you apparently lost quite badly, despite multiple eye-witnesses and actual video footage of some of the events?”

Again, there’s a pause before a reply is forthcoming. “Yeeeaaaahhhh... Lady, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about... ”

“You deny the allegations?”

“I don’t even know what allegations you’re on about... I wasn’t drunk in the D... Hell, I don’t GET drunk very easily, y’know? Not without like, fae wine or something... I sure as hell didn’t lose any fights with Vy either... She wouldn’t last like, two seconds in an arena with me... It must have been an imposter...”

“So, you are alleging that, in fact, the person responsible for your drunken brawling and verbal abuse of other patrons, was an imposter? Someone pretending to be you?” The reporter's voice clearly indicated their lack of belief. “Can you explain why someone would go to such elaborate lengths to discredit you, Ms Stoneberg?”

“Uh.. No... Well... I’m not that pop...” Her voice suddenly cuts off and a few seconds later is replaced by a richly feminine voice with a strong Dutch accent. “Hello? Who is this, please?”

This time, it’s the reporter who hesitates briefly, before responding. “This is Entertainment Today, part of the Paragon News Network. Can I take it I am talking with Ms Jessica Stoneberg, the well known partner of Ellie Stoneberg?”

There are a few seconds of silence, followed by a soft click as the line goes dead and the camera switches back to the news anchor.

“And there you have it folks. Ms Stoneberg denies her actions last night and instead made some wild allegations of an unknown imposter trying to besmirch her good name. Rest assured that Entertainment Today will do its utmost to investigate this story and bring you the real truth behind last night's events as soon as possible.”

Cara rolled her eyes at what, to her, appeared to be a blatant attempt at bribery. "Whoopdedoo, a pretty pig sticker. Well... I think I'm gonna go do something useful, like find me some ice monsters. You have fun trying to butter up the Commander here, fella. Personally, I think he's too smart to fall for it."

Taking several short strides towards the door, she opened it, then glanced back at the others. "I prefer to let my actions speak for me, y'know? Have fun, kiddies."

A second later, she was gone, leaving only several patches of ice on the office floor in her wake.

Cara gave the wolf guy what could only be described as a dirty look, then interrupted. "Unlike this guy, Commander, I represent a group who want only to help." She fixed the Necrian with a stare, "With nothing actually wanted in exchange for that."

She crossed her arms, the flames flickering over her icy form turning a lighter yellow. "I've been sent here to take a look around, find out exactly what's going on around here and report back to my boss. Maybe also help out for a day or three depending on what I find."

Dropping her hands back to her sides, she turned to look out the window, gazing out at the frozen wasteland. "Y'see, unlike these guys who seem to want quite a lot in return for their help; ie, your planet. All we in the Vigil want to do is help out those who need it, and in conjuction with HEART, a disaster relief charity group we do a lot of work with, we plan to do just that."

Turning back to the commander, the flames around her body suddenly flared brighter for a brief moment. "What we won't do, though, is just take care of the problem for you, not alone. No one really has the resources to fix an entire planet. But what we CAN do is ferret out the root cause of this ice age of yours and provide logistical support and even a number of extremely powerful metahuman's to assist in any fighting, but we expect you to take a large part in helping yourselves, too. It's your world, after all."

As she stepped through the portal, Cara looked around curiously, a small smile on her face as the temperature dropped to something more to her liking. "Hmm, this is rather... nice. Though I'm kinda surprised you let all that snow and stuff in here, won't it harm the equipment?"

Ignoring the armoured soldiers for a moment, she walked over to the piping connected to the portal and peered at it curiously. "Hmm, nah... Looks well shielded and stuff."

Finally, her attention turning to the soldiers, she walked over to the one in lead and grinned cheekily at him. "Alright mister, I'm Cara, or Burned Ice if you prefer, aaaannnnd... take me to your leader!"