Hero Prime

I had much the same idea.

Then game the /tells in-game and the messages on here, telling me I was just going to split the post-COH community - especially the Virtue server community group - and that I should back off. One of the messages (not received here) was particularly rude and even a little vulgar.

But in the end, they were right. What we need is one major community hub.

Almost two years ago, my main character, Hero Prime, was killed off. In his post-death story, he ended up in a version of heaven called "Empyrea". While there, he was mentored by one of its citizens, an angelic being named Michael.

That's right... Empyrean Michael is mine. *chuckles*

(Ignore the asterisks in that thread. I'm not sure where they came from, but they weren't there when I first posted it.)

Also, Hero Prime kicks Chuck Norris' butt in the afterlife.

I'm not sure why people don't seem to understand that City of Heroes' 2.5-million-per-quarter revenue is not profit, but total gross income. NCsoft's quarterly financial report paints a more clear picture; they were spending nearly as much to keep CoH alive as the game was making. Its profits were minimal, and therefore did not represent a significant income for its investors. What NCsoft's decision represented was the desire to take the investment they were placing in City of Heroes and place it somewhere more potentially profitable.

I don't agree with how they did it, but I understand why.

Brandon: A mutual friend (Makai_No_Falco on these boards) told me about your efforts to create a supers pen and paper game some months ago, but what he didn't tell me was that it was City of Heroes based. As a game designer and an avid fan of City of Heroes, I have to admit that I'm intrigued. I had actually asked him to offer you my assistance, but it looks like your team and I have some very different design ideas when it comes to a tabletop supers game. I know some people like crunch - what you called "more paperwork" in your first video - but how well does your game emulate the rush in and take down the bad guy sort of flavor City of Heroes has given us these last eight plus years? It seems like there's a lot of bookkeeping, which might bog down the sort of "action movie" feel our time in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles have provided.

An abundance of crunch is one of the reasons I've abandoned Dungeons & Dragons for lighter games, like those that utilize the FATE system. Fluid, narrative games seem to carry more of the spirit of the comic book than tactical, numbers-heavy systems, at least in my opinion.

I don't think CoH has quite that many subscribers anymore. Cut 100k off that and you'll have a more realistic number of actual VIPs.

As seen in so many threads so far, this picture and the following video show just how I feel.



Please take the time to watch this video. The lyrics are posted below. Funny thing is, I never really liked this song in Ernest Goes To Camp, but suddenly the highlighted lyrics below seemed to make sense to me.

Gee, I'm Glad It's Raining (click title for video)
performed by Jim Varney as Ernest P. Worrell

Gee, I'm glad it's raining; there's always something to be thankful for.
I'm awfully glad it's raining, cause no one sees your teardrops when it pours.

And no one knows the thunder is your heartbreak in disguise,
They think the rainy night's what put that sad look in your eyes.

Sure am glad it's raining; the gentle rhythm soothes the pain inside.
I'm glad the stars aren't shining. A wounded warrior needs a place to hide.

I thought I had found someone I could count on 'til the end.
What they wanted was a hero; all I needed was a friend

Gee, I'm glad it's raining; I hope the morning sun won't come up soon.
As long as it keeps raining no one knows my heart broke right in two.

I thought I had found someone I could count on 'til the end.
What they wanted was a hero; all I needed was a friend

Sure am glad it's raining.

I'm awfully glad it's raining

Some of you may know @Alzharade, who played Indomitable Ironclad, Jacob Morrison, Steinstrom Jaeger, and Chaos Necromancer. I'm on the phone with him right now, and he has asked me to repost something he posted on Facebook earlier.
__________________

City of Heroes is ending. This is a game, that was so much more to me. It was my community, my life, and it's where I met some of my first, and truest, friends. I have, in fact, just received a new laptop, explicitly so that I could play it again. Life's little ironies are funny like that. I love City of Heroes, and it will always hold some of my fondest memories. But the announcement also came at the end of my first week of college. I can't help but feel that the timing is poetic. The game, that was so much more than a game, that kept me going these passed few years, is ending, right as the rest of my life is beginning. I will always love City of Heroes. I will always miss it. But I will always have the memories, of what it felt like the first time I logged in. Of what it felt like to really feel super. I'll always remember what it was like, when I had no where else to go, and no one else to talk to, to log in for a couple hours, and feel like someone relevant, someone meaningful, the type of person who can effect change in the world around him. But it's ending, and so must the fantasy. It's time for me to stop pretending to be this person, and to become this person. I only hope I can live up to that ideal.

Thank you, Matt Miller, Synapse, War Witch, and yes, even you, Emmert, for giving us this game. I don't think I would have made it these passed few years without it. And thanks to all my friends who were here along the way, the ones that shared my company in a world that we all wish we could inhabit, if only for a little while. You know who you are. Godspeed everyone, and remember, there are heroes everywhere.

"Heroes may die, but heroism never shall."

I might check out Champions Online. I played it for a while and it wasn't bad. It could have been better, but I hear they've made some improvements. I'm also told The Secret World is fun, so that's an option.

Whatever I do, I'm going to be posting at Beyond Virtue. See my sig for a link and bookmark it. It should be up and running soon.

Silly woman. Now I'm all teary-eyed.

I wish we had more opportunity to roleplay together. I only met Luficia in-game briefly a couple times - once at Mr. Zen's funeral and then this morning, when I was on Starblade.

Maybe we'll see you in Champions Online!

A friend, Makai_No_Falco, called me yesterday. He spoke in only the most serious of voices which, as you might imagine if you've seen his posts on these very boards, is unusual for him. "Go to the game site," he intoned.

"The main site?" I asked, wondering what might be going on.

"Yeah. Go to coh.com."

I did, and the article that drove him from his normally jocular self sat there, staring at me from my monitor. City of Heroes was going away. The ride was almost over.

A little bit of history here. I didn't get into the City of Heroes beta until the very end. I never became one of those names people knew - not then, and not really afterward. I never would attain the kind of game celebrity as names like Ascendant or Ms. Independence, and that was okay with me. Instead, I just wanted to play the game. It didn't last long for us, since our second computer didn't run the game well enough to play, and I was only going to play if my wife could play with me, so we left shortly after retail.

We returned a year later with a couple new computers and created all new characters. The big one for me at the time was Mr. Zen, a gravity controller who also, in character, happened to be a reserved billionaire businessman. Between him and my wife's main, Jade Ohm, we set about creating The Zenvious Foundation, which was at one time one of the premiere roleplaying super groups on Virtue. That's something of which I'm proud - and something by which I am humbled. The Foundation gave us the opportunity to interact with so many people, both in the SG and beyond, who were utterly amazing, and while there were some rough patches, it was an astounding run. It's in the Foundation that some strong bonds were formed, and I can say with certainty that some of the people we knew from those days will remain our friends for the rest of our lives. Pax, Tox, Jet, Deus, Arty, Stein, Dusk, and many more are now part of our lives in ways we would never change.

I think the thing that I found most touching during those days was when one of my characters, Mr. Zen, was murdered (in-character, of course) at the hands of a friend's main villain. When we held the funeral, people I never imagined would be there showed up, roleplaying their grief over the loss of one of Paragon City's heroes. It's the only time that I've ever seen Croatoa full, with a second instance opening up, there were so many people there. I think the one that really stuck in my brain most was Luficia. I didn't remember her even having met any of my characters, but she was there because one of her fellow heroes had fallen. It didn't matter if he was unknown or if they had met.

Things wound down with the Foundation after a couple years, and my wife and I took a break. Another year or so passed and we visited Paragon City again. By this time I was playing Hero Prime almost exclusively. We found some of our old friends and, in the process of starting yet another super group - Tangent - we made quite a few new ones, like Vyver and Steampunkette. Tangent lasted a year before its concept fell flat and people mostly moved on to other, more vivid projects. I'll be honest here, I think we came back with the hopes of recreating some of the glory days of the Foundation, but those days... they were long gone, and trying to shoehorn that all together is probably what caused it to fail. But that's okay... we went out with a bang that time.

When we decided it was time to go, my wife and I gathered all our personal resources and had a huge costume contest in the D, giving away more than we initially intended. Fifteen billion INF, three purple sets, a dozen Luck of the Gambler 7.5s, over 200 pieces of orange salvage. We even ran a competition on the boards to give away some great names: Download, Beta, Dusk Blade, Starbright, Arcanist, and more. This was the essence of what we enjoyed about City of Heroes - the chance to give back, to make other people's game fun, just like we found it fun.

If we had been smarter, we would have realized just how much we loved the game - and loved holding these contests - and just stuck around for that. We didn't... we started playing World of Warcraft. It was okay, but it lacked the community City of Heroes gave us. Still, we had already decided, we were gone "for good".

As it says in my signature, apparently "for good" means "See you next year!"

At the beginning of this month, we came back. We didn't do Double XP Weekend as hardcore as we had in the past. We leveled. My wife started up Team Ramen and almost seemed to singlehandedly revive the idea of radio mission groups in Peregrine (which were strangely absent upon our return). We played new powersets, we bought Paragon Points, and we were having a blast.

And then the phone call from Makai_No_Falco. The end, right?

Not really. Not the end.

I've met some really awesome people in this game, and I'm not ready to let it go. Oh, I don't believe we'll ever get enough signatures to petiton NCsoft to keep the servers open, and I have only a sliver of hope from the news at COH Titan that they're trying to keep the game alive. Instead, I'm looking for ways to make sure the community stays together, as cohesively as possible. Ransim and Foxy Ferret have both announced they're opening up Virtueverse as a community site from this point forward, and I've offered to help. There's another site going up - citofheroesveterans.com - by The Briggs. People are working to make sure we don't lose each other.

See, that's important, that we don't lose each other. The best thing you can leave this game with is friends.

I'm not going to give a shout-out of names, people who have touched my life through City of Heroes, because the list would be so immense, it would simply make the post impossible to read. Instead, I'm going to ask you folks, everyone on Virtue, to join me. I've just registered the domain "beyondvirtue.com", and I'm in the process of building a forum with a specific focus. I want to create a place where we can dump out our creative juices - stories, art, music, whatever - and keep it all in one place, to share with each other. I'd also like this to be a place where we can come together as a community to talk about the games we've moved on to, to serve as a metan-nexus for players who go on to play Champions Online or The Secret World or even stop playing MMOs altogether. I'm also going to be looking for people to help with this site, provided enough of us decide it's where we want to go.

Beyond Virtue. No matter what, we're moving to that point. We might as well move together. I hope I'll see you there.

Vyver... running Tangent was an honor and a humbling experience. It was our second supergroup to run - the first being The Zenvious Foundation - and left us with a great number of good memories, not the least of which were the missions and conversations with your Shri'taki. But people come and go from supergroups (or guilds, in games like WoW) sometimes seemingly at a whim, and who would we be to judge you for that?

On a very personal level, I'm glad we had the opportunity to be part of your chrysalis, your transformation. Watching someone grab hold of roleplaying, of telling a story rather than just beating buttons and filling a pixelized progress bar, that is an honor and a miracle, and one I would not trade for anything.

Here's hoping your future has many equally amazing transformations. And if we ever have the pleasure of being there to see them, we will be honored all over again.

-Hero Prime

I'm taking my main to park there now. I'll send a message soon.

I'm in the process of installing message boards at heroprime.com (while also trying to decide on a better domain!) for Virtue-ites and other City of Heroes players to keep in touch and continue doing some of the things they do here - post art, stories, general discussion, and so on.

The forum is in maintenance mode right now, but it should be up tonight.

I'm in the process of installing message boards at heroprime.com (while also trying to decide on a better domain!) for Virtue-ites and other City of Heroes players to keep in touch and continue doing some of the things they do here - post art, stories, general discussion, and so on.

The forum is in maintenance mode right now, but it should be up tonight.

I've actually been working on a similar project. Perhaps we should combine our efforts.

*sighs*

Just came back, too.

I use combinations of green and orange, orange and purple, and purple and green regularly. Sometimes even all three!

I recently made this one for Next Food Network Star contestant Emily Ellyn.

Wet Dreams
by Kip Addota

It was April the Forty-first, being a quadruple leapyear;
I was driving in downtown Atlantis.
My Barracuda was in the shop, so I was in a rented Stingray,
and it was overheating.
So I pulled into a Shell station; they said I'd blown a seal.
I said, "Fix the damn thing and leave my private life out of it, okay, pal?"

While they were doing that, I walked over to a place called the Oyster Bar.
A real dive. But I knew the owner; he used to play for the dolphins.
I said, "HI GILL!" (You have to yell, he's hard of herring.)

Chorus:
Think I had a wet dream, cruisin' through the Gulf stream.
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Wet dream.

Gill was also down on his luck.
Fact is, he was barely keeping his head below water.
I bellied up to the sandbar; he poured the usual: Rusty Snail, hold
the grunion, shaken, not stirred.
With a peanut butter and jellyfish sandwich on the side, heavy on the mako.
I slipped him a fin, on porpoise.
I was feeling good; I even dropped a sand dollar in the box for Jerry's Squids,
for the halibut.

Well, the place was crowded. We were packed in like sardines.
They were all there to listen to the big band sounds of Tommy Dorsal.
What sole. Tommy was rockin' the place with a very popular tuna,
"Salmonchanted Evening", and the stage was surrounded by screaming groupers,
Probably there to see the bass player.
One of them was this cute little yellowtail, and she was givin' me the eye.
So I figured this was my chance for a little fun.
You know, piece of Pisces.

But she said things I just couldn't fathom.
She was too deep, seemed to be under a lot of pressure.
Boy, could she drink. She drank like a...
She drank a lot.
I said, "What's your sign?"
She said, "Aquarium."
I said, "Great! Let's get tanked!"

Chorus

I invited her up to my place for a little midnight bait.
I said, "C'mon baby, it'll only take a few minnows."
She threw me that same old line: "Not tonight, I got a haddock."

And she wasn't kidding, either, cause in came the biggest,
meanest looking haddock I'd ever seen come down the pike.
He was covered with mussels. He came over to me; he said, "Listen, Shrimp.
Don't you come trollin' around here." What a crab.
This guy was steamed. I could see the anchor in his eyes.

I turned to him and I said, "Abalone! You're just being shellfish."
Well, I knew there was going to be trouble, and so did Gill,
cause he was already on the phone to the cods.
The haddock hits me with a sucker punch. I catch him with a left hook.
He eels over. It was a fluke, but there he was, lying on the deck,
flat as a mackerel, kelpless.

I said, "Forget the cods, Gill. This guy's going to need a sturgeon.
Well, the yellowtail was impressed with the way I landed her boyfriend.
She came over to me; she said, "Hey, big boy, you're really a game fish.
What's your name?"
I said, "Marlin."

Chorus

Well, from then on we had a whale of a time. I took her to dinner;
I took her to dance; I bought her a bouquet of flounders.
And then I went home with her.
And what did I get for my trouble? A case of the clams.

(Chorus x 2)