LeighB_EU

I enjoyed reading this. It’s well written and the story, as a start to something bigger, kept me wanting to know more. I particularly liked some of the characterisation of the Librarian.

"Oh goodness me no!" laughed the man clapping his hands in an almost childish manner. "Lord Recluse doesn't take tea!" he paused, allowing himself to calm down. "He prefers coffee of course." Was obvious, but well done and made me chuckle, as was, Oh I appreciate Captain Mako did what had to be done at the time and no one could blame him for that but I have often wonder if the moment of satisfaction of him killing his arch-nemesis has left him feeling.... well.... hollow. Sandwich?". I also liked The two men watched him in silence as he set the tea things down on the table and left. which captured wonderfully that moment when you visit someone on business in their home and coffee and biscuits are set-up which always interrupt the conversation and leave you (well certainly me) with nothing to say for a minute and nowhere to look.

On a plot note, I was unsure how the Librarian would explain to those Destined Ones who came for information, that Arachnos was paying. Would this not raise suspicions? It’s probably an easy bit to get around and maybe my lack of knowledge of the background to the game world is showing, but it might be worth a quick line or two.

Also, there is the end of the first chapter. It doesn’t seem to have anything to make someone read on. Not that I would encourage the kind of cliff hangers Dan Brown managers (that’s far too much over egging of an already mass produced, plastic wrapped, cake in my opinion), but it might be worth adjusting things slightly. It really depends how you want to present the story as a whole.

Some small things I was a bit unsure of:

It was still raining and the driver was leaning up against the Limosine enjoying a cigarette. Was the driver really get soaked or did he have an umbrella or was smoke coming out of the car window?

Earl Grey isn't it? Personally I think the world should be rid of Earl Gray, it’s not a nice tea and there is far better out there however, you might want to have The Librarian suggest something else to the Arbiter such as Assam (which is a far better tea anyway imho ), maybe saying something such as “I know you usual take Earl Grey, but I thought you might enjoy Assam instead, a much less aggressive flavour.” just to highlight the former’s greater knowledge.

… Lord Recluse extremely happy all of the time than only quite happy on one occasion. Shouldn’t extremely and quite be swapped around?

It’s generally edited well. There are a few repetitions of words too close to each other (He didn't know men still carried them. He didn't reply but smiled …) and a couple of grammatical bits I think should be altered (But the Limosine … & But this house … I don’t think should be used at the start of sentences).

Keep up the good work and I’m looking forward to more. As ever, if my comments don’t make sense, by all means PM me.

Def’ well deserved. I love the humour in your pieces.

I only stayed for the first couple of fights (thought I’d go while I was doing well ), but hats off to Prox’ for running it and doing the tunes. Loved the low level mass battles.

Give Starscreamer a couple of weeks as I don’t want there to be any pressure on any of the contributors and two weeks seems like a reasonable length of time.

Spiky gets the award for the best use of the forums for comedy effect. The title of the thread is “Screenshots folder missing …”

linky

(Posted here because I didn’t really want to start a new thread for it.)

I’m still trying to get my head around MMO, as in, “I love this MMO.” I thought this came from MMORPG (massively multiplayer online roleplaying game), which means, ‘I love this MMO’ gives us ‘I love this massively multiplayer online.’

Has the need to shorten everything in modern languages really got to the point where we don’t even bother with a letter g?

Sorry, I just got back from pendant school. I’ll get my cape of perfection that I’ve just ironied.

Désolé d'apprendre ce ne sera pas le cas. Il aurait été amusant.

Je serait rejoindre si mon SG amis et je étaient bonnes.

Continuez votre bon travail.

(Désolé pour mon mauvais français. J'ai seulement lu un peu.)

That is a shame, I had even put this in my diary and made up a character so I could come and watch.

Do let us know if this is happening again, even if it is only a couple of teams I would watch and applauded.

Oh, stuff waiting in the wings, and I’m liking this way of bumping a thread without adding a new post.

There have also been a load more stories posted over the last week, so I can see myself sat in a park this weekend reading.

[u]The Memory of Moraine[u]

Summary: A sailor remembers the day he first saw the ghost ship.

Word Count: 1,300.
Reading Time: 10 minutes.

Nikolai stood at the rail of the ship, watching as the waves broke against the hull. The sea was peaceful today, the storm that had hit them when they were further up the coast had died out over night leaving clear blue skies dotted with wispy clouds. Taking another drag on his cigarette he looked towards the horizon. Independence Port was just coming in to view, its cranes standing out against the blue sky as dark hazy blobs.

Behind him two crewmen walked by on their way to the stern. There weren’t any passengers onboard at the moment, but the captain had mentioned picking some up when they docked. Everyone knew Álex was in with the Mob, quite deep according to some, and this meant that he did them special favours every now and then. Some times it was passengers and other times it would be unmarked cargo. No one asked any questions. They all got paid a bit of extra cash for keeping their mouths shut and those who couldn’t didn’t stay around for long – they were set ashore and, well, they didn’t take work on any other vessel. Nikolai suspected the Mob picked them up, but it was never talked about and he didn’t fancy finding out.

As their course was altered to bring them in to Paragons shipping lanes a small fishing boat came in to view. It was some distance away and heading out to sea, but Nikolai could just make out the thin lines of the masts.

It reminded him of his father’s boat. A forty foot trawler they had sailed out of Talos. That’s how Nikolai had grown up, leaving school at fifteen and taking to the waves. His mother had left them when he was only three and he didn’t have any brothers or sisters. There was just him and dad. He had spent most of his childhood on his dad’s boat or hanging around the docks talking to the other sailors. School had never suited him and he ended up spending more and more time on the trawler. In the end he just stopped turning up for classes. They chased after him for a bit, but when his father showed little interest in complying the authorities gave up. After that he started joining the boat on every trip.

Nikolai felt a pang of sadness touch him as the memories of that last day he had seen his father rose up in his mind. His death was listed as lost at sea and Nikolai remembered the day all too well. There was a forecast for a storm moving down the coast. They had briefly discussed not setting out, but all the predictions said the bad weather wouldn’t hit until later that morning and they thought they would be back long before even the leading winds hit. As his father had pointed out, there was also the money. They were two months behind on the rent and could ill afford to let another payment slip. A catch on a day when few others were willing to take the risk would bring them in more cash, so they both decided it was worth the chance.

There had been few other trawlers leaving that night as they set out from the dockside. The sky was clear but the oppressive feeling of a storm brewing could not be ignored and they discussed getting back as soon as they could. A short run would still be more than profitable.

They were both preoccupied with hauling in the catch and neither of them spotted the weather changing. It wasn’t until dark clouds had rolled over their heads and the wind had begun to whip at the stays that they realised they had delayed too long. The nets were almost gathered and they hurried as quickly as they could, but by the time the last of the catch was secured the boat was pitching and the peaks of the waves had started to top the gunwale. They set course back to Talos docks and battened down the hatches, the pumps working overtime to expel the water as it flowed in.

No more than thirty minutes in to their return journey they thought they’d struck it lucky. The wind died away and the waves flattened out. Nikolai imagined this is how the eye of a hurricane would be, but he knew they weren’t trapped in anything that bad. It was when he looked back over the stern to see if the storm was breaking up that he spotted the fog rolling after them. It moved with an eerie speed, gaining on the little trawler rapidly. Both he and his father watched through the windows of the cabin as the edges of the fog passed them by on either side and within minutes they were surrounded by it.

A ghostly horn echoed across the still waters and drew their eyes to the starboard side of the trawler. They heard another sounding of the horn and Nikolai felt a shiver run down his spine. Then from out of the fog bank came the bow of a large tanker. It took him a moment to realise what was wrong with the thing, but when the realisation struck him, Nikolai felt his body stiffen with fear. The ship had a greenish glow to its hull and in places it appeared transparent.

Pushing the engine as much as he could Nikolai tried to get away from the apparition, but as his father watched their progress through the rear window it became evident that they were not going to out run the thing. It didn’t matter which heading they changed to, they couldn’t find the edge of the fog and the tanker continued to gain on them.

“We’re done for,” his father cried in the end. “That thing is after the boat and we’ll not shake it.”

“There’s nothing more I can do,” Nikolai responded. “We don’t have the power.”

“The Devil take them,” his father shouted more to the ghost ship than to his son. “Let’s leave the trawler and try to swim for the fog. That may hide us from them.”

“But we’re miles from shore. There’s no way we can make it.”

“Better that then the Moraine take our souls,” his father replied, throwing open the bridge door.

Nikolai glanced back out the window at the ship that followed them. “It might just pass us by,” he said, but his words fell on empty air and he looked down to see his father running across the small deck of the trawler.

Leaving the tiller Nikolai threw himself down the ladder and on to the deck, chasing after his father with the hope he could stop the older man. Even as he ran he felt a new wave of fear wash over him and he realised that some horror emanating from the ghostly vessel was taking hold of both their minds.

His father reached the rail on the port bow and glanced over his shoulder, his gaze passing over his son’s head and on to the apparition. Then he made the jump and was gone. By the time Nikolai reached the gunwale his father was already halfway to the wall of fog. Nikolai was still calling his name as the ghostly ship passed the trawler on the starboard side.

A horn rang out across the deck of the ship and broke Nikolai from his memories. The boat he had seen on the horizon had long since passed them by. The second sounding of the horn moved him to action and he pushed himself away from the railing and turned towards the stern. The captain would be eager to make sure they were all ready for when they reached the docks.

As he looked past the bridge, he noticed that the skies were darkening. There would be a storm when they reached Independence Port. A storm always seemed to follow the Moraine in.

Hi Guys,

Here’s another short story from the CoH world.

A PDF copy can be found here – linky
Background and Notes can be found here – linky

Any comments, constructive or otherwise, are always welcome.

Share and enjoy.

Yeah. Very nice. Top skills to your sister.

That is good. Still loving your style.

If you want something that’s a challenge to get to 50, I recommend a defender, sonic/sonic.

I’m not saying it’s fun or addictive, but if you get it to 50 I’ll be impressed.

Following on from Avatea’s post (presumably for the French section, really ):

How To Recognise A True Veteran in CoX

Some players have been pretending to be helpful Veterans when they are, in fact, Noobs. These Noobs have now been tracked down and made to do Frost Fire with invisible ice (again and again).

A few facts that will help you recognise a true Veteran:

1 – A true Veteran will never invite you to their Super Group. If they do, beware, it’s probably full of alt’s.

2 – A real Veteran is recognisable by their name. It is normally something cool and names such as King_Spam-a-lot or something with a period after it (e.g. War…Witch….) are unlikely to be Veterans.

3 – A real Veteran is recognisable by the colour of their language. It is very rarely blue and normally well out of kindergarten.

4 – A true Veteran can be found posting in the forums while on a task force with one account and chatting in the badge channel with their second account.

If you have any suspicions about the person you are talking to, please post in one of the forums for confirmation.



Here’s the source (linky), and in case it’s been moved by now:

[ QUOTE ]

Certains joueurs malintentionnés ont essayé récemment de se faire passer pour des GMs/représentants de NCsoft. Nos vrais GMs ont pu les retrouver très facilement et ils ont été sanctionnés pour ces actions.

Quelques faits vous aideront à reconnaître un vrai GM/représentant de NCsoft :

1- Un vrai GM ne vous demandera jamais vos identifiants de compte et mot de passe. Si quelqu'un le fait, méfiez-vous en !

2- Un vrai GM est reconnaissable à son nom précédé de "GM_". Par exemple GM_Nom. Aucun joueur ne peut utiliser le prefixe "GM_" !

3- Un vrai GM est reconnaissable à la couleur de ses messages privés. Ces messages seront affichés en bleu au lieu de la couleur jaune habituelle.

4- Un vrai GM vous avisera par mail, en réponse à votre pétition avant qu'une intervention ne soit effectuée en jeu et par la suite lorsque l'intervention aura eu lieu.


Si vous avez des soupçons concernant qui que ce soit en jeu, n'hésitez pas à nous le faire savoir soit en tapant /petition <texte>, soit en utilisant l'onglet "Poser une question" du Centre d'assistance.


[/ QUOTE ]

Edited: Added smiley and changed the post icon as I was (slightly) concerned people thought I was being serious.

Edit 2:
Guys,

Been busy and thought the original post by Avatea was going to be corrected straight away so people would at least understand what I was on about (if not find it funny ). Sorry for any confusion.

I’m a bit pushed for time, but try Google for the translation. In short it’s warning about people pretending to be GMs in the game and pointing out how to spot the real ones. I’ll go back to my hole and stop trying to be funny. You might not believe it, but I can tell even worst jokes than this. Do you know why the super model crossed the road?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Honestly, any zone beginning with a C is called Croatia. I though this had been settled ages ago.


[/ QUOTE ]Except for Croatia's Folly

[/ QUOTE ]

Stop poking holes in my otherwise flimsy theory, that’s for the suggestions forum and requests for wall walking and line swinging.

[ QUOTE ]
Today I learnt that:

* Many people don't seem to understand that information can be realised in several small segments rather than as a complete, exhaustive package.

* The (game) world ends when players get things that they want, get things that they don't want or get things that they aren't sure about - something to do with branching missions?

* I'd been mistyping Chimchimineechimchimineechimchimcheroo as Cimerora for ages.

* No-one is ever happy unless they are moaning... so obviously more brits here than I realised

Thank you forums.

[/ QUOTE ]

Honestly, any zone beginning with a C is called Croatia. I though this had been settled ages ago.

I’ve got to say, I think the moaning has been a lot less than normal. Most people moaning go on to concede that it all looks rather good and there might be better to come. Even the most stoic of moaners have said they’re happy to wait until more information is announced.

Even more shockingly there were a couple of occasions when a flame war could have started and it’s just fizzled out. Almost unheard of! There was even evidence that things were getting loved up at one point and I had to cover the children’s eyes.

Maybe the comedy complaint thread has been more effective than we all thought.

[ QUOTE ]
Oh and btw the new content is being added to Cimerora, not Croatoa

[/ QUOTE ]

Curse my rusting metal body and it's worthless brain.

Oh, and now I've got this pain in all the diodes down my left side.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don’t think it will have a wide enough appeal to empty out the servers.

[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't that one of the points why people are dissapointed about i13, only a small percentage will be interested in the mission creator, but new zones and more power swapping between AT's would appeal to a bigger percentage?

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, and much as I don’t like to do it, I’ll quote my own badly worded post:

[ QUOTE ]

I could be wrong (and often I am), but if there is a lot of content being added to Croatoa I’d have done a trailer and highlighted this as the main thing in the issue. It will have a wider appeal and looks cool. The mission designer is very cool and I think has more depth to it than people think, but on the face of it a lot of players will look at it and it will mean nothing to them.


[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, my entire reply was meant tongue in cheek (I put the smiley at the end to cover it all). I wasn’t meaning to imply (accept in jest) that you farm all the time.

[ QUOTE ]

Mission creator is a solo event that will empty our smaller populated servers


[/ QUOTE ]

I don’t think it will have a wide enough appeal to empty out the servers.

[ QUOTE ]

All that aside, all I really want and expect from new issues are:
- new (or revamped) mission/zone content
- new powersets (proliferated, or totally new)
- new costume pieces (hopefully we won't have to buy all new stuff in "booster packs" in future)
- bug fixing
- QoL improvements


[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, these are the sort of things I’m looking for and thinking about it we are getting all (or most) of those.

- new (or revamped) mission/zone content - Croatoa
- new powersets (proliferated, or totally new) – That is certainly there.
- new costume pieces – Not confirmed (outside of the paid for stuff)
- bug fixing – I’m sure there’ll be bugs to fix.
- QoL improvements – I’m really hoping the new teaming stuff will be in this release, but there could be other stuff not announced yet.

(I’m highlighting these to demonstrate the things we are getting, rather than to claiming you think we’re not getting them. )

I could be wrong (and often I am), but if there is a lot of content being added to Croatoa I’d have done a trailer and highlighted this as the main thing in the issue. It will have a wider appeal and looks cool. The mission designer is very cool and I think has more depth to it than people think, but on the face of it a lot of players will look at it and it will mean nothing to them.

I’m more curious what people did want in an issue?

[ QUOTE ]

For this issue to be touted as a massive improvement to the game I am really dissapointed by the announced features. If it is going to be as good as was shouted about they best be holding some stuff back otherwise I think it is a massive dissapointment.


[/ QUOTE ]

But, to be fair, unless it’s farming or PLing stuff, what is going to impress you?

Heck, I’m disappointed there is new content being added as I’ve only completed about 50% of the existing stuff. I’d say hold back on new content until the end of next year at the earliest.

[ QUOTE ]
Hmmm, I don't know but somehow I'm dissapointed by I13.


[/ QUOTE ]

I do think this is what some people are feeling because there isn’t an announcement of a big new zone and when people were told they were getting a massive issue they presumed this would be lots of new zones and missions. Then there were a few of us who were getting excited about new base stuff (which isn’t essential for the game and only plays to a minority of the user base).

From the dev’s point of view they have seen the fervour that the idea of the mission designer created and announced this as the biggest part of the issue.

In reality there will be lots of content and the dev’s have done things correctly by setting up the new zone last issue and adding lots of missions this issue. The mission designer is a massive bit of the game and we, as users, probably don’t appreciate how much work has gone in to it. We will only realise the full effect of this release months later when there is loads of user content to play. It will give lots more content as well and I suspect a lot of it will be level 50 stuff because that’s what people really want.

There are also new power sets we’ve been crying out for and the off line character stuff is entirely different to getting xp while you’re not playing a character, which is a great idea.

With this, zombies and the moon base in I14 (?), things are looking very good. This game already has lots more to offer than the other super hero MMOGs. And maybe, just maybe, there is more stuff for I13 that isn’t being announced yet, purely because the dev’s don’t want to give too much away to the opposition. Let’s face it, the things they are talking about now are things the games in development already knew about. Could there be more surprises? Oh, the speculation.

First, never mind the lack of donuts, where’s the cake?

Second, please, there are so many (oh, so many) threads about paid for content and the pro’s and con’s. Please go find them and feel free to bump them. Let’s talk about the stuff that’s different (as most are, I hasten to add).

Obviously I was always going to be disappointed if I didn’t get base stuff, but I’ve now moved my hopes to the fact that the mission creator will be used as the basis for a base creation system in i14. Time to start learning item stacking, I think.

And I know this isn’t comedy complaint thread, but please stop giving me more missions. I haven’t done all the ones from i5 yet.

[ QUOTE ]
The vultures smell the blood!
Quick quick, before they all come here and crush our little forum!

[/ QUOTE ]

I do love the fact that we’re reading each other’s forums in the hope there will be some information, somewhere.