LeighB_EU

A while back GM_Emily helped me and a couple of friends out when a mission borked. Always my thanks GM_Emily and all the GMs for their help.

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And funnily enough, two of my minions on one of my MMs are called 'Attackapakka' and 'UpsyDeathray'

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LOL <big grin>

All you need now is one called Tombliboom and a macro to make them all shout "Makka Pakka" at the same time.

(I’ll be suitably impressed if you can sort out an Igglepiggle type name for another one.)

Might I take this opportunity to advertise the wonder that is Defiant. I wasn’t on last night, but I don’t think there will have been any griefers around GG.

Defiant – Like the Culture part of the forums, it’s where the fun really happens.

I look at it like this:
36 months at £8 = £288
(I had both games bought for me and haven’t got around to buying anything extra yet.)

Average of 4 hours played each week = 624 hours played
Cost per hour = £0.46

I suspect most people here can hit a rate that’s a lot lower than that, but then I don’t care. That’s darn good fun per pound IMO, only PnP roleplaying gives a better rate (and maybe that Amy Grant album I got in circa 1988).

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I eagerly await your range of child psychology books!

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*Leigh points Cactus in the direction of the bedtime story called Eensy Weensy Spider in the creative forum.*

I actually thought this might be scary as a bedtime story, but everyone else seems to think it’s fine.

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.. I have to make my 'little lady' wave at him at least ten times before he goes off to bed.* I think she's now second favourite to In The Night Garden for his viewing of choice.

*Not whilst in the middle of a mission/killing spree, obviously. I wait until he's gone to bed for that - can't really picture myself doing the "What's the little lady doing? Oh, she's blasting the little man's head with a machine-gun, darling" talk just yet...!

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Ha! All you need to do now is make a toon that looks like Igglepiggle and then, “Why is Igglepiggle lying on the floor mummy?” “Because Igglepiggle got blown up by a zombie suicide bomber.” Funny, yes. Tears all night, yes. Then you could do the same with a Santa character and one for the tooth fairy.

But think how much children cost and they won’t let you dress them up in cyborg outfits – well not all the time anyway.

Yep, been keeping an eye on pages, just had a busy week and weekend. Tonight is put aside to catch up in here so I’m happy.

I do like your style. I must say that ages ago when I first saw a couple of your pictures I wasn’t sure, but it’s really grown on me and I love it now. I find it difficult to comment on how good the actual art work is as I’m no artist, I will say, however:

- I don’t like the vague face on page two (but understand why you are keeping it vague at the moment)

- The background on page one seems to light for an alley, and for the sense of gloom you are trying to express.

- I’ve also spent a while puzzling over the look of the woman in pages five and six. I keep thinking that she looks like a different woman and I believe it’s down to the size of the eye brows (but I could be wrong). She certainly, to me, looks younger in the top panel of page five than she does in page six.

Story and flow wise, while I kind of agree with you about the page sizes and the speed of the narrative, I think it only slows down in page seven. Two thoughts about that page:

- The policeman saying “What the hell are you meant to be?!” seems a little out of place as I was confused as to where (or what) Dr D was.

- Could you drop in another picture in the top section showing Dr D doing something at the crime scene. This would increase the pacing and make the policeman’s comments more in keeping with the actions. It might even need the bottom pane moving on to the next page and a few more images of Dr D doing something adding in to this page. (Sorry if I’m vague, but obviously I’m trying to guess on what happens next with the story, so I’m unsure if my suggestions would fit.)

Overall, bloomin’ good and do keep it up.

Nice one Luke. I can’t sing for toffee either, but it all worked for me.

(I’m not sure that sounds like a compliment now, but you know what I mean. )

Lots for me to read here and good bits they are too. A few bits from all of the above (4+, 5 and 6):

“Why didn't you take the override into account?” asked White Thunder starting to come from his daze. Probably a bit more description of Whitey before he says this line would be good. Something to tell the reader that he’s started to come around and is listening to them.

I liked the prejudice from Whitey about magical creatures. I can’t remember if it was in the previous scene, and excuse a lazy reviewer for not checking, but it was good in this bit. In fact I liked all the conversation between MV and Whitey.

Could there be some report of how things are going in the other fights with the robot armies. Some reason as to why more heroes haven’t turned up, or the classic, they can’t get here in time thing.

I was kind of expecting the final scene to be with Stephan in hospital, but I guess there must be more to the story.

I liked the changing of the password, but there needs to be a reason why MV gets up close to the army. Why didn’t she just issue the command from the rooftop? Also, unless I’ve missed something, what happened to Nemesis? You could be intending to describe that in the next part, but I’d be tempted to just add a little something here. Certainly as a reader I was thinking I’d missed something (which, of course, I may well have done ).

I seem to remember from the other bits that LOCA felt more like a person. In these bots, certainly in the last chapter, she seemed to revert back to just being a robot with a bit of personality and I felt a bit sad about that as I rather liked her. It’s a feeling that comes from the things she and MV say. Maybe this is what you intended and maybe my brain is just not remembering the previous bits properly (sorry, being lazy again and not reading back through the other sections), but I felt more attached to her [LOCA] as a character in the earlier bits of the story.

Shout up if that doesn’t make sense.

Thanks for the comments guys. Always much appreciated.

I did think about the Hans Christian Andersen type stories and that maybe this wasn’t as scary as I thought it might be for children.

I should have put in the link to the background notes [linky]. I do enjoy doing stuff set in CoX that’s just a bit different. I’ve not even considered doing a ‘normal’ hero/action story yet. I would like to come up with some more alternate history ones like this. Hopefully inspiration will strike. In the meantime I’ve been drafting up a few more short stories for CoH and will get those posted as and when.

Thanks again for reading.

Edit: Forgot the link. Silly me.

Brilliant! That kind of effort needs to be off the screen and on the paper – nice glossy paper. My highlights were:

- Page seven just rocks. I had this big grin on my face when I flipped to that page.

- And then I got to page eleven and the cat had to get off my knee while laughed in surprise. Beer nearly went all over my nice desk.

- Page sixteen looked cool as well. Love the text and styling.

Overall another excellent addition to the sequence. As I’ve said before, I still have no idea how you do this and it does look great. I like the story progression as well. There are little tweaks I’d do with the text, but it’s barely worth it given the quality of the production as they are only little things.

One suggestion, is there any way you can make this more accessible? I’ve never looked in to online comic publishing and I suspect you’d have to change the size of the pages, but this work does deserve to be seen by more people and I’m just thinking that a download isn’t the best way to let people see it.

Let me know if any of that isn’t clear.

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My question to NCsoft is that now that you have canned a fair chunk of our EU.community team, and players are rallying round to provide for each other....


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Are there only the three guys in the community team (GR, Paladium and K)? I always got the impression there were a few more in the background? I’d hate to think of the work load if it is only those guys and especially if K goes.

I feel a theme developing here. I don’t have many characters, but already I can tick a few of them off:

Sonic/Sonic Defender – Yep, got one of those.

Energy/Energy Blaster – My first character. Took me over two years to level (and was the only character I was playing).

Dark/Dark Scrapper – Final got him to level fifty the other month (yay, my second) and he still has endurance problems.

Should I just list my other characters to help people avoid those set combo’s?

@Mereman:
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@ Liegh perhaps we should get together as I have a Sonic/Sonic about the same level and finding the same things


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And you think two Sonics together would be a good idea? I’ll let you know when I’m next on and we can have a laugh - one hit each and run for the door, and back in five minutes once we've rested.

As I’ve mentioned a few times, I do find my sonic/sonic defender difficult to play. This is not because she’s a poor AT, just very unfulfilling.

About half of her attack powers are multiple targeted ones which means she can draw agro very easily and if she does a quick slap from a level one Hellion and she’s down. Add to this the primary set which, while it can be very effective (I think), doesn’t feel like it’s doing anything, and when I play her I feel like I’m stood around not doing a great deal.

This is obviously all about how I feel, rather than how the team feel about me (I’m as a player they find me really annoying ) and maybe things would be better if I got her up a few levels (she’s about level 25 at the moment and has been for two and a half years), but I find it much better to play a healer or a scrapper where I can see I’m having some effect.

The real shame is that’s she’s my favourite character.

Or more succinctly, what Sapphy said.

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... Your posts seem to me to have a sinusoidal aggression curve sometimes.

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The word freak in me thought it was a bit harsh to call some overly permeable. I never took LB to be a soft lad, but I can imagine using it as a fitting insult to some young thug in the local watering hole who’s being a bit of a jessie.

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He means this.

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I guess he knows that you know that I know that, but I guess you know that he knows that I was just being silly.

(And Wikipedia continues to amaze me as the usage I was referring to is there as well. Quality! [linky])

(Next week’s test will be how to get the word physiognomy in to a post.)

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... Your posts seem to me to have a sinusoidal aggression curve sometimes.

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The word freak in me thought it was a bit harsh to call some overly permeable. I never took LB to be a soft lad, but I can imagine using it as a fitting insult to some young thug in the local watering hole who’s being a bit of a jessie.

Yeah, as a casual player who always finds that most of my global friends (and some of my SG friends) level far quicker than I do, I’ll admit to thinking about this on the odd occasions when there were six of us online in our SG and the levels were too different to allow SKing. At that point all we can do is run two different teams (and we’re all RL friends so that is, kind of, not as much fun).

I do agree with some of the other posters here, that there would suddenly be no point in doing the lower level stuff at all if one could SK many and this does especially play in to the hands of those who think it’s all about the end game and not about the levelling (and story) in between.

When I’ve considered this before I even took it on step further and thought about having all content as level free, meaning that the mission was set to whatever level you are currently at. While this started to seem like a good idea and I did wonder if the major MMOGs had missed something by not having their games more free form, I thought about it again and realised that it would mean that all narrative in the game would be destroyed.

Also to throw in to the mix here is the fact that (I presume) higher level foes are designed with the idea that the PCs fighting them will have access to a larger set of powers. If five low level PCs are SKed up to fight foes twenty levels their senior it would mean they might not have enough powers to make the mission viable.

From an aesthetics point of view I also thought the SK system was there to help out a couple of friends who might get too far apart, and also to emulate the superhero genre. Four of us have just started playing Villains and as one of our the group was on holiday the others got to level ten while he was still level three. The SK system worked really well as he was still able to join us when he got back and a couple of months later we are now all the same level again.

Overall I would be slightly tempted to allow one player to SK two others, but even then I think that might just be fiddling with a system that, on the whole, works very well. I do agree with the multiple exempting idea, although again, I’m not sure how much this is actually needed.

And very charismatic fighters.

Yeah, just sat and chuckled at those as they are all so true. (I even got mez’ed on the ship raid the other week while flying between pylons and I was SKing someone. I felt so bad.)

I’m really hoping there are people out there who play this game and know what they’re doing, but after three years I still do all these. I still have the endurance blues with all my characters (low and high level) and I still love my sonic/sonic (as I’ve said so many times) but she still really is the least useful of characters (maybe I should just RP her and have done with it ).

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The phrase is Min/Max
And (if PnP means pen and paper) as Ravenswing said it comes from the days of Table top, dice, Roleplaying games.


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I thought Max/Min came from MMOGs or possibly table top games (Warhammer etc.). In PnP in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s we used to call it power gaming (and still do, actually). Maybe it’s an American PnP phrase though as I can’t say any of us (the girls and guys I PnP game with) have really mixed with American PnP people.

(I won’t mention which dates in case I put people off, but…) There are two or three of those dates when I might be in London so it’s only a couple of hours on the train up North so I’ll try my hardest and see if I can make it as well.

(I can then keep old Mereman company in the corner as long as there’s none of that thump thump music, and Wilfred’s picy is still bothering me(those fingers), so I might be scared off. )

Thanks StarScreamer, while I do love the fact that I’ve got a nomination it is only right that I point out the nomination should be from the previous months work and those stories were from a few months back.

Obviously you could nominate me for my submission last month, if you think it’s worthy, but my honour behoves me from linking to it for you (my excessive self promotion does appear to have limits ).

Incy Wincy spider climbing up the spout
Down came the rain and washed the spider out
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain
And Incy Wincy spider climbed up the spout again!


Megan settled in to her bed, moving Mimsy, her favourite rag doll, to the bedside table where she spent each night. She picked up the book she had got out for her mum to read and stared at the picture on the cover. One day , she thought, I’ll be a princess with my very own prince to look after me.

She was about to open up the book and try reading a few lines herself when she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. Looking up she saw the shape of a spider crawling across her ceiling. Panic caused her to freeze for a few seconds and then she found her voice.

“Mum!” she screamed. “Mum! There’s a spider on my roof.”

Her eyes refused to leave the large black thing. It had obviously heard her calling for her mum as it had stopped moving. Megan really hoped it didn’t decide to drop on to her bed. If it did that she would have to make a run for the door, or maybe throw the quilt over it. She glanced at the slightly open door.

“Mum!” she called again. Then louder, “Mum! Quick!”

There was the sound of footsteps on the landing and then the bedroom door opened wide, bright light making Megan squint for a moment.

“What’s the matter, hon?” her mother asked.

“Up there,” Megan pointed to the giant creature, looking up at it again.

“Oh, now, that’s only a tiny thing. Do you want me to get rid of it for you?”

“Please,” Megan nodded. “I don’t want it coming back again.”

Her mum stepped on to the bed and reached up to catch the spider in her upturned hand.

“Well I’m not going to kill it, just put it outside where it belongs,” she said as she walked over to the window.

“But, mum,” Megan appealed, “it could come back in again when I’m asleep.”

Her mum closed the window, brushed her hands together and sat down on the edge Megan’s bed.

“It won’t come back in to your room, dear, because we’ve been nice to it. Do you know why you shouldn’t kill spiders and why you should be nice to them?”

Megan shook her head.

“I’ll tell you the story of Stefan Richter then,” her mum said taking the book Megan had got ready and placing it on the bedside table next to Mimsy.

“Stefan was a little boy,” she began. “Not much older than you are now. He lived in a nice house with a nice family, in a part of New England not far from here. The thing was, though, Stefan liked to squash bugs. He’d squash them all the time. If he saw a fly he would get his dad’s newspaper and use it to chase the fly until he squished it. If he was playing in the garden he would find ants and hit them with little stones. Even ladybirds and dragon flies were on his list of bugs to get.

“One day, though, Stefan did a terrible thing. As he was going in for his tea he saw a little spider crawling across the front yard. Now the spider hadn’t done him any harm. It had spent its day catching flies and other insects that we humans don’t like, so really it had done much the same as Stefan. But to Stefan this didn’t matter, he just looked down at the little spider as it made its way across the concrete and he saw a bug that needed dealing with. So, down came his trainer and he stamped on the spider.

“When he lifted his foot up again the spider was there, flattened on the ground, and Stefan smiled to himself. He was pleased with what he had done. He went inside and had his dinner with his mum and dad and little sister.

“That night Stefan went to sleep thinking of new ways he could find and crush bugs. He had all summer off school and he wanted to fill the days with bug squashing.

“In the middle of the night Stefan was woken up by someone coughing. He opened his eyes and looked around. There was a small bit of light coming from his bedside clock and it shone on a little spider that was sitting in the middle of his bed.

“’Did you just wake me up?’ Stefan asked the spider.

“’Yes,’ the spider replied.

“’Why did you do that?’ Stefan asked. ‘I was quite happy sleeping.’

“’Because you have done something very bad,’ the spider told him. ‘Today you stamped on one of my friends and killed him.’

“’But it was only a spider, just like you,’ Stefan told the little creature. ‘Now leave me alone to sleep otherwise I will squash you as well.’

“’Are you not sorry about what you did?’ the spider asked, ignoring the threat Stefan had made.

“’No, of course not,’ replied Stefan. He was starting to get a bit annoyed at the spider now. ‘It was only a spider. I kill bugs all the time and a spider is just another bug.’

“’Are you going to kill any more spiders?’ asked the one sat on his covers. It sounded quite serious, but Stefan didn’t seem to notice.

“’Of course I am,’ Stefan said. ‘And I’m going to start with you if you don’t leave me alone. Now go away.’

“’I thought you might say that,’ the spider said. ‘You are a nasty boy Stefan Richter and you must be stopped. You will not squash any more of my kind again, for we are strong and full of magic.’

“’Yeah, right,’ Stefan said back to the thing. ‘There’s only the one of you and I’m a lot bigger. Now where’s my slipper.’ And he started to lean out of his bed to find it so that he could deal with the bothersome bug.

“But as he started to move he heard the little spider on his bed make a whistling sound and he turned to look what it was doing. What he saw made him stop and sit straight up in bed, for in through the open window (it was summer you see and his mum had left the window open a crack to let a breeze blow in) were coming lots of spiders. Some were big, some were small. Some were black and some were brown.

“Stefan couldn’t believe his eyes, for there were hundreds of them coming in. They turned the carpet black as they moved and they were all heading towards Stefan. Knowing that he was in trouble Stefan jumped up on to the bed and was about to run out the room when he saw that there were more spiders coming in through the gap at the bottom of the door. He looked up and the creatures were even on the ceiling. Stefan couldn’t get away from all those spiders and they swarmed all over him. He tried to shout for his mum and dad, but the spiders dropped on to his face and stuck his lips together with their web. Then they pulled him back down on to the bed and began to work their magic on him.

“It took them all night, but when they were finished they all left and Stefan just lay there on his bed scared that if he moved they would come back.

“In the morning his mum opened his door to tell him that she had made pancakes for breakfast. Stefan sat up in bed and started to tell her what had happened to him, but when she saw her son his mum let out a scream and ran out of the house.

“Stefan didn’t know why his mother had run away, and looked around the room for a spider that might have frightened her. It was then that he saw himself in the mirror and the sight of his own reflection made him scream as well. You see the creatures had stuck big black spider’s legs to his back that moved like extra arms, making Stefan look like a giant human spider.

“Of course Stefan couldn’t stay at home looking like that, so he went to find the spider island which is just off the coast of America near Paragon City. There he grew up to become one of the nastiest men in the world - Lord Recluse, The Master of Evil.

“All these years later Stefan is still out there on his island, and he talks to all the spiders around the world. So if you kill a spider he knows about it and he sends one of his spider henchmen to get you and take you away in the middle of the night. That’s why when you see a spider you should always be nice to it.”

I quite fancied playing around with a bit of the myth and this is just an example of how a story can be told in so many different ways. In this case the story of how Lord Recluse came to be the man he now is. It also gave me a chance to write in a more simple style used for children’s books.

Obviously the story is not really a good one to tell any child before they go to sleep unless you are a particularly nasty parent.

Maybe not one to read if you don’t like spiders either.

Hope you all enjoy it and feedback, as very, is always welcome.

PDF version of the story – link