Llydia

Lots of good to be seen, lots of good to be done:


Samuraiko shared her Farewell To Paragon City video. Warning: Having Kleenex on hand is recommended. Direct YouTube Link

Sol_Eternal created a video fly-through of many iconic CoH location. Direct YouTube Link

Angelus Animi again expanded their style of fan videos. Specifically a CoH Gangnam Style. Direct YouTube Link

The Extra Life Unity Event has raised over $7750 so far for the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals around the world. Now THAT is when City Of Heroes players are at their finest. Keep it up, everyone! And happy gaming during the 24-hour marathon today Saturday, October 20, 2012!

Edit: Final total raised by team CoH for the Extra Life Unity Event was $8,618.00! WOW!!

Whoohoo! Reached my main goal for the Unity Rally this morning by finishing my last level 50!


Sojourn Star
Level 50 Kheldian, Tri-Form Peacebringer

My first and only Epic Archtype, maxed out on XP! That makes eight 50s total for me, averaging one per year of game play.

A shout-out Thanks! to the PUG who joined me on a RWZ mission arc to make it happen. The eight of us were doing so great it took me five minutes before I noticed. Which made it even better then I had hoped. I like that I was too wrapped up in the game to notice another ending landmark had been reached.

My brain kept wanting to read the title as "One More Day". I think it, and I, are in denial over it being "One Last Day".

But there is no denying the tears, choked-up throat, and sniffles. I... I don't think I'll be able to watch that a second time until tomorrow at the earliest. It just is too heart-wrenching.

And I thank you for that, Samuraiko.

Thank you for sharing such deeply personal emotion that we can relate to and not feel so alone.

Thank you once again for sharing your amazing talents.

Thank you for being you.

Direct link to the 10/17/2012 CoH Community Chat: http://www.twitch.tv/paragonstudios/b/335903329

KUDOS to Hit Streak and guests for another weekly chat! Thanks for recording it so those of us who didn't make it live can to enjoy later!

For those who for whatever reason are unable watch the recording, here is much of what was said...



First up, guests Positron and 9-year-old Andre (sp?) aka Positot. Positron's been playing a lot of X-Com (sp?) on Classic mode. Nothing has panned out on the job surfing and interviews. Been watching his son who has been playing Minecraft during his 3 week vacation. Their afternoon goal was to fly a video-recording helicopter at the park.

Positron has caught all the pets in a Pokemon-like aspect of another game (missed the name), except the two seasonal pets.

Positron had an Alternate Dimension version of Statesman being Emporer Cole being redeemed. The stipulation with killing Primal Earth Statesman was that he would stay dead. Recluse was not considered for being redeemable the way Cole was because after trying to adjust content for Statesman's death, they never wanted to retcon like that again.

Hit Steak went to Disneyland last weekend, apparently independently with a lot of other Paragon Studios. He got to try a half-beef, half-bacon hamburger.

Sythe weapon for Titan Weapons was on the wish list, but a lot of poking animations wouldn't have made sense.

Shadow Shard was high on the list of things to do. It would have involved A LOT of work on the zone as a whole.

The To Do list was forever long.

Remaining Incarnate powers were always undergoing shift and changes from the original list. For example, Hybrid was more supposed to be a multi-classing slot.

Hit Streak answered that, no, there is not any way to download the CoH Twitch videos. ((<.< >.>)) As long as the Paragon Studios account is active you can watch from the Twitch archives. ((Translation: Twitch videos archives are available until November 30, when the City Of Heroes game and all official community peripherals become defunct.))

There was going to be 5th Column, Crey, Arachnos, and Vanguard on the Moon, in addition to Battalion. A bunch was planned beyond Battalion. The hero, villain, and neutral ground geography was planned out.

Positron has not tried The Secret World. Not interested in the mythos. If he could start a new superhero MMO, first would be a equally epic costume creator. Evolve the combat. If he hasn't found something by November 1st he... doesn't know. There's always a possibility of doing a superhero MMO again.

Tanker questions are for Arbitor Hawk.

Positron re-affirmed that it was not the intention of Paragon Studios to just disappear.

The freezing water was not added to other winter events because the number of zones doubled and didn't have time to add to the new locations.

Positron read bios in-game but didn't otherwise get into the RP side of CoH.

Base tech lost since the people who made it no longer worked at Paragon Studios. They reverse engineered and added more as they could.

The chat is like Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, where people just show up.

In comes Black Pebble and Black Scorpion, the Black devs. All together the guests make the worst boy band ever.

Most annoying thing done to Positron was getting a Flowbee haircut.

In response to making a coding that works as a base for everything... The problem is when someone wants to break it, say by min-max, and the game is still equally hard they don't feel stronger. Also there is simply no way to create a code that will cover every option that programs years later will want to try. And things get broken in a whole different way. Aka "What could possibly go wrong?"

AP33 shirt from Zazzle.

No, not possible to change VIP flag anymore. Paragon Studios are completely without power now.

Ultimate villain in the game was the one your character felt they had the most against. They tried to keep it open-ended, and not have any one NPC be stronger than the others.

Coming Storm was the invasion of Battalion. There was a sleeper agent in Primal Earth for decades. At one point the agent was Lady Grey, then they changed it. Last plan was Doctor Science, an Italian super-agent since the 60s.

A few ideas for Omega slot might have been the invincibility star: No one can hurt you but you can affect the world. Or Burnout every few seconds, meaning powers were recharged all the time.

They were considering a power that would permit multiple summons of a pet that normally only allowed one at a time, such as Jack Frost.

The advantage of digital comics is buying when ready. The disadvantage is it is really easy to stop reading. With brick-and-mortar stores, orders were done months in advance so planning and commitment was involved.

Original First Ward was 20-25 and Night Ward was 25-30, with 30-35 being a syndicate-controlled zone in the jungle with their own hacked war walls.

Another story option was in issue 31 that all of Earth was really on Battalion mothership. That the war walls are the edge of the holodeck.

What have the black devs been up to? One has unsuccessfully been trying to grow a beard, the other obviously hasn't had that problem. Catching up on games and shows. Tim and Positron likes "Once Upon A Time", Hit Streak not as much.

Tim drove Positron out of Eclipse board game. Turns out that most of the game is decided by RNG.

Issue 26 was going to have Red Widow become an arbiter to replace Scirocco.

Players have picked up the torch for Extra Life this year. It's happening this Saturday, October 20th, during 2XP weekend.

Woofers was going to be part of a live trailer done by Rooster Teeth. He was a mastermind that ended up getting all the signature characters to kill each other.

No one is able to log on as signature characters aside from Hit Streak.

Sorry, Turg, you can't get Bug Hunter. If Positron still had access (which he doesn't), he was going to log on the last day and give the #2 badge hunter all the badges so they could be #1.

Hit Streak is still waiting for permission to give away swag.

Worst villain concept presented? The Battalion being geometric shapes of pure math.

Brian Darkshade was a signature NPC to go along with the rocket board. A hipster, annoying, want-to-punch-him-in-the-face, red jacket, short shorts, mirror glasses, etc Totally bonkers. When you defeat him in a trial, the board would self-destruct if you got close.

One option for meta-story was for having a shadowy hero that at the end of CoH was revealed to be Recluse.

Clowns are incredibly stylized, and might have become a Mastermind option if pets were ever customizable.

The end of Praetoria was to be against Hamidon, but players got exhausted and so they moved on to Battalion.

Did someone translate the Trilogy binary? Of course! Translation at ParagonWiki.

They offered apologies that they couldn't fix everything.



... Yeah, I probably botched at least half of what I heard. You are welcome to correct any or all of it.

Talents and tell-alls abound:


BlackJackDavy shares their talent of turning heroes into action figures.

As follow-up to Positron's Ask Me Anything Loregasm, Black Scorpion offers to answer questions regarding [CoH] systems and technology.

Organica is diligently sharing their sunset journal of adventuring as much content as possible. Or as they call it: 90 Days To The Apocalypse.

Congratulations to the winners!

And that goes double for you, Madame Pistacio! May the birth be healthy for you and your little one.

Fairy Tale did Positron with Freedom Horde back in February, so I logged on Pure Power Punch since getting her to level 22 is one of my last goals in City Of Heroes. Thanks again, Luna, for your patience and apologies for my mix-up when I initially logged on the wrong alt.

Luna worked her magic on getting us all organized into two teams, and off we went.

Team Scat scattered the foes! First run was completed in 37:49, defeats not tracked. Had the most fun on this one as during missions we battled through. As a result my humble level 15 gained a level practically every map. Ding! Ding! Ding!



After a break, Team Scat raced to finish Posi 2 at 27:43, again defeats were not tracked. Even with the fast pace my brute picked up another level in the middle. Ding!



And finally while waiting to congratulate Luna's team for completing their runs, I went ahead and soloed a couple easy arcs, finishing the other half to level 20. Ding!

Yes, I'm being overly silly. Sorry. It just has been a while since I have run a lowbie and picked up levels so fast with such great teammates.

Thank you for the double dose of fun, Freedom Horde!

Well summarized, Hercules.

More examples are also in the What made City of Heroes unique for you? thread. I hadn't realized until people started listing their favorite parts of the game just how painfully true it is that CoH is unique and the forerunner in setting the standard of fun for MMOs.

PM sent.

KUDOS to you for tackling such an epic project, Angelus Animi.

I really hope you are still making these, Mindscythe!

There's a large stash of popcorn here just waiting to be enjoyed with your next Stan And Lou Save The World story.

Walk tall. You're a child of Paragon:


GreatRock shares a picture of cuddly fluffies.

Doc Blast asks what are some of your favorite exploration badges?

LadyGrimrose wrote an empowering reminder of why we can Be Proud To Be A Paragon Native.

Angelus Animi needs help creating a special video tribute about heroes that were created in-game which mirror heroes from real life. Please PM Angelus Animi with the info.

Thank you very much for the link, Xieveral!

Many thanks to Hit Streak for once again taking an hour out to host a chat. It is still one of my favorite activitites each week. I listened to this one twice.



A few highlights for those who can't watch the recording for whatever reason...



==> Hitstreak started out requesting more respect on the forums.

"I know there is a lot of uncertainty with you guys as to what's going on. And I know that people are angry. People are upset or frustrated. I get all of it. But man, stop taking it out on each other on the forums.

It's really hard for me to keep up with. We don't have a team anymore as far as moderators or anything like that. So it's pretty difficult for me to keep up with it when you guys are upset at each other.

I get being upset at the situation. I get being upset with the sunsetting. I don't think anybody here at Paragon would disagree with those emotions. I know I certainly don't disagree with those emotions at all. But just stop taking it out on each other.

You can disagree without being really nasty. That's all I'm asking for.

Keep that to a minimum. Feel free to send me a PM if you see anything really nasty out there that is attacking in nature or that blatantly violates the rules.

I've pretty much taken the reins off of what can and cannot be discussed on the forums. Andy did that before he took off. Basically feel free to talk about other games. Feel free to talk about how this makes you feel. We're all for that. Just kind off, you know, mellow it out a bit."

He reiterated the point again about thirty minutes in after Skippy Sidekick joined the chat.

"The tone of the forums has definitely changed.

It's really kind of hard to read now. It's just frustration and disappointment and all of that. Which is understandable. But people have started to kind of be a little more hostile towards each other. Because there are differing opinions about things."

"It's a bad situation and no one wanted it to happen."

"I'm just hoping [forum posters] can be a bit more focused. Instead of worrying about each other so much, enjoy the game."

"Enjoy the community because you've only got it for another seven weeks."



==> VIP status cannot be handed out on Live.

They just can't do it. If you want to check out VIP and/or i24 content, it is available on the Beta server. Access the Beta Server via the NCLauncher. Access the Beta VIP content via free purchases from the Beta store.



==> Paragon Backer title.

Hitstreak rotated through Atlas Park and redside on all Live servers today to hand out the title "Paragon Backer". KUDOS to you for taking the time to do that, Hitstreak!



==> Swag.

He's trying to get permission to give away City Of Hero swag.

Hope you can, Hitstreak. Either way, thanks for thinking of us players.

I call dibs on a Three Wolf Moon shirt!



==> Hitstreak wants suggestions for a sit-down dinner in downtown Los Angeles.

Tweet recommendations to @Hitstreak.



==> No guarantees for a Community Chat next week.

Awwww.

If we are really nice, will you do another Twitch chat, Hitstreak? Here's a start...



Pretty, pretty please host another City Of Heroes Community Chat!

Yay, team Iceflow!

The poor Professor Iceflow was short on sleep, so we elected to do a speed run. Finished time of 45:32, didn't track defeats.



I went a little screenshot-happy, but I'll just share one more. To my eye it was our Red-ish team vs Hami's Blue-ish team. Red won. ;->



Thank you for the fun hour, Freedom Horde!

Awww, cute! It looks so cuddly!

*grabs popcorn and enjoys the next episode*

Thank you, Mindscythe!

Sadness changed to smiles:


Victoria Victrix invites players to share anonymous Testimonials of how the game has helped you or those around you.

Rubberlad wonders Where Would You Settle Down If You Could Live In CoH?

Angelus Animi created another video, this time made especially to make fellow players smile. Direct YouTube Link

Mindscythe made me grin really, really big when he announced that Stan And Lou Are Back!!! Direct YouTube Link 1 & Direct YouTube Link 2

Make sure to (re-)listen to the original Stan And Lou series by Hertz. Then check out the video version of the first episode by Magmabolt Productions. (Have to play both at the same time for the correct effect on the latter link.)

It is good to hear his voice again. Thank you for the links, JayboH.

Xzero45 - It was more an interview with Andy than with Zwillinger, meaning his career overall rather than #SaveCoH news.

I did like the section on how Twitch chats changed the perception about Community Management since players can see and interact with a person instead of just a disembodied forum redname.

On the other hand how Andy kept using past tense to refer to City Of Heroes and the community made me a little sad. I know Andy moved on with his life and that was good for him; but for many CoH is still an is, not a was.

That was exactly the pick-me-up needed tonight. Thank you very much for sharing, Angelus Animi!

blackjak's thread reminded me that many players have fiction pieces posted to sections outside the Roleplaying forums. Stories that are expressions of gratitude for the creative freedom found in City Of Heroes. Such creativity is worth preserving.

I am working to save the forum fiction this fantastic community has created over the past 8+ years.

There is hope that I can get through the Roleplaying forum by November 30th. But there is no way for me to also sift through the thousands of other threads in Virtue forums, Union forums, General forum, etc, that may contain original character origins, fanfics, and other fiction pieces. Not by myself...



I need heroes!

Mission Objective: Find the hidden forums stories. Then reply to this thread or drop a PM with the link.

Please help! I can't do this on my own.



Stories are being archived to http://tiny.cc/cohrp so they can survive after the forums go *poof*


Thank you for your help in this heroic effort!

Saved for archiving. Thank you very much for sharing, blackjak!

The Whitmoore Apartments, in a heartbeat. Located just northwest and down from the south tram in Steel Canyon. One good super jump can get from the roof of the tram to the roof of the apartments.

And the first thing I'd do when entering would be to give Mr. Green a hug. That doorman has put up with a LOT from the tenants over the years.

Bright - Niiiiiice! That's definitely a keeper. Congratulations on the lucky shot!

Memphis_Bill - Beautiful. *sigh* There are several skies that I wish were available on 30-minute loops (ie one day cycles) for screensavers.