Paragon

"Always remember that beginnings are always scary, endings are usually sad, but it's the middle that counts." -- Author Unknown

Lots of love,
Paragon

Hope fades, into the world of night.
Through shadows falling, out of memory and time.
Don't say, "We have come now to the end."
White shores are calling, you and I will meet again.

Hmm, I think the team over at Titan might want to invest in some legal council to sanitize their public statements... Some of this PR is extremely damaging to whatever may be their future income potential might be...

Sorry I was a no-show last night. I got distracted and it was well passed start time before I realized it...

The tears, they won't stop...

Phoenix took me.

Carried me in his claws.

High above the world.

So that I could see beyond tomorrow.

and I looked.

I beheld the future.

I saw the decimation of our kin. Hunted beyond hunting, death beyond death, to the last one. There were no more children, or grandchildren, or fathers, or mothers. This was the first Sign Phoenix game to to me, that the Children of the Weaver, the Humans, would give to us, The Garou.

And I looked.

And I beheld the future.

I saw the Children of the Weaver birthing. A great tide of Humans, rising. I saw more and more, until Gaia groaned at having to carry them all. Their houses overrunning, their rakes ******, their hands clawing at the parched earth, trying to feed from Her. This was the second Sign of the last days, that the Phoenix Showed me, that the Humans would do.

I looked again.

I beheld the third Sign.

So many. So many children. So many Humans. And they Fell against each other, one to one, and the Wyrm brought forth corruption and gave each a measure. And the strange Fire I saw. out of control, the great Plume Rising over the wilderness, spreading death where ever it shone, in the dark and cold land. And I heard the agony of the Seas as She keened, for some drunken fool had poured a lake of black death out upon her.

I turned my head away in disgust, but I could not help but look again.

And I beheld, then, the fourth Sign.

The Wyrm grew powerful; its wings fanned the breezes of decay. It spread its diseases and they were horrible: the Herd became afflicted with diseases of the head and the blood. Children were born twisted. Animals fell sick and no one could cure them. In these final days, even the Warriors of Gaia could not escape the palsied talons of the sickness-bringing deathbird.

A tear in my eye, I looked again, and the Phoenix showed me the fifth Sign.

I saw other Plumes rising like death-spears towards the beautiful sky. piercing it, letting Father Sun burn and parch Gaia. The air grew hot; even in the darkness of Winter it was warm. The plants withered in the sun. A cry of pain and disease arose from the dying forests; as one the relations cried tears of mourning.

Then, as though a veil were torn, the sixth Sign showed itself to me.

In these last days, Gaia shakes in rage. Fire boils from the depths. Ash shrouds the sky. The Wyrm skulks in the shadows made by these...and rears to strike. The old ones are gone; the Guardians of the pathways and the Crossroads are finished. In these final days, the sixth Sign will make itself known in the Packs that form. Each Pack will have unto itself a Quest, a Sacred Journey it must perform. Such is the will of Gaia.

And I saw the Sky turn black, and the moon was as blood.

And the seventh Sign I glimpsed, though I could not look on it in full. But its heat I could feel.

The Apocalypse. The final days of the world. The Moon was swallowed by the Sun, and it burned in his belly. Unholy fires fell to the ground, burning us all, twisting us and making us vomit blood. The Wyrm had made itself manifest in the towers and the rivers and the air and the Land, and everywhere its children ran rampant, devouring, destroying, calling down curses of every kind. And the Herd ran in fear. And the Dark Ones, Children of the Wyrm, crawled from their caves and walked the streets in daylight.

I turned my head from the sight. Phoenix told me: "This is as it shall be, but not as it should."

Phoenix left me then.

Now, I cannot dream. I can only remember the Signs, each one in perfect detail. These are the last days. May Gaia have mercy on us.

- The Prophecy of the Phoenix

(Sorry, this is the first thing that jumped in my head after reading the topic title... )

I'll be bringing Paragon's Sloth (Illusion/FF Controller) tonight. See ya there!

Healing in City of does not cause aggro. Far, far too many people think it does, even after 8 years.

You can get under the map on the Mary MacComber mission (and all missions that use that Croatoa map) of Katie Hannon's Task Force. While under the map, you can attack enemies, but they cannot attack you.

Ms. Liberty was not originally supposed to be Statesman's granddaughter and Maria Jenkins was originally a long-retired Maiden Justice, but that was all changed for CoV/Web of Arachnos without retconning the whole implied TyrantXDominatrix...thing.

An Archery/Mental Manipulation Blaster can clear a Battle Maiden farm faster than a Fire Control/Kinetics Controller. Well, at least mine could...

Jack Emmert was "Jackalope" on the forums.

Michael Lewis and Rick Dakan founded Cryptic Studios and City of Heroes was their brainchild. Rick was "let go" in 2003, before he could even see CoH released; he's currently working for Mob Rules Games. Michael was with Cryptic until at least the launch of STO; he is currently the President of The Lewis Charitable Foundation.

Also confirming a refund for both of my accounts: 1 partial, 1 full.

Ashcraft's work was always top notch. I especially love the Boom De Yada! ones.

World of Heroes?

Or World of Heroes?

Or perhaps World of Heroes?

I prefer City of Heroes.

I may run one last patrol through the Hollows. I doubt I'll run into anyone in need of a quick patch up or teleport to safety, but, well, yeah.

<3

Of all the things in the City of Heroes, I'll miss you all the most.

"Always remember that beginnings are always scary, endings are usually sad, but it's the middle that counts."
-- Author Unknown

I bought a lifetime sub to Champions Online in the last week of beta, so I still have that to fall back on. I've probably only played about a month total since then though... I also still have an active (free month) sub for TERA, but I haven't touched that in about a week.

Then there's always F2P STO, LotRO, or Mabinogi. But like CO, I haven't really played any of them in a loooong time and only for about a month each anyway.

I didn't enjoy my time with DCUO or FFXI, so I won't be going to those.

I would play SWTOR or TSW, but they carry the EA label and they're worse than NCsoft in my book.

So in conclusion, I don't have a clue. I may just go back to beta testing random games until I find something that sticks...

• What plans did you have for Lord Recluse, Ghost Widow, and Arachnos?
• What's the backstory between Lord Nemesis and The Lady Grey?
• How much of the game's history did Dark Watcher have influence on?
• Was Lord Nemesis going to be the final iVillain, the true mastermind of the universe?
• What were your plans for the Praetorian refugees, such as Marauder and Dominatrix?
• What was Prometheus' true goal?

Dr. Infinite/Dr. Hollywood, Empathy/Psychic Blast Defender: My first real hero, first 50, first badger. My first actual character was a really bad Invulnerability Tanker; I took Teleport, Flight, and Presence on it. It got deleted around level 15 once I realized how stupid I was; Dr. Infinite was born thereafter. For the next 6 years, she was my CoH personality. I've been through every scrap of content in the game on her up until I retired her to focus on the other 50 or so characters I have. When I log into her these days it's like slipping into a warm bed. I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 billion influence on her IO sets (buying 4 sets of Panacea a few years before Converters was stupidly expensive) because she meant that much to me.

Infinite Agony, Mind Control/Thorny Assault Dominator: My first villain, second 50, second badger. This character and I have a convoluted history. If I had to guess, I was maybe one of two or three Dominators on Infinity prior to ED, IOs, and eventually perma-Domination. My VG really didn't like it, the Brute-players especially; they always chided me for locking everything down and reducing their Fury-gain. Every time I popped Domination, someone would shout "Disco Infi!". Eventually I left Infinity (after my SG/VG left for LotRO) for Freedom and decided to leave IA behind as well; until perma-Dom became possible. A server transfer and around 4 billion infamy later (perma-Dom @L30 is lol), she became a go-to character for Freedom Horde MoLRSF runs and is probably the only character I have that could possibly solo a LGTF. It's quite silly how much Dominators have changed since CoV's launch...

Whitestar Scrapper, Energy Melee/Invulnerability Brute: My second real villain, third 50, first solo character. I completed every single storyline red-side solo on this character. It was the first of many "souvenir" toons I've made over the years. I even tried my luck fighting pillboxes in pre-i13 RV a few times; first time I'd even entered a PVP zone for anything other than exploration badges. The character hasn't gotten much play time since IOs, but it paved the way for my other souvenir-seekers and represented the first time I'd seen a lot of CoV's content.

Paragon's Greed, Archery/Mental Mastery Blaster: My farmer. Battle Maiden, Council Empire, and Infernal's Demons...hundreds, if not thousands, of times. During a 15-month period of unemployment, I spent a lot of my free time on this character farming purples for all those people exploiting AE oversights. I earned enough to fully IO-out around a dozen characters or so, including those mentioned above. However, with the addition of so many other "better" forms of currency (Alignment Merits, Reward Merits, iMerits, etc), she hasn't seen much play in a while. She's still my fastest Tip farmer, though...

I'll be here until the lights go out. Literally. I plan to take the last day off work and spend as much of it on the streets and in the skies of Paragon City...

Dr. Infinite, Empathy/Psychic Blast Defender
383 hours to reach level 50.

Screenshot dated 5/31/2005, approximately 14 months after creation (still in her 30's; yay for old school debt >.>); original costume:


Screenshot dated 9/2/2012:


Dr. Infinite (now known as Dr. Hollywood due to a server change) officially retired from herodom after 1067 hours and amassing 1189 badges. Following the destruction of Galaxy City, she took it upon herself to take up Back Ally Brawler's post in the city's Echo, signifying a passing of the torch (BAB was her first trainer way back when).

To be fair, SWG didn't close down due to lack of subs or SOE losing interest. It was shut down because LucasArts choose to give the Star Wars license to EA/BioWare and not allow SOE to renew theirs'.

While, yes, the NGE and CU did cause a massive player exodus, the game was still going good until December 15th of last year.

I heard the Battalion is lead by some Brute named Riddick who has only one rule: you keep what you [s]kill[/s] arrest.

Edit: Bleh, the strikethrough tag seems to be disabled.