Poppett

For the record, I noticed this behavior amongst +/-0 to +1 Council while streetsweeping solo in IP as a Lv 23 Defender; they were clearly running when before they likely would not have.

Understanding how the AI arrives at the decision to run requires that we know what the AI is supposed to know. My questions are as follows:

1) Does the AI have a similar "consider" ability as players? For example, against my L23 Defender, would the +1 (to me) Council see me as -1 (to him)? If this is the case, the AI should (generally) not run from opponents that are -1 or below unless other factors decree it.
2) Does the AI have the ability to see players' health/end bars, as we do? If this is the case, the AI should (generally) not run from opponents who are at or below 25% health or are completely exhausted of endurance.
3) Does the AI keep track of how much damage an opponent has dealt to it? If so, the AI should (generally) run from an opponent who is able to dish out an average of 50% or more of its REMAINING health in one shot. It should also probably get a strong self-preservationist urge if it's below 10% health.
4) The AI should be smart enough to run from environmental hazards (caltrops, fire, etc.) in a direction AWAY from identified threats. ie If the Council soldier mentioned in the above example suddenly finds himself in the middle of a field of caltrops, he should not make a beeline towards the SS/Inv Tanker who just popped nine red candies. Does this happen already?
5) Some street encounters, specifically "drug deals", often are scripted with one or more of the mobs giving orders for his buddy to bail; the recipient of these orders then flees. This is good behavior (and to the best of my knowledge still working) but I seriously doubt any of the four Jutals that are +5 to my Emp/Arch Defender will feel the need to flee as I casually sneak by. Is it possible for mobs that are sufficiently high-level to "get brave" and ignore the orders to bail?

I'm interested in seeing how this plays out. My Defender is too ditzy to be a threat; nobody should be running from her. Can we roleplay harmlessness, too, or is that just too hard to code for?

(( Your ideas intrigue me, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. *waits for more of Ye Olde Lustbunnies* ))

All right, to sum up:

The reward time is based on time spent when you have legal access to the game. This means free months plus months you paid for. In my case, the system says 13 months but I actually have 15 (as I have free months from CoH and CoV, but no hero kit yet). The ten or so months I did not have an active account in between my first playthrough and my current playthrough do not count, but the two months prior do count.

That said, is there a confirmed list of rewards yet, or is that coming later?

Amazing work with Ayu, really! Thank you so much!

[ QUOTE ]
6. This weekends outage - One of our service providers had a hardware failure that precipitated the outage. I wasn't aware of the issue as I was on vacation - and Cricket didn't receive notification of the outage for some time due to human error internally. I apologize that you guys were not updated as per usual. We have reviewed the escalation process and had some retraining to ensure the issue does not occur again. I also apologize for how long it took us to give you this explanation - it took some time for me to figure out what happened and report back to you after I got back from vacation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Does the word "retraining" equate to "burly man with leather belt giving high-velocity, buckle-end-first advice on the chain of notification"?

No?

Boy, did *I* ever work in a weird customer support office...

(just kidding, of course. We love all our rednames.)

The bleeding wasn't stopping.

I cursed my luck thoroughly, making sure I didn't miss any profanities. I used English, Korean, Japanese, hell, even the few bad words of indigenous Ainu and Osakan that I knew. I did it because it gave me the illusion that I was in control, but mostly because forcing myself to remember Uncle Walt's language tutelage took my mind off the pain that was slowly spreading like fire through my abdomen.

The bleeding wasn't stopping and I was lost.

Josef Keller had sent me on this damned fool's errand into Dark Astoria, knowing full well what I was going to run into. If it had been easy, I later realized, he probably would have gone and taken the readings himself instead of calling on me. I couldn't believe that I actually said "I ain't afraid of no ghosts," like I was some sad reject from the eighties. Well, technically, I was a child of the Reagan era, but that didn't mean I was spouting movie cliches like that every ten seconds. Still, you know, humming didn't seem like such a bad idea as I started to go off in another direction past the lamppost I'd passed seven times before.

The bleeding wasn't stopping and I was lost and it was still out there.

I'd never actually seen flesh crawl. You hear people say it all the time, but it's sort of a figure of speech... or it was. The first glimpse I got of it was from behind, a huge shadow sliding in and out of the fog with an unnatural grace. It had to have been eight feet tall, and its color was somewhere between gray, black, and "oh my god put that back in the ground, it's not oil yet". Yellow slicks of decomposed organic slime slopped off it with each huge, lumbering step. It paused in its shambling-- I held my breath, hoping I hadn't been noticed-- and then it leaned over and retched into a nearby flowerbed. The vomit was bright red and there were sparkles of the fading streetlamps reflected in it-- probably jewelry, my mind intoned. It ate someone and the diamonds and pearls didn't go down too well, I thought, then suppressed the urge to puke myself.

The bleeding wasn't stopping and I was lost and it was still out there and it was hungry.

The worst part was the stench. That's what did me in. The foul odor, sulfuric and sweet and acrid and wispy all at the same time, seeped in through the cloth mask. There wasn't enough time for me to compose myself and remember that it probably had hearing to match its stature-- I coughed, choked on the thick stench. The head snapped around, looking for me. I knew instantly that its neck was not a weak point as the head made a second rotation. Hands in gloves, standing at the ready. I wasn't going to show it any fear and I sure as hell wasn't going to show any mercy. I launched myself forward and thrust a claw into the thing's chest, square in its heart.

It looked down at the wound, and laughed. Half-rotten teeth sprayed from its mouth. I slashed again, and ribbons of once-flesh striped down onto the ground. This wasn't--

The hand was dessicated, but the bones were sharp from overuse for exactly this purpose. The finger slipped deep into my stomach, and I swear I felt my intestines pop. I drew back and stared at the wound-- yellow gunk sizzled and snapped around the entry point. It burned. I screamed and ran.

The bleeding wasn't stopping and I was lost and it was still out there and it was hungry and I had to stop running.

Something in that slime, I thought, between prayers and profanities. Something in there my healing factor can't re-grow around. Got to clean it out, got to clean the wound... Water! I rushed forward to the small fountain, hearing it bubbling in the distance. I scooped a handful of the liquid into my hands and stopped. The water was bloodier than I was. I dropped back and sat down heavily against the stone fountain. Not like this, I whispered into the darkness. Not this way. I touched the emergency beacon and glanced at it when it failed to respond. "Rikti activity has produced undue stress on the teleportation grid," it read; "Your condition is being monitored and you will be teleported if your situation worsens." I started my litany of obscenity again.

I heard it smash through a pickup truck on its way to get to me. Not enough time, I thought dimly as my focus started to fade. Got to get my situation worse quickly. Got to lose this fast and pray the doctors have seen this before. It'll hurt, something told me. It will hurt and it might even get you killed. Try to find the exit, and then call for help...

My legs refused to stand. I had no feeling past the fire-hole in my belly. The top of the fountain flew away, and it stood there, smiling. Bloody drool dripped into the fountain.

It hurt.

And when the blessed white light of the teleporter finally took me, all I could think of was three words, one final thought that told me I was going to be all right:

"Revenge. Not alone."

((Gah!! I forgot completely about this! Well, maybe writing this will get me enough impetus to log in tomorrow. Here goes. The song is "For The Love Of Money" by the O'Jays.))

Some people got to have it
Some people really need it
Do things, do things, do things, bad things with it
You wanna do things, do things, do things, good things with it

Grampa always taught me to "stand up for what needs to be stood up for", as he liked to say. It was such a mantra in my family that it practically came out with every exhalation. Dad and Mom didn't have the gift, and certainly not Aunt Jane, but it somehow passed to me. And after hearing of Grampa's tales of derring-do and adventure...

...I said "no, thanks" and tried to live a normal life. Paragon City certainly wasn't the place to try that, I'll admit; but then again where else but in Paragon would you have the granddaughter of one of Statesman's buddies struggling at a button factory in King's Row? Someone with that kind of a connection who lived, say, in the San Fernando Valley would be sipping cocktails while reciting her story for the inevitable TV movie. Someone like that in, say, New York City would be getting into sexually-charged misadventures which would lead to her own fake reality series.

The day I was fired, I really, really wished I was one of those girls.

It started pretty simply. Late out of bed, heading to my third-shift dead-end job manning a button press. For those of you not well-versed int he fine art of textile accessory manufacture, a button press is nothing more than a very big cookie mold making very small cookies. Hot plastic of varying colors goes in, and semisolid buttons of equally varying colors come out. My job was basically making sure no obviously deformed buttons emerged from the press's mold stage, where during the puncture stage they could damage the very expensive press. Depending on how fancy the buttons were, this ranged from easy to hard, but usually leaned towards the 'hard' end of the spectrum. It was mind-numbing work for eight hours a day and seven bucks an hour. The only graces were the audiobooks and radio stations.

So I'm eagerly awaiting my fun-filled day of staring at mutant sequins and freakshow fasteners, when I see some homeless guy trudging down the street. I was brushing the light dusting off of dad's GT 350, thanking the fates that I wasn't that guy. The Row is not a good place for the domicile-impaired; thugs and freaks of all colors and degrees of mean streaks roam this part of town after dark. So naturally that December night was one of the pitch-blackest as a snowstorm threatened the populace. And then I noticed the punk with the baseball bat sneaking up behind him.

Money, is the root of all the evil
Do funny things to some people
Give me a nickel, brother can you spare a dime
Money can drive some people out of their minds

Trying to make myself as small as possible, I squatted behind the 350 and peeked around the rear bumper. The punk hadn't seen me; he'd been so focused on the hobo that he wasn't paying attention to anyone else. For a second I wondered why a color-bearing member of the Hellions would be so interested in an obviously destitute mark, but I quickly squelched that line of thought.

The homeless guy turned around just seconds later-- probably spooked by the thug's shadow. "Wha, whaddaya want?" he stammered. "Ain't got no cash."

"Don't want the cash, b----," the thug said. "That coat. Gimme." It was just then that I noticed the Hellion's clothes-- sleeveless t-shirt and some nearly shredded jeans. Certainly not appropriate attire for ten-degree weather. The thug smacked the bat against his palm-- probably to intimidate, but maybe to restore feeling in the free hand. He certainly looked liek he'd been wandering the streets for a while.

"This, this is my coat," the homeless man said, pulling the coat tighter around him. "The, the shelter guh, gave it to me. They could give yuh, you one maybe."

"B----, I said that's my coat!" the thug said. "Ain't goin' to no shelter. You gimme, or I'll take it." The homeless man shrank back, but started to pull the coat off.

And somewhere, deep inside, I heard a voice. "Stand up for what needs standing up for." So I stood up, and cleared my throat as loudly as I could. The crisp night air echoed it loudly. Both men turned to face me. "Hey, leave him alone," I said. "He told you to go to the shelter. I'll give you a ride."

"No way," the thug said. "I want the coat... f--- that, b----, I want your car." He advanced on me quickly, raising the bat as he rushed.

The homeless guy grabbed the bat as it came over the thug's head, and the ganger twisted somewhat ungracefully as his feet advanced faster than his torso. I was on him in seconds, giving him a sharp kick to the side of the head. He shuddered once and lay still.

So there we were, three of us-- one having just knocked out another, and the third carrying the baseball bat he was just threatened with. The homeless man raised the bat once and smashed the thug's head in before my eyes.

I reeled back, shocked. The homeless man tossed the bloody bat aside and started rifling through the thug's pockets; a pocketknife flashed quickly in the night before it found its way into the bum's coatsleeve. "You wuh, want any of this, you buh, better hurry," he said nonchalantly.

"How could you do that?" I asked. "That was a man's life!"

"Nuh, nobody will miss him," the hobo said. "Nuh, nobody in this town cuh, cares. 'Cept you. Thuh, thanks. I mean it."

"Don't thank me," I said, disgusted. "In fact, forget you ever saw me. I don't have time to deal with this." I hurried back to my car and drove off, hoping to put the whole thing behind me.

(For the love of money) People will lie, they will lash out and cheat
(For the love of money) People don't care who they hurt or beat
(For the love of money) A woman will sell her precious body
For a small piece of paper it carries a lot of weight...
That mean.... mean green

So when the cops came to the factory to arrest me, I got The Look from my boss. The one Look you know you're going to wish you didn't see because it's invariably followed by "I don't ever want to see you around here again". Which, of course it was.

The station was oddly quiet. You would have expected more activity in a PCPD, but it was late, I guess. Maybe all the criminals had gone to bed. The cop addressed me by name, and calmly asked me why I didn't properly tag the criminal after subduing him.

"Huh?" I asked.

"You are a hero, right? Not too many normal folks could deliver a kick like that. And you're registered with G.I.F.T., so it's not an unreasonable assumption..."

"Now hold on a minute," I said. "I just got fired, I witnessed a murder, and now you're trying to recruit me into the business that got my... my..."

"We know about your grandfather and your parents," the cop said. "Damn shame. Still, we thought you'd be..."

"Well I'm not!" I said. "Look, I knocked him out, and then the hobo smashed his head in. That's what happened. I didn't kill him!"

"Actually, you did," the cop said quietly. "Autopsy came back-- the baseball bat damage was irrelevant. The guy was dead seconds after your kick. I'm sorry, but unless you register as a hero, this is going to go on your record." I swallowed hard. "You'll be tried for manslaughter-- probably get off easy, just a year. But getting a new job after that.... man, that'll be rough."

"So you're proposing a deal?" I said, skeptical. "What's the catch?"

"The catch is that you go out and catch more bad guys, and get paid for it," the cop said. "We've been extremely short-handed since the Rikti invasion, and with the Dyne dealers taking more and more turf we need every able body we can find to work for us. We really need your help, kiddo."

"Well," I said. "Can I think about it?"

"You got only a couple hours before the D.A. wakes up with a copy of this file on his desk," the cop said. "You sign up now, we can go over there and lighten his load right away."

"Guess I don't have much choice, huh?" I said. "Did you at least hang on to the homeless guy?"

"We have him in lockup, yeah," the cop said. "If we bury this autopsy and get, well, a second opinion, we can put him away for it."

"I don't want him put away," I said. "He didn't do it. He shouldn't have to suffer."

"Lady, he's in better hands now than he was on the streets," the cop said. "The D.A. will throw the book at him, but stop short of the chair. This guy'll spend the rest of his life in the Zig and will never once think of escaping; not after having been down and out, out there. Honestly, we're doing him a favor."

I paused. "I'll do it, but on one condition," I said. "And it's a yes or no, take it or leave it thing. I want you to strongly suggest to his lawyer that the guy get set up for an insanity defense, and I want the D.A. to agree with that sight unseen."

"Any particular reason why?" the cop said.

"'Cause life in a nut hatch just sounds a bit more pleasant than life in a maximum security prison," I said. "You do that for me, and clear my name, and I'll sign up first thing in the morning."

"Done deal," the cop said. "My name's Rufey Thorne, by the way. It's a pleasure to be working with you, S--"

"Call me Poppett," I said. "And we're not working together, not after tonight. Tonight never happened. Tomorrow morning I sign up with a clean slate. Got it?"

"Got it," Thorne said. "Your car's in the garage. Have a safe trip back home."

I did have a safe trip back... but it was quite a long one. You stand up for the right thing no matter what the cost is; but in this case I can't help but think that maybe Thorne had set me up for all of this. He seemed unusually well-connected for a regular Joe from the force... but all of this is hindsight. The hobo was going up the river and I had traded up to a better job. All it cost me was my conscience.

Some things you can't buy with money; for everything else, there's always someone willing to help you pay the price. But make no mistake-- everybody pays. Everybody.

Bright Star

"Paragon Times, miss, could we just get a photo?"

Poppett started in surprise. She turned and stared at the photographer, who aimed his camera straight at her; his face was obscured by the huge flashbulb apparatus. Getting to his feet just beside her was a slim-looking businessman in a criminally ugly green suit with a bright violet shirt. She continued staring, eyes as wide as saucers as the flash burst in light.

"Young lady, thank you very much," the businessman said, his voice as slick as the grease in the hair of your typical Freakshow. "I always thought that the press was safe from these scum, but I guess..."

"Look," Poppett said, "is there any way we can just keep this out of the papers?" It was the businessman's turn to stare now; the photographer, who was still behind his camera, hesitated for a moment before clearing his throat. Not missing another beat, the man in the ugly suit smiled widely and posed next to Poppett. The photo was snapped before she could protest further. "Look, I mean it," she continued, clearing the spots from her eyes. "I'm just doing this part-time. I really am not in this for the glory, but I can help a little, and I'm going to."

"But you already have the glory," the businessman said, pointing at her chest. The gleaming badge, awarded only hours ago by Statesman, was as red as her face was threatening to become. "As I recall, they don't give those out to part-time heroes. More than that, the word I got from Synapse said you tangled a bit with the Clockwork for him. Could we just get a few words..."

"No!" Poppett said, firmly. "Look, you want a big story, why don't you go bother some other hero? Or, hey, how about covering the bingo games in the 'Row?" she snapped. "It seems like the only thing you newspaper guys ever notice in this city are the heroes. There are other things happening, you know, and common people need their time in the spotlight."

"But, what about your name..." the photographer stalled.

"No, don't even mention that," she said. "In fact, if you do decide to run those pictures," she added, drawing one clawed glove from her suit. The businessman swalowed hard, until she put the glove away and turned her back. "Just bear this in mind the next time a Hellion is giving you grief."

---

The Stars Shine On
by Carter Walsh, Paragon Times

Muggings have become a way of life in our city of the best and brightest, much in the way that traffic is a trademark of Los Angeles and the derelict are a symbol of New York City. However, unlike those troubled metropolises, Paragon has always had an easy and neat solution to its rampant and excessive crime-- the superbeings known as heroes. We have been blessed to have the powers of Manticore, Sister Psyche, Positron, and Statesman at our disposal, as well as the legion of costumed crusaders who have taken up the call in their wake. They have been the lights that have guided our city out of anarchy and into a relative stability.

But, today one heroine reminded me that no matter how brightly they shine, the stars protecting our city still shine on those whom they protect. Many heroes in Paragon have become pseudo-celebrities, well-known to the public and relishing in their popularity. It's become such a common occurrence, that heroes would want to get their name into the papers, that even this reporter found himself assuming it to be a universal truth. The youthful heroine who rescued me from some thugs this afternoon calmly said that her goal wasn't fame, and it certainly wasn't the delusion of 'cleaning up the city' that can inspire greatness or give rise to egomania in an idealistic superbeing. She was a "part-time" hero, not wanting to stand out too much from those whom she saved.

My dear, who I know must be reading this, what a hero must understand is that by shining brightly to guide the people, a hero elevates herself above the common folk. It is a noble thing, to be humble, but humility can only stretch so far before it becomes a burden upon the soul. If the heart resists even the slightest praise, it soon becomes mired in darkness as it fails to find any gratitude. You are right-- the heroes of Paragon City have become more of an attraction rather than a symptom of the absurd crime rate. But do not let that even for a moment deter you from protecting those people who cannot protect themselves.

Us ordinary people have our moments of glory, too. We shine brightest when reflecting, and reflecting on, the light of the bright stars around us.

---

Aunt Jane looked up from the newspaper. "Oh look, there's a bingo game down at St. Andrew's," she said. "I never noticed that section before. You think it's something new?"

Uncle Walt mumbled something in assent. He'd just finished cutting something out. "Janey, put this in the scrapbook pile, will you?" he said.

"You think this has to do with her?" Jane said, her eyebrows knitting.

Walt smiled. "Who else would take a job and then refuse to be paid for it?" he said.