Ravenswing

Yes, the joke becomes rather less fun when they put a hot fix downtime slap bang in the middle of Friday evening for EU customers. Well done. My amusement lasted 24 hours.

[rant]This is terrible! I'll be at work and won't be able to log in during this not downtime. How can they do this to us![/rant]

I feel someone had to do it.

Perhaps a label over their head for the duration the TF "Slow Reflexes".
And their name should go a particularly nasty colour.
And the mobs should jeer at them.
And a leaderboard of reaction times!

I also find it rather amusing that we EU players get told it's all just fine when we lose our entire evening, but it's fine to moan when the US gets hit.

Gain persepctive, be calm, say "Ommmm."

Paragon Times, April 9th 2011, Late editions
A light aircraft crashed into the reactor building in Terra Volta this afternoon at approximately 2pm. The pilot and two passengers were confirmed dead and emergency services with the aid of several heroes were able to control the resulting fire. Technicians indicate that there was no threat of radiation leak and the building itself took no real damage.

I prefer to wait until 10pm local and have no service to complain.

Then probably complain again when we get some lame 'compensation.'

And if it's actually up on time without any horrible, fundamental bugs I can be stunningly happy and surprised it's all worked out so well.

As an addendum, it would be really useful if Up meant 'I can log in.'

How many times after a downtime have you tried to log in only to get a message saying that the server is unavailable due to testing?

Well, maybe not often for US customers since they don't do work in peak periods, but for everyone else...

My assumption was that this meant the server status web page, which doesn't work.

The server selection box, which has the load level, is different and doesn't really need the colours, no.

I blame Global Warming.

To be honest, it doesn't matter what colour they are, they're always green (except for Test) since it doesn't actually work for the EU servers.

Maybe when the lists merge it'll be important what colour the blobs are.

The Price They Pay
Paragon Tattler, March 31st 2011
Not long ago, the staff here at the Tattler were shaken by the loss of one of their own. Erica Mitchell, editor of the Hero Column, was murdered by a man who had nothing against her aside from a desire to murder people from other worlds who have wound up on our planet. Through the tireless work of the Paragon Police Department, the killer was tracked down, but he did not go quietly. Detonating a bomb which destroyed his apartment in Independence Port, he apparently killed one police officer and hurt another, before going to ground. His next sighting was in a donut shop in Galaxy City where he attacked the Gunwitch with another bomb, killing himself and severely wounding her. The Tattler managed to catch up with the Gunwitch now that she has recovered, and this is what she had to say.

Tattler: Could you tell us what actually happened when you were injured?

Gunwitch: Well, I was actually on my way to the King’s Row precinct to help out Detective Cooper with the case. I’m pretty friendly with the guys in the precinct and there’s a great donut shop near where I was staying. Well, there was. I was ordering donuts and this guy came in, took a few pot-shots and then blew himself up.

Tattler: What injuries did you sustain?

Gunwitch: Third degree burns to my shoulders, arms and legs, mostly at the back. Spinal compression, broken ribs, concussion, a few bruises and scrapes. Luckily I heal fairly quickly thanks to my cybernetics, but it took me about two weeks to clear up the burn scars and get myself back into shape for crime fighting. Thankfully, the kid in the shop was not badly hurt. He ducked behind the counter when the gunfire started, and that took most of the blast.

Tattler: And this is almost certainly the man who killed Erica Mitchell?

Gunwitch: All the evidence points to it. Detective Cooper did some good leg work, along with one of his colleagues, a specialist officer named Seven. The incendiary devices the killer used left little in the way of evidence, but Tiger White was able to find a weapon cache he used and we identified him from some of the technology he employed. It’s pretty clear that he was responsible for Miss Mitchell’s death and the murder of several other active heroes, all of them alien in one sense or another.

Tattler: I guess that’s the price you pay for hero work. As I can attest, it’s a dangerous business even to be near

Gunwitch: Oh, we’re protected some by things like the medi-port technology, but there are ways around that and this killer used them. Some of us are invulnerable walking megaliths, but a lot of us aren’t really much tougher than a normal person. There’s always someone out there who wants you dead because you’re in the way, or you know too much, or because they’re trying to make a name for themselves, or just because you’re different. I’m sorry your editor had to pay that price, even if she didn’t exactly make my life easy.

Tattler: Thank you, Gunwitch, for your time and candid answers.

Arresting Behaviour
Paragon Tattler, March 30th 2011
Seen walking through Founder’s Falls in the direction of the marina on Monday night were Paragon heroes Tiger White and Gunwitch. Nothing out of the ordinary there, of course, as reported in past issues of the Tattler, the two are firm friends. However, what were they doing handcuffed together? Witnesses suggest that the cuffs were far from ornamental, one has to wonder who was arresting who?

The ability to perform magic appears to be related to certain bloodlines in the CoH universe. Try looking up 'Mu' on the wiki. This doesn't mean all magic users come from the Muvians, but there is the suggestion that if you can perform actual magic (as opposed to wielding a magic sword or whatever) then it goes back in your family for generations.

The main magic using humans in the world are the Circle of Thorns and the Mu. You also have your demons and such. There's the Banished Pantheon, but they are an almost forgotten bunch who appear from nowhere and vanish again without ever really resolving what their point is.

There's a few weirdoes with the Fae (I prefer that spelling). The Daoine Shide, Irish High Fae, are now those weird hairy beasts in Croatoa. However, the Fae also seem to be responsible for the Supernatural Events that happen from time to time. So they're a bit odd.

Croatoa has a lot of mythological, Otherworld stuff going on. Well worth the research.

Beyond that, we make it up.

It always seems like it's the Union people who read the Roleplay forum.

I have no idea if this will help, but you may like to try Virtueverse.

Not long after Gunwitch arrived in Paragon, we had a Rikti Invasion week. She started out really enthusiastic as the raids gave her a chance to test out her weapon systems in proper battle conditions. Great! She altered the air flow around her pistols with forced-air cooling due to some overheating issues. She was happy.

By the ened of the week, the Rikti could just go get lost!


By the way, she only recently got over being blown up, so I'd rather no one did it again for a while. She is a pretty good option for a target since, given time, she could regenerate almost any non-brain damage. Taking her out is likely not permanent (I don't really want to lose a character I like), but will result in nasty repurcussions.

I was, quite frankly, alarmed at the result of getting Annette shot. I badly miscalculated the effect it would have on GG and had to bring her back in from the cold a significant amount faster than I originally planned. Quite likely she would still be missing...