ReboValence

Take care, Lighthouse. It was fun hanging out with you at PAX 07. Hope you find luck wherever you go.

OOO! I'm in the recap! You can just barely make out my Cheat Commandos shirt to the left of Cuppa's back.

http://l2vault.ign.com/fms/Image.php?id=718

That one.

I'm hoping to get some of my pics up tomorrow night.

[demon voice]You cannot put Big on that list and still possess a soul.[/demon voice]

Despite suffering through some of his weaker stuff, I liked him even in the crappier ones. And I'll be one of those people that continues to like Forrest Gump even when the hype died down and it became popular to hate it.

Not that I'd go see his crappier *movies* again, but I've thought he's always delivered a solid performance. Even in freaking Mazes and Monsters, he was clearly far more capable than the material he was reciting.

Mazes and Monsters isn't a truly bad film though. I don't think I ever laughed so hard in my life!

HAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!

Supergroup Name: The Pillars of Virtue a roleplaying supergroup
Website: http://www.pillarsofvirtue.org
Motto: Hope, Justice, Discretion, Courage, Help
Leader: Elsara Jin Rah, current director of the organization
Preferred Method of Contact: After registering and being approved for an account for the messageboard (should take no longer than a few hours at most), submit an an application online. Alternatively, speak with a member of the Pillars and your account can be created for you to speed up the process.

The Pillars of Virtue are composed of dedicated volunteers seeking to use their powers and skills to help the weak, to inspire others, and to mentor to young and upcoming heroes. Its membership is comprised of a variety of people with different stories, origins, and even species and homeworlds. But what unites is is our will to succeed in bringing justice and light to a world fending off darkness.

Many of us have overcome extreme adversity and difficult lives to get to where we are now, and we seek to give back to the community that shaped us into who we are today.

Our headquarters has existed in the Ciela Towers offices since our inception in 2004, though we now own our entire floor. All applicants can pick up and submit an application from our reception desk.

OOC: Since 2004, the Pillars of Virtue has existed as a roleplaying supergroup targetted towards players seeking the joy of ingame RP regardless of their real life commitments. You will find dedicated roleplayers who indulge in a little silliness from time to time.

We value the relatively small size of our membership because of the intimacy it brings to our gametime. However, we are always seeking new recruits to join in our stories and our general gaming. Our members enjoy having new people to meet and new stories to share.

As there are few PVPers in the organization, we do not have a raid base. However, we do have several amenities such as workshops, a hospital, and teleporters, as well as a thriving coalition with several other excellent supergroups that has allowed all of us to pool our resources together. The other coalitioned organizations are veteran roleplayers as well as great people to know!

While all of us have varied schedules, we have two regular patrol nights every Thursday and Sunday starting at 9CT.

Come and see what we're all about!

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After the Top Cow comic run ends, we'll be looking at some other options to continue to highlight some of the amazing work (art and fiction) you guys come up with!

[/ QUOTE ] So...are the comics going the way of the novels? Daaaaang.

FINALLY! People remember the cows! Nobody else I talk to remembers *sniff*

I remember the first time I went to King's Row and looked into the sky, and saw dozens of heroes creeping along, all excited that they'd unlocked Hover and showing it off. Especially because they were the ONLY ones in those days that were able to do the CoT spawn missions.

To CuppaJo.

*raises a lighter*

I must vehemetly disagree about Psyche's role in the book. The fact that the villains had to target her first proves how crucial she was to their plot - not only did they need a potential backup psychic, they also recognized that Psyche was powerful enough to completely ruin the plan. After all, the whole plan was manipulating an entire city psychically, and presumably, a non-nullified Sister Psyche could throw the whole thing into disarray.

Secondly, Sister Psyche set the entire chain of events in motion that ended the book. She broke herself out her mental and physical binds, took a key part of the villain's aresenal, and despite the fact her powers were severely weakened, still dispensed with an entire armed force. If she were even capable of flight at the time of the attack, she wouldn't have even needed the help of other heroes, men *or* women.

Sorry, but Psyche hardly needed men to help her. I think you're severely underselling her efforts.

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Hey Positron, now that you're around and all, got one more question. The book implies that Ray doesn't have any superpowers and the suit does everything. The game and comics imply that he has powers that are presumably being focused by the suit (and later contained). Am I missing something?

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Yes. His suit was damaged during the Rikti war, infusing him with antimatter. Now he can't take it off for fear of irradiating everyone around him.

[/ QUOTE ] Thanks. That was throwing me off, especially because Doctor Null had a very different problem with his suit.

Now on a different note, did anyone else plow through it in an afternoon like I did? I really didn't want to leave anything hanging on it.

Thank you Positron

I'm a freak for continuity at times when I shouldn't be. This has bugged be since the book was announced. Finally, closure.

Hey Positron, now that you're around and all, got one more question. The book implies that Ray doesn't have any superpowers and the suit does everything. The game and comics imply that he has powers that are presumably being focused by the suit (and later contained). Am I missing something?

This novel, while a good read, still bothers me on the timeline because if its in canon at all, then Synapse, Positron, and Manticore are way too old compared to how they're depicted in the game and the comics. Synapse and Positron are pushing 50 and Manticore's age is never given but he's still got to be somewhere in the late thirties to possible mid-40s.

I mean, maybe Synapse has an excuse for his appearence due to acts of science and nobody knows what Positron looks like, but Manticore is the normal one.

I mean, this didn't bother me too much during the book, but it's still not being addressed. I don't suppose that some rednamed bastion of the Story Bible could clear the age descrepency up?

I have never hated stone tanks as much as I did yesterday...

They'd sit there in their granite, laughing at you and your buddies as they taunted you...

And then their friends...oh, the nightmares...

*twitch, twitch*

I couldn't even hit them enough to make End-draining a viable attack *sob*

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Thanks, I was just imagining Positron and Statesman dropping a scrapper

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That's not very hero like, to take out your own forces

[/ QUOTE ] Maybe that's why Manticore wasn't spawned

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Hmmm...John Wayne Gacy...Lee Harvey Oswald...Mark David Chapman...

[/ QUOTE ] Well that would explain Manticore's team killing tendancies.

I feel that, on top of the in-game reasons for Manticore not going permanently rogue, it would be far too out of character for him to jump sides entirely. However, Manticore has come off to me as the type of hero who will take the most utilitarian course of action, even if it requires lethal force. Wyvern is an example of that. So is shooting his own ally for the sake of saving the city from Lord Recluse. Killing Protean was deemed, by Manticore at least, the only way to save the life of Back Street Brawler. The fact that he murdered his parents in front of him likely made that decision easier to reach.

So I imagine he's got a loftier goal he's aiming for that he felt required an action this extreme that a hero like Statesman would not pursue. It doesn't make Statesman wrong - consider that the latter has seen decades of conflict and is looking at possibly centuries more. Statesman truly believes that becoming lethal enforcers makes heros no better than vigilants and has seen the results of vigilants and pure violence since before Manticore was born. Manticore at times pursues the vigilante path, as exemplified by the existence of Wyvern.

Should be interesting to see where this goes. Here's hoping the resolution holds up.

I was glad to see the fact that Manticore rather brutally killed Protean addressed properly - it would have been odd to grace it over.

Manticore as a Bad Guy - well, my main villain would be happy that he won't have to run all the way over to Paragon now just to keep trying to kill Manticore. But for this to affect the game would be a bit difficult, since this arc will conclude before I7 and I7 has been confirmed to not contain the required switching content. I just figure its dramatic license.

BUT I COULD BE WRONG.

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

...oh wait...

So how will this affect Giant Monster spawns, such as Kronos Titan, that aren't connected to TFs?

I'm still wishing they'd make a trip to Megacon one of these years. Hell, even DragonCon - COH showing up at DragonCon would finally give me a reason to cross statelines for a convention (the plethora of awesome comic artists not withstanding).

Though I could deal with Tampa...if I had to...

Okay, you're on the right coast, now jump into the South. I promise we won't bite

I finished the book last Thursday (yes, you read that right.)

Few thoughts:

1. Statesman is a lying liar. He's as much of a treasure hunter as Locke Cole was. Liar.

2. So, do the current members of the Phalanx know what a man about town States used to be? I can just see Manticore finding out and going "Dude! You used to be cool! What happened?!"

3. Is Recluse an incarnate of Zeus as well? The book never says that either of them are incarnates of Zeus, so that question is still a little hazy.

I've got one. Now that all TFs award a badge instead of a souvenir, is there someway the badges can indicate more than just a one-line summary of your mission? I miss having the souvenir summaries, and would hate for the new Crotoa TF to be similarly shorted in my collection. Fine, don't bring back the souvenirs despite the fact they were more detailed/rewarding. But make the badge substitute worthwhile. This has been a huge disappointment since Issue 4, and I only once had trouble with a TF souvenir (the ever-buggy Scott) which was immediately fixed.

With all this mythological discussion going, I'd like point out that "Chronos" and "Cronus" are two different mythological entities. "Chronos" was the personification of time (but not a god). "Cronus" was the titan. They started getting mixed together by later scholars who were confusing the two names, and our image of Father Time carrying a scythe is based on this combinated of the two (Cronus himself wielded a scythe and was later identified with the harvest, hence his later incarnation into Roman mythology as Saturn).

I'm excited about the new title, but I've actually come to enjoy the current series. It started off rather badly, but with the jury duty arc the quality of the plotlines finally picked up. I've actually started getting excited about new issues for once.

I also always felt people were way too hard on the comics. For a supplemental piece to the game, they weren't too bad. The villain level jumping aside, I appreciated that we got some more background on the inner-workings of the city that couldn't be delivered ingame without bogging it down.

That said, I've always wanted to see more of the Freedom Phalanx besides the bits and pieces we get in game. If they aren't going to play that active role ingame (which is to be expected, since that's OUR job), I'd like to see it somewhere.

Hope it's not the end of the War Witch/Apex/Horus stuff though. They'd finally grown on me too.

I met the colorist for the Blue King series at Megacon this weekend, by the way. He was kind enough to let me stand there reading Issue 10 without paying for it since mine always arrive so late.

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While on the thought of the unofficial RP server (hey Tenebre!), it occurred to me that we don't really have a comprehensive listing of the various RP super groups on the server. Is there a possibility in the future of some kind of listing, so we solo heroes can check out the groups to see who to go for?

[/ QUOTE ] Great idea - anyone know of any RP-oriented supergroups?