Sailboat

Not because of the words, but because of how I obtained it.

Long, long ago, I was flying my (then-level-30) Ice/Storm Controller, te Queen of Knives, through Faultline. The spawns were very gray and no threat. I saw some Clockwork meandering near the edge of a steep crevasse -- Old Faultline had some very deep trenches indeed -- and, on a whim, Galed them into the abyss below. Ha ha!

I flew off to do whatever it was I was doing. A few minutes later I passed back over the same crevasse.

ZAAAP! I plunged from the sky.

One of the previously-tormented Clockwork, a Tesla Knight, had laboriously toiled its way back to the top of the cliff, and was apparently still aggroed on me. As I flew over, he slept me. Back in those days, being slept turned off toggles like Flight.

But because I was so much higher level then the Tesla Knight, the sleep faded almost at once. As my character hurtled into the enormously deep vertical crack in the earth, I stabbed at the keyboard to turn Flight back on -- but I had just recently rearranged my power trays,and Flight was in a different place!

At the last moment I tore my eyes off the screen, found the Flight toggle, and hit it. The Queen braked to a stop JUST above the bottom of the pit -- and was immediately awarded the Faultless Mystic badge!

I hadn't even known it was there. I would likely never have gone looking for it intentionally in those days. But I was literally shot down onto it (and by one of Paragon's weakest denizens!) Getting the badge was like the game awarding me something nice to offset the embarrassment of having been shot down by Clockwork.

That's my favorite memory of an Exploration Badge.

Do you really mean to say, "If you react in any way at all, even by not posting, other than to agree with me, I win?" 'Cause that's what you ARE saying. If we disagree, you're right; if we're silent, you're right; if we agree, then, by God, you're right!

That's...not a very...sophisticated argument.

This post brought to you by Debbie Downer.

All this talk about favorite characters and crowning moments of awesome has led me to think back through so many different characters, both mine and other peoples', that I've enjoyed watching, and somehow Storm keeps popping up.

One of those many things I've talked about, but never done, was run on an all-Storm-Summoning team.

There's no particular reason 8 characters with Storm Summoning would be better than other all-one-powerset superteams. I just want to see a huge mass of Lighting Storms and Tornadoes and Freezing Rains and so on. Storm is one of the more dramatic-looking sets and I've never seen anything quite like it in other games.

So I want to do it. I've picked Guardian, my original home server, because I have a high-level Stormy there (three, actually), and I get to pick the server if I'm making the post.

Beyond that....actually, I don't care. My goal is to laugh hysterically at the combined zottage of 6-8 Lightning Storms, not to finish any particular badge or whatnot.

What kind of Storm characters do I want? Well, since the goal is to use (and abuse!) the higher-end powers, I'd prefer "mature" Stormies who have access to all the powers, but I'm flexible. My own Stormies are Bluesiders, but we can probably accommodate villains for co-op events like an ITF. Beyond that, I don't care whether you're a Defender, Corruptor, Controller, or Mastermind (note to Masterminds with melee pets -- expect knockback!)

Two or three of my friends have shown an interest, but it's been hard to pin everyone down to a specific schedule of events. However, I doubt there will be a mass of Storm players eager to sign up, especially on short notice. Therefore, rather than hold spots for them, I'll just propose an event or two and people can sign up willy-nilly...Stormies are used to chaos, are we not? If we do get more than 8, we'll just deal with it.

Wednesday nights are open for me, as are many daytime Sundays.

I know it's short notice, but I'll try for tonight anyway:

ALL-STORM ITF -- Guardian, Wednesday Oct 3, 8:00 PM EDT.

Gather at Imperious in Cimeroroa and/or look for @Sailboat in broadcast, tells, and global channels Guardian and Level 50.

1. @Sailboat -- the Rainy Knight
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

If we don't get enough (six minimum) for the ITF, well, we'll take out our wet, spinning, sparking fury on something. Can we defeat Romulus by ourselves?

If you can't make tonight, I'll do it again Sunday, Oct. 7th, at noon EDT:

1. @Sailboat -- the Rainy Knight (or another Stormy)
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

If people are able to make one time or the other on an ongoing basis, and want to, that would be cool; but this could just be a one-time event -- weather can be fickle like that.

Well, I'll be! It is indeed coming back, sooner than December (which, I guess, would be true of anything that does happen).

You can play on an 8-player team composed entirely of powersets created since 2005, that have some pretty different mechanics.

Beam Rile
Dual Pistols
Water Blast
Dual Blades
Electrical Melee
Kinetic Melee
Staff Fighting
Street Justice
Titan Weapons
Darkness Control
Electric Control
Nature Affinity
Time Manipulation
Beast Mastery
Demon Summoning
Shield Defense
Willpower
Mental Manipulation
Earth Assault

...and I've probably missed a few (and there are some pending ones we will now probably never see on live). And that's not counting proliferation, making older powersets available to new ATs. AND the fact is, new powersets have been added at a faster rate recently than in the past.

I've seen other games, and while it's possible there are some with combat as dynamic as COH/V, I've missed those.

I do.

It's entirely possible to PvP just fine on SOs. This guy wasn't cranking out illicit wealth to PvP, he was doing so to have better PvP gear than other people could legitimately get -- the very definition of cheating.

Incorrect. -10 points from Slytherin.

I said the fact that people don't want to door-sit for you does not, itself, mean the game is dead. Hell, I've never wanted to door-sit or be power-leveled -- and lots of people feel that way. It's possible that more people feel that way now that time is a limited resource.

You responded with a non-sequitur utterly unrelated to your power-leveling thesis.

Your examples might not mean what you think they mean. Green servers have never been a bad thing per se.

More to the point, many people may not want to spend their last days doorsitting in your AE farm. That in itself doesn't mean the game is dead.

Yeah, cool!