Sailboat

That's sad.

How about expressing your distaste in a time-delayed manner?

Irrationally, my very first thought on reading of the impending cancellation was anger that they'd announced it on the Friday afternoon of what was, for me, a three-day weekend. Way to ruin the weekend, guys!

But afterward I was glad, because I spent those days riveted to the forums. I read at first with grief and anger, but soon I began to feel a sense of wonder:

Look at all these people. Look at the heartbreak, the stories, the memories, the friendships, the pictures, the oddball character concepts, even the humor. The determination behind the long-shot effort to save the game.

And then awe. Have you seen how much is being done? It's almost mind-boggling. One blogger (Paindancer) said he/she has known Occupy movements who would kill for this number of participants -- well, yeah. I've been active in several good causes, I've stood outside in protest -- and none of them have had anything like this much momentum, this much social networking, this many bodies showing up, in virtual space or otherwise.

And so, after a few days of grieving-and-reading, and then reading-with-my-jaw-hanging-open, I returned to the game. The first day back was pretty slow, but by the next, there were more global friends online than I've seen in a long time.

And it's been active like that ever since -- less time shopping and plotting builds, more time grabbing people and sallying forth to battle for Paragon.

Are total populations down? I can't say. I'm too damned busy teaming!

As I told a friend last night, I'll sleep in December.

The Iron Eagles will be there in force. Justice Server.

Looks like Lot 4 Scrapper's Strike is unclaimed -- I would take that if available. Working on a Scrapper right now.

Global is @Sailboat.

Might not have enough room in e-mail -- I'll check tonight.

Silas, thanks for all your, well, support.

It's the Internet, people will claim anything that pops into their head to try and influence readers -- doesn't have to be true, and they don't intend to cite evidence.

Reposted from Titan Network:

Every powerset plays better when you have access to all the powers and they're well-slotted. Although I've always objectively known it to be true, it's been hard to internalize.

So there are many sets that I haven't really gotten into until I got them leveled up at least into the 30s and slotted a bit. I am now trying to finish some of those characters, even though in some cases it means time spent shopping and crafting instead of playing.

My hottest current interest is a long-parked Dual Blades/Super Reflexes Scrapper. DB has always been pretty (and looks especially graceful on a female toon, IMHO), but at lower levels the combos are incomplete, or frequently broken by missing, and poor recharge slotting can make it hard to manage the combo system. Now that the character is coming into her power (39 as of last night) things are working a lot more smoothly.

Also leveling a beloved Storm/Dark Defender to 50 (currently 46). I have more than one of them -- I just adore Storm in general and especially pairing it with Dark Blast. Who says Defending has to be about mollycoddling your teammates? My teammates won't need to be buffed to defeat helpless, stunned, pathetically weakened foes.

I've been slow to start new powersets (because I've been having too much fun with older sets). I have a Staff/SR Scrapper and Titan Weapons/Inv Brute in the pipeline. I like Staff; I don't mind that it trades burst damage for mitigation and AoE. But I am finding I like TW even more, and will probably prioritize that set.

I have various baby Titan Weapon, Water Blast, and Street Justice toons that may or may not ever get developed.

Also an Earth/Rad Controller sitting at 49, still sporting the pre-inherent Fitness pool. Guess I oughta fix her up a bit.

This is one of the reasons I never took very seriously people who asserted they'd played every powerset combination to 50.

I don't have significant presence on Virtue, and people had been loitering on Virtue for hours in advance of the Unity Rally when I finally wandered over and made a new toon just for the rally.

Somewhat surprised to get the name Save Paragon.

I didn't want to detract from the serious atmosphere, but it was tempting to reply to every single cry of "Save Paragon!" in Broadcast with "What? WHAT!?"

...Or maybe end the game as a brand-new level one character, fresh from the costume creator. Run the tutorial to the point where you stand over Blue Spectrum, facing the choice: Good or Evil? Hero or Villain?

...fade to black at the moment, with all the possibilities open before you.

Where are we holding it December 4th?

For great justice!!!

"Marked as private."

On a personal note, Zwill, I can hardly express how much I admire that you're still there at such an hour, still holding our hands, after your job basically vanished. Tip o' the cap to you, sir!

Just checked -- I'm paid until Aug 30, 2013.

Heh.