Shadowe

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I've tried to do some RP and whilst I've met a couple of other RPers, my RP seems to be all one sided so I've not been as active with it. Is there lower level RP or is this more of a higher level thing? Superhero RP isn't new to me - many years ago ( far too many than I care to admit ) I was very involved in a MSH group, so I look forward to doing some here.

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If you're interested in RP in CoH, go take a look at the Roleplaying section of the forum. The "Hints, Tips and Tricks" thread is fantastic, but as a brief overview on where to find large(ish) numbers of us at once:

The Galaxy Girl Statue. In Galaxy City, officially after 9.00pm UK time, but it can start sooner. Rarely before 8.00, though. To find it, well, if you're in Galaxy City facing the trainer (Back Alley Brawler), look upwards. See that big statue? That's Galaxy Girl. We're under there.

Pocket D. Not my preferred location, but there are a number of RPers who swear by it, especially as you get to take both heroes and villains there. I think it tends to get busy around 8.00/8.30 UK time.

No one is fussed what level you are. Honestly. We really don't care. We just want to have fun and RP with interesting characters. But read the thread I mentioned above, especially the bit in it about 'being ignored'.

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I think that depends on the person and the game. I've not had any problem with any other game, it's just CoH/CoV. Though, as I was reading your post, something hit me. In my other MMOs, I'm a member of a guild - there is a group of us that play similar games, I'm the only one who plays CoH though and I've not joined an SG here because they all seem to want active members gaining a minimum of rep each month ( even the "casual" ones ). I also don't know anyone here ( or, at least, I'm not aware of anyone that I know - though if you've ever met Tlilarema in WoW, GW, LOTRO or AoC then you'll know me ) so I'm missing the social aspect just now.

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*blinks*

*Reads that again*

*blinks again*

Hmm... Not sure how to solve this one. I'm what many might consider a 'hardcore' RPer (I think of myself as 'semi-hardcore'), and the SGs I tend to interact with really don't care about Prestige earning.

In my personal opinion, then, for your best bet in finding a wonderful group of friendly, cheerful players (although the SG is primarily based on Defiant), see if you can get hold of someone from The Echelon. Honestly, they don't come nicer than the Echies. And if they have a minimum Prestige requirement... I owe them about 2 years worth.

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Ah, that explains the tell I got the other day when I was asked if I'd like to do a "Posi". Is this also the same as the one in the Hollows? I can't remember the guys name, but he said I needed 8 people to enter some caves.

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The one in the Hollows that you're thinking of is the Cavern of Transcendence Trial, which is a bit like a Task Force, but can actually be failed, and are generally shorter. The Positron (or, as you correctly surmise 'Posi') TF is 12 missions of agony if the team mix is wrong. A team I was on cleared it in 3 hours 7 seconds a few weeks back. It's possible to do it faster. It's more common to do it slower.

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I have enjoying reading through the stories as I've worked through them ( even though, some times, I seem to be sent to the other side of the city just to pick off a few people *grin* ).

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Oh, we've all been there!

12:06:00

Marie knelt over Julie, gently patting her face with her armoured gauntlets. "Jules, wake up. C'mon. Wake up." Nearby, Melissa was also dazed, pressing a blood-soaked cloth to a puncture wound in her abdomen.

"Leave her, Marie. Sh-she'll be fine. Take those things out, before they rip us all to pieces. I'll take care of Julie." With those words, Mel pointed in the vague direction of the still battling SHADOW units, then crawled over the rubble toward her delirious student.

Marie immediately snapped off a salute, and rose to her feet, a little unsteadily as the suit's servos matched her movements a fraction of a second later - the software was still zeroing in on her movement patterns, but it was remarkable how sophisticated it was. She once again grabbed her pack, digging through it for something - anything - she could use while she waited for the recharge countdown to finish. Not long to go, but long enough to be a problem. She focused on SHADOW 3, as it was the more active and undamaged of the available opponents.

"Activate melee armament."

SHNIKT!

Blades sprang from the forearms of the battlesuit, and more protruded from the toes and heels of the boots, her kneecaps, and her elbows.

Data sprang into a window to the left of her field of vision.

Melee armament active - Combat ability unimpaired.

Energy armament recharging - Combat ability at 76 percent.

Autonomous battle-mode active.

Stealth-field active.

Heuristic processor online.

Target threat index: 8.3 plus or minus 0.5 - Discrepancy due to uncertainty in observed data.

Waiting for orders...

Marie thought for a few seconds, whispered an instruction, then pointed one arm at her chosen target, calling out to him over the suit's external speakers. "Hey! See this? This is my boom stick!"

The suit's energy capacitors drained once more, with a single shot that fractured the focus aperature of the weapon. Marie followed, in perfect balance, blades weaving a complex pattern in the air as she tried to get close, to distract the brute from continuing the fight.

12:06:23

Love this idea, Z.

/signed.

Certainly beats using a base portal and then the SG teleport power.

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Other things you can do is roleplay (I am still trying to figure that one out myself),

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Keep bringing the toons along, GS! As you've no doubt noticed by now, I'm at the Galaxy Girl statue most nights, and I do try to involve new characters, if I can.

Of course, with the large number of plots going on right now (and there are a fair few!), I can find myself easily distracted. Please, persevere! It's great fun.

Further to the above answer... You'll start to see Task Forces becoming an option. These are sort of like story arcs, but require a minimum number of players to start, and you can't add new ones to the team. Some of them are fantastic, others not so much (The Hess Task Force on Striga (Level 25-30+) is great, but Positron (Level 10-15+) is considered by many to be one of the most painful experiences in the entire game).

What sets City of... apart is the story. There are story elements everywhere, and lots of the missions tie into some overarching schemes that run throughout the game. While how you play the game tends to be moderately unchanging, especially if you solo, the real excitement comes (in my opinion) from discovering the secrets of Paragon City and the groups that operate there. In the words of some other people on this forum: It's the journey that counts, not the destination. Getting to Level 50 is not the goal. Having fun on the way is.

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...I thought it was going to be a quick post, and then it just kept going on, and on, and on, and on...

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NaNoWriMo?

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Hehe. No, I'm not taking part. If I write only 50,000 words in a single month, I've probably been ill.

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The explosion wrapped around the mysteriously armoured invidivual, before starting to clear. While reduced to its knees, the armoured enemy slowy rose, a variant of the Arachnos Longfang Channelgun unfolding from its back.

"You want to play, girls?" The pilots female voice laughed. "Bring it."

12:03:40

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12:03:42

Julie snarled as she heard the woman's voice. "Slave! She's mine!" She darted forward and levelled a powerful punch at the armoured leg, trying to throw the soldier off-balance. Like each of her sisters, she had taken a moment to ready her favourite equipment, which in her case amounted to a pair of soft leather gloves backed by kevlar plates laced with electrostatic shock emitters. The followed through with a barrage of punches and kicks, none of which were sufficient to prevent her opponent swinging the barrel of the channel gun to face her...

Melissa Montrose charged into the fray, drawing her short-bladed sword, and slashing at the gun. "No, Julie. Ours." The two women proceeded to hack and punch at the armoured woman, trying to finish her as quickly as they could.

Marie was annoyed that the Power Sparks hadn't had the effect she'd hoped for. Frustrating, certainly, but it was the first time they'd been used in anger, so she wasn't overly disappointed. She had other tricks up her sleeve, anyway. Her pack was easily three times heavier than those of her sisters, and for good reason. She'd spent a fair amount of time getting friendly with Doctor Huntington. Not in the 'Oh, Richard. Do me!' way that Mel seemed to be angling for, but just in a friendly likeable way, and it had paid off. Paid off big time.

From her bag she withdrew a bulky metal belt, and it was with trembling, sweaty hands that she buckled it on. Her stealth-webbing hummed loudly as it received input from a vastly increased power source.

"Hey, Tinkerbell! Watch this!" She pressed the activation button on the buckle.

Marie understood the concept. Micro-teleport buffers stored gear in a null-space attached to the belt. To an outside observer - and an inside one, she thoughts as she experienced it - it looked as though the equipment was expanding from the belt. In reality, it was appearing in sequence out of thin air. Armour plates wrapped around her arms, legs and torso, and a helmet formed around her head.

"Battle-suit online." Helena's calm voice came from the helmet's internal speakers, as Marie was nearly overwhelmed by the information scrolling across the HUD. But it all amounted to one thing: There was an enemy that needed eliminating.

Both Mel and Julie had been injured, though they were trying to ignore the wounds, and their foe was trading punches with them, her Channelgun firing almost continuously.

"Stop her!" Marie's shout was deafening, but it wasn't a panic reaction, nor an instruction to her friend, her mentor, or anyone else in the room. She was untrained in the use of the armoured war-machine she was wearing, and it was an order to Helena.

"Override protocols engaged. AI-enhanced battle-mode activated. Target acquired. Firing."

TCHOOM!

The first hellish blast of energy hurled Mel, Julie and their foe to the floor.

TCHOOM!

Moments later, a second blast, just as powerful as the first, threw the black- and red-armoured woman back toward the ruined doors of the building.

WAA-TCHOOOM!

"I have got to get me one of these!" Marie's victorious whoop was lost in the crackling gunfire and shouted orders.

"Power reserves degraded. Activating stealth field during recharge process. Autonomous battle-mode activated."

As her stealth-webbing warped light around the suit and her, Marie ran forward to help Mel and Julie to their feet.

12:05:00

I usually do use notepad, and I AM for my rewritten (decidedly shorter, but hopefully not missing any important bits) version. But I forgot, because I thought it was going to be a quick post, and then it just kept going on, and on, and on, and on...

Thanks to this crappy forum software, I just lost an hours worth of writing covering 12:03:42 - 12:05:00 for Melissa, Julie and Marie. I'm going to write it again, but it's going to take a bit of time. Sorry!

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As I have no-idea who is in Unity Towers lobby, there is a heal up for grabs to the first person who wants it

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To the best of my knowledge, it includes (but is not limited to): Liberty Girl, ADAOS, and the three Sisters of Artemis (Melissa, Julie and Marie), plus whatever 'bad guys' are in there.

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12:03:59

In the lobby, the laser sight from ADAOS's rifle flickered and blinked on the ground near Mel.

--- -.-

Repeating several times, ADAOS switched back and began firing a burst of assault rounds at one of the black and red armour clad forces that had stepped in, the rounds pinging off its armour.

12:03:15

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12:03:06

Mel watched the blinking light on the floor at her feet a few times, then laughed with relief. "Roger, message received and understood."

The three women backed slowly into the lobby, firing their crossbows as rapidly as they could, but Mel's heart leapt into her throat as the first of the black and red armoured warriors pressed through ADAOS' fire.

"What the hell are you?" she hissed, pausing for a second to allow her stealth field to come back up to full power. She considered tactics - these weren't Malta, which she and her sisters had some very specific training against, nor were they anything she remembered from the threat files she'd stolen, but they were heavily armoured. She glanced in Marie's direction, and her 'technical expert' - Mel was honest enough to consider the younger woman a 'gadget-freak' - surprised her by pulling out her new favourite toys.

Marie called them Power Sparks. Well, that's what she called them to other people. In her own head she thought of them as 'Butt-kicking boomers!'. They were an adaptation of Sapper technology, particularly suited to the skills and prefered weaponry of the Sisters of Artemis. Two bulky shuriken, connected by a shielded wire, were thrown at an oncoming trooper. Though much heavier than normal, the weapons had edges literally as sharp as a razor, designed to cut through flesh like butter, and wedge into armour or bone. The tiny power cells were capable of delivering a 0.25 second jolt of the same frequency as a Sapper's energy cannon. Not enough to drop a metahuman or suit of power armour, but enough to weaken them a little... just in time for the timer on the plastic explosives to hit zero. Mel could throw a pair every 2 seconds, but she only had 3 pairs. None of them were set for impact trigger. They were tied to her wrist comm. And the button on her wrist comm she was reaching for, even as the last pair flew toward their target...

12:03:24

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Linda grunted as she twisted to look for the last mercenary. This fourth one was an officer. She was also much faster. She was the one whose blows hit like hammers. One of those hammers crashed into Linda's kidneys. As Linda arched in pain, a backhand chop hacked at her exposed throat and she staggered backwards, gurgling. The Hand of Artemis followed up, sweeping two blades from sheathes on her back and leaping at the staggering heroine. Linda caught her in mid air and swung her into and through the smouldering countertop of the reception desk.

Liberty Girl grinned, coughing and clutching her bruised throat. Four Knives in about a minute. She was slowing down in her old age...

Looking up and taking in her surroundings properly for the first time, she glimpsed a familiar blur of scarlet and black. "Klair..." she croaked.

12:02:57

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12:02:33

At a dead run, the three women skirted a number of the combatants outside the building, and squeezed amongst a number of Malta and Knives. A Malta Sapper was powering up his energy cannon, aiming at a familiar white-clad heroine. Mel was about to snap an order, when Julie, angry, disturbed Julie, lifted her arm and pressed the crossbow to his temple.

"Bad move, trying to hurt my friend."

TWANG!

The Sapper dropped like a rag-doll.

Marie, snarling as Julie's stealth-field faded, reached into a pocket and withdrew something the size of a cell phone, flicked a switch on the side, and dropped it behind her.

"A-T bomb primed, Boss. It won't do a thing to that Kronos, but it'll drop a Zeus on its back."

Mel, proud of her sisters, grinned to herself and hurled a fistful of caltrops - poisoned caltrops - just outside the building, then began murmuring over and over and over, in the vague hope that BODICIA would hear her. "Three Sisters of Artemis in the lobby are friends, we're here to help. Three Sister of Artemis in the lobby are friends, we're here to help."

12:03:05

12:02:12

Melissa Montrose was out of her depth, and she knew it. Dragged hastily away from the comforts of Huntington Manor, she and her girls were caught off guard, and the military precision of the assault on Unity Plaza was almost overwhelming. But there was no time to stand and stare.

"Marie, Julie - with me. We're going into Unity Tower. Everyone else, provide cover, and aid in civilian rescue operations." With her goggles on, Mel saw the responding nods, even through the stealth fields, and a tight, grim smile creased her face as Marie and Julie stepped smartly up beside her.

All three women checked their wrist-mounted crossbows and began a swift, and very stealthy, jog toward the main doors of Unity Tower.

12:02:32

{Huntington Manor, Wednesday 8 October 2008, 16:01:00 Zulu (12:01:00 Local time)}

Alarms blared, and the automated defence systems came online within a fraction of a second after BODICIA's message registered on Helena Huntington's Skyway City sensor network. Blast shields dropped, doors slammed shut and deadbolts dropped, and in less time than it took the Unity Vigil OverAI to speak over her intercomm, Huntington Manor was an armed fortress, bristling with military-grade weaponry.

"Alert! Alert! Allies under fire in Unity Plaza. Local city teleport network compromised. Code Red-Beta Alert."

Melissa Montrose, ex-Hand of Artemis, and leader of a defected training cadre of women from the Knives of Artemis, dropped the book she had been idly reading, and rose to her feet. Doctor Huntington had told her to listen to Helena, and she knew roughly what that code meant. Direct threat to life.

Without thinking, Mel pressed the transmit button on her wrist-comm. "Sisters, we have a White situation. Grab what you can, I'll be asking Helena to transport us to..." Her voice trailed off as there was a flash of light around her, and she stumbled as her sense of balance tried to cope with a sudden shift North that didn't actually happen. Around her were the rest of her group, equally startled and uncertain... and each with a neatly packed pile of gear at her feet. How the hell..?

"I took the liberty, Miss Melissa," Helena's voice intruded over her wrist-comm. "There is no time to lose. Recommendation: prepare minimal required equipment only and proceed."

Mell was stunned, but only for a couple of seconds - that was a lot more initiative than she had expected from Helena, to transport all of them and their gear via the Huntingtons' private teleport network. There was no more time to consider it. The girls needed orders.

"Stealth packs now, ready the rest on the run." She suited action to words, and grabbed her stealth-webbing, snapping it into place with practiced ease, and powering it up.

Predictably, Julie mouthed off, "Why are we helping his friends? It's not as if they've ever done anything for us, is it?" and Mel turned to the empty space the voice had come from.

"We're helping his friends because a) it's the right thing to do, and b) because we have a lot of work to do to prove ourselves to these people, and this is a good time to start. It will be worth it, Julie, I promise."

With that, she started to run, pulling on her goggles as she did. Helena's targetting with the teleport network was quite phenomenal. It only took a dozen swift strides to see the horrifying view of Unity Plaza. She chose not to waste time reprimanding whichever of her sisters she heard, because she felt the same way herself.

"Oh, sh..."

{Unity Plaza, Wednesday 8 October 2008, 16:02:11 Zulu (12:02:11 Local time)}

Shadowe - My first character in CoH was based on a Pen & Paper RPG character originally created in 1999. Well, it was originally meant to just be 'Shadow', but as we all know, that name's rather seriously taken. I tried a few variants (I despise things like Shad0w or SHAD0W or dots on the end, or anything insane like that), and was pleasantly surprised when it went through with just an 'e' on the end, since that didn't ruin the pronunciation. He was my first, created on 3 Sept 2005, and I've been playing him ever since. His background, wealthy scientist and businessman Richard Huntington, came from the original concept I came up with 9 years ago. He's very much a Bruce Wayne/Tony Stark-esque character, and is a lot of fun to play in character.

Psychonova - My first villain was meant to be Shadowe's nemesis, and was a Ninja MM. He got deleted pretty quickly when I rewrote the character concept and created a MC/Eng Dominator. What else could I call him?

Luminescence - I'm amazed that this name wasn't taken, when I decided to actually create Shadowe's sister, Samantha. The original Luminescence was a MC/Rad Controller. I fell in love with Rad so much that I created a Rad/Psi Defender called Samantha Huntington, and then ANOTHER one called Sam Huntington when I got my second account. Luminescence got deleted fairly recently... and was immediately recreated as a Psi/Mind blaster on my second account.

Helen H - The four different avatar incarnations of an Artificial Intelligence called Helena, various ATs and powersets, mostly Tanks and Scrappers. I keep deleting them and remaking them.

None of my other toons mean much to me, other than one that is a name placeholder. People who know me elsewhere will probably guess what the name is, but I hardly ever play my DB scrapper based on a VERY long-established character from a D&D campaign I was in.

I don't actually know. But I would be less inclined to continue playing, and if enough of my friends left... I probably would, too.

Anyone who says that Rain of Arrows isn't cool needs their head testing - especially if you fire it at something BIG.

There was some INSANE mapservering going on last night on Union - I forget the exact time it happened, other than 'it was after 9 o'clock'. But a large number of the RPers at Galaxy Girl all experienced rapidfire mapservers for a good 5 minutes (if not longer).

If, between L10-20 you're being overwhelmed by 3-4 Rikti, you're doing it wrong.

Believe me, the full typed version definitely works: I'm an RPer and have had a great deal of fun using /e fancybow$$local A pleasure, my dear.

(Yeah, my character is a bit smarmy )

or you could type out, in full:

/e cheer$$say ConGz!

You can substitute local/broadcast/team for say if you want.

But a bind would probably be better, using the format Standoff gives.

*hazards a guess* Don't let rogue speculations confuse you about what thing this thing might be.

Ah! You're thinking about the other big thing. That's only never not happening if the big thing and the other thing work.