SlickRiptide

I realize that this falls into the "make something up on the spot" territory, but what is the real deal with Holsten Armitage?

After the latest client crash on my end - "You are queued on Virtue 27 of 211"

This is not a "Plan Z" or any other plan to save the game. It's just something I'm curious about.

If City of Heroes was re-worked into a Freedom Force or Skyrim or KOTOR-style of single-player game (possibly with a multi-player option,but again like a standard RPG, not a MMORPG) would you buy it?

For me personally, the answer would be a resounding yes. Especially if it had modding tools built-in (which seems to be more and more the norm rather than the exception). Downloadable content? Yeah, I'd probably be into that too.

Mine will sleep with the game. Their world is here. Paragon City is not vanishing. Only the portal that we use to travel to it.

It's too bad that the suit never got modeled. Even if it wasn't ultimately used as Positron's newest armor suit, it would have been a fun detail to have on display in Fort Trident after the story was published.

*laugh*

See, it shows the way my mind works about these things. I didn't read it as some sort of deeper meaning. I read about decrepit corpses and my thought was "If Numina was able to come and go like that she'd have found some way to get those fallen heroes out of there for a proper burial".

Then, a couple of paragraphs later, it was revealed that the bodies were just a plot device and I decided it was better to just go along for the ride and not over-analyze things. Ah, well. Positron got to ride to the rescue. That's the important thing, right?

Yeah, I'm a critic to the end. Sorry, Matt. I do appreciate you sharing the story with us.

The PDF worked great, except that I had to fill it out twice. The first time, the web browser opened it up inside of itself and when I saved it, the version that it saved to the computer was the "blank" version.

Once I opened it from the desktop, I was able to save it with the data fields intact and then submit the saved file.

Where's Doc Delilah when you need her? ;-)

It would have been interesting to have some kind of "archaeology" game inside the main game, where you could play missions that required puzzle-solving to accomplish and find the "treasures", whether they were lost super base trinkets, Oranbegan-style magical ruins, or even criminal/historical investigation ("What was the substance that got 'dumped' all over Venice?").

Thanks for this.

On Windows Vista (inorite?) I had to run it as Administrator. Potentially could be the case on Win 7 as well. Worked perfectly once I granted it permission.

Most likely I'll login sometime during the day, move my "main" to the echo of Galaxy City and log out for the last time under the statue of Galaxy Girl.

We're already playing CoX2. There's no point to making a new game as a sequel.

The Seekrit Projeckt almost certainly had nothing to do with City of Heroes, at least if it was a MMORPG.

Now, a standalone game or a "social" game or mobile game might make some sense as a CoH themed game.

Otherwise, no. In my opinion, there never was a CoH2 and never would have been one. There are plenty of examples in the industry already illustrating what happens when you split your core audience like that. Guild Wars is the exception, not the rule, especially given that 1) Guild Wars is not a MMORPG and 2) both the original and the sequel are non-subscription-based games and 3) they went to some trouble to directly link the two games together. That is, achievements in Guild Wars (via the Hall of Monuments) contribute materially to your power base in Guild Wars 2.

;tldr - No, I wouldn't wait for a sequel game. As it stands, I'm not real clear on the whole "wait for" concept in any case. I'm not monogamous when it comes to gaming.

On a totally random note - I got a laugh out of the bit in the Dark Astoria writup about the explorers Sam and Theodore Raimi who disappeared but left their movie camera behind, Blair Witch style.

My wife is currently on a Xena: Warrior Princess marathon via Netflix. Sam Raimi is one of the producers and Ted Raimi is his brother who played Joxer on the series. :-)

If you play on Protector you might have met Gothess/Animatrix. Some folks here would have met her in real life at the second or third Hero Con; I forget which. Her fiance is a fellow whose characters tend to be named "Verdant This" and "Verdant That". They met through the game and they were married last Sunday.

If see them online, tell them "congratulations".

I've suggested many things over the years, and some of them have seen the light of day. It's highly unlikely that I was the only person to give them those ideas, heh.

It's possible that I gave Sean Fish aka Manticore the idea to settle Ms. Liberty's Jessica Cole/Megan Duncan naming kerfluffle once and for all by giving her both names.

I was writing a fan-fic at the time that prominently featured Ms. Liberty and I felt that I really needed to have her name nailed down. After beating the horse way past "mostly dead", I announced that I was ready to go beat on other dead horses and that as far as I was concerned, her name was "Jessica Megan Duncan" and the deal with the confusion was just that she preferred to use her middle name as her given name, as a mild sort of rebellion and a way to create her own identity for herself.

A few days later, Manticore answered a question about her name in the Canon Fodder thread by saying pretty much the same thing.

Now, people who go by their middle names are not especially uncommon. I'm one of them. It was an obvious solution that allowed an answer without creating an outright contradiction for either name. There's no particularly good reason to think that Manticore had not already come up with that solution and just had not had any occasion to mention it on the forum.

To illustrate just how "not unique" the idea is: In my still-unfinished and never "published" story, Alexis refers to Ms. Liberty as "Jessie", prompting her daughter to correct her and remind her that she preferred "Megan". In Manticore's answer, he mentioned that Miss Liberty prefers to refer to Ms. Liberty as "Jessie", much to her daughter's annoyance. Obvious ideas following from obvious ideas, without it having to have come from an outside source.

So, maybe I influenced it or maybe it was just great minds working on similar paths. I'm just glad that we finally got it settled, heh.

I miss Jackson Turner.

I also apologize for thinking it was Arctic Sun that wrote those articles. For some reason, Gil, you and Arctic Sun had a way of blurring together in my memory. No excuse for that other than middle age. :-p

On the subject of creature names:

Most of the monsters in the game have "appropriate" names. The exceptions (that I can think of anyway) are the Hydra, Kraken, and Jurassik. (I guess that if we think of the creature in the sewer trial as "the Hydra" as opposed to "a hydra" then it makes better sense.)

Why were they named after creatures that they appear to have no resemblance to?

Were Wavelength and Flashfire chosen as contacts for SSA2 based solely on the backstory of Wavelength as an ex-Phalanxer or did Flashfire's position as an example of in-game character creation (blaster archetype example) on the early website contribute to the decision? Were there plans to use the other "archetype example" characters?

It seems clear that putting Penelope in the Phalanx is partially fan service and partially a way to show growth of a signature NPC and of the Phalanx. I've had this theory, though, that the death or at least severe endangerment of Penelope could act as a catalyst to trigger the transformation of the Clockwork King into the Psychic Clockwork King. Were there any plans on the table to use her in such a fashion? Would the Psychic Clockwork King be an incarnate-level threat?

Was the Seaview Project a throwaway reference or was that part of a larger plan to eventually include underwater zones? I notice that the extensive Rikti writeup posted by Poison includes a reference to ocean-bottom rikti bases.

Where did Sebastion Frost come into the expanded history of the Skulls?

Jacaranda Vista is the "flooded city" map used as the unique map in "The Freakshow War" story arc. (I think it's in the Architect these days as "Ruined City 2" or something of the sort.) While it obviously has no story purpose other than to be a unique map in a story arc, the zone has a quality to it that I've always enjoyed. Is there any backstory at all beyond "The Rikti did it"? The center of the zone is a vaguely Batman-like statue. Is he anyone in particular?

I'll just put in another vote for "what's the FULL story on Ouroboros and on Prometheus?"

Why was Hero Corp never developed beyond being the incarnation of the difficulty slider? I would have liked to see some hints as to their methods beyond "we'll spread the word that you're really tough". I think in later updates that they lost even the veneer of being PR spin agents and they became pretty much literally just a NPC-based difficulty slider.

Speaking of Hero Corp, I was a little surprised that I-24 had them cast as "vigilante". It seems to me that the storylines in I-24 ought to have been reversed, with Hero Corp being the "rogue" storyline and Wyvern being the "vigilante" wet works storyline. Were there any special considerations that caused you to cast them in the roles they were assigned?

Who really, truly, founded Freedom Corps? When was Freedom Corps founded? Were we ever going to see Freedom Corps stories that did not revolve around Longbow or the FBSA?

Was Salamanca ever going to be rescued?

Were you surprised at all that so many people took a negative view of Longbow or had you intended them to be controversial?