Square_Woot

RP can be quite the tricky muskrat to sniff out. My most successful RP has been over MSN, in one on one RPs about long term storylines. I think my longest is a non-CoH zombie apocalypse story that lasted about three years IRL time.

CoH I've had some luck with, but again, mostly in a one on one setting. A few years ago I was in a coalition that had a fair amount of RP supergroups, but with a few exceptions most people still tended to RP within their cliques. (Not that there's anything wrong with that; there's more of a comfort level with RPing with people you know, rather than trying to click with strangers.) I've been looking for a good active RP both red and blueside for weeks, but haven't yet sniffed out one that I'd be a good fit for.

Keeping an eye on the forums is probably the best advice. There's a lot of great roleplayers here dedicated to getting the community pumping. The Beethoven concert and then Sadie Hawkins dance last week are two good examples. There's also Formspring, which a lot of people use to get in some IC time when they're not ingame. (Good way to make friends at least.)

Feel free to drop me a line sometime, I'm always looking to make new friends!

I'll need to leave at 8:30, but otherwise I can make it for most of it.

Pengi's shot at Riot Girl! Thursday: Penny swoops in for the KO and the glory.

I apologize if this is covered elsewhere, but I looked over all the VIP FAQs I could find, and didn't come up with anything. (They all ended the same way: Look at this side by side comparison that doesn't answer your question! >.>)

I renewed my VIP account yesterday night. I haven't gotten the marketplace points or the Paragon Reward token yet. Are these set to be given on a certain day of the month for everyone, or are they supposed to click over when you renew? I bugged it at first, and the response I got sounded like they thought I was saying I hadn't gotten my head start points, which I did with no trouble. A few minutes after I renewed I also bought $15.00 worth of points, which I received along with the reward token and bonus points with no issue. So I'm inclined to think that VIP rewards don't 'click over' until a certain day of the month, but couldn't find any documentation on that.

Anyone happen to know?

(( I had a good time too! My only concern is that at 2 hours every week, the levelling will be slow going. But I guess that makes it manageable for alts. ))

Chip was laying down on the windowsill; stretched out like a cat so that the sun was rolling in right at her. She'd never been in a place with one of those fancy, bench-sized seats right in front of the window, and to have one in the same room she was staying at legally wasn't anything she thought she'd ever be able to claim. The kid's place was pretty swank, she had to admit. It beat an alley somewhere in King's, and it definitely beat her Snake-infested apartment back on Mercy Island.

The woman was relaxing in the early hours of the day after their first assignment. Wearing a white muscle shirt that gripped her strong physique and the same dusty pair of leather pants as yesterday, she still managed to pull off 'imposing' even while relaxing. One foot up on the other side of the bench, the other stretched out and across it. Arms behind her head, and eyes blissfully closed. Nearby a bottle of soda sat half-consumed; it was better for her than the booze, but she had a hard time getting it down. Sobering up would be tricky.

A lot of things would, if she wanted to make good. And temptation was around every corner.

"Yeah?" Chip answered her cell phone; notified of it thanks to a small buzz from the ledge of the windowsill. She flicked her blonde hair against the sun-washed light, and gave a stifled yawn silently before speaking again. "Chip here."

"Hey girl, it's Wally." She recognized the voice instantly. A small town boy from back home, part of the only gang that ever wanted her along: the Goldbrickers. "Word on the street is you got an in to Paragon."

"Word on the street moves quick." Chip observed, still not opening her eyes.

"You interested in making some cash on the side?" Wally offered, dropping all pretense almost instantly. "We have a guy in Independence Port that has some weapons he needs to be bodyguarded while w-"

"No, Wally." Chip said firmly, but patiently. "Not happening."

"Why?" The voice on the other end of the line complained. "You get a taste of a silver spoon, you going all Statesgirl on us? Don't you forget, we helped you out! You come back looking to ring us out, and there'll be tr-"

"Wally, will you shut up for a second?" Chip asked. Wally had always been an impatient idiot. "Not going to go against anyone that's done a kindness for me before. I just want something better. Gold can give me that."

"Yeah, and what if Gold wants him some Goldbrickers?" Wally's question was only met by the sound of sudden laughter.

"Wally. Gold doesn't give a damn about the Goldbrickers, I'm sure. Any group small enough to notice me is too small to be noticed by Gold." She chuckled. "I'm still wondering how I even got involved. There's probably some sugary pop teen superhero out there with the same name, and the whole thing's some big freaking misunderstanding. Stop worrying. You guys are more of a problem for Arachnos than anyone, I'm sure Gold doesn't give a damn about you."

"Yeah, well, okay." Wally finally seemed to be listening to reason, and his tone changed towards more friendly. "How is that crap, anyway? You wearing tights yet?"

"Hardly." Chip responded, and rolled her eyes. "S'going good so far. But nothing makes you feel quite like a washed up failure than being on a team with a bunch of kids. Seem like a nice bunch, but doesn't change the fact I'm more than twice most of their ages."

"What about Gold?"

"Hard to read." Chip responded, simply. "Guys with an idealistic streak and a lot of money tend to waste a lot of it, then forget why. Doesn't seem like an oblivious twit like Manticore, so that's something. So it's a wait and see deal."

"And you're SURE you don't want in on the weapons jo-"

Click. Chip slipped the phone back onto the ledge, and leaned back once more. Yesterday she had seen Galaxy fall apart, had crawled through sewage, and fought gigantic monsters...but it had still been the most rewarding job in a while.

Wendy vs Riot Girl. Next Monday, the day that answers the question I hear the most: Where's Pengi? >.>

(( This is shaping up to be really fun! Star, is Moxie going with a Shield? I was kinda torn between that and Willpower. ))

"I've got to be out of my damn mind." Chip's voice grumbled, as another cigarette was flicked to the otherwise pristine city streets of Galaxy. Her boot snuffed it out shortly after it landed, and her foot hadn't even stopped rotating on it before she was lighting another. A tiny ember sparked her next smoke, and she took a long, savoring drag to help calm her nerves. Plenty of reason to be nervous. The city was practically crawling with Longbow, Back Alley Brawler was a quarter mile away, and the city was lousy with new heroes looking to cut their teeth. Chip shifted inside her leather jacket, freeing up some room around the shoulders and elbows. Anyone looking at her could tell that she was uncomfortable, like she was standing in someone else's skin.

What if this didn't go over like she thought? She didn't have this guy's money and resources to defend her until she signed up, after all. As she took another drag she dwelled on vaguely imagined scenes; ones where the deal goes sour, and she's nabbed by Longbow on the way back home for some petty heist two years ago. Just her luck.

Her track record didn't speak much for her. A long line of petty crimes, done with a skill that didn't deserve to be wasted on such scores. Convenience store robberies. Carjacking. Beatdowns for the Family. She had the criminal history of a muscle-bound thug that barely had two sparks in his mind to start a fire, when anyone could read the details of the jobs to see the quality with which they were done. They were professional. Elegant. Effecient. From a simple smash and grab to breaking some stoolie’s legs, she went in, did the job, and left nothing more than chocolate fingerprints.

In the Isles, they say there's a six month rule. Within six months of a criminal career, any of the big names would've come recruiting if you were worth your salt. If they didn't show up in that time, you might as well throw in with the Lost for as much difference you'll make in the City of Villains.

Six months. She'd been there for five years. Hell, she did six month clips in such an alcohol induced haze that it felt like ten. So despite the professionalism, despite the skill, despite the experience...she wasn't going to make it. Not as a villain, anyway.

The city was nice and quiet, seemed like a decent place to have this meetup. If this Gold fella was half as well established as she had heard, it could have the potential to turn things around in a big way. She wanted to make a good impression, but that sort of thing was difficult when all you've ever made is bad ones. Rummaging into one of her pockets, Chip pulled free a list of questions, and started to rehearse them aloud as she smoked.

"Thank you for taking an interest in me. Please tell me about your group." It sounded rehearsed and stale, but it was the best she could come up with. "I am looking forward to this op-poor-tune-it-ee." She read the last part slower, thanks to a chocolate smudge on the paper making it difficult to read. Finally she scrolled down to the very end, a list of questions she knew she had to ask. None of them particularly pleasant.

Would he help her with her criminal record? Would they provide a place for her to stay? What about food? What about...what about the booze? Could she get treatment? Chip's fist tightened around the list as she read it, her muscles tensing in frustration as she did so. So many negatives. So few positives. All she knew how to be was a criminal, and she didn't even know how to do it well. Why would anyone deal with so much from a prospective candidate, for so little gain?

"...the hell am I thinking?" Chip finally cursed, and threw the list of questions on the ground, followed by her last cigarette. She turned on a heel, prepared to stomp her way back to the Isles in shame and humiliation. She only stopped when she heard the first explosion, and the noise of people screaming.

The sky was on fire. Was the city under attack? Already Chip could feel her adrenaline pumping, and a bounce to her step. As she looked behind her people were already fleeing, as explosions and fire chased them down the road. Without even thinking about it, the woman raced towards them.

"Go, go, go!" She shouted, her loud voice a perfect accessory to her intimidating stature. She waved a group past her, shouting urgently. "Get to safety! Move!"

In the distance, a family was struggling with their two young children. As the mother and father raced ahead the mother stumbled, and the result led to all four of them gathered close, struggling, trying to regain their feet. Another explosion struck Galaxy, and in the resulting debris, a car flew up into the air. It was making a steady arc for the family, preparing to bring an abrupt end to their life together.

Hero...villain...it didn't matter. Not then, at least. And it damn sure didn't matter if the family would find her powers funny. Just before the car impacted, a woman launched before it, and as she swung at the car with all her might, layers upon layers of chocolate armor appeared over her arms. There was a splintering crack as the two met, and in an instant the car went flying back the way it came, leaving a blonde woman kneeling, exhausted.

"Thank you, thank you!" The father was first to stand up, pulling his family with him. "We're so lucky to have heroes in Parag-"

"Save it." Chip cut him off as she stood, and adjusted the collar of her leather jacket. "Get moving."

As the family ran off, she watched them go, partially to make sure nothing else happened. Then, she turned to the chaos of the city, and took a deep breath. The rest of her new team was in there somewhere. A team of heroes.

"Alright." She said to herself, narrowed her eyes behind her sunglasses. A small smirk spread on her lips, the first smile she had worn for years and years. "Hero time."

(( Loving the stories so far! Here's my contribution. Definitely going with Chip, since the group seems okay with her. ))

Every apartment complex on Mercy Island was filthy, filled with pests, and dangerous, but at least The Flophouse was upfront about it. It was a tiny, dingy little place near the shore of the island, offering shoe box sized rooms for a few dollars a night. A place where the phrase "one year lease" was heard as often as "safe and secure." Some of the windows had newspaper instead of glass. The ones with smarter tenants had bars. And one, near the top of the five story building, didn't have anything at all.

Chip simply didn't care. In her tiny apartment, there was a great deal of water damage on the floor around the window; a result of constant downpours she didn't care enough to mop up after. What furniture she had was rotted and splintered; from a frayed and tattered couch where she did most of her sleeping, to the uneven, lopsided bed she stopped sleeping on when she felt something moving under the mattress. No TV. No books. The only things scattered around the room were a few milk crates she used as chairs, and enough empty whiskey bottles to start a recycling initiative.

Living the dream in the City of Villains.

The door swung open, and a few random roaches scurried out of the way of the heavy boot steps that followed. She walked into her apartment lazily, thumbing through a few pieces of mail picked up from the basket downstairs. Most of it had already been opened and scavenged for money; but it wasn't like there had been cash in any envelopes for years and years. Mostly, the letters she received these days all started the same way.

"We thank you for applying to the Council." Or Crey. Or Nemesis. Hell, even the Freakshow had sent a letter that started the same way, but they used so many numbers in their words she couldn't finish it without getting a headache. "You're not what we're looking for at this time. Perhaps when the War Wolf and Vampyre divisions turn their attention to chocolate bunnies, we'll be in to-"

The large, irritable woman crumpled up the letter and tossed it on the floor; the same place as all the others. A growing pile of bunched up paper was in the corner, a pile she was fairly certain a raccoon was living in. Possibly a family of them.

Despite her lifestyle, Chip appearance was clean, and crisp. She wasn't a particularly tall woman, but with broad shoulders and an ample chest filling out a deep brown leather jacket, she still managed to pull off "intimidating" without being ten feet tall. Heavy work boots, leather biker pants, and a mane of light blonde hair hanging down to her shoulders nearly completed the image. To finish it, a pair of mirrored sunglasses. One looked so much more imposing when people couldn't tell that their eyes were the color of chocolate syrup.

As Chip flipped through the rest of her mail, most of it went flying into random directions. Bill, bill, flyer for Cooke's Electronics in Paragon, second notice, final notice...the woman just sighed and flipped to the final envelope, which seemed a bit different. A fancier envelope that seemed important; it didn't stop it from getting ripped open by a scavenger, but it looked like the contents were still inside. She was just about to flip it out and read it when a noise from the other end of the room drew her attention.

That was when she saw the snake. It said a lot about the status of her home that a full grown, seven foot tall snake person was able to simply...hang out by her windowsill and not be immediately noticed. The blonde watched as the snake rose up to its full height, hissing at her sinisterly as it drew up a ceremonial knife from its person.

"For the will of Ssssstheno!" It slithered forward, expecting an easy prey. Chip glanced once more at the letter, unconcerned about her attacker, and finally set it aside before turning her attention to him. As the snake charged with his blade raised, the woman spun on a heel, rushing forward with a punch. As her fist flew through the air there was a crackle as a layer of deep brown coating covered her hand. It formed a rock-like barrier as her fist connected with the snake's gaping maw, sending shards of chocolate and spittle through the air. This wasn't the first snake to sunbathe in her apartment. Wouldn't be the last. But she could make sure it was the last this week.

A few moments later, and Chip was struggling to scoop up the snake's body and tail, trying to ease it out of the fifth story window. It wasn't worth letting it lay there to stink up the place. Finally she wiggled the thing's bulky torso just right, and as it plummeted down to land with a thud, the woman gave it a small salute with a still-chocolate covered fist.

"Fly away now." She murmured, and turned slowly on a heel. Her deep, slightly-smoke damaged voice continued as she walked back to the kitchen, tone solemn and bored. "Fly, fly, fly."

And from there, her evening continued. a bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes later, and her mind finally drifted back to that letter she had been sent. She read it and made her decision that night, not knowing then that it held the key to turning a frustrated life around.

Working on this tonight. :3

Limiting your characters is a good idea to make sure they feel the love, but I'm fairly certain that the extra costume slots, enhancement trays, and things of that nature are account-wide! (I can't see how they could justify 20 dollars for another enhancement tray otherwise.)

Just kinda discovered the thread today, then went through every page. XD These are so awesome. Seeing stuff like this really makes me want to learn Photoshop in the worst way.

Have you posted an ad like this in the base construction forum? I found someone very talented to design one of my bases in return for some character gift art. They don't need to be a Virtue-ite to roll a character on the server and design away, after all!

Catbot improvises against Riot Girl.

Be careful listening to advice from Seph, he's been known to take gaseous form and spirit people away unless they can speak his true name.

Nothing much to add that hasn't been said; LFG channels are really your best resource for teaming. You'll inevitably make friends on the grind to 1-50, and having a core TF group is never a bad idea. It's also very easy to find a PuG for the weekly task forces; on a weekend or weekday evening you can typically just go to that zone its held in, and within five minutes be on your merry way.

The villain ATs are pretty fantastic. I have a friend that's pure wolf; no bane or crab spiders, and she easily solos +2/x8. She's got great AoE, massive team buffs, and no big dangly arms hanging out of her back. I think it required some IO investment, but pure Wolf is something you don't see very often, and it's definitely effective.

I'd highly recommend, in the interest of ease of teaming, to become either a vigilante or rogue. Especially with the weekly TFs; some of them are just...easier to find a team with if you're on the right side. A few weeks ago they did Sister Psyche/Silver Mantis. Not once did I see anyone looking for Mantis, because that last mish at the oil rig is so obnoxious. More options the better.

The party looked like it had a pretty good turnout, congrats! I seriously need to work on my casual RP people skills, I have a hard time just going up and introducing myself to people. Most of my RP is done via 1 on 1 in MSN, so in a big social setting I tend to fall back on wallflower-ism. At least it fits the character!

Okay! If the group isn't in need of a different AT then I'll stick with Brute. I think I'm going to go with one of my old characters that never really got a fair break, because her first iteration had sets that I ended up hating. Here's a brief description of her:

Chip Chocolate is a character with a mutant power of chocolate manipulation/control. She's in her mid-thirties, and is fairly jaded because no one ever took her seriously because of her superpower. She used to run with the Goldbrickers, but could never get another villain group to look twice at her once they saw her power. She's older, bitter, but could be looking at the Gold Corporation as sort of her last chance to make something of herself, this time on the side of good. Chip has connections to the Isles with some low level street gangs, most notably the Goldbrickers, which could be used for RP when the group branches out to more unsavory waters.

If she's a little too goofy of a fit, I have other ideas.

Those are totally awesome. I'm not planning on playing on Exalted otherwise I'd be signing up. The character designs are great, I've never seen a turtle them in CoH before!

I'm having some confusion in using Formspring. There's no real way to respond to people, is there? Like...say I make a question, someone says something in it, there's no real reply. I click on "Respond to question," and on my profile that answer shows as if I answered someone anonymously.

It's a really neat site, but kinda confusing.

I'm so sorry I missed this. I took a break after some time at the Sadie Hawkins dance, and ended up nodding off while I was watching TV. Woke up to a cat pawing my face, and by then it was like 2 AM.

Sounds like a good premise to me, bull. I like the shadier side of things sometimes.

Looking at the list, I notice that we have four melee people. Tank, Brute, Scrap, Stalker. Would it help if I went with something support or ranged DPS oriented? I don't mind fitting the needs of the group.