Terwyn

Technically, I should not be able to run Ultra mode (Nvidia Quadro 140M). However, it seems to not complain too much about it. I"m more than willing to be patient.

One that occurs to me after significant research for a novel set in World War One.

In what year and battle did Marcus Cole experience the gas attack that left him crippled?

Any remote chance of you guys deciding to head up to Toronto or Montreal to meet with the eastern Canuck CoX players?

I'm currently running a business-model laptop. Decent specs (2.4 Ghz dual core, 4GB RAM, 15.4" screen, and so on). Graphically, it's running an NVidia Quadro 140M. While it is suitable for running CoX on a regular basis, I'm pretty much entirely certain that I will absolutely need to upgrade to a new system to get full benefit of Ultra-mode.

My question is: Just how far short of the most reasonable specs for Ultra-mode is my current system?

I believe many of us are thinking, "What's in it for me?" I am no different.

Let the bidding for my loyalty commence!

Unfortunately I have a class until 5, but I should be able to come in later, if that isn't a problem.

For me, it's easily the following exchange:

Hello Pinnacle!

(Especially hello to Coz, Cirkuit, and Baron, assuming the latter two are still around).

I apologize for being silent on the forums, but I've been busily working away at a second stint at college. I'm doing Marketing Administration, with a co-op option.

Here is one of the many projects I worked on while at my placement.

The SnowGlobe

It's the company's second annual holiday video.

I have a couple of questions for you, War Witch. Some game-related, others professional.

As for the professional, business-related questions:

First, what is it like to be a Canadian living and working in the United States? Was there a significant amount of culture shift? I know that professionally speaking, Canadian culture is generally more collectivist in contrast to the American culture's individualism. How long did it take to get used to the different professional culture, and how did you manage the shift?

Second, how large is the Marketing Department for the CoX IP? I've heard several complaints from many other players that the largest competitive flaw of CoX is that it is not being suitably marketed.

Now, in regards to the game related questions:

1. I'm curious as to which programming language is primarily used for the coding, and why that language was chosen over other options.

2. What is the background of War Witch (the character)? Where does she come from?

3. If you could add anything in particular to the CoX universe, where would you start?

4. During the First Rikti War, how did Canada fair, and roughly how large is the population of super-powered beings there?

(Okay, I admit it, I'm Canadian myself, from the Toronto area, and have always had a bit of a sore spot for how little we're mentioned in pretty much any form of media. I mean, watching Independence Day, you'd think Canada escaped unscathed.)

Hey! I'm *IN* marketing.

I don't hate you. :P

This is what my main character, Xylric, would write.

Mission name: IMAGE of a Rescue
Arc ID: 49005
Morality: Heroic
Length: Medium
Description: Someone is trying to steal a peaceful AI in the hopes of subverting it into a tool of terror. Protect the AI from those who would cause it harm.
What you were drinknig: Coffee

I have not abandoned this, I've just fallen behind in many things that are ultimately more important.

Poison in my pants.

Wait.... this does not bode well for anyone...

My Kin on Pinnacle's powers are derived from the fact that he is a Mathematician specializing in Chaos Theory as well as Game Theory.

Altering probability is just a side-effect.

Name: Xylric
Global Contact: @Xylric
Level: 50 Scrapper
Origin: Magic
Super Rank & Registry: Leader, Supernova

I'm in, and I've had a story simmering with a cover on in low heat for about six years now.

Much has been said and written about the actions of the metahuman population, both heroic and villainous, but there are many other "heroes" who have been sadly overlooked in the aftermath of the Rikti War. I stopped by to chat with Professor Madison James Issacs, the head of the Humanities department at the University of Toronto, one of the campuses devastated by the conflict.

Professor Isaacs, it is most certainly a pleasure to speak with you.

Please, call me Maddie, most of my students do. The Rikti war caught us almost entirely by surprise here. By the time we had realized what was going on, most of Toronto was in ruins, and there were Rikti drones and soldiers everwhere. The majority of the students barricaded themselves in lowest levels of the school. We may have had one of the most advanced campuses in the world, but once the power and communications lines were cut, we were unable to do anything of merit.

Pretty much all of the students and faculty of my department managed to take shelter, away from the heaviest bombardment. Although, it pains me to say, we all took the losses above ground seriously. We were holed up in our shelter for almost the entire length of the war, dependant on the hopes that the Rikti wouldn't take a close look at the ground they held.

If it weren't for the Institute's "distraction," it's a fair bet we would've all been found before the end. As it was, we only got out alive because of luck.

When it comes to an alien race out to exterminate our entire species, there is ultimately only one thing spelling the difference between victory and extermination. The human spirit has never shone as brightly than those dark days.

I'm no hero, but I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for my students. We salvaged pretty much everything we could from our library and storage rooms, so that even if we were destroyed, our history would at the very least remain.

In the books we recovered from the library was a full copy of some of the more legendary musical pieces. One of my students, Sandra, (who was brilliant singer, and I think now works with the RCMP in forensic psychology) found a full score to Handel's Messiah.

In the third day, with no heat, no water, no power, and probably likely dwindling air supplies, our morale was pretty much shot. We had no idea what was going on outside. Then she started to sing.

Sing? How would that have helped you?

It was the "Hallelujah" chorus that she started to sing. There were about three hundred of us who'd taken cover in that shelter, and the walls weren't the best for acoustic purposes, but when one person with a voice of an angel like Sandra starts to sing, everything stopped.

There were no more tears, no more anxieties, no more fear. Just Sandra and her music. She saved us, she really did. I think we would've just given up if it weren't for her.

Then something even more remarkable occurred. People started to join in. We spent the last week of our hiding singing and telling stories. By the time we were found after the end of the War, most of us were tired and sore, but we looked to our rescuers with hope.

I don't know if there is a God in the world or not, but Sandra is an angel regardless.

My understanding, however, is that it is neither. This is something not seen in game.

Extremely well done.

I believe this qualifies as a "Big Damn Hero" moment...

I apologize for the delay in updating, I have recently started my second year at Sheridan, and do not have as much time for writing as I had thought I would.

One option you could do is to take individual story ideas for each character.

For example, in a Weapons of the Gods game, my brother's playing a cursed warrior who's major plot point is that there's a very powerful ghost out to destroy his family. My friend is playing a "living natural disaster" and I'm playing a fox-spirit (who's major plot point is that there's a very powerful warrior out to destroy her species).

Nearly a month and a half over due, but without further delay, I present part three of World War Rikti

~~~
For the most part, the Rikti's target was that of the human race. But what of the members of the various other species who call Earth their home? Both Visitors from other planets and Travelers from other times and other realms found themselves in the middle of a war they did not predict. I met with one such being, who called himself Xylric. He spoke before I could ask my first question.

Before you say anything, let me make it perfectly clear that my involvement with the Rikti war is not something I am entirely proud of. Although I helped to defend this world and its people, it was not until its aftermath that I was allowed to consider it my home.

Apparently, in what you call the western world, dragons have long been feared and hunted. As my bloodline contains significant amounts of draconic blood, this prejudice crippled my ability to blend in with this world's society.

To your credit, however, unlike in my home realm, the inhabitants of this world are able to free themselves from preconcieved notions, and approach situations from different angles they would not normally consider. The humans of my home realm are also capable of such a feat, but not to the sheer level of audacity and resilience which you accomplish.

In conferring the pre-eminent biologists and scientists of your world as I attempted to learn as much as possible about my new home, I was constantly reminded that though humanity is in itself unremarkable compared to other species, it is by far the most adaptive species on any known world. For this you earned my respect.

Perhaps this is why the first Rikti invasion ultimately failed, and the second resulted in some enemies becoming friends.

I appreciate your sentiments about humanity, as it is not often we hear about how it is viewed by other species. Going back to the Rikti War, what would you say was the hardest thing you encountered about it?

Though I am quite capable of healing nearly any wound, it does not mean that I do not experience pain. Though I am not immortal in the truest sense of the term, the experience of dying several times over the course of a single day is not something I am particularily interested in repeating.

I will admit, however, the sentiment that whatever does not kill you (permanantly), will only make you stronger, is indeed true in my case.

Dying several times over the course of a single day? Surely things were never quite that bad.

He looked at me, but did not see me. It was as though he were looking through me into the past.

"Bad" would not be the term to describe it. Before I arrived in Paragon, I had spent many months exploring this world. When the Rikti attacked, I was in the nation you know as Japan. I often felt far more welcome in the East, due to how differently their mythology handled my species.

I have read up on the wars of your last century, and what I experienced over in Japan made me greatly appreciate the spirit that dwells strongly within your species, even if it leads to such horrific devices as your nuclear weapons.

The Japanese did more than earn my respect. In the few short days I fought alongside them, they earned my friendship and gratitude.

He gestures to the glass case mounted just behind him on the wall. Inside it was one of the most ornate blades I have ever seen.

To my understanding, blades such as this one are considered to be national treasures in Japan. The fact that they gifted one such as me, an outsider to their realm as well as to their world, with such a blade says much about the intensity with which we fought alongside each other.

As far as I know, Japan was not hit as hard by the Rikti invasion as many other places in the world.

This is true. I attribute this fact to the manner of their culture, but I have never seen any being fight in as such as a paradoxical manner as the Japanese melee experts. They were controlled, and yet completely unrestrained, unpredictable, yet completely fluid in their motion.

The hardest fight would likely have been Hokkaido. I was cut off from any communication at this point, because I took an energy blast from a Rikti cruiser that would've killed nearly anyone else. As far as I knew, everyone I had previously fought with had either been killed, captured or worse. I was in no shape to offer any resistance should the Rikti find me.

I was fortunate, as an old blind man who had heard my fall pulled me to safety inside a cave while Rikti drones flew overhead. It took me a few hours to completely heal, and by that time the area was filled with Rikti. I am not sure how many there actually were, but what happened that day will remain burned in my memory forever. The old man, despite my insistance that he'd be safer if hidden, went out of the cave to try to make contact with any allied forces in the area. Unfortunately, the Rikti found him first. He managed to take down a few when they attacked, but a normal human body is not capable of surviving such an assault.

Needless to say, the fact that I am sitting here talking to you now does well to explain what happened next. By the time allied forces reached my position, the Rikti has abandoned the area. Apparently, at the time, they feared magic, and upon seeing what unleashing Primal Chaos can do, many of them broke rank and fled.

I was later told that the old man had died years ago in that very cave, and that he remained in the area because the Kami, or whatever it was he was referring to, bid him to stay where he had died to help a fallen soul.

I do not know where that spirit has now gone to, but I am eternally grateful for his help, and gladly call him my first human friend.