The Masked Shrike

I did finally manage to get to 1000 a few months back. Goodbye, badges, I had a lot of fun collecting you!

This was also my 1000th post, oddly enough.

Namárië!

Keep 'em flyin'!

Holy cats! Love the Soul Train, she is one of my favorites. Great image. Firebrandi is also looking good.

It sure has been a while! But I can't say goodbye to CoH without posting art one last time. In honor of my husband, who just moved here to the USA at last, I'll post these brand new pieces he had done for us.

These are both by the extremely talented Yale Stewart, creator of the strip JL8.





Good night, and good luck.

Congratulations, you two! Er, three

Thanks for being a friend and CoH mentor, MP. I wish the best for you and your family.

I'll be on Virtue, hanging out with my husband and friends and SG-mates. We will just have made it back to the States after his transPacific move.

As for which character, it is a tough call. I'd like to be there on the Shrike, my first MMO character ever. But I will likely be logged in on PinUp Girl so she can be with her husband as the lights go out.

There is some swell art on this thread. Man, I am going to miss the CoH art community. I may have to jump on one or two of these CoH art sales.

I hope to see some of you folks in other art communities for other games...

Just wanted to say congratulations!

I met my husband on Virtue. Our characters got married before we did. We had a couple of CoH friends travel Down Under for the wedding, too. My husband just had his visa interview the other day, and the consular official thought our story was cool. He said he wished he had a character so he could give us our approval notice in-game.

We planned to keep playing for a long time to come, and we're still shocked over this whole thing.

The Masked Shrike: lvl 50 Inv/EM tank. The Shrike has been around since a pen and paper game in the 90s. She has been through many iterations since then, but the CoH version brought me a lot of joy. She was my first MMO character ever, and I created her on Victory to play with RL friends. She led me to meet new friends--some strange fellow sent me a tell as I gawked at all the heroes in Atlas Park. He said he liked the character concept and her bio. Then he swept me off and took me under his wing--his name was Wingman, and he is still a friend to this day. He introduced me to some other great folks, such as Madame Pistacio. Shrikey brought me lots of great playing, RPing, and some fun art, too (including this one by Doug Shuler):



PinUp Girl: lvl 50 Dual Blades/WP scrapper. My friend Wingman suggested that I join him over on Virtue as there was this great SG there, the Gods of the Golden Age. I hadn't been playing for a while, but I had a concept I wanted to make, and as Dual Blades was new, PinUp Girl was born. Shortly after she came into being, I dropped by the Golden Age Festival, and met another new hero named Proud Citizen. We both joined the GGA, made a lot of friends, had a lot of good times, and after a while, PinUp and PC got married in-game. Then a while later, we got married in Real Life. Without CoH, the GGA, PinUp Girl, and my Paragon City friends, I would have never met the Aussie love of my life. I also got some great art featuring PinUp, including this lovely gift from EvilMark aka Foo:



The Scarlet Specter: lvl 50 Illusion/Emp controller. Back on Victory, Madame Pistacio kindly invited me into her SG, CHRYSALIS, and I decided to make a new character just for that purpose. I took an old pen and paper concept and created her as the Scarlet Specter, the spirit of a murdered woman returned to a city that had forgotten her. Madame Pistacio showed me the ropes of CoH and took Scarlet out for more teaming than I have ever done, TFs and trials and all sorts of things. She even talked me into joining the PA Drop Team for Hami raids, and boy, did I have fun on those. It was great hanging out and chatting with other illusionists while mayhem happened below. I loved those old Hami raids. Scarlet was my badge collector, and she had a lot of badges! But side-switching, Master Of stuff and Incarnates ended my interest in badges. Still, I had a lot of good fun collecting them, and meeting fellow badgers. I even helped run a PVP badge farm for a while. Yay badges! Here she is, along with art by Graver:



I ended up with two other level 50s, Ms. Afterburner (Fire/Rad controller) and Victory Gardener (Plant/Thermal controller). But these three are my favorites. Here is one last bit of art by Joseph Caesar, featuring the three of them along with Ms. Afterburner, fighting the Fifth Column.

Congratulations, and I hope your honeymoon is a wonderful one! As another player who found 'the one' here in CoH, I wish the two of you every happiness in your life together.

It's difficult to face saying goodbye to this game that has given us so much, but I think it says a lot that so many romances, marriages and friendships have begun here. It's not just a game. It's much more than that.

I haven't been around much the past year or so, but I always planned to return once Real Life settled down, and I could get back to commissioning art. I have had so much fun being part of this community--I met some new friends, saw some great art, and just enjoyed the heck out of it all.

Thank you all for being such a great bunch of people.

I play LotRO, SWtOR, Secret World, and occasionally dabble in CO. We are tentatively discussing moving our superhero operations to CO now.

Dang, I'm still gobsmacked by this and can't really believe it. Dang.

It was my first, too. I remember standing around Atlas just watching other characters zooming around, amazed...and then got a tell complimenting me on my character bio. That led to a conversation, and then suddenly I was being taken on a tour and under the wing of a fellow who showed me the ropes. He is still a good friend today, whom I have visited in RL, and who attended my wedding. I know I will never have that feeling of amazement in another MMO.

Very interesting article, Slick, thanks. I have been ready to buy these since forever. And I want to buy a bunch of them.

I may reroll my old 'water' (energy/energy) blaster, Hydrodynamica, as a real water blaster. Her name is taken from an Bernoulli's treatise on fluid mechanics.

Today's trivia: the princess hat is also known as a hennin.

Brought to you by my years of SCA membership.

On Virtue, I've been surprised to get: PinUp Girl, Tex Arcanum, Waltzing Matilda, Circuit Rider, Rainbow Serpent, Oriflamme, General Dynamics, and Auntie Artillery.

Gotta add it here because it always needs to be said: Pulp
Jodhpurs! I will never not want them.
30s-40s hairstyles for men and women--Victory Rolls! Marcelled hair! Veronica Lake wave!
More hats--women's hats: cloche hat, fascinator, etc.
Pith helmet
Sam Browne belt
Holsters!
Jewelry
Bomber jacket (with shearling) is a great idea as per Vyver above
Tailored jackets for men and women--big shoulders a la Joan Crawford, zoot suits, peplum jacket, big lapels
Realistic textures, leather and cloth
Double breasted trenchcoat

Also, there's a badge (A Nemesis Plot? is the name, I think) for those who enjoy collecting badges. I believe it is awarded for defeating the GM version of Nemesis.

I had a fun time getting into the thick of the fight, but I always enjoy invasion events like this.