Tir_McDohl

I'm still up for this. Hell, I even made a character based on an npc from that AE arc from way back then who hit 50 the other day. That's in addition to the character I originally had for this idea.

Give me a time and place and I'll try to show up.

Would you kindly pick up that shortwave radio?

I'm afraid this particular SG never actually came together. We tried to have a meet-up in-game and there were exactly two people there. It just sort of fell apart and went unmentioned since October.

If there's interest in bringing this idea back, or even another like-themed SG that's taking on members, I've still got my existing character as well as a dual pistols defender I've been waiting for.

Just an idea I had while on my energy blaster (god knows I love it too much). Oddly enough, I actually wasn't the one causing issues for the tank (I use walls to good effect, etc), but someone else apparently was. On a side note, power customization is a great way to show that your blasts are NOT the ones causing issues. Anyway, while people were whining about enemies flying every which direction, a thought occurred to me. What if the taunt effect gave knockback resistance to enemies?

Now I'll admit this was just a random idea, but I couldn't think of any real bad sides to it. Of course, I figure a forum is the perfect place to find that empty half of the glass, so let the idea have it. Heck, feel free to yell at me that it's been said a million times.

A few points to get started:

-If an enemy is currently taunted, it's not likely that it would ever be a good idea to send it flying away, right?
-Thematically, it could either represent the enemy being so focused on attacking the taunter that they can resist being knocked off their feet. Or perhaps the taunter is physically restraining them and keeping them from flying off.
-Would this interfere with knockdown effects such as ice slick? That could well be a dealbreaker in itself. It'd still be useful for dealing with surplus enemies that can't attack the tank, but it's a major potential nerf for a really useful power.
-Knockback is a great control method for blasting something off someone who shouldn't be getting hit. These situations rarely involve the enemy being taunted, so it shouldn't be affected...right?

Anyway, I tried to see if this was suggested before and didn't see it. I'm awful at searching, though. I realize knockback can be dealt with using decent tactics and just plain common sense, but the main thing about this game I always loved is that you can play it with pickup groups without too much trouble. This could very well cut down on both the warranted complaints as well as the complainers who scream if something so much as falls off his feet.

Thoughts?

Kind of sad, really. None of my characters ever seem to take flight with others so much as they do within my own mind. As such, I just bottle all of them up and use them later as inspirations for other endeavors. Such as tabletop RPG storylines.

Not really all that bad, though. If I were only in it for impressing others, well, I'd have stopped playing this game a long time ago.

Long story short, most MMO-based RP characters are like snowflakes. They're beautiful and unique...and immediately melt when they touch anything else.

From what I remember (it was years ago when I read that novel and water damage destroyed it), Pandora's Box is credited with the origin of many modern superpowers in various forms. It's the primary reason why superheroes only really started appearing around the same time as Statesman and Recluse. I don't remember the specifics of it being opened, however.

Also of note is that the furies mentioned Paragon City itself being on a leyline of fate of some sort, which is why so many powerful individuals gather there.

Again, it's been years since I read it, so if someone still has an in-tact copy or has read it recently, feel free to correct me here.

I think a lot of this can be traced back to Ye Olde Tabletop (which isn't so Ye or Olde to those who still do it every Wednesday night). Every group always had That Guy. You know, That Guy who was determined to stay in character no matter what. Of course, some groups had That Guy who was the only one who didn't. Either way, lulz can be had by all.

A good solid in-character joke can cause OOC laughs. That's just plain universal. When Metal Dream starts going on about having relations with drying machines and gas pumps, a good hearty "LOL" isn't going to break the atmosphere any more than a guy spitting out his Mt Dew at the gaming table will undo the comic effect of tavern antics in a D&D game. I've noticed a lot of people will make OOC comments about IC behavior without being negative about it. Yes, even the dreaded un-bracketed OOC comments that some people are damn determined to avoid.

I think overall, for better or worse, Virtue's culture is that of roleplaying. Just as every Chinese person doesn't know kung fu (at least, that's what they -claim-), not every Virtue player roleplays. But it's sort of our thing. Not every American likes baseball or "American" football, but it's pretty much accepted to be normal. If it's downright offensive to someone that a teammate is talking as if the events happening are real, then what are they doing on Virtue? Sure, you don't have to roleplay, but it's common enough (even if it's just casual in-character dialogue) that any offense is just silly.

So yes, I do blurt out things in character. I'm definitely not a hardcore roleplayer by any means. My plant controller discussed the hazards of growing catnip with another plant controller. There were maybe only three people in character in the entire group, but those other five didn't mind a bit. For the most part, it's seen as adding color to the game's atmosphere in the same way NPCs do. Except you can interact with players.

That said, I avoid brackets unless there's a lot of in-character dialogue going on and I have to say something that absolutely have to be OOC. If I'm drunk, then guess what? My character's probably drunk too (except the robots; they're just malfunctioning). 90% of what I say can be construed as either IC or OOC. Once people start flat out emoting and whatnot, then sure, we're in full on IC mode. Otherwise, I'll be pissed just as much as my character if the tanker's a moron or if we're splitting up. There's no need to broadcast that my character does not necessarily think the exact same thing that I do by putting giant bent phallic symbols all over my text.

Ok, this just got TL;DR even to myself. So here's a summary. It's an RPG, people. It won't kill you to suspend disbelief and talk like a superhero now and then. The kids love it!

I technically started on Freedom since the person who got me into this game was there. After two weeks, I curiously made a character on Virtue. I don't think I ever logged back onto Freedom since.

Welcome to how the game's supposed to be played.

Warning: Do NOT take my post seriously. Very drunk. That said...

MRP: I like torture. Pierce me, stab me, burn me with a cigarette, and call me an iguana. I likes it.

ERP: Don't pick up anything off the floor while I'm around.

PBAHWIHSISA: Played By Adolph Hitler While in Hiding Somewhere in South America.

wwwwwwwwwww: I'm an idiot who was trying to run forward while writing a bio.

I never was a gigantic Dr Who fan until a few years ago. Sure, I'd seen them here and there (even the black and white ones), but I never got into it. Well I got into it when I started watching Fourth Doctor runs on PBS at midnight on Saturdays. Sure, it was mostly because I was too drunk to move properly without vomiting (Saturday was when I had people over for drinking), but something about it just started clicking. This was some seriously good stuff. With all those years of unwatched Dr Who, I had all sorts of "If I haven't seen it, it's new to me!" episodes.

Well, it didn't take long until I started watching the new stuff on BBC America. I started watching those right around when the whole Bad Wolf thing made its first real bombshells. Freakin' great stuff. I wasn't so sure about this spiky haired goofball who became the Doctor, though. He looked...odd.

Then I actually saw his episodes. Everything that struck me about the Fourth Doctor's oddities started resurfacing. Sure, he didn't look quite as strange as Tom Baker, but he acted every bit as erratic and was genuinely entertaining to watch. Not a second with David Tennant on screen felt like it was wasted. I could watch this Doctor do just about anything.

Well, long story short, the Tenth Doctor became one of my favorites. If you put a gun to my head I'd say he's my second favorite with the Fourth being in first, but hindsight may actually prove him to be my favorite. Just enough references to the old stuff (Water of Mars had him say he hated "funny" robots except for dogs comes to mind) and plenty of fresh material (The Doctor in love? The Time Lord Victorious? Holy crap!) made him a great addition. Even his companions were memorable, which I personally thought was a lackluster element to some incarnations.

So, in the end, thanks David. You'll be missed and I promise to try my hardest to hate at least the first three episodes of the new guy.

Depending on the type of cyborg he is, he might still have a human brain. If you're going for a Grimm-like character in theme as well as attitude, then it might be good to give him a healthy touch of humanity with a nice pink fleshy brain. It'd be a neat point to roleplay since he'd likely be conflicted with just how human he is (another theme the Thing dealt with a lot) as well as his humanity serving as a major weakness (psionics if you go with invul).

Of course, as someone who has a ton of android characters, I run into the psionic weakness constantly. It's not much of a stretch that psionics could interfere with a robotic brain, given that telekinetics could very easily throw a monkey wrench into something mechanical.

I love energy blasts. I have several characters with it, and my main is energy/energy. It's not anywhere NEAR as bad as crybabies say it is. The only complainers are the ones who don't understand where to bring mobs of enemies or to at least bring some controllers. Besides, this is supposed to be an action-oriented MMO. Those scrappers should be running after those bowled-over enemies. If you've got energy to type, you've got energy to run.

And no, that character's fine. Just be sure to color your AoEs (when you get them) as bright as possible so you blind every whiny melee character you ever team with. Those losers.

My "main" (who I don't play enough of, funny enough) Metal Dream typically falls under this. Think Deadpool mixed with Megaman and HK-47. Yeah, there you go. Silly doesn't even really begin to cover it.

The problem with random spontaneous stuff like this is that it's, by its very nature, incredibly hard to find.

Tricky question, really. I'm sure there's plenty of groups who'd have no problem having you with them. The problem is that you have to wade through the plethora of bad ones out there. Some take things too seriously, some take things too lightly, some are too drunk, some are too sober, etc.

Just sit in Atlas Park for a while and watch the broadcast. You'll probably see a bunch of SG advertisements (Steel Canyon also has a healthy(?) amount of these). Look for one that seems to have been written by someone with a functioning brain and advertises the playstyle you want. Roleplayers never mind new blood (unless they're the roleplayers who aren't really people, but faces that I still need to punch), so watch for the advertisements that look something like this.

"Greetings heroes! The Pantheon of Lawful Good Tighty-Whiteys cordially invites you to partake in the most heroic of heroism and heroics! ((blahblahblahblah bunch of out of character stuff goes here, mostly talking about ventrillo servers or how big their di-err, base is, how many suckers they have in their group, etc etc))"

Basically, the (( )) marks are your clue that the person is a roleplayer, because only a roleplayer announces to the world that he's NOT roleplaying. It's sort of like they're playing the role of someone NOT playing a role. ...yeah.

Ok, I'll stop writing now. I apologize for all this. I have a fever and I swear I'm not actually insane.

Ok, first things first. No green. Seriously. Do not wear the color green. It's only a few shades of it, but it's hard to tell sometimes. The safe thing to do is just not wear anything REMOTELY green. Why, you ask? All will be well and good, but at level 45, the game will detect whether at any time in your character's career you wore something green. A 50 foot leprechaun will then spawn in whatever zone you're in, rampaging its way towards you and killing anyone in its way, following you wherever you go (even into other dimensions!) and delete your character.

...nah, that's a joke. No, really! I swear!

Seriously though, there's a quite a few nuances in the game that you're sure to miss no matter how many people give you advice. The important thing to remember is that it's fairly easy to change your chosen attacks/powers later on, so feel free to experiment. However, do note that your power SETS are permanent for each character (like if you have fire blasts or super strength, etc). Don't worry about picking a "bad" combination of power sets. It's almost impossible to get a combination that outright doesn't work well in some way. If you have a concept you want to play as (weather-themed, fire-based, etc), go for it; it'll probably work just fine.

At level 6 you gain access to new power pools that ARE resettable. You are free to pick from those power sets, but be aware they tend to be markedly less useful than your "core" powers that you picked at selection. There's a few solid choices however, that many will say you "need" but others will argue to the death that they're not required.

The fitness pool is probably the main one most people pick. The stamina ability (which requires you to have taken two powers in the pool already and be level 20+) is VERY VERY useful if you find yourself running out of endurance (this is normal, especially if you're still learning). The speed pool has one power called "haste." That one's pretty popular, too. First aid is probably somewhere behind those two.

Also important to note, healers typically have a difficult time healing THEMSELVES. Many of the best healing abilities are only usable on other people, so by all means, it's usually relatively safe for you to take that hit instead of the healer.

Another easy tip is to be sure to read all those pop up messages you get during your first few characters. They're chock full of information. Failing that, this is one of the friendliest MMOs I've ever seen, so feel free to ask people questions. It helps to ask permission before launching 10 questions at someone, though.

I'm sure a plethora of others will be along with actual links and helpful suggestions, so don't think this is all the help you'll get. I just figured I'd drop in with a few things I wish someone had told ME the first time I played.

...no, really, don't wear green.

Well according to the novels (may they rest in peace), Paragon City is some sort of natural leyline of fate where practically all things come together. It makes perfect sense for refugees of time and space to find their way there eventually. Why else would one city have so many aliens, gods, demons, angels, time travellers, geniuses, etc?

The real trick will be maintaining the steampunk tech level. Why wouldn't my automation get himself an upgrade or five from Positron while in this world? Maybe we don't fully trust this new concrete and glass jungle we've found ourselves in. Though we would probably accept limited assistance in rebuilding our fallen zep, we'd probably also insist on doing some sort of work for the city to ensure that there's no sense of our being indebted to this world. That'd be a good reason as to why we're out there patrolling with the rest of the pastel-colored spandex-wearing freaks.

The trick is to think of each problem as potential for story telling, really.

Sounds like a solid backstory, though it makes it difficult to explain late-comers. My arc left a sort of revolving door for that reason, though it was suggested I change it to more of a stranded spin. Not a huge problem of course, since it's highly likely that crazy dimension-shifting stuff happens all the time when you get to a certain point of mad science.

Even if late-comers don't "arrive" on it, the wrecked zep can serve as a symbol of home for those stranded and eventually as a base when/if it gets repaired.

Hopefully I'll be able to be on for the launch (or is it a crash?).

The way I see it, MA is a lot like a tabletop session. Sure, everyone would like to get exp and gain levels, but it all takes a back seat to whether or not the session/arc is enjoyable or not. It's always a good sign when a player suddenly goes "Uh, have we figured how much exp the last three sessions were worth?" and everyone at the table goes "Oh, wow, I totally forgot!"

Of course, I have awesome tabletop players who care more about the story/adventure than the phat lewt. It no doubt goes this way with AE as well, since having the right/wrong people involved in anything rp-related will make or break the entire experience.

What I can say is that in my 10 years of MMOs, I'd have killed people in cold blood to get something like AE in any of the games I played. It might not be Neverwinter Nights level customization, but it's damn good for this type of game. Now that the farming crowd is leaving it alone, I just hope people eventually accept it more as a legitimate part of the game.

Saturday's good with me. I tend to have a weekly get together in RL those nights, but I spent half of it sitting next to the computer anyway, so if nothing else I can at least log in and help get things started.

Also I've been getting feedback about that arc, so if you've played it and had issues or gripes, feel free to let me know so I can do as much as I can to get it as solid as possible by the time the SG's actually going. Of course, half the problem is that the AE creator itself has some sizable bugs right now which made me painfully aware of problems that I just plain couldn't figure out how to fix. I did manage to workaround enough to get at least the idea in there, though.

And before anyone can ask how bees can possibly hurt something like a robot, here's a demonstration with the most famous robot ever.

Ok, this was meant to be done sometime Thursday, but multiple problems caused repeated delays. And apparently since AE isn't affected by the double exp due to a bug, it doesn't matter too much anyway...

That's right, I made an AE arc. Consider it to be a potential introduction for some characters if you want to do the "other world" angle. The intention of the arc is to serve as both a new character arc as well as an origin tale that would bring someone from a Steampunk world to Paragon City. A few things didn't go as I hoped (mostly due to current bugs with level ranges and hybrid custom/standard groups), but I think it turned out well. When the SG gets formed, I'd be more than willing to customize it to include whatever lore/canon we decide upon, or I can leave it vague and have it meant simply as an alternate generic point of origin for characters.

If anyone wants to run it as a group, hit me up. It's geared so that it's soloable though, so don't think you have to raise an army.

Arc Number 336788, "The Steamworks Begin"

Let me know what you think; it's completely up for changes/revamps.

I woke up maybe twenty seconds ago with the name Mobius on my mind (I sleep next to a laptop). So while it might seem appropriate to me now, it very well might be horrible. Sure, it could be chalked up to the fact I spent a few hours playing Ace Combat 6 last night (though Mobius was from 04), or the fact that I've spent a combined total of entirely too much Legacy of Kain, but the concept of a Mobius strip might serve us well.

Basically, a Mobius strip is a simple ribbon that has a single twist built into it so that, as Wikipedia puts it, an ant can travel the entire surface of the strip (both sides) without ever crossing an edge. It has been used before to symbolize a slip in time or simply an alternative to an Ouroboros (hey, time travel AND a Nemesis reference in one!). It could be borrowed for its concept of being a loop that's just a little different, sort of like the concept of Victorian Steampunk itself.

You could really call it anything, but I figure we should go for broke and make it absolutely clear that the SG's not from the 21st century and give it an outdated feel by flat out calling it a Gentlemen's Club right in the title. Depending on just how Victorian we make this, there actually could be an element of "sophisticated sexism" to it, though we all know full well there's a good chance over half the characters could wind up being female.

Just random ideas spewing out of someone who isn't even half awake yet.

Just as a random possibility, don't forget that we have an entire corporation right in Paragon devoted to seeking out alternate universes. It's not hard to say the SG's origins are from a vic/steam oriented universe with alternate technology/magic progression.

Maybe even stress calling certain things other names, just to give the sense of a pre-existing culture. You know, the whole "magic is science" thing with some random references to what the real world disproved (aether, etc) having actually been proven RIGHT in ours. At least, that's how most of these sorts of things go.

A fun way to look at it is how GURPS puts it. Rather than flat out saying Steampunk is Tech Level 5, which is cited as being 1730-1880, it says it's TL 5+1...which means it STARTS at 5 (using steam engines, direct current, etc) but actually functions similarly to 6, simply with DIFFERENT technology. So while cars may exist in a normal TL6 world, they might not in TL5+1. But really, who wants to ride in a car when you have awesome tweaked out airships?

As a result, culture itself can be VERY divergent in a setting like that, meaning that culture is far more oriented around Victorian age customs, style, mindsets, etc.

Of course, there's evidence in CoH that there was already a stronger than average Victorian age in the core setting, mostly evidenced by what history is told about the Carnival of Shadows, Nemesis, etc. Of course, there was also a bit of a beefing up back in Rome, but that didn't seem to change things much... Really, it comes down to how different you want the SG to be. There's room in the CoH world for a mass time travel or hidden organization from the past, but there's just as much room for an entirely different world with an alternate history.

First thing that comes to mind is a mastermind with punks/poison, to represent a street gang being "hive'd" by some sort of weird mutant.

Another thought, more akin to what you were thinking, is energy blasts if you can get the little "particles" in the blasts colored black, as if it were a bunch of bees. Maybe radiation can do it better, and has the bonus of the debuffs being "Oh god what is that!? No! Not the bees!!!" and spreading to whoever's near them.