Triplash

I'd like to take a second to thank you guys at Hero Dawn for hosting these costume contests each week. I couldn't make every one for different reasons, but I always wanted to, and when I did I always had fun. Obviously after going to the first couple I realized just how horribly my own costumes stank back then ... but seeing the amazing outfits that would gather there every week inspired me to want to look that good too. So I practiced. And I practiced. And I practiced. My first honorable mention seriously was an honor, then a while later I got another... and suddenly one night I actually won! Dual Core got first place in the Robot Rumble held behind the Talos Island tram! I was completely blindsided. It was such an awesome feeling, seeing all those great outfits around me while my little entry - which I thought for sure would be yet another flop - took the gold medal!

I think the best part though, was knowing that no matter how many times I lost it was always to a better outfit, and not just to someone's buddy or SGmate. I could see the quality on the winners plainly enough, you guys never showed any bias in your decisions. That part made it worth it to keep trying each week.

So thank you for a whole lot of fun sunday and monday nights!

And thank you for inspiring me to keep trying to make better outfits too! I think I managed to get okay at it, in the end...



So, yeah. I'm gonna be there at the blowout, you can count on it! If we're goin' out, let's go out stylin'.

Posi, man, your namesake character was such a central fixture in this game that I went and created an homage to him for a Halloween event a couple years back. And I loved the little guy so much that I just couldn't bear to delete him after the event was over. I never leveled him or played him much or anything... I just couldn't bear to erase him. He made me think of how much I liked the dev team who used some of these characters as their community nicknames.

If you're curious, his name is Paws-itron and he leads the Freem Phalanx. Together with his sidekick Valkyttie he battles against his archnemesis, an interdimensional version of himself called Anti-Catter, and his sidekick Beagle Maiden. When he's not saving the world and clicking on bombs, Pawsy likes to spend what little free time he gets on his personal space station. His favorite pastimes are researching prototype defense technologies, chasing laser pointer dots, and collecting bits of yarn.



If you don't mind too much, he's just gonna curl up by your feet in Steel for the big log out, kay? You won't even notice he's there... he's only level 4, he's grey to you.

Good luck with whatever project you take on next, Matt. And I promise this: if you help make it, I'll help play it.

Stay safe out there, hero!

1) Costume Creator: Over the years I've made characters ranging from a former marine to a robot sheriff, a street fighter to a luchadore wrestler, a golden age rocketgirl to a giant orc, a native american archer to a bombshell sorceress. All with the same set of costume options. And I was just starting to get good at it too... finally placing in some of Hero Dawn's weekly contests. Like my disco diva with the tigerstripe bellbottoms, and my martian commander who chose to take their goat creature as his prize. *sighs* Good times.

2) Soloability: I enjoy teaming, but RL causes me to afk a lot so I typically just end up going it alone. And while there are certain ATs that are better suited to that, none of them are impossible to solo. I mean one choice you'd think could never handle it, an Empathy Defender, is the one I had some of my most fun and success with! It just takes a bit of study to figure out how to approach the task, in some cases. Which is a big part of the fun.

3) The Feel of the Powers: The punches have good thumpy impacts, the slashes have good swishes and snikts, the zaps have good buzzes and booms. I can stand up to someone levels above me and feel confident that I can take this guy down. I can see a small platoon of enemies standing before me and know that they'll fall like the last one did. I would spend hours at a time super jumping, or flying, or ninja running, or coyote running, or panther running around the city, just cause I could. It was insanely fun just to zip around everywhere, looking after the city... my city.

4) Giant Monsters: 10 and 50 and 100 feet tall, some even bigger, imposing and awe-striking and glorious. Menacing robots, undead abominations, beastly mutations, the kind of fearsome creature that uses a car on a light pole for a weapon. We stood up to them all and said "No! It ends here." For years the biggest threat our world had ever known was a gigantic amoeba, and we liked it.

5) Stories: I have to admit, I probably only spent about a third of my time in combat, and I'd guess only about a quarter of that in any kind of missions. Most of my time was spent in the costume creator, the base, chatting with friends, hunting badges, taking silly screenshots, and running around the city enjoying the scenery. And most of my combat time was spent street sweeping... typically getting no further than Talos Island with it due to my rampant altitis.

But every story I ran was fun. Even the early starting ones that ended up getting replaced, they all had their good points. Peeking around corners to avoid getting ganked; panicking a little when two spawns were too close together; rabidly clicking inspirations and cheating death because of it. It was exciting. Most importantly they all felt like I was going out there and being a hero. Saving the hostage, stopping the bad guy, finding the artifact, defeating the ancient death god. That was me. And the first time I heard one of the citizens call out my name... wow. Just wow.

I didn't really know you, not as a player or as a redname. But you made the game I love a better place and that's good enough for me!

There was this one time though, a dev-run costume contest with an insect theme. (You told us all we weren't bugs to you, we were features. HA! that cracked me up ) Well, you completely passed by my outfit without looking twice. And rightly so, that outfit sucked. Good call.

Anyway, good luck with whatever you move onto next, man. And stay safe out there, hero!

About the only time I've seen you ingame was betas and maybe a costume contest here or there. If you ever remember just standing around on the beta server, minding your own business, when out of nowhere a cookie came flying at you... that was most likely me

Except this one time. Back when Night Ward was just put onto beta I mentioned to you that I really liked the floating lanterns, and you told me I should check out the Westerman building cause they go all the way up the giant tentacle. That was really unexpected to me, that someone in QA would be impressed with a pretty minor background decoration. Thanks for that... it told me that this game could even be impressive to someone who'd seen every inch of it a bajillion times. Thank you also for all the hard work you've put in bug-catching, trust me when I say we appreciated it!

In the meantime, I never did go check out that tentacle. It was late and I was tired and I went to bed instead. And I just didn't get around to going to Night Ward after (so many things to do!). So in your honor man, one of my characters will be at that giant tentacle for Lights Out. .....just not yet. I still have to finish the First Ward and Night Ward arcs first

Good luck with whatever you do next, man. And stay safe out there, hero!

Stan and Lou!

I first heard about these guys a couple months ago... I sat down and watched every episode in two sittings. Loved it to pieces.

In this spirit, I'd like to post the links to Mental Maden's AE Babies videos:

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/4387...bies-episode-1

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/2415...bies-episode-2

First of all, congratulations on the engagement! That's great news!

Secondly, you should be proud of Dark Astoria. I ran some of those arcs to death - err, I mean to defeat - and they never once got old. And I hate doing the same thing over and over again, so that's saying something.

Thirdly (and "fourthly" sounds kinda stupid so I'll have to stop here): Thank you. I love the stories in this game. Yeah, even the early ones that were really showing their age... they had spirit, y'know? And that spirit, that heart, was kept throughout most of the stories that I ever played through. In the end I didn't get to play them all... I was too much of a costume junkie and a street sweeper. I think I'll go down through my Ouro list and tick off a few more before I go, though. To honor yourself and the other story writers the game has had over the years.

What I'm trying to say is, thanks for bringing such talent and imagination to one of my favorite parts of this great game. I wish you the best of luck in whatever you do next, Sean. And if I ever hear your name attached to a project, I'ma be up in that thing's grill like a fire tanker in a monkey farm.

Stay safe out there, hero!

No really, thank you. The FX in this game are pure awesome, and anyone responsible for even a few of them is completely awesome as well. Not to mention very talented. And the same goes for Honey Badger... tell him we know he cared, it showed plenty.

Keetsie, I wish you and Leo the best of luck wherever you end up next. And if I ever hear either of your names on a project in the future, I'll be checking it out immediately.

Stay safe out there, hero!

Absolute truth here, yep. I'm sure others before you did great work as well, but I wasn't following things like this back then. But you two... the blaster changes alone... well this just about sums it up:

Between the snipe changes,



and the nuke changes,



plus Mortal Kombat...



... err, I mean Martial Combat...



and the new Sustain feature,



Blasters were all set to go from



to

.


I was predicting a few

,

and a whole bunch of

,

and just a general overall feeling of

.


Unfortunately, through none of our faults, now we're all

.


But Phil and Jeff, please know that every time I heard about an upcoming change or new powerset, I would think about who was running that part of the show, and I would always end up feeling like you guys had everything under control.

So thank you to both of you for all the time and effort you've put into making this the coolest game I've ever played. Good luck to you both wherever you end up next, and if I ever hear you're involved in a project, I'll be checking it out pronto.

Stay safe out there, heroes!

I'd also like to say thank you to the current development and community teams, and to all the ones that came before I started whose names I only heard in passing. Without each and every one of you this game wouldn't have been as enormously awesome as it has been. Yeah, even you Skippy Sidekick. No scratch that... that goes double for someone who's willing to let his official name be "Skippy Sidekick".

- Thank you for the countless hours of enjoyment beating up fearsome foes and giant monsters.
- Thank you for the countless hours of distraction from real life stuff that sucked monumentally.
- Thank you for having multiple varieties of giant robots. Those are always frickin' cool.
- Thank you for inspiring the players to make things as solid and cool as Mids, Vidiotmaps, and ParagonWiki (among others).
- Thank you for inspiring Steelclaw to make all those lists.
- Thank you for almost exclusively attracting the type of players that I'm more than happy to talk to and spend time around.
- Thank you for the players I've met here that I've since become good and lasting friends with.
- Thank you for a game where I could be around whole crowds of other people and still play on my own when I needed to.
- Thank you for not making me need hardcore skills to get ahead or have fun. Cause I don't have those. Seriously, not a one.
- Thank you for a game where a costume contest can be both a challenge and a joy.
- Thank you for inspiring me to actually post on forums. That was out of the question for me once upon a time; too shy.
- Thank you specifically to Avatea for my complete and utter inability to say "purple" anymore. I can now only pronounce it "puh-pull".

But most of all... and I mean this from the bottom of my heart... Thank you for letting me be a hero. Even if it was only for a while.

I wish all of you the best wherever you end up next. And if you do somehow let us know where that is, I'll be sure and check out those projects. Cause hey, it'll already have a big advantage by having one of you guys on it.

Stay safe out there, heroes! Hoorb!

*runs off to take screenshots of his base and all his costumes*

Yeah, same goes for me. Two days into the trial I knew I'd be here pretty much till the servers went down, and three and a half years later I've still enjoyed every minute played - even the frustrating ones - and every dollar spent. That's... *does some math*... seven times longer than I've ever played any game before. So thanks for that. I appreciate it.

Triplash tosses Paragon Studios a fortune cookie.

These came with the Atlas revamp:

- Worried Citizen: I dropped a twenty and the wind blew it away. When are you police going to do something about the wind around here?

- Reporter: Can you describe the meteors?