tpull

You learn something new every day. Entry 14 has a few redundant passages at the top, but there's a time limit to allowing you to edit your posts. Ah well.

Entry 16

Brickstown is a good place for Martial Master. Nice open areas, and a plethora of villain choices to combat, in varying numbers. I stumble onto Serafina, the Magic store contact, which is perfect, since that's my Origin. Another source for missions, great! I seek out all the other store contacts. Who cares whether I can buy or sell stuff there later (although that does come in handy), these NPCs are the best source of flavor to the game at this level. There is a ton of potential here to revisit these contacts for more missions. Maybe if you complete the missions, they could award you a higher enhancement, like in story arcs, or they will ‘unlock' higher levels of enhancements for you to buy. Heck, I'd settle for just more missions from them, their backgrounds and potential are better than that of our regular contacts. As I bounce back and forth between Brickstown and Founder's Falls, I start working on earning my badges a little bit.

The new map tiles are great. After such dreariness of underground caves (sometimes in the middle of Perez Park, no less!), I can appreciate the neat graphics of 5th caves and Oranbega. Although some 5th caves with the water bay area really slow down my system, maybe because it takes serious computing power to render the graphics, I'm guessing. I remember the first time I saw a Lab map in the Positron task force, and thinking how neat it was, and how I would use elements from that to design my own super group base when the time came. Now I'm torn between 5th caves, the laboratory setting, and Oranbega. Maybe they'll design things so we will be able to incorporate elements from whichever style we want (but the end product may look cheesy if that happens). Lost count of how many times I got stuck on the candle holders in Oranbega, though. I spend a long time with Tallrick trying to find a final mob in a massive Oranbega cave, and get the idea to petition it. A GM tells me it's bugged, and fixes it quickly. This starts a habit of my petitioning more often when I can't find something. Half the time it's bugged, half the time I just missed it. One time the GM has to enter my Freak mission, and he shows up as a police drone! I had never seen that before, the GM hadn't needed to enter one of my missions. The Devs are highly responsive, and seem to have a good reputation for doing a better job than that of other games, from what I can tell with in-game conversations with other-MMORG veterans. Overall, the bugs aren't too bad as you go higher in level. Nowhere near the nightmares of Exemplaring to task forces and the Hollows server crashes. Ah, good times...

Each time I get a CoT mission, I'm hoping for some good enhancements, but by my measure, I do not receive nearly enough good usable Magic-based enhancements from these guys. Looking around the map, I send a tell to one of my buddies asking if there's anything good behind the Magical Barriers. He laughs and tells me those are the equivalent of the 5th's prison cells. Neat! I've never been knocked out and woken up in one of those yet. Maybe on an alt...

Which brings up another idea for an Event. If the Devs want to, they could add special mission contacts for a weekend, with all of the villain groups buying 5th technology to override the transporters, and going to the hospital would be unavailable for a weekend. Granted, people who don't read the boards or announcements might be taken by surprise, but is one weekend of "forced grouping" for a mission or two out of the whole year so bad? Hmm, I must be liking the team-up aspect of the game more these days to be thinking like that. There could be a temporary Event-ending raid to tackle the teleport-blocking equipment, hosted somewhere in Faultline or Boomtown, since those areas are so big and much of the areas are barren of heroes for the most part.

I'm also learning to anticipate the Freakshow Rez, as I like to call it. It's like a dance of sorts when you're solo. I put down everyone, low on health, pant, pant... hey! Stay down! And they said Cobra Strike was useless. I learn to enjoy it more when I see I earn xp for taking them down a second time; start to linger around their bodies in Bricks a little bit just to see if they want some more of Martial Master. Cool power for bad guys to have.

The Devouring Earth (DE) are interesting, and Boulders and some of the others are just plain fun for me, due to their vulnerability to smashing damage. The first time I'm caught in a Quartz drop, it quickly turns into a "Martial Master has dropped to the ground." I read the description, and learn to target whatever is on the ground first! I'll Dragon Tail everyone, then use Focus Chi to pummel it into nonexistence, whether it's a Fungi, a Quartz, or a Cairn. Teaming is actually harder than at the lower levels. One person joins my team, but quits because he says he detests the DE. I am left nonplused, thinking that was very unheroic of him. I would never pass up a mission just because the opposition was a little challenging. There are a lot of irritating elements to opponents, whether it's Swarms or Caltrops, but usually the source of the irritation is, in large part, precisely because it takes a little extra effort to beat them. I rethink it in less than a minute and shrug it off, because obviously it is such a pain for the guy, it makes the game no fun for him. And fun is what we're all about, so I assume he's not really a coward, just someone who wants to maximize his personal fun, and DE gives him a headache. Me, I buckle down and resolve to complete my current mission, even if I have to do it solo. I note I'm still spending more time solo, mainly as a default, even though I like teaming now. Part of that is because I'm playing late, and there seems to be few people online. On the weekends, I tend to team more.

I see an occasional hero with weird-looking names, and quite often it's because they mis-spelled it. I am so glad I did not mis-spell my hero's name at the beginning of the character design process. If I hadn't been careful, I would be known as the Marital Master. Gah!

[ QUOTE ]
"And Jack wiggles his foot at evil"

[/ QUOTE ]

lol
That's priceless. I feel a fanfiction story coming on...

Thank you, Kanina!

Entry 15

The Battle Cry of Martial Master is "Time to get Freaky!" It was originally "For Freedom!" based on trying to play Freedom Force (not as much fun by the time you're trying to control four characters at once), but I'm getting to Brickstown at this point, and Freaks are everywhere. And not just my fellow heroes either, there are a lot of villain Freaks as well. The tagline stays, since new teammates tend to have fun with the phrase, and how they choose to respond to it. It is very important for each character to have a good tagline. Who can forget "Up, up, and away!" "Here I come to save the day!" "Whatchu talkin' ‘bout, Willis?" This is arguably more important than having a character description. (I try to fit my journal in the character description, but it doesn't... quite... fit...).

There are several aspects of the game that I am learning to use for my own benefit at this point. I have downloaded the Test Server and tried a few of the powers before training up, and quickly found that I didn't like Crippling Axe Kick; the animation time was a little too long (and the effect didn't really match the impressive-sounding name!). Key bindings are starting to come in handy as well, and I am always making notes to study this more. My favorite is using the ‘g' key to auto-follow the nearest enemy. Specific characters I have make specific comments quite frequently, so I start hot-keying letters on my keyboard to phrases like (sing along if these sound familiar, it means you've teamed with me before):

all tanks to the front!
here we go
next floor, men's toys and women's lingerie

and some raided from the boards that I found amusing:

Why do villains hide out in sewers ?
Cause in Sewers, No Once Can Smell You &#%$ Yourself
How many embalmed cadavers does it take to screw a lightb... *BOOM*
Q: How does a Mad Freak Slammer go to the bathroom?
A: Very carefully.

However, once in a while I would hit a wrong key, and instead of going into auto-run, I would say a phrase that might be inappropriate, or at least out of place at that moment. Once, after a particularly bad stretch of having Fat Finger Syndrome on my keyboard, I managed to cycle through just about all of my sayings, while accomplishing nothing of what I actually meant to do. My teammates thought I had a typewriting version of Tourette's Syndrome. I decided to get rid of all the catch-phrases except for the lingerie comment and the "here we go" comment.

Here's a trick, though, that I pick up from my constant bug reports and other support that I always seem to be sending: I type out what I want to say in my Notepad, then copy it into the message. When a GM contacts me, I simply tab over to the notepad and copy it into my response to the GM, so I don't have to spend so much time typing it up again. I also keep all of my catch-phrases, and others (new ones coming, teammates!), as well, so I can paste them in at more appropriate times, without accidentally triggering them all over the place. This frees up keys for other, more useful bindings. Now if only I can keep them straight as I log on each alt...

Level 32! Eagles Claw. I don't care about the animation length this time, because the animation itself is so rad-cool, and I do a Critical Hit that knocks out my opponent in one kick! Oh, I'm keepin' this one! Is this the best for my build? Maybe not, but even though I am very competitive with almost any other game, I could care less if someone is more "efficient" than I am. I can do backflips when I attack! This is why I play the game, there is nothing more beautiful than doing a fully-slotted Crit on a baddie that does over 1,000 points of damage. Combine this with Dragon's Tail, and I'm starting to really enjoy the way my character looks and moves. Plus, they got rid of that wretched ballerina-looking animation for Storm Kick, and it looks decent now too. I don't mind that the animations don't match real martial arts moves (minor stretch practicing Aikido in real life for a few years), I'm totally okay with being a super-hero that has invented his own unique looking and moving art in Paragon City. Although a more realistic ninja-class might be fun. The possibilities are endless when you consider all the different fighting styles there really are. It's enough to make one hope for a City of Heroes: Martial Arts, where you can choose Karate, Judo, Aikido, Street Fighting, Drunken Boxing, Capoeira, Wushu, Kenpo, Hapkido, Kendo, Kickboxing, Krav Maga, Muay Thai, Taekwando, T'ai Chi, Ju-Jitsu, Tang Soo Do, Wing Chun... pant pant.

Not that I'm trying to plant ideas in the Devs heads or anything.

Outside the Journal Commentary

There was a comment made that there were very few MA/SR Guides available, especially after the Issue Updates, so for those who are interested, I introduce:

Martial Arts / Super Reflexes - The Advanced Guide

by yours truly. Now don't say I never give you nothing!

This is an advanced guide in the sense that I will skip the basic descriptions of each power, since those are easily found elsewhere.

Martial Arts is relatively straight-forward, and I direct you to the excellent Martial Arts - A Comprehensive Guide (v3.1)
by Tulzar.

Super Reflexes has a bit more versatility to it. This guide will describe my build, discuss the other options a player could go, slotting, and address some of the controversies involving these power sets. Please note that my build is not "optimized" for taking out +5 AVs, I have made several choices strictly because I find them fun.

1. My Build
2. Pool Powers
3. Slotting
4. The Toggle Versus Elude Debate
5. Conclusion

Some powers I won't dwell on. Not much needs to be said about Thunder Kick, for example. Cobra Strike, however, merits some discussion!

1. My Build:
Exported from version 1.4D of CoH Planner
http://joechott.com/coh

Archetype: Scrapper
Primary Powers - Ranged : Martial Arts
Secondary Powers - Support : Super Reflexes

01 : Focused Fighting defbuf(01)
01 : Thunder Kick acc(01) disdur(3) dam(5) dam(7) dam(11) dam(11)
02 : Storm Kick acc(02) dam(3) dam(5) dam(7) dam(15) dam(27)
04 : Cobra Strike acc(04)
06 : Recall Friend inttim(06)
08 : Crane Kick acc(08) dam(9) dam(9) dam(13) dam(13) dam(15)
10 : Focus Chi recred(10) recred(27) thtbuf(36) thtbuf(36)
12 : Hasten recred(12) recred(17) recred(17) recred(19) recred(19) recred(25)
14 : Super Speed endred(14)
16 : Swift runspd(16)
18 : Hurdle jmp(18)
20 : Stamina endrec(20) endrec(21) endrec(21) endrec(23) endrec(23) endrec(25)
22 : Practiced Brawler recred(22)
24 : Agile defbuf(24) defbuf(29) defbuf(31) defbuf(43) defbuf(46) defbuf(50)
26 : Dragons Tail acc(26) recred(36) recred(37) dam(37) dam(37) dam(45)
28 : Dodge defbuf(28) defbuf(29) defbuf(31) defbuf(45) defbuf(45) defbuf(48)
30 : Lucky defbuf(30) defbuf(31) defbuf(34) defbuf(46) defbuf(46) defbuf(50)
32 : Eagles Claw dam(32) dam(33) dam(33) dam(33) dam(34) dam(34)
35 : Teleport rng(35) rng(40)
38 : Elude recred(38) recred(39) recred(39) recred(39) defbuf(40) defbuf(40)
41 : Conserve Power recred(41) recred(42) recred(42) recred(42) recred(43) recred(43)
44 : Teleport Foe rng(44)
47 : Focused Accuracy endred(47) endred(48) endred(48) thtbuf(50)
49 : Quickness runspd(49)

-------------------------------------------

01 : Brawl acc(01)
01 : Sprint jmp(01)
02 : Rest recred(02)

Level 4 - Cobra Strike (CS) is skipped often, but it is actually very useful. Playing solo, and up against a boss and three minions? You can Disorient the boss and take out one or two pesky minions. That Tsoo sorcerer keeps healing your enemy? Lay him out with a CS and proceed to take out the enemy, or knock out the sorcerer; he can't teleport away while he's stunned. Same effect on Avalanche Shamans and the like. There will be a few levels where it doesn't help much, but when you reach 40+, it comes in handy again. If you can spare the slots, two Accuracy SOs and two Disorient SOs will really make this a good power.

Level 6 - Why Recall Friend? Because time is money. The last member of your team who doesn't have a travel power yet? You can reach him from across the map. Your next Hollows mission is deep in purple enemy territory? Save your teammates from a risky journey (unless they like that sort of thing). This one power saves teams a ton of time. You can Respec out of it later, but I've even had it prove useful helping all four of my teammates get out of Eden after a Task Force, with much appreciation.

Level 8 - I take Crane Kick before Focus Chi because I needed three attack powers to start a good attack chain.

Level 10 - Two To-Hit Buffs and two Recharges make Focus Chi cycle fairly well in a battle. You can always add more Recharges if you can spare the slots, but at the higher levels, you're juggling Hasten, Practiced Brawler, and Elude and/or your toggles, so only two Recharges works well for my toggle management.

Level 14 - Super Speed works well with MA Scrappers because once you get into a team, you'll spend some time chasing down runners, or picking up a final hit on stragglers. It also helps to position yourself well to draw aggro so your fellow Blaster can go Nova without fear. But of course, travel powers are the most subjective things on each build, nothing set in stone here.

Level 22 - Practiced Brawler. I just love this power. I made it auto-fire instead of Hasten, and it's saved my life countless times.

Level 26 - Your only AoE attack, Dragon's Tail (DT) is not picked by some MA Scrappers, who want to be a single-target damage per second (dps) killing machine. However, this is a really fun power. I never get tired of getting ten-to-twenty bad guys around you, then knocking almost all of them on their respective keisters!

Level 32 - Eagles Claw (EC) is also skipped sometimes due to its long animation time. I slotted this one with all six damage, partly as an experiment to see how much damage I could really do. It works well right after firing Focus Chi, and has a neat animation. Again, if you are concentrating on dps, this might not be for you. Since SR is slot-heavy, skipping EC or DT may make it a lot easier for you in slotting choices.

Level 35 - My one luxury slot, I put a second Range Enhancement in here, and have tons of fun teleporting directly into the tunnel to head for another zone. (Too bad they don't let you TP directly into the tram entrance...)

Level 38 - Even most toggle players take Elude and slot it fully to use as an emergency button. More discussion below.

Level 41 - Conserve Power has turned out to be so useful in END management, I fully-slotted it against my original plans. It dovetails perfectly with Elude, so just before your END drops, you can hit Conserve Power, and actually gain back END while you fight.

Level 44 - With no flight, this was taken primarily to help get some badges against flying opponents, and in anticipation of PvP, where it might be useful. Plus, it's just plain fun!
----
The Martial Arts powers not taken:

Warrior's Challenge (WC) - This power deserves explanation, if only for the reason that nobody ever takes it. WC does not act like any other Scrapper Taunt. It duplicates the Challenge power from the Presence Power Pool. I have spammed WC endlessly at Trolls running away from me in Skyway city, and it still does not stop them from leaping over the edge and running away from me. The other Taunts in each Scrapper primary all duplicate Provoke from the Presence Power Pool. Note that they are not PBAoE (point-blank area of effect) Taunts like Provoke. The Scrapper Taunts are all single-target Taunts. However, Warrior's Challenge is a Challenge type Taunt, not a Provoke type like all the others, so is not very useful.

Crippling Axe Kick (CAK) - This is skipped by most players, but there is a way to use it. It deals about the same amount of damage as Thunder Kick, but also has the potential to Immobilize your opponent (and it will automatically Slow your opponent, according to the game manual). This secondary effect of the power can be used in tandem with the secondary disorient aspects of Thunder Kick, Cobra Strike, and Eagle's Claw. Add in Air Superiority from the Flight Power Pool, and you have a Scrapper designed to stun opponents, with as many Disorient Enhancements as you feel each power needs. Storm Kick can be skipped in this case, or a solo Scrapper might take CAK in place of Dragon's Tail. That said, this is a relatively rare build, and comments from people who have successfully used it would be good testimonials in this guide for this build variation.
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2. The Power Pools

Concealment

Tons of players use Stealth, but I hate not being able to see my character. Much of this use is subject to whether it fits in with your character design and your role-playing preferences. I have seen Stealth skipped a lot simply because it did not fit in with the designer's plans for her character.

Fighting

Boxing is usually regarded as a waste, but necessary pre-requisite to getting Tough or Weave. However, if you have taken Crippling Axe Kick, here is another Disorient effect that may be of use.

Tough is a good variant to take if you don't want to take two travel powers like I did. You can see several videos of an SR Scrapper taking out AVs, and Tough is in the build. It is worthwhile to note, though, that this power is by no means necessary to play an SR Scrapper. Don't let anyone tell you that you have to have this power if you don't want it. I could not justify taking Boxing or Kicking just to get this, myself, unless I changed the parameters of my build.

Fitness

Swift - Perma-Eluders will often run Elude, Quickness, and Swift, and forego the Hasten/Super Speed route. If I drop anything in Respec, though, I might trade this in for Health.

Hurdle - Not nearly as useless as many players believe, this is especially useful for Super Speeders for vertical movement.

Health - Many times an SR Scrapper can be one-hit by an AV, but there are times when you will be hit by a minion, and then the AV will kill you. A little bit of Health can sometimes make the difference, getting you up to just the right point when your luck runs out, where the AV will finally hit you, but you have already recovered your Health form the minion attack, and you are still in the game. Also decreases your downtime (and time is still one of the most precious commodities there is, which automatically makes this a consideration).

Stamina - Most players swear by it, and some contrarians spit on it. I find it useful, but it is also possible to make almost any build without it. MA/SR is particularly heavy on END use, though, so I find it worthwhile, in part because I also like the minor benefits of your first two pool powers for Scrappers, and do not view them as a wasteful pre-requisite.

Flight

Flying Scrappers are just neat!

Hover - Get out of those nasty Caltrops now!

Air Superiority - Very handy if you want to design an AV-killer.

Fly - One of the better ways to navigate the Shadow Shard for later.

Leadership - Not for MA/SR! Trust me, you have enough toggles to worry about, this would be a mistake.

Leaping - Nothing bad here, but with Practiced Brawler, you won't need Acrobatics. Most Scrappers won't bother with Jump Kick.

Medicine - A common Pool choice for SR Scrappers, Stimulant is more worthwhile in groups than Aid Other, but the real gem is Aid Self, which can save you when you don't have any heal Inspirations. If I didn't have three powers from the Teleportation Pool, I might have taken this.

Speed - Hasten is not necessary, but the extra defense is handy, and I enjoy the rapid action. If I didn't take and Super Speed, my build might go the way of taking CAK to make a Disorienting specialist Scrapper. If your opponents are stunned a lot, the extra speed isn't vital, and you won't need to cycle your attacks with Hasten as much. Quickness can make up for a little bit of the lack of Hasten.
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3. Slotting

As in most games, the key to most things is offense. I usually try to maximize my attack slots first, and fill in the passives whenever I can spare it. I was torn between the final slot on each passive, and putting them in Cobra Strike instead. Oh, for three more slots...

An Enhancement to reduce the Endurance Cost in Super Speed made a small but noticeable improvement in my ability to mange END, considering how fast you can use it up in non-stop fighting.

Many people put a second Recharge Reduction in Practiced Brawler. With six-slotted Hasten, I -haven't had many problems.
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4. The Toggle versus Elude Debate

Using four Recharges will make Elude perma at level 39 with a six-slotted Hasten, and there is an intense debate about whether this should be changed. I will address the two options first, and attempt to put to rest a couple of mis-perceptions later.

Toggle build: Focused Fighting (FF), Focused Senses, Evasion. This build can be done, and can be successful. There are players out there (I have met them!) Who do not take Elude at all. Most seem to take Elude as a situational or emergency power for when everything hits the fan. The drawback to this is toggle and END management. Add in Practiced Brawler, and sometimes Hasten, Conserve Power, Tough, and/or Weave, and you're a busy little bee, pressing tons of buttons. Don't forget, you've also got to pop a Focus Chi into your attack chain every now and then as well. These players tend to learn what types of enemies have AoE attacks, which will insist on ranged attacks, and which ones will close to melee, all so they can shut down a toggle or two to conserve END. I confess, I'm too lazy to do this.

Other primary powers will have fewer attacks than MA, and will allow for better slotting of toggles and passives together, and still allow you to slot Elude for emergencies. I confess I do not know of another MA/SR that has done this, so if you have, please post here so we know at least one person has accomplished it somehow!

Perma-Elude: Definite benefit to your defense, with an END-crushing toggle-drop at the end. I enjoy this style very much, and I don't even need to run it all the time. A good healer on the team, and you won't run this for an entire mission. Conserve power and END Inspirations will help mitigate the drawback, as will Speed Boost and other END buffs form your friend (so play nice with others!)

The Controversy:

There are a lot of calls for Elude to be nerfed, but too much of this call is based on the idea that it renders the rest of the SR secondary useless. I can declare this is not so through personal experience. There are eight other powers in the SR set.

Many players skip Quickness altogether, so for the purposes of this discussion, it is irrelevant.

Practiced Brawler and the three passives, Agile, Dodge, and Lucky, are always taken. Always. I have seen one build by an ignoramus who didn't take these in my entire time of playing. That leaves the three toggles.

Focused Fighting you get automatically, you can't ditch it, whether you choose to use it or not. I never added another slot in my FF, from day one.

This means that you might take Focused Senses and Evasion, and Respec out of them later when you take Elude. So the calls that Elude makes everything else useless really mean it makes two powers superfluous.

But wait, even this is not so.

I took Focused Senses once, and did a Respec within a week. I just did not like the extra motion-freezing time it added with Focused Fighting already. I skipped Evasion entirely, and went straight to Elude. This was a build choice, based on what I wanted. Even if I didn't have Elude, I might not have taken these two toggles. I would have gone for another Pool Power set like Fighting or Medicine. Add in the fact that I never slotted my FF, and you have a build that would have automatically drifted towards elude from the start, even before they changed it with the Issue Update. So when someone tries to post that Elude makes people not like Focused Senses or Evasion, I can easily say Elude had nothing to do with me not taking powers I already did not want.

The point is, Elude does not make the rest of the set useless, and the two little powers that you don't take, you might not have taken in the first place, making that argument irrelevant.

The rest of the Elude debate will center around comparisons with other powers from other sets and Archetypes, and calls for making it non-perma, which is beyond the purview of this guide.
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5. Conclusion

Although END-heavy, this is a fun combination build, with quite a few Pool Power alternatives for good playing. MA has more good attacks with nice animations than most other sets, which can be good for players who hate a monotonous two- or three-attack rhythm, and like to mix it up a bit.

SR can be played a couple different ways, whereas most other builds generally seem to be falling into one cookie-cutter type of way to go. Personally, I like the options that allow for either perma-Elude or toggles, and feel that it gives SR a unique extra bit of freedom involved in game choices.

Thank you for your time, and have fun!

-TP

Entry 14

I'm getting teams on a regular basis now, and it's really starting to grow on me. It's neat to get together with someone who's on my friends list, and link him up with another, so that each of my friends gets to meet the other. Since I only add the competent players to my list, these types of teams always rock. Some people just don't make the cut. Entry 14

I'm getting teams on a regular basis now, and it's really starting to grow on me. It's neat to get together with someone who's on my friends list, and link him up with another, so that each of my friends gets to meet the other. Since Martial Master only adds the competent players to my list, these types of teams always rock. Some people just don't make the cut. Does a guy realize when he's a healer, and he refuses to heal, but instead cusses out his teammates, that we do actually all start sending tells to each other about this strange behavior, doesn't he? That's fairly rare overall. But there is one dark element to this story! I call him OR (not his real name).

I've teamed with OR a few times now, but one night, he asks if I'd like to go power level. A red alert klaxon goes off in my head. The only experience I've had with any aspect of this is when Ultra Meltdown had some easy xp on a TF mission that the leader kept resetting. I ask what it is, and it basically sounds like standing around and soaking up xp. I decline politely and explain it goes against my character wish to experience each element of the game, and we go our separate ways for the evening.

The next night, he sends me a tell to join a Bastion TF. "Easy xp," he says. When I join, the leader asks who wants to lead?!? I've been here before, and it's usually a disaster, so I step up and say I can lead right away. I did the TF a few nights back with Red Haven, so I know what to expect. We head off to IP, with OR and myself as the two highest-level players. The team starts mopping the floor with the first group, but soon most of us are taking a dirt nap. It hits me that a purple vampyri led a wandering patrol in on us and took us by the flank while we were all preoccupied with the first mob, and this wasn't anyone's fault. Several of us wake up in 5th prisons, and I explain what those are to a couple members. I remember one mission, the first time I encountered these (from the outside), I spent a lot of time breaking down the door to each cell, thinking I might get an inspiration, or maybe find one of my missing people! That was the first time I had set my Thunder Kick on auto-attack. Wonder what's on TV... Anyway, no gifts, no missing people, just empty rooms. And explosions on each door when you take them down. Gah!

Ok, so we break out of prison and try to link up, but there's more than one purple vampyri, and they seem to have radar on us! No matter what we do, even though we're working better together, we still end up getting knocked out. I have my map up, and notice that OR never seems to die. As a matter of fact... he always seems to be the first person to run, and he runs farther than anyone else. And... he is just sort of staying at the entrance through all this. I'm trying to teleport him to me, asking him to come help, and he quits the team without saying a word. Which makes us disband, because it was tough enough to begin with, let alone losing one of your highest-level players! Nobody has enough time to start from scratch. The curse of the TF continues for me. Not too bad, because I've completed this one previously, but I did accumulate a ton of debt trying to cover the retreat of several lower-level allies! OR is the first person I remove from my friends' list, and the first person I ignore, using the /ignore game feature. For some reason I make a link to the power level question he asked me the night before, and it plants a sour idea in my head about people who pl. My mind will go ack and forth on this idea as I progress through the game, but this is my second impression, after Ultra Meltdown's experience, and both have felt "wrong" in some way. Back to IP to work off some debt!

I think this was the time where I hit the debt cap for my level as well, and became absolutely fearless of dying! No matter what happened, the debt couldn't get worse, after all. I think I even leveled up while still being close to the debt cap. This is where I learned to stop looking at that sort of thing...

Entry 13

I hit level 26 and take Dragon's Tail (DT). Oh boy! A guide on the boards was knocking it, suggesting an area of attack (AoE) at such a late level wasn't very worthwhile, but my mind thinks more along the lines of: "Lookit ‘em fly! This is fun!" I've set one of my first keybinds to auto-follow the nearest bad guy, so with super speed on, it's not too annoying for me to chase after all the guys that just got thrown on their backs. It's not too much longer before they adjust the power anyway, to more of a knockdown than a knockback. I run to IP, and start tackling groups of blues just to have fun with my DT. About the same damage as Thunder Kick, and it makes me look like a break-dancer to boot! I'll just pretend my character is mixing in a bit of Capoeira into his martial arts routine.

Red Haven is usually one or two levels ahead of me. Every time I call him up, I think that since I just leveled, I'm even with him, or just have one more level to go. "Hey bud!" He'll say. "I just leveled earlier today!" Great.

We team up off and on, but I die more often when I team with him. Of course, maybe that's because I'm the first to jump in against people like the Envoy of Shadows, without realizing he can swat me like a bug. You would think I've learned enough about drawing aggro from my Spines AoE attacks, but noooo. I use my DT against a bunch of CoT near the Envoy, and stop to type into my team, "I love it when that happens." By that, I mean send my enemies flying on their butts. By the time I've typed it out, they have all gotten to their feet, they ignore all my teammates, and knock me out, my super reflexes seeming to have deserted me, in retaliation for typing when I should be fighting. As I fall to the ground, I type, "Except for that part." Red Haven says, "Huh? Who died?" He's been running around without the team menu up, so he doesn't bother tracking the others in a group normally. I humbly head back towards the healer in our team, and we clean up the mission. I can accept dying on Red's missions, though, because I still end up earning more xp in that time than I would solo. With my DT up and running, I've entered a new phase of scrapper carelessness, finding the biggest number of possible mobs and leaping right into the middle of them, just so I can knock them down like bowling pins.

As I solo, the missions seem to be easier as I go. At first, I think this is just because I'm slotting my attacks more effectively, have respecced once into more useful powers, and know how to handle my character properly. Which is all true. But when Martial Master doesn't even have to activate my Focused Fighting in an indoor mission, it does become a little easy. I coast through many of them, and then jump into the deep end, tackling purples with Red Haven on occasion. Dying once or twice, then going solo again after Red has to log to work off my debt. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go...

I'm not withholding, I'm posting it as I type it up, honest! Thanks again for the kind words, it's wonderful encouragement, and I'm very glad you all enjoy it so much.

Entry 12

Because of the cape missions, I went back to Ultra Meltdown really quick and got him a cape. I'm so excited, I just give him a long black one, but it doesn't really fit his clunky armor. When I'm feeling creative, I'm gonna have to go back and design a second costume for him, one that will look good with a cape. Martial Master, on the other hand, gets a costume makeover, and I'm very happy with it. My new costume becomes my default costume I like to use running around all the time.

Every once in a while, I team up with a foreign player, or an American overseas. Little Big Mama plays well, so I invite her to my sg. She says she's in France, so we won't see each other much because of the time zone difference, but that's ok. We still manage to see each other every few days, since I'm playing late. Another team starts with me and a couple girls who seem to be women in real life as well, from their comments. They invite a couple other girlfriends, and soon I'm head of an all-girl team, except for yours truly. I make innuendos all night long. I end up issuing an invite to them as well, but most people by level 20 are already in a group if they want one. For me, this is a small problem, because I'm very selective with my invites. Nobody I knew from the first 15 levels is still active with that particular character, so when I meet a competent player, they're usually "taken." The main reason I don't like it is because of the potential for sg fights when they introduce player versus player (PVP) later. Martial Master would be great at that, but I'm not willing to give up my awesome sg name, Reckless Endangerment, and join another sg. But that means I might not be able to participate in many sg adventures, so I hope those types of events will be open to regular teams, as opposed to your-sg-only content. Time will tell.

As a super hero, I have little quirks that it takes me a while to get over. For example, I constantly feel like I should be stopping to help out that little old lady on the corner who's getting mugged. What's really embarrassing is when you're running and press jump, but you've mis-timed it, so you actually get stuck between the mugger and his victim. It's like Batman or Robin swinging right into an altercation, and getting caught in it, but they still try to disengage and go about their more important business! I also want to eliminate every threat all the time. No xp from those Behemoths from the Portals anymore (I missed that fun time anyway)? I still have to make sure every Behemoth takes a dirt nap (they look really cool, though, one of my favorite villains, visually). It's a find-the-blinkies mission? I still have to arrest every thug in the house. Even to the present day, no xp for auto-turrets, and I still have to resist the urge to take them all out of commission. I can't just leave them there, what if some teenagers come in here later? I try to imagine that there's some kind of damage control company I call to come clean up any leftover ammo or weapons or other various threats (with our luck, they're probably subsidized by Crey Industries). Who gets to pick up all the Caltrops everyone's leaving behind? How'd you like to be the maid on that job? ("That pesky Martial Master! First he runs right into me while I'm being mugged, runs off despite my calls for help, and now I have to clean up all these sharp things. I wish they'd all embedded themselves in his [censored]!)"

I was going to wait once a week to post, but with Angelfist threatening me, I guess I better give a little bit more...

Entry 11

It's Halloween season, but I don't know about it. I'm enjoying a midnight swim through IP back to the tram, and I get a whim to click on a door near the shore. A werewolf pops out! It takes me a while, because he's a much higher level than I am, but I take him out. I then make the mistake of clicking on the door again, and out pops a purple vampire, which kills me almost effortlessly. Has this always been here? What the heck?!? I Broadcast from the hospital, and learn while eating jello (the IP hospital jello has an oily taste to it, for some reason) that we've got an Event going on! The next night, I head to Talos and start doing some doors solo. A vampire kicks my butt again! Stubbornly, I head back to him, stocked up with some candy, and he takes me out again. Grr... What is it about a super hero, that he always has to fight the bad guy until he finally wins? Maybe it's just me, but when I get knocked out, I go back hunting for vengeance, like a dog with a bone.

I've been looking on the net, so I know now that there are badges to be won for this Event, and I link up with a group in Talos. We flock around a door and pummel anything that comes out, shouting out which present we got each time. I already used my Rock, and I never get another one

One of the team is a controller with pets, and it's funny to watch as we all crowd around one place, waiting to pounce on the hapless witch or wolf that comes out. All too often, there's no room for me to even squeeze in. I start shouting, "Hey! Leave some for me, you battle hogs!" Each time someone gets all of his badges, he leaves, and another takes his place. Each member announces when he gets a badge, and which one it is, and the rest of us announce every time we get a present. We all take a break to go take out the great pumpkinhead, so we can get that badge as well. Nobody much cared about the xp, but everyone wanted the badges, and it was a great fun couple of nights.

I'm reading the boards much more than I used to, and getting into the flavor of humor and game statistics and build debates that make up the community of posting. I'm not too skilled in computer science, but I'm a wiz at the internet and searching for information. I'm also used to message boards, and this one is very nice. It is so nice here compared to other message boards! I'm used to kids and adults both hurling curses and insults back and forth. I've been in forums where the moderators would sometimes step in and remind people to be civil, and others where the moderators were virtually invisible, and you couldn't make a point without someone casting aspersions about your dubious parenthood and calling you a Nazi within three replies. The only thing I see here on occasion is people taking things a little too seriously or personally. Even the retorts that the Plers and the anti-PLers hurl at each other are rather restrained and mostly civil, in my experience. I like it so much, I ditch the other forum where the rude people are, and find myself accessing this from work sometimes to see what's new (shh, don't tell anyone).

I find the SR Sucks thread, and start laughing out loud when someone posts, "I think that if I can get someone to bubble me I might be able to take on two dead monkeys," and "I got one-hit by a monkey!" I realize then and there that there are tons of hilarious things on the board that make me laugh, but any other person standing behind me would have no clue what the deal was. We've got our own jargon here, and it's definitely more amusing than other people's jargon! Let the computer scientists tell jokes in binary language, let the nuclear physicists talk about strange quarks. We have monkeys! (for teh win!) Oh help me, I'm starting to type like all the l33t people...

Side Comment

I'm not complaining, Red, I'm just describing. Heh. Oh, and here's a number to a good psychiatrist who specializes in helping people who play online too much....

Although it may get worse, since you can now order pizza when playing another online game:
pizza partner

Entry 10

I take to new zones, Talos and Independence Port (IP). I finally get the hang of finding the specialty stores in Talos, and start visiting the Magic store to buy the latest enhancements. Got to keep up with the Jonses, after all. Or the Statesmans, as the case may be. I wander onto the ferry by accident, and find myself on Peregrine Island (PI). Ooh, look at all the purple stuff! A quick chat with a 40+ hero lets me know I really should wait to come back here later. I was trying to figure out if you could swim to PI without taking the ferry, but it doesn't look like it.

I like IP the best for hunting right now. I do a street grind, and fall into a zen-like trance, grinding up and down the streets (man, that sounds nasty). It's mostly Tsoo and Family and 5th. For some reason, I take special delight in beating up Nazi-looking guys. It's probably because there is no better definition of evil, and I'm all about fighting evil. You don't have to feel remorse when you go after them, it's not like they're misunderstood, or zombies that used to be human like the Vahz, or mindless robots. The 5th are guys you can go up to, pound them into dirt, yell at them, "Say my name, (censored)!" and still feel really good about yourself when you're done.

A scrapper called Tallrick joins me often for some street-sweeping, and waits longer than I thought he would to ask if I wanted to do some missions. When he's online we do missions, when he's not, I'm beating up 5th filth in IP. One time, a lieutenant turns into... something else (trying not to spoil here). Instead of freezing like when I first saw Babbage, I immediately leap into desperate action, and kick into high gear (Get it? Martial Arts? "Kick?" Bwah-ha-hah! The puns don't get any better (worse) than this, folks!). I take a pause, panting heavily, and immediately set out to find more of those! Content like this and Babbage ambushing in the open is great stuff, I love it love it love it.

I've been taking some screen shots, but I'm used to having to paste them into a photo application. I stumble upon our very own screen shots folder in the CoH files, and I've got 50 megabytes worth already! That certainly makes things easier. I turn into a madman, taking screen shots of tons of stuff, keeping the ones I like and naming them so I can remember what they were without having to open each one up.

I spot a guy who has the Vahzilock wasting disease mission asking for help, and I Exemplar to give him a hand. I tend to right-click on team members as soon as I can to see what they can do, and I notice as we fight that he is not using all of the tools in his belt. I ask him about Caltrops, and he laughs and says he hardly ever uses his secondary! I give him some advice, and we start moving faster through the mission. Some people's illegitimate super hero children, I tell you. He was actually a good-natured player, but I can't imagine how some people get so far without exploring their abilities to their fullest. Of course, it's so much easier to say that in a game, how many of us explore our abilities to their fullest in real life? Can't distract myself with philosophy, I'm playing here!

Outside the Journal Commentary

Jumpman, thanks for the rclick-s-rclick tip, that works marginally faster. It's neat to still be learning new things (granted, I could have known that if I'd bothered to look closer, but let's just ignore that).

Dispatch, right now I'm writing from memory, but I've started writing my current adventures as I go, so by the time I get to 45, I'll have some stories "queued up" already. And I'll try not to spoil too much along the way, in case newer players are reading.

Pax, I love to write, but I usually only get printed in letters to the editor to newspapers and such.

Doctor Why, I usually sell all in one place, I can get more influence actually arresting bad guys than taking the time to go to a whole ‘nother store. Time spent shopping is time you could be saving a lady form a purse-snatcher!

LaFollet, you gonna tell me which of your characters I've teamed with, or do you want to keep me guessing and see if I write you in? Heh.

I thank you all for the very nice compliments. Every time I get such good feedback like that, I feel compelled to post faster. So: Flashback - On occasion, I'll remember an important item or two that I experienced earlier chronologically, and I will post about it. These are most likely things that I enjoyed immensely, but happened months ago, so I may have skipped over the event in my earlier entries.

Entry 9

FLASHBACK (to around Martial Master lvl 19)

I'm juggling several of my alts, logging on a couple in a night, to test different power sets. I take Klarion on Triumph server into Perez Park and get in a team of people who are basically grinding. At one point, I propose we tackle the two purple Bone Daddies. One of my team thinks I'm crazy, but I think we can take them. Still, she's pretty adamant, so I don't engage. Another team member, our tank, thinks we are about to dive in, so he takes the first shot. The protester screams out "NO!" but it's too late. We all dive in to help him out, me explaining that we were just talking about it. We get them both down to about half health before we're all wiped out. I still think we could have taken them if we had all concentrated our fire on one target first, but in our rush to bail out the tank, we didn't coordinate our actions. This is one of the teams where I am not the leader, I was trying to just be one of the pack tonight, but there is no true direction here, just some random grinding. I decide to log and try out another character.

I've created a Mind Control/Empathy Controller called Tamysyn, , also on Triumph server, my first female character. I think she looks cool! After a few levels of playing around with her powers, I'm in King's Row spamming alternating holds on yellows and oranges. This is my first clue that controllers have definite potential. When my scrappers and blasters were at a similar level, orange cons would usually get the best of me. A guy about ten levels higher than me comes by and stops to watch me take out some Lost. He waits silently until I finish, and then sends me a tell. "You're pretty good. Do you have a higher level character already?" I smile and let him know I've got a couple on another server. He simply repeats that I handle myself well and takes off. No teaming with Tamysyn tonight, but when I'm done blasting and scrapping, I plan to control my way to the top! I make a mental note that since the Controller Secondary and the Defender Primary are mostly the same choices, I realize I have three different characters with Empathy, while there is no overlap of similar powers with any other alt.

The next night, I take the Grand Champion out for a test drive on - where else - the Champion server. A Natural Invul/War Mace Tanker, he joins a group in Perez that is grinding, but with much more speed and purpose. Just like with Slice ‘N' Dice earlier, we develop a nice rhythm, few deaths, lots of jokes and everybody levels at least once. I get invited to a super group, too!

Getting nostalgic for my main already, I haul out Martial Master and go on the Sister Psyche Task Force, if I remember right. We exit a mission, and even though we were warned at one point, when Babbage comes around the corner, I literally freeze in real life and gape. Time freezes. A second later everyone is scrambling to dog-pile on him. A teammate laughs and admits he froze too. I'm thinking it is so neat for the devs to have thought of a situation early on in the game, where we know how to use our powers, but we're still relative rookies. It's the perfect place to catch us off guard if it hasn't been spoiled, and make us freeze like the rookies we are. I enjoy that experience better than any other in the game for a solid month. That was almost as cool as flying! I genuinely enjoy experiencing situations like these, mostly because I'm such a comic fanboy, and it feels like I'm living out what has now become a timeless tradition: gazing up in awe at some monster or villain coming out of nowhere to threaten everything around you. It's like I'm in my own comic book! Several months later, I will have a mission in the same area, and see a group of others tackling Babbage, look on with fond nostalgia, and look upon the neophyte heroes almost as if they are young children of mine.

Speaking of children, my younger cousin comes to town with his parents for a visit, and I hook him up with a character. We mostly run around in the Tutorial, as he likes to right-click on his fellow heroes and read their background, if they have any. Too many do not, and we both start making audible sounds of mock-disappointment when our target has not provided us with an entertaining story to read. Losing pudwhackers! Don't they realize every hero has a secret origin? They are betraying the ideals of the game! I figure a lot of them are alts or young kids who don't know too much about it, or adults that are too busy for it, etc. But we keep clicking, teasing the losers who do not have origins (just between the two of us, we don't send irritating tells to them or anything), and laughing at some of the uproariously funny stuff others have managed to come up with. A couple have written what look like novels, but we read them anyway. It's the least we can do! If you want to laugh more out loud while playing this game, get your younger cousin or brother or sister to play around with it, you'll find more things to get excited about and laugh over as they help you see it through their eyes.

Entry 8

Ultra Meltdown gets invited to the Sister Psyche Task Force, but there's a twist. My friend lets me know that the group is only doing the first mission: it's a quick hop over to Talos to arrest so many Warriors or CoT or something. There is a big mission xp bonus, then the team leader dissolves the TF. Everyone goes back to IP, restarts the mission, and hops the tram to Talos again, ad infinitum. I don't know the term for it yet, but it turns out they are 'farming' the mission. I go through a couple sessions of it before I fully understand the concept, and it feels wrong. The friend who invited me is pretty cool, though, so I hang out with the team for three or four more.
One small problem is they are only going after one villain type, so when there are two types involved, I am blasting away, but the rest of the group has moved on without a word, aimed at getting just the specific villain type. This is above my level, so a red con gets through to me and knocks me out. I'm a little frustrated, because I'm used to being in groups where we back each other up; this is more like a look-out-for-yourself grabfest. I notice if I stay any longer, I'm going to outlevel another task force, so I take my goodbyes, even though my friend is urging me to stay for what is basically easy xp. My philosophy is definitely different, at least at this point. I want to experience the content, even if it duplicates the content I go through with my scrapper. The experience is different, because I have to approach the missions in an entirely different manner if I'm using my blaster, especially if I want to solo (which is still what I'm doing, primarily). So I take my bows, and by the time one of my characters has gotten to that TF naturally, the devs have already changed the parameters, so the first mission always takes you to Boomtown, instead. Ergo, no more farming. No problem for me.

I have totally underestimated Red Haven. He is having so much fun, he is on the game constantly. I give up playing my alts and go back to Martial Master, who is at about level 21. I know Red will catch up soon, so it's time to finally focus full-time on one character. By the time I get to 24, he has just passed me and hit 25! He is enjoying the heck out of the game. I'm playing more often as well, out of necessity. I think I officially become a power gamer for a short time. I also call in sick to work one day, because I got to bed only two hours ago, and my stomach is killing me. One other time, I go in late, and it's due to staying up playing. That's pretty much all it takes to make me backpedal. I can't get obsessed about the game, and as an adult with responsibilities, there is no way I'm going to sacrifice my life for this. It's turning out to be too much like showing up for work! I ease up on the hours playing and let Red Haven pull ahead. I still play more often than I used to, but I make sure it's not going to interfere with my work schedule ever again.

Super Speed is almost as cool as Flying. I love being able to get around so much faster. Stamina is taking some of the bite out of the MA/SR END crunch as well, so I feel my character is really starting to develop, to come into its own. My defeats are very rare now, and a couple times, I am genuinely surprised when I get knocked out. I was at the debt cap at a lower level though, so working off an occasional defeat is not a big deal to me. What really makes a difference, though, is the respec.

Oh, thank you forever for the respec, devs! I shed Assault like it's a dirty streetwalker, and ditch Warrior's Challenge as well. The MA Scrapper Taunt was always different from the other Taunts anyway. Mine duplicated Challenge from the Presence Power Pool, while the others all duplicated Provoke. I had just taken Focused Senses, and found it less than impressive, so that immediately goes out the window. This gives me the opportunity to take up Recall Friend (RF) and Teleport, and play around with them, as well as do an overhaul on all of my slots. I feel almost like a brand new character when I'm done, and I use RF constantly. I even use it to try to help Red Haven complete the Cavern of Transcendence mission just so he can get the badge, but he takes too long to find the final obelisk, and the server crashes. Grrr...

Entry 7

Completing a Task Force (TF) is a real bear. I have Murphy's Law striking each time. Either the team disintegrates as we get close to finishing, or the server drops. One time, Ultra Meltdown is flying to help take out the Clockwork King, and at 2:00 a.m. my time, I have a power failure. The power failure fries my computer temporarily, so I can't just log back on. Grr. Ultra does the Positron TF, and Martial Master is able to do the rest. I mainly just want to experience everything the game has to offer at least once. The server drops are one of the most irritating things, but those were mostly happening when they introduced the Hollows. There was one mission that had villains you couldn't see inside the stairs. Only area of effect or TP Foe could get to them. I think I must have helped do that mission a dozen times. By the time I got around to doing it with my alts, only one alt had to do that, and that was my regen spines, Slice ‘N' Dice, and he made short work of them.

I have finally convinced my best friend to play the game! He was reluctant, because when he gets into a game, he goes all in. I set him up on my computer, help him pick a name, and he decides he likes it after all. I have underestimated this. He wastes no time in getting the game for himself, re-rolling his character, choosing a new name - Red Haven - and tweaking his costume a little bit. I drag out all four of my alts on Freedom to run along with him, bringing out each char closest in level to his, and teaming up whenever possible. It's great! Then we come to the biggest problem I have had to date. I use Exemplar to help him do Positron's TF, but the team has to quit before the final mission. It's 3 a.m., we all have to work, and everyone logs off. Exemplar is still relatively new, so I get the idea one second too late. Red has already logged off, I have lost my Exemplar, and am booted from the TF. I go through four rounds with CoH support, getting through their canned responses, but it's always the same. They can't help me, and I've lost seven hours with still no badge to show for Positron. My buddy feels really bad, but I tell him it's not his fault. I didn't even think of it until everyone was logging, and there was no real announcement about that particular problem. Maybe when they introduce Flashback (which I think is a fantabulous idea), I'll go back to Positron. Or maybe the devs will agree with everyone on the boards, and they will link the TF feature to the NPC that gives the TF. Some of these changes don't really seem that hard, but I'm not on the inside, so I have no clue where their attention is focused. But I do think if they had one person focused on the small things, they could definitely improve our quality of play. Things life TF Exemplar, and a Sell All button, would save us time and frustration, and we would still put in that time playing, but it would be more fun for us, and the devs would spend less time answering the same old "Why was I kicked" questions on the TFs.

I am soooooo slow in the game! I'm at level 18, and I just took Hasten. Red Haven already beats me everywhere with Super Jump (and gloats about it, of course). At level 16, I think I took Swift, so I take Super Speed at 20, and then Hurdle at 22 and Stamina at 24. Talk about a whole new game! Stamina removes almost all my problems with END. Even with one slot, I notice a massive difference. I even use Leadership a time or two, but it doesn't really do much for me. I'm kicking myself mentally for taking so long to get a travel power. A mental note ensures that when I go back to my alts, I will take a travel power as soon as it opens up in the pools, every time. I love the new powers. Even Hurdle makes a slight noticeable difference that helps me out in Skyway City. They have since decreased the animation time of Storm Kick as well, so that's working much better. I'm very happy with S Speed and Stamina both.

Entry 6

Martial Master is prowling around Boomtown these days. He has teamed up with Atomic Eve before, and she send him a tell as soon as I'm logged on. She invites me to a team, and says the invite will come from a confused monkey. I ask her if she's sure she should be referring to her team leader that way, but when the invite pops up, his NAME is Confused Monkey! I can already tell I'm going to like this team...

There's a high-level tank slumming with us, and we tear through everything like tissue paper. A couple of us stop in the middle of a massive fight to toss out jokes. We're really superfluous at the moment. Everyone's doing the lol bit between me and another player. The high-level tank eventually has to leave, and we start a boomtown grind. It's the fun kind, with four to five of us, and a few level up along the way. Boomtown is a great place, and I hope they develop more missions that call for you to go to this place. It would be neat if in the future, they add a "purple" zone to the green, yellow, and red sections of each place. They have room on the map to do it, maybe it could be a portal entry hazard zone, if necessary. Or just an extra section of the map, so the lower-levels will know from the section color that they should be extra-careful when walking through it. Both Boomtown and Faultline have a lot of potential. I flew Ultra Meltdown all over Faultline, finding some really great scenery and settings, but no missions ever call for us to go there. I can imagine a threat against the dam that calls for a mission. Maybe the devs will revise the zones in the future, I think there's room to "grow" them a little.

Whenever a scantily-clad female joins us and starts flirting, Eve plays the part of jealous girlfriend with me. She's really good at it too, but the private tells clue me in that she's just role playing, which is great, considering my one bad experience earlier. A couple weeks slater, Atomic Eve invites me again. I lead a few missions, and when the group is down to five of us, we realize the players who have stuck around are both the best at playing and the most fun to be around, besides. We don't leave the warehouse at the end of our mission. Instead, Atomic Eve yells out, "Hide and Seek!" This is a first for me, but we quit the team so our beacons don't give us away on the map, and one of us is "it," while the others go hide. I'm looking for one teammate, and I actually can't see him. I mean, I can see his name, and I have found him, but I still can't see his character. Confused Monkey comes over and starts hopping up and down on the guy's name. He reveals he uses this trick with the emotes, where he sits, and then he rotates his character into the wall! We all think that's rad-cool, and make jokes about whether it will work that way if we try to hide from the bad guys.

Monkey has to log off, so it's down to three of us, and we start a game of Simon Says, only it's Martial Master Says instead, ‘natch. I go through the emotes, making them dance and hold up cards and belch at my whim. I catch them both with a jump command: "Ah ah! I didn't say ‘Martial master says!' Two demerits!" Eve starts pouting, "I knew you were going to do that!" I don't know how many hours we spent in that one warehouse goofing off, but I wasn't thinking about leveling up, or dps, or xp gain, or any of that. It was just plain fun.

I recount the night's activities to a couple coworkers the next days, regaling them about how I played virtual hide and seek, and making a dance club. I can see how the future might be with these virtual environments. We can already take digital pictures of ourselves in real life and upload them to the net. How long before people are turning those pictures into character "skins" and downloading them into CoH and other MMORGs? I can see a day when people spend most of their free time on the computer, just hanging out with their virtual friends, and not even needing an excuse like CoH or Everquest to do it.

A few nights later, at the close of a mission, everyone is joking around, and someone makes a comment about a part of his anatomy. I laugh and say "Me too!" Atomic Eve says, "Me too! Err..." Awkward silence. Everyone screams out "Man-gina!' and laughs. Funny thing is, it may very well have been a guy behind the character who got embarrassed. To this day, I haven't seen the Atomic Eve character online since. Which is too bad, because most people don't have hang-ups about that, and she or he was an excellent player as well. This develops into a trend, actually, with a lot of the people on my friend's list disappearing for months at a time, as real life takes over for people, or they have gone to make alts. The only one I spot on occasion is Confused Monkey. As I progress, I have to start ditching cool people for people who I see online more often, since teaming has become more fun for me and sometimes even mandatory for a few missions), specifically due to hanging out with chars like Atomic Eve and Confused Monkey.

Entry 5

Hollows debuts! Everybody and their dog is over there. I have a great night with my Spines/Regen scrapper, Slice ‘N' Dice, in the Hollows. I level up a couple times, and I find yet again that I'm playing with a bunch of people on their first or second character. Naturally, as always seems to happen, however this group started, I am now the leader. Only one or two people drop off as we add one or two others. We hang out for an entire evening, rocking through missions, hardly any deaths, me making sure everyone levels at least once, shouting out who's going to be next, and celebrating when the last one of us cycles a level up. I have a super group already under Martial Master, my main character that I want to experience everything, but these guys are all begging me, literally, to start an sg. I start tossing out names until we have a couple cool choices. At one point I clue them in that I'm keeping tabs on all health, and if one of them goes red, that's when I always do a Spine Burst, which seems to be excellent at pulling aggro away from everyone and onto me immediately. As team leader, I feel responsible for their welfare. I don't tell them that last part, because I don't want them to take advantage, but if anyone falls in battle, it's going to be me as the team leader before them. My sidekick has to leave, this is the one who blurted out that this was the best team he had ever been in when I told him about my Spine Burst tactic. He'd been around the game for months, but no team leader had ever looked out for him like that before. He makes me promise to look him up tomorrow night to invite him. "You better invite me to the sg!" he warns. We're down to me and the two guys who originally started the evening together. I'm at City Hall, and I have created The Underground Legion, with my two trusty lieutenants. Everybody is all rah-rah, and I decide to stick with Slice ‘N' Dice for a while to finally have the sg experience. Over the next few nights, one of the guys quits without warning, and the others are never on. Within two weeks, cold harsh reality has reared it's ugly head, and I realize that despite their good intentions, there is actual dedication that comes with an sg, and they couldn't or wouldn't really do it. I'm not really bummed, I can use the sg name on another server if people want me to start up another one in the future. But I hang up slice for now, deciding that if I'm going to stick with one consistently for a while, it really should be Martial Master after all.

This brief encounter with people so liberal with their praise has also given me a revelation into teaming and why I like this game so much. Everyone was having so much fun together, all "You guys rock!" and "I'll team with you anytime!" that I got a really good feel for the combination chatting/fighting teams that are the most fun experience of the game. What's more, all of the compliments to me personally made me realize that just as in real life, when you're good at something and people appreciate it, and appreciate you, it really makes you feel good. I begin to understand why my friend has played EverCrack for so long. He's got a good group of friends who depend on him, who know he's awesome in his role, and he likes that they can depend on him. In my real life, some of the best moments I feel are when you develop a sense of competent comradery with coworkers. You've done a great job, and everybody pats you on the back for it. This may be only a game, and the accomplishment doesn't mean nearly as much, but it's still a ton of fun, and the feelings are similar.

Outside the Journal Commentary

Oh trust me, I know these things now. But in writing my experience, I want to portray things I learn in a "chronologically faithful" way. Later on, for example, I might grouse about how I can't get a certain badge because my scrapper can't fly, and a certain villain does nothing but fly. So my entries will not display my current knowledge, but instead recount what I knew, when I knew it, as I played. MM is at lvl 43 now, and UM is 23, but at the time of writing thus far, they're both about lvl 14.

Entry 4

Ultra Meltdown can fly! This game is so incredibly cool, I can't believe it. I think I just hit a wish-fulfillment fantasy from childhood, and who cares that it's only virtual. This new ability keeps me feeling high (pun not intended, but no way I'm taking it out now!) for at least a week. I'm seeing how far up I can go, where all the neat building tops are to hide, I can finally hunt rooftops, just when they no longer give me those missions...... hey! What's up with that, anyway? Hover is so incredibly boring, I ignore it totally. I never can hit spit when I activate it anyway. I know nothing about coding, but in my suspicious mind, I suspect the accuracy penalty from Flight has also somehow crept over into Hover, and my mind is tainted against it permanently. I know it's not rational, but I also know I've had an uninterrupted stream of bad luck trying to use Hover and then actually hit something. I eventually use it to avoid some caltrops later, but that's about it.

This is pre-Hollows days, so I spend a lot of time in Steel Canyon. I pass one hero who is hovering over the bad guys just out of range and blasting away. I frown, the gentleman in me thinking that is poor sport. Then I think, he plays his way, I play mine, and move ahead. I probably should have tried it, but in my mind, the risk of debt is part of the excitement. Also, I tend to think how much it would suck if a villain could fly and I couldn't reach him, and for some reason I can't bring myself to do to others, if I wouldn't want it done to me. Which means I suppose I'm saying it's okay for people to shoot me with an energy sniper attack, since that's what I do to others, but let's not dwell on my selective-morality neurosis.

I have no clue how to slot properly. My blaster has one enhancement of each in his Power Blast, one accuracy, one endurance reduction, one recharge, one damage, and one range extension. I'm still ignorant about how much enhancements will really matter in the game, but this ignorance doesn't seem to hold me back any. I've got no Stamina or Hasten on this character either, but I've got energy attacks galore, and I never seem to need to stop in the middle of a battle. Snipe, couple blasts here and there, then I break out Charged Brawl, Energy Torrent, and Power Burst when they get close. I learn to let others aggro, but if I have to pull with a snipe, I learn to back way the heck up immediately. Different tactics for different archetypes are creeping into my head just from playing different types.

By this point I have had a couple good ideas for new characters, so I end up with 16 characters total, spread across ten servers. I thought I was done at 12, but either a name or a costume design sneaks into my head and I just have to go to the character creation engine. I make an Elec/Energy blaster called Tesla's Produgy, and load him into the tutorial. A female character is there, and I ask her how I look. I've got a really bright green costume. She tells me, "Really... green." I tell her I wanted to stand out, and she laughs and tells me I've succeeded.

Most characters I work to level 7-11 before I go back to Ultra Meltdown and Martial Master. In honor of my best friend in real life who works in a certain section of the hospital, I have my Empathy/Radiation Blast ColonRectal Man, a name that will not survive one of the purges that occurs shortly after Marvel's lawsuit (it couldn't survive the offensive/vulgar guideline evidently). But if you see CRM on Freedom server, check his biography. CRM is still really ColonRectal Man...

Balthraz is my attempt at role-playing. He is a fire tank, from Hell, literally. He did something good once (accidentally, he swears), and got kicked out of Hell. He was then cursed by good mystics to only do good deeds if he wants to go home. The miserable brute has no choice but to go around arresting people he would usually be tempting into evil. I walk around King's Row, eager to team, to show off my battle cry ("Arrrgggh!" or something like that), complain "Balthraz can't jump!" and so on. Many of them are noobs, and I constantly have to break character just to give them advice to keep them alive. I note mentally that I may not be able to get away with pure role playing until I hit 15 or so, when I won't have to answer this many basic questions. I'm experienced enough at this point to tell that even though this is my first MMORG, I've mastered enough things that I can spot a newbie just as easy as anyone else. One of my teammates runs up the side of the freeway and successfully jumps onto the pavement on top. Balthraz has been trying this maneuver all night without success. He does it flawlessly, and I type in, "Balthraz can jump!" My teammate is rofl at this point, and I have been playing just long enough to finally pick up on the lingo and know what that actually means. By the end of the evening, it is time to part ways, and Balthraz tells his friends that they are "not so bad for puny mortals. You may live!"

At this point I'm playing whichever character the mood has me in for the night, a veritable smorgasbord of options. This will present a minor problem soon, as I realize I won't be able to hold on to all the friends I'm making on each server; every time I play two or three other alts, the old friends will pass me by. If I really want to hang with people, I'm going to have to pick one and stick with it.

I also desperately want just one more button at the store next to the ‘Sell' button for enhancements. I go to the message boards for the first time, to suggest a ‘Sell All' button right next to it. Surely it can't be that hard? We still don't have it. Talk about saving ten seconds times four trips a night to the store times the collective time of 10,000 players... We still don't have the option today. I hold onto hope, regardless. I believe that if I persevere, one day we will have a Sell All option. I have to be optimistic. I am a hero, after all.

Outside the Journal Commentary

Good question. I never confirmed that it was a she except through my continued conversations with her. I have to say I'm just using my own experience to verify at this point. But if she was a guy faking, then it was an oustanding job, because 'she' kept up 'her' act for over a month. And held a grudge when I went radio silent for a while, but still remembered me later enough to bring it up again.

The only other main detail I can think of is that her idea of what happened changed over time, from her telling me, "Are you saying I'm a (censored)?" to her actually believing I straight-out called her that instead of hinting at it by calling her popular. After apologizing three or four times she still wouldn't let go, so I just took her off the list, and added a new person who played well next time I teamed.

It is worth noting that this is the only problem I have had so far in the entire game like this. Most others have a better sense of humor, and the one or two females that don't like innuendo usually find a discrete way to mention it to me, and I tone it down considerably when they do. I am very sarcastic by nature, so I usually start with jokes and act more "appropriate" if I get a sense that a player would prefer that. More often, everyone plays along.

One example: one of my earliest friends, an Earth Controller, let his girlfriend play an alt, so I never knew which one of them it was. But the alt was female, so I would flirt shamelessly. One night when I knew it was him playing the character, I said I wouldn't stop my flirting, but he better not get any ideas in real life! He laughed and assured me that would not be a problem!

Also, sometimes I can tell a young child is playing, and then I go all game-talk only, and no innuendo. The teenagers can handle it, since I'm usually just suggestive in a funny way, not vulgar-blunt, but when a 9-year old is at the keyboard, I treat him like my nephews and nieces, and use only PG language.

One sidenote: I have no interest in identifying people by name when things are negative, but feel good about giving props where due for good things. So good experiences may have a character name in the Journal, but I won't ever give the name of someone I have/had a problem with in the game.

Thank you. For my first nice comments, I post new entry sooner!

Entry 3

Almost everyone is nice in this game. A glitch had a villain trapped in the wall, and I couldn't reach him at all. Not knowing about the support option, I invite another player to help me out. He comes in using his cool-looking Lightning Field as an AoE to take him out. I thank him profusely as he leaves to go about his business.

I took my first Pool Power the first chance had. At this point, I know we can register super groups of our own, and since I'm going to be the leader of one, I take the Leadership Pool after reading the descriptions. I figure I can help out all my teammates. Oh woe is me! Martial Arts and Super Reflexes are both big Endurance hogs, and Assault takes too much End for me to even think about using it. Talk about breaking the bank! this turns me off of pool powers for a while, and I only choose from my two power sets. This means by the time I hit level 12, I don't have a travel power, and haven't even stared taking anything to get Stamina. I've nerfed myself, but I don't even know it yet. I'm too busy having fun. It doesn't enter my head to complain about anything.

By this time, I'm familiar enough with pickup groups to know I better take charge as soon as possible. Most people either do not want to lead, or just have no conception of what a leader is supposed to do. After a couple bad groups of people dying all over, I start talking people through little strategies. After about a month of play, I discover that I still want to be a loner, but when I do end up in a team for whatever reason, I almost always end up the leader before we're through. Only pet peeve at this point: people who are the leader who quit without saying anything. These are usually the clueless ones who get going when the going gets rough. It's better they do that, though. The people who stay pick up the pieces and form the core of a new team, which will then start to totally rock.

There is nothing like a team that meshes well. There are two types, which sometimes overlap: the chatting and the fighting. The fighter teams are more common, and everyone knows what happens. Everyone slips into a zone, slapping down everything that moves, automatically backing each other up. Healers heal without prompting, the teleporters bring people without travel powers to the mission entrance by habit, the devices blaster actually uses his caltrops, because he knows what to do with them... the whole team rocks. Suddenly, five hours has disappeared like five minutes. It feels like you just logged on, and are just making up for the ages-ago disaster pickup team you started with (that lasted twenty minutes, but felt like forever), but... time to log.

The other team is the chatting team. People shooting jokes, flirting like crazy ("Hey! I'm not THAT kind of master!"), hurling insults at the villains and NPCs, etc. You know better than to take a sip from your drink, because if you're in that kind of team, odds are stuff will be coming out your nose. This is LOL for real.

When the two types overlap, that is MMORG heaven. You've got a tight-knit group of pals, usually just 4 or 5 total. You can take down almost anything in your path, and people only die by stupid brain-fart maneuvers, or if they accidentally hit their auto-run and go smack into a mob of reds. Instead of whining about the debt, since deaths are so rare, people laugh them off. Martial Master steps out of line when he realizes exactly how far he can use emotes, and starts doing disgusting things to his dead allies in the sewers while standing over their corpses (just bathroom humor, honest!). The fighting is fairly constant, but there are natural breaks at the end of each battle and mission, where the witty repartee reaches hysterical levels... and nobody has even had anything to drink. Except for a couple who play better drunk anyway. You can always tell when you have this team, because as soon as you realize it, it's time to log. It's the rule of the universe or something. I would estimate I've spent about 35% of my time teaming, the rest solo, but the team-ups are growing on me...

Entry 2

Second night on the job, so to speak. Martial Master goes up against his first Bone Daddy, I think the name was Scorch. I fail four or five times before I decide to try doubling up on inspirations. I stock up on a ton of candy and head back to the mission. We knock each other out at the same time! I get a mission complete as I fall to the ground, and wake up in the hospital. Umm, jello!

MM is invited to his first pickup team. He is actually the lowest level player there. This is in Perez Park, where it really is dangerous to walk around by yourself. We're in the middle of the swamp, tackling mobs of spawns, and here I make a mistake that I might try in real life, but doesn't really work here: I try to pull my own weight. I charge in to melee the spawns, knowing almost nothing about aggro yet. A couple of dirt naps later, my group mates tell me to hang back, and laugh when I tell them I'm trying to hold my own. They understand, and in a very good-natured way tell me not to worry about it, to hang back and guard their flanks. I add three or four people to my friends list for the first time.

An indoor mission the next day, with some of the same people. 7 of us in a cramped area, tackling large mobs. Surprisingly few deaths, and a lot of fun! I'm just eating up everything in the game at this point. One of the female characters is flirting with me as well, sending private tells. At the end of the mish, she tells me to look over at her. She has arranged for her char to be above mine, and she uses an emote to sit, so my char is looking up her skirt. Not really exciting, but it is amusing. This turns out to be a problem though.

The next night, she is on another team while I'm on the prowl solo. She tells me she's on a team with four guys, and I make a joke about how popular she is. She immediately becomes offended, and accuses me of calling her a bad word. I learn a couple more new things. One, it actually is a woman behind that particular character, not a man-gina, and two, maybe I should not be making innuendos as much, since I'm here to have fun, not have people misinterpret me and get their feelings hurt. Over the next few days, she just doesn't let go of it, so I drop her from my friends list.

I spend almost as much time on my alt, Ultra Meltdown. Originally supposed to be just Meltdown, I mis-spelled the name. When I realized it, I went back to recreate him, because no way I'm going for 50 levels with a guy called Meltwdon. The name Meltdown is actually already taken, so I add Ultra on the front. Super names are easy!

This sparks the idea that a lot of good names may already be taken though, so I start to design some costumes based on names only. I want to sample every power set, which will mean plenty of characters. I create Klarion, a Kinetics/Psychic Blast Defender on a different server, and don' find out until later that I have designed his look to be almost identical to the picture on page 127 of the game manual. I threw aside the manual earlier on, but I did go back to look through it some more. Had I seen that picture before? Who knows. Little creepy...

By the time I'm done, I've created about 12 characters total, and I'll go on to have 16 within the next couple months. That way, I've got a good sampling of power sets to play with, all of them different from each other, and I've got the names that are my first choice for each character locked in. This turns out to be good for a number of reasons. I learn later that the devs have added some new flavor to the older missions, so I get excited at the idea of doing some of them all over again, even if just to see the new graphics they have added. I've even got one character who is still at level one, which I'm waiting to use until still more changes have taken place. True, I can also use a Kheldian when I get one, but those haven't been introduced at this stage of the game.

The chronicles of tpull begin here. I invite anyone who has questions regarding my experiences in the game to ask away. Each entry will give my perspective as it was, and reflect things I have learned, and my overall opinions as I grow from a novice MMORG player to a relative veteran regarding this particular game environment. I will listen to all feedback, whether you want to see entries on a faster basis than my normal "rythym," or you want me to be quiet and go away. Hopefully, you will enjoy my story and maybe even take away some things. I won't sugar-coat, exaggerate, or hide mistakes I made. My goal is to share my experience, and the fun I am having with this new hobby.

The beginning is this: I am a comic book fan, and my best friend was addicted to EverCrack. I stayed away from every online game, playing only vs. The computer for things like Starcraft, Warcraft, etc. I resisted Star Wars, and all others. For I knew a super-hero MMORG was in the works, and that was going to be my new hobby. I have a real life, so I have to pick and choose.

I had a few conceptions based on watching Everquest. I didn't like managing all the loot, and I didn't like having to camp for hours to get a big raid going (got this just from watching my buddy). With all the phone calls and real life stuff I was getting, a pause button was essential to me. Also, I have this annoying knack for extreme loyalty, so I usually try to be a loner, so I don't have to duck out of encounters and leave my group-mates hanging. So naturally, I choose a scrapper first, after reading a few pages of the rule book.

I toss the manual aside. (Yeah, yeah, but I'm an American, and I learn by doing)
I fall in love with the character creation engine and all the choices with which it presents me. I have always related to characters like Captain America and Batman. They are not super, but they can hold their own among the capes. So I end up choosing a magical scrapper with "believable" powers, that is Martial Arts and Super Reflexes. I finish my costume, and to this day I still like it. Time to enter the tutorial, as Martial Master!

I'm used to things like Starcraft, and Warcraft was just getting into using individuals and powers, really. I couldn't get far on Freedom Force, because I had trouble coordinating four distinct individuals, all of which had different powers, and I quit in (mild) disgust. These controls for CoH were keyboard-based, and I learn quickly. Exiting the tutorial, I am impressed with the graphics, and the wide variety of powers, and the maps. I'm happy as a pig in mud. I level up to level 6 the first night, and manage to quit, since I am still grounded in real life, and know I have to get to bed at a manageable hour. I'm sure that will change...

This is weird, I just did a copy-paste, but all it ends up doing is making the Shift key into a TP shortcut. It doesn't hide any other displays. Is there another step to this I missed?

I am so going to test this out tonight...