City of Heroes

Name: The Teleprompter Power: Never far from the halls of power, the Teleprompter makes sure his master stays ON message and doesn’t say anything he isn’t SUPPOSED to say. Weaknesses: He has a position paper on the subject which he will distribute to you in triplicate. Stay on message. Emphasize the words correctly. Stay calm. Supergroup affiliation: Longtime member of the Transition Team. Still trying to figure out what kind of missions I’m going to write for the Architect. I was thinking, maybe you could free and then join a dance crew. Or something.

Name: Rush O Mon Power: Rush O Mon uses the power of his voice, transmitted and amplified by the twin stereo transmitters on his shoulders, to attack and defeat his many opponents. Weaknesses: Various addictions, powerful ego. Supergroup affiliation: Leader and prophet of the Dittoheads. He has also taken shadow control of the minority governing party. Gotta love character creators.

Name: Octomom Power: Octomom has the mutant ability to raise an army of small children with which to wreak her will on a celebrity-starved society. Weaknesses: No known source of income Supergroup affiliation: Morning Talk Circus Okay, I apologize in advance to the real ‘Octomom’, but … how could I resist? I have to point out that on my CoH server, Freedom, “Octomom” and “Octo Mom” were both already taken, hence “Octo Mama”. So, my bad taste is, at least, shared by two others :/

City of Heroes is currently running their Valentine event, the one time in the year when heroes and villains can come together and luuuurve each other. Visit Pocket D, the rockin’ night club presided over by the hip DJ Zero, his power vendors Chill and Dram, and somewhat alarmed mission-giver and part time DJ Scratch to find out how you can save the Rogue Isles AND Paragon City from an onslaught of super-powered war bots. There’s also some more information about the secretive Architect project, the future of interactive entertainment within City of Heroes. The Architect company will allow you to set the parameters, NPCs and goals for short missions of your own creation. It doesn’t seem like you’ll be able to actually build your own levels; you’ll select a setting and probably a size, where the NPCs should be and what they say and do, and off you go. Not quite the game creator I was hoping for, but looks like a good time nonetheless. ...

This is my week to be the “on call” developer at work, which means I carry the Pager of Doom and also have to go to bed early and get up early. PLUS, yesterday I had more dental work done and was in so much pain I drugged myself senseless and slept from the time I got home until 11PM. But there’s always casual MMOs to fill in the free hour here and there. ...

Yay! Another night where I successfully avoided writing! I KNOW what I want to do for the last part of the current Stout Henry adventure, I know how it begins, ends, the middle, but when I sit down to write, I do something else. Tonight, I went back and played some more City of Heroes. it has changed a LOT just in the past few months. It has Rest XP now, and day jobs, and one mission that just threw DO enhancements at me. I upgraded near every power. With all the new recipes I got, there’s going to be some evenings spent at the invention bench. ...

I don’t know why I missed this HUGE sculpture in the gnomish bit of the Moors of Ykesha before. So like, NOW you know where the mailbox is… from ORBIT. I wish they did the same thing for the location of the druid ring. People kept trying to lead me to it. “It’s right next to the landing pad!” “From the cannon?” “No, just where you get off the boat!” I run around for about ten minutes. “Is it the wizard spires?” “No, but it’s near them.” “Yay! Okay!” Five minutes later. “Okay, this druid ring. Does it look like other druid rings, or is it like a pipe in the ground or something?” “No, it looks EXACTLY like all the other druid rings! It’s right next to where you get off the boat! Just go down a little and THERE IT IS!” ...

2008 has been an absolutely amazing year for MMOs, and my personal progress through them. Last year at this time, I’d just found the absolutely most perfect EQ2 guild – they were great raiders, loved grouping, and were fantastic people besides. With Clan of Shadows, I managed to do every flagging raid for Ruins of Kunark and was ready to step in and do my best to help the guild as they conquered Veeshan’s Peak. It wasn’t to be; I didn’t make the full membership vote. It wasn’t even close. That disappointment, along with other things to fill my evenings, eventually led to the end of raiding. Without raiding, though, I didn’t have much incentive to log in anymore. I tried to make things work with another guild, Delusions of Grandeur, but it just wasn’t CoS. I guess if I couldn’t make it in CoS, I didn’t want to settle for a lesser guild. ...

Well, first of all, I’m not playing WAR because I’m at work. But even when not working, I have a bunch of games I’m already playing. And its exciting stuff for all of them! EverQuest – Nostalgia FTW. You know, I don’t think we’ve ever had an official group xp night in the same zone twice. The only time we revisited a place was Sol B and Permafrost when we were farming the dragons. And we have still only seen a small fraction of the zones in the game. Friday, we grouped in Plane of Storms, Warslik Woods and Dagnor’s Cauldron for various things – all new zones for us on a group night. Small fraction of total zones. It’s wild how big EQ is. ...

Fighting evil by moonlight Filing papers by daylight Always ready for a real fight, she is the one named… oops, sorry. City of Heroes’ Issue 13 code name: Architect, is going to be introducing DAY JOBS!!! Because, staying up all night fighting good and evil alike just isn’t tiring enough, you have to put in your eight hours at a job. EVE Online has had offline progression from Day 1. Having your character progress in some way even while not logged in is genius, though this is more along the lines of The Sims’ day-job-you-never-actually-see than EVE’s skill training, which occurs whether you are logged in or not. ...