Happy Birthday Tzadkayle!

Happy Birthday Tzadi! Hope it's a special one!

Patron Power Movie

If you are wondering what the Patron Powers look like, there are a few clips in this:

Patron Power Movie

Not everything for the ATs are on there, but you can get the gist of it. I like the chomping sound the shark makes, but the graphic is pretty sillly. :)

Stay Back, Contstruction

Here's a little interview with "Archon Foss" who is in charge of zone design. Sounds like the people of Paragon are finally going to clean up Faultline and make it a friendly place to be.

Warcry interview with CoX Zone Designer

Welcome Karrnage, to the blog.

A little screenie from our last trip to Recluse's Victory.

Sister Psyche rallying the troops!

Double the Fun

Well, I got a few of my hordes up a level or 5 this weekend. This almost made up for all the silliness of issue 7. ALMOST. So what was the count Az? Can the base afford gold-plated toilet seats now? Did anyone blaze up to 50? I found that doing task forces were crazy great. Started Eduardo out at 15 on Synapse and finished it at 21. Woot!. So report in on how you faired.

PS: Dev's had an additional surprise, all SG members received anadditional 20,000 prestige!

Recluse did indeed have a Victory

As I type my eyelids droop, my thoughts are with my fellow SG members, still slogging it out in there. That place. Where she lurks. Ya the one in this picture. She likes to kill me face side up and then stare at me with those dark, dark eyes.

I noticed she was with some other fellows. Scurvy lookin lot. Stank of dead fish and bad desert camels. I had my posse in town and was fellin' kinda rowdy, like I had a chance. So my crew showed up, they are also very, very rowdy. They know how to hand out some classy butt kickings, and they started pounding away. Then I popped my surprise. My two lil' friends. I had been saving them for a great SG night and against a worthy opponent. And only when my crew was there. Anyone remember these lil gems? A snow beast, I have been saving since last Christmas, just for her. I hoped she would notice me. She did. Thankfully, debt means nothing to a lvl 50. (Poor poor Shatter).


The sandy one went down after a lot of thumping. So did several of his lil pals. Foolish villians--we had it going on. The battle moved, flowed, ebbed. I saw her one more time...just in time for her to blow me a kiss. A one-shot-one-kill kinda kiss. I love that undead toon....OH? Yes dear! Well, my wife says I am creeping her out and I gotta go to bed.

Seriously, AWESOME time in RV with the crew. Hope you faired well after I had to bail.

Letter from Positron

First off, I will meet you all in Atlas City Hall tonight. I posted on the boards and there are a few people/SGs who will be joining us.

Now onto Posi's letter:
-------------------

Two of the biggest complaints we see about the base system is "Stuff is too expensive" and "It takes us too long to get a base that does anything useful."

Statesman and I have looked closely at the data. We have looked at various Supergroup sizes and how they have been earning Prestige since CoV launched. One thing became clear, and that was that players were not earning Prestige at the rate that we had expected them to.

To this end, you can expect to see an (approximately) 25% increase in Prestige earning. This will be in an upcoming patch (have to get it through QA).

To address the issue of "It takes us too long to get a base that does anything useful" we are adding in some new rooms (in the same patch):

The Oversight Center (Found in the Control Rooms tab):

This is a 3x3 room that costs 50,000 Prestige. It can hold 1 Control item, 1 Storage item, and 1 Workshop item (as well as unlimited decorative items). This room is most likely going to be the first room you build in your base, and should be easily affordable by just adding a couple members into your Supergroup. "What about energy?" you ask. Well that is handled with a new Control item, a small, 25,000 prestige, generator that outputs Control and Energy to a level that is "just enough" to get the minimal functionality of the base online (that being a single Teleporter, Reclimator, and Worktable).

Med Bay:

This is a 2x2 Medical room that costs 50,000 Prestige. It has the restriction of only allowing 1 Medical item in it (no Anchors, no Aux items). This will allow you to get your "Revive in Base" functionality faster than you could previously.

Teleport Bay:

This is a 1x2 Teleport room that costs 50,000 Prestige. It has the restriction of no Dimensional Anchors and only allowing 1 Teleporter and 1 Teleport Aux Item (so your Teleporter is restricted to going to only one zone). This gives your base some limited Teleport functionality almost out the gate.

Workshop:

A new 1x2 Workshop will be available costing 50,000 Prestige. It, too, can not have any Dimensional Anchors in it, and it is limited to 1 Worktable and 1 Storage object, as well as 1 Empowerment Station.

Our goal has been refined since the original launch of City of Villains. We now want to allow a small Supergroup of 4 or 5 fairly active players to be able to afford something new in their base every few weeks. These new, lower cost rooms, and combo Control/Energy item, allow us to do just that, without making large Supergroups attain the top tier stuff too quickly.

This week Statesman and I (among others) will begin looking at the larger Supergroups and determining where the shortcomings are at that end of the system and figure out what we need to implement in order to get larger Supergroups to a level where both they and we are happy.

--------------------
Positron
Lead Designer, City of Heroes
---
While certainly the new small rooms won't be of any use to us (except maybe over on Villains), the bump in prestiege will certainly help us get towards the 11 million prestiege secured plot a lot quicker. I thought perhaps we could just get secured rooms, but by the time we get the ones we need, we'll be at nearly 11 million anyway. And they are also larger rooms, so everything won't be able to fit on our current plot. So we might just upgrade secret plot sizes to save on rent (I've heard spent prestiege is taxed less than banked prestiege) and then cash in when we've finally reached our goal.

By the way, I placed 5 dimensional anchors in the base. I challenge anyone to go in and tell me how long it takes to find them.

Wow, wouldn't it be nice to get a 25% retroactive increase on the prestiege we've already made? :) 25% less screaming about being in SG mode! :-P Woot!

Cap is Back!

THE CAPTAIN IS IN THE BUILDING!!!

I'm baaaack..........
MUAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAA!!!!!

Speaking of Hard...

Last night's Hami raid, was not so, umm, well it wasn't so great.

Well it was a big defeat for me!

Well it was a big defeat for me. I was soloing some missions this morning passing the time away since Chaud will be away from home for a couple of days and low and behold, Aurora Borealis comes into the picture.

Elite boss's are hard for a solo stalker, but after being sent to the hospital several times, I finally figured out the combination of buffs and hits to take her down. Hide, 5 dmg inspirations, build up, and an assassination strike, then run like heck, and come back when all powers are back.

So now I work my way to level 36, hopefully before this evening. See you all later, and remember "Elite Boss's Are Hard When Your Solo"...LOL

Double XP Weekend

Did anyone else hear about this? I read on the boards that from July 21-23, you will get double xp.

Me oh my, who to level quickest??. . .

Numina TF on Tuesday

Just a quick post gang. Come help me get my Task Force Commander Badge!! Refreshments will be served afterwards :P

Numina TF on Tuesday, July 18th
8:30 pm Pacific
Level 35 min

Don't forget about PVP in RV on Wednesday night @ 8:30pm Pacific!! Bring your friends!!!

Tech Input of the Day

No not THAT Tech--technology input! OK, I found these keyboards online while buying many new upgrades for some of my computers. www.zboard.com I bought a MERC and a FANG (for laptop) and both rock. Comes with a keybind engine with preset keys for game and if you want you can change the keys under options/keymapping. Anyways, price is good at Newegg.com and Tigerdirect.com--around $35-38. So if you have some spare cash laying around, turn into a full fledged gamer-nerd and buy one. (Or three like I did for every comp I own--nerd).

www.omegadrivers.net

On another note, if you are running an older model graphic card or want to spice up a newer one, Omega Dirvers takes card drivers and tweeks them to better perform for gamers. They were recommended to me when I first started COH back in Aug of last year and my old clunker system was nowhere near within minimum specs to play. So I bought the best card my system would allow and then still had mad lag. I downloaded this driver for it and saw huge improvements. Instructions are on the site for it, and I recommend downloading the driver install onto your desktop and then doing install from there. I use their drivers for all my cards now and am happy with the results.

Lastly, Vidiotmaps.com seems to be down...anyone know of where to get a map patch like they had? I have a new comp and didn't get it in time before they went down. :-(

Only Numina remains...

Great job on the Manticore TF today!! It flew by very quickly. Having 3 Spine Scrappers really pays off :D

Only Numina remains...after her I get my TaskForce Commander Accolade!! Woot!

The TF itself wasn't too bad. We had it set on Heroic so we mostly conned Blues, Greens, and Whites. The second map was crazy long but after that we could get away with stealthing the mishes. Unfortunately, I died while trying to click a glowie while Invis was on because of the recent Supression patch :( I thought the Invis wouldn't surpress until *after the clicking was done. Damn you Devs!!!

The AV wasn't tough at all...we ran through Hopkins in 2 mins tops. All I know is that he has Energy Melee cause I saw him use Whirling Hands and he has the pink pom-poms of doom. He crumbled under assault and didn't get to do much. Here's a visual aid of how badly he got rushed down:



Special thanks to Chica Vaga for toughing it out with no travel power. Take one at lvl 14 next time :P We missed you Tech and Grand!

Note to Azzie: Can you please put up the team pic... for some reason mine didn't take. Thanks doll!

TaskForce Word of the Day: UGG's

Good News!

Lost Senpai has escaped from the Malta Group! Got a message from him today saying his computer fried and he should be be back in Paragon in a couple weeks. Woot!

Manticore TF on Saturday at 11 am Pacific. We're going to get Colder his TF accolade if it kills us! :) Don't forget to invite all your superpowered friends to RV AV night Wednesday the 19th @ 8:30 pm pacific.

Also, are we going to start designing the base for raids? Is anyone interested in this at all? You've all been so quiet...

Payback's a -- Bitch!

It is time and vegeance shall be ours!

I was thinking of doing taking the coalition into RV over the weekend, but since Cap is out of town, Deep works, and Mon needs to get his ice tanker to 40, I thought we could do RV during the week. How's Wednesday July 19th at 8:30 pm Pacific sound? Most of us are on around that time anyway. Let me know if that works and I'll put out the word to everyone in my friend list!

Maybe we can do Manticore over the weekend? Saturday at noon pacific perhaps?

Never enough Heroes :(

Well, we tried to beat on Mako and Ghost widow tonight. I was hoping for a good beatdown on a few villans and some hearty laughs with a few friends. what the hell....we had the laughs anyway :)

There just weren't enough Heroes in RV tonight :( we gave it our all in several hard hitting charges and still got our asses handed to us by Ghost Widow!

On a more positive note, we still did damn good! we tried and could have succeeded if we'd had a few more heroes fighting alongside us. Remember, it takes at least 20 or more heroes to defeat AVs in RV. We tried with only 14. That takes more guts and raw valor than challenging a horde of Minions.

I'll see all of you in RV another night for a rematch!!

FOR HONOR AND GLORY!!!

Azrhiaz surveying the dead

Lord Recluse gets a beating!

Lord Recluse gets a beating!

A few nights ago, after our friends had hit the sack....

Deep and I and Icefire Minx, with the help of about 20 or more heroes headed to Recluse Victory for what we thought would be some last minute PvP fun before sleep.
We weren't to far wrong....
Already in progress was a small scale assault on Pillboxes right and left. Heroes gathered at Bravo, and squared off against Lord Recluse and Black Scorpion. The battle was a heavy skirimish with Heroes dropping in pain, and Arachnos goons scattering like leaves.
I couldn't believe my luck when who should be running past, but Lord Recluse himself! without his bodyguards.....
I took a chance, and tried to pummel the fleeing Archvillan. I was lucky all things considered. Lasted about a minute with Unstoppable on. The end result was however, only to be expected.
joining the crowd of Heroes, Half-Inch Bicep, Icefire Minx and I got into the thick of the fray and fought off Relcuse's Bane Commandos and a few Tarantulas. After that, we got into the front ranks of the fighting and beat the hell out of Recluse!
As we savored our badges and the crowd began to break up and wander off, I thought I heard Recluse mumble about a rematch....

Synapse

I need to knock out Synapse on Baba Kanoosh. So I look to be on this Saturday around 7 pm EST and will start trying to recruit. One of my wife's alt toons will be there, so anyone lvl 15-20 wants to jump in, or if higher, get exemp'd and pay off some debt and earn some prestige, you are welcome. A little late for the west coasters (and points further off) but such is the ugly pain of the wide, wide world of MMORPGs.

Another year older...but is he wiser??

A Brute in Atlas Park?!?

Yes, you read this correctly. I had to share it with everyone. His name is Bounces and he's a level 43 Natural Brute. It caused quite a stir in Atlas to say the least. Most tried to kill him at first then they tried to add him to their teams but were unsuccessful. LOL
The Devs dc'd everyone in Atlas but he returned after logging back in. Eventually the Devs held him in the Atlas Globe. From there he was wisked away. There was also a Corruptor in Kings Row but he didn't linger as long as the Brute.

Movie Stars in our Midsts

Tzadi sent me this video he did on MySpace and thought I'd share it since it's very cool. Chaud Woman and Captain Thundar are major supporting roles! I think you saw the back of Dunizel's head once, but now I'm incredibly jealous!! I wanna be a moviestar too! lol!

"Boom" featuring Tzadkayle

*edit- You'll need a current version of Flash Player to view this apparently.
Go to: here and download the latest version

We are. . . the Slayers of Madness

Lanaruu with his Ice Storm
Well Faathim the Kind really isn't quite so kind, handing us a 6 hour TF. However with a finely tuned team like ours, we tore it up with a minimum amount of death. Well, until the end of course. Granite and invulnerable tanks were broken like wine glasses at a Jewish wedding, scrappers got their butts handed to 'em, and well, blasters got blasted, nearly through the side of the fortress! Lanaruu the Mad raised his elementals and storm powers at us. With a hurricane that was as big as the Hollows, he was hard as hell to reach and with ice storms and pets aplenty, we were cleaning the inspir dispenser of all its goodies!

But true heroism *does prevail. Cap doubted, but we perservered and now have a shiny new badge and 50k more in prestiege to show for it! Grats to all on extra earned badges with Demon Slayer (for Baphomet) and Visionary (for the overseers). I shall not soon forget our granite tank, Maganus yelling "DIE DIE DIE" at the AV! :)

Azrhiaz on High, Keeping Away from the Aggro
Fabulous job by all! On a side note, we have finally been able to place the Supercomputer! Thanks to all for grinding out the prestiege!

Hope to see you at the PvP training tomorrow afternoon!

Hung Load Time on Updater?--Have Fix!

OK it took me over an hour to log on today and cost me some serious fun with Chaud and Grand. They were handing me my can in arena and the Updater hosed me out some more humiliation. So if you are having problems with the Updater getting you to the game you can bypass it. Create a new shortcut on your desktop of City of Heroes.exe (NOT the Updater). Once you have done that, go to properties of the new shortcut and you will see the file name of "C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\CityOfHeroes.exe" Now type in: -project coh at the end so it looks like this:
"C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\CityOfHeroes.exe" -project coh

and viola, you skip the updater. If you have any more questions check out the forums, I found it there after some help from Triumph Watch members.

Debt Brigade Saves Statesman. . .AGAIN!

Well the gang headed into Recluse's Victory for yet another night of action. With Chaud Woman, Captain Thundar, DeepCut, Lady Dark Star, Karrnage and myself (with 2 tank pickups) we took over pillboxes, dropped villains, and got AS'ed. Our continued harrying of the villain populace by taking pillboxes got us harrangued on broadcast, but this is PvP after all and the only rule is, there are no rules. I picked off three dominators! Don't think I'm gonna bother with those brutes anymore though!

We tried to stand our ground against Scirocco but there were too few of us. After a while we decided to let the villains get their badges for fighting the Heroes. We watched them take down Back Alley Brawler and for 20 minutes while they battled Statesman. He turned on Unstoppable and plowed through their ranks like a runaway train. They continued on for a long time so we decided to take back a pillbox and save our mighty leader, States. (if the zone tips back in your side's favor, the Signature backup will disappear). Lots of cursing on broadcast as we foiled their evil plans on destroying the greatest hero of them all. Lady Dark Star thought it might be a good idea to make our escape before they came after us with pitchforks!

Don't forget! PVP Training today at 11 am and tomorrow at 4 pm Pacific. Chaud and I are going to start the Faathim TF with Tzadkayle's team around 6ish if you'd like to join us.