world of warcraft

I primarily play Allaryin, a dwarven hunter, my only lvl 70 char. I don’t raid and I burnt out on PvP a while ago. In fact, I hardly play any more. My account is currently pending cancellation (like the 4th or 5th time) as soon as my paid time runs out again.

Despite all of that, my total /played for all of my extant characters is about 53 days. 37 of those were spent on Al.

everquest 2

I’ve had 3 main characters over the years. That said, however, my total playtime on all remaining characters is barely 7.5 days. Half of that has been spent on my current ‘main’, Juvu, a lvl 35/31 sarnak shadowknight/armoursmith – my first serious attempt at playing a tank in any MMO in over 10 years.

city of heroes/villains

I don’t know what my CoH/CoV played time is. My subscription is not active. But I have two characters that I’ve spent the bulk of my time on, Tetris and Columns. I suspect Tetris’s /played time is 2x that of Columns’, despite their vast level differences.

ffxi

I have no idea how much time I spent on FFXI. I don’t even remember if that sort of data was easy to acquire or not. My main character, Kikichikki the Taru WHM hovered at the lvl 20 boundary off and on for months before we finally pulled the plug on our accounts for the last time.

three kingdoms

3K is the mud I played the most during college, and despite my lack of desire to continue playing there, I have hosted several sites for different guilds over the years. My character has hopped between just about every class available in the game, and is finally back in Priests where he started. He is 65 days old.

discworld

The Discworld mud is probably still my favorite text-based game of all time. I’ve put in a lot of time into every class in the game, but all of my alts appear to have been deleted over the years. The only character I have remaining is my main, the current incarnation of Allaryin of the Venerable Council of Seers – 14 days old.

walraven

I guess it’s not much surprise that I’ve spent more time on my own game than anything else. Since I first added character age tracking, Allaryin has logged in excess of 260 days of play/idle time.

Of course, in all of these games, I’ve had other characters that took time but were eventually deleted for one reason or another. And then there are all of the games I only demo’d or beta’d… and the numerous derivative faceless Diku clone MUD’s and cookie cutter Korean MMO’s…

It will take a LONG time for these newfangled graphical games to even come close to the time I’ve spent on MUD’s.

I’d link the actual press release off of NCsoft’s site, but they’re dumb and don’t seem to give permanent links to them? *mutter* Anyhow, the relevant portion reads:

Santa Monica, Calif., July 11, 2007 — NCsoft® Corporation (KSE:036570.KS), the world’s leading developer and publisher of online games today announced an exclusive game development deal with Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) that provides for NCsoft to create several online games for SCEI’s PlayStation® platforms, including PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) and PSP® (PlayStation®Portable), accessible through PLAYSTATION®Network. The announcement was made today at the E3 Media and Business Summit taking place in Santa Monica, California.

Although company officials did not divulge any details regarding the names or types of games in development, NCsoft officials did say the games would be created from both existing intellectual properties (IP) owned by NCsoft, as well as new IP.

… irrelevant self praise and other generic info snipped …

But I am a bit confused… after all, doesn’t Sony have their own MMO department? Are there implications for closer cooperation and eventual buying and merging in the future here? The possibilities melt my brain slightly. While I’m pleased to hear that NCsoft will be producing PS3 software and am especially pleased to hear that they’ll be building games from existing NCsoft IP, I’m very interested in seeing how the crossover with Sony plays out. [Insert silly visions of SOE becoming absorbed by NCsoft and producing City of Everquest's Lineage Wars]

One really interesting little side note to this whole deal is the future status of City of Heroes/Villains. After all, Marvel and DC both sued Cryptic/NCsoft over their use of the word ‘superhero’ and all that fun stuff a while ago. Now, Cryptic is working with Marvel to produce an MMO for the 360/PC – a game that will come in direct competition with City of Heroes. With this news, NCsoft (who shares the CoH/V trademark with Cryptic) will possibly be working with Sony on their DC based MMO for the PS3/PC – another game that will likely compete directly with CoH. Interesting times.

I’m still kind of bummed that the 360 got the Marvel contract and the PS3 was stuck with the DC contract. I don’t like DC I mean, ok, fine, Batman’s cool… but that’s really about it. I actually buy and read Marvel comics Of course, nobody’ll actually be playing as either Batman or Spiderman, so I doubt the IP really matters all that much, but it’s the principle of the thing, ne?

Anyhow.

A few days ago, I reactivated my CoH account and started playing around again. My new video card makes an enormous difference. Pocket D is just amazing with the effects and sewer maps have a lot more to them than I remembered.

Today the Good vs Evil bonuses went live for online purchase, and I acquired them ($10 for permanent upgrade to all chars – new and old – on the account). The Pocket D teleport ability is cool (just one more way to get around town) and the jumpjet is ok. I imagine it’ll be awesome on chars w/o a travel power (or those with super speed who have problems gaining altitude). Unfortunately, it also has a relatively long cooldown and a 30 sec duration before running out so is only good for one big jump or something.

I’ve not played with the new costume options yet, I don’t want to lose my current one.

The big news is that for the first time in AGES, I’ve earned a level (19) with Tetris. And it was a doozy.

See, last I’d played him, he contracted himself a case of the zombie plague. No actual turning into a zombie, that’d have potentially been cool. Nope. Disease gives you swarming flies around your body and a nasty permanent debuff to both your maximum health and endurance (and endurance regen).

Well, Tetris is a controller, specifically an illusionist. He uses high amounts of end to get his job done. In order to succeed in missions, he relies on invisibility and mind control and stuff. This costs lots of juice. When you have no juice… things suddenly become downright impossible.

So, it took me about an hour and 2 deaths to finally get cured of the disease.

Then the final mission in the story line has you putting an end to Dr. Vahlizok’s latest version of the plague by glowy hunting (something that invisible chars can – surprise – do with zero danger). I think the high level glowy hunt was my true reward for the nightmare that was the diseased portion of the mission.

The final glowy to be hunted (infected body to be incinerated) was in this enormous Frankensteinesque workshop. I tried to snap a picture but apparently it didn’t take. Also, when I turned in the mission to my contact, she said something about actually coming face to face with Dr Vahz. This thing, I did not notice. I’m kind of bummed, because I could have taken him. Zombies are notoriously weak vs invisibility and stuff. Oh well.

Last friday night, we decided to do the respec TF with one of our allies (a very effective healer who isn’t quite willing to jump ship from her current SG and join us yet). We started at 9pm and didn’t finish until 2am. The reason for this being that the final boss took us something like two hours to kill. With a healer, a nuke, and 2 summoners, we just didn’t have the firepower to beat him down fast enough – especially since our damage types were all wrong.

The boss was a tree. A great honking tree that shoots out poison spines, is surrounded by constantly regrowing vines that also shoot out thorns, and is worshipped by screaming hordes of evil necromancer types. The tree is located in a great big round room and is surrounded by a number of barrier mounds of earth that interrupt line-of-sight between the outer wall and the base of the tree.

The general procedure for killing the monstrosity is as follows:

• Do a lap around the huge room and eliminate all cultists.
• Do another lap – much faster this time – and kill all 24 vines.
• Charge the base of the tree and pound on it until it dies.
• Beat down any vines that respawn on you while you’re killing the main tree itself.
• Retreat behind the hills when things get bad and when the occasional ambush patrol of newly spawned cultists shows up.

Had we actually managed to do this, we’d have been fine.

Unfortunately, the three vines that spawn close to the vulnerable portion of the base of the tree tended to all spawn at once and all target the same victim at once – for 300+ damage total per volley. My lich was probably the toughest one in the group – he only has 550 hp. If both the dedicated healer and I turned and healed somebody at once, we could probably keep up with the damage… but only if our reaction was immediate.

We tried several different tactics, including climbing the back wall and sniping the tree and vines. Unfortunately, they all seem to have an infinite range, and by climbing up high enough, we were subjected to fire by more than just the three in front of the tree.

Eventually, we settled into a groove of letting the lich attempt to tank most of the hurt. I spammed heal on him and he endeavored to heal himself from time to time. And this worked, so long as the vines never spawned. But, when they did spawn, they tended to drop him in about 2 seconds since Radio (the healer) was too far away to respond and was busy keepign the rest of the group alive.

When the vines (or ‘VOMES’ as it was typoed in a particularly loud cry for help from Kernel one time) spawned, the lich would usually die and we would turn all of our attention to dropping them. This typically resulted in several minutes spent licking our wounds and trying to resummon our pets – on those occasions where we managed to kill them all before they turned on and dropped a party member in stead.

Had the vomes been the only problem, we’d have been fine.

But, in addition to spawning new vines every 10 minutes or so, the blasted cultists liked to ambush us something like every 30-40 minutes. And they tried to coordinate their spawn with that of the vines… So we’d be very much busy trying to drop the vines before they dropped us when a handfull of demons and ghosts and archers would saunter in through the back door and start hammering on us from behind.

We would then die horrible sucking chest wound type deaths. By the time we all respawned, returned to the tree, and cleaned up the cultists, the tree would have been completely healed and we would get to try all over again.

Finally, we caught and survived an ambush, which gave us enough time to turn around and finish off the tree before yet another wave decided to show up.

Finishing off the boss and completing the mission bumped me up to level 28 and reduced my accrued debt down to 14k. Now… I must have been 12-15k away from level when we finally killed him, and exp earned while in debt is split down the middle. So he must have been worth around 30k exp and I must have racked up something like that in debt… each death costing me somewhere around 3k debt…

Yeah.

One time, while we were all busy running back from the hospital, I threatened that I’d create a new character – a dedicated healer/support spec who would actually do FIRE damage when he was forced to pick up a nuke ability (stupid trees…). And it was decreed that he would be named after the most vicious thing any of us had ever fought.

The CoH character builder utility has found a new home at http://sherksilver.coldfront.net/.

Vomes

Archetype: Corruptor
Primary: Fire Blast
Secondary: Thermal Radiation

01) --> Fire Blast==> Acc(1)  Dmg(13)
01) --> Warmth==> Heal(1)  Heal(3)  Heal(3)  Heal(5)  EndRdx(5)  Rechg(7)
02) --> Fire Shield==> DmgRes(2)  DmgRes(13)  DmgRes(29)  DmgRes(31)  DmgRes(31)  DmgRes(33)
04) --> Cauterize==> Heal(4)  Heal(7)  Heal(9)  Heal(9)  EndRdx(11)  Rechg(11)
06) --> Hasten==> Rechg(6)
08) --> Maneuvers==> DefBuf(8)  DefBuf(15)  EndRdx(15)
10) --> Plasma Shield==> DmgRes(10)  DmgRes(31)
12) --> Hurdle==> Jump(12)
14) --> Super Speed==> EndRdx(14)
16) --> Power of the Phoenix==> DisDur(16)  Heal(17)  Rechg(17)  Rechg(33)
18) --> Health==> Heal(18)  Heal(19)  Heal(19)  Heal(33)  Heal(34)  Heal(34)
20) --> Stamina==> EndMod(20)  EndMod(21)  EndMod(21)  EndMod(23)  EndMod(23)  EndMod(25)
22) --> Thaw==> EndRdx(22)  Rechg(27)  Range(34)  EndRdx(36)
24) --> Tactics==> TH_Buf(24)  TH_Buf(25)  EndRdx(27)
26) --> Assault==> EndRdx(26)
28) --> Forge==> TH_Buf(28)  Rechg(29)
30) --> Blazing Bolt==> IntRdx(30)  Acc(36)  Dmg(36)  Dmg(37)  Dmg(37)  Range(37)
32) --> Vengeance==> Heal(32)
35) --> Heat Exhaustion==> Acc(35)
38) --> Melt Armor==> Acc(38)  DefDeBuf(39)  DefDeBuf(39)  DefDeBuf(39)

URL for the character builder is: http://home.comcast.net/~SherkSilver/index.html, but for some reason, b2evolution is blocking the URL – probably some sort of spammish history with Comcast or something

Kikichikki

Kiki is the character in limbo. His name comes from my FFXI WHM/BLM Taru result of the random name generator (For some obscure reason that I forget, it wasn’t letting me choose a name to use). I had always planned on making him a summoner whenever I got high enough, but the level treadmill on FFXI is so slow and unforgiving that he never really made it past 20.

He was the first CoH char I ever created, but has been purged and re-created (both as a hero and as a villain) no less than 6 or 7 times now.

If I do ever get around to re-creating him, I’m torn. I would like to preserve some taste of his FFXI class history, but with Tetris already being a healer/summoner/passable nuke – that slot is kind of already taken on the hero side of things.

I’ll prolly post something once I make up my mind as to an appropriate build to live up to Kiki’s name

Update:

Ok, on Feb 19, I finally decided to sit down and come up with a tentative build that I’m going to play with until level 10 to see if I like it.

Kiki will be an Energy Blast/Dark Miasma corruptor with Super Speed and Medicine. This gives him rather potent damage, crowd control, and evac/wipe recovery capabilities. He gets good healing, two rez abilities (one for in combat, one for out), and picks up a summon at level 38.

Archetype: Corruptor
Primary: Energy Blast
Secondary: Dark Miasma

01) --> Power Bolt==> Acc(1)  Dmg(5)  Dmg(5)  Dmg(13)
01) --> Twilight Grasp==> Acc(1)  EndRdx(3)  Heal(3)  Heal(13)  Heal(19)  Rechg(19)
02) --> Tar Patch==> Slow(2)  Slow(7)
04) --> Power Blast==> Acc(4)  Dmg(7)  Dmg(9)  Dmg(27)
06) --> Hasten==> Rechg(6)  Rechg(15)  Rechg(37)
08) --> Sniper Blast==> Acc(8)  Dmg(9)  Dmg(27)  IntRdx(33)  Range(33)
10) --> Howling Twilight==> Range(10)  DisDur(11)  Slow(11)  EndRdx(36)  EndRdx(37)
12) --> Aim==> TH_Buf(12)
14) --> Super Speed==> EndRdx(14)  EndRdx(15)
16) --> Shadow Fall==> DefBuf(16)  DmgRes(17)  DmgRes(17)  DmgRes(21)  EndRdx(21)  EndRdx(33)
18) --> Stimulant==> IntRdx(18)  Range(37)
20) --> Fearsome Stare==> Acc(20)  Fear(39)  TH_DeBuf(39)
22) --> Aid Other==> IntRdx(22)  Heal(23)  Heal(23)  Heal(25)  Heal(25)  Rechg(39)
24) --> Resuscitate==> Rechg(24)  IntRdx(40)  EndRdx(40)  Heal(40)
26) --> Explosive Blast==> Acc(26)
28) --> Petrifying Gaze==> Acc(28)  Hold(29)  Hold(29)  Hold(31)  Rechg(31)  Rechg(31)
30) --> Power Push==> Acc(30)  KB_Dist(34)  KB_Dist(34)  KB_Dist(34)
32) --> Nova==> Acc(32)
35) --> Black Hole==> Acc(35)  Intang(36)  Intang(36)
38) --> Dark Servant==> Heal(38)

Update:

On March 6th, and in the wake of Vomes, I deleted Kiki (who was only level 3 at the time) and will probably be creating him again as a Hero char after all – likely with the same power sets as mentioned above.

Tetris

Archetype: Controller
Primary: Illusion Control
Secondary: Kinetics

Tetris is/was my primary character. I must have created him back during I4 or so (back long before I was paying attention to patch notes and such). He’s incredibly low level for the amount of play-time I’ve put into him – currently only 18.

I’m pretty certain that I like this plan for his development – that he become a primary healer, pick up his future summons as they are made available, and round the whole thing off with a bunch of Ice Mastery.

01) --> Spectral Wounds==> Acc(1)  Dmg(3)  Dmg(5)  Dmg(9)  Rechg(11)  EndRdx(11)
01) --> Transfusion==> Acc(1)  Acc(7)  Heal(7)  Heal(15)  Heal(15)  Heal(19)
02) --> Deceive==> Acc(2)  Acc(3)  ConfDur(5)  ConfDur(23)
04) --> Repel==> EndRdx(4)
06) --> Hover==> DefBuf(6)  DefBuf(46)
08) --> Superior Invisibility==> EndRdx(8)  DefBuf(9)  DefBuf(46)  DefBuf(46)
10) --> Flash==> Acc(10)  Acc(23)
12) --> Blind==> Acc(12)  Dmg(13)  Dmg(13)  Dmg(17)  Hold(17)  Hold(19)
14) --> Fly==> Fly(14)
16) --> Siphon Speed==> Acc(16)  Rechg(43)
18) --> Phantom Army==> Dmg(18)  Dmg(21)  Rechg(21)  Rechg(34)  Rechg(43)  Acc(43)
20) --> Speed Boost==> EndMod(20)  EndMod(25)
22) --> Increase Density==> DmgRes(22)  DmgRes(40)  DmgRes(40)
24) --> Stimulant==> IntRdx(24)  IntRdx(25)  Rechg(27)  Range(27)
26) --> Spectral Terror==> Acc(26)  Fear(31)  Fear(31)
28) --> Aid Other==> Heal(28)  Heal(29)  Heal(29)  Heal(31)  IntRdx(37)  Rechg(40)
30) --> Resuscitate==> Rechg(30)
32) --> Phantasm==> Acc(32)  Dmg(33)  Dmg(33)  Dmg(33)  KB_Dist(34)  Fly(34)
35) --> Transference==> Acc(35)  Acc(36)  EndMod(36)  EndMod(36)  EndMod(37)  Rechg(37)
38) --> Fulcrum Shift==> Acc(38)  Rechg(39)  Rechg(39)  Rechg(39)
41) --> Hibernate==> Rechg(41)  Rechg(42)  Rechg(42)  EndMod(42)
44) --> Frozen Armor==> DefBuf(44)  DefBuf(45)  DefBuf(45)  DmgRes(45)
47) --> Ice Storm==> Acc(47)  Dmg(48)  Dmg(48)  Dmg(48)
49) --> Ice Blast==> Acc(49)  Dmg(50)  Dmg(50)  Dmg(50)

Update

Tetris finally got around to using his free respec (awarded back around I3 or something). He’s since dropped repel in favor of group invisibility and is most likely not going to pick up the medicine power set. No further plans exist for him yet.

Columns

Archetype: Mastermind
Primary: Necromancy
Secondary: Poison

Columns is currently level 23 and holds the distinction of being the first char that I actually planned for more than a level in advance. At 15, I sat down with a pencil and plotted his skill choices through 38.

Future levels are waiting for I7′s Patron Powers to be announced, since I’m probably going to be choosing one of them for my remaining 4 abilities.

01) --> Zombie Horde==> Dmg(1)  Dmg(3)  Dmg(5)  Acc(25)  TH_DeBuf(33)  Heal(33)
01) --> Alkaloid==> Heal(1)  Heal(9)  Heal(9)  Rechg(15)
02) --> Gloom==> Acc(2)  Dmg(3)  Dmg(11)
04) --> Dark Blast==> Acc(4)  Dmg(5)  Dmg(15)
06) --> Combat Jumping==> DefBuf(6)  DefBuf(7)  DefBuf(7)  EndRdx(37)
08) --> Enchant Undead==> Rechg(8)
10) --> Life Drain==> Acc(10)  Dmg(11)  Heal(25)
12) --> Grave Knight==> Dmg(12)  Dmg(13)  Dmg(13)  Acc(19)  TH_DeBuf(19)  Heal(33)
14) --> Super Jump==> Jump(14)
16) --> Elixir of Life==> Range(16)  Rechg(17)  Rechg(17)
18) --> Swift==> Run(18)
20) --> Health==> Heal(20)  Heal(21)  Heal(21)  Heal(40)  Heal(40)
22) --> Stamina==> EndMod(22)  EndMod(23)  EndMod(23)  EndMod(31)  EndMod(31)  EndMod(34)
24) --> Stealth==> EndRdx(24)  DefBuf(36)  DefBuf(36)  DefBuf(37)
26) --> Lich==> Immob(26)  Hold(27)  Heal(27)  Heal(29)  Dmg(29)  Dmg(34)
28) --> Paralytic Poison==> Acc(28)  Hold(31)  Hold(39)  Rechg(39)  Rechg(39)  EndRdx(40)
30) --> Soul Extraction==> Rechg(30)  Rechg(34)
32) --> Dark Empowerment==> Rechg(32)
35) --> Poison Trap==> Acc(35)  Sleep(36)  EndMod(37)
38) --> Noxious Gas==> Rechg(38)

Update

Columns has completed the respec trial and will be dumping his nukes in exchange for debuffs. No other plans have been finalized yet. When I do decide upon how to spend the respec, I’ll post the details in a new post.

Kin’iro

Archetype: Stalker
Primary: Energy Melee
Secondary: Energy Aura

Kini is currently level 7 and isn’t planned quite as seriously as Columns is. It doesn’t really look like any of the stalker nrg powers are not worth having, so the decisions aren’t as clear-cut as they were in the previous case.

The only decisions that I’m really confident about are those made up to level 14 – and possibly that of grabbing super speed some point later in her career. And ditto to Columns’ indecision on levels 41+, as they’re pending I7.

01) --> Energy Punch==> Acc(1)  Acc(9)  Dmg(11)  Dmg(13)  EndRdx(15)  DisDur(15)
01) --> Hide==> EndRdx(1)  DefBuf(3)  DefBuf(31)  DefBuf(31)
02) --> Bone Smasher==> Acc(2)  Dmg(3)  Dmg(7)  Dmg(13)  EndRdx(17)  Rechg(17)
04) --> Kinetic Shield==> DefBuf(4)  DefBuf(5)  DefBuf(5)  EndRdx(9)
06) --> Assassin's Strike==> Acc(6)  Acc(7)  Dmg(11)  Dmg(19)  Dmg(21)  Rechg(21)
08) --> Build Up==> TH_Buf(8)  Rechg(37)
10) --> Recall Friend==> Rechg(10)
12) --> Placate==> Rechg(12)  Rechg(37)
14) --> Teleport==> EndRdx(14)  EndRdx(23)
16) --> Energy Protection==> DmgRes(16)  DmgRes(23)  DmgRes(36)
18) --> Power Shield==> DefBuf(18)  DefBuf(19)  DefBuf(25)  EndRdx(25)
20) --> Entropy Shield==> EndRdx(20)
22) --> Teleport Foe==> Acc(22)  Acc(40)
24) --> Hasten==> Rechg(24)  Rechg(29)  Rechg(29)
26) --> Energy Transfer==> Acc(26)  Dmg(27)  Dmg(27)  Dmg(31)  EndRdx(34)  Rechg(34)
28) --> Energy Drain==> EndMod(28)
30) --> Super Speed==> EndRdx(30)
32) --> Total Focus==> Acc(32)  Dmg(33)  Dmg(33)  Dmg(33)  EndRdx(34)  DisDur(36)
35) --> Conserve Power==> Rechg(35)  Rechg(36)  Rechg(37)
38) --> Overload==> DefBuf(38)  DefBuf(39)  DefBuf(39)  Heal(39)  Heal(40)  Heal(40)

Founder(?) of the group’s name is Sweet Sakura – and naturally, she chose colours that worked with her outfit. Other guy is big robot looking thing, so it’s funny on him, but not as bad as on my necromancer. I am strongly considering putting together some sort of group photo (with before and after versions) just to prove how bad the transformation is.

It’s kind of funny how I happened to hook up with them. All three of us were on the same mission – and Sakura and I were both incredibly annoyed at it. Talking back and forth over public channel whether or not we should group to do it I wound up bumping into her as we both searched for our quarry (ie, we both landed on the same rooftop to regroup and get our bearings). So, yeah.

This should increase my general level of enjoyability in the game. They’re cool kids. I also got my stalker alt into the group (catgirl with pink energy punch of doom – Penny actually selected the costume). And, unsurprisingly, she looks good in the pink/purple combo.

If I don’t hear any more about my attempts at creating a web page for my WoW guild, odds are high that I’ll just scrap it and use the space for something for the CoV group

In addition to this group, earlier today, I wound up in another good party – a duo – with a guy who mentioned that he was dissatisfied with his SG, so I might try recruiting him to the pink side as well. Bwahaha!

Update – Mar 6

Apparently it wasn’t Sakura’s idea to go with the pink… so one can only assume that Kernel is to blame. Shrug. I’ve since spent a lot of time tweaking my costumes to make them look less ugly in pink/purple and am more or less resigned to my fate.

However… the thought of gradually shifting the purple to a shade of blue (since I do have that much access to the group’s settings…) is very tempting in deed

I’ve never liked Valentine’s Day. It just never appealed to me. Something about forced emotions and all. Shrug. That, and I don’t like chocolate

Both CoH and WoW are running markedly different events for the holiday. I’ve played around with both of them a bit and find the differences kind of interesting.

City of Heroes

In CoH/CoV, the event centers around an interdimensional nightclub that players of both factions may visit. It’s kind of a neat place. Loud music, flashing lights, and no PvP allowed. Anyhow. The place opened in late January if I am remembering correctly.

As a way of pushing attendance, they then launched this V-Day event that enables/requires heroes and villains to party together and do some fairly demanding missions. It’s repetitive – in order to get the badge, you have to kill the same boss 5 times (and for each of those five times, you have to kill him 3 times within the same mission…).

But it’s cool. I got to run around with my lvl 22 necromancer sidekicked to lvl 40 defenders and scrappers (hero healer and melee dps classes respectively). It was great fun. Much overkill happened.

They also sell temporary party buffing/healing powers at the nightclub that are most effective when used on a member of the opposite faction. I burnt through one of each type, with absolutely amazing results. Scrapper with my +attack and +def buffs was unstoppable. The defender got hurt, I healed her for something like 900 damage. (For reference, at level 22, with a squishy type character, I have something around 300 hp. My normal heal does around 100 points and is very useful. I assume that since defenders are kind of squishy as well, they don’t have more than 3x my hp at only 2x my level).

In addition to the nightclub missions, you are also given a free costume piece just for logging in during the event – a toga Apparently you can quest further and get some sandals and a laurel crown. Event is kind of sponsored by Eros. So, yeah.

I ran around quickly and finished my mission to earn a second costume slot and can now switch into my toga at a moment’s notice. I’ve got to look up on the web and see what has to be done to get my other costume components. What’s really kind of funny with the toga is that since my char’s thematically rather associated with the undead, I made him very very pale. This does not look good at all in a toga. So, when he switches costumes, he suddenly gets a rather nice tan

As with all events in the game, they send all registered players an announcement of the details. In this case, the document in question is currently available on their web site here. It’s a funny read.

World of Warcraft

Warcraft’s event is also kind of interesting. There seems to be some sort of plague of lovesickness sweeping the planet. And there is this ugly, evil little flying goblin in a diaper with a bow…

Basic event function is spraying oneself with perfume/cologne and giving cards to assorted NPC’s. Most of the time they accept and give you a present in return. Unless it’s the Stormwind city guards. They’re mean. You have to collect a total of 15 items per faction, and the items you get per gift exchange are kind of random (so you will probably have to gift more than 15 NPC’s to get them).

Tony and I both did all of the gifting we needed to do in Ironforge last night, and each only got rejected 1 or 2 times. I am about 2/3 of the way to finishing my Stormwind collection and have been shot down no less than 5 or 6 times.

Yeah. Tony and I are both IF natives. So, it could be some really subtle racism code, but I’m not certain. It could also be somehow related to one’s current faction standing with the city in question – we’re both very well loved at home, but my worst Alliance faction rating is with SW.

Or… it could be somehow related to the buff you get when you cure somebody who just got rejected. When you get shot down, you get a heartbroken debuff that lasts for an hour unless some other player gives you a friendship bracelet. Yeah. Cute. Anyhow, when you give it, you receive a positive status effect without any apparent numerical significance. Since Tony and I had both healed each other, we were both running around with the whole Power of Friendship buff or whatever it’s called. I wonder if that offers you a bit of protection from the heartache?

Anyhow. In addition to this whole running around and smelling pretty and giving out cards nastiness that has infected all six capital cities in the game, there are NPC’s who are concerned about the whole situation and agree that something is not right. I don’t know about the Horde side of things, but I’ve been sent on something of a wild turkey chase all over Stormwind to get perfumes analyzed and such. I’m not actually being sent out of town to hunt down the supplier of the chemicals It’ll be funny. It’s a mid-low level area that they want me to visit.

Bleepitty bleep BLEEP!
Again, with the crashing
Amused, I am not

This crash didn’t last as long as the previous one. And, also unlike the previous crash, only Pinnacle was affected this time. We think it was our fault, somehow. We. I was in a strikeforce who had only just attacked Bat’zul.

The fight was literally only seconds old when the server went down. I took a picture, but was most dissapointed to discover that the HUD was removed by default. Thus, the big “CONNECTION LOST” message isn’t hovering over the middle of the screen. I’d also have liked to have the party roster in the picture, just to verify who all helped crash the server

So… after a few minutes, when the server came back up, we had to do the entire last mission all over again. The bright side of all of this is that we got to kill the mini-boss a second time. He drops lvl 23 single origin enhancements. So, we each got two off of him from that Then the final boss seemed to drop between 2 and 4 more SO’s for people. So even though the entire run took us something like 3 hours to complete, it was muchly worth the trouble.

I went from barely into lvl 16 to just under 19 from all of that. I have FOUR zombies at a time now

*Muahahahahaaaahaa..ha…haha* *cough* *sputter* HA!

like rivers of ice
my connection timed out
the server has crashed

Last week, I finally picked up City of Villains when I noticed that the price had dropped to $30. Happy deal since I already have an active City of Heroes account and the expansion just plugs right in w/o increasing subscription costs or anything.

In the grand tradition of all things of this nature, I was compelled to see what could be done about raising an undead army. Several hours of play later, I have a 14th level mastermind (necromancy/poison spec). He’s neato. While his individual attacks don’t do a terrible amount of damage, he currently has three zombies who are also attacking at the same time. I can generally drop a single yellow mob before he has time to react. I don’t handle additional mobs as quickly, since I generally burnt everything on the first kill and have to wait for everything to cool down, but that’s ok.

I have hit points. Lots and lots and lots of hit points. Granted, my character himself isn’t all that impressive. He has no defensive abilities and is one of the squishier archetypes in the game. But, when you take into account the three literal meat shields he has in constant attendance, the amount of damage required to take me down becomes significantly increased.

Matt (friend from TAMS, works hacking perl for NCSoft’s billing system) finally got around to playing CoV. For some reason, he never really did CoH. It was actually his fault I got started in the first place, and then discovered that he wasn’t playing Hooray for consternation. Well, early this week, we actually managed to party together in CoV. It’s great, our chars were not only the same level with similar power sets (he’s a dark blast/miasma corruptor), we were actually working on the exact same quest arc.

This must be a new CoV feature, because I certainly don’t remember it happening in CoH. But when we completed his first mission, a dialog popped up on my screen, asking if I wanted to receive credit for having completed the quest as well. There was much rejoicing. In CoH, I have very strong memories of doing the same handfull of missions multiple times in rapid succession in order to complete it for each of our individual party members who had it.

What was also fun is because he’s so inexperienced at the game this week was really only his second time in a party. It was great We’ll learn him better next time, eh?