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Thursday, May 22nd, 2008


city_of_heroes
Subject:Issue 12 Comic
Posted by:saintnicster.
Time:3:56 pm.
City of Heroes Issue 12 Comic Book is Now Available!

Direct Download - PDF

Forums Discussion Thread
Comments: comment freely.


thorkell
Subject:[Book reading in 2008] Damnation Alley
Time:8:57 pm.
Mood:awake.
Music:Metallica - Whiskey In The Jar.
Damnation Alley by Roger Zelanzny
At some time in the future some apocalyptic event occurs, likely a nuclear war. Anyway in that future world the population in America is mostly on the coasts. There are two city states, controlled from L.A. and Boston.

In then happens that a plague breaks out in Boston and they don't have a serum for it. The decision is made to send to L.A. for help, which is harder than it sounds since they can't fly because it's impossible to fly, and the area between Boston and L.A. is mostly wasteland with all sorts of hostile and big critters. But the message gets through and L.A. sends help back, which is the expedition this book is about. In the expedition there's a man called Hell Tanner, the last of the Hell's Angels, and not a pleasant loving guy. He and the other guys set out across America, but will they make it in time?

Zelanzny is one of those authors I enjoy reading. His style is easy for me to read, and this book is no exception. The book sounds dated in some places, but it's a good read.
Comments: comment freely.


bradhicks
Subject:Addendum: Reactivation Weekend in COH
Time:3:41 pm.
This just in, from community manager "Lighthouse:" "Just in time to try out all the new features included in Issue 12: Midnight Hour, it’s a free Reactivation Weekend! From Thursday, May 22nd starting at 11 AM Pacific (1 PM Eastern) and continuing through Sunday, May 25th at 8:59 PM Pacific (11:59 PM Eastern) all inactive accounts in good standing have free access to City of Heroes and/or City of Villains!"

I doubt this applies to old trial accounts, but it's worth trying. For the rest of you, if you ever subscribed to City of Heroes or City of Villains, starting after the twice-weekly server maintenance Friday morning, it's free for you for most of Memorial Day weekend.
Comments: comment freely.


city_of_heroes
Subject:Free Weekend
Posted by:kellzilla.
Time:3:21 pm.
I just got this email, thought I'd share it in case people have changed emails and forgot to update their master account:

In celebration of Issue 12: Midnight Hour going live, we have reactivated your game account through the end of this weekend. Simply log on to City of Heroes®/City of Villains® between now and Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 8:59 PST/11:59 EST and your account will be active and playable!

My second account is gettin' jiggy wit' it. >.>
Comments: 3 ideas - comment freely.


websnark
Subject:Eric Burns: State of the (Web)Cartoonist: Scott Kurtz
Time:2:13 pm.

PvP

The Webcartoonist: Scott Kurtz

Current Webcomics: PvP: Player vs. Player, Ding

You Might Remember Him From Such Comics Projects As: Wedlock; Samwise; Truth, Justin and the American Way

Enthusiasm: PvP: Happily Reading; Ding: The Hoi Polloi

How Frequently Read: PvP: Regularly Checked; Ding: When I Remember to Check

First and Foremost, it seems ma.gnolia has done some changes to how it collects lists, which has broken my links to my lists. I will be fixing them later today (which includes fixing them in all the different entries. Mrph).

Secondly, we seem to be doing this. I am excited, though we are just shy of graduation here. However, having gotten Weds into the apartment (finally) life is significantly different now, and it hasn't finished changing, so we're just going to have to see where all of this goes from here.

And so, since there are a lot of changes in the ol' Burns-White household, it makes sense that we're touching on Scott Kurtz today, since change is kind of his byword at the moment.

Essay-wise, Kurtz is one of the bigs ones. In a lot of ways, Scott Kurtz is the reason any of you who are still reading this found it in the first place. He's the first major link I got (well, he and Lore Sjöberg). Due diligence requires I mention that I consider him a friend these days -- albeit one I have little contact with. Certainly, an essay comparing Miranda and Jade and highlighting his character development ranks among my better early efforts, almost four years ago. Which is itself weird to type.

Which means in ways, PvP is one of those strips I've been following most closely for the longest. I've been reading since the days of four panel gag-a-day zing and abrupt art style changes. So on the one hand I've been down close, at ground zero, watching this strip develop. On the other hand, PvP has been going for ten years now, Kurtz started PvP just days after I started working at my current employer's, and we've gone through two and a half cycles of Freshman-to-Graduation classes since then. An eternity, in Internet Years.

And there are some who feel that's a little too long. More and more, I hear comments from friends or acquaintences that PvP's sell-by date has passed. He's become stale, they say -- too reliant on the same tropes over and over again. Others, amusingly, say he's too different. The tone's shifted. I get mail asking if with the recent wedding storylines Scott's done hit the Cerebus Syndrome once and for all. Over on the Snarkoleptics LJ Community, a friend of mine has actually aped my "you had me and you lost me" style, while ducking the Cerebus Syndrome call and instead saying Scott has hit a "Cerebus Lapse." It's good reading, both in the places I agree with him, and in the places I don't agree with him.

Not that there's anything radically new about these calls. As long as I've been reading PvP, there have been people who talk the strip down -- it's cut-and-paste, they said. It's talking-heads, they said. It's too sitcommy. It's too gamer-oriented. It's not gamer-oriented enough. It's too pop-culture. It's too 80's. It's too...

...well, you get the point.

One thing is certain. PvP is not Player vs. Player, the strip Kurtz started back in '98. Indeed, every few years, whether drastically or slowly, Kurtz seems to regenerate PvP all Doctor-Who-Timelord style, the result having recognizable elements from what came before. He changes art styles. He changes storytelling styles. He changes pacing and execution. And for the last several months, we've been seeing him prepare for one of these state changes.

I won't say he's always been effective at it. If we look back 3-4 years ago, Kurtz hit almost every ball lobbed at him. These days, he does more swinging and missing than he used to. The recent paintball story arc, for instance, had me excited when it went into place -- in part because it seemed like it could build, conceptually, on some of the coolest elements of the earlier LARP arc he had done. (To jump back to that linked essay, above, in the LARP storyline we saw Jade-the-RP-geek and Miranda-the-not-RPer in sharp contrast. Well, Miranda is a paintball veteran and Jade isn't, and Miranda showed up in full cosplay gear where Jade didn't. I had been hoping to see their different styles contrasted in Miranda's world instead of Jade's. I also wanted to see just how much both Jade and Miranda had grown over the last few years put into perspective.) Instead, it felt like a lot of setup followed by an emergency ejection.

And, like a lot of folks, I'm entirely okay with not seeing Shecky again. I don't hate him as some people do, but I also don't particularly like him .

Still, there was a sense of marking time -- the occasional whiff of staleness, of one too many Panda joke, of one too many reference back to the General Lee or the ambulance pulling away or of Scratch Fury being evil or... you know, stuff.

Now, we have the wedding storyline. The one teased for years. And PvP has regenerated again. It's not quite the same strip today as it was on April 20. We have closed the twin circles of the Jade/Brent breakup and reconciliation and the Jade pregnancy scare storylines. Brent's taken off his sunglasses. And Skull has walked out of the strip, forced to go because the little boy he was assigned to shepherd has finally grown up.

In that earlier linked Snarkoleptics post, Sean punched out -- in part because he knows that Skull's coming back. This is a ridiculous exercise, as far as he's concerned. And he's right. Skull will be back -- not just because he's the franchise, but because Kurtz finishes the stories he starts. But I'm okay with knowing that. Conflict, as I have said more times than I can count, is a good thing. And though this capstone to the wedding storyline echoes any number of movies or afterschool specials or Pete's Fucking Dragon, right down to the "I need to go, because there's another little boy out there that needs a special friend, Brent. I'll always love you, but you don't need me any more" speech.

Only, and this is a significant only, Brent called Bullshit on that. Skull liked it at PvP. He might have been Brent's Special Friend, but he had his own plotlines, his own keys, his own place. Hell, he had a girlfriend. He had a life. And PvP loved Skull, not just Brent. When Jade finds out that Skull is leaving, she reacts with horror and pain too. And in the current strip as of this writing, Cole promises that they will get Skull back, somehow.

That's not a series exit. That's setup. That helps to set the tone and the conflict moving forward, and that is a good thing. That is a hopeful thing. Skull will, I believe, return to the strip. The question is not the destination -- it's the ride we're going to take to get there. And I have hope for that ride.

I'm not as enthusiastic for PvP as I used to be, I'll admit. It's a comfortable strip -- an old friend. And as Brent gets older and wiser and his relationship with Jade evolves, I find myself identifying with him more and more. (But then, I'm a Starbucks fan who has used Macs for years, I have a degree in English Literature and I am pretentiously superior. I am Brent.) Even as his career at PvP started along with the strip almost at the same time I started in my current job, so too is his wedding frighteningly close to my own. As Jade grows as a character, she becomes more well rounded, and more recognizable to me as well. That's all to the good.

I haven't touched on Ding! much here. Um... yeah. There's a strip called Ding! It's World of Warcraft humor. It's more or less the PvP crew playing WoW. Um... it seems pretty good. I dunno. I'm a City of Heroes player.

Oh, and he did the whole 'PvP animated' thing, and I actually liked it quite a lot. At this point, I hear Brent, Jade, Francis and Skull when I read their dialogue, and they sound like the series in my mind's ear.

Right. Lest I run out of steam, let's do the metrics.

Strengths

Let's talk art, right off the bat. Kurtz has been bringing his A game with art for some time now. He's clearly pushing himself and his boundaries. And, thanks to his recent video-casting of his strip work, you can actually follow along and see his screen as he works on it. Seriously, look at this one. It's absolutely beautiful, and it's clear that he wants to keep improving instead of resting on his laurels.

Secondly, the Brent character arc has been very strong all along, and now that it's peaking it's engaging. We have every reason in the world to care about Brent and what's happening. He has grown and matured, and as the series protagonist (more about that below) his evolution drives the series forward.

Third, a lot of the characters, particularly among the secondary cast, are really well developed and have just incredible potential. Reggie, Miranda, Robbie, Butler, Brent's parents and Jade's mother all add great depth and breadth to the strip.

Fourth, Kurtz isn't afraid to let his characters be the bastards in a situation. I once said that Max Powers is the hero of the piece, and that much is true. Cole, Brent, Jade and the rest are as motivated by pettiness and selfishness as anything else, and that's refreshing and cool.

Finally? There is Marcy. Marcy is the best character in the strip. Really, Marcy is the best example of a gamer girl geek in webcomics today. She is realistic, well motivated, well designed, and pretty close to note perfect whenever she appears. She is the antithesis of Helen the Sweetheart of the Internet and all her Supermodel Unix Goddess Gamer Amazon ilk, and that is a good thing.

Weaknesses

There is hope in the regeneration/reboot/launching of the new season/whatever we call the end of the wedding arc, and thank Christ because there's been lots of days leading up to it where it all felt phoned in. Hey hey, panda. Hey hey, Scratch Fury. Hey hey, Shecky. Bring us the Story or Bring us the Funny or Bring us Both, I don't care, but Bring us Something.

Update wise, Kurtz -- who for years was rock steady at least on the daily side -- has been less so in recent months. From things he's said on the blog, it sounds like his father had it out with him in part on that, and there is a clear commitment on Kurtz's part to be steady and regular -- and, he says, to build a buffer to have at hand should things arise. That's a good thing, because as he goes into more detailed and emotional story arcs, the pacing of strips gets all the more important and gaps in updates can disproportionately frustrate the reader. Yes, I know. I'm calling the kettle black here.

Also, I mentioned a plethora of characters up above, all of whom are really well developed. That's all well and good, but the problem is the primary cast, looking here, is Cole, Brent, Jade, Francis, Skull and Scratch Fury. And of that group, the real standout in characterization is Brent. After that comes Jade. Cole seems more and more like an afterthought: in the midst of many other things in the past year, Cole's marriage began to fall apart. We've seen Cole move in briefly with Brent. Then Brent's father found him living in his office. And he was ordered to go home and talk to his wife and he did. And since then nothing. The entirety wasn't Cole's marriage falling apart, it was Brent and his cast reacting to Cole's marriage breaking up, and that's dull. The Reggie/Miranda relationship storyline got a thousand times more attention than this lead character's life falling apart.

So it was too with Cole being able to buy out Max's share of the magazine. This deal with the passive-aggressive devil had been beautifully set up, but its resolution was so remote and sudden it lacked emotional resonance.

So too do we have Francis. Francis gets slightly more stories (at least so it seems) than Cole does, but Francis is more and more of a cypher all the time. Part of the problem is, Francis is an eternal student, but with Brent growing older, having a multiyear relationship including a breakup and a pregnancy scare and then ultimately getting married, it seems like Francis should at least be a Senior in high school -- and more likely a college student -- by now, even with the slow aging of cartoon characters. Like I said up above -- the students who were freshmen at my school the year PvP launched are now two years out of college. I actually work with one of my former students, and he has a wife and children now. While it's a mug's game to ascribe that kind of aging and evolution to a comic strip, you can't have one side of the strip get older while the other side stays the same.

Besides, as Kurtz gets older, he also gets farther away from teenagers. Francis looked very typical gamer when he launched. Now he seems stereotypical instead of typical, and that can be an issue.

Finally, I mentioned Marcy, and what a great character she is. She is utterly underutilized. I'd love, in the next year, to see Marcy and Francis start researching colleges and career aspirations. But these days, the protagonist of PvP, de facto if not stated, is Brent, and the teenagers are falling out of his orbit fast.

On the Whole

A year ago, PvP would have topped my rabidly following list. These days, I'm happily reading it, but it's not the must-see as soon as possible thing it used to be. Kurtz may not be as note-perfect as he used to be, on the other hand, but he's still got strong writing and if anything the best art of his career going, and with the shift of gears and plotlines following the wedding we may be going into an absolutely kickass year. There's a lot to be hopeful.

One dangling point I opened above but haven't closed is Cerebus Syndrome. For those who are new to this, it's explained in depth in the Lexicon, but the short form is this: when a comic or comic strip goes from light, funny, gag-a-day stuff to deeper, richer characterization, layering in story and drama into the comedy, it is trying to work through Cerebus Syndrome. It is very rare that it's successful, and a failure brings a price in suck.

From the sheerest definition of the term, I think PvP did the Cerebus Syndrome shuffle years ago. It mostly works in Funny, mind, but the pregnancy storyline, the breakup/reconciliation of Brent and Jade, this wedding storyline -- especially the bits with Jade's mom, the growing isolation of Robbie (and the disappearance of Jase) -- have been working the dramatic elements for years. The better Cerebus Syndrome attempts are the subtle ones, and Kurtz handled this as well as could be expected.

Which still upsets the people who just want geek culture humor and gaming jokes, and that's fine too. Whenever you make changes, you lose some folks and hopefully gain some more. We'll have to see what the future brings.

Which also applies to here. I'm going to try to have stuff for weekdays for right now -- at least until my own wedding eats my brain. Thanks as always, and please enjoy the shrimp plate.

Comments: comment freely.


officialgaiman
Subject:Without fireworks
Time:7:12 am.
Advanced Reading Copies of The Graveyard Book have started going out. This is the first review I've spotted.

"The Witch's Headstone", Chapter Four of The Graveyard Book, is nominated for a Locus Award. http://www.locusmag.com/2008/LocusAwardsFinalists.html for the full list -- It would be an excellent reading list, incidentally: I don't think there's a book or story on the list that isn't readable, cool, or doesn't deserve to win its category.

They'll be awarded next month, on Saturday, June 21, 2008 in Seattle WA, during the Science Fiction Hall of Fame Awards Weekend. I was toastmaster for this a few years ago, and it's a wonderful event. https://secure.locusmag.com/About/2008LocusAwardsAd.html (Note that The SF Hall of Fame ceremony, inducting William Gibson, Ian & Betty Ballantine, Rod Serling, and Richard Powers at the SF Museum Saturday evening, will be ticketed separately. Also that some members of the Hall of Fame are no longer with us.)

Rebecca Fitzgibbon interviewed me when I was in Hobart a few weeks ago, and sent me a link to the article at http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,23670222-5006544,00.html

Right. Back to signing Todd Klein's prints (in a purple ink called "Tanzanite") -- you can see what they look like, and learn about Todd's process -- at http://kleinletters.com/Blog/?p=1184.

Back to signing. I'll try and make the next blog post more exciting. Sorry.
Comments: 1 idea - comment freely.

Friday, May 23rd, 2008


dr4b
Subject:I can has social life?
Time:3:12 am.
Dude, so I was stuck by myself for a good part of the day today -- two afternoon classes and then Eri arrived at like 6pm. One of my afternoon classes was with a lady who just took a long trip to Europe. She brought me back these weird syrup wafers from Holland, and told me about how she visited the house Anne Frank lived in during the war, and stuff like that. Also she apparently went to Belgium and drank, as she called it, "cherry beer". (Meaning fruity lambics, which are like the only beers I actually truly enjoy drinking.) I was like, "Why didn't you bring me some of THAT?" :)

But AFTER work, I met up with [info]the2belo, who is in town on a business trip. And we went to Anrakutei and ate a TON OF YAKINIKU and talked about baseball and work and random crap. It almost felt like having a normal social life! You know, hanging out with a friend after work! Wow! Of course, we only got to hang out for an hour and a half before making a mad dash for the last trains home, but that's okay.

Also, WE ARE FOREIGNERS WHO CAN USE CHOPSTICKS. FEAR US

I decided my over/under on Masa's 200th win is August 11th, his 43rd birthday.
Comments: 5 ideas - comment freely.

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008


city_of_heroes
Posted by:beamishboy.
Time:11:22 am.
Mood: curious.
With I12 and my recent resurgence of interest in City I am making my first dedicated foray into the world of heroes. I had played them a bit before (Agge and I used to flood our accounts with new characters on an almost nightly basis), but never really gotten past the teen levels.

Naturally I am interested in seeing and doing many things, to really experience the game as much as I possibly can. Task Forces, interesting arcs, giant monster slaughtering, what have you.

So a couple questions. Are people actually interested in doing task forces? If I were to ask around and try to put things together is there any interest or is it mostly "nah, I am mostly interested in high level content"?

Also are there any zones or arcs that really made people excited when they did them? I am looking for people to point me at things to check out, just anything that made you go "ooh that was fun". ANy input on this is appreciated.
Comments: 14 ideas - comment freely.


archangelbeth
Subject:Let us just say... I do not have magical periods.
Time:12:13 pm.
I don't feel in touch with myself as a woman. I don't feel creative. I don't feel energetic. I don't commune with nature when I bleed.

I'm tired. I'm blah. I'm alternating hacking away at ever scrap of unnecessary verbiage on my manuscript with hacking things in Warcrack. (Which requires very little creativity at all; the firemage? Fireball (pyroblast if it's set up well enough), Scorch, scorch, scorch, scorch, fire blast, scorch, scorch, scorch, fire blast, lather, rinse, repeat until dead. Eat and drink conjured stuff. Go look for the next target. Deadly dull. Nice faction, though.)

If you are female and lucky enough to have some good emotions about reboot of the reproductive cycle? Count your blessings. (Just don't natter at me about how I should feel what you feel. I ain't in your skin, and you ain't in mine. Let me gritch, and feel quietly lucky.)




INwatch: Lilith: 334, Core Rules: 324, Eli: 303, Liber Umbrarum: 197, Litheroy: 180, Asmodeus: 138, Infernal Player's Guide: 71, GURPS In Nomine: 19 (yay!).
Adventures: City On Fire: 105, Feast of Blades: 84, Strange Bedfellows: 80, The Rats' Revenge: 76.
Free Adventures: A Very Nybbas Christmas: 3846, The Sorcerer's Impediments: 2348.
Comments: 27 ideas - comment freely.


websnark
Subject:Eric Burns: Life can be wonderful sometimes.
Time:10:17 am.

So, a week ago tomorrow I went to Canada for the last time in a long while, and while I was there I had surprisingly good mall Korean barbeque and saw the always astounding Frank "Damonk" Cormier and Meaghan "No Nickname" Quinn. It also seemed like we found a number of cool things to do in Ottawa for the first time, including finding a great restaurant that was actually open at midnight on a Friday, which would have been useful to know eighteen months ago and for the remainder of my visits.

At one in the morning Sunday Night to Monday Morning, I pulled back into my apartment parking lot with a vehicle crammed full of stuff and a woman. And finally, after years, she can just stay. She can. Just. Stay.

We are now aiming for the June elopement, and we are working on setting up the household. To that end, we're going to be starting some monumental eBaying in the next day or two to A) defray expenses both for this stuff and for the next month's... thing... and B) make some much needed room in the now-joint apartment.

When I wake up in the morning, she is there. And for the first time, I don't have to have that momentary bittersweet knowledge that within the next day, or week, or month she's going away again. She isn't. She's never going away again.

Life is good.

Comments: 2 ideas - comment freely.


triangleites
Subject:Storage
Posted by:androgylicious.
Time:11:08 am.
Anyone have any recommendations on good, inexpensive storage in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro area?

My criteria:
+ 24-hour access
+ Not overly expensive
+ Not horrendously bad
+ Reputable and unlikely to go out of business in the next 2 years

I know there is a place called Uncle Bob's in Durham that has "free truck rental" with any storage rental; but I'm not sure if that would be worth pursuing or not.
Comments: 1 idea - comment freely.


city_of_heroes
Subject:Supergroup Opportunities
Posted by:alessar.
Time:11:12 am.
The Paladins of the Night are an established Livejournal supergroup active on Virtue and Champion. With the advent of new power sets and ATs, the Paladins may be a good fit for some new characters. There are actually three groups you can choose from:

Paladins of the Night on Virtue is a darkness-themed group. The membership requirement is that at least one of your character's powersets is dark (including warshades as dark). Thematically, the group is something like a dark Legacy Chain, but has quite a few scary maverick heroes in it. With the addition of dark powers to the Tanker AT, this is a natural place to add new characters of that type. (We have sometimes waived the dark requirement for characters with a good thematic match otherwise to the group, especially for archetypes that have no dark options.) This is the main branch and has a large, fully-equipped base and is coalitioned to the Retro Rocketeers, Champions of Breakfast, and Legion of LiveJournal. Normally, this group plays every week from 7pm to 10pm Eastern, though it typically takes breaks when new character types become available.



The Paladins of the Night on Champion is an anything-goes group, though in theory it has the same theme of being guardians operating under the cover of darkness. Basically this is the group the same core players go to when they want to roll a non-dark alt but play with the same regulars. We have a lot of dual blade/willpower characters and our roster is already rising with the addition of the proliferated powersets. It has a small base but good workshop resources and a fair number of teleporters.

Blackguard Syndicate on Champion is our brand new villain spin-off group. Mercenary villainy for fun and profit, vaguely an evil rival to the Paladins.
The group is so new there is only a starter base so far.

The Paladins have their own livejournal community, [info]night_paladins and play regularly every Wednesday from about 7pm Eastern to about 10 pm. The groups have maintained a nice level of general activity and while you can't count on a supergroup team anytime other than Wednesday, you can expect the groups to be at least a little active. The membership all has invite priviledges, so if you are interested just ask on the LiveJournal global channel and someone should be able to invite you at almost any time. You can also contact myself (@erydanus) or @winged murasaki with any questions.
Comments: comment freely.


city_of_heroes
Subject:Whoever this was, thank you!
Posted by:samurai_ko.
Time:8:00 am.
Mood: ecstatic.
Music:"The Game Begins" - WARGAMES.
What a way to wake up... Seems that Massively.com has done an article on me (and this time, it's NOT Jonathan Northwood writing the article - I already KNOW he's a fan of mine).

This has to be an LJer who'd written this - you guys are some of my biggest fans.  So whoever wrote this, thankyouthankyouthankyou.

Michelle
aka
Samurai_ko
Comments: 7 ideas - comment freely.


city_of_heroes
Posted by:maxered.
Time:8:41 am.
Just sharing!


Viceral Nova )
Comments: 5 ideas - comment freely.


city_of_heroes
Subject:Get rich quick tips?
Posted by:fechtbuch.
Time:2:42 pm.
One of the tips in response to [info]trailrat's post about his respec was to buy high-level SOs cheap in Wentworth's then sell them back for full price during the respec. I can also remember learning from a psot here that it's better to keep the inspirations you're given during the tutorial and sell them on WW (especially the health, it seems) than to use them.
So, I was wondering - are there any more handy money-making hints that people might be willing to share?
Comments: 16 ideas - comment freely.


city_of_heroes
Subject:Deformable Trays
Posted by:mr_rbbr_spatula.
Time:9:11 am.
 These new deformable trays... they rock my universe.  It's so cool.

 
Comments: 8 ideas - comment freely.


matociquala
Subject:"You wanna see a super fox?"
Time:8:10 am.
Mood: happy.
We're going to be quick and dirty this week, just the highlights, because I am on the road.

Spoilers, you are shocked to discover, behind cut.

Criminal Minds 3x19/20, Lo Fi  )
Comments: 35 ideas - comment freely.


irregular_comic
Subject:Irregular Webcomic! #1943
Time:10:32 am.
Today's theme: Cliffhangers
Comments: 3 ideas - comment freely.


city_of_heroes
Subject:Why do defenders even need a nuke?
Posted by:themadman.
Time:2:57 pm.
I love playing defenders and trollers more than any other AT. I love buffing and debuffing and being able to play that support role in a team.

But why do defenders even have nukes as their level 38 powers? It's almost always useless. A defender's primary role is to provide team support in various ways, not to be the frontline damage dealers. A nuke makes a defender useless:

1) It saps all the endurance from the defender, leaving him/her unable to help the team in any way.

2) To add insult to injury, a defender's nuke does only about 55% as much damage as a blaster's nuke. Unless you're fighting even con minions, most of the time it doesn't do enough damage to the mob to make it worthwhile. So at the end of it, you have an end-drained defender, with a mob probably at half health still, who now want to tear the defender to shreds.

Even if you play mostly solo (and let's face it, the defender was conceived as a team AT, not a solo specialist), the low damage done by a nuke leads to point #2 still being valid. Except that it's worse because you're now solo and end-drained, with no tank to take the aggro off you.

I think the devs need to think of new ideas for defender level 38 powers. (And of course, address the long-standing demand for a useful inherent, but there are enough discussions about that already.)

Your opinions are welcome.
Comments: 33 ideas - comment freely.


sinfestfeed
Subject:2008-05-22: Sinfest
Time:1:00 pm.

Sinfest
Tatsuya Ishida

by Tatsuya Ishida

Comments: 15 ideas - comment freely.


bradhicks
Subject:COH2 (More or Less)
Time:1:40 am.
Mood: good.
Issue 12, the next big software release of City of Heroes (and Villains) came out this week, arguably ahead of schedule. (Also, arguably, a little more buggy than I'd like, but there were some features here that were so hotly demanded that they were under a lot of pressure from players to ship it and deal with the minor annoyances after it went live. Users are like that.)

With this issue, we're beginning to see the important differences that came with getting the game away from half-control by the original company that wrote it, Cryptic Studios, and 100% under the control of one team, a "new" development company called NCsoft Northern California, abbreviated NC Squared or NC Norcal depending on who you ask. It's all the old team minus the boss, plus about a half dozen or so new hires. And I'll tell you what -- odds are, if there was some reason you left the game or didn't pick it up in the first place, it's turning out because they needed to get rid of that boss and they needed the new hires. You wouldn't believe how much of a difference it's made.

See, here's an open secret of the MMO industry, not exactly something they advertise to customers but something that everybody eventually admits under pressure: It takes about 50 to 100 people to develop a new MMO. That counts all the user interface designers, 3-D modelers, level designers, mission writers, game mechanics designers, animators, computer programmers and so forth who put everything on the screen, plus the managers to coordinate that crowd. It does not count the people who build-out the server farm and run it, the sales staff who will sell it, the billing department that collects the monthly subscription fees, or the customer service people who answer customer questions in-game and out; they work for the publisher, usually. But here's the deal: no publisher in history, no company in history, has kept that whole mob of 50 to 100 people on the payroll after the game has shipped. That's more of a scandal for the industry than you'd think, because no MMO has even shipped with all of the announced, advertised features complete, let alone bug-free. Every company promises players that it's okay if the game is only half done, that the programmers will finish it "soon." And then, quietly and without announcement, they lay off 50% to 75% of the development staff in the first month, whether it's done or not, and lean on the remainder to stay in "crunch mode" for their entire time at the company, asking 15 to 25 people to do the work of 50 to 100 without letting anybody know that the other 35 to 75 people aren't there any more. (Not that customers don't figure this out, eventually.)

And so it was for NCsoft and Cryptic Studios: NCsoft, who was putting up the money, slashed the budget of City of Heroes at about the 3 or 4 month mark, making them lay off 45 of the 60 people in the company. The remainder, whom players (now clued in to just how deep the cuts were, because the survivors are no longer under NDA) call the Freem Fifteen (for in-joke reasons), did a heroic job trying to finish, then continue to upgrade, the game. And they did amazing work, no more than they had to work with. But there was only so much they could do, they were burning out and turning less ambitious, and it was getting harder and harder to hide from the players that the game was getting stale. And that showed up in the subscriber numbers; while EVE Online has steadily continued to climb, CoH membership peaked shortly after the layoffs and has declined slowly since. But now? Now I think the game is actually well-positioned to potentially become a million-subscriber game, and the reasons have to do with something rather more important than the extra money NCsoft is willing to invest now (especially with their previous Great White Hope, Tabula Rasa, circling the drain), even more important than the rejuvenation of the superhero genre from Marvel having set up their own film studio and making the superhero movie a popular genre again. No, the biggest reason you should think about trying this game, or trying it again if you dropped out before, is cultural: the developers are taking time to play the game again.

You'd think that'd be the norm, but it wasn't, and it was beginning to show (at the very least) in the increasing difficulty we were having getting the developers to understand some of the problems we were having, some of the opportunities we were describing that they were passing over. Cryptic Studios had originally "strongly suggested" that their employees play the game in their off time, but then kept them on such long hours that they didn't have any time off to play it in, or hardly any. Now, it's official that they get one hour a day during the day, paid time, when practically the whole company puts down what they're working on, logs on together in teams and solo under secret anonymous character names, and plays the game. And in a recent interview, the new lead designer and the person in charge of game balance and powers design admitted something sheepishly. After almost every hour they spent online under the new policy, they'd drop by the office of the game's user interface designer and say, well, some of the same things we'd been trying to get them to do for years now: "Can you get it to do <x>?" And almost every time, he'd say, "Sure, gimme 15 minutes" or "gimme an hour." The result? Such an incredibly long list of Quality of Life features that the new user interface, chat system, and other minor tweaks to the new user experience are almost enough to qualify this as City of Heros 2.

There is, also, another demonstration we got of what was wrong with the old boss. Don't get me wrong about this part, because one thing I've always admired about Jack Emmert was that if he wasn't convinced that a change would be good for the game, it didn't matter worth a rat's hindquarters how many highly vocal complainers demanded it on the game's official forums. He would say, "sorry, not convinced," and that was that. That sounds pig-headed, and he took a lot of flack for it, but let me tell you what: I've played a game whose publisher was completely spineless about giving people on the official forums everything they whined for en masse, and they wrecked that game beyond all repair, because frankly, a lot of the time the customer just plain isn't right. But sometimes, Jack Emmert was wrong, too, and we learned to recognize when it was going to be when he would answer our requests by saying that there was no good reason, economic or game-balance, not to give us what we wanted, but it didn't "fit his vision of the game."

Well, "Jack Emmert's vision" no longer controls the game; he stayed behind at Cryptic to head-up Champions Online. (Don't get too excited; it's the same game Microsoft walked away from as a probable failure, Marvel Universe Online, repackaged with the classic Champions game setting but without the Hero System rules.) And in one formerly obnoxious area, we're seeing the wonderful results of the new regime: Powerset Proliferation, Round One. If you wanted to play a psychic before but didn't want to be a defender, you were out of luck. If you wanted to be a storm summoner but didn't want to be a hero, tough luck. If you wanted to be a brute but wanted to use weapons instead of bare hands, tough luck. If you wanted to be a fiery melee user but wanted to be a scrapper, not a tank, tough luck. And so forth, and so on; people like me came up with a list of around 100 sets of superpowers already implemented in the game that could be copied from one character class to another without changing the balance of the game, and without creating any substantial expense for the development team, that would have the benefit of tremendously increasing the number of sub-classes people can play. Jack Emmert didn't want it; he wanted the "flavor" of the powers in each character class to be "unique."

Well, the new lead designer and the new game balance manager said "screw that." At least every other issue from now on, they're going to open up tens or hundreds of new subclasses. This one, every main character class (but one) got at least two new powersets to combine with the new or existing powersets for their character class; the net effect was to add about 120 new character classes to the game, things like psi blast/mental domination blasters, battle axe/super reflexes brutes, dark aura/dark melee tankers, ninjas/storm summoning masterminds, plant control/thermal radiation controllers, ice/storm or electric/storm corruptors, earth control/electric assault dominators, and over a hundred more. (The new-user areas are completely over-run with veterans who'd been lusting after some of these combinations for up to four years.)

There's more to the new issue than that, and I will (probably) write about the other big changes to the game tomorrow, or soon at least. But what I think is fascinating about the above is that this time, boy, changing the guy at the top of the company really did make a huge difference, so much of a difference that it really is a whole new game, almost, certainly a much better game, over at City of Heroes.

(And yes, I have 14-day trial codes to hand out, if anybody wants. Just email me a request.)
Comments: 18 ideas - comment freely.


bill_simmons
Subject:Simmons: Rambling toward the summer
Time:12:00 am.
Bill Simmons offers his thoughts on everything from the Suns, Tom Brady and Lester's no-no to "Iron Man" and "The Hills."
Comments: comment freely.


city_of_heroes
Subject:Virtue Cim TF on Friday?
Posted by:kwsapphire.
Time:1:20 am.
Would anyone like to participate in the Cimeroa Task Force on this Friday (23rd) evening? If so, what times work for you and who can you bring? Any time after maybe 4 eastern works for me, as I am working half days this week to enjoy the i12 content.

EDITS: Okay, so we'll have two runs, one earlier (maybe around 7pm eastern?) and one later (starting at 11pm eastern). We can run the intro arc for anyone who hasn't done it, or yall can get the arc done before we start, it's up to you.

-Team 1 : 7pm eastern-
[info]kwsapphire / @kwsapphire - BubbleYumm, level 50 Force Field/Psy Defender **Any
[info]gchpaco / @? - Sara McCallen, level ? Storm/Dark Defender
[info]syrusb / @Liz - Slip-stream, level 50 Katana/Regen Scrapper
[info]iamharrynelson / @Shy Tiger - Glitters, level 50 Energy/Energy Blaster
[info]cstuck / @Crashtofu - Crash Jupiter, level 50 Dark/Elec Defender
[info]devilroot / @Devilroot - Molly Chromatic, level 50 ?/? Tank **Any
[info]robotech_master / @Purramedic - Pouncetta Purrfect (50 En/En Brute), Stone Panthress (50 Stone/Stone Tanker), or Purramedic (50 Emp/Elec Defender) **Earlier
-

-Team 2 : 11pm Eastern-
[info]swwinchester **Later
[info]tmcmillan / @firebuhnee **Later
[info]kwsapphire / @kwsapphire - Besu, level 37 WP/DB Tank **Later
[info]jackolantern / @Jack O'Lantern - Prairie Eagle, level 43 TA/Arch Defender (preferred) or Halloweve, level 43 Ill/Emp Controller **Later
[info]crossfire_ / @Howler - Blue Radius, level 50 Grav/Kin Controller **Later
-
-
-

-Tentative-
[info]nyankoframe / @Kitten Basket - Tenaga Combustion, level 46 Energy/Fire Blaster
[info]jdotmi / @jdotmi - Kalleesta (50 Necro/Dark MM), Kung Ru (50 MA/Regen Scr), Hidden Justice (40 Kin/Psy Def) **After 6est
[info]dbrycegh / @? - Sally Mander, level 38 Fire Tank **11pm if other plans cancel
Comments: 44 ideas - comment freely.


sjgames
Subject:May 22, 2008: Going To BoardGameGeek.Con
Time:5:11 am.


This year, Steve Jackson Games will be attending BoardGameGeekCon. Be sure to stop by our booth, and pick up our newest releases. If you're lucky, you may even get SJ to sign your . . .</p>

Is the CFO gone? 'Cause she thinks our trip to BGGCon is a "sales" event. Ha!</p>

The fact is, Phil went last year, and had a blast. So we're road-tripping up to Dallas this November to play some games, show off Munchkin Quest, play some more games, and, oh yeah, run the booth a little. But definitely play some games.</p>

If you're already registered, we'll see you there! If not, and you love boardgames, then you owe it to yourself to check this event out.
-- Paul Chapman
Comments: comment freely.


someposifeed
Subject:[Super Stupor] Better Times
Time:3:08 am.


If there are any problems with the comic or website, or if you have any questions, comments, or complaints you would like to address directly to Randy, please email him at choochoobear@gmail.com.

Comments: 9 ideas - comment freely.


city_of_heroes
Subject:Respec Help
Posted by:trailrat.
Time:1:42 am.
Mood: curious.
Hi there. Yes, it's me again. The n00b!!! I do apologise for wasting your time and bandwidth with my banal questions but this will be my first respec. As you've probably guessed I have a respec to use and I'm going to try with Kinetic Entity who has never really been a stellar hero. She constantly runs out of endurance and being a blaster its not good to be screaming for blue mid battle. I would also like to do something with her range and accuracy too. Looking at my power management page what else would you tinker with and what would you do? Oh and where does one go to respec their powers?


Once again my apologies with my banal and oh so common request!
Comments: 26 ideas - comment freely.

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008


andrea_lambda
Time:5:25 pm.
Mood: hyper.
mud!
Comments: comment freely.


matociquala
Time:8:17 pm.
Mood: artistic.
Through the good offices of the webghoul, Ink & Steel Act I scene ii is also now available to you.
Comments: 4 ideas - comment freely.


sarahq
Subject:Where's my transporter?*
Time:7:48 pm.
Dayum. American Airlines has gone and done it: they're now charging $15 to check a bag. A bag. A single, solitary piece of checked luggage.

I don't know who's the worst when it comes to the hidden fee game: the airlines, the banks, or telephone companies. (Guess that's why I've cut back hard on the travel, do my "banking" at a credit union, and dropped my landline like a hot potato.)

text of the the AP article behind the cut )

*A police officer pulls Dr. Heisenberg over for speeding. He peruses the good doctor's license and registration, then pulls out his ticket book. "Are you aware, sir, of just how fast you were driving?"

"Well, no," Dr. Heisenberg admits. "But I do know exactly where I am."

Ba da dum.
Comments: 20 ideas - comment freely.


matociquala
Time:7:49 pm.
Mood: creative.
Music:mirrorthaw chopping veg in the kitchen.
[info]truepenny writes a fic about dust bunnies, conquest, and Charlotte Bronte.

I love my friends.
Comments: 4 ideas - comment freely.


wikipedians
Subject:Nuetral Party Needed Please
Posted by:lots42.
Time:7:39 pm.
The Harry Kim article (I'd link but the library computer won't let me) is once again being drawn into the debate on whether the 'real' Harry Kim croaked in one of the early season episodes. One that involved a duplicate Voyager. There's a whole debate laid out in the talk page and such, involving lots of me, so I decided the best thing to do to avoid constant revisions is come here and ask for help.

In short, conflict over character status and multiple reverts (over time) at 'Harry Kim' Star Trek article.
Comments: 1 idea - comment freely.


chadu
Subject:[dfrpg] Who's Who
Time:6:39 pm.
Work Journal: Updated all "Who's Who" entries. (+1865 words; running total, 8031 words).

Whew.

Now, I take a day or two off before looking at "Backup" and the comics scripts.

Oy.
Comments: comment freely.


someposifeed
Subject:[SP] Based on a True Story pt 3
Time:10:39 pm.


If there are any problems with the comic or website, or if you have any questions, comments, or complaints you would like to address directly to Randy, please email him at choochoobear@gmail.com.

Comments: 13 ideas - comment freely.


jeriendhal
Subject:Progress Report: The Ship/The Ship's Two Hearts/Starship Sierra Madre
Time:4:54 pm.
Just starting a daily progress report in order to try and browbeat myself into actually finishing a long term, book length project that isn't a bloody fanfic.

Goal: 100,000+ words
Words Today: 586
Words Total: 586
Words to Go: 99,414

Update Just found the Nanowrimo tool I was looking for.

Comments: comment freely.


archangelbeth
Subject:Interesting Publishing News: Anti-trust suit against Amazon
Time:4:26 pm.
BookLocker Files Class Action Lawsuit Against Amazon.com

BookLocker.com has filed a class action lawsuit against Amazon.com in response to Amazon’s recent attempts to force all publishers using Print on Demand (POD) technology to pay Amazon to print their books. You can read the complaint here.
[Bethnote: the link is to a PDF]
This article may be quoted and/or reprinted in its entirety.
The rest of the article is quoted below the cut )


[Bethnote: I have no canine in this competition at the moment, though I won't say the thought of PODness hadn't crossed my mind in the past.]
Comments: comment freely.


chadu
Subject:Propagation
Time:4:11 pm.
(yoinked from [info]woodwardiocom)

FACT: Geek gals = teh awez.

Propagating this vid because it's TROO!



I iz in luv.

(No diss to current SOs; you am super-geeky, and I lurve it!)
Comments: 12 ideas - comment freely.


wilwheaton
Subject:it's a good day to be a gamer
Time:11:51 am.

A Florida judge recommends that Jack Thompson be found guilty of being a complete and utter douche 27 of 31 counts of misconduct.

Tunis made 21 recommendations of guilt in relation to Thompson's participation in Strickland vs. Sony, an Alabama case in which the anti-game attorney represented the families of two police officers and a police dispatcher slain by 18-year-old Grand Theft Auto player Devin Moore. Tunis also recommended that Thompson be found guilty on four out of five counts relating to his 2006 attempt to have Rockstar's Bully declared a public nuisance in a case before Miami Judge Ronald Friedman. An additional two guilty counts stemmed from a non-video game matter."

While we wait breathlessly for the verdict to be delivered, we can play the Penny Arcade game! On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness is finally available for Mac, PC, Linux and from Xbox Live Arcade.

Just because I haven't packed enough pure awesome into one post: Harmonix announced yesterday that next week's Rock Band DLC will be the entire album The Cars, from the Cars. Time to watch Fast Times -- well, part of Fast Times -- over and over again in, uh, preparation.

Comments: comment freely.


andrea_lambda
Time:11:51 am.
Mood: think different..
Who's in the mood for hanging out, playing Wii, geeking out, having a get-together-and-code-stuff session, or just getting into general mischief? Now available for tonight, this weekend, or any time thereafter!

...at this rate, I may just bite the bullet and start using Google Calendar after all. XD
Comments: 9 ideas - comment freely.


city_of_heroes
Subject:regular teaming?
Posted by:naienko.
Time:12:49 pm.
(I'm mostly directing this at people who frequent Vent, but I've never met an LJ person I couldn't team with.)
Now that Issue 12 has gone live and we all have new inspiration, I want to start getting together regularly once a week and set about proving what we've stated so often: 'it's not the powersets that need nerfing, it's US.' I've got a number of older low level toons to play, as well as some brand new ones. I don't want to make the team a planned affair, just the time and place. Tuesday or Wednesday evenings on Justice heroside?

This is for chibis on Victory )
Comments: 5 ideas - comment freely.


city_of_heroes
Posted by:brakusblue.
Time:10:20 am.
Is it wrong that,even though I have at least 70 alts (not an exageration) already made, I still felt the need to make 4 new toons last night after I12 went live? and none of those are even VEATs as I still don't have a villian even close to 50!
Comments: 6 ideas - comment freely.

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