Luminara

Undead capybaras in the city! Mayhem! Terror! Doom cuddles! Heroes and villains teaming together! Mass hysteria!

This thread is like my kitten, Jessica... at 11:00 pm, when I'm trying to explain that it's bed time and she's careering off the walls like a kindergartner who drank a triple shot mochacino with 37 pumps of sweetener. Well, almost. No-one here has tried to eat my shoes, or declared war on my pants.

Someone on the original forums started a thread, asking what the worst powerset combinations could be. A lot of people suggested Rad/Energy (defender), because all of the knockback would make Rad's debuffs pointless. So, of course, I had to make one. Not surprisingly, fun. I had her up to the high 20's or low 30's and logged in to burn a respec (i forget why), expecting to log out again after running a couple of test missions. Before I made it to the door of the first mission, I receive a /tell asking for help. One mission is as good as another for testing out tweaks, so I consented and accepted the subsequent invitation. Turns out to be a full team. With the difficulty maxed. When I enter the mission, they're all standing together, near a room they haven't cleared yet. I peer in... Freakshow. A whole lot of purple-con Freakshow. I pop AM, pan the camera around and wait a few seconds with my fingers hovering over the number keys. And a few more seconds pass. Then a full minute. Tick tock, tick tock. AM expires, I refresh the buff, and still nothing. Finally, I ask who's tanking. They don't know. They're on Vent, trying to decide. Also trying to decide whether to boot me and go looking for a "healer". Well, that was the end of my patience. I buff the team again, then run into the room and start unloading with everything I have. I've got Freaks bouncing and flying all over the place. By the time the rest of the team realizes I'm not meekly awaiting their decision as to my fate, I've aggroed the entire room and have half of the Freaks pinned in one corner, juggling them with KB, the other half standing on my head with RI on one of the bosses. The rest of Team Chucklehead finally remembers that I was there, and start coming in to "rescue" me. Then they notice my full HP bar and actually start attacking. I stayed and helped them finish the mission. The only deaths were due to the Fire/whocares blaster, the team leader who set the difficulty so high and refused to reduce it in spite of the problems his team had encountered (he was +3 to the next highest level in the team, so everything was at least +6 to everyone else). He ran ahead of the rest of the team and tried to nuke. Three times. Died every time, before his nuke activated. Then he quit the team and logged out. And I made seven friends. From then on, my favorite tank has been the one who gets in there and tanks. My favorite tank is the one who's confident enough to do his/her job without making the team wait ten minutes. Not brash, not foolhardy, not stupid and reckless, but also not timid. Let the buffers do their job, then get your ass in there and do yours and I'm happy.

Lot of setbacks over the last couple of years, broken bones, black widow bite, equipment failures, haven't been able to do much in the way of hobbies when I wasn't working, much less finish the cabin, but it'll all come together eventually. The only reason I have time now is a couple of lung collapses last month forced me to drop everything. Really just killing time and waiting for everything to gel right now. And wishing I could find a laptop, so I could do more than refresh forum pages and play with this kitten. Especially with winter approaching. Not much work at that time of year, and a whole lot of sitting around, waiting for spring.

The IP has been "dead" for 8 years, other than a couple of references or playable characters in other games. They've generated $0.00 from it in that time, and there's been no indication of renewed interest... except by former players. Players who are so keen to get back into the game that they throw money at the HC team so quickly that the monthly donation goal is reached in minutes. But the potential revenue is actually secondary, because it's small potatoes. "Free" money, but probably not enough to pique their interest. The primary consideration is what it would cost to issue C&D orders, file infringement suits, pursue legal action, etc. Lawyers are expensive, corporate lawyers more so, and courts have fees. Realistically, they face the possibility of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to "protect" an IP they all but buried years ago. Yes, they could spend the money to shut down every publicized server and keep the "City of" brand locked in their basement filing cabinet, but unless they're planning to resuscitate the brand or launch a sequel, it'd be flushing money down the toilet, and considering that the server code is now publicly available, ineffective. Alternatively, they can work with the players, come to an arrangement and collect revenue from that. And that's the financially responsible response. Accept a small, regular income from a "dead" IP, rather than hemorrhage money trying to shut down every server.

NCSoft: "You stole my code!" Captain Jack Co*: "Actually-" NCSoft: *smack* Captain Jack Co*: "Borrowed! Borrowed... without permission, but with every intention of bringing it back."

That's supposed to be Posit Ron you're attempting to locate, a conspiracy theorist similar to DC's The Question (the one prior to Renee). Will these infernal text errors never be resolved? Will Maria tell Penelope that she's her doppelganger from an apocalyptic future? Will Will will Will (no, the other Will) everything? Find out next time, on Hero Soaps! Brought to you by Galaxy City Broadcast Corporation, subsidiary of Heroats, the superest breakfast cereal!

Without pants.

Whatever it is, continue. The Forum Cartel must be restored. Without pants.

Defense ceases to be effective above 45%. You can go higher, but there's always a 5% chance for critters to hit you. Aim for 45% and move the slots to other powers, or change your IO sets to drop it back.

TA/Dark. If I ever get a laptop and can play again, it'll be the first thing I recreate.

Until two years ago, I still had all three Zorks, and still played them once in a while.

Co* is similar to a present wrapped by someone special. Sometimes, the wrapping paper and bow are silly. And sometimes, adorable. Always slightly imperfect, but good enough to do the job and nice to see. What really mattered, though, was what was in the box. It was that one perfect gift. *sigh* Someone get an Android client compiled, please.

Every power in the game has base stats, which are subsequently modified by AT. The base stats are available. The modifiers are, as well. Excluding whatever has been added or altered in this restarted version, almost everything about the mechanics of the game, all of the tables and equations we were using right up to shutdown, is known and should still be available. All of it. Hell, I have most of that data on a 3.5" HDD, but since I don't have the power to run a desktop computer now (or have a desktop computer, for that matter), and don't have a laptop (or an external SATA adapter), I can't access it. Try the Wayback Machine. If I recall, it was Iakona who posted the comprehensive list of tables and base stats I used to create the power value information in my guides. That's probably a good place to start. Once you have that, you really don't need a "sim", the calculator app on your phone or computer will be the only tool necessary to compile the comparison data you want.

On the contrary, it's a question which cannot be answered without specificity. Each AT has... what, 100+ combinations of primary/secondary, each of which will perform differently, plus pools, enhancements, accolades, the testing field (critter defenses and resistances, level differential, etc), attack chain and a host of other things to take into consideration. Attempting to compare them based simply on the AT designation, like one would compare classes in traditional RPGs, is moot. It doesn't work because the sheer number of variables is too large.