Crystal Dragon

50 for me would be too many and I'm hovering at 49...*side eyes roster.*

This is going to be a bit of a read so buckle in. When I first came across city of heroes I was in a pretty deep depression and switching between wow and a couple other games. And I was struggling, I was living with a military boyfriend at the time who was deployed overseas and was an absolute fanatic about this game too. He introduced me to the game guided me through the character creation and everything and I made my first iteration of Crystal Dragon. I played the hell out of her. I loved the way that she looked and the variety of costumes really blew my mind. Eventually I ended up becoming more of a frequent sight at costume contest player held, and GM held. It was because of those costume contests that I actually fell in love with the game. When I separated from that boyfriend, we're still friends by the way, I ended up moving several states away and had to deal with a mental health crisis that basically put me in the hospital shortly. I ended up discovering at that time that I was dealing with Long-Term depression and anxiety but was not given any supports or guidance on how to deal with it at that time. This was about 2 years after the game was shut down. At that point in time I was really struggling and trying to just keep my head above the dark waters. I had a number of friends from wow that kept recommending me to play on private servers and then later on on their servers on the retail servers and I vested I think about 15 years into that game. We all have our stories about World of Warcraft, but my own is riddled with a lot of harassment, stalking and abuse that led me to basically a complete mental breakdown. I ended up with a lot of lifelong friends from that game but eventually I had to leave it behind for my own mental and emotional well-being. I had heard some whispers from random different sources that there was a private server for City of heroes around, but I wasn't sure if it was a real deal so I just kept my feelers out there looking for any kind of details. At the time I was playing City of heroes, I was very private and very much a solo player. I didn't have any guild or group that I was involved with and not very many people knew me. I didn't talk to too many people cuz I was just very singularly focused on venting about the world and everything that was going on around me in a very melee fashion I guess I could say. I wasn't known on the servers that I played but I played on two that were on live. I don't exactly recall old details of the different characters that I had, but I had at least four and only one that had reached level 49 on the day of the shutdown. I did play with my now husband on the live servers with my main character Crystal Dragon here and we both really enjoyed the game. We really wanted to continue playing but when news got around the shutdown was happening, we both grieved the loss. He invited me to play on the server that he played on on world of Warcraft and we just kept playing together, teaming up together, raiding together, we even role played together for quite a few years. This was about I would say roughly 8 years before he and I got together face-to-face. When I learned about homecoming, I about damn well lost my mind in excitement because I so wanted to play and really get back into it again. And it's back. It's back and it's real! I signed up on my birthday in 2019 and I actively play, Short of computer issues of course. Everlasting is my home, away from the world away from the grief, the suffering and the hate. When spazzy and I started talking about creating a helper program for new role players, it was groundbreaking for the both of us, We had never seen anything like this kind of community come together in the way that it had and we wanted to foster a stronger bond within the community to keep it going to keep it alive and keep it healthy. When I told my husband about the idea he looked at me like I was losing my damn mind, "why would you want to teach newbies?" When I explained to him that with the complexity of the UI and some of the hidden emotes and other things about the game that he actually did not know anything about, he was like "You know I think you might be on to something." I got my first taste of teaching on this server on this game and I wouldn't give it up for the world. I enjoy engaging with the new players and learning about them and helping them actually bridge their own issues with the games systems and finding their connections in the games community. I can actually understand how teachers feel when dealing with conflicting students and issues that come up in educating. And I'm very pleased to say that we're still around. Becoming part of Chaos United was actually a highlight that I never expected to last as long as it has. I ended up finding myself a family among them, sbloyd bearzerker, grey-ghost, krow Just to name a few. We look out for one another support each other and I've never had any kind of guild connection like that on wow. This is a completely different animal compared to other MMOs. I will say that. But it's worth learning the system. It's worth figuring things out and finding your own niche. And it sounds absolutely worth every minute of time.

Will do, Dacy. Been unable to get on the computer for a few weeks now and I swear I got withdrawal symptoms haha

I have one completed ship on the base list I believe. The Vanguard Patroller. It's listed as vgg origins on the list I think. I'm unable to log in at this time. Computer is down. But if I can get on my husband's computer, I'll be happy to guide anyone through the base.

I did apply a while back but as time went on and no response. I realized that players can actually be community reps on their own standards. It's not hard to do. It is a lot of work, but I think everyone can actually improve by helping each other. No power or title is needed for that.

I'll be honest with you, Chase, I didn't expect this to take off the way it did, but I'm really glad it did.

I wasn't around when you were still on the team but I'm glad to see you back man. Hope you have fun here and find it home too.

Well I was thinking maybe just local and emote could have the colorized extension in the channels visible to help folks track their posts and responses better. Given the global channels can all be colored by choice, this idea would effect those that are not able to be modified by player choice. Local, emote and possibly combat logging as well. The trouble is to mod it, I'd have to know the specific channels name, emote has none and appears as an unlabeled channel on chat logs and that could require some sketchy code work that I don't think would be permissible by the staff of homecoming for a mod maker to do. By giving the players a choice to turn on and off the colorized chat option, and having it only effect emote and local, this would keep the regular global channels uneffected by result.

Something I've noted is the colored hash for the chat in the logs, is that could potentially be extended to color the chat input of every player. I was wondering if an option to colorize in select channels, such as emote and local channels would be possible. I understand the chat system is mostly older style HTML in design and might be able to be changed in the game coding for presenting colored text to all channels. If this is the case, would italics or bold also be an option to enable client side or in the in-game chat settings? Perhaps even a monochrome option for those that are color blind? I had originally thought to attempt to put together a client side only mod to do this but after talking to a friend with developer experience, he suggested bringing the idea to yall here since it may be something small that can be changed server side but not something able to be done with modding the game files. This change would be a boon for people with reading disorders and colorblindness. I mocked up an example of what I was conceptualizing for the change.

I'm working on getting my own rig in to the shop as well, I feel ya on that. I wouldn't mind leaping into forum RP again but I watch for openings that my characters can pop up within that make sense for the timing and the situation they are leaping into first. I'm very much a look-before-you-leap type of player but I do have some characters that are a lot more impulsive and leap-of-faith happy. *eyes Seluna and sighs.*

I am formally welcoming @Dimi1 on board as one of our newest mentors as part of the Welcome Wagon's project. We're happy to have her experienced voice helping guide the new players through the basics and more advanced teachings about roleplaying! Classes will be resuming this coming weekend with the 1st reserved for April Fool's Day and the impending hilarity.

That honestly is very humbling to learn about, Spazzy. This all would not have been possible for me to put together if you hadn't jumped at the opportunity, we talked about it for hours before we were both like "I mean, what if we could teach it to the new folks?" And it just took up like a rocket from there. I can see how this might sit on a resume actually, educating about group effort projects of this kind can be really rewarding and hard work. But this project would have never taken off if we didn't talk about it and come up with a plan to put it into action.

I'm stranded off the game for a bit while my rig is due for repairs, and I've had a lot of time to really think this over. *bows deeply.* I want to thank all of you of the RP community, every single one of you that have contributed to my writing, to my creative drive, to keeping me grounded with my projects and off the wall ideas. I know we are all strangers on the other side of the screen, but many have become very dear friends with me over the years and I've often thought very fondly of the community here for that reason. I speak quite highly of the community when I meet other gamers face to face, and eagerly mention Homecoming more often than not, to the point that my husband refers to my conversation flow as "recruitment" laughingly. In the time that I've played here since 2019, you all have shown me so many fascets of identity, ideology, beliefs, and yes sometimes we argue, but I look at those points as moments to grow from and to learn from. We might not all agree on the same points and views, but we all share a love for this game, the stories we write, the characters we play, and the universes we create, and that is something truly irreplaceable. When I first brought up the idea of the Welcome Wagon's project, we were still quite a small community on this server and we've flourished and grown so much over the time since. If it were not for the people that jumped in to help, offered advice and experienced views, as well as contributed time to get those sessions going on the regular - we simply wouldn't be here today, still operating and still hosting sessions for beginners just dipping their toes into rping on mmorpgs. What you all have done to help get this project off the ground has seriously humbled me a number of times over the years. I admire the commitment and the willingness to endeavor to keep it going, to keep the lessons we all have learned from our experiences in roleplaying over the years alive and passing on those critical lessons to new writers interested in joining our story weaving here. I appreciate each and every veteran roleplayer that joins the sessions to help us guide the new folks in learning the in's and out's of RP. It took me a few years to get the courage to even step up to the plate to organize this project, to be quite frank with you all. I am no arbiter of RP, no overlord or judge of any kind, but I have seen new players starting out with something truly simple and blossom into a really well grounded and fantastic story writer over the years. I strive for that honestly, to see fledgling players take on a new form of play to them and thrive with it is what I hope to achieve. Admittedly, it's not for everyone, some feel sidelined and chronically wallflower in social spaces, others feel awkward just trying to break the ice and join in the circles. But I know that an issue everyone faces at some point when they are looking for character growth and are having difficulty finding fertile soils to plant their roots. I don't expect everyone to admire me, or like me, or even to get along with me, I just do what I can to make this community a kinder and easier place for newbies to navigate. City of Heroes itself within the lore is a harsh reality to deep delve into but it's one we all have found our niche over the years. It takes time to find the right group to join, time to find the right people to play with that will mesh with your own player lore, and that's more than understandable. But we are all sharing this world, and that in itself is what makes this RP community so unique. The variety of view points, alignments, and player canon concepts is astonishing and I admire that, truly. So, I'm here just to say thank you, thank you for roleplaying and being part of that shared universe, thank you for taking part in a story bigger than the one world we share, thank you for helping new players find their way, thank you for contributing to my project, thank you for letting me help guide the newbies to find their footing in our shared universe here, and most importantly, thank you for keeping that story alive and well. Sincerely, Melrose (Crystal Dragon's player.)

The following firefly critter fx's are currently not spawning the fireflies after placement in base editing. What I've done so far to test this - Placed fireflies 1 thru 4 types in an open unrestricted viewable area in the base, exited base editor, still no spawn. - Exited the base and returned, still no visual spawn. - Two of them spawned after reloading the game but the rest hadn't. (Fireflies 2 seems to be functional but really fickle on spawning at the moment.)

Something to point out that seems to be implied, jaded does not mean apathy or apathetical. One can be apathetical in view of the world but that does not mean the character themselves are necessarily jaded in portrayal. Just wanted to add that. Carry on!

I'll take the blame for that, dyslexia can be a real stickler to deal with.

*arises from the dead and shakes off the dust.* Doing computer repairs on a laptop is scary...>.<;

I ran into some computer issues, fan needs TLC, but I should be able to make it for the event nights.

"HOW DO I RESET" Update 2.0! Quick addition of a new option to reset the in game listen/speak values to the zone defaults, to be found under the Check/Reset option on the last menu option. Thanks @McSpazz for helping me with testing to get it working. Updated mnu available here, or on CityModder's library. Chatranges.mnu

"OOPSY" Update 1.0.4! One of my friends contacted me to let me know that I had uploaded the custom.windows file with the last update, OOPS, sorry about that!! Fixed however, should be fully operational! Updated MNU file for those familiar with modding the game and don't wish to use the City Modder app. Chatranges.mnu

Good folks, good times, and always chaotic!

Naw, welcome to the thread too. 😛

The new flyers are updated and ready to go! (Yes, I made two versions, had a little fun with the clip art in the first design and made a second one with less visual "clutter" for text clarity. I'll let @Ruin Mage upload them when he's ready.)

It most definitely counts, sometimes we have to put on a "mask" to be able to do the job and get shit done, and that definitely counts. To be honest with you, LARPing and playing the characters personality is very much improv/free form acting, the difference between is the RP forms here is mostly constrained by text format, whereas the RP or LARP that you find in the offline world is very much constrained by action, physical response (facial expression as much as body posture change) as well as tone and speech patterns to incorporate that character as a personality for the game session. Between the two, there are differences but it falls under the same line of RP, "And then.." sort of aspect of story writing and character development. I used to do Amptgard and SCA larping, I totally get where you are coming from with this question, bud, it's cool. ❤️