Oklahoman

I used to work for a software company based in France, and a lot of the employees there go "on holiday" for extended periods of time this time of year. So, to add to your question, it's possible they are short staffed right now.

Also, a big THANK YOU to all the VOLUNTEERS who are working to get us all back into the game right now. I appreciate your time and efforts.

✅Earthquakes ✅Hurricane (well, a tropical storm at that point) ✅Blizzard Can I interest you in a tigernado, too?

Looks like OVH opposed my plans for an all MM MSR. Considering Saturday at 5pm Central as a replacement time - keep an eye on the Excelsior forum or Discord channel for confirmation.

I'm throwing caution and reason to the wind and will try to start a MM only MSR at 10pm Central tonight. We'll see what happens.

It's late. Though, I do regularly fill MSRs at 10pm and even 11pm Central. It's always much tougher to recruit for an all MM MSR, though. I personally won't even be home until about 6pm Central on Monday, so by the time I have dinner with the fam and such we're pretty close to a Hami start time. If I move it off Mastermind Monday, I can do it on a weekend between the daily MSRs, which run from 2-4pm Central, and Hami. I'm open to that, too.

I've been getting requests for another Mastermind ONLY MSR and BAF. If we have enough interest I can do the MSR on Monday night at 10pm Central with the BAF either before (conflicting with Hami) or after (possibly too late for anyone to care).

This has been my experience with @GM Impervium as well. Thanks for all you do!

Acknowledging that ITFs and MSRs are different, I'll run with this to help illustrate. At a time when the server has, say, 700 people on it, you would need/want about 2% of the population for your ITF, and I would need/want about 7% for my MSR. Apparently, the latter is an enormous number that prevents much else from being able to run, and causes us as a community major gas. It would be expected that as a courtesy you would check the player-led event calendar, though an argument could be made that an MSR is not an "event," which may be why this particular league leader didn't think to check. More than that, as a leader you should also double check the Discord channel #excelsior-events-contests. This is the one and only reason I personally use Discord. I was once called out because my MSR ended 6 minutes after the start time of an advertised MSR, resulting in the advertised MSR not being able to run at all, for some reason. I would recommend that if you are not sure that your event will be completely finished at least 30 minutes before an advertised event, don't start it. Give a wide berth. For an advertised event, it would be whoever posted the ad. Unless it's not, and the regular leader has designated someone else to run it for them. Unless it's not, in which case it is probably someone else who regularly participates in that particular event and is stepping up. Unless it's not, in which case you might be able to step in. Clear as mud? They are not. They are not. They are regular people like you and I, with flaws and strengths, and a love for this game and being recognized as a leader. As a league leader you sometimes have to exclude people because they're a problem for the rest of the league, and it sucks. You have to be able to enjoy playing the game yourself, too, or you'll never want to lead one of these again. I have no clue what actually was said, but I can sympathize with a league leader choosing not to include some people who are being rude or otherwise not making the event fun. Now, if they just somehow blanket did not accept everyone signed up for the offending MSR, even if they never said anything, I have a problem with that - though I'm not sure how they would know that. My gut tells me that only the rude people from the offending MSR were excluded, and probably just for that one run. But I don't know. Not my circus, not my Rikti monkeys.

I love Empathy - my first 50 back on live was an Empath defender. And it amazes me how frequently it gets discussed here that Empathy needs revamping. I remember calls for that back during live, too. My concern is that the game has changed a lot from live, at least in my experience. Back on live, we would see a mob ahead, take time to strategize and buff, then implement the plan. Now things are faster, there's usually not a team huddle before a fight, and everyone is kind of doing their own thing. Probably my top thing for Empathy is that Resurrect ought to be Targeted AoE. I'd also be in favor of removing Absorb Pain, moving Resurrect and Clear Mind down so you get them earlier, and placing a new healing pet between Clear Mind and Fortitude (as was suggested in another thread).

I understand. Sometimes it can feel like asking what time it is, and people are telling you how the clock works. Like I say, I just started streaming and you can see what I did here. This is a scene in OBS studio. The very bottom layer is actually a slide I created in Google Drive (Slides). I put the game on top of that, then my video and the HC image on top of that. It sounds like a similar setup to what you are wanting, and it didn't require any artwork to be created. I *think* there is a way to export a scene from OBS studio, so I could create something like this for you and send it to you. But I bet you'd still have to make adjustments to work with your camera, etc. Maybe start with a Google Slide first to sort of layout what you want, and then build on top of that?

Not disregarding the possibility this post might be more successful in another forum, I was curious what exactly you were needing? Over the long weekend I began tinkering with streaming, having never done it before. I've been using OBS studio for a while anyway to create various videos, and found a lot of instructional videos on Youtube on how to create various overlays. If you aren't already committed to another software for that, maybe check that out. I figured out yesterday how to dock all the twitch stuff inside OBS, making it even easier to use for that. The other thing I will say is that after searching around twitch a lot this weekend I found that a lot of streamers, and most COH streamers, use a pretty simple layout of having the game running full screen with a small cutout for their camera view. Maybe you've got something more complicated in mind, but I guess I'm saying it doesn't take much to get started.

Maybe start both, run in a few DFBs with each, and see where you end up? My first 50 was a thugs MM. He's in storage now, but I still enjoy playing him every now and again. I hear bots are a lot of fun, too, but I haven't tried them.

A mastermind, maybe? A joke I make a lot during an MSR is that MMs can take a nap. Not that that is what you are wanting to do, but so long as you are controlling your pets you are still very much contributing to the team and not having to mash buttons constantly.

I don't know about "only" but it's still the best way I have found to do this solo. You can run it anytime by yourself, as many times as you like, and most people report (brag?) they can do it much quicker than 15 minutes. You can go the AE Fire Farm route, too. You get a stash of emps and threads every 3 vet levels, and you can use those to buy your components. A lot of leaders don't mind - perhaps even prefer - "sitters" who can go AFK by the door. You might get a vet level or two from each run, depending on the map. Otherwise, when you see stuff running in Ouro, jump in on whatever you can and ride that bull until it throws you. Some leaders seem to be running BAFs back-to-back all day long now on Excelsior.

I like the general idea of something happening at the end of an MSR, other than just an agreement among the group to take out the Drop Ship. As a league leader, though, an MSR is already at the max time I would want for a single event. By the time you recruit, take out the pylons, do the bowl thing, and take out the Drop Ship, it's easily an hour per run. So I really wouldn't want to extend that event more than it is. I do like the idea of having an "MSR 2.0" thing, where you might, say, teleport the league through a hole in the shield and fight inside the ship itself. Borrowing one of your other ideas, completion of that might start a Rikti invasion in the zone.

My first 50 back on live was an Empathy defender, and I still love playing a copy of him from time to time. The game has changed a lot since then, though. The #1 thing I would like to see changed in Empathy is rez should be the best in the game, IMO. I'd like to see it rez multiple characters at once - ally targeted AoE, and I like the idea of some kind of Absorb shield. I also like this idea - Doctors Assistant.

I'd pay real influence for a "Sync Toggle Spin" one of these doodads. 🙂

It ain't much, but it'll get 'er done.

No one took up my challenge regarding SnakeTail, so I set out to do something myself. WHY? Honestly, it's getting a little tough for me to read the smaller print in chat, unless I am willing to blow it up and maybe sacrifice game space or get a giant monitor. I started looking for ways to have all the stuff from chat that I was interested in to be displayed on a second monitor, along the way filtering out lines I don't care about and highlighting keywords in lines I do. I decided to share it with the community in case others find it useful, or want to add or improve functionality. HOW DO I MAKE IT WORK? This script uses Windows Powershell to monitor a COH chat log file. The ps1 file is a text file that you can edit to your liking, at your own risk, and define things to highlight. You'll need a second monitor. If you don't physically have one that you can make work, maybe check out programs like "Duet Display" to use a tablet as a second monitor. Adjust your Powershell Execution Policy, and be aware of the potential consequences for that. I set CurrentUser to be Unrestricted. In City of Heroes, enable chat logs by going to MENU -> Options -> Windows -> Log Chat (Enabled). This will create text files in your COH install directory -> username -> logs folder. To run the script, download it and put it wherever you like, like on your desktop. Then right click on the file to select "Run with Powershell". You will then navigate to your logs folder and select the file to monitor (ex: "chatlog 2021-03-28.txt") . This will load all the data already in the file, and remain open to monitor it for new lines that COH adds as you play. You can drag the window over to your second monitor, and right click in the title bar if you need to change font sizes, etc. You can close the window at any time, or click inside it and hit CTRL-C to close it. WOW, THIS IS GREAT! -or- MY GOD, COULD THIS SUCK WORSE?!? I am NOT a programmer. I used to be (a little) until I took an arrow to the knee, decades ago. I still dabble, and this is the first time I have used Powershell at all. I am confident others can do better and hope they will, and share their results here for the community. If this script is helpful to you, if it inspires you to create something better, awesome. And, if not, why did you spend time reading all this when you could be running an MSR with me, instead? COHChatLogPS.ps1

I don't lead UG or MoM, but here are some thoughts: As someone who leads leagues often, if I see someone post to LFG that they are looking for something I typically run, that has a big impact on what I choose to run. So, if you are online and looking for UG or MoM, maybe post to LFG that you are looking for that. Friend or global friend league leaders you know will run what you are looking for. If you see them online, ask what they are running and if they will be running what you want later. Lead one yourself! Trust me, even very recently I had to tell a group of Market Crashers that I had never actually led one of these before, and they were VERY understanding and helpful. The key thing is to be patient with recruiting, because it can take a while to form a full league. Just keep advertising to LFG every minute or two until you have a full league - that's the first step. If your goal is to get rares, you can also look for things you can run quickly. I try to run Speed Lambda's sometimes, and once you are going each run takes maybe 12 minutes. How many Speed Lambda's can you run during the course of a single UG or MoM - 2-3, or more? Each completion gives you a chance at a component, and you may get a rare. I've literally had runs where I got 3 VRs back to back to back. Weird things happen. Also, Speed Lambda's are very EASY to lead yourself because you only need 16 people for a full league, can definitely do it with fewer, and Marauder is pretty easy to take down because everyone can throw Pacification Grenades at him. You can also solo the Heather Townshend arc, with some people reporting completion in, like, 8 minutes! Takes me about 15 on any given one of my toons: Lastly, keep in mind that every 3 vet levels you will get a dump of Empyrians which can help with purchasing rares. Up to vet level 100, of course. I'm still waiting on a gold watch or something for where I am. Have fun out there, and be fearless!

If you are a programmer and care to look at it, I would love to see a version of SnakeTail that could better support COHs "Log Chat" feature by allowing you to filter out lines you don't care to see. The source code for SnakeTail is available at https://github.com/snakefoot/snaketail-net/releases. If there is a better FREE program for this already, please let me know. I know that Herostats could monitor feeds like this for combat data, but I don't know of a way to use it for this purpose - if it's even still being worked on. I use SnakeTail on a second monitor to tail my "chatlog yyyy-mm-dd.txt" files, generated from the game. Using SnakeTail's Edit->View Options->Keyword Highlight feature, I can color code various lines to draw my attention. For instance, if someone mentions BAF, LAM, DD, or MSR, the line is highlighted. It's not perfect because if someone in general chat says something is "LAMe" or it makes them "maDDer than anything" it gets highlighted. Still, I like having the chat on a separate monitor because I can increase the font size, color code based on [Tell], [Team], [League], etc. As my eyesight goes downhill, it helps to be able to see chat better without sacrificing gaming space. The one feature I would love to be able to do is filter new lines out of SnakeTail if they do not contain certain keywords - like those I just mentioned. The chatlog grabs pretty much ALL the channels, along with some combat data, that isn't helpful for what I am wanting. I do want to see and highlight lines like "has defeated the Drop Ship" for instance, as well as those that contain [Looking for Group], [Team], etc. I'm a novice programmer at best, and I struggle with C#. It's possible I could get there myself with much effort, but someone more skilled might be able to basically duplicate the "Keyword Highlight" tab to a "Keyword Filter" tab in no time, and maybe several of us with aging eyes would benefit.

Under "Pick Style" I'd like "Transparent" as an option, so it would function kind of like "Open to Sky" for ceilings. Also, for "Room Section" I would love a new selection above the top ceiling called Max, Infinite, or whatever. Seems like a more difficult task to implement, though, and probably breaks lots of other stuff. In short, without having to deal with the whole building above/below base thing, I would like to be able to create a room that is confined but looks like it has no ways, and that I can fly around in without the option to fly outside and around the base.