Oklahoman

This particular person was VERY involved in chat throughout the trial, at times even attempting to call out orders himself. And those who run with me know I say repeatedly not to use the temp powers. On this particular run another player chose to ignore this players instructions and asked me directly what I wanted to happen, which was opposite of what the saboteur wanted, and my guess is that ticked him off. I was approached by someone afterwards who knows this person in real life and said it's exactly the sort of thing he does for kicks. I have zero doubt it was intentional. The Lambda iTrial has several badge options, and in order to get all of them (along with the Master of Lambda badge) it usually takes at least 3 successful runs. One for the Antacid badge, one for the Well Stocked badge, and one for the Looter (and hopefully Synchronized) badge - and you would get the Master of Lambda badge after getting all the others. Grenades, found in the Munitions Depot and therefore part of a Well Stocked badge run, can be used to pacify Marauder and make him easier to take down. You need to get all 10 grenades - which are sorta randomly distributed among the team/league as you go - but then have no one to use them to get the Well-Stocked badge. This makes it very easy for someone to hold on to a grenade - perhaps even claim they don't have one at all - and then use it to ruin the badge run for everyone else. The combat logs won't tell you who used it, either. And, it takes a lot of time and energy to even get to the fight with Marauder, not to mention just recruiting the league in general. The fight with Marauder itself can easily take 10 minutes or more without using the grenades, depending on league makeup. So to get to that very last step then have someone spoil the badge run for everyone else is very frustrating.

Honestly, I was at a point where I didn't want to run Lambda iTrials anymore. There was ALWAYS someone who would throw a grenade (and in a couple cases, an acid) and mess up the badge run for everyone else. The combat log was no help, and a video of the event might or might not help (probably not). You can try asking everyone to pass you said grenades and acids, but you're on the clock and you don't really know who has what anyway. Then it occurred to me - DEMORECORD. Demorecord captures all the detail of who did what, so you can play it back later. Sure enough, I had a saboteur in my group today, and I was able to catch him. Here's how I figured out who it was. STEP ONE - Turn on demorecord This is simple. Just type "/demorecord {filename}" (ex: /demorecord LAM1). Demorecords automatically stop when you zone, so I waited to start it until after Marauder's cutscene, when I was outside with him. I'm not sure if going to the hospital will cause it to stop, too. I recommend using a bind so you can start the recording as soon as possible - saboteurs often try to use a grenade or acid immediately, before you can start recording. STEP TWO - Look for the sabotage Even though they were informed twice that I would be demorecording the fight, they did it anyway. In fact, they waited until Marauder got to 1% health to do it. A message on the screen says "Marauder Pacified!" and everyone groans. If it's a problem with an acid, you'll notice that "Active Reinforcement Doors" has dropped below 10. Make a mental note of when the sabotage occurred, especially in relation to league chat. It might even help to post something to league yourself that you can look up later. Once you exit the iTrial, the demorecord will stop automatically. Or, if you want to check while you are still inside the iTrial, just type /demostop. The demorecord file is not created until you exit the iTrial or use /demostop. STEP THREE - Examine the evidence! Your demorecord should have created a file in your City of Heroes folder, in the "client_demos" sub-folder. Look for the filename you used in step 1, followed by ".cohdemo" (ex: LAM1.cohdemo). Open this file in a text editor and admire the apparent gibberish. Use the FIND feature in your text editor to look for, say, "pacification" and after some dialogue lines you'll probably find a line that looks like this: Yep, there's someone who used a Pacification Grenade! Got 'em! You can research this part yourself, but trust me that the first number tells you how many milliseconds after the previous line this was executed. Ignore this for now. But you should be able to confirm everything by looking at the following lines for the mental note you made in step two. That second number is the important one - 12, in this case, but it could be anything. This tells you who did it! Place your cursor back at the top of this text file, then use your FIND feature again and this time look for that number, with a space before and after it (" 12 " in this case). You'll then see a line something like this: And there you go. You've found the person who messed up your badge run - a character named "Saboteur Bad Guy" in this case. STEP FOUR - So.... what now? Well, it's possible it was an honest mistake, so I recommend reaching out to them via a private tell and asking very diplomatically "WTF dude?" And, go from there. In my case, the guy chose not to respond and went offline, so I chose to use global ignore and then petition him. The powers that be are handling it now, and I've got one less saboteur to worry about. I didn't see a need to spam LFG with his name, just petition, write an angry forum post, and move on with life. To find their global, type "/getglobalname Saboteur Bad Guy" and the answer will be in your Global chat window. Save your demo file if you are going to petition them because the GMs and CMs may need that. Also - you don't have to be a team or league leader to do this. Anyone playing in the team/league can do these steps themselves. Hope that's helpful!

Moving the MSR to 5pm Central today to allow for a costume contest I missed when trying to get this scheduled.

I know it is short notice, so help spread the word for me as I can't be online until later, but I am planning to run a MMMmmmmSR today (2/22/20) at 4pm Central. As far as I can tell that doesn't conflict with anything scheduled for today, but if I wrong please know I tried to research first. I haven't had success getting a RWZ2 spawned for us in advance, so we'll do our best to fit in RWZ1 and move if absolutely needed. I appreciate those of you who accommodate MSRs by moving smaller groups to RWZ2. Please do not summon pets during the pylon phase, as with that many elements floating around some players report the pylons disappearing. If you are 50+3 and want to lead a team, please be in zone around 3:30pm so we can organize. Don't expect general invites to go out before 4pm.

We'll miss you! Also bumping because tomorrow, Saturday 2/22/20, I think I can plan to be online around 3:30pm or 4pm. I'll update as I can, but we'll try this whole MMMmmmmSR again.

It's difficult for me to schedule a time in advance when I know I can be online, and I know that the timing wasn't perfect for many. Also trying to be mindful of other scheduled events going on, as well. Still, MMs made up most of the league. I'm still playing with my green screen settings, so I have a hole in my head that randomly appears and disappears, plus the sound balance is off, and it's way to long to watch beginning to end - but here is the video: I'm hoping I can find a time to schedule one on a Saturday afternoon soon. Thanks to everyone who DID come out!

Just a note to say that this is set for TOMORROW at 4pm Central on Everlasting. I know it is short notice, so please help me spread the word. Thanks!

In honor of Presidents Day I am planning another MM MSR on Monday. I’ll update with exact time later, but I’m thinking around 5pm 4pm Central. we had no problem getting a full league last time. If time allows we’ll try to do 2 so everyone can do it who wants to.

It seems to me there is a "cost of admission" to some things in the game. If you *really* want to participate in Hami's, you may need to show up ultra early and zone sit. If that part of the game is so appealing to you, and running one yourself seems daunting, that's just the cost of admission for that event right now. Once there is an instanced version maybe that goes away, but maybe it doesn't.

If this has already been suggested elsewhere, sorry. I looked, but I didn't immediately see anything. It looks like the combat log does not record who uses the grenades or acid temp powers in the final battle with Marauder. I would like to recommend it should. Having just run 3 back-to-back LAMs trying to get the group the Looter and Master Of badges, and failing each time because someone used a grenade or acid, it's very frustrating. The first 2 times the person fessed and confessed it was an honest error, and that's fine. But the third run really felt like someone deciding to troll us, and I'd like to be able to know who does that.

As it turns out, because I am a digital pack rat, I have an old COH demo file I used prior to shutdown to capture all of my characters at the time standing with Statesman in front of the Atlas statue. I've attached that demo file here, and you can find instructions about how to run it here: https://cityofheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Demo_Recording I had to capture demos of all of my characters individually, then copy/paste their little sections of code into this demo to make it work. I just checked, and the code and instructions all still work. Hope this is helpful! Combined.cohdemo

I don't really understand what this means, but it sounds pretty cool. Thanks, as always, to everyone who contributed to this update!

When I use /search I can see that "The Hive" is one of the options I can select under Map, but not "The Abyss". Is there a work around?

OK, I just ran an MSR on Excelsior with the normal 6 bomb distribution, and we had just south of 32 mins after U'kon hit the ground. Still, I think the quicker you can go from Shields Down to U'kon Down, the more net time you have in the bowl.

Here's an example where we were left with 31:21 on the clock AFTER U'kon went down. We didn't have everyone on the left side like I asked, and it took us a bit longer to take down U'kon than I would have liked. A player suggested instead of focusing on the 3 left grates to focus on the 2 at the edge of the ship plus one in the middle, leaving the 2 closest to the bowl available for characters who like to anchor stuff on the grates (we call it "Rain Deer Games" because a character named Rain Deer was the first on our server to do it).

Just FYI - I've been experimenting with focusing on the 3 bombs on the left only - 2 teams per bomb - and ignoring the bombs on the right side. The idea being to increase our net time in the bowl itself by going as quickly as we can from SHIELDS DOWN to U'KON DOWN. We've been pretty consistent on Everlasting with this approach and are finding that the timer is often showing 32 or greater AFTER U'Kon falls. I'm not sure where that extra time is coming from, but I will try to record it next time so we can dissect.

It was suggested in a subsequent raid that it would be interesting to do the Ultranox Maneuver, but to mix up the groups at each location to see if the rewards get shared differently. For example, wing 1 would have players 1 & 2 from each team, wing 2 would have players 3 & 4 from each team, and wing 3 would have players 5 and 6 from each team. I guess the remainder (players 7 and 8 from each team) could pull from the bowl to the wings? Something to think about.

Thanks to everyone who came out for this, and thanks to CR Miss and @GM Cyclonefor the kind birthday wishes from the beyond. There was way more interest than I expected, and I hate that several people were ready to go and we just didn't have room. I'll try to find another time we can do this again and advertise it in advance. I'm planning to run a series of MSRs on Tuesday (12/31) afternoon, but they will almost certainly not be limited to MMs. @Cyrious(aka Ultranox) and I will probably want to compare calendars and do a post mortem on this run first. Enjoy this highlight video!

Bumping as a reminder that this will take place TOMORROW, SUNDAY 12/29 at 1pm Central! I'm planning to FIRST call for 50+1/2/3 MMs to serve as Team Leaders, and will call for those maybe 12:30pm or so, just so we can strategize a bit. I'll next open it up to all MMs, and once it seems like we have all we can get I will open it up to everyone with a summonable pet (Lore, whatever). After that we open it up to everyone. I need to start as close to 1pm as possible as I have another obligation shortly after 2pm. I've got a little bit of flexibility there, but would love to be offline by 2pm, if possible. Turn your graphics down, and do the usual suggestions to improve graphic performance (turn off shake, disable buff send/receive, etc.). Make sure you have your Double XP booster, if needed, and your Member of Vanguard badge if you are 35+ so you earn vMerits during the raid. If you can knock that out in advance that will help alot. See you there!

Bumping as a reminder that this will take place a week from today! I've heard from several people in game that they started a MM just so they could participate. Really hoping to fill a complete league with MMs this time. You still have time to start a MM if you want to join!

This will be on Everlasting. Had some questions from Reddit asking if non-MMs with pets can join. As stated above, I'm going to first get as many MMs as we can and when it looks like recruiting has slowed, we'll open it up to others. Last time I did a short phase after MM recruitment where I asked for all others with pets, then opened it up to everyone else. If you don't have a MM already, you have 12 days to create one and pile as many levels on as you can, then you can get in during the first call. I personally recommend Thugs so we can have a bunch of Gang Wars going, too.

Ever since our previous attempt, people have been asking when we will attempt another Mastermind Only (or Mostly) Rikti Mothership Raid. We had 24 MMs in our last attempt, and we want to go lights out this time. So, powerlevel an MM if you need to, set your graphics to "Zork", and join us for our next raid on Sunday, Dec 29, 2019! I'll need to post an exact time later, but my guess would be 1pm Central. The drill will be the same as before - I'll call for Masterminds first, and once it seems like we have everyone we're likely to get I'll invite others to join us. Here's the thread for the previous attempt:

Neat idea! Makes me wonder what other “default” popmenus can be customized like this? Specifically I’ve always wanted to customize the one that pops up when you click on a player name in chat.

I get that, but PDH is relatively controlled and the turrets don't react to the dropship at all. If MSR recruiting took 5 minutes I'd be OK with it, but it usually takes much longer to recruit (which is already not fun) and it's just not fun getting randomly killed. There's a couple of places to hide at PDH, but that doesn't feel especially heroic. And before someone mentions LFG, I know it's there and it's probably not an issue there. I'm in that camp of people who prefers to run MSRs that everyone can participate in.