Ann is Back!

I took a long hiatus from COH a few months after the last post, right around October/November 2019. In the post, I alluded a bit to learning how to program and my desire to career change into software development. Well, it actually happened. I quit the miserable old career to do a coding bootcamp, ended up getting a new job as a software developer right when the pandemic started. I also bought a house and switched to my second developer job and things are really good right now. But during that time, I pretty much did no gaming other than Animal Crossing: New Horizons which saved my sanity during the pandemic, if we're being honest. 

Life has now settled down enough for me to actually relax and play some video games. While there was a bit of FFXIV because my family still plays that game, I went back to the old standby, City of Heroes. It took some time to remember how to play the game and what the many powers did, but the muscle memory came back. 

I've been having a blast just soloing 4x8 on the new Annzilla, my BioFire Tank. I really need to post her build up soon. She is all IO'd with some Incarnate powers and is just so dang fun to play. I can handle most mobs on that setting without breaking a sweat and it gives me that "crunchy" satisfaction that I am looking for. 

It's probably been about 2 weeks of a handful of solo missions after work, in particular going through all the Crimson missions and I have not gotten tired of it yet. I pretty much burn through the Malta. It even yields a ton of inf, merits, and recipes that I am not paying much attention to since I don't need them at the moment. Good to keep in my pocket as the alts level up. 

There's also Seventy, my Water/Kin Corruptor at level 49 and is kind of IO'd up. If her name sounds kind of familiar, she's somewhat related to Sixty in my head cannon. Seventy is rather fun to play and Water is a great primary, though she's better suited for teams. Unfortunately, I haven't felt like teaming much lately so she's just going to hang tight there. If the name is still available, I might remake Sixty as a Corruptor. We'll see. 

I do have Infernadoll, a Fire/Dark Corruptor and my new Zazza, a Rad/DS Brute that I like to duo occasionally with my brother. Zazza's Rad isn't my favorite, although Infernadoll has been fun and is good for teaming. They're both in their high 20's so hopefully they get better as they level. If not, I might just IO them on the cheap and park them when they get to 50. This might happen to Zazza, but Infernadoll has some hope right now since she has better replayability for me currently. 

For the rest of the alts, I had mostly logged in every 3 days to get the free mission complete, so most of them are still sitting in their teens and I don't have much to write about there. I feel like I should have level pact some of them because even with just the free mission complete and no bonus xp, I am still outleveling the content. 

At any rate, I am happy to be back!

(Builds coming in the next post)

The City is Back!

Only if you've been under a rock for all this time, the City of Heroes and Villains is back! In rogue form...

If you want to read the back story on how it all happened, take a gander a MassivelyOP: 

https://massivelyop.com/2019/04/18/whats-going-on-with-city-of-heroes-now-this-game-is-a-unicorn/

I think it pretty much all started with a video of some disgruntled dude showing footage of a secret server and then everyone losing their shit about how some people/groups kept it secret for so long while outwardly making a show of other efforts publicly. 

I can see both sides of the story, but honestly? The game is back and I really don't care about the drama. I just really hope NCSoft isn't a big asshole about it and that it doesn't go away any time soon. Either way, the codebase is out in the wild now, so they will have to make a lot of efforts to shut down and keep shutting down private servers and they won't be able to get them all. 

Anyways, if you are looking for instructions on how to get on, here you go: 

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,950.0.html

I haven't really been able to play much when it launched because it was going right into my busy season at work (60-70 hour work weeks) so I didn't have time for anything. Not to mention, I am learning to program and may be considering a coding bootcamp in a few months so am preparing for it (or at the very least, trying really hard to teach myself and change careers so I don't have to pay all that money for a bootcamp). 

This past weekend, I was finally able to play for more than an hour! 

When the game was live, I stopped playing right around the time the game went free-to-play and only poked around in the servers occasionally after that, but didn't stay very long. Lots have changed and it was a bit rough trying to remember the UI or how to do stuff, but some of the muscle memory actually came back. Oh boy!

And yes, I did reference the If the City Came Back post I wrote a couple of years ago. Obviously, some of my sentiments have changed. 

So far, the only complete full remake is Zetsumei (Nin/Poison MM) with her costume, powers and everything. She is just such a great solo character and concept that I couldn't picture her as anything else. I also made a new Annzilla (new power combo Bio/Fire, seems to fit better conceptually), Paradoxic (new powers of DA/Psi Tank, Psi is really great so far), Ann (Elec/SD Brute, is basically Zazza, just really love playing this set), Zazza (to Rad/SD Brute), Infernadoll (Fire/DM Corruptor, basically is Vixona). 

So far, my highest level is Annzilla and Zazza at 18. I think I am probably going to stick with Annzilla for team play since I am really enjoying the Bio primary and then solo level up Ann and Zetsumei.

I know I want to throw a Kin in the mix in there, but not sure if I want to remake Sixty entirely or pick a new power set for her, though I do really love playing her and her character concept. 

I am eventually going to restart the Tanker Project up again, but will probably re-conceptualize some of the characters because for the most part, I don't want to play the same old thing again. 

And before I am out, here's the updated Hero Designer, updated by Pine: 

https://www.cityofforums.net/threads/pines-hero-designer.6/

Updates on the "City of" IP Buyout

I received an email asking if I had any updates about the ongoing talks on the IP buyout.

Nope. No special information here. I know as much as everyone else does. 

I do want to admit that I check the Titan Network forum threads like every single freaking day, several times a day. So if you're looking for updates, it's best to check there too:

• And the Mask Comes Off  
• New Efforts

I am sure when someone hears about something concrete, or if there is news posted up on Titan, that everyone will know and it will spread like wildfire.

Also relevant is this article on MMOGames.com, where they had interviewed Nate Downes right after the big reveal.

Other Speculation

Yes, there is speculation on the whole Nexon doing a hostile take over of NCSoft that may slow down the progress, but meh. Who the heck knows? These business dealings often do not make sense to me. Why wouldn't they bother selling the IP in the first place? Money is important, right? So it boggles my mind. Everything is just speculation.

So right now, no news is good news, right? Just wait patiently folks.

I did recently re-watch the City of Heroes Post-Mortem with Matt "Positron" Miller on YouTube... and he did mention that if it did succeed, and the buyer looked at the source code, that he can't imagine how they'd figure out the code, how the original team was able to make it to work. So yeah, that's a bit worrisome. If it does go through, I hope that they can get some of the original developers back to sort out the mess. I hope the investors have a lot of money!

P.S. I occasionally buy lottery tickets.. and if I won like 100 million bucks, I would spend so much money to get COH back! Fun/funny to think about..

Spiritual Successors

For those who are not in the know, there are several projects under way 

• The Phoenix Project for the City of Titans - unfortunately, I didn't contribute when the campaign was going on. I was in between jobs at the time and it was a little tough to spare some extra cash. I wish they would run another kickstarter campaign. I think I have about $500 bucks to give right now! 
• Atlas Revival Project - This is a team of people building the various CoH neighborhoods in the Unreal 4 Engine. Looks great (pics on Facebook). Looks like they may work with the City of Titan folks since they're both using the same engine. Hope it works out. 
• Valiance Online - I checked out the game in the pre-alpha state.. it's still obviously in development, but what we see now is looking fantastic! It does really have a CoH feel about it. The team is doing a really great job. The other bit of good news is that the game has been greenlit on Steam. 
• Heroes and Villains - I haven't really seen much in terms of new developments. 
• Titan Icon - Basically if you really want to play around with the character creator again and jump around in an empty city for old times sake. 

Let me know if there are other projects in the work if I miss any. 

Other Games in the Meantime

My super duper, awesome, wonderful boyfriend bought me/upgraded my computer for XMas. He's a serious gamer so he took pity on me and helped me out on that aspect of my life. So my gaming life is pretty fantastic. I wish I had this computer around back when CoH was alive. It would have been glorious.

So in the meantime, what games am I playing to get my mind off of CoH?

I'm playing Final Fantasy 14, The Secret World, Champions Online, The Sims 3 (not 4, bleh), Heroes of Might & Magic 3, 5, and 6, and Fantasy Life (one of the most fun game I have played in a very long time!).

Of course, this is if I even have the time to play games. Aside from the usual day job and daily life things, I'm also in the middle of working on a graduate degree so much of spare time is spent on that. In between semesters, however, I do get a little fun in!

Anyways, here's to hoping for some good news soon!

Major Nostalgia

It started when I received an email from Brinkster about how they will be discontinuing their free hosting service and provided instructions on how to save the data. I had forgotten that I even had an account there.

I fired up the old site.. and low and behold, it was an old CoH site with instructions on how to use GuildPortal that I had made for my SG at the time. There was also my little RPish site, the one that served as the fake storefront for my "Comic Shop." I do have a few dummy domains lying about, and will have to see about uploading all the content there.. or somewhere reliable for fun and prosperity. You can imagine who wary I am of having another entity to save these things for me.

After all that, I became curious about CoH. Obviously, I knew that the game had closed its doors and that several projects were in the works to be a successor of sorts.

So I checked with old reliable, the Titan Network... and found this bit of news... And the Mask Comes Off and the companion post New Efforts!

Dang. That is great news.

Yeah, yeah, it's not like it's definitely going to happen, but this is the first real glimmer of hope.

Honestly, I think if the most recent effort doesn't work out, I also feel like it another group will try. It will get to the point where NCshit will have to give in eventually, even if it's ten years out. I think the CoH community is that persistent. What we ultimately get again might not be the original, but it will be something.

So with that little glimmer of hope, I started looking at this website, my old builds, screenshots... and everything. And damn, the memories came back in full force.

I really, really, really hope that the latest efforts will work. If it does, I will be back. I'll re-roll most all of my toons (probably not Ms Ann.. because well, BA is fine, but I need more damage =X).

In the meantime, please indulge me a little as I go through my nostalgia. I will be posting things soon. I figure why not? This is a great place to keep everything. Since Google owns Blogspot, hopefully, the likelihood of it shutting down isn't too great. I just want a place to hold my memories.

Hello Heroes (and Villains), It's Been a While...

I stopped playing right after i19 hit. I do want to play but have been too busy with work (freelancing)... and then taking two part time jobs since the last post.

I don't know much about the incarnate system, because I never actually did any of the i19 content. Sad, I know. I do have a time card ready for when time does permit. (FYI, a 60 day time card is on sale in Amazon for $24.99... i.e. $12.50 per month vs the $14.99 per month cost. get it up quick. Not sure how long that will last..) Maybe I'll get to play sometime around the end of summer? Maybe..

Right now, I'm still kind of hesitant to come back to the game since I know it will suck up a bunch of time (not in a bad way, mostly)... and I just have so much to do. Ugh. I hate being a grown up. So much responsibilities.. and bills.

Anywho, the reactivation anniversary week is going on right now and ends on the 18th (or rather 3am on the 19th since I am on the East Coast). I did pop in a bit to check out the settings tricked out on Ultramode (got a new computer, finally), but I didn't get to play much. The next available time to check things out is after work on Weds, the last day. I'm hoping to get a task force or two in before the freebie is over.

Maybe I'll take some nice screenshots with the new computer!

So i19 to Launch SOON

Like.. in a few hours.

I'm excited, but then again, I'm not, because I am not going to be able to play much. I will try to log on but I just have way too much work to do. So yeah.. *sad face*

Breaking Lately

Yeah, I'm on another COH break due to work. I've been breaking for about 2 weeks now. The holiday season is the busiest time of year for me, so I have to focus on making some moola so I can pay the bills and such. Either way, I'm kind of bored with the game (so the withdrawal symptoms wasn't so bad this time around) and I'm just waiting until i19 to launch (ETA is Nov 16, 2010) to play it again.

Here are some updates so far:

• Anwyn is lvl 47. She is 100% slotted out with her cheap build and pretty much has the reaming IOs waiting in her tray for when she gets to 50. She will probably stay at lvl 47 until I feel like teaming and running regular missions again (and I'm not sure when that'd be). She has the Maria Jenkins arc ready to go, so it should be easy as heck to get her to 50 after facing off a few AVs. 
• Ambrozia: she is lvl 35 right now and was the side project until I got bored. Like I said, I don't really like teaming all that much anymore, and its even worse as a Controller. I hate not being the tanker/brute/meatshield, because then I can't really set the pace of the missions. I'm not quite sure when I'm going to pick up playing this toon regularly anymore. 
• i19: so we're all getting inherent fitness. I'm kind of not looking forward to respeccing everyone, but I kind of am. Heck, I might even take another look at all the retired characters and try to fill them out with the missing IOs, since I have much more inf this time around. I am excited about the new TFs and the incarnate system, but I'm not sure how I'm going to find the time to play it properly. 

I guess that's it for now. See you all in i19.

Got Reported on Zazzle

You see the Zazzle panel on the right? Yeah, I thought it would be fun to make a bunch of COH/COV related t-shirts. Hell, I spent about 4 hours on Photoshop re-creating that stupid super boost icon after playing as my Kinetics defender and getting spammed by my own teammates. I know other Kin players should be able to relate. I also made a bunch of other icons too, but those probably aren't going to be put up anymore, at least not to the public (just me and close friends).

The shop has been up for almost 3 months now. I rarely get any hits (woohoo 49 hits after 3 months!). I haven't sold a thing. It's not like going to make big bucks from COH and live off of it. Its just a bunch of dumb t-shirts I wanted to make for fun mostly for myself to attend PAX with and if other people liked them, then thats cool.

So I got reported and got yelled at by Zazzle. I explained my case and I'm still waiting to hear back from them.

Maybe they won't shut down the account. If they don't like the images, I will just comply and take it down. Then I'll just do what everyone else does and write a bunch of text on the t-shirts.

Omg, thats like, so hard to do!

Just ranting a bit. Going to take a nap now.

UPDATE: They ended up just wiping everything in the store... even the stuff that was not immediately based off COH like the "Say no to supradine" shirt (like you had to play the game to get it). Ah well, I guess I'll just put only text on the shirts like that other guy if I ever make them again.

AFK From Blog

Why? Because Going Rogue launched and I've been busy with it.

I am really enjoying the Praetoria content, but its a shame that its only up to level 20 and you can't get back to Praetoria once you leave. Hopefully they will change that.

So there's lots of new things going on, I've made a few new characters, and I've been taking lots of screenshots. Expect more updates soon!

The Break Didn't Last Very Long

So we all know I had a self enforced break from COH because I made such a big deal out of it, but it only took me 11 whole days to finally resubscribe.

I think the withdrawals were bad enough that I resubbed for a whole 6 freaking months!

I'm a bit worried for myself now.

Ah well, I suppose I ought to make the best of it anyways.

Another Self Enforced Break

My subscription expires... TODAY... and I won't be returning until at least Aug 4th, 2010, which is 2 weeks from today. That would give me enough time to start prepping for the Going Rogue launch on the 17th, so I will be back for sure.

I'm taking a break for the same reasons as last time, namely, I need to get some work done and gaming is a distraction.

Even though I'm taking a break from the game, I'm not going to take a break from this site. It will give me time to update the site a bit more (I have tons of screenshots that I've been meaning to post), but have been distracted by what else? Gaming of course.

So I'll see you all in 2 weeks.

City Comics: COH Fansite

I've been kicking around this idea for a while, to start my own web site with an actual domain. The site is based on my characters and the fictional comic store that my main hero, Ms Ann owns called City Comics. I can technically create another blogspot blog, but I prefer to be able to control how I design my blog as opposed to being limited to what blogspot has to offer. I want it to be on its own domain because it's more personalized that way, dontcha think?

I've actually created a City Comics website years ago, hosted on 50webs, but it has since lapse in any kind of activity or updates. I'll probably be moving most of the content over to whatever I decide to do.

I found it really fun then to do all sorts of creative stuff for my characters and that made it that much more fun and interesting to play. And as always, this is a great diversion to doing any actual work lol.

So what do you think?

Taking a Break from COH

Now that my subscription will be expiring tomorrow.... I intend to take an enforced few weeks off from COH. I am self employed and have been putting off business for a few weeks, so I really need this time off to get things back on track. You know, or I won't get paid, which means I won't be able to afford the subscription in the first place!

So time to get serious here. I will be back in time for Going Rogue though!

Poll: What is your favorite Hero Archetype?

What is your favorite Hero Archetype?

Blaster
Controller
Defender
Scrapper
Tanker
Peacebringer
Warshade

Just for fun! Go vote! The poll is on the right hand navigation...

A Little Peeved

Last February, when I decided to cancel my subscription, I thought it really was for good. There was nothing left for me in City of Heroes/Villains. But in checking out issue 14, I'll be honest, I resubscribed largely because of the AE farms where I would have been able to level up some toons that I'd never thought I'd have the time or patience to previously.

Remember my goal of trying to get all Tanker primaries to level 50? I still want to do that and I thought I could with the AE farms. I guess that's not possible now since the new patch is up and the developers are threatening to punish people for taking advantage of a poorly thought out system that they built.

And just to be clear, I never intended to level them all from 1 to 50 with AE farms, but rather just to get over the mind numbingly tedious levels of 1 to 25ish. Tankers are late to mature, and it just sucks playing them at the lower levels. And that's the core of the problem, really -to get past that low level hump before I feel compelled to gouge my eyes out.

Given that I no longer really play with my old guildies, its not easy setting up a team of competent players with my limited time to actually get something done. As a result, I end up soloing most of the time. That's how it was the past few times when I decided to cancel my subscriptions, and that's how its going to be now. And if you're wondering, its like freaking pulling teeth if you ever want to give a solo go as a Tanker!

I did try to battle the monotony of the game by introducing this blog and setting goals. It helped for a little bit, and then it just gets boring again. The AE farms made it fun and exciting. I could get where I wanted to be, and fast.

Now I know that some of the holier-than-thou anti-farmers out there are turning their noses up to my little rant because I am 'missing out' on the content. Puh-leeze. I've been around since the first week the game launched and I've run through all the stupid missions, even creating toons specific for soloing missions so I can experience all the content. I've run all of the Task Forces and Trials there is. At one point, I had 3 accounts, full of toons of varying AT and powersets. I have a toon that was a hardcore badge hunter until issue 11, with the introduction of Ouroboros where I realized that I would have to run the missions with power limitations, multiple times! That was my limit.

The developer created content is crap and I honestly don't expect much more from the player created stuff. I have been past the point of caring about content (since I got bored of COV), because you do the same basic thing to get through it anyways. The mechanics of the game and how it as designed is intrinsically flawed. It might have been great 5 years ago, but now? There's really not much to the game play that has the spontaneity and excitement it sorely needs.

AE allowed me to abuse the poorly thought out system that the developers created. They should have saw it coming. But to threaten to ban people for it? That's fine with me. I don't plan on resubscribing after this month is up anyway.

I'm Back! Sort of..

So I am sort of bringing this blog back from the dead, only for a month. This is only because NCsoft in its infinite evil opened up the subscriptions to unsubscribers for a week to test out the new Mission Architect update and I foolishly went for the bait.

And after actually *gasps* having fun, I decided to resubscribe for the month of May.

It wasn't so much the new update that drew me back, as it was the fact that I've been working my butt off at work, then doing consultancy work outside of the day job, taking night classes, and getting a new business set up -that I am at the point where I need some gaming. It has literally been 3 month since I actually spent my spare time playing a game and not working!

So even though I am back for the month, I still expect to get my work done and reward myself with a little gaming, so it will be casual at best.

So Issue 14 is Live

Its been live for a few days now. I still haven't re-subscribed to CoH yet.

I'm going to wait a bit until May when I'll actually have time to play.

Until then, I hope everyone who's still playing is having fun!

Update

Sorry folks, I haven't been playing CoH lately. Too much work to do IRL and all.

Sadly, I am also getting bored of the game. It's starting to become very unlikely that I will get all Tanker primaries to level 50. =(

I'm not sure what the fate of this blog will be..

Might be Moving this Blog to Wordpress

I am contemplating on moving this blog to wordpress.com. Or even buying a domain for it and hosting it in the wordpress platform.

Yes, I know that this is a blog, but I like to have a certain level of customization and operating it under the blogger platform is too limiting for my tastes. This is a shame since steps have been made to optimize this particular blog.

I am going to have to mull over on what to do, but it does look like I am going to be moving this blog soonish.

Stay tuned...

Update 11/14/08:
I've decided not to start a new blog with wordpress after all. It would just take too much work to move the content over, re-optimize that site, and design the theme (not to mention I will have to pay to customize the theme on wordpress.com). Besides, I think I have a workaround to create the "pages" that I want. It just takes some creative blog designing.

So while it does mean that I will have to tinker with the theme more than I'd like, I guess I can do it over time and it wouldn't be such a big deal in the long run.

Now that it has been decided, I've got a lot of entries to catch up on!

"In the City of Heroes & City of Villains Blog" Theme is Done!

I know, I know, it doesn't look a thing like the mock-up in the previous entry. I realized that the way it designed will require a lot of work in writing the CSS and frankly, I'd rather spend the time doing something else. Oh you know, like play the game!

So I ended up just switching out the images on the existing template, futzing with the CSS a bit to suit my tastes and calling it a night!

Hope you like it!