So, I've been meaning to do a big music post again. I'm on the far side of a pop phase at the moment, spurred mostly by stuff I heard randomly while listening to Pandora Radio. But instead of a long (to write and to read) post, I decided to just, again, randomly post YouTube videos. I'll try to do one or two a day until I get bored. Here's three for today.
Paralyzer - Finger Eleven
Four Minutes to Save the World - Madonna featuring Justin Timberlake
(The version I have as an mp3 doesn't have Timbaland, and I like it better. But still, good title for a superhero playlist)
Cold as Fire - Britney Spears
I sort of feel bad for making fun of Britney Spears, but I didn't make the video. Someone with way too much free time did, so they can have the guilt. I like the Oompa-Loompa back-up singers, even better in virtual stick figure form.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
ALF
I know I need to make a real post sometime soon, but... not today. Soon. Until then, you get this:
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Off-Topic of the Week
In my morning internet rounds, I came across the most depressing newspaper article ever. Aside from the topic, what strikes me is that it's an AP story, not something from some rinky-dink paper no one's ever heard of. The AP needs to put this guy back on his meds, and not let him write until they kick back in.
But just two stories under where I found that link, I found this. Kinda makes you forget all that doom and gloom for at least four and a half minutes.
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
Also, interesting to note that Blogger thinks that "internet" is a misspelled word.
But just two stories under where I found that link, I found this. Kinda makes you forget all that doom and gloom for at least four and a half minutes.
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
Also, interesting to note that Blogger thinks that "internet" is a misspelled word.
Monday, June 16, 2008
The ITF and More
So, Sunday's ITF went well. Here's the thing: I get impatient with people sometimes. I know, shocking. I'm not into "herding cats." It's frustrating. This is a problem I don't seem to run into in RL, just in-game. Maybe because the discussion takes longer in text, maybe because consequences are only in-game as well. Maybe because people enjoy standing around and looking at characters and scenery as opposed to staring at walls. I don't know.
The ITF can be hard. I've done it six times, and succeeded twice. All but Sunday's were PuGs. Of course, that other success took an hour and 29 minutes. Yes, less than an hour and a half. I wanted ours to succeed, so I tried to work with the group make-up a bit. I wanted a "healer" or another defender, but settled for a scrapper. And I'm glad we got him. He was a good scrapper, and it turned out to be, oddly, an almost perfect mix. I say "almost" on a scale of no-death, super-fast, impractical and probably impossible perfect.
The first mission is easy. Even on the higher difficulty setting we had, it gave us no trouble. Second mission isn't too bad, but the complications of the ambushes and, to a lesser extent, the exploding crystals-- although they did seem to be complicated for our lone sk'ed villain. The third mission requires some tactics. Instead of standing around discussing it, I chose our tactics there at the end, with the pulling to the ledge instead of fighting through the groups, and dropping down to take out the computer. The fourth mission is hard. Go to the forums and you can read page after page and post after post of people discussing what to kill first, with what, and why all the other ways are WRONG. They're not wrong. It depends on the team make-up which way it's going to work the best. And, usually, the only way to figure out which way is best is to try it and see what happens. Luckily for us, the tactic we picked first worked, and worked well.
In other news, the plant/rad controller I created on a whim, Xylia Thorn, is level 41. She FLEW through level 1-38. I was amazed. For some reason, teams dropped off around 38, and the leveling has been slow going-- compared to what came before-- since then. The plant controller primary is... well, it's awesome. It's that Seeds of Confusion you get at level 8. It's an AoE confuse that that mind controllers don't get until level 32. And plant gets it at 8. Doesn't seem fair, does it? Too bad. Suck it, mind controllers. Carrion Creepers is awesome, too. It's like a field of really nifty looking temporary pets. Not to mention the actual pet, the giant fly trap. It's a Giant Fly Trap, on legs, that follows you around. Nothing else needs to be said. I want to get her to 50, because I can. Not because I need another controller or another rad at 50. ( I chose /rad again because it wasn't /empathy /force fields or /sonic, and OHGAWDNOT /thermal. Less buffing, more throwing Seeds of Confusion and Carrion Creepers at people.)
My other i12 experiments... well, poor Ashleigh. I haven't touched her since I made Xylia. I spent some crazy amount of influence on that Karma -KB IO for her, and haven't run her since. She may be on the chopping block. I wasn't overly impressed with the fire/fire scrapper. If she does get deleted, though, she's getting respeced to take that IO out. It was way too expensive to just throw away.
Then there's Lunatrix. I have to say, I'm not overly impressed with the psychic blast/mental manipulation power sets. I like blasters. I have, you know, just a bit of experience with blasters. Maybe if that wasn't true, I wouldn't be disappointed. But it just seems lackluster to me. Too many gimmicks, not quite enough damage. It's not awful, but compared to other blasters I've played, I'm just not impressed. It's not unplayable, but if I'd made it on a random PuG character, it probably would have been deleted for disinterest.
(Also, I'll take a minute and admit to my absolute hatred of the ice shields. I do not want to be a giant ice cube. A huge draw of the game for me was the character creator. Yes, I realize a large part of the reason why CoH has so many female players is because of the dress-up doll aspect of the game, and I'm secure enough the my tough-grrl aspect of my personality to admit to that. If I wanted to be a giant block of something, I'd go play Runescape (very short trial period with that a few years back). On the other hand... the ice shields are wonderful for keeping a psychic blapper on her feet, and practically making her a tank... So, shields plz. *sigh*)
But...
Something odd happened. Luna's duo partner was scheduled to be Defender Vagz, for the sake of "this is what we're making when power proliferation in i12 happens," not, "these characters will get along well." Personalities was not factored in AT ALL. In fact, if anything, I thought it would go badly. The characters, though, had other ideas. It turned out to be... interesting, to say the least. The interactions between the characters is what's keeping me playing and wanting to play Lunatrix. Weird how things work out sometimes.
The ITF can be hard. I've done it six times, and succeeded twice. All but Sunday's were PuGs. Of course, that other success took an hour and 29 minutes. Yes, less than an hour and a half. I wanted ours to succeed, so I tried to work with the group make-up a bit. I wanted a "healer" or another defender, but settled for a scrapper. And I'm glad we got him. He was a good scrapper, and it turned out to be, oddly, an almost perfect mix. I say "almost" on a scale of no-death, super-fast, impractical and probably impossible perfect.
The first mission is easy. Even on the higher difficulty setting we had, it gave us no trouble. Second mission isn't too bad, but the complications of the ambushes and, to a lesser extent, the exploding crystals-- although they did seem to be complicated for our lone sk'ed villain. The third mission requires some tactics. Instead of standing around discussing it, I chose our tactics there at the end, with the pulling to the ledge instead of fighting through the groups, and dropping down to take out the computer. The fourth mission is hard. Go to the forums and you can read page after page and post after post of people discussing what to kill first, with what, and why all the other ways are WRONG. They're not wrong. It depends on the team make-up which way it's going to work the best. And, usually, the only way to figure out which way is best is to try it and see what happens. Luckily for us, the tactic we picked first worked, and worked well.
In other news, the plant/rad controller I created on a whim, Xylia Thorn, is level 41. She FLEW through level 1-38. I was amazed. For some reason, teams dropped off around 38, and the leveling has been slow going-- compared to what came before-- since then. The plant controller primary is... well, it's awesome. It's that Seeds of Confusion you get at level 8. It's an AoE confuse that that mind controllers don't get until level 32. And plant gets it at 8. Doesn't seem fair, does it? Too bad. Suck it, mind controllers. Carrion Creepers is awesome, too. It's like a field of really nifty looking temporary pets. Not to mention the actual pet, the giant fly trap. It's a Giant Fly Trap, on legs, that follows you around. Nothing else needs to be said. I want to get her to 50, because I can. Not because I need another controller or another rad at 50. ( I chose /rad again because it wasn't /empathy /force fields or /sonic, and OHGAWDNOT /thermal. Less buffing, more throwing Seeds of Confusion and Carrion Creepers at people.)
My other i12 experiments... well, poor Ashleigh. I haven't touched her since I made Xylia. I spent some crazy amount of influence on that Karma -KB IO for her, and haven't run her since. She may be on the chopping block. I wasn't overly impressed with the fire/fire scrapper. If she does get deleted, though, she's getting respeced to take that IO out. It was way too expensive to just throw away.
Then there's Lunatrix. I have to say, I'm not overly impressed with the psychic blast/mental manipulation power sets. I like blasters. I have, you know, just a bit of experience with blasters. Maybe if that wasn't true, I wouldn't be disappointed. But it just seems lackluster to me. Too many gimmicks, not quite enough damage. It's not awful, but compared to other blasters I've played, I'm just not impressed. It's not unplayable, but if I'd made it on a random PuG character, it probably would have been deleted for disinterest.
(Also, I'll take a minute and admit to my absolute hatred of the ice shields. I do not want to be a giant ice cube. A huge draw of the game for me was the character creator. Yes, I realize a large part of the reason why CoH has so many female players is because of the dress-up doll aspect of the game, and I'm secure enough the my tough-grrl aspect of my personality to admit to that. If I wanted to be a giant block of something, I'd go play Runescape (very short trial period with that a few years back). On the other hand... the ice shields are wonderful for keeping a psychic blapper on her feet, and practically making her a tank... So, shields plz. *sigh*)
But...
Something odd happened. Luna's duo partner was scheduled to be Defender Vagz, for the sake of "this is what we're making when power proliferation in i12 happens," not, "these characters will get along well." Personalities was not factored in AT ALL. In fact, if anything, I thought it would go badly. The characters, though, had other ideas. It turned out to be... interesting, to say the least. The interactions between the characters is what's keeping me playing and wanting to play Lunatrix. Weird how things work out sometimes.
Friday, May 23, 2008
What I Did With My I12
So, I12 is buggy. Let's get that out of the way first. I crashed twice today, just switching characters and once yesterday, and once the night before. Normally, I run into my game crashing once or twice a month. I'm not very worried about that, though. New issues tend to do things like that. If it continues over the next couple of weeks, then I'll get concerned.
Other than that minor annoyance (and of course the icon bug), I like i12 so far. Best issue ever? Maybe not, but it's pretty good. The first thing I did, like a lot of people, was make a VEAT. Well, no. Actually, the very first thing I did was claim my 5 free character slots, all on Virtue. (More slots!! YAY!) Then, I made my VEAT. I chose to take the Bane Spider route, even though I've heard Banes are less awesome than others. I wanted to save the name, Karma Noir. No, she doesn't have much of a story yet. I haven't even played her past level 1 yet, either.
The next thing I did was make my psi blaster. You may recognize her from Team 3.0. I kept the same name, since Team 3.0 was over on Guardian, so the new psi/mind blaster is Lunatrix. And, yes, I did have to log into Guardian to look up her real name. Miranda Lancaster. Her introduction from Team 3.0 here in the blog says "Elise," but I changed it, like, the next day. Other than that, she hasn't changed much. Things in the Rogue Isles didn't go so well for her. Con-artistry was one thing, but she wasn't ready for outright villainy. She hid out for awhile, and then decided to turn herself in for her past crimes. She was able to work out a deal where she remains free as long as she continues to work for the city of Paragon as a hero and doesn't get into anymore trouble.
On the other hand, there's my fire/fire scrapper, Ashleigh Burns. I used the name Ashley Burns back when the servers were flooded with Supergroup fillers for the prestige bonus. I think she was a fire/fire controller. (There was also her brother/cousin/something, Scorch Burns, a fire/fire tank. I don't think he'll do anything but continue to live on the SG roster as a level 2 in nonexistent space.) Ashleigh just graduated high school and moved to Paragon to start college in the fall. She started working as a hero without informing her very normal parents, who never quite understood their mutant daughter. She's eighteen, because I don't think Paragon is any kind of place for children to run free. She'll be mostly PuGs, probably, but when I RP her, expect a lot of "Ohmigawd!" type comments. I don't plan on making her annoyingly cheerful, but she'll be my anti-angst character. Until/unless she gets deleted.
I'm not overly impressed with the fire/fire scrapper, so far. She is only level 13 at the moment. Assuming I continue, she'll probably skip her passive Temperature Protection. She'll need the normal Swift/Health/Stamina, as well as Combat Jumping/Super Jump. From there, she'll have to pick up Acrobatics, as there's no KB protection in her shields. Except for the 25 million influence +KB protection IO that Fyre just bought her. That IO is +4 points of protection. Acrobatics is +9 points, now. I think she'll be workable with just the IO until I get the free power choice for Acrobatics. She NEEDS Stamina a lot more right now. If I can fit it in, I'd like to try for Tough and Weave. I think she's going to need the extra defense, although Healing Flames does seem to recharge rather quickly. Of course, with a 25 million influence investment already, she's probably going to stick around for awhile.
I have to say, the psi/mind blaster isn't especially impressive. She's only level 10, though. She burns endurance quick. The damage seems kind of meh. Of course, the blaster I play the most is level 50 and has considerable IO bonuses, so I may be just stuck comparing the two. I'm trying not to judge too quickly. Generally, I try to reserve judgement until level 20, with a couple of notable exceptions. (Harmony Hex: Sonic/sonic defender who played only on PuGs, AKA "Die, I don't care, I'm not buffing you again because you're a moron." And, poor Hex Raven who would have lost a battle to a kitten because a) the kitten did more damage and b) the kitten had better endurance management. I just didn't have the patience to wait for her late-bloomer build to bloom. Too bad, because I liked the character.)
I tried an ITF on Fyre, after Keen and I ran the Midnighter arc with Fyre and Stronghold. (Fyre is now wondering how in the heck Stronghold and Havoc could possibly be the same person, by the way.) The Midnighter arc is a lot of fun. I still love the new maps, both the Midnighter caves (also used in Cimerora and the ITF), and the Cimerora zone. The ITF was PHAIL, though. Not because death happened, because it did and it will in the three missions that lead up to the finale. It was phail because the last mission is... well, I won't say impossible. It CAN be done. I was on a team that did it on Test, and did the whole TF in one hour and twenty-nine minutes. I was also on a team that took four hours to decide it was phail, and another that took almost that long only to fail. The team the other day on Live took about 3 hours to decide it was phail. It's difficult, let's say.
Some of the other little QoL are fun, too. There's a lot of talk about how much easier it is to get a global name from a local name, or vice versa. (In fact, this is a pretty interesting read, if only for the RP points.) I don't care either way, myself. But I am enjoying the notes feature, if only to one-star the idiots I run into on PuGs. I'm getting used chat boxes full of color. Now, it seems easier to read with the separation. I'm constantly combining inspirations. I love being able to click someone's name in chat and getting options that include sending them a tell or inviting them to a team. How much easier is that? The separation on the contacts tab is excellent for my 50s especially.
I12's been fun so far. I even took Mo out for a bit late one night to fly through the sewers and help out the newb, and I ran into two other people randomly doing the same thing. And best of all, I still have 2 free character slots. I did want to use that new Arctic pattern, though. Hm...
Other than that minor annoyance (and of course the icon bug), I like i12 so far. Best issue ever? Maybe not, but it's pretty good. The first thing I did, like a lot of people, was make a VEAT. Well, no. Actually, the very first thing I did was claim my 5 free character slots, all on Virtue. (More slots!! YAY!) Then, I made my VEAT. I chose to take the Bane Spider route, even though I've heard Banes are less awesome than others. I wanted to save the name, Karma Noir. No, she doesn't have much of a story yet. I haven't even played her past level 1 yet, either.
The next thing I did was make my psi blaster. You may recognize her from Team 3.0. I kept the same name, since Team 3.0 was over on Guardian, so the new psi/mind blaster is Lunatrix. And, yes, I did have to log into Guardian to look up her real name. Miranda Lancaster. Her introduction from Team 3.0 here in the blog says "Elise," but I changed it, like, the next day. Other than that, she hasn't changed much. Things in the Rogue Isles didn't go so well for her. Con-artistry was one thing, but she wasn't ready for outright villainy. She hid out for awhile, and then decided to turn herself in for her past crimes. She was able to work out a deal where she remains free as long as she continues to work for the city of Paragon as a hero and doesn't get into anymore trouble.
On the other hand, there's my fire/fire scrapper, Ashleigh Burns. I used the name Ashley Burns back when the servers were flooded with Supergroup fillers for the prestige bonus. I think she was a fire/fire controller. (There was also her brother/cousin/something, Scorch Burns, a fire/fire tank. I don't think he'll do anything but continue to live on the SG roster as a level 2 in nonexistent space.) Ashleigh just graduated high school and moved to Paragon to start college in the fall. She started working as a hero without informing her very normal parents, who never quite understood their mutant daughter. She's eighteen, because I don't think Paragon is any kind of place for children to run free. She'll be mostly PuGs, probably, but when I RP her, expect a lot of "Ohmigawd!" type comments. I don't plan on making her annoyingly cheerful, but she'll be my anti-angst character. Until/unless she gets deleted.
I'm not overly impressed with the fire/fire scrapper, so far. She is only level 13 at the moment. Assuming I continue, she'll probably skip her passive Temperature Protection. She'll need the normal Swift/Health/Stamina, as well as Combat Jumping/Super Jump. From there, she'll have to pick up Acrobatics, as there's no KB protection in her shields. Except for the 25 million influence +KB protection IO that Fyre just bought her. That IO is +4 points of protection. Acrobatics is +9 points, now. I think she'll be workable with just the IO until I get the free power choice for Acrobatics. She NEEDS Stamina a lot more right now. If I can fit it in, I'd like to try for Tough and Weave. I think she's going to need the extra defense, although Healing Flames does seem to recharge rather quickly. Of course, with a 25 million influence investment already, she's probably going to stick around for awhile.
I have to say, the psi/mind blaster isn't especially impressive. She's only level 10, though. She burns endurance quick. The damage seems kind of meh. Of course, the blaster I play the most is level 50 and has considerable IO bonuses, so I may be just stuck comparing the two. I'm trying not to judge too quickly. Generally, I try to reserve judgement until level 20, with a couple of notable exceptions. (Harmony Hex: Sonic/sonic defender who played only on PuGs, AKA "Die, I don't care, I'm not buffing you again because you're a moron." And, poor Hex Raven who would have lost a battle to a kitten because a) the kitten did more damage and b) the kitten had better endurance management. I just didn't have the patience to wait for her late-bloomer build to bloom. Too bad, because I liked the character.)
I tried an ITF on Fyre, after Keen and I ran the Midnighter arc with Fyre and Stronghold. (Fyre is now wondering how in the heck Stronghold and Havoc could possibly be the same person, by the way.) The Midnighter arc is a lot of fun. I still love the new maps, both the Midnighter caves (also used in Cimerora and the ITF), and the Cimerora zone. The ITF was PHAIL, though. Not because death happened, because it did and it will in the three missions that lead up to the finale. It was phail because the last mission is... well, I won't say impossible. It CAN be done. I was on a team that did it on Test, and did the whole TF in one hour and twenty-nine minutes. I was also on a team that took four hours to decide it was phail, and another that took almost that long only to fail. The team the other day on Live took about 3 hours to decide it was phail. It's difficult, let's say.
Some of the other little QoL are fun, too. There's a lot of talk about how much easier it is to get a global name from a local name, or vice versa. (In fact, this is a pretty interesting read, if only for the RP points.) I don't care either way, myself. But I am enjoying the notes feature, if only to one-star the idiots I run into on PuGs. I'm getting used chat boxes full of color. Now, it seems easier to read with the separation. I'm constantly combining inspirations. I love being able to click someone's name in chat and getting options that include sending them a tell or inviting them to a team. How much easier is that? The separation on the contacts tab is excellent for my 50s especially.
I12's been fun so far. I even took Mo out for a bit late one night to fly through the sewers and help out the newb, and I ran into two other people randomly doing the same thing. And best of all, I still have 2 free character slots. I did want to use that new Arctic pattern, though. Hm...
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