Most fathers probably receive thoughtful Father's Day gifts tailored to their interests and hobbies. Clothes, electronics, tools, pounds of steak, that sort of thing.
Instead, my 11-year-old son, Jamie, threw brightly colored tights at me and dragged me off into the streets where armed miscreants could shoot me in the head.
He bought me a copy of "City of Heroes," a massive multiplayer online role-playing computer game (also referred to as "MMO," "MMOG," "MMORPG," or "incredible time-waster") wherein you become a super-powered champion and fight the forces of evil in beautiful, thug-filled Paragon City right alongside any other superheroes that might be logged on at the moment.
[ June 23, 2004, 07:54 AM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
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(The character is real, by the way, and is currently the undisputed champion of a two-block area on Victory )
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Wow, you captured the feel of the game perfectly, except for the super-villian that totaly freezes reality and can only be fixed with a powerful ability called "Reboot."
I chose the "Tanker" category (strong, durable, not terribly maneuverable, like a human Humvee), but elected to become a slender, 3-foot-tall female Tanker named Arathustra, just to mess with my son's mind.
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That was great!
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Turns out that "arresting" looks an awful lot like "personal assault" and there doesn't seem to be a lot of paperwork involved.
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Amen.
Welcome to the club; want to join Hatrackers United, our Supergroup? It's on the Virtue server...put Rangar on your friends list, and send me a tell when you see me....or look on the CoH thread Bok started....and let me know when you will be on!
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Alternately, you can join the Hatrack splinter faction on Liberty, which is a much better server than Virtue based on its name alone. j/k
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You know where the friends list is, right? It's a button on the chat window...turn chat on too. When you log, and enter a new area, a yellow message comes up in the window telling you who is on-line at that time. The friend has to be added ( /friend <name>) to your friends list to work though.
When you click on the friend button, a list of all the friends you have added appears, and all of the heroes that are currently on-line are highlighted. You can also e-mail heroes by clicking on e-mail in the chat window too, just by knowing their name....or you can hit /tell <name> and send them a private message.....if they aren't on-line, it tells you that when you try to send the message.
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You know, I keep hearing that Liberty sucks, but both ping times AND people tend to be considerably nicer there. When I pop over to Virtue, it's nothing but huge clusters of super-teams waiting to beat up Hazard Zone monsters. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I was devestated when I helped Tom for a half hour pick out a character and costume, down to the exact shading of camouflage and then the name he wanted wasn't available so he didn't use the character!
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I have a lot of friends who love to team up with me, even though I am not in their SG's.......I don't think any server sucks really, but I want everyone to be on Virtue...so call me selfish...
I had a few problems on Liberty when I first joined, but that was when the mapserver monster was unbeatable.
I've used 3 servers, and I think they all run about the same. I have had lag on all three, even with my new DSL connection, but it usually isn't bad enough to affect gameplay.
Christy, you should take that character over then, and make him wait for the computer...that is what he gets for defecting to Liberty...
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She's talking about "Weekend Warrior." He made perfect sense in that costume with that name, but I couldn't think of ANOTHER name that would work with the costume. So he vanished into the ether.
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I never had a problem with Virtue up until about a week ago. Now it seems to be really choppy. Not like normal lag, where you don't flow forward so much as clip forward but this weird take 3 steps, clip back to where you started, take 3 steps, clip back, etc. So you aren't actually moving anywhere. It generally happens 10 or 15 times in a row. While I have a few characters on Triumph, Justice and Liberty, I haven't played any of them beyond the 2nd or 3rd level
I've met some really, really nice people on Virtue. The only problem is that they fly through levels much faster than I do. I wish there was some kind of "casual" server Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I signed on to Victory my first time since that's where my son already was -- he's playing a very tall red-leather-suited man with stag horns coming out of his forehead, named "The Horned Boy," something I'm not eager to investigate too closely.
I figured I'd play with this one a bit and get more accustomed to gameplay before branching out. As I mentioned in part of the article that got cut for space, I haven't actually finished a game since "Callahan's Crosstime Saloon," and that was because I love the stories. I messed with "The Sims" for a bit but spent most of my time designing swimming pool moats and condos made out of fur. I'm just not a gaming person, usually.
That said, I found myself logging on and cruising for bullies when I had a free half-hour last night. Not a good sign...
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Except for the one time with Jamie I've been working as a loner, not because of any philosophical preferences but because I was having enough trouble mastering the navigation and fighting without trying to figure out chat.
I've also managed to commit at least one faux pas while thinking I was helping a fellow hero out by finishing off a bad guy that was defeating him. Since I wasn't chatting I won and sped off, patting myself on the back for my altruism, and then later read the etiquette guide and found the word "kill-stealing"...
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To Dan: Couldn't be helped. I used to do the same thing years back when playing RPGs with friends. There was always some guy, usually in his early teens but not always, that invariably played some variant of "Wolverine" and measured masculinity strictly by kill ratios and number of wenches despoiled. I would respond with a sexy female character that advanced by outthinking opponents and situations, just to drive them nuts.
In a game where one of the players rolled up a ridicuously powerful character with a few packmules worth of stuff, all of it magical and puissant, I would play a tiny Asian monk who carried a small sack of rice and an ink stone, and nothing else. I might make a staff from available materials when needed, but otherwise no possessions at all. Any winnings in the game I donated to the poor.
Playing the game isn't nearly as much fun as playing the players.
[ June 23, 2004, 11:15 AM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
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Great article, Chris. Look me up if you do a character on Liberty. I'm "Joe Medic". I don't mind mentoring a sidekick either.
Or if you really want your son scarred for life, I'll team up with you on Virtue. My character there is "GlamazonWarrior". The name says it all. Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Ludosti: I'm sorry, youo can get another hit later on....I might sell you one tommorrow, but it will cost you...
Chris: It is addictive, not just the gaming but making different characters too. As you mentioned in your article, the hero generation process is way too fun.
I have been having some lag problems too, but i figured the patches were causing it, and they have died down the last few days. Maybe they fixed it.
I'm glad you found some nice people on another server, that is the way I feel about Virtue. I started playing with some people and we are all progressing at about the same rate, so we get together fairly often. Nothing planned usually, we just see each other and send a tell, and look for each other whenever we are on-line.
I am going on vacation to MI with my parents and wife, and we have no computer at the cottage. That means I am going cold-turkey starting Friday night, for a total of 11 days. I don't think I'll really mind until I get home and log on. Then I will realize that all the people I game with are now 5 (or more) levels ahead of me, going places I can't even get into yet.
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Hee hee! I fiddled around a bit more last night, enjoying my lofty Level 4 superiority over the street thugs (being careful to stay around low-level neighborhoods).
Then I showed my roommate Dave what I was doing. He'd heard about it but had resisted because peer pressure turns him completely off anything. I showed him the character gen and we used one of my slots on Liberty to make him a character that looks like a cigar-chomping, bright pink Freakazoid. We named him "DeeTees" since "Shakes" was taken. I let Dave go through the tutorial and I went to bed, it being around 1:30 and work waiting for me this morning.
Just got up to find Dave still on my computer, cackling at his foes.
"I'm assuming you're addicted now?"
"Yeah, but I'm Level Six goodness, baby!"
I expect he'll be buying his own copy within the next few days. It's just entirely too suited to his level of weirdness. And, as all of you know, it's fun to get your friends hooked into your obsession.
(muttering) Level Six son of a...
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Jes and I checked this out last night and wanted to play, but it's beyond our means at the moment. Looks like fun, though.
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My 18-year-old, who was watching me and Dave play last night, just ICQed me and asked if he could use my computer for a bit.
I give it a week before everyone in my household is playing this except for my wife, who might get into costume design...
Question: has anyone set up design sites? "Here's a snappy number, just use these settings and your own colors to make this costume" kinda thing?
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No, but it would make for a funny article, right? Or at least part of one.
I am glad that you are spreading the addiction....you are a natural. Just look at how you got him; You gave him a free sample, and the next day he was still going. Then you take it away, and make him pay for it from that point on......classic!
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Capes will apparently come in an expansion. Based on their track record so far, it might well be called "City of Capes."
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Looks like fun, though.
