It has been over a month since my post about the upcoming move of Issue 16: Power Spectrum to the live servers. And just short of a month since the actual release. I thought I would talk about how things look at this point, since the Issue was very large and anticipated by so many players.

Very Pretty Colors

A lot of people complain about not being able to get the names they want anymore on City of Heroes, because all the good ones are taken. I have never really had this problem, for a variety of reasons, but partly because I like to use colors in various ways. The problem of course, with naming someone Purple Charge (Elec/Eng blaster) or Lightning Red (El/El scrapper) (I never said they were great names. ) was the inability to make the powers fit the name.

That is no longer a problem. As I have been working my way through my alt list I have been updating their costumes and power sets to better fit the various characters. Purple Charge now has purple lightning bolts and Lightning Red has red effects from her attacks and shields.

But they are not the only beneficiaries of the new customization. My SS tanks and MA scrappers use a variety of the different animations, depending on exactly which costume they are in and how I feel the differences fit the characters. Some of my Dark Armor scrappers still disappear when they turn on Cloak of Darkness, others don’t. For a character like Lady Flames, a Fire/Rad controller, while I could put the powers together in the game and her backstory, they did not look like they went together. Now her flame control powers have the same look as her radiation powers, which doesn’t affect game play in the least, but does affect my enjoyment in playing her.

Not all of my characters need to use power customization by any means. Chilly Death, an Ice/Ice blaster is perfectly fine using regular colors on his powers. The same is true of Fire of Gamab (Fire/Fire tank) and a lot of other characters. But when you come up with a concept for a character, it is really nice to be able to make the powers fit it so well. I was in fact surprised at how much of a difference it made in my enjoyment of a couple of characters. (I wasn’t surprised at how much it improved my enjoyment of my Spines/DA scrapper. The original look didn’t really fit her origin and are ugly besides. The metal spike though, look great and do fit her backstory. What a difference some graphics make.)

Other Changes

What I have done with the Super Side Kicking has been okay. I do not team very often, and it was a surprise the first time I joined and got the pop up asking if I wanted to change my level. Since it was in the middle of fighting a Paladin build in KR, it was almost a fatal surprise. But once I accepted and was level 49, things got much easier. It is possible to remove the popup in the Options window, I just haven’t bothered on any of my characters since I mostly solo.

The ability to change challenge levels is very nice. On my low level defenders, sticking it at -1 to level makes things much easier until I can get a few more levels on them. Of course, when you outlevel a mission and are suddenly fighting greens, it can be kind of strange. And it does lower your XP intake, but I at least have found the speed trade off worth it.

I have not messed with increasing the levels and number of heroes settings yet. One of the unfortunate things that came with I16 was a bug for the Invincibility power. It kept playing the start up sound over and over again whenever there was an enemy NPC in range. For every NPC in range. I didn’t think it would be too bad, until I actually played my main, an Inv/SS tank. It did not take long at all until I had a bad headache, so he has been sidelined until it was fixed. Which was yesterday, but I was busy last night so did not get into the game at all. When I finish the MA arc I was playing with him, I will ramp things up and see how much he can take in some Radio missions.

Not Nice

Besides the already mentioned Invincibility bug, there were a few others added into the game with I16. Unfortunately, this is a fact of life when dealing with large programs with lots of intacting parts. That doesn’t make them less annoying, but unlike some people on the COH forums, it does allow me to give the Devs a break when it happens. They play the game too and I sincerely doubt they enjoy the bugs any more than the regular players do.

The biggest one for me is a spawning issue in the Mission Architect system. When custom critters and standard mobs are in the same group, they do not spawn correctly. The regular spawns do not show up at all most of the time, and when they do, the level ranges will be badly messed up. Having grey mobs 20 levels below the character level show up in a mission takes a lot of enjoyment out of it, and can mess up the story if they contradict something the writer has put in.

There were also some bugs in the way Mastermind pets would follow through doors. It is a great feature, but when you zone and are suddenly surrounded by a bunch of bots that follow you around but don’t obey your instructions, the results can range from annoying to deadly. That has not been fixed yet, although they did get the Protector bots to properly buff again.

Final Words

Issue 16 was almost completely a Quality Of Life issue. They did not add in any new zones, or revamp any existing ones. They did not add in any Task or Strike Forces, new contacts, or new missions. I know that there are people that are upset when an issue comes out without adding in new content. Some have been complaining since Issue 13, because the only official new content has been the Reichmann arcs in I15. I can understand that point of view, although I think many of them are being a bit silly about not caring for the stuff in the MA system. There are some very good stories, both canon and non-canon, in the MA, and it is not that hard to find them.

For those people, Issue 16 was just a waste of time and resources. But personally, I found it has enhanced my enjoyment of the game. I knew I would like power customization, but I did not realize how much it would add to the characters I create and the fun I have playing them. That by itself makes I16 a huge success in my book. Because that is why I play the game, to have fun.

I have mentioned before that I play the MMO City of Heroes. I have been playing it since the first day it was offered for sale, and the only reason I signed up that late was I had somehow completely missed its existence until about 2 weeks before that. But I have been there ever since. And on occasion, I have been picked to participate in the closed beta testing of new issues (The name of the free updates that NCSoft puts out). This occurred a couple of weeks ago for the next issue, number 14: Architect.

I was quite surprised to receive the email. I had been sick for a while and not playing much at all on the live servers. And I had totally missed the fact that the Closed Beta was even going on. I am obviously not always the most observant person about some things.

I was not one of the people that has been eagerly anticipating the Mission Architect, I had some vague ideas about stories I might make, but I have not been planning anything special. But that did not stop me from logging on to the Test server and checking out it out.

It was much more and less then I was expecting. Almost complete control over the text and dialogue of the missions you create, the ability to use the character creator and player powers to make custom creatures to place in your missions, and the ability to create almost every kind of mission available in the game were all pretty much as I expected. But much more fun than I had imagined.

I found myself immersed in creating a storyline, finding the right maps, adjusting powers for the custom creatures I made, getting the text and dialogue right. Hours slipped by very, very quickly. And it was a lot of fun while I was doing it. Except for when my custom characters kicked my butt.

Issue 14 has now entered open beta testing, which means that a lot more people are now on the Test server, trying out the changes in PvP combat, additions to the Arena, and the Mission Architect. The first two things do not really interest me that much, I occasionally do some PvP, but not enough to have an opinion on those changes. But the Mission Architect is a huge change to the game. And I find myself looking forward to it hitting the Live servers, to see what comes out of it.

If you left City of Heroes because it was boring, or there was not any new content, here is your chance to create what you want to see. Or just look through what others have created and see how you like it. But a word of warning, the custom characters that the players come up with? They are much, much tougher than the normal mobs in the game. And that is on the lowest power setting.

Are you tough enough to take them on?

I play the MMO City of Heroes. Started the first day it was released and have been on it ever since. I don’t always play a lot, but I do like jumping on and beating up villains from time to time. Or beating up heroes, if I feel like being a villain at the moment. (Mayhem missions are much more fun than Safeguard missions.)So they recently released a game client for the Mac. This does not really affect me, since I am on a Windows machine. But they have done a couple of ads to use in pushing the new client to a new audience. This one was just released and I had to share.

An obvious parody of the I’m a Mac/I’m a PC commercials, but in a fun way. The first one is also quite funny.

And if you are not a player, you should check it out. Easy game and very friendly to casual players. The forums are even friendly to visit.

For something a bit different from the politics that have been devouring most of my attention, I thought I would look at a couple of books I bought recently. One the newest Dick Francis, the other an older collection of Doonesbury strips.

Silks

Dick Francis, along with his son Felix, has put out a new adventure, dealing with crime and the world of English horse racing. It is a nice visit for anyone that is a fan of Dick Francis, with familiar characters and an easy style of writing.

One difference this time is the hero of the story is a lawyer, at least at his day job. Geoffrey Mason, called Perry by the jockeys he rides against, is a barrister, defending or prosecuting accused criminals before the Queen’s Bench. This allows Francis to give some insight into how the English system of justice works, something that I found to be quite interesting. This look inside how parts of the world work is one of the parts of most of his books that I really enjoy.

Mason faces a dilemma that is all too common in real life, someone threatening both his loved ones and himself to force him to keep quiet and throw a trial. And the one doing the threatening is someone he knows will follow through, a former client who has already had success using just those tactics.

He has to figure out why the seemingly unrelated murder of a jockey has caused such a violent reaction, then find a way to save everybody from the threatened retribution. There are some irritants in the way the story is told, with some information that gives a vital clue being withheld from the readers. This would be reason to dislike the book in most mysteries, but in a Dick Francis book, the mystery, when it there is one, tends to take a backseat to the way the hero deals with the protagonist.

All in all, a fun welcome visit with an old friend. Not the best place to start if you aren’t a Francis fan, but well worth reading if you are.

The War Years

This is a hardcover collection of two other Doonesbury books, Peace Out, Dawg! and Got War? Gary Trudeau looks at the Bush years, from just before 9/11 until just before Howard Dean drops from the Democratic primaries in the 2004 elections.

While Trudeau is well known for being less then sympathetic to most conservative values, he has always seemed to me to be just as willing to skewer the liberal side when they deserved it. He has plenty of opportunity to do both, both before and after 9/11. But while he was still willing to hit the Bush administration after the attack, the tone of the strips did change, especially in the immediate aftermath.

Of course, by the time the 2004 elections were looming, he had plenty of things to write about to keep himself busy. I have no doubt that if 9/11 hadn’t happened, Bush and Cheney would have been able to generate lots of outrage on their own. But the wars in Afghanistan and  Iraq allowed them to reach heights of rage inducement seldom seen. And Trudeau did his best to point out as many sources of outrage as he could in a 4 panel strip.

There is nothing really new in this collection. If you are a Doonesbury fan, it is nice to have the 2 earlier collections in one hardback volume. If you are not a fan, the only real use for this book is lots of pages to help start a fire in your fireplace.

Got up today and went over to Ft. Wayne, IN. Michelle Obama was speaking there, in a campaign rally for her husband. It was originally supposed to be in a pavilion in a park in Ft. Wayne, but it was moved to the Grand Wayne Center Monday. Either someone looked at the weather forecast for today, or there were security concerns. I would bet on the weather.

I had to park a few blocks off, since the closer parking lots were full. Can’t imagine why that happened. There were hucksters on the sidewalk outside the convention center. They were selling everything from Michelle Obama T-shirts to Obama/Biden buttons. There were also some protesters on the sidewalk, with signs against abortion. They were quiet and polite, unlike the idiot that stuck his head out of his car yelling Obama bin Laden.

Things were well organized inside, although I got there early, so they were hardly overwhelmed. I don’t know if there was ever a time it would have overwhelmed them, it was not a huge crowd, although it was respectable.

Linda Pence was the opener, she is the Democratic candidate for State Attorney General in Indiana. She talked about being inspired by Obama to run for office for the first time. She was followed by local organizer who encouraged everyone there to go directly to the local court house and vote early. I am sure that the workers there would have really appreciated a few hundred people showing up all at once to vote.

Birch Bayh introducing Michelle Obama

A few minutes later, after an invocation, Birch Bayh came out. He was very popular with the crowd there, not surprising given his and his family’s history in the state. He said that as soon as he met Michelle, he knew that he and Barack had something in common. They had both married above themselves. He was very passionate speaking about the election and getting Obama elected.

There was also a speaker that told about her niece and the way the current health care system didn’t cover her, or find the cancer that is killing her. The she talked about the children that came into the library where she worked that couldn’t go to the doctor, because their family could not afford more than one at a time at the doctor.

When Michelle Obama came out, the crowd was very excited. The signs came

Michelle Obama, surrounded by signs.

out and they were very loud and enthusiastic. She was also enthusiastic, and seemed to like being there. She seemed to be a little shaky starting off. but quickly warmed up and talked to the crowd. Not as well as Barack, but still very good.

She talked about where she and Barack came from, him a single parent family and her a blue collar family from the South side of Chicago. She talked about how he understands what it is like to watch his mother try and keep things going at home while working and going to school. About seeing his mother die from ovarian cancer at 53, trying to figure out how to pay for treatments that the insurance wouldn’t cover because they said that cancer was pre-existing. She really did a good job getting across the idea that Barack understands what it is like to actually live in this country. It was the first political rally I have been to. I hope to get to one with the actual candidates before the election.

After that, it was home to do some reading, until now. I have been watching the debate on CNN. It is not very exciting, but I didn’t expect it to be. Obama has been very even tempered and calm, not getting upset or excited. McCain has also been doing better in this debate than the first couple. He has actually looked at and talked to Obama, and been much more focused. But he has not been outstanding, which he really needed to do to improve his polling numbers.

McCain did bring up Ayers, as he said he would. And Obama gave the same answers he has been giving since Clinton brought up Ayers during the primaries. But of course, that will not really answer anyone that still has questions. After all, if they did not believe it the last few hundred times it was brought up, why should they believe it now.

All in all, it was pretty much a tie. Which is the same as a win for Obama considering the polling numbers at various sites here on the web. I follow the numbers at these sites:

• Electoral-vote.com
• FiveThirtyEight.com
• RealClearPolitics

It will be interesting to see how the numbers go after tonight.