Zed-F

Re: End of beta thoughts. I think it will last me a good 6 months, which is how long I subscribed for. After that, I expect my attention will wander, though I'll probably resub again at some point in the future if the game keeps maturing and content continues to be added.

Re: What does your hero, or hero team, stand for? My PC Soulbarb has twin themes of dealing with Mystic Threats, and of Redemption. My PC Sylph/Maenad has a primary theme of Self-Discovery.

Re: Your favorite character type For superheroes, I usually like to pick a couple different archetypes and mix 'em together. A light/fast brick with a magic pool, gadget pool, or some other set of tricks up his/her sleeve (doesn't have to be a VPP) is a classic character build for me. For characters other than superheroes, I tend to go with something a little more straightforward, 'cause I simply won't typically have the points for a really diverse power set. That said, I always like to have a variety of options, so I'll usually try to work something in, whether it's a handful of martial arts moves or some sort of small power framework.

Re: File Planet quick-fix and issues of note. Ok, here's what I did to get to what I assume is the correct page. 1) Go to fileplanet: http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/champions-online/beta/?_cmpid=fp191 Click Pre-order Customers. It will ask you to validate your pre-order key. Follow this link even if you have already validated your key. It will give you a kapatcha to validate. Go ahead and do so. Click the link to download the game client, even if you already did so. You may gotten a pre-load from them before. Hopefully now it's pointing to the correct file. Note that as I'm running Vista 64-bit, I found that I have to run everything as Administrator for it to work. Clued into this by the following post on the official forums: http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?t=30195&highlight=Vista+64-bit Crossing fingers...

Re: File Planet quick-fix and issues of note. If anyone who has managed to do this without subscribing would post the magic formula needed to do so, it would be much appreciated. I tried for about 15 minutes and was not able to find the correct way to do it without subscribing -- I'll try again, but am not feeling particularly optimistic. I'll note that there's been several complaints along these lines at the official forums as well from what I've been able to see. Hopefully they will clear things up. I'll note that I have registered and gotten the download manager. I am not interested in subscribing to fileplanet just to get into the beta.

Re: File Planet quick-fix and issues of note. So I have to spend $16 to subscribe to Fileplanet in order to participate in the Open Beta, even though I have a pre-order key from Gamestop? There's no way around this? If so... sucky.

Re: Your "Oh #@$%!" Moment Not mine, but a friend's. Many years ago, we're playing D&D -- Ravenloft to be precise, which is a gothic horror setting, created as a result of the vampire Strahd von Zarovich's interaction with sentient proto-dimension. Once a character enters Ravenloft, generally speaking there is no escape from it. Ravenloft is split into several realms controlled by a variety of evil masters with powerful personalities. My character is Tatyana Moralani, a peasant girl who was kidnapped by a mad necromancer and experimented on until she became a pseudo-vampire (think a WoD vampire in a D&D setting.) Most of the time, she's a beautiful and sweet girl but fairly useless as an adventurer; she's not especially clever and most of her skills involve things like cooking, sewing, etc. Occasionally, when she's backed into a corner or in a blood frenzy, she becomes the group's most lethal combat monster. One of the other players is bringing in a were-weasel character, after his previous centaur shaman died or was retired. Most of the character's personality is based around being a blatantly and stereotypically gay man. He plans to call the character Serge. The GM convinces him to name the character Sergei instead as being more appropriate for the setting, which is largely eastern-european-inspired at this point in the game. During the next couple gaming sessions, as Sergei joins the rest of the group, he starts to find something fascinating about Tatyana. Despite the fact that he is normally uninterested in women, he begins to find Tatyana to be strangely attractive. He also starts having peculiar dreams at night, often also involving Tatyana. For her part, Tatyana reciprocates the attraction. Then one day, as the group is drawn through Ravenloft into Strahd's personal domain, Sergei realizes the truth. He and Tatyana are drawn to each other not because of anything physical between them, but because their souls are connected. They are two sides in a love triangle. Tatyana was once, in a past life, married to a powerful man, and Sergei was in that past life that man's brother, who betrayed him for love of the man's wife. They are doomed to be reborn again and again as part of that powerful man's eternal torture for his evil. The powerful man in question, being Strahd von Zarovich, master of Ravenloft. Tatyana was once Tatyana von Zarovich, and Sergei was once Sergei von Zarovich. As soon as the GM dropped this bomb on him in private (I'd helped come up with the plotline and already knew), Sergei's player's face paled and his jaw dropped. His first words: 'You b#$%h!" Visibly shell-shocked, he returned with the us, back into the room with the rest of the players. He managed to squeak out 'Help me!', and when the rest of the group asked 'How?', his response: 'I don't know!" Not a good feeling when you're just an average mid-level D&D character, and you learn that you're doomed to draw the personal ire of the single most powerful bad guy in the entire dimension...

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely? Even if it should have been spelt 'Fibonacci'.

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely? Here's my advice. Don't take any of the stuff you read here as gospel. The problem is we have only a very limited window into the actual problem -- what you've told us. This is not to say that you've done anything other than attempt to be as clear as possible, but you've said what you've presented thus far may be a result of over-reaction. Sit back. Take a deep breath. Make sure you have as neutral a perspective as possible, and have a think. Then, as has been suggested, talk with your players. Find out whether this guy really is as anti-social as he is coming across. Ask your players to honestly assess one another in a private manner. See if everyone else is getting along ok. Sometimes the best answer is to grow a thicker skin, if you can. If others are also having problems, then you have grounds for making a clean break. Make sure Claws's friend is on-board with the nature of the problem. See if he wants to try to take care of it for you. If so, let him make the attempt. If not, adios muchacha to Claws. Also, if you honestly can't deal with the guy personally, then explain to him that things just aren't working out, wish him the best, and send him on his way. Life is too short to obsess over these sorts of things. Do take the time to gather the necessary information and make an informed decision. Don't overthink it or engage in self-recrimination if it doesn't work out. Different people want different things from a game and nobody should feel they are somehow compelled to please everyone. It's just not possible. Make a call and move forward.

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely?

Re: Lifetime Subscription The $10 a month won't last. But the 6-month subscriptions will probably continue to be available at a discount... just not that much of a discount. For me $200 is a big number, not so much in and of itself, but because there's not much chance to get to know the game before making the decision and because a year-plus is a long time and who knows what will happen between now and then. I might decide on reflection I don't really like the game that much. I might decide that I like the game, but not enough to remain subscribed to it continuously. I might decide the game isn't that great right now, but could be better in 6 months or a year after some more polishing, so I should hold off on subscribing now and take a second look later. If I purchased the lifetime but got all I wanted out of the game in 6 months, it might take a lot more than 14 months for that $200 investment to pay off. Assuming 6 months of interest per major release, it would require 2 x-packs on top of the base game, assuming I was interested enough to get the x-packs. I compare that $200 to the value I get out of a game like Guild Wars. I have probably spent around $200 on Guild Wars since it came out, and for that I have the game, plus 3 expansions, that I can play whenever I want and not have to decide a month at a time whether I want to play that month or not. Admittedly, new content only comes out when the expansions come out, for the most part, but I find it's a model that works for me. I've never seen a content update in an MMO that was anything much to get excited about unless it came out in an expansion anyway.

Re: How to make the Loner feel not so Lonely? Stop posting N00Bz! They don't exactly fit in your average mailbox or through the mail slot in a door, you know! And what are the people you're sending them to supposed to do with N00Bz anyway? Feed them? Take them to the local shelter? Look for an ID tag and send them back where they came from? Besides, the air freight for all those N0Bz must be pretty atrocious. Don't you have something more productive to spend your money on? I mean really. If you want to get rid of the N00Bz in your area that badly, a gun and a few clips of bullets would probably be a lot cheaper, wouldn't it?

Re: Lifetime Subscription $15 US IIRC, though you can get the first 6 months for $60 or of course the lifetime.

Re: Lifetime Subscription He is, though he is not the CEO as he was with Hellgate:London. Instead he's been brought on to help tighten things up, which is what he did at Blizzard before trying his hand as the big cheese of his own shop. At least he'll be able to give some perspective regarding what NOT to do.

Re: Lifetime Subscription If you pre-order you can get into the open beta and thereby get a chance to see the game before making that kind of a decision. Lifetime subscriptions are very much a gamble, though. You could wind up with a game that lasts at least 2 years and you are interested and more-or-less happy with the quality for the full duration... or you could wind up with Hellgate:London.

Re: Escaped Amorphoid Soulbarb would do some research to see how likely this thing would be to cause problems or otherwise get in trouble if left to its own devices. From there she'll either attempt to track it down or just let it be and keep an ear out for news regarding it, depending on how urgent any potential problems seem to be. She's normally more into mystic problems than alien ones, though, so she's likely to try and scare up some expert assistance if she does go after it. Sylph would be all for going after the thing and making sure it's alright. The poor thing is probably scared to death! Of course, she has no idea how to track something like that... so finding it could be a challenge. And it's only once the blobby is in front of her that she'll realize that communication could be a problem too...

Re: Superpowers in the Courthouse And if the means for adjusting to the appearance of superpowers proves too hard to obtain, the world will get rather darker in tone fairly quickly. In fact, if you take a world very much like our own, and add single-source superpowers generated at random in a significant fraction of the population into the mix, without adding supertech or any other means for the government to establish control over these individuals, one entirely possible scenario is a reversion to the morality of the Old West where metahumans are concerned. Metahuman life becomes much cheaper when there does not exist the technology to reliably incarcerate them indefinitely at a relatively affordable price.

Re: Transgendered Superperson Wouldn't work permanently for Sylph, who is a part-time Maenad and Champion of Dionysius. Not that her patron might not be amused by the idea in the short term, and could play a practical joke on her as a test or just to see how she copes, but her powers manifest however Dionysius intends them to and really Maenads are supposed to be female. The next time Sylph becomes Maenad, the changes would reverse themselves. Soulbarb changing sex could be a more permanent deal, due to her having been soulbound to a male demon, depending on where she is in her career. Early in her career, she has serious issues concerning her sexuality, and is effectively celibate as a result, so while this won't have a lot of impact on her actions, she'd still wind up with a truckload of angst over it. Nevertheless, if knowing that her immortal soul is damned or at least at risk from her use of the demon's power isn't enough to stop her from using it, a sex change probably would ultimately not do the trick either. Later in her career, after her outlook has changed somewhat and she's managed to rid herself of the bond with the demon (itself a rather traumatic event), her mystical power starts to bloom in earnest and she would probably be able to reverse the effect herself, given time and research.

Re: Your PCs might be Underpowered if... The PC's newborn baby. Actually that could go either in the overpowered or underpowered thread, depending on whether it actually has that much power, or whether it just feels that way.

Re: An Opportunity For Self-Improvement Soulbarb would initially roll her eyes at more extradimensional interference, and be very suspicious and reluctant to consider the proposition, at least without doing some research to see if she can verify that this guy is what he says and can do what he does, without side effects. She will be surprised at how much Accrued Karma the dossier says she has. She will be disturbed to discover that there are appendices to the dossier noting several other versions of herself at various points in her past and future career, as if Fate had mapped out her life (in broad strokes) already. She would be tempted to rewrite large portions of her life, especially those portions involving Camuranima (which the dossier currently lists as a Hunted), but would hesitate for fear of undoing what good she has been able to do. Ultimately, the only thing she would do is take a 1-point 'Favour From Mysterious Cosmic Entity' on her sheet so that she can save this opportunity for a rainy day, and meanwhile have some more time to think about it. Sylph would chuckle nervously, already having come to the conclusion that she is what she is and her powers are what they are because of her favoured status with Dionysius and the role he has in mind for her in life. She's very conscious of the idea that she would be effectively playing God herself if she were to take advantage of the opportunity... and she knows first-hand just how jealous the gods can be of their prerogatives. Besides, it's in Sylph's nature to consider the needs of others before her own. Instead of taking this opportunity for herself, she'd ask if she could gift it to her boyfriend Alaric instead. He has some serious family issues to sort out, but doesn't seem to know how to do it; she figures he deserves the chance to maybe make a change there, if he wants. Of course, it could backfire, but she's in a Silver Age world, so odds are even if it does it wouldn't be too hard to set things more-or-less to rights again.

Re: WWYCD: HE is not himself. This scenario would not work for either of the characters I normally write up in WWYCDs without some significant changes. Soulbarb already has her own ties to the infernal realm and working though the implications thereof and her own issues and hangups regarding those ties is a critical part of her character development. Sylph already has similar ties in the other direction -- specifically to the Greek Pantheon in general and Dionysius in particular -- and she couldn't simply disappear into Hell for 16 years without this fact being noticed and dealt with. In general, plots that make characters' actions over the last X amount of time null and void (i.e. it wasn't really him) need to be tailored to the PC and vetted by the player before they are at all welcome.

Re: your pcs might be OVERPOWERED IF... ... and still fails to get an action in before being squished like a bug. By accident, 'cause he was beneath the PC's notice.

Re: Holding the end of the world For Soulbarb, that's a little out of her power level. Chop the device down a few levels so that it blows up her home city, and now we're talking. She's an occultist, so odds are if she doesn't know what she's got already, she can figure it out and how to shut it down with some research and/or a little help from other mystic allies. Actually doing the stuff needed to shut the device down could be a good adventure in its own right. For Sylph, she has no clue what to do about it. Panic, then go find Dionysius's avatar in the city and ask for advice. Oddly enough, the key to getting rid of the thing probably involves one of two megavillains currently threatening the city/world: Blacklight (who uses anti-energies to eliminate nuisances) and the Null (Galactus clone). Either that, or it's a key plot element in the plan to banish one or both of these threats. Any way you slice it, it could make for one epic scenario if done right!

Re: Creating chracters in Champs Online They append everyone's account name to their player name.

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power? High PRE is only abusive if the GM lets it be abusive. There are lots of ways to house rule around it without crippling the high-PRE character as a concept. 60 points worth of PRE is a 60 AP power and should be appropriately effective for the cost. A good start would be to say you can only use PRE attacks when it's dramatically appropriate -- it's not something that's done in-genre every 2 seconds. You might launch a PRE attack when a fight is first joined, but otherwise it's generally only going to be at a pivotal moment. Also, you might want to institute a mook rule for PRE attacks -- as in they work as described on mooks, but name villains are made of sterner stuff and can't be effected beyond the PRE+20 level, for instance. Master villains or other big threats may be entirely immune, and/or have enough PRE to be unaffected. And always remember, what's sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander.