Patrick's posts
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A Greg Stolze kickstarter is a slam dunk for me to back. The stories are always great and they're delivered in a nice timely fashion.
So, I took 102,000+ words of unpublished, obscurely published, out-of-print, and pre-published material and put it all together into a single collection. Now I'm Kickstarting it.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gregstolze/thank-you-for-screaming
If you can spread the news on this it would help me out SO MUCH. Thanks in advance!
-G.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gregstolze/thank-you-for-screaming
If you can spread the news on this it would help me out SO MUCH. Thanks in advance!
-G.
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Gifts from my wonderful wife: a new hat and an Infinity Scarf!
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I've got my $15 RIGHT HERE! Where is my movie ticket to this!
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My #nerdy9th for this month is an easy pick:
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Paragon_Chat
Paragon Chat is the newly released app that uses the City of Heroes Issue 24 files to allow us to create an avatar using the final version of the City of Heroes costume creator. We can then log into a server and roam around the CoH maps (some, not all yet) and chat with (and see) other players.
On one level, this is far removed from the actual CoH experience. There's no mobs, no powers and no "game" element to speak of. We're more indestructible tourists viewing the movie sets that CoH was filmed on than players in a game.
On the other hand though, there's something amazingly nostaglic about wandering around those environs again, and there are elements of the game that are supported just fine even within the limits of what's offered.
Costume contests, for example, as every bit as easy to do - maybe even moreso - than they were in CoH. Nearly every costume piece is available, barring a few speciality ones like the Incarnate pieces and the Crab backpack for Arachnos characters.
Since traveling powers are currently not working (they're on the near terms list it sounds like though) there's also a long forgotten mini-game of sorts available -> Paragon Parkour.
In Paragon Parkour, you try to navigate as much of the city as possible using only run and jump and odd texture features to get around. There's no prize for Paragon Parkour (again, there's no game engine here yet to support "rewards") aside from the joy of figuring out how to do it.
As an example, for old times sake I climbed to the roof of one of the buildings in King's Row last night. Back in Issue 0, before we'd leveled enough to have travel powers, that was how we went out and hunted for the Circle of Thorns minions that were needed for our "Kill x Circle of Thorns" missions.
The fire escape let part of the way up the building but for last half dozen or more stories the only path up was to jump from tiny window ledge to window ledge, never stopping or else the physics engine would send you tumbling back down to the ground.
After so many years away, and even so many more where I had jet packs and Ninja Leap and other travel powers from early on and therefor didn't need to wall crawl the hard way, it was tough rediscovering those old Virtual Parkour skills, but with a little bit of practice and perseverance I wound up on top of the world. In at least one sense. : )
If you don't have the Issue 24 files anymore, or even if you never had an account, no worries (and no cost), you can get the files and create an account to log in by following the info provided on the Paragon Chat page on the Paragon Wiki (linked below).
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Paragon_Chat
Paragon Chat is the newly released app that uses the City of Heroes Issue 24 files to allow us to create an avatar using the final version of the City of Heroes costume creator. We can then log into a server and roam around the CoH maps (some, not all yet) and chat with (and see) other players.
On one level, this is far removed from the actual CoH experience. There's no mobs, no powers and no "game" element to speak of. We're more indestructible tourists viewing the movie sets that CoH was filmed on than players in a game.
On the other hand though, there's something amazingly nostaglic about wandering around those environs again, and there are elements of the game that are supported just fine even within the limits of what's offered.
Costume contests, for example, as every bit as easy to do - maybe even moreso - than they were in CoH. Nearly every costume piece is available, barring a few speciality ones like the Incarnate pieces and the Crab backpack for Arachnos characters.
Since traveling powers are currently not working (they're on the near terms list it sounds like though) there's also a long forgotten mini-game of sorts available -> Paragon Parkour.
In Paragon Parkour, you try to navigate as much of the city as possible using only run and jump and odd texture features to get around. There's no prize for Paragon Parkour (again, there's no game engine here yet to support "rewards") aside from the joy of figuring out how to do it.
As an example, for old times sake I climbed to the roof of one of the buildings in King's Row last night. Back in Issue 0, before we'd leveled enough to have travel powers, that was how we went out and hunted for the Circle of Thorns minions that were needed for our "Kill x Circle of Thorns" missions.
The fire escape let part of the way up the building but for last half dozen or more stories the only path up was to jump from tiny window ledge to window ledge, never stopping or else the physics engine would send you tumbling back down to the ground.
After so many years away, and even so many more where I had jet packs and Ninja Leap and other travel powers from early on and therefor didn't need to wall crawl the hard way, it was tough rediscovering those old Virtual Parkour skills, but with a little bit of practice and perseverance I wound up on top of the world. In at least one sense. : )
If you don't have the Issue 24 files anymore, or even if you never had an account, no worries (and no cost), you can get the files and create an account to log in by following the info provided on the Paragon Chat page on the Paragon Wiki (linked below).
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And the answer to this question is: OH HELL YES!

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YjnwmdqnU-W5neQ-JGrfPtX9pysGZuetyvmHtdSbjs0/edit
In honor of City of Heroes birthday, Matt "Positron" Miller and Sean "Doc Aeon" McCann crafted another set of CoH Lore answers.
It's a fairly short one this year, due in part to the time and distance since CoH ended, but still has some interesting bits in it.
In honor of City of Heroes birthday, Matt "Positron" Miller and Sean "Doc Aeon" McCann crafted another set of CoH Lore answers.
It's a fairly short one this year, due in part to the time and distance since CoH ended, but still has some interesting bits in it.
#nerdy9th snuck up on me again, so I'll tag a game I've been playing quite a bit of lately: Final Fantasy XI.
FFXI was one of the first MMOs that I played, starting back in 2004 when it was released to the US markets on the PC. Back then the giants in the MMO landscape were Everquest and (to a lesser extent) Ultima. FFXI was the "new and innovative" game that offered less punishing play and the Final Fantasy series famed story telling prowess.
I look back fondly now at the time spent in Valkurm Dunes with a party of RL friends and family as we struggled up through the levels. "Less punishing" than Everquest or Ultima was still far deeper into hardcore mode than any of the console games and the turn over rate for players in those early years showed it.
I think the "static party" that I did most of my original leveling with lasted a little less than two years, which by some measures is an amazingly long time. We tackled a lot of unusual leveling spots and had a lot of neat experiences, but ultimately the grind just wore us down. As we closed in on the level cap of 75, a few of the group sprinted ahead and that messed up the xp curve for the rest. We were losing steam anyways at that point and with everything feeling slow we just kind of sputtered out.
There were other MMOs to play by that point and the promise of "Final Fantasy level story immersion" never really came to fruition. The cutscenes, when they appeared, were well done but they were spread so far apart in time and required level that it was hard to feel any sense of connection or pacing.
The worst offender in that regards was the Chains of Promathia, which launched soon after the North American release. It was basically designed for the Elite players, the ones who'd reached the level cap, had the excellent gear and knew how to coordinate very difficult encounters. For the vast majority of the player base though, the boss battles were simply unwinnable unless someone more skilled and powerful carried them through.
By 2007 or 2008, I was logging in rarely if at all, which wasn't a bad run for an MMO in my experience to be fair.
Flash forward to last year though and the Return to Vana'diel campaign that SE was running around the holidays. On a lark I reactivated my characters and decided to see what had changed. What I found was that the answer was "Basically Everything".
Soloing back in 2004 meant fighting the weakest possible mobs and getting 10xps when you needed 40,000xps to reach your next level. Soloing today means getting between 2,000 and 10,000 xps per mob.
Before the level cap was 75 and there were plenty of things that could still massacre you. Now the level cap is 99 and you can get super cheap gear from an NPC that boosts you up to 117.
Also, there's "Trusts" now, which is a system whereby NPCs from the game, named ones who've played a role in the story that you seen like Lion and Zeid and Trion the Prince of San'doria, will join you while you're leveling. So you not really "solo" anymore. You're fighting with up to 5 NPCs (max party size still being 6) who are about 10x smarter than most of the PUGs I remember playing with.
Gone are the days of fighting only Easy Prey and getting killed by them. As a puny level 17 in the Dunes (again) I was fighting Incredibly Tough mobs with my army of trusts and annihilating them!
The real joy though is how the easy leveling and incredible power you get allow you to progress through the old story missions.
The Chains of Promathia missions that everyone raved about but were a nightmare of lost time and xps back in the old days? Well the story is still there, but the nightmare is gone. I was able to go through the entire thing, on my own, one mission right after another and see the whole story play out like it was meant to!
Even with years of polish on it, the current version of FFXI may still not be quite in the same league of accessibility as more modern MMOs, there's still grind, there's still difficult content waiting at "end game" but for an "old school style game" it really shines.
I'm finding the current story for FFXI pretty compelling too. It's called Rhapsodies of Vana'diel and its focused on the end of the world when Vana'diel is consumed by darkness.
While this is a iconic/typical/cliche plot for a Final Fantasy game, I feel like the dialog the devs are writing is all being crafted from a place where they're are looking forward to the actual end of FFXI, when the servers shut down.
There's been no date announced for that yet, but they have said that RoV is the last new content that the game will ever get. So it's just a matter of time really.
Ultimately though, the shutdown isn't what's important. It'll happen, as it must for all things like this. What matters though is the memories of the time spent and the friendships that remain even after everything else fades away.
FFXI was one of the first MMOs that I played, starting back in 2004 when it was released to the US markets on the PC. Back then the giants in the MMO landscape were Everquest and (to a lesser extent) Ultima. FFXI was the "new and innovative" game that offered less punishing play and the Final Fantasy series famed story telling prowess.
I look back fondly now at the time spent in Valkurm Dunes with a party of RL friends and family as we struggled up through the levels. "Less punishing" than Everquest or Ultima was still far deeper into hardcore mode than any of the console games and the turn over rate for players in those early years showed it.
I think the "static party" that I did most of my original leveling with lasted a little less than two years, which by some measures is an amazingly long time. We tackled a lot of unusual leveling spots and had a lot of neat experiences, but ultimately the grind just wore us down. As we closed in on the level cap of 75, a few of the group sprinted ahead and that messed up the xp curve for the rest. We were losing steam anyways at that point and with everything feeling slow we just kind of sputtered out.
There were other MMOs to play by that point and the promise of "Final Fantasy level story immersion" never really came to fruition. The cutscenes, when they appeared, were well done but they were spread so far apart in time and required level that it was hard to feel any sense of connection or pacing.
The worst offender in that regards was the Chains of Promathia, which launched soon after the North American release. It was basically designed for the Elite players, the ones who'd reached the level cap, had the excellent gear and knew how to coordinate very difficult encounters. For the vast majority of the player base though, the boss battles were simply unwinnable unless someone more skilled and powerful carried them through.
By 2007 or 2008, I was logging in rarely if at all, which wasn't a bad run for an MMO in my experience to be fair.
Flash forward to last year though and the Return to Vana'diel campaign that SE was running around the holidays. On a lark I reactivated my characters and decided to see what had changed. What I found was that the answer was "Basically Everything".
Soloing back in 2004 meant fighting the weakest possible mobs and getting 10xps when you needed 40,000xps to reach your next level. Soloing today means getting between 2,000 and 10,000 xps per mob.
Before the level cap was 75 and there were plenty of things that could still massacre you. Now the level cap is 99 and you can get super cheap gear from an NPC that boosts you up to 117.
Also, there's "Trusts" now, which is a system whereby NPCs from the game, named ones who've played a role in the story that you seen like Lion and Zeid and Trion the Prince of San'doria, will join you while you're leveling. So you not really "solo" anymore. You're fighting with up to 5 NPCs (max party size still being 6) who are about 10x smarter than most of the PUGs I remember playing with.
Gone are the days of fighting only Easy Prey and getting killed by them. As a puny level 17 in the Dunes (again) I was fighting Incredibly Tough mobs with my army of trusts and annihilating them!
The real joy though is how the easy leveling and incredible power you get allow you to progress through the old story missions.
The Chains of Promathia missions that everyone raved about but were a nightmare of lost time and xps back in the old days? Well the story is still there, but the nightmare is gone. I was able to go through the entire thing, on my own, one mission right after another and see the whole story play out like it was meant to!
Even with years of polish on it, the current version of FFXI may still not be quite in the same league of accessibility as more modern MMOs, there's still grind, there's still difficult content waiting at "end game" but for an "old school style game" it really shines.
I'm finding the current story for FFXI pretty compelling too. It's called Rhapsodies of Vana'diel and its focused on the end of the world when Vana'diel is consumed by darkness.
While this is a iconic/typical/cliche plot for a Final Fantasy game, I feel like the dialog the devs are writing is all being crafted from a place where they're are looking forward to the actual end of FFXI, when the servers shut down.
There's been no date announced for that yet, but they have said that RoV is the last new content that the game will ever get. So it's just a matter of time really.
Ultimately though, the shutdown isn't what's important. It'll happen, as it must for all things like this. What matters though is the memories of the time spent and the friendships that remain even after everything else fades away.
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Today's a big day for me. Chapter 32 of the Journey of Life released which finishes up not only that book but also the whole "Crystal Stars Saga" series.
http://storytreader.com/the-crystal-stars-saga
At five books, it's the longest continuous story I've worked on yet. Somehow though time has flown by and it feels like I just began working on the first novel yesterday.
When I began, I had the image of Mel, my main character up until this final novel, as this tough, somewhat battle-damage street fighting girl who was out to punch the world in the face until it started acting right.
There was plenty of that as the stories unwound but in the end I think Mel taught me a lot more about writing than how to string together a decent fight scene.
I've still got a lot to learn of course, so new stories are coming up, in new worlds with new characters but for today, I'm going to sit back and enjoy the memories I have of the Crystal Empire and the various people I ran into there.
http://storytreader.com/the-crystal-stars-saga
At five books, it's the longest continuous story I've worked on yet. Somehow though time has flown by and it feels like I just began working on the first novel yesterday.
When I began, I had the image of Mel, my main character up until this final novel, as this tough, somewhat battle-damage street fighting girl who was out to punch the world in the face until it started acting right.
There was plenty of that as the stories unwound but in the end I think Mel taught me a lot more about writing than how to string together a decent fight scene.
I've still got a lot to learn of course, so new stories are coming up, in new worlds with new characters but for today, I'm going to sit back and enjoy the memories I have of the Crystal Empire and the various people I ran into there.
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Amazing what clever people with enough motivation can do! Can't wait to get in and wander around Paragon again!
and finally, you can roam the streets of Paragon once more with the rest of us... thanks to the dedication of the Titan Network : http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,11060.0.html
Our city is alive again ! #cityofheroes #savecoh
Our city is alive again ! #cityofheroes #savecoh
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