Letter from Positron
Letter from Positron (Matt Miller)
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Hey everyone!
Im coming up for air to let you know about some of the impending stuff happening in the City of Heroes and City of Villains games. Its been pretty crazy around here getting Issue 8 ready to hit Training Room, and we hope we can bring you all some exciting news about that in the very near future.
By now you may have read about Cryptic Studios and Microsofts upcoming new venture and we at Cryptic want to assure our loyal players that we and the good folks at our publisher, NCsoft, are fully committed to City of Heroes and City of Villains. We have a full team of programmers, artists, designers, and producers devoted to creating and maintaining the best experience in the City of world of games. This team is, and will remain completely separate from other teams working on other games at Cryptic. Like fantasy, sci-fi, and simulation, comic book heroes is its own genre, capable of supporting multiple titles. City of Heroes was created with a single purpose: bring the world of comic book heroes alive. With that in mind, Cryptic is investing resources into our City of team to fully realize its own unique vision.
Id like to start out by mentioning Issue 8: To Protect and Serve. This is a hero-centric Issue that finally levels the playing field between Heroes and Villains. We have a ton of stuff being added with this issue that will please a variety of players. It begins the multi-year storyline that continues next year with Issue 9 (title to be announced). I9 brings with it a huge new gameplay system: Inventions. Players will be able to craft Enhancements and Costume pieces for their characters using recipes, and salvage that they find while adventuring.
Issue 9 will also have Statesmans Task Force, the Hero equivalent to the Recluse Strike Force. Both of these mission chains are designed for eight max-level characters and have some of the best rewards in the game.
Issue 10 is a ways out, but it will bring us an update to an old familiar villain group. This group will have their power center altered and bring about massive changes to the game as a whole. Heroes and Villains will find themselves banding together against a common threat.
We will begin to reveal our plans for Issues 11 and beyond over the next year or so. We feel confident that you will be as excited about our plans as we are!
So as you can see, we at Cryptic and NCsoft have great plans for the future and want to keep making the City of games exciting and fresh. Our motto going forward is Listen to the players and give them what they want (within reason, of course). Expect a lot of oft-requested features and ideas to be implemented in the upcoming issues!
Sincerely,
Matt Miller (Positron)
"Broad-minded is just another way of saying a fellow's too lazy to form an opinion." -- Will RogersGlobal: @Jimmy Amp

"Broad-minded is just another way of saying a fellow's too lazy to form an opinion." -- Will Rogers

Yep, the title gives away what I think this song will do. A bonus is that cause it was released sometime 1995, Doug should have a copy in his helmet.

You know, it's really a wonder nobody's done something like this yet. I mean, it's really rather obvious, when you think about it. There's been various hints and all in some fics, but that mainly involved the Kyuubi.
Not here. Nope. Where's the fun in that?

According to this story on the Register, historian Stephen Lawhead has put forward a theory that Robin Hood was actually a Welshman.
After I read the article, I realized that it could resolve the biggest problem that Bob mentioned in GURPS Robin Hood - the noble/commoner dichotomy. The Welsh Robin is described as being the son of a nobleman, robbed of his birthright by the Normans in the 11th century. The earlier Robin Hood legends make no mention of the noble Robin. So, the commoner Robin might have been in Nottingham, while the noble "Robin" would have been in Wales a couple of centuries later. Oral tradition conflating the two stories may have lead to the mess we have today...

(Edit to fix typo)
-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

"If you ever run out of ideas, have someone come through the door with a gun."
- Raymond Chandler
"If you put a gun on the mantlepiece in Act 1, it must be fired no later than the end of Act 3."
- Anton Chekhov
Any more?

We've got some new faces in The Legendary channel that I'm not recognizing... either they are folks I'm familiar with who've changed their nicknames, or they're folks who are friends of channel members on other servers... or they could be inactive, ORIGINAL Legendary from before Bob's tenure as leader....
Like: Pan Pope. I see he/she's on almost all the time, but they never respond to global chat messages...
There are a few others as well... though I'm sure at least one of those is ChibiKonatsu's brother....
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

It was a simple thing, really: thick, creamy paper, engraved with a bit of good news. It was also trouble, and Mace Mac Hine knew trouble.
To be fair, he did not know that it was going to set off a chain of events when it was discovered by one of his "Teammates" in the Infamous after he dropped it. Especially since he had no intention of doing so. Heavy injuries from a battle with the Marcone Family after it was delivered to him made his intentions moot.
The innocent little paper sat wedged behind the medical pod in the Infamous' Super Base, its message waiting for the next person to pick it up:
THE Mac Hine and Emily Nagurski Heisman

Are pleased to announce the upcoming nuptials

of their respective children

Minuet Mac Hine

and

Orenthal Bronko Heisman

Two thing's I'd like to ask, and one thing to inform:
A while back someone posted a link to an Angelic Layer fic or two. They were rather good, but I never got around to reading the whole thing. I just finished the series, and was wondering if anyone still had the links.
Also, anyone got any good Naruto crossover fics to recommend?
And finally, Bob, your link to 'A tale of two wallets' in the One concerted reading period later... thread of the Archived Fanfic Recommendations section is now a link to a porn site.--
I am the Borg-again Christian. Resistance to my sermon is futile. You will be baptized. Your dogma is irrelevant.
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all. 

This song was just released two weeks ago, so I'm not expecting any kind of power out of it. Anyway, the title and lyrics both point to a use in the Utena step when it gets written.
Bob let me know if you want to take a listen to the song.
Roses on My Grave - Papa Roach
It feels like I'm looking at life
Through a telescope because I'm so high
The ground never seemed so far away
Truth shall be told one day
I'll be under ground one day
I've got a One that'll put roses on my grave (2x)
Roses on my grave
Feels like I'm looking at life
Through a telescope because I'm so high
The ground never seemed so far away
Truth shall be told one day
I'll be under ground one day
I've got a One that'll put roses on my grave (4x)
Roses on my grave
Don't forget me
Don't forget me
Please forgive me
Don't forget me
It's my redemption, Time for redemption
Time for redemption, It's my redemption
It's my redemption, Time for redemption
Time for redemption
I'll see you on the other side
I'm waiting on the other side
I'll see you on the other side
I'm waiting on the other side

Shawn Earl

It just jumped out of a corner and started gnawing on my head, but - well, it has some thematic similarity with the dream segment that kicked off what turned into Tatsu no Kanshin, except that this time, one of the lead characters is already falling, out of some kind of aircraft, the other lead (gender really doesn't matter for the idea, just that they have as yet unresolved romantic tension) having just barely missed grabbing him/her and saving them... and then going off balancxe and falling out him/her self. As neither of them have a parachute or previously known paranormal abilities (at least, none that would help) they have just a minute or two to resolve their relationship, not counting flashbacks. There are a few specific images floating in my mind - I'm going to name them A-chan and B-chan to make things simpler, but again, it could as easily be a guy and girl or girl and guy or even two guys if it was produced by CLAMP, I'm just a naughty naughty hentai.
A-chan has just fallen out of the (damaged?) aircraft, and B-chan leaned out too far trying to catch her hand, overbalanced, and fell out as well. B-chan does the arrow-formation thing to speed up and swoop over to her, but A-chan smacks her away, cursing her for being a great big idiot. B-chan replies something along the lines of whether they're friends, enemies. or rivals, they've never let risks stop them before when the other really needed help, and a flashback ensues of some previous pinch they got into as a result of competing over something, and had to rescue each other. B-chan swoops in again, this time A-chan takes her hands, so they d0n't have to yell quite so hard to talk over the rush of wind, comments promt another flashback of an even bigger pinch where they worked together, and acting kind of freind-like afterward, or at least with hints of attraction that they don't want to think about being more than freind like. Back to falling, and they simultaneously decide to look down. It appears the immediate terror is gone, becasue looking up at each other again, they share an unspoken admiration of the view, all the while inching closer... then whichever one wears the skirt in the relationship puckers up and closes her eyes, leading into a kiss, and... another flashback! This time, it's the moments that the repressed attraction was almost brought to the fore, only to be interrupted or have the nerve to do it suddenly give out. Kiss ending, they smile wistfully at each other and move around so whoever's wearing the pants is snuggling skirt against her chest, while they fall backwards, looking up at the evening sky with stars just beginning to show. Cut to black, roll credits.
If the OVA did well, it could always turn out that one of them suddenly developed telekinesis or ki-powered flight, or whatever, to allow for a TV series, or a sidekick provides a plot device to save the day.

There was a second scenebunny that jumped out at the same time and attacked my toe - that's where a main character is bargaining with some supernatural force - ala FFX Aeon, or DBZ's Old Kaioshin - and after reaching an agreement, the avatar or whatever says "Very well; prepare yourself. This will hurt." The protag then does the classic screaming power-up thing... but they have a REASON to scream this time. Whther it's just channeling that amount of energy or permanent physical changes or both, it's a moment like when the dentist says "you might feel some discomfort," and means "you're going to think a horse kicked your jaw."
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows