City of Heroes / City of Villians FREE weekend!

Shining Paragon City & the dastardly Rogue Isles are open to play in for FREE this weekend! I'm so rusty that I'd probably end up dragging down whatever poor team picked me up. However, if I go in with all the other rusty players, no one will notice!

Here's the official blurb:

AIR RAID! PARAGON CITY! THIS IS NO DRILL!

Any and all Superpowered individuals are needed immediately to stave off the Rikti Invasion that threatens all of humanity! To support the fight against this ruinous alien invasion, all former players in good standing have their accounts reactivated from Thursday, August 2nd through late Sunday night (August 5th, 8:59PM PST / 11:59PM EST). Anyone who has previously played City of Heroes or City of Villains is able to log in get into the fight! Spread the word to your supergroup or guild mates and online friends who might not be playing CoH that now is the time to come back and check out the great new Issue 10, for FREE!

Welcome back to these Heroes and Villains! Join the fight against the Rikti Invasion Force and have a great "City of" weekend!

City of Heroes Double XP Weekend

School’s out! Father’s Day! Positron™ ’s birthday! So many reasons to celebrate! Yes, Heroes and Villains, the time has come again. Roughly twice a year we turn up the dial and invite players to rack up XP at double the normal rate. Next weekend Hero and Villain characters will receive double the XP, Prestige, Influence and Infamy for all of their accomplishments in the game.

Start: Friday, June 15th, 2007 at 8:59 PST/11:59am EST Finish: Sunday, June 17th, 2007 at 8:59 PST/11:59pm EST
via my email inbox / NCSoft

Let the Barracuda camping proceed!!

City of Heroes movie!

In some incredibly cool news about that 'other' MMO that WoW players can't be bothered with:

"Transformers producer Tom DeSanto has secured the film rights to NCsoft and Cryptic Studio's video game City of Heroes. The plan is to adapt the massively multiplayer online role-playing game into a live-action feature and then transition it to television in some form, the trade paper reported. The movie revolves around a group of superheroes who live in Paragon City and must team up in order to fight an invasion of aliens known as the Rikti. "

For those that were in the beta - the Rikti were introduced as a giant event at the end of the beta period. Testing is over - time to drop aliens on your head! Next to Lord Recluse, the Rikti are the main high level mobs. I can only assume that the Freedom Phalanx (big NPCs) will be the heroes of the movie (Statesman, Positron, Manticore, Synapse, & Sister Psyche) I assume the 'lower level' npcs will make appearances but you never know, because there are so many of them (Ms Liberty, Back Alley Brawler (I hate that guy) Numina, Swan, Mynx, Infernal, (hate that guy too) etc etc.)

Having played both games for a couple of years (I want to go back!) I look forward to this movie. Americans love the spandex. Oh by the way, that's my villian in the picture - I'm the giant guy with no neck. Kotaku and SciFi.com

Lolcats are in your programming, destroying your code

Boing Boing reports that the internet meme Lolcats (pretty much every image I use when I need a generic image) has spead into programming language. http://lolcode.com/ is attempting to work lolcat code into actual programming.

Wow, and I thought I was geeky.

Kotaku-ites Hate Second Life

Kotaku posted a news story about Second Life - well, another story in a series. Turns out that they'll be charging for custom last names. The feature will likely cost $100 up front and $50 a year. Read the entire post here. Do I think this is ridiculous? Yeah, pretty much, but that being said, it will also be wildly popular and the Lindens that Be will be lighting their cigars with $100 dollar bills. Reading through the comments on Kotaku, I must say, they HATE SL and all that frequent that world. While I have had run ins with everything from griefers (assholes) to furries (not as terrifying as initially suspected...but still...brr) - I find no reason to hate the place. Anywho, I commented on it, but so far Kotaku thinks my comments aren't post worthy XD SO! I'll post it here and make you suffer through it. (and also suffer through a vanity shot of my avatar!)
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Ok, people are having fits over having to buy vitual last names, but no one cares about the other thousands of useless micro-transactions in SL?

It's not particularly easy to get free Lindens to spend in there without dropping real money on them. So, why isn't anyone agast that people are spending cash on everything from virtual penises to bubblegum?

SL doesn't particularly offend me as much as it may offend others. It's really a shiny, shiny chat room with options to script and build. I've found that some of the ore 'hardcore' SL-ers aren't really gamers, so it's as much of a hobby to them as gaming is to Kotaku-ites. They probably don't think twice about dropping cash into their particular hobby.

They're going to make a crapton of money off of this. Guaranteed.

Rain of Marios!

I was wandering through Laguna Bay in Second Life, searching for a pair of spectacles, when all of a sudden, thousands of 2d Paper Marios started coming out of nowhere. It was indeed a sight to behold.

Somehow....I got blamed for them.
And reported to SL.
...
Honestly guys, if I could program Oh Em Gee HAX, I would have a fantastic job as a programmer, not as a broke-ass student.

This isn't news or opinion...

However, I said I'd post an image of my Second Life avatar. Relaxing at the Oasis @ Sandybeach West.

Watch out, the thumbnail opens into a huge file.

Second Life

For a program that has no point whatsoever, I can spend so much time in Second Life. It's a bit silly, really. I camp, I lose in the casino, I run screaming from people at the beach with oversized phalluses. No one under 18 should ever wander in there, but for us jaded folk, it really can be quite interesting. What chat rooms evolved into, really.

Today I met Lucy Lowe quite by accident. She was having a conversation that I was accidentally eavesdropping on. Once I found my way out of the room I was in, I joined in and it was quite nice.
Lucy's Profile

I'll post a snap of my avatar, when I get a halfway decent one.

Jade Empire's re-re-re release

I was one of the few that never had an original X-box. At the time I was quite happy with my PS2, and the only X-Box games I really wanted were Otogi and Jade Empire. I mangaged to borrow a friend's X-Box to play through a chunk of Jade Empire. Overall I feel that the game was put together very well and it was what Fable should have been. However, I never got the chance to complete the game. Needless to say I was thrilled when I heard that the game was getting a re-release on the PC. That is, until I saw the price. Buying the game in stores is $39.99 - if you'd prefer to download it via Steam, you can save a few dollars and pick it up for $35.95.

Honestly, both of these prices are ridiculous. The game itself is two years old and has already had 2 incarnations - the original version, and the 'Limited Edition' preorder version. The second version had a new character and a new weapon. You can pick up that version used for $12.99. Yep, 13 bucks.


BioWare's excuse for charging so much for version 3.0 of a game is this:

* Customizable, intuitive controls including support for game-pads and keyboard/mouse
* Increased graphics resolutions and new visual effects
* New monsters and enemies
* New fighting styles
* Improved combat AI and difficulty levels
* New world map interface

Now, the first 'bonus' is laughable. I should hope that the pc version can be played with a keyboard and mouse. The second and third and negotiable.

New graphics are fine, if your computer can render them properly. New enemies are just the same old enemies with a new skin stuck on them.

As far as I understand, the new fighting style (Rhino) is only available through pre-order of the game. I hope I'm mistaken with this one because new styles are always intesting.

The AI difficulty has most likely been raised due to complaints that the game was too short. So, instead of adding real content, make the player do a level grind instead. Riiiiiight.

New World Map: Ok, sounds good, but I don't recall the last map system being all that awful.

40 dollars is simply too much for a two year old game that's been polished up a bit. Even thirty dollars I can understand - I personally was hoping for a bargain price due to the age of the game. Hiking the price back up with marginal upgrades is just stupid, especially with a PC version. You're asking people to pirate it at this point.

As for me, I waited two years for it, it won't be so much longer before it makes it's way to the $19.99 shelf at the local Wal-Mart.

BioWare....
YOUR KUNG-FU IS NO GOOD HERE!

Just to be fair, here is Jade Empire's Official site:
Jade Empire Special Edition