Last time I posted here, I was 49 and 7 bars to go, I had my first Hami Raid pass completely uneventfully, thanks to a very kind SGmate who took pity on a poor applicant and walked and talked me through the whole ordeal.
I was estimating a conservative 1 bar a day, which would mean I would hit 50 in a week. If I pushed it, I thought I would be able to get 2 bars a day, and hit 50 by about Sat or Sun, just before Tanker Night/Day on Test.
Well, I got an invite into one of -those- groups. Nope, not a farm or PL group, just one of those incredible synergy groups. We had a fire/kin who was really pushing the dial past 10, not just to 11, but to about 13 or 14 with his speed boosts and fulcrum shifts, not to mention his mad monkeys. We had an ill/rad, damn common class on Freedom, I dunno why - who was giving us AM luvin' and pets. We had a DM scrapper, and you know what kind of damage they can wreck. But boy, the scrapper was clearing up dregs and doing only significant damage to AVs, because we had two /fire tanks. Me and a fire tank. You have never seen spawns drop -fast- until you see two /fire tanks run in, combust, fire sword circle and boosted by sb and fulcrum.
I can about wreck them by my lonesome to about 3/4 hp, minions and lts. Ditto the other /fire, I'm sure. Combine us together and it was brutal burnination without Burn. :P
We cleaned up the level 50 scrapper's Praetorian AV missions, 6-7 in like 2 hours, I think. And I mean CLEAN, all spawns wiped dry. AV pwned.
Was getting almost one bar per mish, almost, so yea, by the end of it, I was 1 bar to 50, and it was barely getting on 3 hours.
Then people got tired and had to go, and I also decided to go take a break, get some food and such. After that, I came back to solo my way to 50.
Place of choice? Firebase Zulu. I'm a freak, I really like the geysers. And since I have fly, if I miss, it's no biggy. And I have Hammond on cell phone, so I spent my time clearing out Rularuu infestation and rescuing lost patrols. 4 missions later, I hit my goal.
Some day I will need to respec to fix my slots, but Invictus is still workable for now, even if he has a few wasted into Scorch and such.
I couldn't wait to roll up a new character. A KHELDIAN. *evil cackle*
Having spent the last few days dreaming up spare names, I got Autumn Tempest going really quickly, did a random costume that I could live with the look, switched the costume colors to dark blue and purple, and amusingly ended up looking like the short, huge, male version of Shadowstar, the galaxy warshade contact. I must make another warshade with a Shadow(something) name. That's if I can find any that aren't already taken.
I'm confident I screwed up his slotting from the beginning by choosing the first two powers and slotting them. Who cares. I can delete him and begin again, I just wanted to become a squid. I ended up practically leeching off a team (hey, they invited me) by being lowest around and just staying reaaaaally far back and shooting off my two single-target blasts. (This is how a tank overreacts to being squishy.)
It was hilarious. There was another pb on the team, and both of us were getting antsy waiting for the others who were taking their sweet time, so we ran into the mission to own greens and blues. Then we ran into a quantum, and you could see the two of us just REVERSE and run around the corner. The PB was more tanky, I was the wuss. But even then, he did a screeching u-turn too.
Surprisingly at that level, or maybe it was human-form, not sure, I must read up more on kheldians now, the quantum didn't exactly do thaaat much damage. About 14/4 hp and stunned me, but nothing as frightening as some kheldians I've seen get whacked. So together the two of us owned him.
After much ordeal, I hit level 6, and I CHOOSE YOU, DARK NOVA! *giggles insanely* Ok, I think I just like being a shapeshifter. I was soooo tickled by Ragnarl turning into the granite golem. And I was soooo thrilled to turn into Dark Kosh.
Of course, I'm eventually going to have to get binds down to switch trays. It was really inconvenient to move stuff around, but I must say, squid form is a BLAST. It really is like a mobile cannon turret (breakable, of course.) And just putzing around with it, I can really see that skill can do so much if you know how to string out the AI.
Even totally unskilled at this, I had a few lucky breaks where I pounded the AoE blast on them, then slid down to the ground and drew out trolls in a string, and whacked them ALL with the cone blast. That was soooo pretty. And I like flicking out stuff from my tail. :P I'm twisted, yes.
I got my second def up. I wanted to try a stormie. I killed my arrow def on Freedom, he wasn't very cool, I can make another elsewhere. I have a vague character background and cool name for him (Stormscar) and I'm half thinking of RPing him somewhat. Or at least putting him up on Crey Industries. Still fun, anyhow. I'm so happy to be free of the grind and back to altholic roots.
Oh, and besides having a lot of fun with the folks in the SG I'm apping to, we also got the news of the CoH/CoV pricing scheme.
I must say that I'm a little surprised that everyone is reacting with such surprise. I was guessing at the intention ever since that Statesman post about people might be pleasantly surprised. They are probably counting on one subscription fee, and 2 games to make sure EVERYONE buys their two games eventually. Think about it, the subscription fee is per customer, and you want to make sure they are retained...
If you raise fee prices, you will turn off the casuals and only retain the hardcore, who as we all know, are audiences who are damn hard to please. Long term, you might lose a lot of subscribers once they get tired of the hardcore play and cannot justify the expense.
You keep prices the same, people don't blink because this is already established market value for an MMORPG. They buy one of your games, be it CoH or CoV. They play it. They go, wow, this is fun. (CoH and CoV, I am sure, have the same attractive allure because of the system. CoV is prolly even more of a glue, because it's an improved CoH.) Then they go, hrm, wouldn't it be fun to try the other side and get their unique coolstuff? Expense? Cost of the boxed game. Right on, justifiable. And people will buy both games and keep subscribing because now they have 12 x dunno how many server slots to make both villains and hero alts.
Anyhow, despite it being very predictable, it is still VERY pleasant news. So...
And can I say I am very happy about the news of the digital comic... That means I can actually read the damn comic for once. (Yay, international customers. We exist too, y'know! Go NCsoft, now make some contests that are open to non-US residents...)
Not to mention, now I have the time and opportunity to cut back on CoH gaming like a madman, and go do some writing and brainstorming in preparation for Nanowrimo. And clean up my house, paint minis and other such mundane stuff.
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