I’ve made a few more tweaks to the City of Heroes Registry:

I’ve updated the way that Supergroup editing works so that when you choose a server it filters the heroes in the dropdown selector. I’ll be doing the same thing with the hero screens so that your archtetype limits your power set choices, etc. Ultimately I would like to add the powers so you can fully describe your character.

The Supergroup listing has been enhanced a bit as well. It now shows the name of the founder and the count of heroes in the group, plus the last date that someone in that group leveled.

The City of Heroes Registry continues to improve over at MMO-Town. We’ve enhanced the way that filtering works, and updated it to post leveling announcements at both MMO-Town and So There. The posts now include links that will bring you to the hero record in the registry, plus additional information about the hero (power sets, etc.).

We plan to set it up where you can have it post into any forum you would like (vBulletin and phpBB boards).

Carnies used to be a big problem for Yuda, at least bosses. Most of the Carnie minions are pushovers for a regen scrapper, although Air Superiority has turned out to be a great boon since so many of them are endurance sappers. Air Superiority knocks them down long enough that you can get in a few good swipes before they get up and sap more of your energy. Strongmen are only a hassle if too many of them gang up on you at once. The bosses (Master Illusionists, Ring Mistresses, and any named bosses) are problematic, though, because they do incredible amounts of damage, or summon an incredible number of pets, and phase half the time so you’re wasting your attacks. Here is the technique I have developed for handling these bosses.

By the time you deal with Carnies, you have your full contingent of twenty inspiration slots. You know you’re eventually coming up against a Carnie boss, so you have to start managing your inspirations in order to be ready. My goal is to have inspirations lined up like this:

D D D D D
D D D D D
H H H H B
H H H H R

D = Defense
H = Heal
B = Breakfree
R = Revive

The key here is the number of defensive inspirations. You’re going to eat a bunch of these before tangling with the boss. The heals are for the few hits that still get through, and the Break Free is just in case your toggles drop and you get held. The Revive is just in case my advice is horribly bad. Before each battle, pop a couple of inspirations that don’t fit this pattern to free up the slots. Every time you get an inspiration drop, arrange it into this pattern, keeping the largest ones of each type. Once the pattern is fulfilled, stop using inspirations, period, until you get to the boss.

The strategy is really pretty simple. Before you aggro the boss, drop at least 4 of the defensive inspirations, fire up Conserve Power or any other toggles you have that will help you get through the long fight, and wade in. With 4 inspirations in you it’s very hard for them to hit you (depending on your mix of other defensive powers). If there are any minions or lieutenants around the boss, ignore them until she phases, then dole out a few punches to them until she comes back into phase. Watch your buff status closely. These phasing bosses will outlast your inspirations, and if you don’t drop 4 more defense buffs before or shortly after the first ones wear off, you may find yourself sniffing turf.

Naturally, your mileage may vary, and it may all change after the I5 nerfs (I doubt it, though… you’ll just save Instant Healing until right before the boss and then do it the same way). I’m not sure how a similar tactic works with other AT’s, especially the squishier ones. All I know is that I used to avoid Carnie missions because the bosses quite often stomped on me, but this strategy has made me able to take them without trepidation.

The same stratagem works well in Rularuu missions that have mezzing bosses. Noble Brutes are usually pretty easy to take down (they don’t mezz, but I still drop a couple of defense buffs because they really hit hard), but Wisp Opressors are every bit as bad as Carnie bosses and require the same technique. They don’t phase, but they have one power that will keep you from attacking for several seconds, which is every bit as bad. Overseers are the bigger problem. They’re not hard to go toe to toe with, but when you get them on the ropes they will summon up 4 or 5 Watchers to help them out. That many Watchers can lay even a Regen to waste, so when it squeezes them out, I hit the Super Speed and run down the hall. The Overseer will pursue first, so once there is some distance between him and his spawn, close with him and finish the job.

If you’ve spent any time in the Shadow Shard (Firebase Zulu) fighting against the Soliers of Rularuu, you know what a Netterling is. These are annoying little flying turds who try to ruin your day by pelting you with purple blobs of goo. They are not so bad by themselves, but if there are two or more of them gathered in one place, then you could be in for some trouble.

Netterlings are nasty little critters, and when the going gets tough, they get going, so plan on having to chase them down from time to time. If they start to feel threatened and there is another Netterling around, they will flee to this other Netterling and combine with it to form a Bull Netterling. The Bull Netterling is bigger, meaner, and more annoying than the Netterlings that made it, and it will con a level higher than they were (two red-con Netterlings will make a nice, fat purple Bull Netterling). Bull Netterlings have a hold attack that traps your arms in what appears to be a purple tire tube if you don’t have protection from status attacks.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the shard with my Energy/Energy Blaster and my Dark Melee/Regeneration Scrapper, so here is my advice for dealing with Netterlings from those two perspectives.

Blaster

When you see a bunch of Netterlings gathered together, be sure to scan for any Bulls already in the bunch. You need to remove them as quickly as possible before they can put a hold on you. Likewise, when you go after the Netterlings themselves, make sure you defeat them before they can run off and join with another Netterling.

Scrapper

Since a regen Scrapper is immune to status effects with Integration, you can play the Netterlings a little differently. In this case, you actually [i]want[/i] them to combine. When you con a group that has two or more Netterlings in it, run up and punch one in the face, then turn around an punch the other one. Keep punching until one of them is low enough that it goes to combine with its brethren. When the Bull Netterling comes into being, the two Netterlings that spawned it are destroyed, but since you punched them both, you get experience points for each of them, and two possible inspiration or enhancement drops. As icing on the cake, you now have a higher level Bull Netterling to pound into submission. Without their hold power, they don’t pose much of a threat at all, and you get experience points for three kills instead of two.

Netterlings by themselves don’t pose much of threat, so you can leave them for last when you’re fighting a big group of Rularuu. A Netterling will never combine with another Netterling from another group, but he will try to run away if he’s badly hurt. The big trick is to con the groups correctly. If two groups are near each other and con the same color, you might think two Netterlings are together and try force them to combine, but they won’t do it. Likewise, if you’re trying to pick them off cleanly and your AoE attack damages one from another group without killing it, it may go off and combine without you knowing it until the spare tire gets thrown around your shoulders.

Was just noticing that it’s been over a year since I started playing City of Heroes. I play it as much, if not more, now as I did when it was brand new. A year ago my first hero was only around level 16. It took me most of the year to get him to level 50, but, as much as I do play, I don’t qualify as a power gamer I suppose.

Many of my online friends stayed with the game as long as I have, although since Guild Wars came out a lot of them have wandered over there. I bought a copy of Guild Wars, but so far it just has not grabbed me. I got a trial membership for Lineage 2 as well, but it doesn’t look like anything I’m going to stay interested in.

So here it is, one year later, and City of Heroes is still my favorite game, probably of all time.

I’m really getting tired of level 50 players complaining about how the end game content in City of Heroes is deficient.

I’ve been playing the game since it came out, and I don’t have a single level 50 character yet (my main is only 43 at this point), and I’m not exactly rushing to get there. I enjoy starting new alts and trying out the different power sets and exploring the new lower level content areas like Striga Isle and The Hollows. I would guess that most players won’t ever get a level 50 character, or won’t for some time to come. The game was designed that way.

Just because some people can invest hundreds of hours a week in playing a game, and just because some players can’t resist power leveling on kora missions and such to get to 50 in a hurry, doesn’t mean that the devs ought to spend their time generating fresh content for level 50 heroes. Most players will not see that content anytime soon. I knew going in that level 50 was the cap, so why would I bitch after I’ve already “finished” the game?

If you hit level 50 and then get bored or don’t want to start a new character, that’s fine. Just don’t blame it on the game. These developers have done a fantastic job on this game, and I prefer that they spend their time on areas that most players will see and get enjoyment from. Level 50′s can sit in the fridge until the arena opens, or until they raise the cap to 60 and add new content to take you there.

When you come up with a better game and provide better end game content than they did I’ll be willing to listen to your complaints.

I’m probably behind the times on this one, but I had not seen this trailer before. Looks pretty good (aside from Ben Grimm being a little lumpy). I love that super hero movies have become so popular, and that today’s technology has finally made it possible to do them right.

The latest issue of Wired has a little article that seems to legitimize Marvel’s claim that you can create copies of their characters in City of Heroes, showing example likenesses of The Hulk, DareDevil, Elektra, and Storm.

While they did invent some reasonable sendups of the these heroes, they are certainly not exact copies. The article does say that the suit implies you should have to buy a license to pretend, but I don’t think that showing how “easy it is to make copies” will help City of Heroes fans or NCSoft in any way.

I searched the Wired site but the article is apparently only in the print version right now (or I just didn’t find it).

Some people say that Marvel almost has to file this kind of suit just to protect their intellectual property regardless of any “true” infringement, that if they don’t pursue this they may not be able to support future litigation if real infringement ever does occur. I hope this is the case so I can stop being mad at Marvel.

There are so many great computing environments, so many great programming tools, so many great forums and online web sites, and so many great projects that you could be working on at any one time… where do you find the time to do them all? I love learning new programming languages and environments, and I’m always thinking of something else that would be fun to write…

With only so many hours in the day and so many varied interests (I swear I’m ADD but I’ve never had it officially diagnosed), how can you possibly get it all done? Or, more specifically, how can you get any of it done? Seems like I’m always starting something new, and everything I start requires more time and energy than I had originally thought it would.

It’s no wonder that games like City of Heroes can so completely monopolize free time. These games provide a false sense of accomplishment, striving to achieve that next level. When real accomplishment seems to come in such small doses, this “fake” accomplishment seems to fill the gap.

This creates a vicious cycle. Real life accomplishments are missing, so we turn to the game for a sense of accomplishment. Time spent in the game steals hours from real life endeavors, leading to less real life accomplishment, which sends you back to the game for another fix of the fake stuff.

Not that I intend to stop playing City of Heroes any time soon… I’ve just been noticing this disconcerting trend. Several factors over recent months have put my self discipline in the toilet… I guess this is just another manifestation of that.