City of Heroes Underworld

Paragon City can be really strange at times. Mutants, wizards, mad scientists, aliens, and other bizarre types can be found wandering its streets and rooftops. Large walls and force fields protect the city and thousands of heroes hold back the tide of evil. However things are not always as they seem as was learned by the not-so-altruistic hero Captain Cash.

Despite his rather low security clearance level Captain Cash made his way to take a day job at Portal Corp. After three weeks he quit and made his way back to the mainland. Instead of taking the ferry he decided to just swim to Talos Island. At one point during the trip the world gave way and he found himself not on the surface of the water, but instead falling through a blue void.

He landed on a flat blue surface that matched the sky in color. It was a very disorienting experience. Not knowing where the heck he was he began to look around for any sign of the world. Sure enough floating high in the sky were what resembled the protective walls of Talos Island.

Using his rocket pack Captain Cash flew up to examine the strange objects that were floating in the sky. Perhaps they were a link to home. He had to escape this strange realm. As he reached the upper range of his rocket pack he noticed doors on a floating object. He had to discover what those were.

Luckily his cell phone was still getting a signal in this other-worldly nowhere. He called a heroine calling herself Sister Blister to fly up to examine the doors. She arrived and had no trouble reaching the strange sets of doors. Unfortunately they would not open for her and no force could break them.

Investigating further, Sister Blister continued to fly up and hit the upper limit of the seemingly endless blueness. Part of her body passed through the strange barrier. Eventually she is able to make her way through the barrier and back to 'reality.' Captain Cash is still trapped.

His trillions of dollars unable to help him in this strange un-universe, Captain Cash calls out to whatever powers may be able to help him. “/stuck” his calls and his call is answered. He is spirited away, his senses tell him back up, but where he ends up is a place few heroes have returned from. The Captain found himself in a vast circular room filled with doors. A fountain of information spewing out the stuff of artificial life. Captain Cash believed he had found the source of the universe!

After spending a long period of time exploring this strange chamber and its unworkable doors Captain Cash came to a sudden realization. He checked his cell phone's GPS and discovered he was just inside the Talos Island Arena. He now attempting to come up with ways to gain influence with his incredible discovery..... so far other heroes don't seem to care....

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(interesting glitches in MMOs can sometimes distract me)

Sims in Business

Continuing my Legacy Challenge:

Albert Fugg has opened his first business. I only had about §50,000 available so I had to find an inexpensive site. Since this will be the core family business I want it to have room to expand. I picked one of the four park zones in the town; they are large and give me plenty of room to do what I want.

Putting up big stores in one of the central park areas is not the most appealing thing. I believe I'll be selling various outdoors-type statues and plants. Many of them will bring in big bucks and they will add to the look of the park more than setting up a department store.

In an isolated area I might set up a small workshop area for some employees to create additional items to sell at the park or for me to keep until I set up additional business in town. All of this and a nice playground and picnic area for the locals. Nice.

Albert is about 8 days away from becoming an elder. The two youngest kids, Xeno & Cody are going to have a birthday soon leaving toddlerdom to become youngsters and starting school. Hopefully they will become teenagers before Albert dies so they along with Bobert will have a chance to become the 'official' heir of the family line.

However, before those birthdays Albert will be taking Bobert, Venus and a family friend on a third vacation to Three Lakes. It will be a long vacation giving the kids time to work on maxing out more skills and for Albert to generate some more money for the family. All this while making new friends and trying to get the last vacation memories in that destination. I really hope one of our next vacations is to another destination... but we have to save up for a vacation home in the other vacation destinations. Staying at hotels is too expensive and has other drawbacks.

Anyway, I hope to work to develop this first family business to a high level and use the revenue to buy some additional business property. I may focus on this since breeding dogs is becoming a major task.

There will be another update soon.

From the What’s The World Coming To File

Judge Alan Kay has refused to dismiss parts of Craig Smallwood’s lawsuit against NCsoft. It seems that NCsoft’s game Lineage II is allegedly addictive. Smallwood played the game for over 20,000 hours from 2004 to 2009. Judge Kay should have dismissed the entire suit.

For whatever NCsoft may or may not have done, how was Smallwood making a living? Spending 9 hours a day for nearly six years playing a video game leaves little time for a job and earning money to pay the rent and utility bills. Were family members aiding him in his destructive behavior instead of helping him get his life on track? Does he live alone and on welfare? If that is the case the State of Hawaii is as much as fault for his ‘addiction’ as NCsoft would be since they enabled him to play.

Mr. Smallwood didn’t seem to realize he had an addiction until his account was closed on him. He seemed to believe that this was so that he could get hooked on another one of their games, but in their response to the suit NCsoft alleged that Craig was involved in real money transfers that were specifically forbidden in the User Agreement and Code of Conduct for the game. (page 7 of Defendant’s Answer)

If this case goes through and is successful what will we see next? Will there be a class-action lawsuit by the viewers of Lost who claim they became addicted to the show and spent hours every week watching the show and spending time on internet forums discussing it? Will the composers of annoying commercial jingles that get stuck in your head be brought before international war-crimes tribunals on charges of torture?

For a period of five years I’ve played City of Heroes off-and-on. While that game could be fun at times most of the time it could grow very boring as the missions and hunting became a grind and more like work than entertainment. When I finally reached 50th level with one of my characters I checked and discovered that I had spent a little over 250 hours playing that character. That was enough for me to help me stop playing. I can’t imagine playing any game for over 20,000 hours. There isn’t enough content in a typical game to keep me entertained for even 250 hours; how can someone become addicted to a stupid game?

Anyway, good luck to NCsoft on this one. And good luck to Craig, hopefully he can make some changes to improve his life; realizing you have an addiction is the first step to overcoming it. A change in personality and habits is required for that, not a big check.

City of Heroes Sixth Year Anniversary

I've played City of Heroes on-again-off-again for the last six years. That means that right now my computer must be six-years old as well. With the new updates to the game it is becoming almost impossible for me to play.

The last time I played was for 2009's Halloween event. Right now all I can really do is log in, get the 6th anniversary badges for my characters and move them to a new Day Job location. Looks like I'll have to get a new computer by May 2011.

I've created numerous characters for City of Heroes over the last six years. My highest level hero is Underpants Lad (Finally 50th level after too much work). Below is a picture of him when he started his career in 2004 as the sidekick of Capt. Underpants (Underpants Lad is the little one):

There were some good times back in 'the day' with the game. The Thursday Night Avengers being one of them. These days my friends have moved on to other MMORPGS so I have to question if I'll even come back to COH if I do get a new computer next year.

How many people out there are stilling playing City of Heroes?

I guess I shouldn't worry about next year when I now have some time for computer games right now. I'm not a fan of first person shooter games. The few games I have include Civilization III, The Movies, and Sims 2. Perhaps it is time to play Sims 2 again. Maybe this time I'll start a legacy challenge to make the game a little more interesting.