Before playing CoH, I was worried about the fact that there are no items to collect in game. After all, item collecting in RPGs in second only in importance to gaining XP and leveling, but far more interesting and varied. Surely, mere "enhancements" and "inspirations" can't compare with collecting weapons and pieces of armor, right?

That's right, they don't. And I love it.

Gone is the tedium of checking every corpse for items. Gone is the tedium of dealing with encumbrance. Running out of inventory space is still a concern, but much less so as you'll see below.

But more than anything, gone is the anxiety. There's no worrying about exactly which weapon and armor type is the best pick. Gone is the camping for items. Gone is the ANXIETY associated with trying to find a certain unique piece of equipment. Yes, I'm sure that there will be special enhancements somewhere down the road - but it's not at the center of the game.

Enhancements have two things going for them that I love: they're generic and they expire.

Generic: No grinding away for a broadsword with *just* the right mods. Looking for a Aim Bonus enhancement? You'll find one - the same one anyone else could find. I can't vouch for Dual or Single Origin enhancements, but at low level the easiest thing to do is just buy a Training enhancement from a vendor, no fuss. You get exactly the abilities you want. Didn't work as well as you wanted? Trash them and buy a different combination. Money in CoH (like most MMORPGs) isn't that hard to accumulate.

Expire: A lot of games have some sort of expiration system on their items, but it just seems to be less stressful in CoH. Eventually, your enhancements will become too low level for you. This is not a big deal because, as explained above, you will find others with the same abilities, but at higher levels. What it means in practice, though, is that you don't worry. You don't hoard. If you want to use the enhancement in your inventory, you do, because it'll be obsolete in a few levels. If not, you just trash it or sell it, since you don't have to worry that you might want it later - it'll be expired then.

A totally stress free system.

City of Heroes is a Massively-Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game where players create superheroes and beat up badguys. With a practically unlimited set of costume posibilities and a slew of customizable (with enhancements) powers, there's a lot of options.

My first and current character, Lady Hypatia (Level 8 Tech/Blaster Energy Blast/Devices - Justice Server) is the modern incarnation of the great Egyptian mathematician. In this 21st century setting, she has used her incredible genius to fashion devices to harness the power of the Earth's latent electromagnetic field and redirect the energy into power blasts that can knock a heavy foe of his feet, or to fly herself through the air. She also uses a variety of gadgets, like web grenades or a tazer, to assist her in fighting crime.

( City of Heroes Screenshots )

Memegen has now gotten three-quarters of a million hits in a day.

But darned fun too.

http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/games/gameson4/ant_city.html

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/AB4BB24B-AA65-4477-95F3-BF501255D368.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-05-19-un-israel_x.htm

So, we don't have to stop this because all muslims are terrorists, right?

How much of a nerd are you? by liljoker9191
Name:
Number of computers in house or owned by family:	12-34-56-78-910+
Hours spent a week on a computer	1-1011-2021-3031-4041-5051-6061-7071-8081-9091-100101+
Sleep count a week (In Hours)	1-1011-2021-3031-4041-5051-6061-7071+
Girl/Boyfriends had (Since you were born till now)	12345+
How much of a nerd are you?: 76%
Created with the ORIGINAL MemeGen!

I sense that this meme is going to spread pretty well, if it hasn't already:

**** THE PROOF THAT Martin Glaude IS EVIL ****

   M   A   R   T   I   N   G   L   A   U   D   E
  77  65  82  84  73  78  71  76  65  85  68  69     - as ASCII values
   5   2   1   3   1   6   8   4   2   4   5   6     - digits added
  \_________/ \_________/ \_________/ \_________/
   8           1           5           6             - digits added

**** THE PROOF THAT Buffy the Vampire Slayer Movie IS EVIL ****

   B   U   F   F   Y   T   H   E   V   A   M   P   I   R   E   S   L   A   Y   E   R   M   O   V   I   E
   2  21   6   6  25  20   8   5  22   1  13  16   9  18   5  19  12   1  25   5  18  13  15  22   9   5     - as numbers
   2   3   6   6   7   2   8   5   4   1   4   7   9   9   5   1   3   1   7   5   9   4   6   4   9   5     - digits added
  \_____________________/ \_____________________/ \_____________________/ \_____________________/ \_____/
   8                       2                       1                       8                       5         - digits added

Last night was the start of a new D&D campaign. I'm not running the game this time - Paul, one of the other players, is. The players had a lot of freedom regarding the races and character types we could create, so we've ended up with things like a Yuan-Ti cleric and a half-cat thief. All of the other players are Chaotic Neutral - which should certainly create some interesting situations. I expect some hacking and slashing.

I decided have a character who is superficially "plain", but is pretty experimental as far as mechanics go. I got the okay from Paul to go full-bore with the Book of Exalted Deeds and created a 100% saintly character. He's a devoted cleric of Pelor and has taken a vow of poverty, a vow of non-violence, and a vow of peace. Basically, he can never own anything except for a few rags for modesty and he can't hurt any living being.

In return for his pure devotion, he gets abilities and bonuses bordering on fromage. At level two (Monk 1/Cleric 1) he has an AC of 28 without doing anything special (remember, no armor either!) An aura of calm and peace surrounds him (20' radius), and anyone entering loses any kind of violent or aggressive desires. Even if they manage the extreme feat of willpower required to attack me, and somehow defeat my deific armor class, my foe's weapon will usually shatter when it hits me.

How do I attack? My bloatrous diplomacy skills should allow me to convert anything we run into.

I've settled on names: Plecosaurus Rex and Otto van Oscar.

Rex is still being pretty reclusive, mostly just hiding in his plane. Meg tells me that he comes out after I go to ... as I'm typing the, Rex just decided to leave his plane and take a jaunt around the tank. Apparently he only wakes up after eleven.

Otto, on the other hand, has totally gotten over any shyness and eating issues.

( Typical pet-owner babbling starts here. )
Now since both oscars and plecos grow to be quite large (Otto could be 10" or more within a year) and my starter kit tank is only two gallons, I had to consider upgrading fast.

I now have a 55 gallon aquarium in the computer room. Lemme tell you, that's a lot of trips with a carefully balanced bowl of water from the bathroom. It'll be at least another 24 hours before I can introduce Otto and Rex to it (have to let the gasses out, get the filters active, etc...) but I am now commited to having fish around.

I've been watching my fish very carefully for any signs of distress - the first few days are pretty touch and go because you never know if your fish might have a disease. This being my first time, I'm also worried about killing them through sheer incompetence. Specifically, I've been worried about overfeeding then, since it's a common mistake in beginners.

My Oscar, in particular, has been giving me the fits. I didn't know what I was doing wrong, but I put in a couple (literally, two) flakes of fish food - I want to make sure he eats it all before adding more. He didn't seem to pay too much attention to them until they hit the downward water flow from the filter and were pulled down. As quick as a bullet, the Oscar darts out and grabs it.

Great! He must be hungry.

Then he spits it out.

Oh.

He seems to get bored with that piece and the Oscar goes for the other flake. Okay, maybe he is hungry.

And spits it out. And swallows it again. And spits it out again.

WTF is wrong with this fish? Okay, my kit came with another kind of food in tiny pellets. Let's try that. Same result.

Okay, screw this. Maybe he's not actually hungry after all. I go to work and try feeding him again when I get back, a couple of pellets at a time. He's still grabbing them and spitting them our over and over! I start to notice that the water's getting cloudy in my tank.

Great, I think, all the food is starting to rot and it's clogging the filter. I'm a horrible fish owner. Then I read this online:

Oscars are very messy eaters so delicate foods are not recommended as the fish will often spit the food out only to take it back in and spit it out once more, clouding the water. -- aquariacentral.com

I got a starter fish tank for my birthday, so I hit the petshop tonight with Meg and Mona. I got a pleco and an oscar. Much hilarity will ensue.

I love it.

Your Japanese Name and Home... by America_Mamushi
Your Current First Name...
Your Current Last Name...
Your New Last Name (Remember, Last name first)...	Kenmotsu
New Japanese First Name (If your male)...	Nichiren
New Japanese First Name (If your female)...	Harukichi
And you now live in this Japanese city...	Osaka in the Osaka prefecture
Favorite thing about your new Japanese life?	Laughing at all the baka gaijin (Stupid Foreigners)
You fit in this much...: 38%
Created with the ORIGINAL MemeGen!

This week's most popular memes:

http://memegen.deskslave.org/popularmemeweek.pl

I finally got fed up with the way our WinXP machines at work cope with 256 megs of RAM (they don't). So, I emailed my boss in Toronto and clearly outlined the problem and how it affects all of the admin staff here in Sudbury. I suggested that we buy a several sticks of 512 DDR so that the admin and IT machines can be bumped to 768 megs and have the project managers go up to 512. It was going to cost $1300.

I wasn't very optimistic. I got a very sarcastic reply back, confirming defeat.

Dave (fellow IT guy) looked at the email but read the sarcasm completely differentely - just a good humoured jab about hoping that would make us "bums" more productive. I asked for clarification from my boss.

Dave was right! Tomorrow we'll have *usable* computers.

/me dies from shock.

Your Magic Abilities by Stathgar
Name/Username
What is the magic word?
Telepathy: 34%
Premonition: 85%
Clairvoyance: 38%
ESP: 28%
Psychic Ability: 81%
Psychotic Ability: 61%
Created with the ORIGINAL MemeGen!

Great meme. Cool usage of the customizable percentage bars.

I don't know if it's right, but it's what I believe.

Hi-

For the sake of good taste, I ask that you *please* take down this meme:

http://memegen.deskslave.org/viewmeme.pl?un=Konstantine&meme;=1074624146

The meme advocates suicide. A friend of mine tried the meme, and it gave her a close date and a method she had already used to attempt to kill herself, and this meme made her try it again. My friend almost DIED after trying this meme.

So please take it down.

I created Memegen, but not the individual memes. I believe people should be allowed to create whatever kind of meme they like. I do not believe in censorship.

Being affected by a silly Internet webpage is not a cause, it is a symptom. If your friend is suicidal, I recommend that she seek out counseling. There are people trained to help in situations like this, and I believe that they can really make a difference.

Respectfully,
Martin Glaude

Unreal Tournament 2004
Firefly DVD
Transmetropolitan Vol. 3

'nuf said.

Someone brought some awesome mine-sandwiches for lunch! Then, the awesome chocolate cake was brought out - it had all these little plastic spacemen figures, a spaceship, some moon rocks. It r0xx0red!

Date:	2004-04-30 09:34
Subject:	Vandalism at Work
Security:	Public
Mood:	embarrassed

I came in to work this morning to find that my desk had been vandalized last night. It's rather horrific - every vertical and horizontal surface has been covered with stickers that say "Happy Birthday" and there are balloons, posters, and bows stuck onto my computer and chair.

Even the whiteboard in the office has been targeted by people saying things like "Happy Birthday, Marty" - they even had the nerve to sign their graffiti!

And then there was the prank call from the callcenter floor, where I was put on speaker-phone and all of our agents (116 scheduled today) inexplicably started to sing "Happy Birthday" with blatant disregard to current copyright laws concerning the public musical performances.

I can't understand what kind of twisted upbringing would cause people to perform such acts of vandalism and chaotic disruption. Moreover, I have no idea why I would be targeted by such behaviour. What have I done to deserve this?

Checkout this amazing video made by chief_squisher. It's unbelievably cool, even if you've never played Grand Theft Auto.

http://xerogaming.com/video/vice_chief_story.wmv