He took HOW many cakes? That's terrible. Let's Play City of Villains!

I'm all for Dart's idea, but I'd like to see some Merc action. Robots are great but I'd only want to see robot minions if you yourself were a robot.

Also, it's nice to see that another game has taken a page from FFXI and implemented Level Sync. Good for them.

City of Heroes did it years ago. The Blueside version is called Sidekicking.

Edit: oh and while I don't remember any Cake thievery (though you damn well better bet I'll make one with the upcoming mission creator), eventually when you get to the 40's we WILL do Westin Phelps story arcs, because one, you feel really evil during them, and two, its Battle Angel Alita references (aka fighting Agent Gally Ido)

So, okay. There's Sidekicking, Level Pacting, Malefactoring, and Lackeying. Alright, I take that back. It's good that FFXI took a page from CoH/V's book and took the (basically the same) function that they gave 4 different names to and made it into one, easy to use ability.

Well, I don't think FF necessitated the need for the flavor text.

I know this is nitpicky shut up little shout outs like that is what made CoH/V fun damnnit.

Not really. Here's how it works. Sidekicking/Lackeying is when a higher level character brings a lower level character up temporarily to his level. The lowbie keeps his current powers and enhancements. He's functionally a higher level character, but usually much weaker. This is usually used to Power-level the lowbies. Sidekicking is the Hero side name for it, Lackeying is the Villain side name.

Exemplaring/Malefactoring is when a higher level character temporarily lowers his levels down to a lower level. He loses access to powers he gained after that level, but has all his enhancement slots in the powers he does have. This mostly happens on Task Forces, which are special story arcs that require a team of characters within a certain level range to run a series of special missions. The higher level character gains no experience from this, but makes much more cash in return.

Level Pacts are something new added in the last Issue. This when two characters under level 5 share all xp gained by the pair 50/50, even when one is off-line. Honestly, I wouldn't have mentioned this in the OP if I had wrote this, as the LP most likely won't do it.

Alixsar has been appropriately taken to task for committing the sin of Imperfect MMO Knowledge, so I'll address the other thing.

This is 100% doable. To top it off, you can manage a couple different styles of robo-look, mostly either a sleek "killer skele-borg" or "steampunk/clockwork windup". There's actually an entire enemy group CALLED the Clockwork which consist entirely of psychically-controlled brass clockwork automatons, not to mention the Prussian army from an alternate dimension that's also got a distinctly steampunk vibe and have a few robots of their own.

So let me get this straight. You can sync up to their level, sync down to anothers level, and share levels 1-5. And it all has a different name depending on whether or not you're good or bad. This is Looney Tunes.

It's flavour text, man. It all started 'blueside' (the main color theme on the City of Heroes side of the game is blue; villains are red) as sidekicking (which, if I remember right, was in from Day 1), and then later mentoring came into effect.

But villains don't have sidekicks! They have lackeys. And so on. Understand that COV is built on the same engine but came out years later, so it's not like they came up with different names for everything from the word go.

Which is why i mentioned it in the second post.

All throwin' down in mah thread.

Also i'll be actually starting out sometime Saturday after 6 PM PST. So have your votes in by then!

EDIT: Ok, here's how it works.

SIDEKICKING/LACKEYING. These are the same thing. What happens is say I am on a level 38 character, and my friend logs in on his level 18 character. I can invite him to my team, and sidekick (on blueside) or lackey (on redside) him up. he will then have the combat stats of a level 37 (my level minus 1) character, but none of the extra power choices. At any time either character can break the sk/lk and things go back to having a level 38 and a level 18.

EXEMPLARING/MALEFACTORING. Alternately, the level 18 could take me on as his exemplar (blueside) or malefactor (redside) wherein i become level 18. Any powers that I picked after level 18 are unavailable to me, but any enhancing i did to powers that I took before 18 are still in place, so I will be a VERY powerful level 18. At any time either character can break the sk/lk and things go back to having a level 38 and a level 18.

Certain tasks in the game will auto-set you to a certain level, without a second character.

LEVEL PACTING (both sides.) This works by two characters, both under level 5, agreeing to form a "leveling pact." Once formed, any xp either character gains is split 50/50 with the other character. So if both are on and on the same team, then nothing changes. But if one say, leaves town for the weekend, his friend can keep playing and gain 5 levels. When the guy come back from out of town, he ALSO gains 5 levels because the xp is shared. While you can stay in this pact all the way up to level 50, at any time either character can break the pact. If at any time past level 5 this pact is broken it cannot be remade ever at all, but both characters will keep all xp that was gained while pacted. So this is a much more permanent way to buddy up.

HERE is more information.

Dang, I played this for maybe a month a couple years ago with my roommate (until he got back into WoW) and you've got me wanting to give it another shot. But it's not to be, because I have too many things going on in some other MMORPG.

More on topic though, I like Mr. Snarkovich the mastermind.

Holy shit, what? This. Do this.


Also, relevant:
greetings
the agenda
a special ability
the agenda strikes again
more flaming

It's quite a ways away so patience. Or Click Here for details/spoilers.

Are we behind in schedule already, PL? =(

Is there an online version of the chargen? It'd be cool if we could submit character designs, even if we didn't have the game.

I'm almost done! It'll be up tonight, I got called into work ok, geez.

Also, I'M EVIL.

Also these do take longer than I thought, and I'm trying to figure out what kinda tone I wanna take and such and so on so i keep re-writing it.

I believe that they did put out a stand alone version of the character creator, but then Marvel (at least I think it was Marvel, prolly should look that up)forced them to put the kabosh on it. Pretty sure they did so under the pretense of them believing it to be a do it yourself copyright violation machine of some sort. I also remeber most of the internet claiming they only did anything at all in because of Marvel having their own MMO type thing coming out relatively soon.

Your mileage my vary upon the truthfulness of any of what I just said up there. The whole shitstorm didn't really make a whole hell of a lot of sense and I have a crappy memory to begin with so... yeah.

Alright this will go up tomorrow because infraview and GIMP are horrible programs made by horrible people.

EDIT: I think i figured it out. Later tonight, sorry for the wait.

I used irfanview when I was batch-processing both Legend of Mana and Guild Wars, and it worked out fine. Lemme know if it's still causing you headaches.

I decided to go for that free trial the other day, and it's been pretty fun so far. I played CoH at launch, but I didn't get far because I would play a character to around level 10, and then abandon it to play around with the character creator some more, get that one to 10 or so, etc. I think the best one I had was a Dark/Regen Scrapper that I got to 16, and a Fire/something Blaster that I got to 13.

Right now I've got a Super Strength/Shield Defense Brute at level 6, and a Ice/Cold Corruptor at level 1 that I've yet to play because I keep deleting and recreating him and tweaking his design.

My launch characters were a Dark/Dark defender and an Ice Armor/Ice Melee tanker, but never got 'em past 30 or so. The only character I took to 50 is a Broadsword/Regeneration scrapper (even wrote a casual levelling + play guide for the build which I think is still linked on the forum).

My villains are dormant, but were an Electric Melee/Electric Armor brute (Aksarnanuk! What terrible things did the aurora borealis do to this Bering Sea fisherman?!) and a Thugs/Traps mastermind (Hosea the Many! A survivor of the Shadow Shard, his madness grants him strange powers~).

Yeah, I think I spent more time making characters than levelling any of them. I had a Radiation/Radiation Corruptor (designed to look like a cheesy villain from some low-budget 60s or 70s TV show), but I only got to level 8 or so. Then there were another dozen which I only played for 1 or two missions. Best chargen ever.

Welcome back to the City Of Villains Let's Play!

Introducing our protagonist, Dr. Spite!


Dr. Spite, a robotics mastermind, took the votes pretty handily. There wasn't a lot of support for any one secondary, so I rolled for it and got Traps. This works out pretty well, actually, since the last power in the traps set is hilarious. Just 38 levels to go!

I will be out of town for a wedding for a week, so the next update will be a bit late. As was this one.

Let me know what you think about the length of the update here.

So, Let's Play!


Ziggursky Penitentary. AKA the Zig. AKA the big house. AKA the pen. AKA why is this in the middle of a major city.
It's where villains go to rot after they've been arrested via punchings.


Here I am, a lowly mad scientist who accidnetly turned a microwave into a giant rocket robot. I was just trying to make popcorn faster. Also deadlier.


What's this? An explosion?


FREEDOM! Well. Freedom to explore this hallway. Let's see what I can do here.


Hey! You might have an idea what's going on, buddy.

"I'm not sure what happened. There was some kinda big explosion that shook loose a bunch of the cells. Most of the cons made a break for it and ran out into the Yard, only to be recaptured by security. Lots of people are saying Arachnos is involved, that they're trying to break out some sort of special people. Could even be you, I guess.

If you want to make a break for it though, you are gonna have to play it smart. I can hook you up with the right people to talk to, but I need a favor in return...

I've got this pain, see... and the only thing that helps are those pain relievers they got locked up in the infirmary. Go there and persuade the nurse to give them to you."

You know you can just...leave right now, right? Like walk out the door? To freedom? And better drugs? Fine, fine.


Oh, a nurse. Aww, is the cautious caretaker completely cowed by my cunning caper?


GOOD GOD KEEP YOUR MEDS.
Let's let Chuckles Downeyjr over there deal with his own DTs and look for something not horrible.


Oh hey, a broken robot...let's just borrow a few things here...and...


LAZERS!

[
A convienent hole leading out of this stupid place and into...


Oh god I want back in the stupid place.
Oh wait I have lazers. Pew Pew Pew!


Hahah you couldn't hold Tai Lung and you won't hold meeeee!


YES! My ride!

"Well, well, you've arrived. Pardon my skepticism, but if I had a dollar for every punk convict who thinks they're destined for greatness, I'd be running my own criminal organization. I guess we'll see what you're made of when Kalinda gets her hands on you. Anyway, are you ready to get out of here? There are just a few loose ends to tie up before we take off.

The Arachnos demolitions guys didn't do their job right, and the radar coverage around Brickstown here is still up.

Typical.

I sent my co-pilot, Jenkins, into one of the bunkers with a bomb to finish the job, but I haven't got word back from him. If you want to get out of here, you are gonna have to bite the bullet and help out.

I need you to go into that bunker, rescue Jenkins and get the bomb he has. Once you have that, find the spot to place it and make sure it gets planted. Take out any escaped cons or security guards you see down there; they'll only screw things up for the rest of us. Once that bomb is set, get back here ASAP. Then we can head off to Mercy Island.

I've marked the bunker on your map and compass. Left click on the door to enter. Find Jenkins, defeat any enemies, and click on the image of the bomb in order to place it. With all that done, click Exit Mission in your Nav Bar and get back to me."


What? I'm a DESTINED ONE chump I am NOT going to run your oh a BOMB you say? Let's go.


Thanks, buddy. Jerk.


Well, I suppose I haven't lasered anything for about 5 minutes, let's go.


And a few more awkward phone calls for the warden to make...


And a BOMB! Let's just...hmm. interesting design, this is a weird circuit, didn't know they could do this, well it looks superfluous let's just borrow it for a bit and scram.


BOOM!


Boom?

Whoops.


Look, um...yeah. So that didn't quite work out like we both hoped, but the loudmouth got away right? How about a ride? Whoo! To freedom and Destiny!


Hmm. Interesting console design, is that a Forrester Bridge connected to a Prometheus circuit? Can I take a look at...whoops.


Well, any landing you can walk away from eh?
Hmm, what can I do with a Forrester bridge...I know!


YOU RECEIVE: SCAN VISOR.

Well let's take a look around!

Scan Complete Lore entry logged. Mercy Island. This is the beginner zone, with enemies capping out at level 6. This island was one of the first claimed by Recluse during his rise to power. It was initally heavily populated by the Snakemen, but Recluse ordered most of them wiped out. They retreated underground, repopulating and waiting for their chance to strike. Once the Rikti alien forces invaded back in 2004 they found their chance. With Recluse distracted, they attacked the town and the Arachnos base there, Fort Darwin. Arachnos again fought them back, but Recluse stayed their hand this time, prefering to study them to further his plans of conquest, and to cull the weaker villains early on. New villains will find their first two contacts in this zone.

Two contacts, which to talk to, hmm. Kalinda or Burke, Kalinda or Bu...what's this? I didn't build this


YOU WILL SPEAK TO BURKE

I think I will speak to Burke!


"You think you know all about Arachnos, huh? Sure you do. Big, fancy posters, lotsa pomp 'n' circumstance. Well, let me tell you: you don't know jack. That's ok, though. You're about to find out.

I like to keep tabs on my neighbors, so I need you to plan these little bugs on the flyers inside Fort Darwin. Easy peasy. It'll give you a chance to see what Arachnos is like in combat. Heck, you might even impress 'em! Arachnos is always looking for the latest good material to come out of the Zig. They use this whole island as a proving ground for their fresh meat.

Here's an access code to get into Fort Darwin. Wait until the coast is clear, then plant the bugs on the Arachnos flyers."

Alrighty then, I'm really good with flyers, let's go pokin' some more. With a little practice I'm sure I can keep one airborne! Plus, with some of the bits I've procured, I have a new helper!


SCANNING!
Scan Complete. Creatures entry logged. Battle Drone. The lowest level, or "minion" class robot. They use lasers to damage their enemies. Talented masterminds are able to control up to three at once.

Aww, it's like that time I was getting my hair done and accidently turned a hair dryer and half a jug of that blue comb stuff into an acid powered hellbot. Good times.

Arachnos? SCAN EM.
Scan Complete Creatures entry logged. Arachnos Agents. The footsoldiers of the Arachnos Organization. They fall into two categories: Bane soliders, favoring stealth and strength, or Fortunatas, favoring guile and horrible psychic attacks that hurt so damn much. Often encountered, even as an agent of Arachnos because there is a deep moral lesson about evil turning on itselzzzzzzzzzzzzz


Well, with my little buddy's help here, we managed to take out all the opposition, and plant all the bugs!



Victory! Well I'm glad that's over with, I'd hate to take out too many Arachnos Agents, it would probably draw a lot of attention this early in my villainy career.


"Glad to see you. We've got a job. Seems someone's hired us to steal some old book from Ghost Widow's faction. The book is called the Mu Codex. Who's hired us, you ask? Why, Mako's faction! That's right, those Arachnos factions are always at each other's throats. You'd best remember that if you ever decide to get involved with their lot. Trust no one.

Oh, there's one more thing I didn't tell you. I'm planning to keep this book for myself. So wipe out everyone in the Arachnos lab, won't you? It's the only way we can get away clean."

Dammit.

A few lasers later!

Ohhh, this is a FANCY safe, what with the 10-key pad. It's all empty now, shame to let it go to waste...Hmm.


WHEEEE! Well this was a fun afternoon, I think I'll take a break.


RETURN TO BURKE.

Well that was a weird little blackout...hey it's Burke! I guess I'll see what's next!

"I'm sure you know that Arachnos likes to think they own everything on this grubby little island. Well, they're wrong. For starters, they don't own me. And if you're smart, you won't let them own you either. So here, in the shadow of Fort Darwin, I'm asking you to help me get away with an operation right under Arachnos' nose. Think you can handle that?

I've been hired by an interested party to investigate the origins of the Snakes. Now, Arachnos doesn't want anybody but themselves knowing what goes on with those slimy little worms, but I happen to think that knowledge belongs to the person strong enough to grab it. So, I've picked out a snake hole for you to investigate. Bring me back a snake skin, and we'll get to work."

Huh. Gonna be hard to get a whole skin what with lasers. But I'll see what I can do!


Aha! A snake den! Easy pickins


Burned it.


Burned it.


Burned it. Dammit! That was all the snakes! Why are snake skins so flimsy!?


Oh look. I found a very solid snake skin in this box. Wonderful!


Ok buddy, got your snake skin, happy to not have to deal with those things anym...what's that? Take out a hatchery? Of...chickens I hope?

Dammit.

Fine where is it? You don't...I have to look where? I hate you.


Dammit.


Ok let's see what I can see. Yessssss, thatssssss jussssssst sssssssuper where's the damn hatchery. (Yes they really talk like that. Seriously)

Also...hmm. Hinges. What can I do with hinges.


Nice.


Yeah, ok, so I got the map, big dog. I am tired of snakes. You can send your other goons to the hatchery, it's locate....what's that? No I don't really want to go in there, actually. No I don't care. I will hang up on you!


YOU WILL GO IN THERE

Well of COURSE I will, Burke, thank you for asking nicely.


Woah, hatchery. Well at least I got here before anything nasty actually hatched.



Dammit.



And that is just disgusting.



MAN. Finally. No more stupid snakes.

"You know my code of honor? None. I'll steal from anyone if the price is right. From Arachnos, from Longbow, even from the Snakes if they had anything worth taking. But on this particular day, we're going after the good guys. Longbow. Saviors of Paragon City, thorn in the side of Arachnos. Truth is, I don't mind Longbow so much. They irritate Arachnos, which I can't help but find entertaining. Trouble is, Longbow's got something I want.

Longbow's got some of the best cryptographers this side of Paragon City. One of them is known as Agent Kurst. I need Kurst's files. Not only do they contain a wealth of knowledge about Arachnos ciphers, they also are likely to contain a mention or two about the codes my clients use. Which means, I'm sorry to say, Kurst isn't long for this world."

...I would rather fight more snakes please.

Dammit.
SCAN EM!
Scan Complete Creatures entry logged. Longbow. Also known as God. Damn. Longbow. At low levels they are a minor threat, but as a villain progesses through the game they become one of the most hated enemy groups around, full of AoEs and horrible debuffs. Plus they are one of perhaps three "hero" NPC groups in the entire game, so they show up all the damn time.


Much as rock beats scissors, lasers beat spandex.


And one hacked Gibson later, the info! Huzzah!

"Excellent job. These files will server me well. They should let me eavesdrop on secret Arachnos conversations—at least, until these ciphers are rotated out of use. It's important to keep an eye on Arachnos. They're always testing everybody here on Mercy, myself included. Trying to figure out who's strong enough to survive and who's weak enough to crush under their boot heels. When someone's watching you, it's a good idea to watch them right back.

There's a rather odd fellow I'd like you to meet: Doctor Creed. He's a strange man, but he knows a lot about the Infected, and he's looking for a lab assistant."


A new contact! No more damn snakes! Yay!

Next time on City of Villains!

Dastardly Doctors? Disgusting displaced denizens dare delay my deviant deviltries?

While you're eagerly awaiting the next action-packed installment, I need a name for the robot! In fact, give me three names for cute little laser bots.

I like the RP stuff for the Nemesis staff et cetera, that's pretty clever!

Update length seems about right. It feels like there're too many images for the amount of text, or maybe the images are too large.. I don't know what you're doing for hosting, if you can link a 640x480 snapshot/thumbnail to the full-size image, that'd be keen to me.

They released a stand-alone chargen when they release City of Hero, the Korean version of the game. They chargen was only released in Korea, due to the USA's horrific copyright system.

The Marvel lawsuit actually predates the Korean release, and is rumored to be part of why the chargen was never released here.


I'm Photobucketing it here, so yeah. I think I can do that?

I dunno, wait and see if anyone else is bugged by it, it could just be me! Or I am being overly critical about it, I dunno, I looked it over again and they're not as large as they seemed. Maybe I'm just goin' crazy. =(

I don't think smaller images would hurt. They are bigger than most of the ones in other people's LPs, but they look even bigger when they each only get a little, one-line caption. But given the genre, I don't want to tell you to go into every little thing in depth or we'll be here for decades. What I am curious about is what these gadgets you keep "making" actually are supposed to be and what they do (like the scan visor and the gear staff, but no need to point out that jetpacks make you fly). Maybe you could do a little addendum post once in a while that points out the nuts 'n' bolts and game mechanics stuff, like those items and what the powers you pick do.

I like the snappy pacing though. And your wit keeps it interesting. Keep up the good work!

Excellent. Very much what I had in mind, especially the monocle. As a suggestion for an alternate costume, I'd make two little changes. Drop the labcoat, add a black cape and black top hat, for a classy look. Everything is great so far.