One of my newer lvl 50s - Flora H2O (4 of 25 lvl 50s)

Flora H2O
A water blast/nature affinity mutation corrupter

I mistakenly took her origin as mutation. She should have been magic since her backstory is that she is the daughter of a triton and a dryad. Hence her control of both water and nature. Flora has a falling or swirling leaves aura. The leaves would have changed colors with the season (see in this pic they're red for autumn) but sadly Flora only experienced the one season. They would have been white for winter, light green for spring and dark green for summer.


Flora in AP. Look at the reflection in the water! Water used to look much flatter but it ripples and reflects so realistically now!

Flora with Ms. Liberty, Statesman's grand-daughter and trainer extraordinaire. Flora's 2ndary was Nature Affinity. The animations were so pretty! See them in the next few pics.

 



See the butterflies! Once I saw that, I had to get Nature Affinity. *Wave* Hi Urd-sama! Nice photo bomb :)

Mercury Midnite (3 of 21 lvl COH 50s)

Mercury Midnite
A kinetics/dark blast mutation defender
Bio:
Mercury's powers to manipulate energies were apparent at an early age and grew as she became older. Her powers intrigued the Circle of Thorn mages and she was kidnapped by them. In the course of the Circle probing her powers, she secretly learned how to tap into the Netherworld and work its energies to her advantage. Doubly armed, she surprised her captors and managed to escape during one of the rituals. She now devotes her life to protecting the citizens of Paragon City and preventing other abductions. She abhors the Circle and the caves they frequent as they remind her of her time in captivity.

This version of Mercury is on Liberty server. I had played her on Victory but needed to free up some character slots so I moved her. I missed the character so I made ANOTHER Mercury (Mercury Midnight) on Victory. She had one of the sexier costumes I made.



Castle & Mercury in Portal Court



Mercury's costume variations (note the glitched skirt in the 3rd costume)




It was "eternal night" when I took this screenie because of the Halloween Event.

Funny story about Mercury waving hello. One of the SG's introductions to Pyro was him standing next to Castle in a toon that was an EXACT replica of Castle and greeting everyone with:
" Pleased to meet you! I am Castle, a level 50 Mutation Douchebag."
It was too hilarious!

Today's COH Level 50

E'lan

An electrical blast/fire manipulation magic blaster
She was the first toon I created on COH (Justice server) and my first level 50. It took just about a year to get her to 50.
This is her backstory:
Re'lan and her twin sister, E'lan, come from a long line of mystics. Long ago, a dragon fell in love with their great-grandmother. Alas, he knew it was not to be but as a sign that the family was favored by the dragons he granted them control over fire in perpetuity. The twins were quite adept in magic but accidently released a lightning elemental from a jar. In the effort to contain him again, the twins absorbed the elemental into their own bodies. They have learned to control the electricity coursing through their bodies however the price for their mistake is that they cannot directly touch anyone and so must always wear gloves.Mysterious but friendly, she fights crime and the forces of evil with the best of them. A regular at the old Paragon Dance Party where she loved to dance and at ICON where she loves to shop for a new look.


 

E'Lan on her favorite rock in Talos Island



I actually liked Talos of all the zones in Paragon City and there was one rock out in the water that was a pretty place to hang out. You can see the war walls in the background. They were to help keep the Rikti (an invading alien force) out.


Flying

One of the best things about being a superhero obviously is the ability to fly! Flying was a fun way to get around and very convenient. The other travel modes were super jump, super speed and teleporting.


Costumes

One of the unique things about COH was the variety of costumes you could make and initially you could unlock up to 3 extra costume slots on your toon before they added them to the market for purchase. In this case, someone asked if I could make an asian dress and this is what I created with the available costume pieces at the time (early 2005).



NCSoft is killing my game!

It has been some time since I wrote on my blog but this issue has consumed me since it was announced Aug 31 2012 (forever known as Black Friday to me).
I have played City of Heroes fairly obsessively since Dec 2004. Only in the past 2 years have I played more sporadically. I was just starting to get back into playing when NCSoft announced out of the blue that the company would be "refocusing" and that City of Heroes would be shut down. There are efforts underway to save the game in some fashion but I need to write out some of my memories of my travels through Paragon City and show some of what NCSoft is really destroying.
I'll be posting (hopefully) once a day with one of my level 50s (the highest level you can attain in the game).

First up is: Elementalinator
An Electric Blast/Mental Manipulation magical blaster.
She was part of The Terminators. The backstory is that the Terminator movie had fallen into the DND realms and a group had become taken with the  Arnold Schwarzenegger character and so we all added the "-inator" to our race name, so we had Dwarvenator, Elfinator, Gnominator etc. In the first pic you see her on a popular hill in Talos. Note her shadow! Great graphics in this game. Also note the blackboard behind her. It's a ad for a restaurant in COH called "Cap'n Krak'n" which is a bit of an in-joke since there's a kraken like monster that spawns in Independence Port.



Elementalinator in her "natural" form

Yes. I am finally updating

I've been away for quite a while.
I'm too busy doing things to actually write about them usually.

Updates on my "hobbies" -
I am still going strong on COH and as of this writing have twelve level 50s.
COH keeps growing and changing and is celebrating its 4th anniversary.
Exciting new changes are in store for COH but the one I'm looking forward
to most is the availability of new characters slots on my server.

Joss Whedon has continued the Buffy story in comic book form. YAY!
I've subscribed via http://www.tfaw.com/ and anxiously await each issue.
He's also doing a limited run series that continues the story of Angel.
There is also a Firefly arc that I will be getting as a TPB.
Speaking of comic books, I missed this April's NYC Comic Con. :(
I would have liked to meet Alex Ross. Along with Kurt Busiek, they've produced some amazing comics. I've finished the "Astro City" series and I just started "Marvels."

I've also started a Facebook page and log on every other day or so to check the doings. Look me up there if you'd like.

I've discovered several cool and useful websites.
First, is http://www.pandora.com/ which lets you create your own radio channel that plays only music you like.
Secondly, if like me you get a TON of catalogs, this website lets you opt-out any or all catalogs you get to help save the environment. http://www.catalogchoice.org/

Other than that, I'm planning to celebrate my 20th wedding anniversary in Hawaii this summer. Planning to spend time on The Big Island, Maui and Kauai.
Let me know if you have any suggestions or tips for those areas.
Don't know when I'll update next so enjoy this post :p

Summer Summary

I figured I'd make my friend, who has his own blog at Fuzzy's Hideaway, happy with an update to my blog.

Well, the party's over :(
Much as I enjoy the autumn colors I'm sorry to see summer end.
The big kick off to the summer was my 40th birthday.
It's so funny, I remember when I was in 2nd grade and calculating how old I would be in the year 2000...a whopping 34...and thinking that it was a LONG way into the future.
We traveled around upstate NY for our vacation this summer stopping in Corning, Niagara Falls and Cooperstown. I got a nice souvenir on a hike in Watkins Glen, a nasty scar on my knee when I took a tumble. Thankfully, it didn't impact our trip too much.

A few words about my current obsessions:
On City of Heroes, I recently got my 4th Level 50 character. She's a earth/kinetics/fire controller and she's been real fun to play.

I'm happy that the Yankees have clinched the Eastern division.

I'm almost afraid to like new shows now with my current trend but I happened to catch the premiere for "Heroes" on NBC and liked what I saw. So in an effort to keep it on air, please watch!
New shows are on Mondays on NBC and it repeats on Fridays on Sci-Fi channel.

Oh! BTW, here's a few pictures from our trip:

My son creating our newest Christmas ornament in Corning.

The view from our hotel window in Niagra Falls Canada 

The 1996 World Series Trophy. The start of the current Yankees dynasty. Go Yanks! It's time for number 27. And if you look carefully you can see my hubby's reflection in the glass.

A Frightening Trend

I've noticed a frightening trend in my viewing history; every time I've enjoyed a show it gets cancelled!
Dead Like Me - Lasted 2 seasons on SHO
Wonderfalls - Didn't even make to the end of the 1st season
Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Well....it wasn't exactly cancelled but it's still gone
Angel - Cancelled when I moved to the show after Buffy was gone
Century City - Lasted just a few episodes
Brimstone - I think it may have lasted as long as one season
Monk - Well...it hasn't been cancelled but it's not the same since Sharona left
Firefly - Don't even get me started on this one
Samurai Jack - An EMMY-WINNING cartoon and Cartoon Network can't figure out what to do with it?

I'm almost afraid to become attached to any show right now but the newest show I've sort have started watching is "The Ghost Whisperer" with Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Another recent disappointment, I just discovered that "Mission: Impossible" (the classic 60s show) is not yet available on DVD! With so many other old shows on DVD I was sure M:I would be out already. It's the perfect show for the format. Best I can tell via the website www.tvshowsondvd.com is that there is speculation that M:I will be released later this year as a build up to the release of the new M:3 movie with Tom Cruise.
Maybe I should just go back to reading books...