City of Heroes Rants and Firefox Crashing Cutely
Folks who follow my Facebook can skip on, since this is mostly just a recap of my last two posts of the last two days.
City of Heroes rant-time. Between last issue's neutering of the archetypes from being a reward for reaching endgame, to one for playing for a few hours to get to level 20, and next issue's turning every Fitness power into ones EVERYONE gets at level TWO, I'm wondering if someone at Paragon read Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" and thought, "Hey, what a cool idea!"
Now, everyone will get all the powers needed to heal faster, recover faster, run faster and jump higher than . . . uhm . . . normal NPC's, and people who are level one. Even characters who are, really, nothing more than normals with technotoys or special powers. (As much as the TV series "Heroes" went downhill after the first season, maybe they should watch a few episodes over there.) Of course you can always make yourself even faster by slotting enhancements, just like you could with the old ones where you had to actually plan and earn the powers. However, the baseline has been effectively raised by everyone having the power, while the ceiling remains the same. The range of variance has been significantly reduced. Everyone will soon be able to bounce around like a bunch of Halo toons, even those normal-with-powers sorts.
I remember this being mentioned at San Diego Comicon when someone asked when this would happen, and the room erupted into cheers when it was announced that it was coming out this upcoming issue. Am I missing something? Why does everyone think this is a good idea, aside from, "Oh, boy, more freebie powers for my character that I got the free run-higher jump-faster ninja run power on, even though it makes no logical sense for my futuristic power suit character the size of a bulldozer to literally run around looking like a campy ninja?"
Ah, well. I cringed when they introduced those tarot decks that now everyone carries to toss temporary powers around, even characters who have no business carrying around magic-imbued tarot decks. Yet, I eventually gave in to peer pressure and picked up the expansion for that, so now my magic-using controller, my fire tank (asbestos-laced paper on those cards, I hope), my aikido werewolf and my troop-driving mastermind with all the magical ability of Bruce Willis can fling magical cards around that give people random boosts. I'll probably go along with this, too. I just find it silly, how they're dumbing this game down. Then again, it's not about role-play, is it? It's about pushing those numbers higher. Silly me.
Meanwhile, on the lighter side, I had some trouble sleeping the other night and came across this little item. It looks like this has been around for a few months now, and I just now stumble across it. As a foxy sort, I should be ashamed for missing it. *hangs head in shame* This is just WAY too adorable! Anyway, had to share.
http://dawnchapel.com/2010/07/firefox-has-crashed/
Back to the madness I go. I wish that I had a job herding cats right now. It'd be so much easier.