Issue 10 - Invasion!

One of the things I love about City of Heroes/Villains is how beautiful the game is. They've got fantastic graphics, beautiful city-scapes, and if you ever get the chance, look up. I've got screenshots of the night sky just because it's so striking. And I look forward to seeing the new War Zone.

Which brings me to I10. I logged in on Vagabond Blade, aka ScrapperVagz, and found myself on Peregrine Island. It had been a while since I logged this character in, so I couldn't remember where I'd left him, only that the last thing I'd done was respec him into a travel power (yeah, Fyre: at long last, I know). I looked around and immediately noticed the color of the sky was an eerie greenish-blackish-brown color. And before it could really register...

KA-BOOM!!

Yeah, I'd zoned in not only in the middle of a bombing run, but right under one. Luckily, Fyre and I had chosen to start out on the scrappers because of their survivability, and I panned up to see what was lobbing bombs at me.

The drop ships are incredible. The UXBs they were leaving around are amazingly detailed. The dropping bombs, the changed sky... wow.

We headed to Founders Falls to intercept the newest attack, and the first thing I noticed was that the War Walls were down. I flew up there because I could quite clearly see the terrain on the far side of the wall. But the walls aren't mechanically down. Just graphically. Once you get right up close to where the force field would be, you can see it and can't move past it. Nice work, devs. Honestly.

Then I went looking for the re-designed Rikti. Okay, I know I'm gushing at this point, but wow again. No more naked Rikti. All of them are armored to one extent or another. The new swords are stunning, and the new Rikti types and armors are just amazing.

Then it hit. The lag. The rubber-banding. The whining in Broadcast. The slideshow-like combat. It was like "bullet-time" from the Matrix only... not cool.

[rant]
It drives me crazy that people will gather in large groups on the day a new issue comes out in already-crowded and laggy spots (like near the Talos tram stop). They've got all their powers, capes, and auras on. All 100+ of them are trying to fight spawning enemies from a new zone event that everyone is trying to get in on. And they're spamming Broadcast, bitching about the lag. Well, DUUUUHHH...

And to make it even more irritating, they're blaming it on the server and on the devs and programmers. "No, you idiot," I want to tell them. "It's the fact that you've joined a crowd of 200 people in the laggiest, most crowded spot on the second-busiest server available in the game!" Don't blame the server. Go find a less-crowded server, a less-crowded spot, or just deal with it. Heck, the event and the Issue are going to be around for a while. Wait a few days!
[/rant]

Once the "ooh, shiny" factor has had a chance to wear a bit, I fully intend to take both Vagabond Mage and ScrapperVagz into the WarZone and start working on the content there. I look forward to seeing the new zone and expanding Vagz' wardrobe. :)