New Starfire/Hellfire Forum
I have signed us up for yet another forum. I am hoping that this will be the last change that I make of this nature.
The new forum, at server.com, is one that has been used by another group I am in for several years. You don't even need to register in order to post to it. It is extremely simple to use, is threaded, and searchable.
It is a free service and there are ads to support it, but they are not intrusive.
Try it out, I think you will find it very easy to use.
I have created a calendar with the same provider.
Starfire/Hellfire Calendar
and I also have a link to the same calendar on the Forum page as well.
Please note that there is no login to edit the calendar. Therefore, anyone with this URL can create and even delete calendar entries.
I am taking down the SmartCal calendar, because I discovered that if the server site is down, the rest of our Starfire web page won't load, either.
Let's see if this will work out better.
If you see any abuse of the forum or calendar, please email me...I think everyone with Starfire now has my email address...or contact me in-game.
For security reasons, I strongly recommend that you NOT post any personal information to either the forum or the calendar; this includes full (RL) name and any email address that you don't want spammed.
November 19, 2005
Okay, listen up, Starfire stars! This is your fearful leader speaking! :-)
I have added an online calendar for SG members' use. This is the first step to "firing" GuildPortal. The GuildPortal "free" facilities have turned out to be more of a pain than they are worth, and I don't want to make Starfire dependent on a pay site.
Please email me at linuial at terraforming dot com, identify yourself by at least one Starfire member name (so I'll at least know who you are, and that you are not just someone who stumbled across this web page), and I will email you a login and password so that you can update events on this calendar. I'm giving everyone the same login, so you don't have to sign up yourself, but if you want to get a SmartCal ID of your own, just let me know, and I'll give you full rights to the Starfire calendar from that ID as well.
Let's see how this works out. To add or edit an event on the Calendar:
1. Click on the word "Starfire" at the top of the calendar.
2. Click on the "Sign On" button on the upper right. Add ID and password and click on "Login" button.
3. Under My Favorites on the left, click on "hobbit's Starfire".
4. Click on the "Create Event" button above the calendar for a new listing, or to edit an existing entry, click
on the entry itself in the calendar.
Feel free to add or update anything that pertains to Starfire, including asking for help with mission, TFs, etc.
I have also registered for an online bulletin board for our use. Please see:
SmartCal calendar taken down January 14th, 2006, see new calendar at server.com above.
and let me know if you have any questions or problems
Invision also requires a login and password (probably a good idea); if you don't want to go to that trouble,
send me an email, and I'll set it up for you, and email you back a login and password (tell me if you have one
you prefer) We can't all use the same login, or we'd all show up in the forum as the same person. ;-) I'm
set up as "Hero".
November 9, 2005
Stray (@Mantid) helped me get an SG for Starfire people set up on CoV, on the Liberty server. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, so I just went ahead and called it Hellfire. If you have any villains that you want inducted into Hellfire, contact either Outlander (Stray/@Mantid) or myself, MadamMadness (@Linuial) (note the lack of a space in my villain's name).
In other news, in which perhaps no one but me has any interest, I finally got a novel-writing program, and did a word count on Jon's story....58,000! When a "standard" novel is 7,000 to 40,000 words. (ulp!) The strange thing is, I normally write in a very spare, almost "telegraphic" style, with very little description or exposition, and I did the same with Jon's story....I was planning on going back later after it was "finished" and filling in lots of description, to pad it out to novel length. It appears "padding" is one problem that I don't have to worry about....
If anyone actually wants to read it at the 3/4th's finished stage, let me know, I'm beginning to look for readers. I don't need writing critiques or editting help, I just need to hear what kind of emotional reaction people have to it so far.
In order to do the final section, I need to work Jon up to lvl 40 to 45, because I need to work him through the Revenant missions (lvl 35 to 39) and then the 2nd "Countess Crey" mission, which is lvl 40 to 45, for research. As soon as I have done that, I should be able to finish the novel, too. So, if anyone would like to volunteer to help me level Jon, I'd appreciate the help. It would be nice if I could finish the novel by Christmas, or by New Years at the latest, since I'll have lots of holiday and vacation time between then and now in which to work on his leveling, and finish the writing. (Jon is currently at lvl 33.)
November 4, 2005
Congratulations are in order to Blood Nut and Pangea, who will be greeting their new daughter sometime in the next month. Blood is taking two weeks off work for the blessed event, so he will probably be away from CoH for a while. Don't worry....I'm sure they both will be back very soon.
Yes, I'm back from my trip to Australia and New Zealand. And, yes, I got my picture taken with a koala. ;-)
I totally missed all the excitement with the City of Villains beta, darn it all. At least I finally got my copy of CoV up and running, anyway, with Blood's help. Look for MadamMadness, a Dominator if there ever was one. Stray reports that her alt Mantid's SG, the Swarm, has a base up and running, and Blood Nut reports that it is quiet impressive. (I know, I know, Stray.....I'll be there just as soon as I figure out HOW to find it.....if I understand things correctly, Starfire should be able to enter it as Coalition members.)
October 12, 2005
Yes, you're quite right, I have been very remiss in keeping this web page updated. :-)
I was hoping that the new Starfire Guildportal page would allow everyone in Starfire to do the same thing I have been doing here, i.e., creating messages, setting up events, and so on.
Unfortunately, it hasn't turned out quite that way.
If I wanted to pay a monthly fee, we could have more capabilities, but at the moment, with the "free" account, only "superadministrators" (i.e., people who could kick other superadministrators, and everyone else, out of the Guildportal group) can update the calendar, which is *not* going to be useful for our purposes. Plus, I discovered that there is an hourly usage limit, and it appears to be quite low, after which, you are "invited" to go away and come back later.
I (Liniuial) will be out of pocket from October 13th until the 28th; when I get back, I will start looking into alternatives, preferably a single site which would give us a forum and a calendar for Starfire events, one that anyone can update.
Since Cryptic has announced that you do NOT have to pay 2 subscriptions to use both CoH and CoV, only one, plus paying for the initial game itself, I have made the decision to buy CoV after all. Stray, bless her feline heart, already wants to know what "Starfire" will be called in CoV. She was coming up with various plays on "Moon-something", while I have a partiality to "Hellfire" or some such. (Hell-ice???? yuk. I threatened to call it "Hellcats", in Stray's honor....) So, let the contest begin....submit your ideas for an Evil, Anti-Starfire supergroup name, to the forum on GuildPortal.
August 13, 2005
Okay, Starfire Stars, listen up, this is your Fearful Leader talking! ;-)
I've set up Starfire (on CoH) as a Guild with www.guildportal.com. I'm still figuring out what all can be done with it, but the free account does have a forum, a chat room, a calendar, and places where you can register your characters and their attributes. Feel free to make use of any and all of the portal's facilities.
Check out the site when you get the chance. Note that there are *2* "Starfire" guilds on GuildPortal, and two more with Starfire in their names. Don't panic....We are listed with GuildPortal as "the Starfire on City of Heroes" (duh! At least they are being logical about it).
Please note: when you set up your GuildPortal account, be *certain* to set your time zone! This is very, very important, because the program will show you events listed in a converted time zone, to match your setting, NOT THE TIME ZONE THAT THE EVENT HOST TYPES IN. The event host has NO control over this. If your time zone is set incorrectly, or remains at the default, you will see all event times listed incorrectly.
August 12, 2005
Bugs! From the "better too late than never" department:
When you open CoH, you will see a "Known Issues" link. (you may have to wait a couple of
minutes for it to actually show up, at the top of your CoH screen.) Clicking on that will show you:
"If a character in a Task Force is of the maximum allowed level for that Task Force, they will
be exemplard to their own level. This affects experience and rewards."
"If you are the leader of a Task Force and are auto-exemplard down to the max level of the Task
Force, villains may spawn at your original security level." (oh, goody...this one I did NOT know about)
NOTE: in the future, ALWAYS check "known issues" before you start any long, time-consuming missions. The time (and debt) you save may be your own.
Also, the initial pre-download for Issue 5 has begun, which means the I5 update could be as close as one week away. Tanks beware. >:-)
Who wants to schedule a regular "Let's get all the Starfire tanks together for concentrated xp collection before I5" event? The line starts here.....volunteer blaster assistance appreciated, level not important...higher level blasters can be exemplared, lower level can be sk'ed.
In other news:
Blood Nut wants to run the Manticore TF Sunday night. Plan on meeting at the contact (in Brickstown....from the IP gate, look immediately to your right and up the stairs) Sunday night, 7pm CDT. Team of 7 needed, lvls 30 to 32. (33 might be okay, but we need to look at our lvl/AT spread to determine that, 34 is definately out, because if my information is correct, if they level during the TF they will auto-exempt.) I just ran it, and it may be my favorite TF so far. You *must* read all of Manticore's dialog...he's a hoot. He's the Freedom Phalanx "bad boy" with a chip on his shoulder because he's the only one with no super-powers. "If you walk this path with me, you may often find yourself in the shadows. I don't operate like Statesman and the others." "Brickstown is full of Crey these days. See what you can beat out of them. What's the matter, not used to the harsh language? Get moving, it's your hide. Don't kill anyone. Even I can't make a murder rap go away." The comments of the civilians around you are worth noting, too, even hours after the TF is over.
July 31, 2005
BULLETIN: Positron admits updated trials and tasks forces are seriously bugged and not functioning as intended; however massive changes ARE intended and players were not informed of the changes.
According to Positron, the trials are even more severely messed up than the task forces, and will NOT be fixed before Issue 5 is implemented. As a result, I am forced to strongly recommend that anyone who reads this not even waste their time on trials at all. You might wind up doing the same thing we did...spend hours on a trial (task force, in our case), and fail to get your expected reward(s). The Devs are obviously NOT "making good" on the loss, even if petitioned.
July 23, 2005
My global on the test server is "@Linuial". :-) So far I have Tinkrbell, R.Dorothy, Linuial, and Carol Ferris on the test server. I have also created an archer, Diana Moon.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
I've been told by one of our newbies that he will be on a camping trip Saturday, and by another that Saturday night is his family night.
In order to resolve this, I'm announcing a second Starfire party for this weekend.
It will be Sunday, at the usual time, in the usual place.
If you can make it to both parties, great! If not, try to make one or the other. I'll be there both nights, but the parties are so that the new people can meet and get to know our established SG members, so the more people that can show up to both parties, the better.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Big changes coming in Issue 5, check them out on the Test Server Right now, I'm planning on checking out the Test Server all day this Saturday, so if anyone wants to join me and maybe team up on Test, please do so.
Being Head Honcho and having no sense of shame, I am declaring that Starfire now has an Official Badge, the Bright Star Badge.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Okay, since I just looked at the calendar and realized that it will be my birthday, I am officially declaring that the Saturday after this one, July 23rd, will be the date of the next Starfire Meet-and-greet party.
As before, we will meet in the Paragon Dance Party room, info below, at 9 pm Eastern, 8 pm Central, 7 pm Mountain, and 6 pm Pacific.
There is a complicating factor, however. Apparently someone else has discovered the Dance Party room, and has been sending out tells for people to meet there and join the Dance Party room "employees". Not sure what that is all about. However, if it turns out that the party room itself at the back is already occupied, we will meet in the small room where the stairs are, before you get to the vending machines, at the bottom of the stairs. Once everyone is there, if we want we can go elsewhere. I would be very surprised if we don't form up one or more teams after an hour and go adventuring.
This will be a chance for the "new" members of Starfire to meet and get to know the more established members, and to let us get to know you better, so it is very important that you try to make this event, if it is at all possible.
Blood Nut is going to San Francisco this weekend for ComicCon, so he won't be available this weekend. As far as I know, he should be back in time for the party on the 23rd. Kimi, we really would like to know what's going on with you....if for some reason you can't get into CoH, you can send me an email at: linuial at terraforming dot com.
-----> PLEASE NOTE: There has been a CoH client update with the following notation: All task forces and trials will now accept any player who has reached at least the minimum level of the task force or trial to play it. Players above the maximum level of the task force or trial will be auto-exemplared to the highest level of the task force or trial. They will remain exemplared until they are no longer a member of the task force or trial. [Also] Fixed bug in Terra Volta Trial that made it difficult for players to target the Coolant Belts.
BTW, anyone who wants to have something posted to this web page, just send me an ingame tell or email, I'll get it the next time I log in. (And I log in almost every night/day.) This would include requests for Starfire teams and gettogethers, such as the above.
- - Linuial, SuperNova, Starfire Leader (Global: @Linuial)
While we were waiting for Kimimarro, we heard reports that Lusca (the Giant Monster squid) had spawned, so we made a mad dash to see it. This was the first time I'd seen the Lusca. We joined in the battle, all of us got our badges, and Wind Sheer accidently leveled to 27. So, she left and fetched her alt Maggot Man, who we exemplared.
We waited for over an hour for Kimimarro. Kimi, what happened? Since you never showed up, and this *was* your party, after all, we started to wonder if something bad had happened to you. (You do realize, of course, that if you "just forgot"....you will NEVER live this down! [evil chuckle] )
It had been over 2 weeks since Blackened Beef/Kimimarro first suggested having Starfire run the Respec Trial, so when we couldn't find Kimi, we finally drafted the lvl 29 Peacebringer Hinder, exemplared her, and made off for the Trial.
Hinder knew of a technique for making the trial easier at the reactor by having everyone log except 2, accepting the reactor mission, and then having everyone log back in, but we got our timing off, and didn't have a chance to try that technique. It needs to be done right before the leader accepts that final mission.
Stray had heard that more than one person could get a reactor coolant belt if everyone grabbed one at the same time. We tried that technique, but couldn't seem to get it to work.
Hinder also told us that if one person grabbed a belt, and everyone left the reactor building, then someone could grab a second one. We tried this, and while Blood (accidently, because Carol was supposed to do it, since she has bubbles, too) got the first belt, Carol was able to grab a second one. (more on that later)
With the all-lvl-26 team, things were *dramatically* easier. Everyone commented on it, so obviously, creating such a team was WELL worth all the effort. Frankly, I'm not sure we would have succeeded otherwise.
We spent a LOT of time trading information on the reactor once we were inside, and then went very slowly, and did a lot of pulling, and that also had a great deal to do with our success.
The Big Room went quite smoothly, although as the only hero without bubbles, on top of being a squishy, Carol kept getting the short end of the stick. ;-) (I had 3 SOs on Deflection Shield.)
When we got the key, Stray detonated the Proximity Bomb, and Carol popped open the door to the horse-shoe-shaped hallway, and flew for her very life to the end of that hall and tp'ed Maggot Man, Blood Nut, and Hinder, while Stray also flew.
The end was quite clear, so we stood and discussed tactics once more, before opening the door and beginning the final phase of the operation.
After clearing the entry, we tried getting the belts, Blood got one (fortunately as it later turned out), we flew/tp'd/ran back out of the reactor building, ran back in, and Carol was able to grab a second one. We went into the Core area, found that the mob waves had not started yet, and waited for them to begin.
Hinder had a pet Warwolf. Poor puppy kept getting killed. :-(
The first few waves went very well. The reactor has something like 9,700 hit points, so following advice from the Forums, we didn't even try to keep the mobs from agroing on it, I stood guard on it, bubbling it over and over again, bubbling everyone else, letting them do the fighting, and keeping one eye on the Core's hit points. Several waves of mobs came and were eliminated, and I only had to use the belt twice, waiting until its hit points were under 7,500, as it had been reported that the belts had a hefty healing shot.
We were handling each wave as it came, cleaning them up in time for everyone to pause, heal, and run for more shields between times.
Then Carol got one-shotted. :-(
From then on, Carol died maybe 3, maybe 4 times, I lost count. Everyone else seemed to be doing fine, although at one point I got seriously worried (as I lay on the ground) that we were in big trouble as I watched team members change color. I'd wait as long as I could, and try to resurrect, and mostly was successful, at least Carol was never killed during the recovery stage. But in the final wave, it seemed that I no sooner got shielded again and got back to the reactor Core that I was one-shotted again.
I still kept my eyes on the reactor core hp, and when I realized that I *couldn't* get up, because a mob was standing on top of me, I started yelling to Blood to heal the reactor when it started losing hit points rapidly.
Right when I was about ready to type "we aren't going to make it".....a window popped up in front of me that said Congratulations, you saved the reactor!
We had done it. :-)
Thanks to Hinder for her great help, and for being willing to drop everything and join us, exemplared, and for the additional information she gave us.
Thanks to MM for coming along and being willing to change from Windy to MM and exemplar down when Windy leveled at the last minute.
Thanks to Stray for acting as Leader (she had done the Trial successfully the night before, so she was the logical choice). And for keeping us in stitches by screaming at the top of her lungs......after all the mobs were already dead. Stray, I officially present you with the Fay Wray Falsetto Award! (Fay Wray Stray..... hmmm......)
Thanks to Blood for not only doing his usual tanking duties, but also putting up with me hollering at him to heal the core while I lay dead on the ground. :-)
And my final comment on the Terra Volta Sky Raider Trial.....I am beginning to think that the person with the belt SHOULD be a tank or a scrapper, because after lying dead, helplessly watching the reactor hit points drop like a rock, I'm now convinced that the person with the belts needs to be the one least likely to get killed. Just my personal take on the matter. It doesn't do you ANY good to even have a belt, if you are lying on the ground and can't get up to use it because you'll just get swatted down again before you could. (Carol had 13,369 debt when this finished, and that was AFTER getting rid of a lot of debt during the final battles.)
Kimi, now that we've done it once successfully, I'd be more than willing to try it again, so that you can get your respect. Since Wind Sheer leveled, and Carol is now close to it, we could form a lvl 27 team now. Just let me know.
Fantastic job, as always, Starfire! EGADA! HUBRIS! GREAT SMASH TOT HAT!
This was the very first all-Starfire Task Force, and the team performed superbly, bringing the Clockwork King and his court to their collective metal knees with amazing style and panache, succeeding in finishing this task in a little over six hours, and without any deaths in the hero party. Perfect job, team! May all of Starfire's future missions enjoy the same level of success! Egada, everyone! Great smash tot hat!
Blackened Beef, Stray, Blood Nut, Linuial, and Zoshnel
Blackened Beef, Stray, Blood Nut, Linuial, and Zoshnel again
Updated February 1, 2006
