MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32659678/ns ... ?gt1=43001]Japan's next first lady says she rode spaceship

Trouble is, it's "psychic space travel"... but her husband's about to become Premier of Japan, so how would the (stereo)typical Fen treat her?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

I am not posting this as a schadenfreude thing.
Really. I'm not. I wanted Champions Online to do well.
But holy heck, this is...this is...
See the general Champions Online forums. Notice how it's full of angry threads bitching about a patch, demanding it be rolled back - or, alternatively, full of threads grumbling about how other threads are being modded or locked.
The longest existing thread is here, by the way - 146 pages after two days.
So what's going on? Well, Cryptic put in a global nerf to passive powers, unannounced, without proper patch notes, on launch day (Tuesday, Sept. 1st).
From what I gather - I'm not familiar with the Champions combat engine, so this is just my ballpark understanding...the nerf went in because defensive passives were too powerful, making some builds all but invulnerable to enemy damage.
The player complaint, though, is that by nerfing all passive powers (including, apparently, offensive/support ones), it's a nuclear bomb of a nerf that whacks pretty much everyone. (EDIT: it seems passive powers are the main means of self-defense in Champions. So the whole game's much harder for everyone, and where some players were apparently taking on three-to-five enemies at a time, they now can die one-on-one. Stuff like that.)
Some folks are saying their characters are literally unplayable now. Which may well be true, since from what I can gather, no free respecs were given out.
So let's recap, right - Cryptic didn't give any warning this change was coming. The changes weren't properly documented. The main result of the nerf is that players are much less powerful (which, to a CoH player, has shades of purple patch and ED thinking right there). Players weren't given respecs.
And this was on launch day.
Why's that a problem? Well, the game officially launched on Tuesday, yeah. But many folks have been already playing since Open Beta and pre-order headstart. Mind, I can sorta sympathise with a company nerfing their game after launch, given, y'know, with increased player numbers comes increased datamining, but...
Nerf on launch day has gotta be some kinda new record, especially since it punishes the people who preordered the game and have already been playing for a few days. Indeed it's kinda worse, since many folks are claiming they're of sufficient level, after the headstart weekend, to have basically borked their own characters under the new patch, but not of high enough level to afford respecs.
Annnyway, so now Cryptic's saying there will be a test server in the future, and all patches will go on there before they hit live.
Uh...yeaaaaah...what the hell, Cryptic? Seriously? What the hell?
I want to cry, because they're the people developing Star Trek Online, and I want to play that game. =P
Oh well...

EDIT: Apparently CO's respec function was broken throughout headstart. It now works with the post-launch patches, but you still need to pay for each power choice you rollback. Ain't free, and very expensive to completely rebuild a character.
-- Acyl

...and it was basically my own stupid fault. I wrote a joke memo satirizing in another memo, and sent it to a friend. It got sent around and offended
someone. And I got canned. (And the friend got canned, too.)

So here I am, half numb, half sure I'm about to collapse in tears.

I have some ideas what to do next, but... dear god. It would have been 19 years on Friday.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Does anyone know the latest word on Hallstrom's resurrection of this story? Last thing I heard was a month or so ago, and the forum where his message
about it was posted is now closed to outsiders.

Thanks!
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Powers, fading... Fresh air and sunshine... Draining my Cathode Rays... Curse you, Captain Planet! Cuuurse yooouuu...
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

For a while now, I've been trying to come up with an appropriately fennish way of cracking a problem that has had Gina depressed: the ability for an AI to
reproduce, should they so choose. I know, it's an odd-ball problem, but the Fen are odd-ball people.

It was recently that I found an old email, one about Ben and AC hashing out details over Talons and such (can't believe I forgot about that one!) and
seeing Gina, AC, and Greenwood's interactions got the train of thought rolling and it eventually meandered its way to a hidden crevice in my brain.

How the hell could I have forgotten about Armitage: The Third?

With this bit of precedence, I think that its possible. I'm pretty sure the Handwavium would go for it and besides, would it not be kick-ass to have Naomi
Armitage running around?

As you guys may know, my main character in DSKS dabbles a bit in runes. Trouble is that I've gone blank on the name of a particular mineral that comprises
one of my favorite sets of rune stones. The material is similar to marble, and has deep blue and black elements shot with a pure white element in a manner
that evokes lightning in a night-time storm. If anyone could help me or at least point me in the right direction, I'd apreciate it. I've already
googled for mineral sites, but they all go by the name of the mineral, which is what I don't have.

Is anyone else playing this at the moment?

I have to admit, this is one of the most unique fighters I've played in some time. Most fighters say you have to "learn the characters" before
you can excel with them, but BlazBlue really means it, given multiple characters play entirely differently. There's the typical brawlers with the
occasional projectile, people that bounce around the screen like pinballs, ranged specialists, and even those that use the environment itself to set up massive
traps. The gameplay variations alone(knowing your own character and what to watch out for with any of the others) are incredibly diverse. (At present, my
primary seems to be Noel)

And, well, then there's the Story mode, which is in a league of its own already.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

...which probably means buying a copy of the http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=UPCH-1713]CD, my Japanese-content search-fu being rather weak.

Ghibli Meets Bossa Nova: music from various Studio Ghibli movies (including music from Ponyo, Nausicaa, Laputa, and Spirited Away) covered with a bossa nova beat.

(BTW, CDJapan is having a sale at the moment... but not on that CD.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

For someone was looking for it:
Save this as *name you want*.costume in notepad under the "costume folders" in your installation of CoH. That is, poke around until you find where your costumes are, etc etc.