A few notes for a Tuesday evening.

September 21, 2004

One million downloads in one hundred hours–that’s how many people have downloaded Mozilla Firefox since last Tuesday. That’s pretty amazing. Give it a shot yourself.

Well this past weekend went just about as planned. I played a good deal of City of Heroes and had a lot of fun. Had a bit of trouble a few times, but hey, when you’re a superhero out patrolling the mean streets of Paragon City, you can’t expect to come out of scrapes without a few…er…scrapes. That game’s a lot of fun. It practially screams for teamwork, and it’s funny to read some of the discussion boards of the game on the Internet and listen to people bitch about how they can’t solo (play by themselves) at moderate to high level. Gee, that’s a shame that you’re forced to play with other people. Some of the high level powers that my character archtype has requires other types of players in order to successfully player. For instance, my character who wields control of ice has a skill that I began using this weekend that rains down ice onto a large area and damages opponents. Not that’s not a problem since most groups of bad guys in the game tend to congregate in groups and I can hit all of thm at once, but the problem is that the power makes them run when you use it. Not run away, but in different directions to get out from under the ice storm. Not a great method for crowd control since they all split up and THEN start attacking you. The solution? Have another player use a power that immobolizes them all. That way, not only are they prevented from moving around for easier disposal, but they stay under the ice storm and have even more damage done to them.

Bottom line, you have to team up in order to successfully play the game. I don’t see a problem with that. One of my chief complaints about Star Wars Galaxies was that so few people ever wanted to team up anymore. I greatly enjoyed going on long missions with a dozen or more people, and hunting creatures in the backwoods of some remote planet with a large group was always fun. In City of Heroes, finding the right group isn’t hard, and most everyone wants one. Some player types are so aggressively sought after that they’re ALWAYS running missions. I think if I create another character I might do one of those kinds–called Defenders–whose primary job is to heal and play a support position. I know that so very few people who read this really care, but hey, it makes me feel good to write about it!

Go see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. That’s about all I can say. I’ve talked about it with so many people since I saw it Saturday morning I’ve just about talked it out, but I’ll say this: I haven’t had that much fun at a movie in a long time. I had a huge grin on my face through the entire movie, and when I think about it I still can’t shake that feeling. I felt like watching Raiders of the Lost Ark in some ways, that feeling of the pulp serial. You know what I’m talking about: the rogueish hero, the plucky woman, ray guns, one hit knockout punches, flying robots, villainous madmen bent on world destruction, those sorts of things. Great stuff. It comes highly recommended from me.

I have more to write about, mostly about work, but I don’t feel like writing about that right now. I’m kinda tired for now, so I’ll have to check in later.

Posted in Geekery, General