Halloween 2015

Paragon Reborn

I had a lot of fun tonight logging into a game I'd never thought I'd log into again... Well, that's not entirely true. After City of Heroes got shutdown, not even 2 years after I first started playing the game, we had Icon soon enough. Icon, for those unfamiliar, was a way to get into the character creator and enter the game as a stand alone. Not really into the game, just the world, really.

Paragon City using Icon is a lonely place. Sure, eventually the NPCs where brought back, which was a nice touch, but no game play, no one to role play with, or just chat. But I still used it, to create characters for my tabletop games, and some times just for the ambient noise when I have trouble sleeping. The release of Paragon Chat has changed that. No, we still can't do missions, but we can chat and role play and run a costume contest for the fun of it every now and again.

The shutdown was hard on a lot of folks. It was hard on me because I was just starting, after a year and a half as a subscriber, starting to really learn the game... and break out of my shell. I'm generally a shy person, so spent most of my time in CoH soloing. The few team situations I found myself in early on didn't work out well. And then I found Virtue...

Virtue was known as the role player's server, and I've been doing table top role playing since the early days of AD&D. It was great, I started teaming more, but then, before I got myself truly immersed into the RP community a dark cloud rolled over the city of Paragon. NCSoft announced we had 3 months to live.

With that announcement came a variety of responses. Some played more, some couldn't bare to log in, we had in game rallies, we had the last surviving developer at Paragon Studios spawning tentacles in Atlas Park. Atlas Park 33 was born, and save for a few times it crashed said Dev relaunched it for us every time.

Tentacles in Atlas Park

And I became obsessed with getting my main character to 50. Not only am I a role player, but I'm was an Altaholic as well. In just under 2 years I had generated some 200 or so characters. For me to go an entire 3 months logging in as just one character was ... well, impossible. But for 3 months Willowbright was on probably 75-90% of the time I was in game. The final week she finally broke the big 50, on a DFB of all things. I didn't even get to play any of the level 50 content, I'd hit my goal, it was time to play some of the alts I'd been neglecting.

So, tonight Willowbright was reborn, as Willow Wind. (Never did like the name Willowbright... it was just the first acceptable Willow name that I found.) Also seeing the light of day for the first time was the City of Heroes version of Timelord Tom. It was a lot of fun, chatting and listening to Leo and his crew of misfits as they were livestreaming on Youtube.

How many of my old characters will I recreate? I don't know. I didn't save all my character costumes. Wish I had. Probably a few of the ones I can remember, but then I'll probably be making new ones, too.

Saved costumes and a bit of Demo editing magic...

One thing I do want to do is a weekly Paragon Radio Gallifrey broadcast, as Timelord Tom of course. It will probably only be a couple of hours a week, as I have a pretty full schedule of real life things during much of the week, and I already do a 3 hours show Monday nights in Utherverse. I'm thinking Tuesday nights from 8pm until 10pm EST. Either that, or Saturdays in the afternoon, though weekends can cause chaos that would prevent me from doing so every now and again. Anyone else have any plans to do scheduled events?

Anyways.. it's past midnight here, and I work in the morning.

See you in Paragon City... next time we're logged into Paragon Chat at the same time. Be sure to say hi.

Wormholes and Singularities

Last week one of my older sisters (I have several) posted on Facebook about a game just about everyone has played at sometime in their lifetime, in one form or another. The original game dates back to who knows when and was developed in India. It was called Snakes and Ladders, most commonly known now as Chutes and Ladders... because obviously Snakes are just too scary for today's parents.

Reminded of this game, I decided to toss on old Snakes and Ladders board up at my Temporal Museum (Red Light Center/Utherverse - basically adults only social setting virtual world, with far too much "Adult" - aka Porn - advertising for my taste, but much easier that dealing with Second Life). Problem is, unknown to me, on of my friends in that world already had a Snakes and Ladders game up at their Rec Center.

So, I came up with a solution, a version of the game with a Science Fiction twist. While I can't believe no one else has done this, if it's out there I haven't come across it... I present to you: Wormholes and Singularities:



Rules are the same as regular old Snakes and Ladders, or Chutes and Ladders if you prefer. You start off the board, entering square # 1 using one 6 sided die to move. Instead of sliding down the snakes/chutes, you get sucked thru a black hole. Rather than climbing ladders, you shoot through wormholes.

If anyone knows of this style of board already being produced, please let me know. I'd love to see it.

Old Time Radio Broadcast

One of the wonderful things about old radio shows is that they are as enjoyable to listen to today as they were when they first broadcast. Thanks to fans of the shows recording them we have several prime examples of what our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents spent their evenings listening to in a time before television.

With that said, Paragon Radio Gallifrey is proud to announce we will be broadcasting a few select radio shows every Saturday, at 7:30 PM Easter Time in the USA. We hope you tune in and enjoy some of the best audio entertainment that Dark Fantasy, Dimension X, Mystery In The Air, and The Inner Sanctum had to offer.

Song Writers Hall Of Fame Class of 2014

Ray Davies and Donovan have been voted into the Songwriter Hall of Fame class of 2014. Madonna, John Mellencamp, Sade, Nile Rodgers and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and Robert Plant failed to make the cut. Sorry, but you guys don't even touch these two when it comes to quality song writing.

Ray Davies

But what's up with the focus on Ray's early songs in the article I spotted this news in? No mention of "Lola"? "Low Budget"? "Destroyer"?

Donovan

Interesting enough, both Davies and Donovan both wrote a song mentioning Superman in the title. Davies with "(I Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman", and Donovan with "Sunshine Superman". The contrast is that while Davies wishes he could be like Superman, Donovan proclaimed that Superman or Green Lantern had nothing on him.

Certainly you know these gentlemen

Finishing off the five entries are "Midnight Train to Georgia" writer Jim Weatherly, English songwriter Graham Gouldman, and Mark James, who wrote"Always on My Mind".

Congratulations one and all.

Merry Christmas