Hi everyone! I'm me! Just thought I'd clear that up in case there was any confusion about who I am, or about who is me. I'm all about clarity.
Earlier today I got a private message from... someone... thanking me for my work on... something. Half of you probably know what I'm talking about, and why I don't want to delve any deeper into the subject, but it's still one of those things that I do and I do it because I love this community. So instead of talking about that, what do you all say I talk about me!
I joined the Titan Network back in... wait a sec, no I didn't. I was actually a Paragon Wiki contributor and content manager. My first edit was "Mk II Zenith Warcry is clearly a Lieutenant, not a Boss". Ah, those days. I forged the
Spruce Hammer, a tool dedicated to comprehensive integrity and fact-checking. I also created another hammer, one whose destructive power had no name. That was the tool used to tear down missing, incomplete or incorrect information. It was thankfully rarely used. Over the years I've been involved in wiki projects with the other content managers, and even up until before the doomsday announcement, we were... *ahem*... "hammering" out how to redo the Enhancement articles. There were plans that got cut short before coming to fruition.
I also openly admit that I've done a lot of work reverse-engineering the game client for the sake of information discovery. The "piggs", as they're known, contain all of the database records for in-game items and powers, and I had developed a crude display website not unlike
City of Data. That was back when RedTomax was the star of the show and, again, Paragon Wiki was not part of the Titan Network. I later learned that I was once approached by quote-unquote "Paul L. Orts" of Staff Melee video fame about the hacking details. From here, it goes without saying that my hacking activities led to the development of Titan Sentinel (prized for its ability to export Mids builds from the game), and I've written some sophisticated utilities for City Info Tracker data exports and even
an automated Power Set article generator. One thing that's never been made known to the public is that I made some (if I do say so myself) pretty slick software for use back-end by Titan staff. I made a fully-featured development API that interfaces Java programs with the contents of the piggs (in particular those aforementioned databases), and a superior archive manager called The Trough (which, after all, is what pigs view). It was a playground for me, and Titan was able to do a lot of stuff with what I churned out!
Before anyone asks or gives me credit for it, City of Data is driven by utilities that Codewalker developed. That particular one wasn't me.
In-game, I ran the ropes just like everyone else, but quickly grew bored of "Deafeat Council. Now defeat more Council. Carnies? No? Okay, how about Council?" Never do Carnies. Never do Arachnos. Never do ANYTHING that could potentially wind up in one of those rectum-shaped caves. NEVER! I was so happy when I could drop newspaper missions and grab different ones that were in sewers or office buildings or anything other than those blasted rectum-shaped caves. Uh... yeah, I got bored of that. So I started making oddball characters that were either totally atypical or had pointlessly specific goals. To the best of my knowledge, I made the only combat-effective petless Mastermind to ever grace the game servers. Well, to be fair, DeProgarmmer made one, but it was Traps and it--especially Force Field Generator--brushed uncomfortably close to the pet barrier. But mine, oh yeah, it would solo Elite Bosses. Even that jackhole Sefu Tendaji. Turns out when you put four damage procs in Brawl and crank up the recharge, it really tears up the joint. I wasn't looking forward to Issue 24 reworking how procs activate. But man, it was great while it lasted. Though it wasn't until I repurposed an old level 50 Arachnos Soldier (if you have one level 50 Soldier, you have them all) to produce
The Toxicand that I really experienced true fun in the game.
Man I loved Toxic damage. I
was particularly looking forward to Issue 24's
Spider's Bite Enhancement set.
My account was created in May of 2006, shortly after my birthday (May 6, by the way. Happy Hindenburg day!). My first character, my first 50, was still around in the final moments. Since Codewalker found a way to teleport into old zones, I took my first character back to Outbreak, took off his cape, and saluted Officer Flint until the end of the world occurred. I figured Flint was the very first CoH I ever saw, and it would be the very last CoH as well. Turns out the day/night cycle doesn't apply to that zone. The sun's always up; there is never a sunset in the land of new beginnings (and I don't mean New Bark Town). I was introduced to the game by my brother, who since stopped playing. He was married and had two daughters, though that didn't work out and he hasn't been making much of himself alone as of late. I only knew the girls as infants. I expect they were taught that their father was a deadbeat of a man and they have an uncle who never cared about them, but it's just a guess. Either way, my brother's first 50 was around before either of my nieces were--a memento of a time before life began--and it was still there on the servers when they went down. He did briefly get to play with it earlier this year, so he experienced that Incarnate thing all the kids were talking about. Heh, he'd spend so much time back when I started, staring at the Power Set pages in the instruction manual and constantly thinking up potential new characters. I'm sure some of you can relate. (-:
I hadn't been playing CoH a whole lot for a couple months before the shutdown announcement, and proceeded to not play it a whole lot right up until the end! So the impact, for me, was thankfully somewhat minimal. But I do remember certain months in 2009, alternating between the hotel and the public library, where I had City of Heroes even though I didn't live anywhere. It was there for me when I needed it, and I would have been devastated if it had been taken away. So my thoughts are with those for whom the impact was
not minimal, as I know even now it can be difficult to adjust to having the game taken away from you.
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Since the shutdown, in addition to my freelancing (software development, if you had to ask), I've been looking into something that I've been wanting to do for a while now. I've always been a big proponent of technological preservation, and in fact Extra Credits
recently did an episode on that subject. There's one video game system in particular that hasn't received the attention I think it needs to get, and largely because it's the... shall I say... red-and-black sheep of the flock. The software available for it was generally lacking, it was inconvenient to use (especially with all the headaches it caused), and its producer has been known to
actively censor its existence in North America. I am of course talking about the Nintendo Virtual Boy. All of Nintendo's other systems, and the games made for them, have been well-preserved through emulation like a fly trapped in amber, but it looks like
Nintendo intends to let the VB get lost to obscurity. And while emulators for Virtual Boy
do exist, for playing the games at least, there is something in particular I want to do...
Everyone has a hero, I suppose. In this specific regard, the guy's name is Martin Korth, known for the NO$GMB Game Boy emulator in the mid 1990s and for cracking the encryption on the Nintendo DS. The guy's website is
here, on which you can find downloads of his emulators if you care. But more importantly, it's where you can find some very, very,
very good documentation on the systems he wrote emulators for. I'm serious, these are absolutely mind-blowing. Check 'em out:
NES,
Game Boy,
SNES,
GBA/DS. He hasn't worked with GameCube or Wii, but those are also well-understood by other sources. I want to make a document like those for Virtual Boy. And then I want to make an emulator for the system, and hopefully even a version of it that runs on the 3DS.
In fact, I've got a pretty good start on a document. But it has plenty of holes: information on the system is rather lacking, largely because nobody cares about it. After all, my document isn't finished yet. If it was, this would be so much easier! In order to really sink my teeth in, I'm going to need a way to run my own code on a real Virtual Boy system. So the past few weeks have been spent acquiring the various hardware bits from people on eBay. I had one once, but it was lost to a fire, and I wanted to knock it out of the way while I still had a chance, so eBay is what it was. All of the parts and games I had have been assembled, and I even made a Batman-shaped screwdriver to take out those blasted security screws so I could repair the faulty display connectors. All is ready to go; I just need a way to get code on the system now. And I found that in the form of a guy who, for a price, will manufacture USB-capable flash cartridges to anyone who pays him. And while I do have the hundred bucks to drop on it, I'm still a bit sore from the hardware purchases, and freelancing doesn't have the luxury of a weekly paycheck.
So hey, as long as I'm thinking about it... While I won't outright ask for money, I'd still like to mention that I bet I'd really appreciate if anyone wanted to assist with the purchase. (-:
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And there you have it: Guy Perfect in a comfortably ergonomic nutshell! I will now be taking questions in the form of praise and admiration. Autographs will be filled out by my secretary.
...
(And the dry humor is limitless; I'm not
actually an egomaniac)
