/e HoldTorch for one of our own: Ascendant

[Megajoule]

Just found out.
I'm crying.
God damnit.


EDIT:  Here's something he wrote.  I've no better words.

Season of Hope

[AltaholicX]

Speaking from personal experience, it is -very very disturbingly- easy to do this kind of thing, even without an addiction as a motivation. It's even possible to do this without realizing you are doing it.

I have no words for this. A terrible, terrible loss.

Being jaundiced would very likely impair your judgment too. Does make you wonder why they released him from the emergency room without contacting his family or friends. Such a tragedy. I still can't believe it.

[Taceus Jiwede]

I just have to reply again.  Like I sad before I didn't have the pleasure of meeting him.  And after reading these posts.  I truly mean the pleasure of meeting him.  He sounds like a kind, caring, fantastic person.  The kind of person who is there for any and all alike.  Reading VV's post about  how he was there for her after the passing of her mother was beautiful.  It takes a very special, great person to do that.  And the world needs more people like it.  He sounds like a true and honest Hero both in game and in real life.

I am not a religious man, but I hope there is something greater out there for great men like him.

[Kyuuen]

This is like a sledgehammer to the chest, just like the one I saw when I read the first words of the COH closure on Facebook.

I've always looked up to Ascendant, and wanted to be a positive asset to the roleplaying community like he did. He was a big inspiration and motivation to stick with the game, and as far as I remember - he was right there from Issue 1, to the very last day - which he spent with his SG mates on the Liberty League*. Dedication, talent, personability.

On the very last day, I gushed to him on a tell (I just.. wonder how many of those he got..) - telling him that I wouldn't be surprised if he was actually a professional writer.

His response was short and sweet: He was just in it to have fun.

It was an honor and a pleasure to interact with him, and there are lots of lessons to be learned from Tre, and the embodiment of his qualities who fought, walked and talked with us for eight years.

I'm sure that Ascendant and Belle are laughing over some Namor's submarine sandwiches, somewhere in Paragon City.

*http://kyuuen.deviantart.com/art/Ascendant-Final-Raid-351227150

EDIT: Also, "Saul Rubenstien's Discount Task Force" was another shining example of his creative muscle. I'm glad I got to run it with him towards the end of the game.

Second EDIT: If you haven't already, give his Virtueverse entry a read.

http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Ascendant

[Attache]

I've played MMO's for awhile now and before City of Heroes, my experiences with players who had a degree of fame in their game of choice was either negative or extremely underwhelming. In a way, CoH was even more disappointing in that regard as a number of player characters seemed to get this attention for no other reason than they could afford to have copious amounts of artwork produced of said character. I got into art collecting myself at one point and was chatted up here and there by people who'd seen and liked a piece but I always felt like it was a really silly way to be known, even more so considering I was both a pretty mediocre player and role-player.

When I first stated hearing about Ascendant, I have to admit that I made some of these assumptions about him. Eventually, though, I got to read his phone call scripts and saw that he had a true gift for comedy. I encountered him a few times in game and while I unfortunately don't recall anything particularly astounding in those interactions, it was clear that he was just a guy trying to make our little corner of the MMO marketplace a little brighter. I have nothing but profound respect for that.

I can say now that having read his last status update on his Facebook page and having heard so many wonderful stories about the guy, I wish I had gotten to know him. There were so many things I never got to do in City of Heroes and getting to know Tre is unfortunately one of them. To those of you who knew him best, I can't express how profoundly sorry I am. If we do all end up together somewhere in a MMO someday, I know that I'll do my utmost to honor his memory by being a nicer guy. As much as I want to see a statue or a memorial to Ascendant in a game someday, it is Tre's legacy that we'd all do well to emulate.

[Arachnion]

One of the links on his virtueverse page gave a 404, so I put it in the Wayback Machine.

http://wayback.archive.org/web/20100325170922/http://www.halfwaydecent.com/html/main.isx?sitesec=40.0.0.0

[Kyuuen]

One of the links on his virtueverse page gave a 404, so I put it in the Wayback Machine.

http://wayback.archive.org/web/20100325170922/http://www.halfwaydecent.com/html/main.isx?sitesec=40.0.0.0

Awww yeah! I was looking for this!!

[Megajoule]

Nice.

(For those not up on their video game history, the fun little flash game in that link is a homage to (among other things) Superman for the Atari 2600.  One more example of how Tre, in addition to being funny and creative and kind and so on, really knew his superhero lore.)

EDIT:  From his Twitter account, I learned that he'd gotten into Kerbal Space Program, as I have.  I wish I'd known sooner.  I will soon (finally) be mounting my first mission to the Mars-like planet in that game.  Tre Kerman has been selected to command that mission, and will, in my own history, be the first Kerbal on Duna.

[dwturducken]

That's epic!

[firelightx]

Registered just for this.  Judging by the timestamp of this photo, it was taken July 15th, 2007.  About 9 PM my time, which was eastern at the time.  Yay for screenshot timestamp systems...  I still remember the moment well.  Don't much remember what the occasion is that brought the Chalet open in July, but... there you have it.

Cygnata sent me a tell, insisting that I join her and others in the Chalet, right away.  Don't remember much what I was doing, but she Cygnata didn't get this excited for just anything.  So I go to check it out.  Ghost Widow.  Hanging out in team with us, posing for pictures, chatting it up.  And she wasn't the only big name there.  It was the first time I think I ever really hung out with Ascendant.  Sure... saw him around.  We ran in similar crowds, so there was a lot of passing hellos.  I was always too star struck to really let it be more than that, though.  Until this night.  Really got to see what a genuine person he was.  I remember thinking "how can this guy hold the image he does in this game and still be so... so personal?"

It was the first and last real conversation I ever had with him.  With a few of the people in this picture, honestly.  I should have made an effort to befriend these people.  Now, for him... I'll never get that chance.  And that... well, it sucks.

/e holdtorch indeed.  You will be missed, Ascendant.  People like you are what made CoH not just great... but truly unique.

[Kyuuen]

I decided to.. get something drawn. I changed a previous commission into something special - so if anyone is reading this right now and wants to take a gander.

Basically a live drawing of Ascendant and my OC eating lunch.

http://www.livestream.com/funarisart

I'll post the result on myDevart.

EDIT: The livestream has closed, but it might be back at about Midnight - 1AM PST. A recording of the current progress has been saved, just skip to about 15 minutes in.

[cygnata]

That night was one of my favorite memories, too. I got to call Tre in character to tell him Ghost Widow wanted to see him in game. He later said he saved that voicemail as a momento.

[UruzSix]

I was looking for photos from the Golden Age Festival, and I re-discovered this instead from November 30th:



I'd like to remember we even exchanged a bit of witty hero-widow banter.

(And don't ask me how badly I teared up going through the screenshots.)

[cygnata]

Who's planning to go? I have the funds secured to get there, but I need a place to stay for a couple nights, and a ride to the service. It costs the same to go down Tuesday night as it does Wednesday, so I was looking at a late Tuesday flight down, and a late Thursday back. I have just enough to cover the ticket and my bills, but even a fleabag motel's out of the question.

[therain93]

So, after consulting with my fellow writers, and pending approval of his parents, Ascendant will be written into the Secret World Chronicles superhero series from Baen starting with Book 4, as a steady character in the bar called Normality, and we will be using his one-sided conversations with Saul verbatim as comic relief.  We are also dedicating the book to him, so as long as those books are in print, Ascendant will be making people laugh.

It's not much, but it's what I can do.

Perhaps I'm reading this far more defensively than I should but....
 
As generous as that seems, that really doesn't come across....quite right.  Fresh from the emotional loss of friend/community member and you're talking about co-opting his creativity and original ideas for your next book? When asking for permission, I hope you suggested throwing some proceeds back to the family too or donating a percentage of proceeds to a charity in Tre's name?

[cygnata]

You're reading too much into things.

[JWBullfrog]

Ascendant's exploits inspired me to try my hand at a bit of in game performance. Without him, my wise cracking street magician/ juggling gypsy, might not have existed.
 
Godspeed Tre.
 
/em holdtorch.

[Victoria Victrix]

Perhaps I'm reading this far more defensively than I should but....
 
As generous as that seems, that really doesn't come across....quite right.  Fresh from the emotional loss of friend/community member and you're talking about co-opting his creativity and original ideas for your next book? When asking for permission, I hope you suggested throwing some proceeds back to the family too or donating a percentage of proceeds to a charity in Tre's name?

First, the point is for people to be able to see how creative he was.  Eventually his posts will be lost as people lose interest in a dead game and sites go down.  And we can reach a much wider audience than VirtueVerse ever could. 

Second, I already have to fight tooth and nail with my editors over every word over 150k that we write.  I may have to cut someone's else's plot in order to fit this in.  We're not lacking in creativity and original ideas; we have more of that than we can fit into the books as it is.

Third, you are greatly overestimating what we get for those books.  It's a common misconception that authors get hundreds of thousands of dollars for books.  It's a fraction of that, and the editor gave us a BIG pass by buying them at all since it's outside my genre (so we took a BIG cut in what I could get for a solo book).  Using Tre's script would net the family exactly $49.20.  That's at the same pay rate as the rest of us.  I get just the same as all my writers, with no extra for the hours and hours of editing.  Five cents a word.

[dwturducken]

So, since emotions are high and nerves are on edge, now would be a great time to pipe up and say that I did a little tribute performance in Champions Online, this evening? 

[Joshex]

So, since emotions are high and nerves are on edge, now would be a great time to pipe up and say that I did a little tribute performance in Champions Online, this evening? 

I was online but didn't see it, was trying to get a friend to play it, they have uninstalled it out of furiousness with the auto swivel camera. they told (demanded) me to uninstall it as well. meh I was only Lv 16 anyways I gave up on it long before CoH closed.