| Who's
the Hero of City of Heroes?
SANTA! SANTA!
City
of Heroes has been many things to many people. The first
Massively Multiplayer Online Game to get things right, the
ultimate superhero-geek fantasy come true, a good way to spend
an hour fighting evil, and yet another of the endless ways
to make friends online. Not all of this happens for everyone,
but you’re always getting something.
Well, this Christmas, some players got even
more:
I’d
re-posted a lonely elf’s plea in an
article last week. It had been rolling around forums
on two CoH sites I check in on, but I’d seen no physical
evidence it was more than a wacky new Supergroup (a game
term for long-lasting teams). Of course, that changed when
a friend pointed me to an interesting sight on the Guardian
server (where we Planeteers spend most of our time): Santa
Claus and some elves were dispensing justice.
Talk
started up immediately, and it wasn’t long before
Santa was regularly seen handing out “presents”
to the players frequenting the Atlas Park zone. If you looked
carefully enough, sure as you’re born, you’d
see little elves running around shouting “Merry Christmas!”
and giggling their way through the gift-giving.
“We
do it all week,” said Snow-Elf (player names used).
“Santa runs around the game spreading joy. People
come up to him and he gives them gifts.” She then
raised her hands in the air, shouted “Merry Christmas!”
and tore off after the computerized Kris Kringle, who was
running down the street after some Skull gang members.
“I
think he’s a GM or Dev his macros went so fast”
said Crimsanotic when other players questioned the nature
of the jolly old elf. Chatting lit up with back and forth
arguments that anyone could do macros (pre-programmed chat/attack/powerup/emote
commands) and that GMs (Game Masters; experienced gamers
who monitor the game for fair play. "Dev" refers
to the game developers who are known to pop on every now
and then) only played on specially designed characters.
“But
he never said he was a GM” replied Crimsanotic. “Only
one GM uses the police drone body,” said one of the
many Riddick ripoff characters.
No real conclusions were reached, but Santa
did have a conspicuous amount of money to toss around and
rumors were flying about him giving out level-ups, new powers,
capes, respecifications (allowing players to reselect powers),
and the fabled Hamidon enhancements (the rarest items in
the game, known for applying multiple enhancements to powers).
Santa
and his helpers seemed quick to defuse such hopes when asked,
though. “I’m sorry, dear, but that wouldn’t
be fair to the other children,” chided Mrs. Claus.
“Wouldn’t
you rather play those levels, son?” Santa said when
a level 7 character asked to be made into a 14. The low
level character replied with a reluctant yes, and Santa
gave him a present and sent him on his way.
When I asked what he got, Next Nexus told
me “50,000 influence. Not bad. I only had 2,000. ;)”.
Other heroes came away with enhancements and cheerful cries
of “TY SANTA!!!” before running off to fight
crime once again.
However,
some heroes weren’t quite so heroic. City of Heroes
has a reputation for being friendlier than many games with
player vs. player action, but Atlas Park, the zone where Santa
would tell children “form a line! We have many presents
to give!” is notorious for chat trolls (people looking
to pick a verbal fight) and players who spam the area with
powers that slow down the server and peoples’ computers
when used en masse.
“We had three people using Group Heal,”
said Elftastic. “My computer screen goes green with
healing power, freezes, comes back. Fine for a few seconds.
They do it again! They teleport their friends into line
too!”
Apparently,
Santa had enough of this by Christmas Eve (the day of his
big giveaway) and left Atlas Park when a few “naughty
children” slowed things down too much for any presents
to be given.
“I’m
sorry children,” he said, “but it looks like
Soulsteal is trying to ruin Christmas!” This prompted
numerous shouts at the character running enough powers and
effects to make a tornado chaser nauseous. Unfortunately,
the shouts weren’t enough and Santa announced a game
of Hide and Seek before flying off into the night.
Some
were furious, but others remained there while the elves
kept distributing presents to the seemingly endless line.
“They
just won’t go away! They keep asking for Santa!”
said Icey-Elf.
However,
an hour or so later, Santa re-emerged at the often ignored
(because it’s always empty) Paragon Dance Party; a
“secret” zone set up by the Devs that simulates
a warehouse rave.
JollyLittleElf and some of Guardian’s
Taxibots (players who make a hobby of teleporting other
players around the game) ferried people to the secret entrances
(which wouldn’t be secret, if the Devs got a clue).
Festivities kicked off once again when Santa re-appeared
at the newly formed line, telling us all what good children
we were. “Now…” he said, “EVERYBODY
DANCE!!!”
He then flew his massive girth down to the
dance floor and started raising the roof! Some people stayed
in line, too confused to move, but others quickly followed
ol’ Father Christmas down to the floor and started
dancing around him in a big circle. Powers and effects were
going off everywhere, and I’m sure some computers
were crashing (I know I was having a helluva time trying
to take screenshots and get quotes).
“Where will the line be formed?”
Fiery Eclipse shouted through the madness.
“What line?” replied ViralDeath,
“This is a dance party!”
“Santa’s on FIRE!” screamed
out Phi. And it turned out the fat man literally WAS on
fire as flame effects surrounded him.
“Wow like the whole world just stopped,
man” said The Unwilling.
A character named “Unemployed”
justified it all, saying “Santa is tired of all the
naughty cutters and is just gonna rock out.”
The dancing went on for a while, then players
were ushered to a ramp where the presents started flowing
again. Even more assistants showed up by then, including
a familiar-looking robot who told us all “Robo-Clause
is Santa’s robotic computerized creation and is one
of his assistants along with his elves”. The line
resumed and processed heroes without a hitch.
“One woman came up to us and said
‘Santa? Could you wave to my little girl? She’s
watching the screen. She’s 2.’” said Mrs.
Claus. “Santa started waving and cheering. The woman
told us ‘She just said Claw Claw!’ It was sooooooo
cute.”
Before I got too tired and had to log off,
I checked and, sure enough, the line was just as long as
it had been when they started. “I’ve been here
like 9 hours.” whimpered JollyLittleElf.
“I’d like everyone to know I
cried a few times,” said Snow-Elf. “This was
so wonderful… It was really great.”
As if that weren’t enough, the next
night greeted me with an announcement that Santa and crew
were giving out their last present in a costume contest.
There’d been a 5 million influence point (roughly
equivalent to dollars in the world of the game) contest
the week before, so Santa’s 2 million influence prize
certainly wasn’t the largest in recent memory, but
he attracted another massive crowd that ringed three sides
of the main plaza.
He and the elves darted around, scoping
out costumes people had put together. Chris Mas Snow, one
of the taller elves, came up to me and dumped some influence
points my way before running off to the next contestant.
More people came to join the contest, but Santa chose finalists
and dragged them out of sight.
Next time I came back to Atlas Park, costume
contests were happening in rapid succession and people were
shouting “Merry Christmas!” every few minutes.
I haven’t seen Santa since Christmas night, but elves
are still bouncing around the city, so maybe he’ll
come back sometime. All I can say for sure is that was one
of my favorite gifts this year.
And I got a Gameboy Advance!
Happy
Holidays, all.
Earlier
City of Heroes coverage:
The
Fifth Column vs. The Council
Interview
with The Statesman, Jack Emmert
Review
of the game
|
