Long walk for a short cake

[cyrano]

For those of you who don't know, I'm playing City of Heroes. It's a super hero online game, and they give you badges for doing things--I got a badge for reaching tenth level, I got a badge for patrolling the city a set number of hours, and I'm fairly certain there's a badge for flossing.

So earlier tonight one of my heroes (Chains of Love) is sneaking through a warehouse with some crates that explode if you punch them too much, and I got this peach of an idea. Punch a crate until it's on the verge of exploding. Go find a bad guy and slap him in the back of the head. Then run away, leading him back to the crate, which I blow up from a distance.

This was an awesome and clever plan, and it worked like a charm. Except for the part where CoL tripped over the crate, or got distracted by some bubble wrap, or stopped to text somebody, or something, I don't exactly know what. All I know is that suddenly she was getting the crap kicked out of her and I couldn't see what was going on or get myself oriented. And so I went to attack the bad guy, forgetting that the targeting system was locked onto the crate. Which was apparently sitting right next to me, because I went ass over teakettle and sprawled on the warehouse floor in the resulting explosion.

At which point, the game informed me that I'd won a new badge! I managed to blow myself into qualification for the Tough badge, which you get for taking a hundred thousand points of damage.

Comments

[amanda_lodden.livejournal.com]

Heh Just wait; there's one for paying off the debt you get from repeatedly blowing yourself up. Actually, there's six, and six damage badges, and ...

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

And badges for collecting a certain number of badges!

[senatorhatty.livejournal.com]

Fucking love this icon!

I haven't cancelled my CoH account yet!! I just don't have time to play.

But there appear to be an infinite number of delightful badges.

[senatorhatty.livejournal.com]

it occurs to me that badges are the CoH equivalent of the stickers they give kids in school.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Pretty much, yeah. Combined with Pokemon for the ob/comp "Gotta Catch Em All" kids.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to make certain that I don't play too much in response to frustration from not getting other stuff done.

[senatorhatty.livejournal.com]

Amusing that you should say that, because back when I started playing CoH, I basically stated that the attraction of the game was that you had specific tasks that you needed to complete, and that you were regularly rewarded in ways that were actually meaningful within the context of the game. So it was basically fulfilling the need that a hard day's work used to meet.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm definitely seeing that. Plus, just the base 'I am accomplishing something tangible' factor. And the fact that I can make one bad guy punch another bad guy and then throw them both up into the air. Ha! Comedy gold!

[tersa.livejournal.com]

LOL. That's fantastic. :)

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I laughed a lot. I wasn't certain if I could translate the humor. (:

[tnalpgge.livejournal.com]

I haven't found the flossing badge yet. Though my defender has her Caregiver badge, for spending time in hospitals. Presumably that's where they keep the dentists.

My favorite badge name so far is Poor Impulse Control.