I Survived Orlando MegaCon 2018: And What a Shindig It Was

I've been a bit busy being outraged by the sins of the week, but I do need to note previous weekend trip to Orlando's Orange County Convention Center to cause chaos and anarchy among the mobs of cosplayers and vendors!

As always, I go on the Saturday because that's when the costume contests are going on, meaning a lot of cosplayers and costumes to witness. It also means it's the busiest day of the weekend, so expect a lot of long lines...

Like this one, just to get inside the West Concourse itself.

LONG LINE...

I am, in my own way, cosplaying here. This is my GEEK costume from my college days of yore when I went to UF and haunted all the comic book stores between 1988 and 1992 (yeah, that old).

Once you get your ticket checked in and you receive the daily wristband, then you get into ANOTHER line to wait to get into the vendor floor and artist alley that opens an hour later.

 And then, the mad rush inside!!!

 Oh, great, been here less than ten minutes and already Deathstroke's angry at me.

 Documenting the atrocities. Say hello to a 10 dollar burrito.

 Death is here to enjoy the long walks, the stressful waiting, the hurried running from event to event...

And more walking, and more walking...

WE NEED MORE BENCHES IN THE AISLES.

The "Harlem Shake" song started playing nearby so I asked the Jurassic Park cosplayers to keep dancing...

 It's the DC Writers panel! Unfortunately, none of them were hiring (oh, cmon, guys, I can write a great Brother Power miniseries...)

The main hallways of costumers gathered to cosplay their hearts out. I did not get a chance to go down to the lower level where all the Deadpools had herded. Another time, Wade!!!

Say hello to a friend: Laura, from my gaming days playing the MMO City of Heroes! She's not the one making silly faces to the selfie camera...

And now, the reason why I decided a few weeks ago to attend MegaCon this year: our one, our only, the best wrench wench in the 'Verse all the way from some place in Canada: JEWEL STAITE (I apologize, how DO you pronounce the name...?)

 Mal: I don't believe there's a power in the 'Verse can stop Kaylee from being cheerful.

With brief YouTube clip: alas, we were seated away from the room's speakers so we only got to hear her straight from the stage.

Ms. Staite spent much of the chat sharing stories about starring in Firefly, and Stargate Atlantis, and a couple of other shows. She was sweet and charming and a pure delight.

As she was one of the last major stars of the evening, it was 7:30 or so when she finished - oy, long day - and so Laura and I did our best to go find a place along International Drive to eat... took us a half hour to walk to the parking lot (the shuttles would have been stuck in traffic) and then WE got stuck in traffic and didn't get to a decent place to nosh - Bahama Breeze, incredibly good Caribbean food - until 9 PM. Spent the time sharing the photos each of us took during our 'con experience - she had been there to get celeb photos with Ms. Staite and a certain Jeff Goldblum - and talking about gaming since City of Heroes shut down a few years back.

All in all, a fun day. Just remember, MegaCon, WE NEED MORE REST STOPS oy my feets ow ow ow ow ow...

Cinco De Mayo: More Than One Remembrance

Today is Cinco De Mayo, kiddos!

But something else of note: today is a Tuesday, and if City of Heroes was still up and running this day would be a Tanker Tuesday.

Some background (taken from a fanpage I created ages ago on a now-defunct website):

Tankers are one of five original Archetypes for the City of Heroes MMO character designs. There's meant to be a role played by each AT, and a way of balancing these ATs out. Blasters are long-range damage dealers with little or no armor. Scrappers are close-quarters damage dealers with some armor to compensate for being in melee range. Defenders are healers and protectors with some attacks but not as powerful as Blasters. Controllers are literally crowd controllers, with some damage abilities but really their forte is Holding mobs at bay for others to wipe out. Tankers are armored front-line attackers that are shielded from head to toe, but with limited attacks.

There's not supposed to be one AT that is better than the others, but the Tankers kinda bend if not break that unwritten rule. Tankers can survive fights almost entirely on their own, if properly designed. Only Scrappers can match that, and even Scrappers don't get the higher Hit Point counts Tankers get that allow them to survive longer in battle. Certain Tankers (Fire, cough) have offensive capabilities that can rival a Blaster or Scrapper. A good Tanker can overcome the disadvantages of not having as many attack options as a Blaster or Scrapper. And an expert at playing Tankers can perform a game trick known as 'Herding', the ability to draw or 'aggro' a series of mobs together across an entire map if need be in order to kill enough of the mobs all at once. And to be perfectly honest, when confronting a high-level villain class known as Arch-Villain (AV), you NEED a Tanker there to get the job done because that Tanker is the only one with enough Hit Points and with the needed aggro control to survive the fight.

As a character build, Tankers became popular enough that entire teams were built around the Archetype.  On Champion server, the Tankers even formed an event on the first Tuesday of the month.

One month, Tanker Tuesday fell on Cinco De Mayo.  One of the main organizers, online name of The Ring, decided to throw a Cinco-themed Tanker event:

On the day of Del Dia Tanque itself, there was another large crowd of Tankers waiting at the designated spot in Kings Row. We grouped, we gathered, we danced, we waited for Ring to show up and start this gig. Ring did show, bringing along a special guest, Gen. Zaragoza himself! Sure, he was Level 1 and all, but the General had arrived to start the celebrations off with the proper style. We praised the General and then got the lineups going...

 We ran the Hess Task Force, with the ever-awesome MegaMech!

Ah, one of the best Tanker Tuesdays we ever had.

I miss City of Heroes.  I am not the only one.  The other hero-themed MMOs - DCU Online, Champions Online - just don't play well.  I guess I got spoiled on CoH.  Kinda waiting on a variety of potential replacement hero build MMOs - City of Titans is one, Valiance another - but it's shocking how there's few superhero MMOs in an age of a massive comic-book media wave of television shows and movie blockbusters.

Oh, and as for Cinco de Mayo, don't forget this:

I Miss Shardtober and City of Heroes

Anybody else here from Champion Server?  Remember when I would host Shardtober task force runs every October weekend?

Sigh.

I miss playing hero.

Dear NCSoft: I hope your stock sinks to pennies on the dollar so we gamers can buy it up and bring City of Heroes back.

cross-posting with my other blog