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Double XP Weekend Tally: City of Heroes, City of Villains

Better than I would have imagined. For those of you who have no idea about what I'm referring to, it's one of the bonuses that Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, better known as MMORPGs, use to reward subscribers for paying a monthly fee to play their offering. Experience, otherwise known in this case as XP, is what you earn to "level up" your character from Level One, where they begin the game, on up to 40, or 50 or 80 or even higher top levels. Double XP simply means you receive double the usual credit for completing missions, task forces, battles, etc.

Some games, like World of Warcraft, offer a more or less constant way to earn double XP. In WoW, it builds up to a certain amount depending on how long you remain offline. Once you begin to play again, you get double credit for a limited period of time. In CoX, the usual abbreviation for the City of Heroes (CoH) and City of Villains (CoV) when you are referring to matters common to both games, it's a far more rare weekend event that draws huge numbers of players, usually beginning some time Friday morning and not ending until sometime late Sunday night.

Some servers, like Freedom and Virtue, get so busy that they are full and cannot allow anyone else online.

So, my tally for the weekend was better than I could have possibly imagined. Hard to say which was the best part of it:

Indigo Ronin, dual blades - regeneration scrapper, Level 47 to Level 50 (done, second level 50 scrapper. My eighth level 50 toon); Arakhn, arachnos soldier - bane spider, Level 14 to Level 24 (getting her to level 24 unlocks the Bane Spider set of powers, which are AWESOME); Floating Dragon (remake with a better secondary power pool for endurance draining Martial Arts than endurance draining Dark Armor. This version of Floating Dragon is martial arts - willpower, and she moved from Level 1 to Level 10; Radical Art, rad emissions defender, Level 21 to Level 22; Nyx of Chaos, electric melee - willpower brute, Level 41 to Level 42.

More fun times to come. Bye for now.

Knowing When Your Luck Has Finally Changed...

...when the little boy who used to be my step brother and is now my adopted son walked into my home office yesterday looking worldly wise.

"Mommy you have been working really hard lately," he says, with Roy, my fiancee and longtime companion lurking just outside the door. "Daddy and I think you ought to go to this hotel and spend the night and enjoy double xp weekend on City of Heroes."

It's the one MMORPG (online computer game) I still try to find time to play, having cut out two others since the adoption, after Mom died last Spring. I had assumed there would be little or no time at all for one of the few weekends when NCSoft gives you twice as much game credit than normal for playing.  Part of the parenthood 'No Such Time Anymore' category. No biggie. Then Roy and Julian do this.

Arriving at the Loews Beach Hotel mid afternoon Saturday. Ocean view rooms sold out, but who cares? It's the game screen view I get to have fun with. Setting up the oh so unportable Acer Aspire Gemstone Blue gaming notebook and the Zalman Notebook Cooler. Determining the rough approximation of ergonomic correctness in a room horribly designed for computing. Two cushions on the chair. Removing the heavy glass sheet covering the desk so that the laser mouse can 'see' the wood grain finish. Bathroom towels to protect my forearms and elbows.

Playing. Having fun. Finding my friends online. Getting cute little phone calls from Roy and Julian on the hour, every hour. Ordering an insanely huge cheeseburger and french fries and two Cokes (so decadent) for dinner. Later. Apple Pie a la mode and a pot of decaf coffee.

One bad scary movie movie I didn't need to finish since they had telegraphed the ending in the first five minutes of the movie (Quarantine). More gaming.

Sleeping until 8:30 a.m. Getting a late checkout time at 1 p.m. to coincide with the 2 p.m. end of the birthday party Roy took Julian to. Insanely huge room service breakfast. Starting the last mission in the game at 12:45 p.m. Yes, we can do this in 15 minutes. Mission over at 1:03 p.m. Checking out. Finding the room has already been paid for. Wowzers.

Finding the most beautiful day outside. The weather having finally turned. No more hot Santa Ana winds blowing the pollution out to the beach in overly warm dry air. Moist cool Marine Layer breeze blowing east off the Ocean. Temperature around 60 degrees. Crystal clear air. Deciding to walk home from Venice, despite more than 20 pounds of computer gear, the wrong kind of shoes, and a knapsack filled with stuff for the overnight.

Walking home in the best of moods, working off the cheeseburger and all of the rest of it. Getting home before anyone else. Starting to bake cookies, because one excellent surprise deserves another.

A perfect day, and there's still so much of it left to enjoy, too.

Lucky gal am I.

Computer Networks Vulnerability Alert

If you haven't yet heard about the Win32 files Conficker/Downadup Worm, it's time to catch up. Your computer network might already have it. Please note: this is widely believed to be only the first step of a multistage attack, the second phase of which has not yet begun on the millions of infected computers.

From Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Emergency Response Team:

CURRENT ACTIVITY / US-CERT is aware of public reports indicating a widespread infection of the Win32/Conficker/Downadup worm. This worm exploits a previously patched vulnerability addressed in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-067. This worm attempts to propagate via multiple methods including removable media.

US-CERT strongly encourages users to review Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-067 and update unpatched systems as soon as possible.

Additionally, US-CERT recommends that users take the following preventative measures to help mitigate the security risks:

• Install antivirus software, and keep the virus signatures up to date.
• Review the Microsoft Malware Protection Center web log for more details regarding the worm.
• Review the 'Using Caution With USB Drives Cyber Security Tip for more information on protecting removable media.

Aliases:

• WORM_DOWNAD.AD
• W32/Conficker.worm
• Worm:Win32/Conficker.gen!A
• Worm:W32/Downadup
• Net-Worm.Win32.Kido

MS08-067, 10/23/08:

Executive Summary

This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in the Server service. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an affected system received a specially crafted RPC request. On Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 systems, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability without authentication to run arbitrary code. It is possible that this vulnerability could be used in the crafting of a wormable exploit. Firewall best practices and standard default firewall configurations can help protect network resources from attacks that originate outside the enterprise perimeter.

This security update is rated Critical for all supported editions of Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and rated Important for all supported editions of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. For more information, see the subsection, Affected and Non-Affected Software, in this section.

The security update addresses the vulnerability by correcting the way that the Server service handles RPC requests. For more information about the vulnerability, see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) subsection for the specific vulnerability entry under the next section, Vulnerability Information.

Recommendation. Microsoft recommends that customers apply the update immediately.

From SOPHOS:

Ensure Windows is fully updated to fix the MS08-067 vulnerability that the Conficker family of worms uses to spread.

Ensure that all removable storage devices are scanned after being connected to a computer infected with the Conficker family of worms.

Ensure HIPS and buffer overflow prevention are both turned on and that "alert only" mode is turned off.

Ensure the on-access scanner is turned on and that "on write" scanning is enabled.

If W32/Confick-E is detected on the computer, clean up this item first and then immediately run another full scan. Cleaning up W32/Confick-E removes the worm from memory and allows Sophos Anti-Virus to scan files that may have been locked by the virus while it was running.

If a full scan reports unscannable files and W32/Confick-E is not found in memory, ensure the on-access scanner is enabled and the virus data is up to date, reboot the computer and immediately perform another full scan. This causes the on-access scanner to prevent the Conficker worm from loading as a service and should unlock those files so they can be scanned.

After cleaning up an active infection of the Conficker worm, a reboot may be required.

And lastly, this...

You will know that your computer is already infected if it is having difficulty accessing any sites with the following strings in their domain address. In effect, it will try to block access to most known anti-malware sites, such as those with the domain extensions cert., sans., bit9., vet., avg., avp., ca., nai., windowsupdate, wilderssecurity, threatexpert, castlecops, spamhaus, cpsecure, arcabit, emsisoft, sunbelt, securecomputing, rising, prevx, pctools, norman, k7computing, ikarus, hauri, hacksoft, gdata, fortinet, ewido, clamav, comodo, quickheal, avira, avast, esafe, ahnlab, centralcommand, drweb, grisoft, eset, nod32, f-prot, jotti, kaspersky, f-secure, computerassociates, networkassociates, etrust, panda, sophos, trendmicro, mcafee, norton, symantec and others.

Reading List...For the Rest of the Decade

Can't believe how busy work has been, especially since the only parallels left to draw on how bad things are now for the economy is the Great Depression. So I am distinctly grateful to be Working and humbled by having a Job. 

Sadly, companies are quite jittery about their product roll-outs in times such as these, so rather than just sending in their new products to reviewers who will analyze their new gadget in public, they are turning to people like me for more private auditions. Just means I can't talk about anything I'm trying out and testing right now.

Aside from my work, I also keep seeing hopeful signs that perhaps things are not as bad as we have been led to believe.

The Beach hotels booked solid for the MLK Jr. long weekend: With Julian off at his grandparents, we had hoped for a mini vacation at one for a couple of nights. No rooms available, which means that not everyone out there is broke and suffering.

Traffic jams, every weekday morning: If we're all out of work, where the hell are we all going?

Post holiday lines out of the front door at the local Game Spot: people already trading in all of the console games they got over the holidays for new things to play: Someone bought those games, and now they are being used to buy more.

But make no mistake, it's awful out there and probably getting worse before it improves. I just hope the new guy in Washington can come up with some solutions.

In the meantime, a great shift in my Reading List approaches. Anyone who knows me understands that when I find a book I really like, I buy everything that author has ever written before I'm done with the first book. Most recent examples: Richard K. Morgan, author of such geekishly wicked sci-fi delights as Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, Woken Furies, and Thirteen.

William Gibson: (just the last two in the long line of EVERYTHING he has written) Pattern Recognition, and Spook Country.

Current ending cycle (I'm on the last book): Gregory Maguire: (the only three I've read so far) Wicked, the second in the trilogy, called Son of a Witch, and the third, A Lion Among Men. Think the Wizard of Oz, but rated M for Mature Audiences.

Next up (and the reason why it might be the last of the decade) is Neal Stephenson, author of one of my all time top five cyberpunk novels: Snow Crash.

He might help me finish out the decade since he seems to have supplanted Stephen King as the writer of novels that could probably be 300 to 400 pages shorter than they are.

Catching up with Neal Stephenson will require me finishing (and all in wonderful bound hardcover dumbbell-like weights), Cryptonomicon (910 pages), Quicksilver-Volume I of the Baroque Cycle (916 pages), The Confusion-Volume II (815 pages), The System of the World-Volume III, 892 pages, and Anathem, (935 pages). Instead of going to the gym some nights, I could just do leg lifts and bicep curls with them.

When I can, I'm doing the badge grind thing on City of Heroes with my Archery - Fire Manipulation Blaster, Artemis the Archer, (She's up to 352 game badges from the 213 she had when I started to care a few months back. She only has about 250+ to go, which is frankly kind of ridiculous. She's currently working on all of the Invention badges) and leveling up what is easily my favorite villain ever, Nyx of Chaos, a level 41 Electric Melee - Willpower Brute. Aside from her signature powers, Lightning Rod (superior damage) and Thunder Strike (high damage) she doesn't leave you as deep in the hurt locker  as some other brutes, but nothing does it with more style and flash.

Lightning Rod teleports you into the middle of a mob, for example, where you suddenly reappear to the flash and sound of thunder and lightning, with the mob you just hit flying in all directions and suffering from three kinds of hurt. So awesome.

And Willpower, IMHO, is the ultimate defense for any melee toon. Last night, three of us were taking on Scrapyard, the Giant Monster on Sharkhead Isle. For several minutes, I was required to stand there and hold him solo while one friend switched toons and another backed off to wait for his return. Scrapyard was unable to hurt me. I could have stood there indefinitely. Most times, he missed because of her accuracy debuffs. When he did connect, for 600 to 700 points damage, she had regenerated her health before he managed to hit her again. Fun times.

This weekend is the year's first double game experience for City of Heroes and City of Villains. I figure to have less time than ever for this, given parental responsibilities and partner responsibilities, but I hope to play Nyx a lot, especially now that she has another great way to do damage: Mu Lightning (high damage).

Bye for now.