Eire Unlimited!

On second thought, don’t pardon our dust!  We’re wicked criminals who don’t have to apologize for anything!

• The Grinning Ghoul is in the process of redecorating Infamy Central, as you’ll quickly notice the next time you visit.  I’ve rearranged the rooms so as to make better use of our real estate — they’re a more efficient arrangement now.  We can add one more 2×2 room to our plot (a medical lab, probably), and any expansion beyond that will require an upgrade to the next size plot.  Since the next size plot costs about 3,000,000 prestige, we won’t be taking that step for a while.  But no worries — I think we’ll be comfortable in our present 8×8 home for a long time.
• We’re running short on Control!  Our new telepad has taxed our mainframe to its limit.  If we want to add a second telepad, we’ll first have to improve our computing power.  A Holodisplay would be just the ticket: cost 97,000 prestige plus a bunch of salvage which we already have.  For that reason I recommend the Holodisplay as our next base purchase.
• Finally, a bug observation.  While redecorating, I occasionally encountered a glitch wherein I’d enter the base, and get stuck inside the base portal in our entrance room.  It doesn’t seem to happen anymore, but if it should happen to you, here’s what you want to do: type /stuck at the command prompt.  That’ll automatically pop you a few feet away, and you’ll be fine.

On Saturday, Infamy Unlimited scored its most significant victory yet with its completion of the Virgil Tarikoss Strike Force.  Five of the organization’s most notorious villains (Hellpyre, Zola, Omega Inferno, Jimmy Holden, and the Grinning Ghoul) proved their superiority over all opposition, leaving scores of bruised, slashed, and charred foes in their wake as they accomplished their goal.

The entire storyline is recounted in Infamy Unlimited issues #36-41 (watch for the trade paperback in August!), but a synopsis follows:

Centuries ago, the powerful demon Bat’Zul was imprisoned in the caves underneath Mt. Diable in the Rogue Isles.  Flash ahead to the 21st century, when the mad scientist Dr. Aeon has discovered a way to harness the demon’s thermal energy to generate cheap, unlimited power for Cap au Diable.  When Bat’Zul seems in danger of escaping his prison, the archmage Virgil Tarikoss calls Infamy Unlimited for help.  The Grinning Ghoul and his picked associates fight their way through Longbow soldiers, Legacy Chain warriors, and mages from the Circle of Thorns, to at last confront Bat’Zul himself in the demon’s cavernous lair.  Not only do the villains vanquish and re-imprison Bat’Zul, they also administer a humiliating defeat to the demonic superhero Infernal.

As far as our performance in the SF, we pretty much ruled from beginning to end.  Despite a few rough patches, and at least one team wipe that I remember, our villains complemented each other well, and each teammate pulled their weight with ease.  We had one member from each archetype on board, giving us a lot of flexibility.   

Before the SF began, I had voiced some concern that maybe five villains wouldn’t be enough (remembering how badly Infernal had kicked around our 4-man team in a previous attempt).  But my worries were totally baseless: we chewed our way through the SF and the two arch-foes at the end.  Zola did the heavy punching; Hellpyre and Omega Inferno kept their teammates healthy and their enemies burning and choking; little Jimmy Holden put numbers on our side with his endless ninja warriors; and the Ghoul stabbed people and laughed a lot like he does best.

The conclusion of the Bat’Zul story dovetailed with another enhancement to Infamy Central: a teleporter room.  Our base now has a telepad which connects to Cap au Diable and (as of today) Port Oakes, allowing transport from the lair to these two zones at the click of a mouse.

Please note that telepad “hot spots” are notoriously tough to find — you’ve gotta turn the camera to the side and poke the mouse pointer behind the control pad a bit.  Eventually you’ll find the spot that lets you activate the telepad.  It’s awkward until you get used to it, but it’s a game interface glitch!  This isn’t the Grinning Ghoul’s fault!  Remember that!

Visitors to this site have surely noticed our “About” page, on which I make a more than half-hearted attempt (let’s call it a three-quarters-hearted attempt) to maintain a current list of our membership.  Now I’ve created another page, our “Roster” page, which will be the new home for our member list.

What I’d like to do with the Roster page, rather than just listing a bunch of names, is to have a brief write-up for each of our members, and perhaps even include a picture as well.  I think that’d be spiffy.  Therefore, I’m taking submissions for bios and pics that you all would like to see featured on the Roster page.

Because we have so many villains, I’m imagining maybe a paragraph for each character at first — a few sentences discussing what the villain does, how they got that way, their role in Infamy Unlimited operations, that sort of thing.  In time, if we turn out to be prolific enough, I could break this up into multiple pages.

For now, if you’ve got something you’d like to see on this site for your character, just send it to me (at Vermic@aol.com) and I’ll start adding to the page.  We’ve got cool villains in the house, now let’s show ‘em off!

There are some things which I never do.  I don’t tug on Ghost Widow’s cape.  I don’t spit into the wind generated by Sea Witch when she activates her weather powers.  I don’t pull the mask off that ol’ Lord Recluse, and I don’t mess around with the “looking for team” switch.  God knows I get enough random blind team invites already without leaving myself open to more.  I’d be just as likely to e-mail the Viagra dealers to ask for more spam.

Even so, I’m not a machine.  There are times when I’m bored between story arcs, or feeling unusually social, and a blind invite will show up and I’ll accept it.  I judge invites by the character name (because what else is there to go on?), and if it’s a cool-sounding name, I might guess that the player is also cool and accept.  We non-l33ters gots to stick together, you know.

(NOTE: The names of the characters below have been changed, not to protect the innocent, but because I don’t remember what they actually were.)

So last week I’m on Victory soloing my hero, Blockhead.  I’m in the Hollows, which is Blind Invite Central for a number of reasons, and I’m swatting them away like the buzzy little gnats they are.  Including one from a “LordDeathKillar” — you can call me a snob, but guys like that maybe deserve to go it alone.

A couple minutes after turning him down, I get an invite from a “Lightning Gal”.  Well, okay, I think, my shriveled heart tenderizing a bit.  Here’s someone who maybe has a real character concept.  Possibly a sensible player, looking for another sensible player in this morass of dummies.  What the heck.  So I accept.

But of course, I find myself on a team with the usual mix of pick-up group idiots.  And one of them is LordDeathKillar.  Oops!  The first thing spoken on the team is profanity directed at me.

“$#@&?*,” says LordDeathKillar.  “u turn me down, but youll team if lg asks?”  As an afterthought, “what am i not sexy enuff for u or something block”  None of the other six teammates bother to say anything, let alone welcome me to the team.

All the altrusim drains right out of me.  The last thing I feel like doing is justifying my selection process to LordDeathKillar.  And I don’t waste time with groups that greet me with cussin’.  I quit the team without a word, 30 seconds in.

Now my rule is: turn down all blind invites, period.  Period.

Now that Jimmy Holden has made it to 18th level, it’s time to knock out that level 15-20 task force mission that some folks tried a few weeks back. Who’s up for that, and what kind of time commitment are we talking about? I can make any time between Friday night through Sunday afternoon with enough warning.