Choose My Adventure: Taking a right at Paragon City

It was the flying Scrapper on Virtue with a mask!

The masses have spoken. For this leg of our Choose My Adventure journey, we will be parking ourselves in Paragon City, fighting the forces of evil, destruction, and movement keys! I must concede that Bree certainly knew her City of Heroes community -- ya'll voted just how she said you would. But Bree, you didn't predict the mask, now did ya?! Ha!

It recently came to my attention that I could have easily queried you on the spandex issue, but come on -- what superhero doesn't have to shimmy into that painted-on suit? We want the full experience, right? Right. So let's get to it. All we have left to do to get this show off the road and into some action is whip up a character.

But this is me we are talking about here! Thankfully, I am marching into this process armed with your decisions! I mean, how bad can it be? We have three days between close of the last vote and a new set of new ones, so it isn't like there isn't time. Here goes...

Travel journal, Paragon City

Day one

Checked the vote. Considered asking Bree to give me lotto numbers. Everything is looking good; I will so be ready to go when the polls close!

Day two, 9 a.m.

Alrighty, votes are in and I am ready to go! I've got myself a drink, I've done the requisite stretches, and I'm totally settled in. Time to fire up City of Heroes and leap in! Select a server? Check -- Virtue it is. Wooo, this is going to be a breeze! By going off of reader votes, I should be done in no time. Next up, origin of powers...

Day two, 2 p.m.

Still staring at origin of powers.

Sadly, I really missed the boat on getting the readers to choose the origin of my powers, so I am left on my own. It is only five choices -- science mutation, magic, technology, and natural. I can do this. In order to keep the choice from growing into a 10-hour ordeal, I'll do what any superhero-to-be would do. I'm going to close my eyes and try to make the ultimate choice: X-men or Batman? OK, that didn't work, hmmm... there must be a coin somewhere around here. There we go! Mutant it is.

WHEW! I did it. Smoother sailing from here on out as I... wait... playstyle? Are you serious? I didn't even know this would be here. Someone needs to please tell Paragon Studios to revamp the CoH website to reflect what the heck is going on! So much for my initial research.

OK, breathe. Let's see, after just a bit of poking around I can see which playstyle matches the archetype of Scrapper that was chosen (though I am looking at that Arachnos Widow and thinking I may need to slip in some alt playtime!). Another choice down. Next up, power sets.

Day two, 10 p.m.

Wow, seriously? I could have filled two full CMAs with the choices so far and I haven't even gotten through the first half yet! So many powers, but this was to be expected. OK, I can do this. See, I have narrowed the powers down to martial arts, fiery melee (I am pretty partial to fire), or claws. It was a tough choice, but I left katana off. Yup, I have narrowed it down. Mm hm. Oh, where are all you readers when I need you?

A ha! Solution! I shall just dial up a friend and enigmatically ask him to pick. Within moments, we have a winner! Flaming death shall be my companion. *maniacal laugh* So now on to... wait, now choose the power in the power set? Thank heavens there are only two choices currently available. Eenie, meenie, miney, mo. Go go scorch!

At least I am finally moving forward. Oh joy, that was only primary power set.

Day three, 2 a.m

You know, maybe calling it secondary is insulting to those poor powers! Perhaps we should instead call them "primary-challenged" powers. OK, totally need to choose now. I can hear my pillow's siren song behind me. I think it is actually creeping closer. Thank the powers-that-be each of these choices has only one power attribute with it, so there is one fewer choice I have to make. Wait, what do I see here? Regeneration is a choice? Hmm, that's almost like healing. Awesome! Healing it is! Looky that, I can make a choice on my own...

*attacked by rabid pillow and loses consciousness at keyboard*

Day three, 6 a.m.

Next up we have body proportions. Finally, a choice that isn't too terribly hard since there are only three body types: male, female, and huge. And then four prototypes (slim, average, athletic, heavy). Oh, and then a few sliders for more personalization. Praises be! The seven sliders add just a little more of personal touch, but you can't do anything too extreme; I wont be finding totally disproportional monstrosities once I finally get in-game. And I will get in-game. This week, I swear! I can actually finish this up easy; less than an hour, really.

Day three, 8:00 a.m.

Now on to the costumes! Yup, pick a costume. Let's just take a look at the choices. Oh costume selection, you are my arch-nemesis, and I haven't even logged into the game yet! Mask. Need a mask. At least that choice is a given, so let's take a look at masks. Crying while in a fetal position won't really help now, will it?

For as much customization as there is for costuming, the faces all look less than desirable. Zooming in makes everything a bit fuzzy. Ah well, I still have the mask going for me, right? And there are a number of faces to choose from, even monster faces. I might not have too hard a time of this. But wait, there is a "scales" button here! Oh dear, now I have the chance to adjust the width, height, and depth of a number of facial choices. Luckily the sliders are small, so there is just enough room to tweak the face a bit without trapping me for hours on end.

Day three, 8:00 p.m.

Scrolling through all the costumes. Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Chest, legs, belts, face... so many choices. And the color palette. Eyes swimming, looky all those pretty colors!

Oh, here's a really nice feature! You can save your costume while still in the process of making it. Very handy for those who may have to *ahem* spend multiple sessions creating. Or for power outages, that's what I meant. In case there is a power outage.

Time to call in the big guns. Hm, daughter nixed the animated cat tail. But progress, definitely progress. This ought to do it...

Er, customize power animations?! *faints*

Day four, 2:00 a.m.

Sleep is for the weak. But I did it! We did it! Character creation is almost complete. And there was much rejoicing! All those colors picked, some bright, some dark, some original animations. Perhaps the next Choose my Adventure character creation should be a two-hour special livestream where viewers can pick everything. Or maybe I should just check out a random number generator. At least now, I can finally log in game.

Oh no, time for a name...

Day four, 9:00 a.m.

Nice touch: a personalized battle cry when I press F10. I can do that. Too bad "Spooooon!" is taken. And a place to add a personalized description. Hehehe. Back to names.

What do you mean it's time for another vote already? HUH? Oh for the love of...

OK, OK. It must be done. Finding something on the most populated RP server is not exactly an easy task, you know. But time has run out. I must choose, and there can be only one. MassivelyToy? Nah. Massively Minion? Possibly. TheGirlFormerlyKnownAsMJ? InsertNameHere? Er...

Here goes! It's now or never. Do it. Doooo eeeet! Introducing...

Red Hairring!

Now, where do we go from here? That's for you all to decide! And don't forget to tune in to MassivelyTV on Friday at 9:00 p.m. EDT to see some of those first steps for yourself! Pointing and laughing is allowed, but joining me is actually encouraged. Hope to see you there! And don't forget to vote by 11:59 p.m EDT Saturday, May 5th, for your chance to skew the results in your favor!%Poll-74974%

Strap yourself in for the ride of (six weeks of) your life! Where are you going? Well, that's entirely up to you, the Massively readers, to decide -- the where, the what, and the how are all directed by you. The who is MJ Guthrie! For the duration of Choose My Adventure, her virtual life is in your hands! Join MJ in-game and on-site to be a part of the adventure and watch the story unfold.