Destruction Of Beauty

Over the weekend we had an break from league futbol/soccer due to the World Cup Qualifiers. The three teams that I like seeing do well all won their matches, Argentina with a 3-0 victory over Uruguay, the USA with a 2-1 win away against Aintigua and Barbuda, and Wales with a 2-1 win in an all Celt match against Scotland (shouldn't there be a rule about the Celt Nations facing each other in Tournament Qualifiers? Just asking...)

I saw a bit of the USA's match, it wasn't televised here (at least not on any of the channels I have access to,) but did find an internet feed that was showing it. Not much to tell, really, the footage looked on a par with some High School sports events I've seen. I tried getting a feed showing the Argentina match, but every time I found one it got shut down with in a few minutes... so I went and signed into City Of Heroes...

Problem was, for whatever reasons, I just couldn't really get into playing this weekend. Maybe the fact that NCSoft has no intentions of saving/selling/putting the game in maintenance mode is starting to sink in. Maybe it was just that I need a break from the game for a bit. I have been playing way more than I normally did before they announced the game's impending shut down. Even then I was taking the occasional vacation from playing now and again.

Still, I did end up playing a bit here and there, and took my "main toon" (character I've played the most,) Willowbright, and went to a zone I'd never visited called Founders' Falls. A while back someone, and forgive me for not remembering who, made the case that City Of Heroes was a 3D piece of art, a world of beauty that is going to be taken from us by NCSoft on November 30th, 2012. I think this zone is a prime example of this, and I ended up spending a good deal of time just playing tourist and snapping screenshots. Rather than ramble on, I'll let those shots speak for themselves:

OK, this isn't Founders' Falls, it's Atlas Park. I had reset my graphics to the highest settings while in FF, and then went to Atlas and just couldn't resist taking this shot.

With water this clear, how could I resist taking a bit of a swim?

Sailboats were everywhere on the river. Nice weather for it, too. If the game gets saved, might I suggest to whoever takes over development that our toons should be able to have sailboats as river travel powers? Please, oh pretty please?

I got so wrapped up in taking this shot I ended up getting ambushed by some bad guys...

Another boat... this time a speed boat... about those river based travel powers, can we have these, too? (I know... first we have to get someone to agree to save the game.)

Racing a sailboat... guess who won.