Roster Updated July 26, 2008; Dark Insanity
Just in case you were wondering, I finally got around to updating the roster since double XP weekend (last weekend). And apparently quite a few people got some levels (I myself hit 50 on Doctor Insanity last weekend!), and apparently everyone earned a nice hunk of prestige for the Justice Strike Force. Also Wraith now has two characters in the top five prestige earned list, Government Official and his new 50 Randal Fiendslayer, which is ridiculous for him only having been back in the SG for a few months. What the heck, everyone. As for what we'll actually be doing with all the prestige we currently have banked... well, probably not much at all right now. We have our base's current plot size completely maxed out, so that no more rooms can be placed. Then the next plot size up is oddly shaped, so that I wouldn't be able to easily or sensibly add in anything that would "flow" with the base's current layout and kind of airship-like theme. So what can we do? Well, I'd suggest just saving our hard-earned prestige until we have enough for a real upgrade. Something like the plot size after next, and then throwing in a few more rooms all at once. Like crew quarters or a lounge or something, along with maybe a larger conference room or more storage. Anyway, the roster's updated, and now you're updated on our current prestige-base happenings. And, as always, if you got any suggestions, comments, or questions on either of the topics I mentioned today, or anything at all, feel free to tell 'em to me in-game, via an email, or on the forums.

	News RSS Feed July 19, 2008; Dark Insanity
So I set up an RSS feed for the Justice Strike Force's news, where it shows the latest ten news articles and links to them on the news page here. You can sign up for it here, or view it, or whatever your particular browser does. For those of you who don't know what an RSS feed is, or have never used one, it is basically a bookmark folder that changes based on whatever feed it's attached to. In this case, it changes to be the ten most recent news articles on the Justice Strike Force's news page. It's mostly just used so that you can quickly and easily see the latest headlines or updates on a news page, or anything else a feed is linked to. But, of course, it is completely unnecessary: you can simply just visit the page and see for yourself, and I probably could have saved myself the trouble of making one for the Justice Strike Force's site. But it does save you some time, and gets you right to the point. And besides, all the cool sites have one, so obviously ours had to have one. Oh, and I'm thinking about holding an SG picture night in the next couple of weeks (as in either next weekend or the one after that), so save the next couple of Sunday nights for the JSF!

	Double XP Is On!! July 18, 2008; Dark Insanity
So as of this morning, double XP weekend is live! This means that, once again, everyone will be receiving double the experience, double the influence, and double the prestige than usual, all the way 'till early Monday morning. I'm sure we'll get at least a couple of people who ding 40 this weekend, and possibly a new 50 or two! And another benefit of this weekend, of course, is the large infusion of prestige the SG is always more than happy to receive. So make sure you're fighting in SG mode out there, as the double influence should more than make up for whatever little bit you would have "lost" from it! In other news, the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, is SO AWESOME. I'd suggest seeing it as soon as you possibly can, even if it means quitting your job and/or having to murder several people. It is that good. On that note, everyone have a nice weekend.

	News Archives Live July 13, 2008; Dark Insanity
Alright, I finished up the news archives section of the site last night. There's now a link to it under the recent news items, or you can just check it out here. Pretty nice, no? I also went ahead and ported over all the old news articles, from the Justice Strike Force's previous sites, all the way back up to January of 2006 (when the first JSF site was made). Even with leaving out patch notes, it was a bit more work than I expected, but I think it was totally worth it! I'd suggest sifting through some of our older news articles, just to see what we were doing back during our unanimously defined "prime." It made me miss the old days, reading some of those articles... Anyway, I think I'm about done with making major changes to the site, for the next couple weeks, at least. Well, maybe I'll rework and update the base section... it certainly does need updated, considering I redesigned the base almost a month and a half ago. Yeah. Well, I hope the news archives gets some use, though honestly it was mostly just for, well, archival purposes. Oh, and in other news, I, as well as Justice Reaper, were thinking that we needed a new SG group picture, like the one on the roster page. So we may be holding a new one some time during the upcoming weeks, once some of our members come back from vacation (Wraith!) or get their computers fixed (MoE!). And maybe I'll go on a recruiting spree myself. So get ready for that! So as always, if you have any suggestions or comments to make, or questions to ask, about anything to do with the site or the Justice Strike Force, feel free to tell me in-game, in an email, or on the forums. How do you guys like the images I used on the archives page? Would you like to submit a news article? Drop me a line!

	News Backend Redone July 11, 2008; Dark Insanity
So after my successful rewrite of the roster page, I decided that I wanted to rework the news page for easier updating and displaying. And so I spent the better part of my last night completely redoing the news page. And I can tell that my time was not wasted because the news page, to you, looks exactly the same. However, now I can add a new news article with the press of a button. Well, after writing the article. But still. This should mean more news and updates more frequently. Also, if you're interested in submitting a story for the Justice Strike Force news page, just ask. If it's something to do with City of Heroes or the JSF, I'll probably put it up here (though no promises). You'll even get your own little avatar like mine up there in the top left. It will be nice. Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys how the news looks exactly the same. Though, like the roster, I rewrote it in PHP using a MySQL database, so, like the member pages, I should be able to add a news archives system, which I'll be working on soon (read: probably today or tonight). After adding that in, I'm thinking about going and getting all of our past news articles and porting them over to the new site (this site) and into the archives. "All" as in the old GuildPortal, ElWiki, and wiki news articles, with images and everything. It will be a walk down nostalgia lane, to say the least. And maybe I'll easily post a new article about it if I get (when I get) it done. Hehe.

	Brand New Roster July 2, 2008; Dark Insanity
So I've stayed up way too late the last few nights working on a complete overhaul (for lack of a better word) of the site's roster section. I switched it over from a hardcoded, static HTML page so that it is now running off of PHP and a MySQL database. What does this mean to you? It means it takes me less time to update the roster, so it will be more up-to-date more often. It also means it looks better, and with a roster database, I can easily (well, relatively easily) reintroduce two things that got left behind when we abandoned the wiki website: member pages and JSF merit badges!! Why am I so excited? Go look for yourself, if you've forgotten already! Over on the roster page, after first noticing the nice new top five prestige-earners list and information on how to use the roster, you'll see the big 'ole list of names itself. And then to get to a character's member page, simply click their name or their row. Bam! You are now looking at up to four screenshots or images of that character, their biography, a list of their JSF alts, and any merit badges they have earned. Examples of at least partially completed member pages can be found using the random member page link on the roster page. Oh, and while you're still at the roster, note that you can sort each column just by clicking its header. Nifty!! And so what are merit badges? They are little Justice Strike Force medals that you are awarded for completing certain SG-related activities. This includes earning prestige, being in the Justice Strike Force for a certain amount of time, increasing your rank, and so-on. You can see what badges your characters have earned by checking their member pages (every character has one, whether they are filled out or not). Right now there are a total of 18 different merit badges that can be earned (courtesy, once again, to the Green Warden for creating the majority of the medal's graphics), with more on the way. If you have any suggestions on what other merit badges should be added, or are interested in helping create the art needed for them, feel free to tell me! As for submitting content for your member page(s), such as screenshots or a biography of your character, you can either post them on the forums, or you can contact me (Dark Insanity) in-game at @Dark Insanity, or via email at Dark_Insanity@thejsf.com. A few members have already started giving me some stuff to put on their member pages, and you can join in on the member page palooza any time you wish! You don't even have to call it a palooza if you don't want to!! So the new roster looks great, and works great. Though if you encounter any problems or have any suggestions, feel free to point them out or tell me. The worst I will do is appreciate your input. I hope everyone enjoys and uses the new stuff added to the site. The next thing I tackle will probably be either re-doing and updating the base section of the site (gotten a bit lax on that), or re-doing the backend of the news section of the site. Or maybe I'll just get lazy and actually play City of Heroes for once. Who knows?

	CoH Machinima Wins Contest June 12, 2008; Dark Insanity
For those of you that are interested in this kind of thing, somebody on the City of Heroes boards announced that he had won an HBO game-related machinima contest. No, I don't know him or anything, but I did find it really interesting, and thought you guys might, too. It's not particularly amusing, or that action-packed, or even extremely boring. It's just... nice. It's a well put together piece of machinima, and... really, you just have to see it. There's nothing particularly extravagant about it, but there's nothing bad, either. It just leaves you with a feeling, which I think was what the guy set out to do when he made it. Anyway, here's a link to the video on YouTube. It's pretty neat, once again, if you're into that kind of thing.

	Base Overhaul June 3, 2008; Dark Insanity
After looking at the base and deciding that it needed a new look, and then realizing that it had been nearly a year since the last time I did a full "delete everything and redo it all" base overhaul, I got to work. As a result, the new Justice Strike Force base is bigger and better than it ever has been before: it's layout is much cleaner and more organized, leaving the base easily navigable and startling awesome looking. One of the most obvious benefits of the new layout and design is in the telepad bay; before, it was incredibly hard to figure out which telepad transported you to each zone, and many a member was left having to commit the zone locations to memory after several trial-and-error sessions. I took this into account when setting up the new base, and now each telepad's linked zones are located directly above it. Convenient and fashionable! The base's layout is more easily to navigate because of a more symmetrical design than before, and more central rooms linking out to the base's different bays. As for the aesthetic appeal, the base takes on a whole new color scheme, from a dull blue-ish color to a new gold and silver theme, along with bright-blue ceiling. Now, if you are wondering about those ceilings, it is supposed to look like they are open to the sky. And they do. If you're on low settings. Or if you use your imagination. Anyway, the base is modeled to seem more efficient and productive, as it is sort of built around Green Warden's Justice Strike Force "Mobile Command Center" theme. If you don't read the forums regularly, here's some concept art Warden drew up for how the base should really look (it's a pretty big image file, by the way, if you have trouble downloading or displaying them). Basically, the MCC is a large airship that flies (falls?) in geosynchronous orbit above Paragon City. Pretty cool. And thanks again, Warden! Back to my point, the base is set up like said airship: the control room, or command center, at the front is sort of like the ship's bridge, with engineering in the back, a science lab, and med bay, mobile teleporters, with the entrance room being closer to an extension of the main telepad bay itself, and to top it off, an all new hangar bay. Oh yeah, the hangar bay! It is pretty sweet, housing a small fleet of Longbow Chasers, but only for the moment; once again, Warden steps in, showing off his mad Photoshop skills by giving us the JSF Justice Jet to house in the hangar bay (once again, another big, awesome image). It is beautiful. In conclusion, the new base rocks, so go check it out. You will not be disappointed. Oh, for those of you not yet in the Justice Strike Force (note the yet), I should be getting around to updating the base section of the website soon. It's just quite a bit of work, and I'd much rather be oggling at my other beautiful work in the base. As will you.

	Issue 12 Live May 20, 2008; Dark Insanity
Everyone! Hey, everyone, listen!! Issue 12 is live! So after a couple of months of waiting, Issue 12 has finally been released. Say hello to "new" powersets, a new co-op zone, extra character slots, and roughly four million "quality of life" improvements. Check it out, check it out, check it out. As long as it has seemed since the last issue, though, there are still quite a few more people than there should be who are claiming that Issue 12 was rushed from open beta to live. And, honestly, that is a little true, as it was only open beta, what? A little less than two weeks? Just look at the buff bar. That is particularly ridiculous for defenders, who often have a lot of buffs that have them depending on the buff bar for placement and timing. In an issue full of other quality of life improvements, breaking something as essential as the buff bar should not at all be acceptable. At least we can hope that things such as the broken buff bar, along with the other major minor bugs, will be fixed in the next patch released. Well, anyway: Issue 12 is live! So stop reading this and go check it out. Right now. Right now!!

	Issue 12 in Open Beta May 9, 2008; Dark Insanity
So, Issue 12 is now in open beta! So now anyone and their dog can test out Issue 12's new features just by pulling up the test server and pokin' around. First thing noticeable is the adjustable character selection screen slots: you can now put them in any order just by clicking and dragging! This is a pretty big deal to me, as I've always wanted to reorder my characters. Well I guess not that big. But still. Anyway, the other character selection screen improvement is also pretty apparent: the ability to purchase more slots! You will now be able to have up to 36 slots per server. Granted, these have to be either purchased, or earned through various other ways: you'll get one extra per 12 months of veteran time, and everyone will be granted two extra slots on the released of Issue 12 to live. The next thing up is arguably the best part of i12 (though the QoL features are what do it for me): powerset proliferation! As stated time and time again, each archetype gets one new primary and one new secondary. The new powerset combinations that this opens, as well as the new character concepts this open, is amazing. And now you can preview these sets ahead of time on test if you want! As I said, it's the "quality of life" updates that I like the most out of this issue. As after logging in, there's a slew of new features available for you to use, and minor tweaks and upgrades that just make CoH better to play. For instance, the new contact list that keeps active contacts in a separate tab, and keeps all the police radio contacts segregated from your normal ones. Or the ability to add up to eight more floating power trays to your screen. Or more numbers in the "real numbers" window. Or combining three same-type inspirations to make a new one of a different type. It's the little things like these that make me excited for the next update! Anyway, I'm still not too sure about the whole Midnight Club/Roman zone thing, despite the fact that it is the issue's namesake (Issue 12: Midnight Hour). But I'm sure I'll find out, or run the arc, eventually. Just not on the test server. So now anyone can just log-in and check out a preview of the next issue if they want. Granted, it will be a preview full of bugs (just look at the buff bar) and incomplete upgrades (such as the lack of unique tray icons for the many proliferated powers), but will leave you excited for the next issue nonetheless!