Mig interviews Beef Cake, legendary City of Heroes player from the Pinnacle server. Beef owns and operates Vidiotmaps.com and Badge-Hunter.com, two essential resources for COH players.

Download the podcast of the interview Here or read the highlights below:

Player: Beef Cake
Game: City of Heroes
Server: Pinnacle
Date: August 13, 2007

MIG
First off, why the name Beef Cake?

BEEF
Ahhh… Beef Cake… well it boils down to real life. As kid I was always a little chunky and people would call me “beefy.” So I guess that name stuck with me through the years and people still call me Beef. So I figured I’d rollup a character with that name.

MIG
That name is certainly famous on the Pinnacle Server.

BEEF
The name has grown, that’s for sure.

MIG
You’re an experienced player and the max level in City of Heroes is level 50. How many level 50 characters do you have?

BEEF
Currently I have two accounts and there are 12 slots on each account. Between the two accounts I have 14 level 50 characters and some works in progress.

MIG
That’s fairly impressive. So how long have you been playing City of Heroes for? Since Beta? After Beta?

BEEF
Right in Beta, so it’s been a solid 3 years.

MIG
In City of Heroes players receive badges and accolades for achieving specific goals. Now how many badges have you earned on your main character (Beef Cake)?

BEEF
My current total is 500 badges and I’m still shy of earning 1 badge to earn all of them. The only thing holding me back is a simple time restriction.

MIG
Now what is this elusive badge?

BEEF
The badge that I’m missing is a veteran badge, it’s basically for how long you’ve been playing the game (for 39 months).

MIG
Now your badge count, is it currently the most on Pinnacle server?

BEEF
Currently, yes. Well, as far as I know, no one else has claimed this total.

MIG
So at the very most, there might be one or two other people on the server that have the same count.

BEEF
It’s very possible. It depends if the person wants to be known or not. On Pinnacle, most people know me on the heroes side. On the villains side, I know their badge count isn’t that high.

MIG
Gotcha. Now is that the most on all servers? Have you heard of anyone achieving 501?

BEEF
No, not currently.

MIG
That’s impressive. Speaking of badges, you also run the websites Badge-Hunter.com and VidiotMaps.com.

BEEF
That’s correct.

MIG
This would probably make you one of the most informed members of the City Heroes community, because you know how to achieve every single badge and you have access to all the maps.

BEEF
VidiotMaps is basically an information site, telling people to how to achieve their badges the fastest and easiest way. Badge-Hunter came along a year later and gives players a place to store, track and display their badges.

MIG
Myself as a player of City of Heroes I used VidiotMaps quite a bit as a noob and continue to use Badge-Hunter. Do you find it rewarding?

BEEF
As far as rewarding… it’s kinda a weird way to go about it. I guess you can say that, because you do gain a fair amount of respect. It’s probably one of the major rewards of running the sites, because their so popular and the people enjoy it. It definitely works out.

MIG
Nice, nice… now Beef Cake is a Tanker, it that your favorite archetype?

BEEF
Yes. I’m a Tanker at heart, I like to get in the middle of the mix and start pounding on things and taking a beating myself.

MIG
Now what other projects do you have going on?

BEEF
As far as characters go, I’m normally into tankers. I just recently finished getting a Fire-Tank up to level 50. I also like the Trollers, but currently, I don’t have any new projects. I’m just enjoying my current characters.

MIG
Now do you have a particular memory you’d like to share about your best PvE moment or game accomplishment?

BEEF
There are actually quite a few PvE accomplishments from Jagged Legion, the super group I reside with on the Pinnacle Server. We were the first group to actually take down the Hamidon Raid, which is the top-end raid for City of Heroes. We’ve also completed quite a few of the main Task Forces on City Heroes. At the end of the each Task Force there’s a main villain at the end and we’re usually among the first teams to complete these tasks.

MIG
Nice, now how about Player Vs. Player… do you have a favorite moment for that?

BEEF
Favorite moment for PvP… it started with arenas and it worked OK, but once they introduced the PvP zones it turned out to be a lot better experience. I guess mainly for time… you didn’t have to worry about resetting and getting people into the arena. You just go to the PvP zones and attack anyone at will. It’s probably the best feature in the game.

MIG
Do you have one moment that sticks out in the back of your mind where you completely owned somebody or somebody gave you a solid fight?

BEEF
Nothing that really sticks out per say… there’re have been quite a few occasions where we have duels in the open PvP zones. Some are fairly easy to deal with, some are fairly tough. I can’t particularly remember any characters that I fought recently, but there were quite a few out there that presented a challenge and I enjoyed.

MIG
Now before I knew you, I met you in PvP. I’m going to share a story from a PvP zone, when I was on my stalker. I was having fun, basically unleashing a killing spree in the zone. You logged in your blaster, Surgical Strike… and I believe you were pretty buffed-up. You just wound-up, hit me with Thunder Strike, and literally one-shotted me.

BEEF
Oh yeah, I remember those days. Yeah, that was actually pretty fun… it’s fun to one-shot people, but it’s definitely not fun to be one-shotted.

MIG
No, no… I think it was more of a combination. I think you hit me with 3 really potent shots, but it just felt like one because your last shot owned me.

BEEF
I also recall when you and I were on our stalkers together. When I first met you, we were on our stalkers in Sirens Call and we had a good time that day.

MIG
Oh yeah. So outside of being an expert, everybody comes from humble roots. What was your biggest noob moment, before you became the mighty Beef Cake? You must have had some pretty funny moments.

BEEF
Well, when I first started this game, when I created Beef Cake, I was more about being a damage-dealer, versus a damage-absorber. So basically, I never slotted-up any of my defensive of resist shields and I fully slotted all my attacks. My biggest noob moment came when I joined my first higher-level team, that was more experienced than myself. They were ragging on me quite fiercely, because I couldn’t stand more than 2 to 3 punches from the PvE mobs. I would just end up flat on my face. Someone finally took me aside and gave me some advice on what a Tanker should do. I took their advice and never looked back.

MIG
I couldn’t imagine a main tank without any defenses slotted.

BEEF
Yeah… I don’t like to remember it, but it’s funny now that I think about it.

MIG
Speaking of funny… what’s your funniest moment you can think of? Either that you’ve experienced or something you’ve seen happen to another player in the game.

BEEF
This might be a little cruel, but I think the funniest thing I’ve seen in the game happened in Founder’s Fall (a zone in City of Heroes). There is a tailor shop in the zone and one day I went in there and found Devouring Earth (PvE mobs) everywhere. Somehow, someone had teleported or worm-holed all these villains into the tailor shop. There must have been about 50 to 60 of these mobs in the tailor shop. At the time I was level 50 so the level 40 mobs weren’t bothering me, but when lower level players were coming into the tailor shop to change their costume, they were just getting slaughtered. Yeah, it was pretty comical to watch.

MIG
I’ve gotta admit, I’m laughing on this end thinking about that. I love stuff like that in the game.

BEEF
Yeah, like I said it was a little cruel, but you gotta laugh at it. It’s just a game.

MIG
Exactly. Now you’re the GM of the super group Jagged Legion on the Pinnacle server. What’s Jagged Legion’s present rank on the Pinnacle Server.

BEEF
As rank goes, it’s really hard to determine rank when it comes to super groups. Most people look at the prestige amount that a super group earns. If you rank it that way, we are second, but we’re slowly building up to first. We should be first by the end of the month. When it comes to PvE and PvP content, we are first on our server… no one can come close to us.

MIG
Historically, has Jagged Legion been the number-one team on the server at any point?

BEEF
Yeah, when bases were first introduced into City Heroes we were number-one for the longest time… for at least a year. Eventually we got tired… some people on Pinnacle Server started calling us a “Prestige Race” so we basically gave up on all that. We just started having fun, instead of worrying about the politics of the game. Eventually we dropped down to third place and recently we retuned to second place. We could be number-one again by the end of this month.

MIG
Now you mention politics… I guess drama comes on any server. Do you have any stories about a particular super group or villain group?

BEEF
Um… yeah drama always exists on any MMO. As far as a particular super group, no we don’t have any rivals. There is one villain group that we were kinda close with at first or tried to give them a little space to get to know us. It just turned out to be more drama than fun. So I guess they are our rivals, but we really don’t gun for them.

MIG
Now are you referring to World Wide Evil?

BEEF
Yes.

MIG
I see… now does Beef Cake have as a nemesis or a rival?

BEEF
There are a few… There are two particular people that I don’t care for, because they’ve given me so much crap over the years. One of them being… I don’t even know if I’m pronouncing this right, but Botni or Bodini. The other character is friggin Tazer… So those two… I mean they’re probably great guys in real life, so I can’t fault them for that. But when it comes to the game… when it comes to etiquette, they’re below the totem pole.

MIG
You’re basically calling them douche-bags?

BEEF
To put it in a nice way… yes.

MIG
So how did you become involved in massively multiplayer online games? Was City of Heroes your first MMO or did you play other games before this?

BEEF
I’ve always gamed since I was 10 years old. But for MMOs, City Heroes was my first.

MIG
Now what attracted you to the game or how did you find City of Heroes?

BEEF
That’s actually quite interesting. I was at work and I was closing my shop. One of my employees was playing a game and I watched him for awhile.

MIG
What game was your employee playing? Was it City of Heroes?

BEEF
Yes it was City of Heroes. It was the Beta actually.

MIG
Now what do you like most about City of Heroes?

BEEF
Actually, I’d have to say friends. If not for the friends that you accumulate over the years, the game wouldn’t be nearly as fun.

MIG
How much time do you think you spend with your guild mates each week?

BEEF
Oh, actually I don’t consider them sg-mates or guild mates. They’re more or less like a second family to me. I spend a large amount of each day with them.

MIG
Did you found Jagged Legion? If not, who did?

BEEF
No I was not the original founder of Jagged Legion. Unfortunately, I don’t know how it started, but I do know the name of the original founder. His name was Frag. As far as becoming a leader, you basically put in the time and let people get to know you. Over time you’re promoted through trust and commitment. Eventually the original leadership moved on to other games and I was promoted as GM.

MIG
What’s next on the horizon? Are there any other games that interest you?

BEEF
There were a few of us in Jagged Legion that took an interest in Tabula Rasa, but it didn’t turn out as nice as I expected. I was kind of disappointed. I’m sure it’s a great game, but I couldn’t get use to the controls. I tried… I’m actually still in beta for Tabula Rasa and I just can’t get use to it.

MIG
Are you interested in any of the new MMO superhero games coming out from Sony or Microsoft?

BEEF
I’ve been reading up on them, but I haven’t taken any interest in them yet. If they allow a new generation of heroes I’d be interested in it, but if they allow everyone to be Hulk or Spiderman I wouldn’t play it.

MIG
If you could play lead designer for the day at City of Heroes, what would you change?

BEEF
Currently, I really like the way the game is operating. There are some small tweaks I’d like to see changed, but for the majority of the game is running well. If it was up to me, I’d push to have Cathedral of Pain running. It was introduced back in Issue #5 and we are now on Issue #10, but we still haven’t seen it go live. The whole purpose of City of Heroes and City of Villains bases was designed to have groups compete against each other in base raids.

MIG
Well hopefully the game design team will hear you and make the change soon.

BEEF
I hope so.

MIG
If you could play game designer in general… if you could ask a game company to make any type of MMO, is there any type in mind?

BEEF
I still prefer my City of Heroes. I still like the heroes and villains environment. I’m also into 3^rd-person shooters… I’d be into an MMO where you have a shooting game with the same 3rd-person mechanics of City of Heroes.

MIG
That’s interesting. I don’t think there are too many games like that on the horizon. I’ve heard some stuff about the game Huxley, but I don’t know if it will operate like that.

BEEF
I haven’t heard too much on that game myself, but I’d like to learn more.

MIG
Most people that I run into on City of Heroes are either sci-fi heads or comic book fans. Do you fall into either of these categories?

BEEF
I do like sci-fi and I am a comic book fan… I do collect comic books occasionally. As far as being a nerd or too far into it… then no, but I do enjoy comics.

MIG
What would be your all-time favorite comic book hero?

BEEF
I’d have to go with Wolverine. I love the attitude.

MIG
What about all-time villain?

BEEF
Not really… Doc Doom might be a choice.

MIG
Well Beef, it’s been a great pleasure speaking with you and thanks for sharing with the community of Voig. Do you have any last minute advice or comments before we conclude?

BEEF
No not really… I just appreciate you guys taking the time to interview me. It’s a real pleasure.

MIG
I thought for sure you’d say, “Don’t do Superdine and stay in school!”

BEEF
There ya go…

MIG
All right, thanks again Beef.

BEEF
Thank you.