Bubbawheat

It all really depends on the character. When I originally made Burnt Matchstick, I was specifically going for a design that evoked a burnt matchstick - which ultimately is a simple design goal. Other characters are more complicated, and especially characters that are closer to real world people rather than caricatures. If you really think about it, many "iconic" superheroes are really just caricatures, which takes concepts and exaggerates them to the extreme, and when you're going that far to the extreme, it's easier to pick out those details.

1. Shia
2. Frost
3. Christopher Robin

Ok, these are the last ones for tonight, the obligatory trio.

These are fun. Guess who?



Edit: And another!

Nice, mine's easy though.

It's 106 megs to download, we've got a full broadband connection, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.

I tweeted him the link just in case. You know you still love us, Foo! See you when Going Rogue gets here

It's just one of those things. I could definitely tell that the writing itself was very strong, it just didn't connect with me. It felt too much like Nemesis was over-monologuing (and continued on even into the mission begin clues), even though my character did a few words in edgewise. I also had a problem with the AV difficulty, even though I managed to clear all the timed defeat alls with over 10 mins to spare, even while occasionally chatting on globals.

You also mentioned via global /tell that you removed the patrols - I think it would help more if you reduced them to one and added dialog to help give a little extra life in those earlier missions. It was the combination of patrols on a defeat all *and* the fact that they were silent.

And I didn't mention it, but I thought the last map was a great touch, even though it was a little late for me to see all the flavor. I could tell it was there and what I did see was nice.

Honestly, it was just a lot of little problems, many of them personal pet peeves, that just added up the wrong way for me, and I do consider you a "go to" author. I may not play all your arcs up front, but I'll keep my eye out.

While I did complete all the available arcs from the second challenge, there's still some left hanging from the first challenge, and I haven't fully decided what my next project will be in the MA, so I decided to run

Union of the Mask #352400 by @Sister Twelve

Evil for the Greater Good: I felt that this arc hit this part of the challenge fairly weakly. Your contact is Nemesis who is mostly toying with you and involving you in a discussion about morality, and ultimately you walk away owing him a mob-like "favor" to be called in on at some time in the future.

The Arc as an Arc: The writing was pretty solid, but there were several things that I personally didn't like very much. The first four arcs are all very similar to each other with the difference being each has a different enemy group to fight. Each one is a defeat all, has several silent patrols which don't seem to accomplish anything other than possibly getting behind you while you're searching for the last few mobs to defeat (though last objective feature alleviates that concern somewhat), has a single glowie, and has an AV as a boss, which is usually a challenging custom mob. I was successful on each map with plenty of time to spare, though I was playing a softcapped MA/SR Scrapper who still died to a couple of the AV->EBs (see below). A shame, as I enjoyed Night Calls the Weaver so much.

Another thing is that it assumes quite a bit about the player, like that she has a family. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that a very popular origin story for heroes is that their family was already killed which is why they became a hero in the first place (unless they became a villain instead). This is also part of the conceit of the plot, that the deaths of superheroes' family members across the city will cause many of them to go crazy and go down a path of villainy, which may happen in some cases, but I would suspect not the majority. Of course, it is all subject to the fact that the information is coming from Nemesis in the first place, who isn't exactly a trustworthy source of information.

#CoHMA Union of the Mask # 352400 by @ Sister Twelve - contact is Lord Nemesis, and opens with a cry for help, and second guessing...
#CoHMA M1: A video of a super's family getting killed. And Nemesis claims info about a list getting leaked with personal info on all supers.
#CoHMA M1: Uh oh, timer's going, better get back to the game.
#CoHMA M1: Defeat all, including Arahkn, all within 30 mins? No sweat. Also, thank you I17's last objective finder.

#CoHMA M2: Off to fight the Circle of Thorns and destroy one of the last four copies of the list - as long as Nemmie's hackers work right.
#CoHMA M2: Another 30 min timer, better get back to it!
#CoHMA M2: All this talk of family does nothing for the many many heroes out there who have no family.
#CoHMA M2: Defeated Weskelan from <long custom group name I don't remember> along with lots of CoT. Hope these aren't all defeat alls.

#CoHMA M3: Nemesis really likes his monologuing... blah blah blah *ducks steam powered rifle blast* I mean, 'you were saying, Mr. Nemesis'.
#CoHMA M3: Another 30 mins to go and me busy chatting/tweeting away. Silly me.
#CoHMA M3: Nemesis warns of 'going rogue', though I haven't done anything bad, or have reason to. And warns of other heroes pushed too far.
#CoHMA M3: Lots of Paragon Protector minions running around. And custom robotics MM with lots of defense, got sapped by voltaic tank :P
#CoHMA M3: Now I just have to find and destroy Crey(g)'s list.

#CoHMA M4: Sounds like I'm going after Family now. Also note that Nemesis also has a copy of the hero registry list, flaunting it in my face
#CoHMA M4: Wow, in the time for me to [Focus Chi] and [Dragon's Tail], Bloody Vicious has one miss, and 3 hits, killing me.

#CoHMA M5: And Nemesis becomes the Godfather - "there will be a time when I ask of you a favor..."
#CoHMA M5: And the final (aside from Nemesis's) list is in the hands of Marshall Blitz. Is that longbow? I guess I'll find out soon.
#CoHMA M5: No, he's Arachnos, right? Big clusterbuster of Arachnos and PPD fighting each other here, with heroes and civilians too.
#CoHMA M5: and horrible xp :P
#CoHMA M5: Marshall Blitz is another custom in his own group who has the unfortunate combo of [build up] and [total focus].

What about opening it to anyone that also missed their chance to sign up in the first place in January?

Ok ok, thanks for all the encouragement, and I've come up with something for my submission. It's not finished, but I'm not sure if I'll get around to finishing it up today. If I do, I'll edit it. Linked to DA page.



Edit: Made some changes, if you've looked at it before you might have to do a hard refresh, or just go to the DA page to see the change.

I know Arbiter Fabulous and Samuraiko have had great luck using ChipIn and twitter to get the word out. I can't help myself, but I wish you luck.

If I am a winner, I permit NC Interactive, Inc. and NCsoft Europe Limited to use my name, likeness, photograph, hometown, and any comments that I may make about myself or this contest that I provide for advertising and promotional activities. I also certify that I am at least 13 years of age and am eligible to participate in this contest.

Uh, excuse me. I'm here to claim my Praetorian Clockwork costume code. I somehow won a Costume Contest rampaging around Kings Row and they told me to come here. Do you have larger service entrance doors in the back maybe?

I'm torn.

I've enjoyed being a part of this (mostly) and making my attempts at art. But, aside from last month, I've also been quite disappointed at getting practically no votes alongside the real artists. I'm tired of seeing contestants drop out of the contest every month and don't really want to be one of them. But it's also coming close to the last minute, and I still don't really have any good idea of something I can accomplish. Sheesh.

I'll do my best to be there as usual. I think I'll be in costume as my Dominator Burnt Matchstick from Triumph.

Dr. Aeon's 2nd Challenge Closing Thoughts

I played 20 out of 22 known arcs, with my Dual Pistols/Dark Miasma Corruptor on Justice, for a total of 81 missions, which brought me from level 5 to level 15.2.

The Hero or Villain Loses His or Her Powers: In most cases this happened through someone or something stealing their powers. Of the few notable exceptions, two of them ended up being picked as Dev's Choice. In the winning arc, Night Calls the Weaver, the Heroine is at the end of her career and had sacrificed her powers only a few years ago during the first Rikti Invasion, and she is calling on you to help out with something from her past that has finally come to fruition. In the runner up, Two Tickets to Westerly, a member of the Skulls is trying to ditch the gang to lead a normal life, and has to get rid of his powers in the process. And another notable one to my eyes, Dereliction of Duty has a Hero whose enchanted powers come from his selfless devotion. He has become less selfless as he wants to start a family, and asks a villain to help him stage his death so he can lead his own normal life.

There are other arcs that take this conceit as a mere aside and have their story pretty self contained while putting the meat of the constraint into the sidelines of the arc. In some cases, this could have hurt their chances for winning even if it was a great arc. Most notably in A Hero in Need... Is a Friend Indeed, where the power loss ends up being [spoiler deleted], as well as Holding Down the Fort, where the power loss has no real relevance to the mission at hand. Both are excellent arcs, but when you stick to the letter of the contest, they're just a little bit too far off course.

Appropriate for the Level Range?: This is something I'm not sure how much it factored into the winning arcs, along with something else Dr. Aeon suggested in the original post - putting in enemies you don't commonly at this level. Because of this suggestion, I fought a lot of Legacy Chain, and a few other less common enemies. But funnily enough, the winner ended up using mostly Hellions and Circle of Thorns. There were a total of three arcs that I quit due to difficulty, and one I went back to and finished after an update by the author. One of those arcs was a runner up in the contest, though I admit that it was difficulty combined with an untimely crash that made me not finish it.

Overall Quality of the Arcs: This is one of my happiest reasons for choosing to complete this project. Almost all of the arcs I played were well above average, and over half I would rate at 5 stars without being overly generous. There was a lot of well polished, interesting, and fun arcs and I'm glad that I decided to start, as well as complete this project.

Closing Thoughts: I'm not sure if Aeon will make another challenge anytime soon, and I know that some people are soured on the idea as many of these arcs didn't get played as much as they had hoped, and they might not agree with the winners and runner ups, but I hope he does make another one and I hope it comes out with as many good arcs as this one did.

Aeon's Winners:
Night Calls The Weaver #375420 by Sister Twelve
Two Tickets to Westerly #374002 by PoliceWoman
A Heartbreak Breaking Story #378511 by Arctic Princess

Bubbawheat's Favorites:
Night Calls The Weaver #375420 by Sister Twelve
Two Tickets to Westerly #374002 by PoliceWoman
A Hero in Need... Is a Friend indeed! #375018 by Wrong Number
Holding Down the Fort #379065 by LaserJesus
Too Clever by Half #378944 by Samuraiko
Past Echoes Tomorrow #379399 by ArbiterFabulous

And so my project comes nearly to a close playing the last arc on my list, and winner of the challenge,

Night Calls The Weaver #375420 by @Sister Twelve

The Hero Loses Her Powers: This is actually very close to the idea I had which never actually became an arc. The Weaver was a great hero in her prime 50 years ago, but sacrificed her power during the first Rikti Invasion, which you find out through articles you read spanning the course of her career over the course of this arc. Your mission is something that she predicted 13 years ago, and is ready to see it through to the end.

The Arc as an Arc: This arc is extremely well written with in depth characters and an involving storyline that really makes your character feel like part of the plot without putting too many words into your mouth. Of all the arcs I played from this challenge, I agree with this one as the winner.

Appropriate for the Level Range?: Mostly. The fire control custom boss in the third mission gave me a few fits, but that's just one boss through the whole arc, and a single break free won the fight for me. And the fourth mission has a large number of patrols that can easily bunch up if you're not paying attention.

#CoHMA Running Night Calls The Weaver # 375420 by @ Sister Twelve winner of the 2nd Aeon's Challenge, and my last one left to run.
#CoHMA Contact is Donna Wright, an elderly heroine past her prime once called The Weaver and leader of a supergroup.
#CoHMA This is interesting, the contact doesn't have much of a presence yet, I only hear sirens and catch wind of a bank robbery.
#CoHMA M1: I wonder if this is a subtle pun " You picked the wrong time to stick your nose in!"
#CoHMA M1: The Hellions stole some stuff from my contact's safety deposit box. I guess I'll be hitting her up for info.

#CoHMA M2: Donna aka The Weaver lets me in and tells me what's going on kinda. Something's leading the Hellions do open a gateway.
#CoHMA M2: Also really like the flavor mission begin clues, old articles from The Weaver's past.
#CoHMA M2: I'm looking for Juan Escobar, I wonder if he's related to Pumpkin Escobar?
#CoHMA M2: This arc seems to confirm my feelings that the Dev's have a tendency to pick arcs with grisly deaths in them.

#CoHMA M3: The Circle of Thorns mean to summon an Avatar of Kali, something The Weaver stopped 13 years ago, sacrificing her team to do so.
#CoHMA M3: It's kind of funny that Dr. Aeon suggested using mobs not normally seen, but the winner is filled with lots of Hellions.
#CoHMA M3: Hello half-dozen Circle of Thorns waiting on the other side of the door to kill me.
#CoHMA M3: Yikes, Robert Ridge is pretty tough as a fire controller, or I suppose Dominator.
#CoHMA M3: Second round with a break free got me through, would have been tough without one though.

#CoHMA M4: skipping contact, heading straight to university and hopefully, the hostage.
#CoHMA M4: Fire Melee is much easier to handle than Fire control at this level. And he sure liked to brag about defeating Donna.
#CoHMA M4: The Weaver completed what she started 13 years ago, buying me enough time to be able to find the child and hopefully, save her.
#CoHMA M4: As much as I like all the mission begin articles, it feels like reading them is shoehorned into the narrative.

#CoHMA M5: Rescued the girl, though she seems awful matter of fact " They... killed my mom and dad... can we get out of here please?"

I agree with Airhead's suggestion, Hall of Fame shouldn't be acquired from an average vote being in the 5 star range, but the total number of 5 star votes. 100 is probably a good number, though I haven't looked at some of the high play 4 star arcs recently to know if there's anything less than stellar. Though I suppose it wouldn't be that bad of a thing if a lot of great arcs became Hall of Fame along with a couple less than stellar ones. Heck, Wild Hogs grossed over 100 million, so there's no accounting for some people's taste.

And yet another one for today, amazing what you can accomplish when you're not feeling good.

Two Tickets to Westerly #374002 by @PW

The Villain Loses His Power: In this arc, Roy is a member of the Skulls who wants to quit and live a quiet life with his girlfriend Nadya (your contact), but things don't quite go as planned as he gets sold out to the Circle of Thorns, then his old gang kidnaps his old lady as payback. Another unique premise along the lines of Dereliction of Duty, only with better overall storytelling.

The Arc as an Arc: Very good as always from PW, strong characters, solid writing, and an interesting story.

Appropriate for the Level Range?: Yes, I did have a little difficulty on the last mission due to several spawns bunching up on each other along with the boss, even at the slightly bumped up level 12. But once I got them separated it was a difficult, but not frustrating fight.

Tweets below as usual.


#CoHMA Playing Two Tickets to Westerly # 374002 by @ PW, first runner up in Aeon's 2nd Challenge.
#CoHMA Contact is Nadya, girlfriend of Roy who got mixed up with the bad crowd, aka. The Skulls.
#CoHMA M1: Roy was going to quit the Skulls, but hasn't been heard from since. And his gang name is "Bonebreaker".
#CoHMA M1: Busted up a Dyne lab and broke up a drug deal, still no sign of Roy...
#CoHMA M1: I think it's funny that on both Dyne Labs, the guarding Skull yells at me when I start destroying it, but doesn't attack me.
#CoHMA M1: Knocked some info out of Totenkopf who told me Roy already left and was last seen with a geek friend named Joe.

#CoHMA M2: Nadya's already got the two titular train tickets to Westerly, where her family is, and it ticked at Roy for not calling.
#CoHMA M2: I guess Joe is some kind of LARPer roaming around in the Steam Tunnels. Wonder what that translates to for me to fight?
#CoHMA M2: Some CoT Thieves and Assassins, a <Warrior> fighter, and some undead roaming around fighting them.
#CoHMA M2: Fought Joarxes who told me that he took Roy to the CoT to help get rid of his darkness powers, and got to join CoT themselves.

#CoHMA M3: Nadya's all but given up hope now that Roy's with the Circle of Thorns, but I sure haven't.
#CoHMA M3: Lots of missing persons here, but no sign of Roy yet...
#CoHMA M3: Rescued Roy who had the Dark powers taken out of him, but of course, they weren't going to stop there.

#CoHMA M4: Roy's old gang took Nadya in retaliation, he wants to take them on alone, but I'm not letting him go down like that.
#CoHMA M4: TZ's a zombie MM, pretty rough first round, we'll see how well the second round goes.
#CoHMA M4: How the heck did I manage to get attacked by five other Skulls plus the boss?
#CoHMA M4: Rescued Nadya and all's well. Escorted them to the train station just in case.

And now on to the runner ups, this time it's

A Heartbreak Breaking Story # 378511 by @ Arctic Princess

A Hero Loses His Powers: At least I think he does, this is another one I ended up quitting out of frustration right at the very end. But Danny, one of the Nuclear 90, was captured by the Council to have experiments performed on him, and I'm guessing that it leaves him powerless at the end, and his teammates all got killed.

The Arc as an Arc: It was pretty interesting, though with a lot of death in it, not as much as The Most Important Thing, but still several dead bodies.

Appropriate for the Level Range?: Not for squishies at least, everything was ok until the last mission with a defeat all crawling with several difficult custom council enemies that appeared to be Pulse Rifle(Robotics MM)/Martial Arts lieutenants with knockback and stuns. I could barely take them on without dying, and they would often walk in on me while fighting other groups leaving me absolutely no chance. Then a stroke of bad luck came when I crashed with 2 left to defeat. Sorry, but I'm not slogging through that again just to read the last paragraph.

As-I-go tweets below.

#CoHMA Playing A Heartbreak Breaking Story # 378511 by @ Arctic Princess, 2nd runner up in Aeon's 2nd Challenge.
#CoHMA Contact is Henry Peter Wong, a low level hero liason.
#CoHMA M1: I'm dealing with a missing member of the Nuclear 90 who was last seen going after some Skulls who may not actually be Skulls.
#CoHMA M1: Looks like I'm on the burning Skulls map, no sign of enemies yet.
#CoHMA M1: Vahzilok? What are they doing here? And I found the missing guy's cell phone.
#CoHMA M1: There's a Lady Stitch gloating over the defeat of some Lieutenant.
#CoHMA M1: Rescued a Skull member and found evidence of some military guy helping the Vahzilok. Time to investigate.

#CoHMA M2: My next lead is a warehouse that's only active at night. Going in during the day to see if I can find anything.
#CoHMA M2: Found the body of Cybershock, the Vahz already harvested his more useful cybernetic parts.
#CoHMA M2: I think I see who the Lieutenant belongs to, hello <Council>
#CoHMA M2: Defeated Lieutenant Morriccone who told me that Danny is already in the hands of his superiors. Also found another dead body.
#CoHMA M2: Results of the "rescue" mission: 3 dead heroes, and one taken somewhere else, though likely still alive.

#CoHMA M3: Off to a Council base in Steel Canyon to hopefully rescue Danny with the help of Officer MacReady from Outbreak.
#CoHMA M3: And down I go against some nice looking custom Council, or specifically <Council Laser>
#CoHMA M3: I died (from AFKiness) and when I came back I found a bunch of friendly <Crey> standing around?
#CoHMA M3: Geez, those <Council Laser> are tough, even just as a group of 2.
#CoHMA M3: Was thinking that tactics is what it's all about, took on 3 council + 2 <Council Laser> and won, then 2 more <Council Laser> won.
#CoHMA M3: I don't think my computer likes this arc much either, my game just crashed.
#CoHMA M3: Had 2 mobs left to defeat, and now I have to run the mission all over again. No thank you. Sorry.

Down to my last non-dev choiced, non-unpublished arc from the contest with

Dereliction of Duty #373571 by Dying Breath

The Hero Loses His Power: *spoiler reminder* My contact is Call of Duty who is a great and selfless hero who hasn't been seen around much lately, and he's calling upon a villain (me) to help him get out of the hero game for good. At the end I find out that his enchanted chains that give him his power no longer work for him because he's not as selfless as he once was, which is part of their enchantment. As far as premises go, I think this is the most original and interesting one of all the arcs I've played in this.

The Arc as an Arc: Unfortunately, the mechanics of the arc are all fairly simple. The first two missions only have one objective on a small map, and some of the plot threads come out of nowhere (hello, Flambeaux). But it wasn't a bad arc by any means, just needs a bit more polish to help bring out the interesting story.

Appropriate for the Level Range?: No problems at all on this front, mostly fighting Council and Longbow with Flambeaux as a sort of end boss.

As suggested by someone, I found a reversing program so I can list my tweets in chronological order:

#CoHMA Playing Dereliction of Duty # 373571 by @ Dying Breath, last non-dev choice Aeon's 2nd contest nominee for me to play.
#CoHMA Contact's name is Call of Duty, very stately looking. Bio says he has ties to the Rikti war and Citadel, but hasn't been active much.
#CoHMA Was confused, contact started off being confrontational, then I realized it's a villainous arc. Always forget to check first.
#CoHMA Very interesting premise so far. He's a Hero that wants to retire without being pestered by would-be heroes and villains.
#CoHMA So he's hiring a villain to help him fake his death so he can live a quiet life with his wife and start a family.
#CoHMA M1: Infiltrating a Council base to plant some info. Keeping me in the dark about the specifics so far though.
#CoHMA M1: Quick mission, he had me upload his true identity into the Council's computers, apparently to draw out an attack.

#CoHMA M2: The info was "discovered" by Call's hero friends. His wife is now being protected by Longbow, and I'll "kidnap" her.
#CoHMA M2: Another fairly simple mission, with a couple patrols and an ambush to spice things up.

#CoHMA Dereliction of Duty # 373571 M3: Placing wife's personal effects around a new Council base, some bombs to destroy them, and get out.
#CoHMA M3: Love the popup "Another Council base in a cave, how many of these things are in the city anyway?"
#CoHMA M3: Placed the evidence in a body bag, and placed the bomb. Triggered a couple patrols, and now to unlock the doors for the heroes.
#CoHMA M3: Unlocked the doors through a computer terminal. Maybe now that you can force an exit, that would be a better choice?

#CoHMA M4: Another great popup "There's only one way to be sure, but you don't have access to orbital nukes..."
#CoHMA M4: The final piece of the plan. Arm some bombs, Duty comes in and gets "exploded", also to take care of Flambeaux who's been nosy.
#CoHMA M4: Killed Flambeaux who suddenly figured out the plot before she died, and got the source of Call of Duty's power, which I can't use
#CoHMA M4: I can't use it for the same reason he hasn't been able to use it, it only works for those who are totally selfless.

A few suggestions for the level 1-9 range from the Aeon's 2nd challenge, my favorites that you haven't already listed:

To Dream of Nothing #374644 - whichever origin Nictus are.

The Spider Without Fangs #379248 - comedy, villainous

Too Clever By Half #378944 - comedy, villainous

Outbroken #379017 - a sequel of sorts to Outbreak

Past Echoes Tomorrow #379399 - a partial origin story for Fusionette.

Holding Down the Fort #379065 Save Portal Corps, and the world, from destruction.

Those are real nice, though I disagree with Airhead, I like Alpha's the least. I feel like the pose for Alpha is too static compared to the other two.