Bubbawheat

And now we return to our regularly scheduled voting, already in progress...

Though it might be a little weird, I could come up with a story about a... wait for it... Burnt Matchstick. Seriously though, I could totally work it. It's a matchbook with a bunch of friends, one gets picked out and lit up and wows everyone. But then he's burnt out and no one likes him, except for one that makes him feel accepted again. I think the biggest problem is the best art might be awfully simple. But let me know and I can write it up in a couple days.

Is it February yet?

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How about now?

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Ok, I can't wait.



First! (besides Foo, who doesn't count) Hope this qualifies, but if not, I've got plenty of time to go again.

Mission 2 of Matchstick Women #3369 uses a few different variations of the ally/boss/surrounded by friendlies as well. If one of them works the way you would like to see, I'll also let you know how to make it work. They all have dialog assigned to them, but I think some don't go off, or still go off in the wrong spot.

... actually, I might not skip February after all, short month = short arcs. 1 and 2 mission arcs... but I think I'll wait and see how popular the votes are this month to decide for sure. (p.s. Tangler, I extended the voting one week after you posted, I was thinking it was a longer window than it actually was)

My sincere hope is that due to the effect of being split into Heroes, Rogues, Vigilantes, and Villains, that it will come with a major revamp of the team search window, bringing in a lot of new features like showing team leaders, full teams, teams looking for more, etc.

Other sudden death ideas:

1) similar to last year - have each at risk participant vote privately for the one they think should be eliminated. (though it doesn't work if there's only 2)

2) random - pick a number, all the at risk participants guess the number, and the closest one to the number gets eliminated.

3) Instead of sudden death voting for the one to be eliminated, sudden death vote for the one to stay on. For larger groups, allow for multiple votes - like for 3-5, have people rank their top 2, for 6+ have people rank their top 3. This would reduce the chance of several zero-votes.

Tonight, I follow a fan-turned sidekick-turned something else in

Operation: Charybdis #346845 by @PopTartsNinja

My contact is one of the Superpowered Field Trainers from Atlas Park, Shana Leroi. She is a precog, and uses her powers to help find many young people just coming into their powers and helping them along a path to superheroism. Her current charge is one Rad Eagle. He has radiation powers, and is my biggest fan. He's out on a mission fighting some Arachnos and might be in a little over his head so Leroi asks me to go in and check things out. While there I find not only Arachnos, but a mix of Vanguard and Rikti as well. <Strange Bedfellows> indeed.

Rad Eagle's enthusiasm leads him to join Vanguard to try and sniff out the faction that might be working with Rogue Arachnos and Rikti, and actually manages to find something. But once again, he hasn't been heard from for a while and it's my task to check up on him. While I'm there, it seems these Vanguard are also doing what looks like mind control experiments on Rikti monkeys, as well as something called a Mechanape.

Rad Eagle once again gets himself in trouble by being kidnapped by Colonel Campbell and his (her? I forget) group of Rogue Fortunatas. Using the Arachnos's own seers, they are able to block Leroi's own psychic abilities and she can't see how things are going to turn out. Once there, I find a Rikti Restructurist (or possibly a new faction, once again my memory and notes fail me) named Scylla, and all of the enemies here have a goal of prolonging the war between Rikti and Vanguard indefinitely in order to keep both sides prepared for the Coming Storm. (I liked this tie in to canon) When I find Rad Eagle, he is surrounded by Fortunatas who seem to be training him meditation techniques. And when I rescue him, he runs off.

Evil for the Greater Good: When I return to Leroi, I find out that Rad Eagle didn't return to her. And what she found out was horrifying. They implanted Rad Eagle with something that enhances his nuclear metabolism and turns him into a living nuclear bomb. Something that will cause destruction along the lines of Boomtown, Siren's Call, or even Faultline. And the only way it can be stopped in time is by killing him, stopping his heart and his metabolism, ending the process before it fully starts. She suspects he has gone to one of his favorite places near Atlas Park, which would make things even more disastrous if he does explode. As I find him, he has taken the moniker Charybdis and made peace with the short time he has left. He attacks because he knows that is the only way I would fight him back. He has deactivated his medical transporter, and is ready to die to save the world (which does remind me of the first season of Heroes, complete with Mission 3's title "Save the Sidekick", though thankfully it's not followed up by the tired "Save the World"). This is the harshest and most personal use of "evil" in all of the Aeon arcs I've played so far. It develops the character starting from mission 1 and makes you feel for him by the end. Excellent job.

The Arc as an Arc: This arc, as most of the arcs, holds up very well outside of the contest restraints. My only problem was the difficulty of the Arachnos and Vanguard at my level, though there is a warning in the description about the difficulty. None of the bosses were overly difficult, and there was some great bits of humor throughout the arc, especially the patrols.

I enjoyed this one a lot, and I'm sorry I skipped over it earlier.

Last year, TA handled the sudden death by taking all the lowest votes and having a new vote where you vote for who should be eliminated.

I'm torn, there's a lot of great entries here. My wife and I share an account and TA counted her vote separately last year, but whatever you decide is fine.

Both of our favorites are Lousy Day's beautiful piece, but it looks like they don't need any help, and I'd rather spread the love, so:

My vote's for Scooter Two

It's a great piece by itself, it was the first piece, and it shows a lot of improvement from what I've seen from him before.

Her vote's for Bubbawheat

What can I say, she's my wife. I'll have to make her vote for someone else in the later months, but this one doesn't really matter as much.

Quick! Somebody stop him before he tries to take over the Rogue Isles from President Marchand.
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wait, where am I again?

One thing I always really like about your reviews (even though I often only skim them unless it's an arc I liked/wrote/or am interested in) is how you compare it to other works of fiction with similar themes. I may not always read the whole review, but I often read the intro, and I always find it interesting.

Voting is up sooner than I thought it would be, there were few enough nominees spread across the two categories that I just moved authors nominated in the new arc category that also qualified for the unknown author category to the smaller category, dropped Fred's second arc nomination (sorry PW), and was left with only 6 arcs in the new arc category. I would feel bad to have to pick one to eliminate, so I left them all in. I think I'm going to skip February to hopefully let the heart grow fonder, and be back with another two categories in March (feel free to suggest some new categories).

Best New Arc

• Voting is open until February 15th at 11:59pm EST.
• Please vote for two arcs, a first choice and a second choice. A first choice which will get 2 points, and a second choice which will get 1 point. Please be clear which arc is your first and which is your second.
• Authors nominated in a category may still vote in the same category, but may only choose one arc other than their own which will get 1 point. (This approximates every author voting for themselves as a first place vote)
• The winner will be the arc with the most points. In the case of a tie, the winner will be decided by the most first choice votes. Full ties will share the prize of 25 million inf transferred to the character of their choice.

@FredrikSvanberg Fear And Loathing On Striga #350522

@Tubbius Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City #351727

@Jail.Bird The New Paragon Society Reborn #355351

@Lazarus Breaking the Barrier (and Putting it Back Together Again) #347029

@LaserJesus Drakule vs The Werewolf Bikers from Hell #340316

@Clave Dark 5 Against the WickerWork Khan! #346904


Best Unknown Author

• Voting is open until February 15th at 11:59pm EST.
• Please vote for two authors, a first choice and a second choice. A first choice which will get 2 points, and a second choice which will get 1 point. Please be clear which author is your first and which is your second.
• Authors nominated in a category may still vote in the same category, but may only choose one author other than themselves which will get 1 point. (This approximates every author voting for themselves as a first place vote)
• The winner will be the author with the most points. In the case of a tie, the winner will be decided by the most first choice votes. Full ties will share the prize of 25 million inf transferred to the character of their choice.

@Celestial Nemesis The Coldest of Wars #299972

@Sister Twelve The Long Road Back #340454, also The Union of the Mask #352400

@Calash Time for Reflection #303046, also End Game - Final Moves #17006

@Arctic Princess Simplicity #365497

@Oubliette Evil by Inches #349967

Um... I'm extending it one more day to the 22nd... so I can get my noms in... Hey, I'm the organizer and I just got back today!

Anyway, my nom for best new arc is Oubliette's Evil by Inches #349967. I'll have the front page updated and will get to reviewing all the nominees as soon as possible. Voting thread coming up as soon as I can!

Just got an e-mail reminder that my account's up tonight, and I don't have the money to pay for it for a bit, so I'll see you all around soon.

I think the best solution is to make the DoT effect "sticky", like each tick of damage in the burn patch has a diminishing 80% chance for more DoT (not stackable with itself) even if they're not in the patch.

i.e. They leave the burn patch, and there's an 80% chance for an extra tick of damage. If that hits, there's an 80% chance of another tick of damage, etc. up to a max of 10 ticks once they leave the patch. And this would be refreshed if they step back inside the burn patch.

Ok, so I like posting stuff on the forums, and I have a newly available arc slot. And I'm sure that someone might find some usefulness in it, and I think this will keep me going if I've got something to show myself my progress.

Anyway, I've got a new idea for a complicated arc, and I decided to share with everyone the process, from concept to completion. I welcome any support, comments, and suggestions along the way.

Step 1: The concept

One of Venture's pet peeves, and one of mine to a lesser extent which just happened during an arc yesterday, is when "It's all a Nemesis plot." is used as to wrap everything up at the end, whether it makes sense or not. So my concept is to make an arc about a Nemesis Plot that comes as close to being worthy of Nemesis as possible.

My goals:

1) I want it to be a complex plot that really comes together at the end in a way that makes sense, and when you play it again, things you thought were one thing, were actually another.

2) I want it to involve 3 characters: Nemesis, a Nemesis Automaton, and the Player. This is important because I want the player to feel like they are a part in their own plot and not just a pawn in someone else's.

3) I want to use a hidden identity, though not an anagram of Nemesis. I was thinking more along the lines of a complicated cryptogram of Nemesis, and also to place optional clues to solving the cryptogram along the way.

and that's where I'm at right now. More concept to come soon...

edit: though possibly not quite as soon as I'd hoped. Game account's cancelled, and don't have the money for a bit to reactivate.

I was looking through my PMs and realized I skipped over PoptartsNinja's review request, Operation: Charbydis will be next. But tonight's arc is StratoNexus's

The Better Part of Valor ID# 349298 by @StratoNexus

My contact today is a regular policewoman with experience working with Supers. There is a string of robberies involving high tech machinery and mutagens. Their current lead is a company called Web Associates: Computer Consulting. It's a suspected cover for an Arachnos base. And when I get there, her fears are confirmed. I also find another police officer who has gone rogue, which comes as a surprise to my contact. He has information on another location, and my contact goes through the proper paperwork to obtain the search warrant.

It is a Crey facility, but it has been mostly abandoned, I've been assured of Crey's cooperation, but I should be on my guard as I search for any information. What I find there are a large group of Arachnoids, as well as some mutated bodies, research notes on something called Venom, and research on other well known scientists super soldier projects. It all points to a Dr. Karanski, and my contact assures me that they will take it from here...

...except three weeks later, and she is kidnapped, though she is able to text me with her cell phone. I find her in the office building where her sister works, held by these Arachnoids, along with other similar animal mutates. I also find a Crab Spider named Hamon who accessess a computer with a vital location for me, and I have the choice of letting him go free, or handing him over to Longbow. Though the contact tells me pretty much the same thing whether I rescue him or not.

It turns out that this Dr. Karanski is using Arachnos Fortunatas in his experiments and is releasing a toxic gas that is fatal to them, but is not fatal to anyone else in the area. I have 10 minutes to find all of the gas containers and deactivate them before they completely release into the area around Mercy, as well as killing all of the captive Fortunatas. The popup says that this is a near impossible task, though I complete it quite easily with a couple minutes left to spare going at a very casual pace. If you do fail, you find out that the gas did indeed kill all of the Fortunatas, to no one's grief, and the general populace gained some aggressive tendencies, though no further harm happened to them.

The final showdown is on Grandville beach (a map that I had never seen before), where I fight Dr. Karanski, who seems more interested in studying and recruiting me. His defeat triggers some crystals of his syrum that I have to destroy, and one that can't be destroyed, for some reason. I also find my contact's sister Constance, under the mind control, and experimental results of Dr. Karanski. And one more version of Dr. Karanski shows up at the end (which unfortunately didn't spawn on my second go around).

Evil for the Greater good: Honestly, I didn't see much evil in this arc at all. It felt like heroics throughout. The worst things were working with Arachnos's Hamon in mission 3, but you could choose to let Longbow take him. And there's the choice of letting the gas kill the Fortunatas, but if you rescue them, nothing very bad happens. And finally is defeating Constance who is mind controlled, but that also seems like a tragic heroic deed, rather than a forced evil deed.

The Arc as an Arc: The arc in and of itself is quite good though. I enjoyed the writing, especially the characterization of the contact, she seemed quite real to me, and she has very interesting busy text on most of the missions. The plot and pacing was also quite good, though I thought there were a few chaining issues in the final mission, like it was not quite clear what the crystals are, and why I'm destroying them, and why I can't destroy the last one. There is a little in the info on the crystals, but not much. Also, there is a use of larger text for a few of the objectives that I wasn't quite sure if I liked or not.

But I still enjoyed it quite a bit, both times around.

Burn: lets mobs run back and forth while they are being damaged by any other DoTs you have on them.

Wow, I don't think I've ever seen so much backlash on something that's come up many times before. I agree that Fiery Aura is ok as it is. I also agree that it's near or at the bottom when comparing it to all the other sets for survivability. I've got 90+ levels in Fiery Aura across all three ATs, including one 50 (Brute).

1) You're looking at Burn wrong, it works just fine right now as damage mitigation + damage + immob protection.

2) Consume absolutely needs buffed. Recharge needs dropped, and damage either needs buffed or removed completely.

3) Fiery Embrace also needs its recharge dropped. Twice Build Up's recharge should be more balanced than 3x Build Up. (I'm not sure on numbers, if it *is* 2x build up, it should be 1.5) Also, if I remember my numbers correctly, it is equal to Build Up for non-fire types, and Build Up + for fire types. This sounds just fine to me.

4) Adding slow protection to Temp Protection helped a little, but it still needs a little bit more.