Bubbawheat

I also did a review thread for short arcs if you're mostly looking for stuff to play. I found it here. I also came across Wrong Number's thread in the same search, she even called it short and sweet.

Oh wow, that looks super nice. It also looks like they got the horns and nose right.

Update 1/09/10: And yet again proving all the sketchers love my Brute's second costume, ChristopherRobin made a great sketch of his second costume for his 40 sketches in 60 days New Years resolution.

Mini Update 1-9: Blaster's up to level 39 now, and I picked out a third costume that I like pretty well thanks to Thirty-Seven's costume help thread. It's something different as the first one without the stripe down the middle. It's based on more like a wooden pattern.

Whack a Mole #2711 is a quick bit of fun, not too much in the way of tickets though. Currently Where's Moldo edition, though I plan on changing it up a little bit soon. 2 missions - 10 minutes total time.

Ooh, another congrats thread. Thanks guys! I really appreciate it! If you need any other recommendations for good arc, just let me know, I've played a LOT of good AE story arcs.

Ooh, this is a pleasant surprise, thanks everyone!

ok, me first. It's my most recent costume slot for my Burnt Matchstick blaster. I'm just plain not happy with it, even though I've gotten a couple compliments on it. Here's what it is now:




What I like: The warrior mask - the character is blind per her bio (also black skin, red camo pattern on the face). Not having the fat stripe 2 pattern. The naughty halo (not shown)

What I don't like: I can't quite put my finger on it, I think everything just doesn't quite go together right. I wouldn't mind seeing a different color scheme either.

Next on the agenda is Twelfth's arc, which took me longer than I though due to battling over computer time with my wife's new addiction to Sims 3. But I made it through:

Task Force Mutternacht # 349522 by @twelfth

The first thing I did was Google Mutternacht, which gave me the arc's page. But going for Mutter Nacht gave me the real result: Kurt Vonnegut's novel "Night Mother". I won't go into the details of the story, which I know nothing about, but I will post one quote I found in the Wiki article from Kurt Vonnegut's introduction that I found appropriate to the arc "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

My contact for this arc is Indigo - who as a player, I know very little about other than she's associated with Crimson, and sends you against Malta and Knives of Artemis. And my first mission is to go after Malta and retrieve tech that they have acquired to gain access to the Warburg nukes. During the mission you run into an ally named Mr. Inquiry, as well as a raving member of Longbow named Agent Kyle who is rattling off about some Jackson film.

This Jackson film has Indigo worried and she decides that you should go undercover as a villain named Dystheist, which means someone who believes in God, but doesn't believe that he is entirely good. She provides you with a costume for this role, and your first mission as Dystheist is to infiltrate the PPD's evidence, bribe one of the guards to gain access to a specific piece of evidence which turns out to be a locked container of documents. For some reason, Freakshow are also there on their own agenda.

This evidence is then used in my next stop to be delivered to the notorious Westin Phipps in exchange for the mysterious Jackson film. While I'm there to meet up with Phipps, there is a random raid, led by Mr. Inquiry. Phipps tries to use the diversion to turn on me and keep both the evidence and the film, but is unsuccessful. I try to take a look at this film, but can only make out that it seems to be some sort of arson.

Unfortunately, Mr. Inquiry's presence makes Indigo worried, as his reputation precedes him as being notorious for digging up any and all leads to an end, which would lead him eventually to Indigo herself. So we need to neutralize him by planting evidence that he is a double agent for the Council, and someone who can't be trusted. Killing two birds with one stone, I am also tasked with retrieving one of the Council's Vampiric Archons the nominal Mr. Jackson. During the mission return text, I find that I've been set up as the "safehouse" I was to bring Mr. Jackson to ultimately led to his fiery demise.

I confront Indigo and she reluctantly shows me the tape on her mobile device. It does show an arson, complete with victims who are not only trapped, but thrown back into the pyre and held against their will by one Maiden Justice - Statesman's wife. Whether real or faked, this could very well tear apart the public's view on the entire superhero culture. And Mr. Inquiry somehow (due to my poor recollection) acquire's this video.

My final task as Dystheist is to go to Atlas park where Sister Psyche is using a psionic amplification device which Mr. Inquiry is planning on manipulating into showing the entire city the film's contents. But he has become a broken man, and was easily stopped by the PPD (Since he was already stopped, it might be better to make him an optional encounter. It's pertinent to the story, but it's not needed to actually complete your task. Alternatively, change his "captured" animation to something else) There are also many villains roaming about that you can rescue and in return they will aid you for a while. But your main objective is to defeat Ms. Liberty (again, poor recollection as to the arc's reason why) who was quite difficult for my solo blaster (lvl 38 @ -1/x2) and my collected allies who dropped quite quickly.

Evil for the Greater Good: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." Throughout this arc, you pretend to be a villain, you carry out theft, attack heroes, rescue villains, and are an accessory to murder. And all of this is to prevent the release of a film that condemns one of the City's greatest heroes as a villain, and could therefore undermine the city's entire network of superheroes. I think it lives up to the premise quite well.

The Arc as an Arc: I thought this arc was well written, had interesting objectives, an interesting mix of enemies. I was interested all the way through in what the Jackson film was, and how everything ultimately played out. I liked all the characterization, though I didn't much care for the costume device for your Dystheist persona. It requires either the player to play along using a costume slot, or it causes an immersion break for someone who doesn't play along and has the same costume throughout the arc. You could present the suggestion for an alternate costume to go with your persona, but remove the references as if you actually went along with the alternate costume. For Mr. Inquiry's revealing encounter, you could instead go with something like "$name, I would recognize you anywhere" - this would work with someone in the same costume or a different costume.

Pre-posting edit: I read through PW's review to refresh my memory of the other details with the arc, and I agree with a lot of her points. I don't understand why I had to fight Ms. Liberty, and she was very tough, though 8 lucks and my fire blaster finally dropped her without too much trouble. Mr. Inquiry was quite easy, and also seemed mostly defeated by the time I got there.

But all in all, another great arc that I really enjoyed playing.

You have to pick a standard boss from the standard groups, but you can still rename him, rename his group, and possibly (I might be wrong on this one) recolor him all through the boss details. You can't choose standard minions, lieuts, and pets this way though.

The main point is not for the educated AE player who knows what the star ratings really mean. This is all about the casual player. If you only play one or two AE arcs a month, are you going to choose a 5 star arc, or a 4 star arc? I've come around to this way of thinking, and rate any arc I like as a 5 star.

I believe that arc has several hundred plays as well, which doesn't count as "unknown" per the rules (correct me if I'm wrong, my game's been crashing before loading the past couple days, trying to figure it out now). [whew, fixed it! and yes, 363 plays is not "unknown"]

You just need to get a couple people to over-dub it and it would be perfect!

Ok, December was a rough month. We had a good showing of nominees, but not so much in the way of voting. Though this is a new year, and a new decade, I'm partly going back to what worked the best the first time around. And in honor of the new year, I'd also like to honor the new arcs, and the unknown authors. So let's get to the rules!

Best New Arc

• You may not nominate your own arc.
• You may nominate any arc published on or after October 1st, 2009.
• Please do not nominate an author with: A Dev Choice arc, A Hall of Fame Arc, a previous Player's Choice win.
• In your nomination, provide the arc ID#, the title, author's Global name, and a short (50 words or less) explanation why you're nominating the arc.
• You may use your nomination to "second" any previous nomination. This will guarantee the arc's spot in the final voting. Nominations past the second are not needed.
• Nominations will be accepted until January 22nd at 11:59pm EST. Nomination are now closed
• Nominations will be narrowed down to five entries, or every nomination with a "second", whichever is larger. This will be done by myself, and at least one other judge - to be named later.
• Voting will be held in a new thread posted as soon as possible and will be open until February 15th at 11:59pm EST.

*Finalist* @FredrikSvanburg Fear And Loathing On Striga #350522

*Finalist* @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

@FredrikSvanberg The Tangled Weave #338575

@LaserJesus Drakule vs The Werewolf Bikers from Hell #340316

@Arctic Princess Simplicity #365497

@Clave Dark 5 Against the WickerWork Khan! #346904

@Oubliette Evil by Inches #349967

Best Unknown Author

• You may not nominate your own arc.
• You may nominate any author with 3 or fewer arcs with a combined total of 50 plays or less.
• Please do not nominate an author with: A Dev Choice arc, A Hall of Fame Arc, a previous Player's Choice win.
• In your nomination, provide all applicable arc ID#s and titles, along with the author's Global name, and a short (100 words or less) explanation why you're nominating the author.
• You may use your nomination to "second" any previous nomination. This will guarantee the author's spot in the final voting. Nominations past the second are not needed.
• Nominations will be accepted until January 22nd at 11:59pm EST. Nomination are now closed
• Nominations will be narrowed down to five entries, or every nomination with a "second", whichever is larger. This will be done by myself, and at least one other judge - to be named later.
• Voting will be held in a new thread posted as soon as possible and will be open until February 15th at 11:59pm EST.

*Finalist* @Celestial Nemesis The Coldest of Wars #299972

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

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

Good luck!

Well, my second outing at a Player's Choice event has come to a close, and not nearly as successful as the first one. There's several possibilities why: the holiday season, an overly large selection, being too soon after the first PC event, whatever else. But despite the low voter turnout, here are the results for December's Player's Choice: Customs!

Best Group

In third place, with 1 second place vote, and 1 third place vote for a total of 3 points is a tie between Laser Jesus's Freedom Militia and Clave Dark 5's WickerWork.

Freedom Militia's Ice Queen


WickerWork Splinter and Lantern Warrior (my personal favorite)

In second place, with 3 second place votes, and 1 third place vote with a total of 7 points is my own
Matchstick Women.



And in first place, with 2 first place votes, and 1 second place vote for a total of 8 points is Wrong Number's The Wannabes





Best Character

In third place, with 1 first place vote and 1 second place vote for a total of 5 points is New Age Ronin's Becky, the Tarantula Mistress.



In second place, with 1 first place vote, 1 second place vote, and 3 third place votes, for a total of 8 points is Fem Fury's Erica Lashion, aka Escalation

And in first place, with 2 first place votes, 1 second place vote, and 1 third place vote for a total of 9 points is Wrong Number's The Firecracker Kid! Congratulations, you may call yourself Queen of the Customs! Thanks everyone for participating!

sounds interesting, do you know how many total arcs you're going to have? Are you going to get more arc slots, rotate old arcs out, or use friend's slots? I would suggest leaving as many up as possible, since getting plays for new arcs is somewhat difficult. But good luck with it!

Because women are more interesting. I don't view MMO characters as being digital representations of myself, I view them as characters and I am writing/controlling how their situations play out. And I've always preferred movies/TV shows with female protagonists, they are almost always more interesting than male protagonists, in my opinion: Buffy, Dollhouse, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil (the movies), even Alice in Wonderland, and the Wizard of Oz. The male and huge characters that I do make have all been caricatures rather than characters. I believe I have yet to make a male character with a normal face.

Good luck, I've enjoyed what I've seen of your art and sketches here and there. You're welcome to pick your favorite Burnt Matchstick for one of the 40.

Been having fun with the MA superteam, the Screenshots and Fan Creations SG/VGs, and the winter event stuff. But now back to the arcs. Next up is

Evil by Inches #349967 by @oubliette

Instead of meeting in person, my contact today calls me by phone (though the bio just gives me the description of the one calling me) and tells me " Hey Bubbawheat. This is Lydia Kowalski and I need your help with a bit of business that just came my way out in Astoria Hills. " I head out there and the residents are acting a bit strange, crazed even. There's also one madman named Jack Carver who claims he's doing this all for her.

When I call Lydia back I instead hear the voice of a villain calling herself Hallow Eve. She claims to have Lydia there with her, and I must acquiesce to her demands or Lydia is dead. My first task is to free someone named Starcrossed from the Zig, fighting my way through the guards. There are several inmates and convicts in the prison, and my only clue is that Starcrossed has a star shaped scar on his left eye. One of the inmates, Phoenix, tries to play himself off as Starcrossed and attacks when we find the real one.

Calling Hallow Eve back to tell of my success, I'm met instead with the news of a mental hospital thrown into disarray with toxic gas spilling into the building. When I arrive, I can see that the gas is affecting the patients as well as the orderlies. There's some interesting notable patients that I see going on a rampage, but this is a huge hospital - 5 floors - and I have 10 containers of gas to shut off throughout the building. I felt that this was a little bit much, especially when I make it all the way through to level 5 and find out that I missed one container. Back down through to level 3 and I find it... only to be met with a chained objective, and a vague one at that: a "clue" to find. I don't know if this is going to be a glowie, hostage, or boss, and not sure if I should head downstairs or upstairs. This was bordering on /ragequit territory honestly. But I persevered and headed back upstairs to find Jack Carver cowering and complaining about Starcrossed. He draws me a map (with a very appropriate emote) and runs off.

Next up things get a little weird as I go to the abandoned hospital map where the gas starts affecting me oddly. I'm seeing monsters and hearing voices as I search for the secret passage from the crudely drawn map that Jack gave me. This mission has a lot of great Cheshire Cat style horror elements to it, with haunting voices (stealthed allied patrols), great recolored monsters. I really loved the Thorn Tree vines, the odd noises they make really fit with the mission. I would suggest placing the bookcase in the back, as I found it in the middle, but there was a nice optional encounter in the back.

Finally it's time for the showdown with Hallow Eve, as well as her lieutenant Starcrossed. Jack's also there (though I didn't catch if he had fully become an ally or if he was too crazy to help and had to be fought, I only saw his dialog, which mentioned killing Starcrossed I believe) Unfortunately, at level 17, and 1:00 in the morning, I couldn't defeat Hallow Eve with her Psi attacks and confuse. But I will try again shortly and come back with more final thoughts. The arc range is 1-40, though I would suggest raising the minimum a bit to SO level.

Evil for the Greater Good: This arc starts out with a little questionable activity: fighting normal citizens even though they are acting crazy and attacking me first. In the next mission it ramps up, having me free a criminal from the Zig while attacking the guards. And that's really about it, the next three missions mostly revolve around finding and defeating Hallow Eve: a heroic task, aside from the occasional orderly in M3.

The arc as an arc: On its own merits, this is one of my favorite arcs I've played in a while, with a few gameplay flaws - which for some people could overshadow the rest of the arc. Aside from the problems I already mentioned, the mechanics on this arc are absolutely fantastic. Mission 2 is one of the best jailbreak missions I've played. I loved having several inmates dressed in traditional prison garb, having only the clue (and watching for the objective text to change) to tell which one to rescue, and the smart prisoner trying to use you to get out of jail himself. And Mission 3 has a great mix of mobs roaming around - the crazed inmates, the orderlies (who unfortunately have the dreaded web grenade which some people hate, and can be a big problem in bigger spawns), and unique optional bosses. Mission 4 has great atmosphere from the initial popup showing the start of the crazies, again a great mix of recolored mobs, using patrols to get multiple <groupnames> so each group is themed to match. I also thought the writing overall was great, it had great flavor, and the right touches of humor.

I absolutely enjoyed this arc, and hope to play it again after your next edit.

A couple questions:

1) what was your team size like overall between blue/red. I couldn't tell if your statement about being on a full 8 man team most of the time referred to only your villain, or to both your hero and villain. Being on a bigger team redside more often would cut into your merits per XP ratio.

2) How often did you have to do radios/paper chains to get your next contact. It could be as simple as blueside has a lot more chained contacts and contacts you can just go straight to (hollows, faultline), where redside, you have to do a paper chain for every new contact almost, which cuts into your merits per XP ratio.