Clave_Dark_5

Since they're both pretty much the same, that DOES sound balanced to me - mission accomplished!

Well they are pandas, but not "furry"... at least not in the internet-group meaning of the word. But yeah, that arc might fit the theme. Another arc that might was recently published by a friend:

Origin Of The Warwolves #394706 by @WolfBeast

I had fun clicking on all of those at once.

I thought of that one too while playing this arc. I haven't seen that movie in years, it's about time I do again. I'll do a double feature with Zardoz maybe...

Oh, I missed that detail. Maybe you could add to their description.

Thinking a little more, I think the main story point I'd like to see resolved is 'what exactly is animating these dolls'? The story, unless I missed something, seems to pretty much just treat them as a threat that exists, but doesn't address why they exist. And by the end as far as I know, they're still out there after I've rescued the woman and taken the cameras.

Again, YYMV. My suggestions are just directions I'd take the story in if the arc were mine.

There is no cow level.

That's not a bad idea. If a player has to run around the same outdoor map twice, that one's nice and open by comparison. But I think I'd suggest you try and find a good reason to use a diff map the second time, such as two Croatoa maps or something.

So - I played it and I liked it so far. Hold on tight, this gets rambly frokm here....

I liked the whole doll angle. If it were me (YYMV) I think I'd be working to make them all look pretty 'girlish', like you did with one of them, a minion I think. Girls have girl dolls pretty much, right? There might be stuffed animals as well, I see those used on children's memorials a lot.

I think the arc mainly needs a bit more "meat" to set everything all up, and wrap it up. The beginning felt a little bare-boned - why did Dent approach me instead of another hero, or how did I come across this group that needed saving, something like that. Think story flow - begginning, middle and end. One idea that occured to me was that maybe as part of that 'end' that drowned girl could make an appearance as a boss fight? Just thinking out loud... about The Ring.

Scary lives on atmosphere, so try while you flesh out your story, work towards that. That's hard for me to to give a real descriptipn for though. :P

Also - all that sonic was rough! Fortunately I was running a 50 scrapper with regen.

If anything else comes to mind I'll let you know. Hope this helps a little.

I too took the plunge and bought a full set of eight. I also have yet to fill them but that's just because I'm working slowly. I've had an absolute blast conceiving plots, seeing what I can and can't do and what I can fit into my stories. Along the way I've gotten to know a lot of you here on the forums a tad better, seen other very well-written arcs and created some characters I enjoyed so much that I ended up using their templates for toons of my own.

I'll be writing arcs until I fill out my eight (or more, should we get that chance) and I don't care if only one or two people play them because " teh XP iz stoopid", They've already paid their way for me in fun, even if not one person looks at them.

Besides, a month after they fix this XP issue all this will be forgotten except by the usual group of cranky forumites elephants who never forget an error.

I'm guessing there may be a lot of maps along these lines, you'll just have to go map by map and test, test, test.

I have a warehouse map of some sort (I'm at work and can't check right now) that has a pretty solid and small "back" area it seems - I have a boss and like three glowies all set for "back" and they all spawn in one area not much bigger than an AoE like Rain of Fire.

It wasn't a problem with farming but with exploiting, so calling this a nerf (in the pejorative sense of the term) isn't accurate, now that I think about it. A fix sounds about right.

Here's hoping you give them ample opportunity before taking that step.

I look at it like this: even if they take say six months to fix this problem, why bother putting in time to pull down an arc? You can let it sit there gathering dust without having to lift a finger. Then, when they do fix the problem, the arcs are still there and ready to go, again no effort required. It's not like not getting plays costs you something.

Keep in mind this comes from someone who's time online is limited so every minute or two spent here and there counts.

I didn't worry too much about it when I played them, but with the new +regen, that's probably not a bad idea.

Six folks at eleven AM on redside means that rumors about it's death are greatly exaggerated though.

There is (was?) a bug with some destructables where you had to agro them, usually by getting close enough within range or something; I never quite figured it out on an arc I was working on but shelved for different reasons (and this might not even be the same bug, but I thought I'd toss in to see if I can help). I seem to recall that an AoE worked well to "trigger" them.

This is pretty much what happened to me too.

In case it hasn't been mentioned to you before, the 'Stories and Lore' section for MA on these forums (look under 'For Fun!')will be an absolute goldmine for you when it comes to finding worthwhile arcs in terms of stories. Not all arcs have been whomped by the temporary nerfage, too.

I saw six yesterday, and that was at about eleven AM, mountain time - redside too. SIX!!

The AE may be dead (to some, many, whatever) right now, but it will return.

Every one of my arcs in my sig is lost in the "4-star haze", except for A Wake For Dead 6, which is at five stars but only has 4 plays.

I imagine everyone here is familiar with one or two of them as they've been in a number of the player-run contests. I've never won those so I feel a little cheesy tossing them out again, but there you go; gotta hustle for plays when you're at the 4-star level, right? So they're "worth nominating, never a winner" - pretty much seems to define what you're after. Think of the movies that didn't win best picture at the Oscars: chances are there's still something there you might enjoy.

(I think most of them will suffer the XP hit that's current on live though, so it might be worth waiting until that's dealt with, if that's a concern.)

Color me interested...

I still street-sweep sometimes, although I haven't done so with more than one partner, unless you count trick-or-treating during the Halloween event. I find it just about as quick to level up a newbie from 2 to say 8 or so as to run back and forth and hop into and out of instances. And that's redside too; who knows how much time it might save on blue side?