GlaziusF

Okay, played through Blargrimmar, because I wanted something a little light.

The arc takes itself at least modestly seriously, in that the actual events happening in it are important to the characters involved in them. But the tone of the writing is very light-hearted, helped along by enough tributes to steal men's souls and make them slaves, or however that goes. I use "tribute" rather than "parody" because the NPCs care about what's going on and that makes all the references in the arc real things in their own right rather than cheap copies.

The custom faction is superbly costumed and generally well-balanced (though I ran this arc on a 43 regen scrapper so who knows how reliable that is) as are both the guest allies (and one in particular). So if you want something light-hearted and a little goofy but more than just an empty joke, I heartily endorse "Blargrimmar Wants You!"

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You're gonna have to explain "level gap". The mission without Brickers in them are 1-20 instead of 8-20? Is that it?

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Correct. As you can see, it's a personal gripe of mine, so I didn't hold it against you. As someone else reviewing arcs around here (I forget who) said, I consider a contiguous level range (+/- 1 or 2 at most) to be a final polishing touch to an arc, something that tells me the author really paid attention to the finer points of his or her arc, in this case by ensuring that players 'felt' about the same throughout the arc, not losing or gaining powers.

This applies foremost to maximum level, which you did an excellent job on in your arc, but it is my opinion that for a truly well-polished arc, the minimum level should remain in the general range as well. That's just a personal thing of mine though, and has no effect on my ratings (unless the level range gets really wonky, like going from 45 to 23 all of a sudden ).

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Ah. I don't worry so much about minimum level, because if people get boosted up a few levels but aren't really fighting harder enemies (IMO the 30-40 carnies villainside can be done on a level 20ish character) then there's no trouble. Any minimum level evening I do tends to be a byproduct of the maximum level scaling, just because so many enemies share a level range.

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Did not realise it recognised Ps as well as BRs - nice.

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Huh, i didn't either. Must try that sometime.

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It doesn't.

But it converts carriage returns to BRs, and until it converts them they're only one character. So that's worth about 30-40 characters in a long enough opening.

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There isn't a way, but you can get around it by calling the boss by their name, or using gender-neutral language.

Of course, there's always events in the canon game such as an ambush consisting of Carnival Strongmen which shout out "Let's get 'em, girls!"

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Well, the Strongmen are just dumb hunks of muscle with a different intelligence piloting them.

I mean, dudes can't freaking SEE.

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The crates at the back showed up in blue text. That means they're optional objectives. I should have put that in the opening accept text.

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Question: How do you get your non-required objectives to still show up in the objective window? I haven't been able to find any answer to that question. Not surprised since I see it appear so rarely.

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You have to enter text for both plural and singular navtext, even if it's only one optional objective.

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So it's exploiting a bug? (At least I considered it a bug when I stumbled upon it during Beta.)

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Not really, the fact that it doesn't show up is more likely the bug. Pohsyb used it in his fire imp arc to show optional objectives in the bar, for example. Pretty sure they want us to be able to show the optional objectives in the bar, but it's not working too well.

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Yeah, I've got to agree with that here. Non-optional objectives will show up (using their objective name) even if you don't put in any text. Optional objectives need both singular and plural text to show up, and I provide that even for single objectives if I want them to show. People don't have to find the crates in the back room, fight the weather-control robot, or grab JJ's package to complete those respective missions, but the crates and JJ's package spit out a clue and they may want to fight the robot anyway, so I put it in the navbar. (The other little robot ally in the package mission doesn't drop a clue so he doesn't get a navbar spot.)

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So it's finally GlaziusF's turn. I took a glance over his three offerings to see what looked interesting.

I wanted to play Anna more today, so looked at The Bravuran Jobs, but noticed the wonky level ranges and decided to skip it. If there is a reason to be going from 30 to 54 between missions it better be a good one.

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The reason is "I wanted to make something any villain could play and get XP for but Wyvern and Legacy Chain don't go that high".

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It then came down to Bricked Electronics and Dream Paper. I noticed that Dream Paper was at 44 reviews and still 5-starred, so it was tempting to go in and find any flaws that I could, but Bricked Electronics looked more interesting at the moment. Largely because it has Goldbrickers in it. I miss those guys.

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Villainside has a lot of guys who show up in one storyarc and then vanish under the tide of Longbow. I like digging them up.

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Hello Mark Freeman, just pretend I'm a Tanker instead of a Brute. So you can talk to machines? That's nice, and you found some sort of 'ghost' on this old cellphone that disturbs you and want me to go to the shop you got it from and ask around? Sure, why not?

Hmm, you probably meant to say "stashed among a bunch of little shops" rather than "smashed among".

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The impression I wanted to leave, whatever the size of the pawnshop map, is one of those stores you find in urban areas that's ten feet wide and 50 feet long.

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So I enter the pawn shop to immediately run into some Goldbrickers. In Skyway City? Awesome. I take them all out, including their chatty leader Billmark and search the place for clues. Seems the shop owner didn't come in today, but I found his home address.

Something odd happened. The two crates in the back were listed as objectives, but the mission ended upon defeating all of the Goldbrickers instead. I think you need to take a look at this mission and see if some objectives are overriding each other.

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The crates at the back showed up in blue text. That means they're optional objectives. I should have put that in the opening accept text.

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Mission 2:
I figured I'd be going to visit the shop owner next, but Mark talked to him for me and sends me over to the warehouse where the owner got the cellphone. The warehouse turns out to be infested with clockwork.

Of course I picked the character with no end drain protection. Oh well.

Seems the game heard me because every inspiration drop I got during this mission was a blue. However I noticed these Clocks were part of a group called Constructs, and soon ran into some very different robots. Nicely designed ones, somebody was having fun with the Cyborg Booster Pack.

However there are some bugs. While fighting one spawn a robot ran away through two other spawns, which proceeded to attack it. Next thing I new all three spawns were attacking each other instead of me, despite being of the same group.


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Yeah, I use a battle between the constructs and clockwork to lock the map. I think everything in a battle is considered rogue so it can damage other things... did the robot run into the middle of the battle?

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The cave I arrive in is a Council base. Apparently that sinkhole is the airshaft and these Council guys are getting a bit annoyed at someone dropping crates full of trash down them. I locate the two crates and find the Archon. Upon defeating him however, he decided to release toxic gas and I have to search the place for the three canisters. That's rather annoying as I had just searched the whole map already and now have to do so again.

Fortunately all three canisters turn out to be in the nearby cistern room. With them all taken care of I can move on.

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Yeah, all the gas should show up in the same place. Unfortunately because of the structure of the average Council base I can't guarantee you'll find the Archon before the room that should have gas in it.

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By then I had also found both "laptops" (the desks have desktop computers on them however)


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Yeah. I accidentally abandoned some changes instead of saving them and missed fixing the desks on the return pass. Good now.

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I find JJ in the lobby and free her, taking out all the Brickers and heading off to the vault. I didn't even notice she was suddenly a Bots/Kin Mastermind until she finished summoned and caught up, as I stop for nothing on timed missions. Got to the vault and finished the mission in 4 minutes flat.


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Dang. Well, I'm not going to turn it down to 5, I want it to be realistically attainable but still pressure.

I can appreciate not wanting to stop to watch animations play, though.

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And the revelation. There was a law that allowed the Banks to reclaim money in inactive accounts after a certain amount of time. This law had been suspended during the Rikti Was but was going to be reactivated soon, and the Goldbrickers were after a particular account that they didn't want to be claimed by the bank. The account likely belonged to King Midas himself.

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The Verdict:
This was more fun that your typical lowbie arc. It was nice seeing the Goldbrickers in a heroic arc, heck in any arc at all since I've not seen anyone else using them yet. I like seeing neglected groups showing up in MA arcs.

The gas canister part in mission 3 felt totally unnecessary, but not anything worth subtracting a star for. All other flaws were minor mistakes that can be fixed.

Well played, here's your 5-stars. Don't spend them all in the same place.

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That's two five-star reviews in a row again. People are gonna start thinking I'm easily pleased if this keeps up.

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The gas is there to show how much of a nutbar Targus was becoming and because of a little theme I don't see too often - when you're a hero you often just stop whatever crime you come across, and there's no reason that has to stop when you're running a mission arc. So you find yourself in a base with a paranoid Archon and a supply of nerve gas, and you take both of them out because that's just how heroes roll.

And villains pretending to be heroes.

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Arc Name: Bricked Electronics
Arc ID: 2180
Author: @GlaziusF
Number of Missions: 5
Level Range: 8-20
Description: Mark Freeman finds a ghost in a machine. Trailing it will lead you through the scrap heaps of Skyway City to meet an unexpected ally and stop a grievous heist.

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Rating: *****
Likes: Suspenseful presentation, optional objectives.
Gripes: Level gap, some disconnects, "just a bunch of stuff that happened".


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You're gonna have to explain "level gap". The mission without Brickers in them are 1-20 instead of 8-20? Is that it?

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It's solidly put together and fairly compelling, fits perfectly for a hero in the low to mid levels it's designed for, and the sparingly used custom critters greatly enhance the experience - something I consider a distinguishing mark of a very good arc. The only thing I'd have to say about them is that they're not very challenging.

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Remember that, I'll come back to it.

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Ah, a custom group I see. Very intriguing, though a tad weak – the Clockwork wiped the floor with ‘em. Not sure about the nav text with the mysterious robot there, feels a bit forced.

What could this mission use? Maybe power up the custom critters a little more.

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How well do you remember the first time you fought Clockwork? I remember their rapid-fire electric brawls being a real pain. I'd say they're on the high end of lowbie groups, less so than Vazhilok. Since this is intended as an arc that even lowbie heroes can run I'd rather err on the side of easy.

They'll probably be a little harder when the Tweeters start actually casting sonic barrier like they should. They still haven't fixed that.

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Also like the Archon’s dialogue, the fight itself, and the objective is well-chained. Not so sure about the use of ‘let me die’ though; you might rub some players the wrong way with that. Well, time to go after the gas canisters. Not entirely sure I’d actually blow those up (and they blow pretty big), but the guard dialogue is nice and amusing, and since it’s a tripartite, I guess that’s not too big of an issue.

What could this mission use? Perhaps change ‘die’ to something less absolute, like ‘axed’ or ‘beaten’, something to imply a more ambiguous defeat.


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Well, at this point, Targus is convinced that everything up to and including the squeaky ventilation fan at the commissary is plotting to kill him. Actual heroes are cackling murderous fiends.

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Now let’s see if we can find…that’s not a tech crate. And it’s certainly not a laptop either! I’m supposed to lug this huge thing back out instead of the crates? Why, I never.

What could this mission use? A little better connection between the crates/laptop deal. Didn’t find any crates, so not sure if that’s objective text you forgot to change at some point, but the computer thing just feels weird.

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Yeah, don't know what happened there. I guess one of the changes didn't take. Those are supposed to be desks with laptops on them and labeled as such.

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Mission: Fast and furious, heh heh. Nice twist with JJ’s ‘powers’. Small disconnect with the boss dialogue there, but the paranoia explains some of that. Was also kind of odd that one of the boxes turned out to be ‘check it’ while the other was ‘defend it’, but it worked out okay.

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Well, I wanted the Goldbrickers to be obviously trying to break into the stuff, but you can't get clues from completing a defendable objective, therefore...

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What could this mission use? A little more connection in the intro text.

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Well, that's the tough part. The intro text is over 1000 characters. I make it fit by taking out the BRs and putting in paragraph breaks. I'll see what I can do though.

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I don't have characters on those servers. But I eagerly anticipate the other missions being put out. Here's hoping you get more slots to put them in with.

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Ah. How about Virtue? I think I have a couple over there in range as well.

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A rescue ally situation--which had been working--changed to have the ally getting free when zoning into the mission. Any idea how to rectify this problem?

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Does the ally have a damage aura?

In the broken mission, is he surrounded by mobs or alone?

Lastly, what sort of mobs should be guarding him?

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Just like bosses set not to runaway, they still do. Nothing can really be done about that.

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The "run away" setting doesn't control whether or not the boss will stand still for a burn patch. A boss may retreat because its atttacks are failing or whatever, but when a boss "runs away" it can leave the mission and will fail the mission if it was required and escapes.

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I think a lot of us have watched The Watchmen by now or read the graphic novel .... I don't know about you but I really dig how their issues are grittier and not so cut and dry with what normally flys in comics.


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Yeah, you and the entire 1990s.

Here's the thing: Watchmen is fundamentally a story about "superheroes" failing, and holds up the problems the traditional superhero fantasy can't address.

If you want to write a story about failure, go right ahead, but keep in mind that people tend not to like games that end with "congratulations! everything's worse now!"

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Good information, and not to rain on anyone's parade, but what happens if an upcoming patch/nerf/whatever BREAKS a DC arc?

How does one fix that?

[/ QUOTE ]That happened on Test, actually. I believe pohsyb said to upload a fixed version and then tell him the new arc ID#

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Uh, if you have to keep a free slot open in case one of your Dev Choice missions breaks and you need to upload a fixed version, that kinda defeats the point of Dev Choice. At least the first one. And how many people are going to get a second?

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First, can you please please please PLEASE make a group for the Rikti that has no monkeys and use it? It's bad enough that monkey gas makes allies crazy, but some of those allies teleport.

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Actually, I have. The 'Rikti' and 'Rikti Special Ops.' you see are both custom groups using standard NPCs, and have no underlings. Unfortunately, the game doesn't seem to agree and places them there anyway.

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Are you using the "random minion/lieut/boss" spawner, or just individual Rikti? If the latter I have no idea what to say.

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Second, uh, if I'm running this on a villain, what is my disincentive to use the assault on Kings Row as cover for moving myself into Paragon? The War Zone is an effectively sealed environment but just giving villains access to Paragon because they say they'll fight the Rikti doesn't seem right.

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Well, first because you're working as a Vanguard operative (remember, this is after the RWZ events, though I will grant that it requires some immersion), and second because according to the story, all of Paragon is under attack by the Rikti. You'd have nowhere to move into where they wouldn't find and try to kill you eventually. Sadly, I can't really convey this anywhere else than the mission briefings, especially since the devs stole the Priests I was using to top off that zone invasion.

Maybe I can add some bone piles or grease spots to that map, say they're the remains of people that got zapped by the Rikti. Do you think that would make it more believable?

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Just to be clear here, we're talking about the same villains who ignore dropships bombing the hell out of their home turf to go rob banks, right?

You could use one of the wilderness maps and call it the Rikti trying to permanently breach the War Walls. The city would still call a red pen op and get everybody out there.

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I was just wondering, when you make a custom boss in a custom group, if the player increases their notoriety or is in a team of a good amount of players and plays the mission, does the boss you made start spawning more then once?

I ask because it would just be odd to see a person you made who is supposed to be unique to start popping up everywhere, i.e. the leader of a zombie army who you are only supposed to see at the end of the map. If the answer to my question is yes, is there anyway around this?

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Put them in their own slightly differently named group. Like call the enemies "zombie soldiers" and your boss "zombie general" or something.

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Hi,

I was on a mission and I got some allies on my way to fight the big bad guy at the end. They buffed me when I freed them, but not after that. Is that a known problem or is there a way to set up allies so they will consistently buff you? I was enjoying looking like I was set on fire with all the thermal buffs.

Cheers,
Conker

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Give 'em some time to realize the buff's worn off before shoving them at targets of opportunity.

Also, only one ally can buff you at any given time. This is to prevent people from making, say, an army of extreme thermal/standard radiation blast enemies and capping their resists, to-hit, and damage bonuses.

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Thanks for the replies

I guess I need to be a bit more specific with what I'm trying to accomplish though. I want an NPC that the hero has to rescue, but can't because the NPC is defeated before the player can get it out.

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Then do things normally, have the NPC faint at the door and stay still, and include in the mission complete text that the doctors tried to stabilize them but they died.

Well, it's a nice idea, but then the problem shifts from "how do we get people to the right level" to "what do they do when they get there"? I mean, your average level 1 or even level 20 isn't going to have the powers to put up with what level 50 enemies can put out, even if they're sidekicked up.

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Arc Name: Dream Paper

Your contact tells you the paper is coming from a warehouse in the Royal District (how he finds out isn't made clear that I could see).

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Clarified that in the briefing - once the paperboy Troll was able to put ideas together he pointed out where he picked up the paper. He promised he'd do that after you saved him in the previous mission. Have restated that.

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When you find Blaloch, he attacks you with Mind Control powers. During the fight he spawns several waves of ambushes (or at least one large one), which I feel is a little much for a mission that caps at level 20.

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Single medium ambush. But he does tend to spawn with his followers spread out and sprawled out, so if you just went for him directly you'd be getting a lot more Lost on you in a hurry.

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He speaks in partial Rikti speech and thanks you when you beat him, saying "it's finally gone now". In the clue you get, he tells you he doesn't remember anything happening, just going to sleep and then waking up fighting you.

With the mission finished, your contact tells you a psychic scan of him detected nothing that would have given him Mental powers. No split personality or anything. You're told that you'll be contacted by the PPD Psychic you met earlier with more information, but...

That's 5 missions and is thus the end of the arc.

So, while I really, really want to give this arc 5 stars, I can't because it ends without clearing up any of the mysteries. I feel like I've only played half the arc. And while I understand that, eventually, there might be a follow up made, currently, it doesn't seem to be there.

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Well, leave 'em wanting more, right?

Yeah, this is obviously a setup. I had part 2 (and 3!) going on Test, but I decided to change things up a little bit on live, get more variety out there. (Also there's this thing where even if you cap Lost at level 29 Rikti still show up, and if you make a custom group of just Lost without the random 5-30 spawners, half the map is empty when it spawns at 29. Gonna have to check up on those.)

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Which is a shame, because everything else around the arc was really good. The writing was all solid or better, the story followed a very logical progression, the characters all had personality. I was completely expecting to give it a 5 after the 2nd mission, but the lack of closure just derailed it.

If a follow up is put up, I could be ready to give it 5 stars (as long as the follow up was also just as good, as I'd really be rating them together). But until then, I can't go any higher.

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Well, if you're really curious, and you have someone on Champion, Triumph, or Protector, I can run you through parts 2 and 3 in test mode.

I have rearranged Alfonse's final sendoff and given him room to point out something - you did everything you set out to do. All that paper is off the streets and Mr. Blaloch is a bit stunned, but otherwise okay.

Yes, there's more to worry about now, but that's not your fault.

Also slightly closed off the previous two mysteries - the manhole in the vision in mission 3 now inexplicably feels like home (whoooooo lives in the sewers beneath Galaxy? LOSTBOB SQUAREHAT!) and there's an extra bit after you take out Stalking Tiger that should hint at what shenanigans the Tsoo are up to, and I mean that literally.

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Quid pro quo. I'm doing this for very selfish reasons: I need feedback too. Therefore, I request that after you list your arc in the following standard format:


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Take-a you pick.

Arc Name: Dream Paper
Arc ID: 1874
Author: @GlaziusF
Number of Missions: 5
Level Range: 10-20
Description: The Lost are breaking into the cheapest apartments in the city. Finding out why will lead you up a scanty trail of evidence to a disquieting conclusion.

Arc Name: Bricked Electronics
Arc ID: 2180
Author: @GlaziusF
Number of Missions: 5
Level Range: 8-20
Description: Mark Freeman finds a ghost in a machine. Trailing it will lead you through the scrap heaps of Skyway City to meet an unexpected ally and stop a grievous heist.

Arc Name: The Bravuran Jobs
Arc ID: 5073
Author: @GlaziusF
Number of Missions: 5
Level Range: very wide, suggested 20-30
Description: The tiny sovereignty of Bravura arose in the wake of the Rikti War. It claims an ancient ruling dynasty, but it's an open secret its holdings are products of military conquest. Sounds like your kind of place. And even better, they're looking for freelancers.

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you give me some feedback on one of the following arcs: "the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz" or "Hunting the Dark Dragon"

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Don't suppose offering feedback on Welcome to AE and the Dragon stuff in beta counts? Didn't think so. Revenge is commented upon, as far as I could get.

Played 1356, unfortunately on a solo character. Had to give it up on the fourth mission when Death ran away from my allies, and they chased it right into Famine's Aura Of Can't Do Anything. And they died. But that was just weird AI stuff beyond your control.

Couple of things.

First, can you please please please PLEASE make a group for the Rikti that has no monkeys and use it? It's bad enough that monkey gas makes allies crazy, but some of those allies teleport.

Second, uh, if I'm running this on a villain, what is my disincentive to use the assault on Kings Row as cover for moving myself into Paragon? The War Zone is an effectively sealed environment but just giving villains access to Paragon because they say they'll fight the Rikti doesn't seem right.

Aside from that the story is certainly believable, though I can't say how the fifth mission might go, and I liked the personalities for the non-canon allies I occasionally fought alongside.

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Also, a question on local storage... phenomenah:

I have only one arc I am working on at the moment - I have auto save turned on because I have had an issue with being DC'd before work was saved (my bad I know). The thing is that in my 'Local' storage tab it shows 2 arcs as being present - both the same arc but one with the file name 'autosave' the other with the proper file name; Is this normal? Does the auto save create a new file? That kinda defeats the purpose since if you are losing work due to a DC you will have to open one file and save it as the other file (my mindset at work, may confuse myself).

Anyone else seeing this?

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Before you assign a filename to an arc it'll be called "autosave". This is also true for anything that autosaves when you edit it after it's been published.

As long as you open the one with an actual filename it'll save to that filename.

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I am wondering how/when I can unlock (or find) certain items for collections? Is there a list or some sort of requirements for certain items? Are items limited by map type?

For Example: In a mission I am creating I want to have a computer desk that has information to download; The map is one of the abandoned warehouse maps but I can't find any normal computer in the collectables section - the only computers are 2 Arachnos computers and 1 Rikti computer; none of those work for that idea.

Any help would be appreciated.

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Check wall collectibles. There are desks with computers and laptops on top.

As an added bonus they'll be as worn-down as the surroundings.

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The "Kid $origin" name is a neat idea, but I don't think "Kid Science" sounds nearly as connected to your main hero as "Kid $name" is.

Anyway, thanks much for the input!


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Well, a lot of heroes had kid sidekicks that weren't just junior versions of themselves and their costumes. Like the All-American and Slugger, the Junior Dynamo.

"Kid $origin" isn't going to be glamorous but unlike "Kid $name" it's always going to make sense.

Man, if only they had $ladlass then the instant sidekick generator could be pretty much complete.

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Yeah I figured there was some sort of XP gap in it, but considering I was the highest level character and only getting 7 XP, it just seemed kind of lame to me. I'd rather spend the same amount of time going through the content myself, instead of trying to find a non farm team out there.

I don't even really want to mention farming on the boards, because I would rather this thread not turn into a flame war, but after my experience last night I now see the benefit of XP farming. I don't rally care about the influence or the tickets, those are added benefits to me, but when I can run through a map with my main and alt alone and get a level or 3/4 level every time, there just seems to be something screwy about running a mish with a group, spending more time doing it and getting less reward.

/shrug just my .02 inf on the subject. I really think that the AE has a lot of potential to reach a variety of players, whether it be those looking for farming or actual mishes. but I'm just frustrated that I'm playing a defender and it seems that I get less XP because I do less damage to a mob. So exactly what is the point of doing missions with a group over doing them as solo? I know this is an MMO, and I do on occasion enjoy grouping up with individuals, but then you get that horror group that makes you run and solo for a while because your psyche has been scarred.

/rant off

Sorry, I'm just a little frustrated at the moment.

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Dude. Did you read the whole thing or just the parts that made you mad?

You get less XP for killing a minion on a team of X people because that minion's XP reward is being divided more or less evenly among X people. If you get XP slower on a team, it's because your team can't kill enough stuff to get you three minions' worth of XP as fast as you can kill three minions. Which can happen on low level teams before your support people get a lot of their force multipliers.

Also and perhaps I should have said, nothing awards an absolute amount of XP. It's all computed relative to your level. So if it's your level 7 and a level 3 guy fighting a level 5 minion, the level 3 will get a little over half of his "level 3 orange minion XP", and you will get a little over half of your "level 7 green minion XP".

It has nothing to do with how much damage you did. The only way you won't get XP from someone in your team killing something is if you weren't in the mission (or out of range outdoors).

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Please do mention if your arc is solo friendly or not, and whether it is intended for low or high level characters. Custom group scaling is borked up right now, so this is especially important if you don't use stock critters. I have lost count of the number of missions I have had to cancel due to crazy numbers of orange con custom LTs spawning in arcs.

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It's not broken. Having a ton of lieutenants show up is what happens when the author doesn't put any minions in the custom group. All the minions are replaced by lieutenants.

It can make for fun solo times but a team is going to die, die, die, and die again.

It maybe have been that the mission creator had set the map to be something like "ramp up" or "back loaded", which will put larger groups of lower-level enemies in the front of the mission.