Lazarus

I'm not sure if it should never be purged, but it should definitely not be purged as often as the other forums are. While some threads may sink to the bottom and be for dead arcs that were long since unpublished, many of them are for live arcs and the people who bother to post them here are likely to be maintaining them.

It depends if the hypertrophy is due to an actual increase in muscle fiber density or simply due to them filling with fluid (sarcoplasmic hypertrophy). The later one provides no increase in strength.

Also for many powerlifters (quite a bit different from bodybuilders) their increase in strength is not only from an increase in muscle fiber density but also from their nervous system adapting to activate more of those fibers at a given time.

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Seraphim
Twilight Men
Fear Factor
Revalation
The Killing Crew


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I think some of those groups simply got renamed. Twilight Men may very well have become Malta, since Malta is not mentioned in the video.

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We know even perfectly normal humans are capable of extreme feats of burst strength, enough to snap handcuff chains and break bones...

[/ QUOTE ]It doesn't take all that much force to break a bone. It depends on which bone, of course, but they're hardly the strongest thing on earth

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Break their own bones is what (I think) I meant. I actually had a friend who claimed he'd seen (or had heard of) a man who snapped a pretty sturdy steel bed frame rail with his hand in such a situation.

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Pound for pound, bone is stronger than concrete. It has a large amount of compressive strength along it's major axis, which is why most breaks that you see occur when something hits it hard from the side at one of the thinnest areas.

Feel free to use any of mine. This ought to be amusing.

Quick Review!

Arc ID: 79822
Arc Title: Crimes of Fashion (featuring the Facemaker)
Author: @New Age Ronin
Morality: Villainous
Length: 4 Missions
Description: The Facemaker is looking for superpowered assistance. Do you have what it takes to enter the always exciting and often bloody world of villain hautre couture?
Quicky Review: You're working for the Facemaker, how could it NOT be something good? The author did a good job bringing out the personality of this little used NPC and wrote an amusing story that makes for a fun if short romp for villains above the level of 30.
Rating: *****

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You don't think being a hallucinogen and highly addictive are negative effects?


Also, it's obvious that Dyne suppresses female hormones/increases male hormones, as evidenced by the fact that you never find any apparently female Trolls
/em tinfoilhat

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Oh, dere girl-trolls.

Now.. what you say bout troll talk? All me saw was big words. Like to choppa.

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Not all of them are so big and ineloquent.

I just presumed that maybe the superadine-induced transformation into a Troll is fatal most of the time for women.

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In a well-designed and implemented system, random maps would be of equal quality to to hand-designed maps.

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All the maps are "hand-designed". Random here only means that the map was randomly selected from a list of maps, not that it was Randomly Generated from pieces.

Arc: Small Fears
Arc ID: 12285
Author: @Wall of Knight
Number of Missions: 3
Description: No matter how happy your childhood, there are always a few corners of darkness, little pockets of black fear that every child knows. And now those shadows are expanding. Something is clawing out of the lost childhood of Paragon. Are you ready to confront the fears of the nursery?
Rating: NO RATING

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Character used: Anna Nethema, Level 50 Dark Melee/Fire Aura Brute
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 50

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Mission 1:
The contact is an Oracular Urchin, somebody has been reading TVTropes I see. Anyhow, he pleads with me to come to a nearby school that has been invaded with something and trapped the children inside.

So I enter the mission, which is that rather poorly named Green Fog map, the office one that is rather devoid of fog but has a lot of green light. Inhabiting it are a number of creatures with names like Hallway Monster, Monster Under the Bed, and a demonic Bully. None of them put up much of a fight.

I find the first of the two children listed as objectives, a boy named Tad. He was on the first floor and I escorted him out, but oddly he asked if I had found the other two kids when the objectives only listed one more to find.

Luckily I find Marilee on the 3rd floor (this map has 5) and lead her out to the door. Problem is that once I do, she mentions that there were three kids and the objective STILL says "Get the Last Kid Out". ARRRGGG!

I go all the way up to the 5th floor and find the last kid, it's the Oracular Urchin. From the dialog and briefing I get the idea that he has some latent powers and contacted me psychically, which is also why the monsters wanted him.

There was also a clue that the kids had been staying behind for band practice, playing a song titled "Eine Kleine Nachtmusic".

Mission 2:
The Urchin tells me that while they are physically safe for now, something is still out there in "psychic-space", something sending the monsters. He'll try to guide me to it, somehow. That place turns out to be an office for some reason.

Not far into the office I run into some of the Fears as well as find a glowy that implies that Mother Mayhem is in here. My objective changes to finding her so I set out to do just that. At the back of the office is a big hole in the ground, so down into it I go.

I travel through the caves and then the sewers past more Fears until I find Mother Mayhem surrounded by her "children". Oddly enough, it turns out that she is not behind this, but is cornered here by the Fears. She tells me after defeating her to seek out "Her".

Mission 3:
After a rather incomprehensible mission briefing I am sent off to fight, something.

I arrive in the Abandoned Hospital map and go on to face some Demoness, as the objective says. At least that is what I would have done if I could make it past the first floor without having Confusion and Blind spammed on me repeatedly by the new monsters in this map. I said screw this and quit right here.

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The Verdict:
I won't rate this as I didn't even finish it. Not only is the story confusing just for the sake of being confusing, but it's not engaging enough for me to put up with the aggravating enemies in the final mission. I'm not going to try to go through with trays full of Break Frees nor am I going to restart at this point with a character that resists confusion. I do wonder how this arc got so many ratings, was this all before Confusion became a Standard Illusion power in MA?

Arc: Escalation
Arc ID: 6143
Author: @FemFury
Number of Missions: 5
Description: It starts with an encounter with a minor supervillainess. But, what happens when things escalate?
Rating: ****

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Character used: Anna Nethema, Level 50 Dark Melee/Fire Aura Brute
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 50

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Mission 1:
Detective Becktrees of the PPD asks me if I have time to take care of a problem in Atlas Park named Dr. Erica Lashion. Apparently she is a small-time mad scientist villainess, so small time that the PPD usually takes her down without hero support every other week and Longbow even has a pre-typed form for her. Of course today the PPD special team and all of Becktree's hero contacts are busy, so he asks if I could deal with her. Sure, why not?

Now he warns me about why the Doc is such a problem. Her main super power is that she can jump away to a new clone body every time she is defeated. She can't be kept locked up because of this and even Sister Psyche is stumped at how she does it so easily. Chances are that she will have a few backup bodies on the scene and I will need to defeat them all before she is forced to retreat to her secret lab.

At least Becktrees explained where the Arachnos Flier came from, but I do wonder how vehicles manage to drive right through it. I see that the park is overrun with Lashion's little robots, Energy/Energy minions and Electrical LTs. Nothing too bad here.

I find Dr. Lashion and see what Becktree meant about her often using bodies that were not full developed in a rush to pull off her crimes. She is a very short minion Bots/Dev Mastermind, easily crushed but she of course takes off to a backup body.

Along the way to find her next body I came across a computer that was being used to tab into the City Hall computers and steal funds. I smashed that and came across another robot LT, a claws one.

Annoyingly I circled the park 3 times before find her again. She was a minion again and dropped easily, leading to a third fight. By this point I was annoyed enough that I wrote a custom targeting macro before heading off to find her again. After two more battles, both minions again, she was done and gone. I'm also on her list now, oh I'm so scared.

Mission 2:
Seems that the Doc took our last battle personally and is holding the entire 22nd National Bank hostage. She is demanding a rematch with me or else she will detonate a bomb inside the back. Considering that she won't be bothered by the lose of another body, this is rather serious.

I entered the bank and freed the two tellers. Back in the vault I found the bomb and Dr. Lashion, who was a Lieutenant this time using electrical gauntlets instead of Mastermind robots. Apparently she wanted to get her hands dirty this time, and had allowed this clone to grow to at least five feet tall. Thankfully there were no backups so I only had to fight her once.

Mission 3:
Dr. Lashion is back and this time she has attacked a PPD station, even took down some of the officers who were equipped for dealing with superpowered threats. Word also is that she has been buying some black market stuff of the Family and Trolls. Well, I'm going in!

I ran into Dr. Lashion, or Escalation now as she calls herself, right at the front door. This time she was a boss, fully grown, and carrying a mace, although she still didn't threaten me much. I took her down and disarmed the bomb.

Mission 4:
Becktree has located one of her labs and a team of heroes with Longbow backup are raiding it but Escalation has responded by activating ALL of the clones in that lab. I'm needed now to go in and take them all out.

After facing a new boss Lashion Robot at the door I found a barrel of dangerous biochemicals, likely purchased from Dr. Creed. Then I ran into a gang of the minion clones and found how annoying they are in larger numbers with those happily spammed web grenades. Those photon grenades stacking should be a concern as well. The Targeting Drone also gives them an abnormally wide aggro radius.

Along the way I found a number of optional glowies that grant insight as to what she has been doing to herself and her current mindset. At the end of the lab I fought Escalation 2.0, a even larger Super Strength/Invuln Elite Boss version. Annoyingly this one had Dull Pain, which dragged the battle out quite a bit. Of course she promised to be back, even bigger and tougher than before.

Mission 5:
Escalation is back again in Atlas Park. She sent several lesser heroes to the hospital and threw a boulder at City Hall. She's holding hostages again and demands to fight me in public, well that is what she is going to get.

I noticed from the notes I found in her lab that each upgraded body takes longer to copy her mind to and from. I wonder how long it will take her to escape this new one?

I enter Atlas Park and right ahead see Escalation Extreme, who is now 8-feet tall and apparently finding a hard time getting clothes that fit properly.

Extreme must stand for Extreme Super Strength, Extreme Invulnerability, and Extremely Annoying. This battle raged on seemingly forever, ate all my inspirations, all my accolades, and caused two deaths. She used Dull Pain and Unstoppable. She had Rage going. I was sure as hell not going to waste Shivans or Nukes on a MA mission so I did the only thing left. Buy a dozen enrages, eat them all, and rush back into the mission before she had time to heal. Bloody hell!

Also she apparently got stuck in this body, as I had rather expected.

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The Verdict:
This arc does have a lot of creative ideas, it just has some annoyances and balance issues. For starters, the Devices minions were not bad when fought one at a time, but when running into 3 or 4 of them they became a major nuisance. Then there were the end sucking lieutenants. It was like the author decided to take the annoying villain theme and really run with it. The Bosses were ok, but the EB needs some rebalancing. The Archvillain is utter nonsense and if she is really meant to be that obnoxious of a fight then I'm glad that I won't have to rerun the arc again as she was not worth putting up with. I came quite close to just calling it a day right there after the battle had raged on for over five minutes only to see her then use Unstoppable.

Overall I give it 4 stars, the annoyance factor knocks that 5th one off.

Arc: Fate & Destiny
Arc ID: 140129
Author: @Cap'tain Amazing
Number of Missions: 4
Description: A Mender asks you for a favor that eventually leads to a very important lesson, but not directly for you.
Rating: *****

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Character used: Anna Nethema, Level 50 Dark Melee/Fire Aura Brute
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 50

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Mission 1:
The contact is Mender Lazarus and after assuming that I've heard of Ouroboros, he tells me about how Portal Corp is starting a program to monitor the dimensional timelines with their help. Well why not? It's not as if Ouroboros is a well kept secret to begin with.

So after signing up he tell me about how a little known hero named Jeremy Servanta is being targeted by assassins back at the time when he first became a hero. For some reason Jeremy is important to the timeline, which timeline I am not sure of, and Mender Lazarus asks me to go back and prevent the assassination.

I arrive at the northeastern corner of Steel Canyon and see that the place is overrun with 5th Column. My only objective is to find Jeremy so I set out to do so.

I found him without much trouble, in a corner of the map and being cornered by...ghosts! I defeated the ghosts and freed Jeremy, who was still in civilian attire, and found that one of them dropped a piece of rock that has the same texture as my Ouroboros tablet. Wait, what tablet? I guess the author forgot to mention that (maybe a mission start clue in issue 15?), but regardless Mender Lazarus confirmed that it was part of an Ouroboros device.

Mission 2:
Mender Lazarus informs me that shortly after I rescued him, Jeremy did register as a hero in Atlas Park. However, the ghosts have appeared again and are invading the park. It's up to me to stop them again.

He also tells me that the Shivans don't even exist in this dimension (so was it a different dimension in the first mission or is this a divergent timeline now?) and that Statesman is a bit...different. He also tells me not to expect help from any heros in that dimension as it is not as heavily patrolled as in my dimension and that the ghosts will only be visible to me due to my dimension-hopping nature or something.

Sure enough, the civilians in Atlas Park are totally oblivious to the presence of the ghosts. I ignore the Arachnos Flier on this map and strike out to find their leader, mostly by hoping around until someone speaks. I find the leader's group and dispatch them gaining another piece of stone as a clue, as well as some observations on how stale and lifeless Atlas Park seemed in this dimension.

After taking out the leader the rest of the ghosts faded away and I returned home to speak with Mender Lazarus. He has a theory now about what is happening but is not sharing it until he investigates it some more.

Mission 3:
I come back and Mender Lazarus tells me that he's been researching the stones that I found but needs me to look into another disturbance taking place a few years after my last trip. Apparently something really bad happened, so he wants me to find out what occured as well as locate a hero named Dark Lightning.

Something big happened all right, because Atlas Park is in ruins. As I'm an outsider, just about everything here is hostile to me, from Arachnos to the PPD but for some reason Longbow is flagged as friendly. I start hunting for clues, which is annoying on this map but fortunately the glowie has spawned right behind the City Hall. It is a trash can with a newspaper scrap inside, hastily documenting a battle between Statesman and Lord Recluse. My objective has also changed to finding Jeremy. I assume that Dark Lightning is his hero name.

I find him not far away, being cornered by ghosts again and his description says that he is a low-rank hero but now one of the last in the city. Upon freeing him I learn that he was attempting to reach the MAGI vault inside the ruins of City Hall, where a sample of water from the Well of the Furies is kept.

Mender Lazarus has come to a conclusion about what is happening and will tell me everything after I perform one last task for him.

Mission 4:
After agreeing to the task, Mender Lazarus fills me in. The stones are Ouroboros portals, how the ghosts got them he still doesn't know, but they have been attempting to use them to go back in time and stop Jeremy's rise to power. It appears that after the deaths of Statesman and Lord Recluse, he used the Well of the Furies to increase his power and rebuild Paragon City. Of course the power went to his head and now am I going to revisit the dimension and see what has become of that world and put an end to Dark Lightning.

The entire city is in ruins again and the ghosts are hostile as usual. I also find out just what dimension this is finally, Alpha Upsilon 24-2. Why does that sound familair?

Well, not all of the ghosts are hostile, there was a talking patrol of friendly ones. Maybe they're flagged wrong.

I travel the map and find Jeremy, now known as Warlord Servanata, lamenting the destruction of his world and not seeming to realize that it was his fault. He is annoyed by the ghosts, but unconcerned for no one can hope to match his power.

Until I arrived.

During the battle there were ambushes of friendly ghosts, trying to take advantage of the battle and strike at the man who had killed them all. Unfortunately a lot of them spawned far away and got caught up in the hostile spawns and never made it to the battle. After defeating Jeremy, I recieved the final chuck of the Ouroboros tablet from the ghosts and found Jeremy's journal, documenting the last of his days. I decided to leave it with his body and return home.

Mender Lazarus explains to me how these events had to play out, as tragic as they were. Soon in the future a certain hero will visit this dimension, fight the specters, find the remains of Jeremy and his journal, and recieve a grim reminder of how much power can corrupt.

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The Verdict:
This arc serves as a very nice tie-in to this Tina Macintyre arc. It does have a few typos and plot holes that need to be addressed, but otherwise there is not much more criticism that I can give. 5-stars.

I stopped bothering with them completely since I prefer to have some control over where things spawn. Also for some map sets Random is a liability, if you use random CoT maps you never know when one with annoying broken portals will be used, or will put in a Behemoth Portal room and stick your glowies or hostages in there.

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Also the map was poorly chosen and has trick portals


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Trick...you know, in all my play testing, not once did one of those portals send me anywhere but to their "other side". Foo. Gotta find a better map. Shame, as I like the "cathedral" as an ending room.

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Taking a look around, there are other CoT maps with that cathedral room that don't have multiple portals. The Medium section has a few that I know of.

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find out right away that I have 5 citizens to free again, with no explanation as to why or how I know to do so before even opening the door.


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This is my ignorance of some of the nuances of the objective-triggering stuff in MA. What do you propose? Perhaps a glowie near the beginning that triggers the objectives? I can't put it in the briefing since Dr. Steele doesn't know they're there.

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Perhaps move the boss to the front of the mission and have the hostages trigger off of him?

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I found the Freak Boss and beat him up. Interestingly for someone who claims to have been given Nictus fragments he was a Sonic Tank instead of a Shadow Tank.

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A conceit on my part. His name and attack dialog are a reference to a song, so I thought Sonic appropriate. I'll change it.

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every damn mob is a Void Hunter!

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Yeah, not really what I wanted either. My original conception for this whole arc was that Soldiers of Rularuu were behind it, not Nictus, but I couldn't find anything above bosses in the list for the Big Bad Guy, and couldn't justify a humanoid as that. This will be changing in I15 if I have the space to make a custom group. Or should I make it Shadow Freaks (are they separate), do you think?

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I've taken a look into the Custom Group editor and in the Freakshow group there is Shadow Freak (Minion), Shadow Juicer (Lieutenant), and Shadow Tank (Boss). The thing about these critters is that in the normal Freakshow group they are programmed not to auto-spawn (a new feature we get in i15) so that the only appear in special mission details. However, you could pull them into a custom group, say "Shadow Freaks", and use them as the primary group for that mission.

These Freaks only spawn from 30-39, so you might want to consider that to be the final level range for your arc when you're finished.

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I defeated Fluxtube easily enough with their help

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How was that fight? I've had trouble balancing it, where my intent is that it should give a "yike" moment, but not otherwise be that difficult.

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With 5 Bosses backing me up he was nothing special, to be honest. If I had been alone I'd be in for a rough time as I saw that he's Extreme Dark Miasma when the Dark Servant appeared.

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I wonder why he had to create them from scratch though when there are so many in the world already.

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Okay, I'll see if I can flesh that out more as well. The thought was that if this experiment works, they could grab as many normals as they need, take them back to homeworld, grow their power and inhabit them from there, without each having to come to Earth to find a host.

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I suppose it does make some sense when said like that. Still, I think you need to research Kheldian lore some more before polishing up the story.

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So, major wrench-work in the future. Thanks for the review.

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You're welcome.

I won't pimp my own since you can see them in my sig below anyways. What I present is a list of arcs that have earned the Lazarus Seal of Approval!

Astoria in D Minor (41565) by @The Cheshire Cat
Becky's Revenge (60197) by New Age Ronin
Bricked Electronics (2180) by @GlaziusF
Chocolatier Wars (1153) by @Electroanagesia
Clash of Thunder (13214) by @Rudra
Death by Candlelight (31817) by @HalcyonHaze
Death to Disco (84420) by @Wrong Number
Dr. Dave and the Copper Legion (60280) by @theHedoren
Forget the Rose, Send Me the Thorns (8925) by @Hydrophidian
Hero Therapy (119228) by @Ridiculous Girl
Just Say "No" to Dihydrogen Monoxide! (176460) @Mukinsanus
Of Sound Body and Mind (13107) by @Mr. Mud
Seeking Men (169114) by @Fatare
Teen Phalanx Forever! (67335) by @PW
That Mysterious Buzzing Sound (12774) by @Red Zero
The All-Seeing Eye (57352) by @Steele Magnolia
The Bravuran Jobs (5073) by @GlaziusF
The Case of the Late Richard Faraday (181165) by @Awesomus Prime
The Doom that came to Paragon City (28450) by @Tokamak
The Extadine Lab (2595) by @Vanden
The Invasion of the Bikini-Clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space! (61013) by @Aliana Blue
The Knights of Rularru (75386) by @Vanden
The Missing (37636) by @Shadow-Rush
The Storyteller: Sabrina's Tale (1237) by @Redbone1
The Scavenger Hunt (187076) @StrykerX
The Self-Improvement of Sophia Schwartz (179648) @Malimar
Time Loop (137561) by @Bubbawheat
Two Chicks at Once (83920) by @Interface
Wholesale Soul Sale (4178) by @Wonderslug

Arc: The Power from Out of Space
Arc ID: 64800
Author: @Dr. Spoon
Number of Missions: 4
Description: Strange energy is coming from somewhere and is transforming people. Is it dangerous, or can it be harnessed?
Rating: **

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Character used: Anna Nethema, Level 50 Dark Melee/Fire Aura Brute
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 50

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Mission 1:
So I am contacted by a Dr. Stanislau Steele (shouldn't that be Stanislaw?) and informed that he was studying a peculiar energy signature that was coming from a nearby pub. He doesn't say how he found it or why it may have been coming from there to begin with. Anyway, the CoT has attacked the pub, kidnapped some people, and took the source of the signal, which apparently was a magical artifact.

So I follow the signal to Oranbega and begin the rescue and recovery mission at hand. The objectives are simple, free 5 citizens and find the artifact. Will do!

Unfortunately, the mission is pretty boring. The hostage details have nearly no unaware or attack dialog, and the hostages themselves say nothing notable. They all drop clues that appear to be utterly meaningless and the Death Mage at the end of the map knows nothing of an artifact. Also the map was poorly chosen and has trick portals, just getting through the one that takes me to where the boss and last two hostages were kept took 6 tries before it sent me to the correct destination. Not off to a good start.

The Doc says that the energy signal vanished while I was down in Oranbega. He'll get back to me after consulting with Azuria and Positron.

Mission 2:
So the signal has reappeared and is stronger than before. Of course the Doc wants me to go and retrieve it. I enter a tech lab and find out right away that I have 5 citizens to free again, with no explanation as to why or how I know to do so before even opening the door. It's full of Crey and I've annoyingly been dropped to level 45 for some reason.

It's the same hostages all over again, saying non-sensical stuff when rescued as before. No clues at all this time, not even at the end. The short long story, all 5 of them are developing super powers and Crey was hoping to use them to make more Paragon Protectors. No artifact, again.

The Doc has come to the conclusion that the five people are the actual source of the signal. Good thing that they're all planning to register as heroes.

Mission 3:
Well, they did register as heroes and formed a new group called The Seekers. However, they are burning through security levels at an alarming rate and the Doc still wants to find out the source of that energy. He says that our best lead is among the Freakshow, though he doesn't tell me why. It'd be nice to know WHY I'm being sent to beat up some random villains. At least I'm back up to level 50.

The objective doesn't tell me anything but to "find out if they know anything useful." Thanks, how specific.

So I run through the mission, ignoring most of the mobs and hoping that it is not a defeat all. I did overhear some Freaks somewhere mentioning Crabs and Dark Crystals. qwGreat, Nictus!

I found the Freak Boss and beat him up. Interestingly for someone who claims to have been given Nictus fragments he was a Sonic Tank instead of a Shadow Tank. He tells me that for some reason the Nictus want to keep feeding power into the 5 new heroes until they explode or something like that.

The Boss's attack line was situationally amusing. Saying that he wants to see "Anna Nethema fall from grace" is only tempting fate when dealing with a character who has horns, wings, a tail, and is on fire.

The Doc concludes like I did that it's the Nictus but has no idea why they would be doing something like this.

I have a theory that involves a certain Warshade power called "Unchain Essence."

Mission 4:
The Doc tells me that when before he could only detect the Seekers when they were all gathered, now they each have enough power to be detected individually. He sends them along with me to destroy the machines that the Nictus are using to channel power into them before they hit critical levels.

The Doc also tells me to be wary of how they might react to the possibility that doing this will strip them of their new powers.

I enter the mission and see no objectives for the Seekers, unless this Fluxtube that I have to defeat is one of them. I also see 5 machines to destroy. Then I see something that would royally piss me off and cause a ragequit if I was playing a Kheld...every damn mob is a Void Hunter! This is a very serious error! You did play test this mission, right?

Anyhow, I found the Seekers along the way. I don't have much to comment on them other than that they were all standing around unguarded, apparently just staring at the Void Hunters who were just standing around waiting for someone to beat them up.

I defeated Fluxtube easily enough with their help, then realized that I had missed a machine. I backtracked without them and found it, ending the mission. No ending clue, I had to backtrack through the NPC dialog to figure out Fluxtube's intentions. Apparently he wanted to create some supers and see if they were fit for Nictus fusion. I wonder why he had to create them from scratch though when there are so many in the world already.

Well, the good news is that while the energy is gone, The Seekers didn't lose their current powers.

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The Verdict:
So what was the point here? Why were the Nictus making normal people into superhumans just to make new vessels rather than using existing supers? What was the point of all the clues in the first mission? Why am I sent to beat up Freakshow without being told why they are our best lead? Why the heck is the last mission all Void Hunters! You should have realized that the Nictus group uses them for Minions and LTs when you tested them. I have a feeling that this arc should have used a different villain group at the end or at least have waited for Kheldian to be allowed in the custom critter creator. The most I can give is 2 stars for the lack of important details, poor map choices, lack of clues when they would have helped, and a final missions that would earn nothing but anger from a player using a Kheldian character.

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So if you die in a mission now its bad?

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I had someone complain that one of my bosses was too hard...at +2 levels to them. They were soloing on Ruthless or Invincible and complaining that it was actually hard.

For the first time ever I was dead serious when I told them to go cry more.

I wouldn't call Infernal's Lair "tiny" but is certainly is not that much bigger than a Medium Oranbega map. It just feels so long because it's unwound into nearly a straight line.

I had someone knock me a star in one arc for not having any custom enemies, apparently the one custom ally that appears for a single mission doesn't count.

Rather funny after all the other 5-stars praising me for pulling off a good MA arc using only stock enemies.

Invader is easy to get, it's just an explore badge in every Mayhem map.

Force of Nature was much less grindy to me to get than Geas of the Kind Ones. I enjoy mayhem missions so it's easy to get all the badges, plus heroes outside of the mayhems count as well. On the other hand I dislike Croatoa and the arcs there do not give nearly enough Ghosts to get that stupid badge. Why is every Croatoa badge 333?

Getting Raider for Born in Battle is easy. Just start an Oro mission, which will count as a TF and set you to never time out of the game. Then park yourself in the hospital and go away for 5 hours. You used to get angry tells when you became someone's bounty but after issue 13 who PvPs anyway? It's still a retarded badge to require though.

Marshall is more retarded than Born in Battle in my opinion as it is just like Atlas Medallion except that one of the required badges is only given halfway through the Lord Recluse SF. Yeah, we have to wait until level 45 to get our version of the Atlas Medallion, WTF?

Blueside is full of redundant fluff and BS. All of the old TFs (pre-Striga) would be vastly improved just by cutting out 1/2 to 2/3 of the missions.

The rules I'm more concerned with are gameplay ones when designing MA arcs. After all, it doesn't matter how wonderful and creative your story is if nobody wants to finish the arc because the gameplay and mission design is simply frustrating.

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Second suggestion: Save our missions on the server, not on our computer! When I read that the file was limited because the file was to be downloaded on the server or something like that, it made me wonder. It also have the disadvantage of being lost if something happens to your hard-drive.


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If you publish the mission it puts it on the server. You can still edit and republish there. The only problem I know of is that if you want to make a change in the custom groups you have some problems with being sure the right local information is available.

It makes it a little trickier but you can do a lot of editing on the published mission live. But now that I think on it I'm not sure how changing the custom critters works when it's updated if you're not at your 'main' computer.

Hmm....

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In the past, I have made changes to my customs, but when I went to play the mission they were still the way they were before I changed them. I had to go into edit mode and hit 'republish' to get those changes to take effect.

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That's the same thing that would happen if you were testing the local file. Unless you open it for editing the new critter info will not get rolled into the storyarc file.

Also, the storage of custom critters has gotten a lot better in issue 15 beta. I and others are reporting having 20% to 25% of their filespace freed up on arcs with lots of custom critters. One of my arcs on live that is at 99.6% with 11 customs is now only 91% on Test with 14 customs.

Would also be nice if the author received a notification as well that their arc was invalidated.

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Ironically, the red side fights Arachnos far more than the blue side.

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I always wondered why the Devs did almost nothing to incorporate Arachnos into the blueside. If you don't do radio missions (or just avoid the obvious Arachnos ones), don't visit Faultline, don't PvP, and don't run the Statesman TF, you can easily take a hero from 1 to 50 and never see Arachnos once. For such a big villain faction, that is not good.

If only my villains could avoid Longbow that easily.

My last hero never bothered with Safeguards after Kings Row, they are so freakin' boring compared to Mayhems (which my villains will go out of the way for) and since the original contact system is still in place she never bothered with radio missions either and still got to 50.

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I know. I posted an entire paragraph . Then I expected the Playskool Cartel to pay attention long enough to read a paragraph. What was I thinking?

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You were thinking that insulting people for not wanting to read your badly written paragraph would make them suddenly want to do so?

Pro Tip: Break up your ideas into separate paragraphs instead of presenting it in one huge infodump.