Megajoule

Yep, afraid so. The problem is that the 30-39 stuff is all limited to redside-only spawns; some behind-the-scenes check keeps those spawning for heroes. It's not the only case of such a gap, either. You can find a thread about the groups affected here .

I wonder if that's related to the bug where in both my missions and a friend's, a "random" civilian hostage was always some old Tsoo guy.

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because it means that everyone who's done anything for Azuria, whose starting arc features an object going missing, seems to think it's hilarious to represent her as losing a few thousand items daily.

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There's also the Wheel of Destruction, the pieces of which you bring to Azuria *specifically* to keep them out of the hands of the Banished Pantheon, and the Banished Pantheon gets them back the *moment* your back is turned.

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And the back-turning takes the form of a patrol she sends you out on, which the Cryptic mission writer almost certainly put in (back in the day) just to get you out of the room so you aren't literally standing there when it happens.

"Azuria."
"Yes?"
"What did you do with the Wheel?"
"What wheel?"
"The Wheel of Destruction that I just gave you, two minutes ago."
"..."
"You lost it, didn't you."
"..."
"Son of a..."
"..."

*raises hand* Another bubbler ally here. #$%@ Detention Field.

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So adding in a single custom enemy ruins it since they spawn 1-54.

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Or, looking at it as "glass half-full", makes it possible for players of all levels to play your arc without being forced to exemp and giving up xp. Back when I was putting my arcs together, I believed that this would be a fairly major consideration for many players; do you not agree?

When things went south and/or got weird, my hero started pulling her punches and relying a lot on Personal Force Field to get through. Except for Schism - he went down hard. Then the heralds too, but otherwise I just skimmed through the whole thing.

Mostly it made my very rational and scientific hero start wondering if any of it was real - half expecting to wake up to a ringing bedside phone at the end of mission 4, at the end of a particularly weird nightmare - and reinforced her general distrust of all things magical. She managed to hold on to her personal beliefs and moral compass through it all; it helps that her powers are such that she does not have to kill to defeat/arrest, and doesn't.

(There was also a point where I imagined her muttering various scientific constants and laws under her breath and even hurling them like incantations against the monsters.)

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Arc 1472 - Hearts on Fire
Rating: *****

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I'm about halfway through this arc right now, and was taking it pretty seriously. Until the point at which I realized it was in fact about LESBIAN HELLIONS. Hopefully it can take this tired meme and give it some impact.

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It does, IMO.

Now, let's test your objectivity, Talen. I expect you'll find some things not to like about my arcs, even if some of them are the result of current limitations of MA (stupid Detention-happy bubblers)...

Author: @Megajoule
Level Range: 30-54 (one mission is 40-54)
Subject: Gamma Upsilon 28-3 needs you! Travel to an alternate Earth and join the fight against Nemesis Rex, Emperor of the Americas!
15447 - Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears
Rating:


Author: @Megajoule
Level Range: 3x 1-54, 1x 25-34
Subject: A new villain is making the headlines. Enter the mind of a retired hero to relive the past and find a clue to aid you in the present.
15976 - Glory Days
Rating:

Aw, you mean you don't want to be our guinea pig for what happens to that fourth arc when HoF goes away, and then comes back?

So it's attainable. Now let's talk about how easy it is (or not) for even a very popular arc to keep that status (for longer than an hour or two) under the current rating system, shall we?

"It's attainable, but will be lost almost immediately (because people are jerks) along with the slot" is better? In either a semantic/accuracy or practical sense?

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Please don't selectively quote from me in order to weight your take on what I said. As I said, I do sympathize with Twoflower, but some of us are in a worse position.

Eco

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I trimmed for length, keeping what I felt was the relevant point for context in making my own. Only idiots and the inconsiderate quote entire posts to add a few lines of their own, IMO.

Also, maybe I felt like taking out the part of your post that sounded even more like a personal attack. This is an issue that affects all of us who might eventually want a HoF. (Me, I've pretty much given up on the whole system and am just waiting for another means of getting more slots.)

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I didn't see any of this 'fix the system!' from him on test where he had 6 or more DCd arcs and was sitting pretty at the top of the lists.

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I don't think the statistical unlikelihood of getting an aggregate 4.5 rating on Live servers, with players who aren't self-selected testers and creators, who will one-star your mission because it's not a farm or they don't like the color of your custom critter, had quite hit home yet. I think most of us on Test were being creative and trying to roll with the bugs and provide feedback in good faith, rather than contemplate all the ways in which the playerbase at large can and will be idiots and jerks. As usual, first contact with said general playerbase was... "educational." (Let's count all the farm arcs. You might need a bigger piece of paper.)

But if you want to reduce this to basic self-interest: if a member in good standing of the Sekrit Forum Mission Architect Cartel Axis can't even get HoF, what chance does anyone else have? Well, except for the farm arc makers I guess. Yeah, I really look forward to the first ten pages of HoF being "ez tikts" - Very Short - Freakshow.

You'd think that, but people [censored] when they did.

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You can rate 0 stars?
So on those occasions that I couldn't complete a mission for whatever reason and I chose to not rate it I have actually given 0 stars? I really really hope that I have misunderstood this.

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As I understand it, just exiting doesn't count. You have to click on the star meter first (giving it at least one star), then click the first star (1 star), and then click that star again ("0 stars").

Arc Name: Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears
Arc ID: 15447
Morality: Heroic
Creator: @Megajoule
Difficulty Level: Low-Medium
Length: Long (4 missions, Small and Medium maps)
Enemies: Nemesis
Synopsis: Gamma Upsilon 28-3 needs you! Travel to an alternate Earth and join the fight against Nemesis Rex, Emperor of the Americas!


Arc Name: Glory Days
Arc ID: 15976
Morality: Heroic
Creator: @Megajoule
Difficulty Level: Medium (EB at end)
Length: Long (4 missions, Small and Medium maps)
Enemies: 5th Column, Arachnos, Family
Synopsis: A new villain is making the headlines. Enter the mind of a retired hero to relive the past and find a clue to aid you in the present.


Another arc, NOT by me but which I liked very much and would like to recommend: Villainous Values, #1288, by @Mindshadow.

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Architect Entertainment is a game within a game. I think this is an area where you have to just wave your hands and say "Whatever a villain's true motive might be, he is currently standing in a lobby of a virtual reality game company because he wants to engage in some entertaining roleplay. By definition, he is consenting to follow whatever motivations the virtual reality game requires of him."

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Isn't that assumption itself terribly limiting to the kinds of stories that can be told? (And who can participate - I know that almost none of my characters would ever set foot in an AE as described. Heck, some of them would be picketing it or spray-painting "obvious trap is obvious" on the walls.)

I'm sure I'm not the only mission creator who ignores the "official" backstory (with all its gaping holes) and just treats the MA as an interface, a means of getting our stories out to other players. Since we can't actually add contacts to the gameworld, the author and the players agree to pretend together that the "hologram" they're talking to is as real as any other contact, and is actually standing in Cap au Diable or Kings Row or wherever.

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Synopsis: Mendor Silos sends you on an Ouroboros time travel mission back to 1946 to assist the Freedom Phalanx in liberating Washington, DC from Nemesis during his plot to become the Emperor of the Americas.

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Am I the only one who finds this tremendously ironic?
Then again, that's how Nemesis plots seem to go - by stopping him in the past, you actually serve the unknown design of his far-future self...

My own mission arcs, one of which is sort of the converse of the above:

Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears
Arc ID 8867
Heroic
Long (4 missions - Nemesis)
Join the Resistance on an alternate Earth that was conquered by Nemesis many years ago.

Glory Days
ID 12917
Heroic
Long (4 missions - Family, 5th Column, 60s Arachnos, Arachnos)
Enter the mind of a retired hero to relive the past and find a clue to stopping a new villain in the present.

Two arcs up on Test at the moment.

Arc Name: Blood, Sweat, Toil and Tears
Arc ID: 8867
Morality: Heroic
Length: Long (4 missions, Small and Medium maps - all Nemesis)
Description: Help the Resistance on an alternate Earth ruled by Nemesis.


Arc Name: Glory Days
Arc ID: 12917
Morality: Heroic
Length: Long (4 missions, Small and Medium maps - Family, 5th Column, 60s Arachnos, Arachnos. Most missions have both a Boss and an Ally.)
Description: Enter the mind of a retired hero to relive the past and find a clue to the present.

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I think it goes the other way though, that a reasonable EB becomes an stupidly easy to defeat Lt, which can really spoil an arc.

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I submit that if someone is soloing on heroic (as I often do), they're probably more interested in the story than difficult-to-defeat end bosses.

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Just my $.02, I'm happy to get a little teaser, but I don't like how they attempt to write in things like the MA as part of the CoH storyline. Probably just me, it just doesn't make any sense IMO and should just be kept as an out of game lore content creator. I feel the same way about writing proliferation into the story line. Do we really need to explain in game why villains can carry a mace now?

Don't mean to be negative, it's just a little thing that bugs me. Overall it looks great and I'm glad to see some pics!

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This.

Stop trying to explain meta-game things that don't require in-game explanations.

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Seconded.

Thanks to the OP for this informative post.

To everyone who's bemoaning the absence of certain anticipated features: was the mission feature you want present at launch, Issue 0, Spring 2004?
If not, consider the possibility that it might be added later, just as it was in the official content.

That'll do nicely. Thanks, Hericane!

And yes, I covet that sash.

I'm trying to copy the PPD Transcended (boss-level Awakened) costume for one of my characters. The image on ParagonWiki is a bit low-res/pixelated, and the colors are indistinct (especially on the upper body). I'm hoping that someone here either has a better-quality image on hand, or (more likely) can use their Mad Demo-Editing Skills to take some good shots of one.

Is anyone able and willing to help?

Storm Devil:

Great story and concept (and a damn good picture, too). I really like the character. The main thing I'd suggest at this point is adding a "powers" section, laying out in a little more detail exactly what he can do. Also, since he's 50, you might want to mention some of the notable things he's done and people he's met on the way there. Your "What Happened Next" header seems to point in that direction already.

(( What, again? Sorry, the last year has left me a bit jaded... ))

Name: Sky Raider X
Global Contact: @Megajoule
Level: 42
Origin: Natural
Super Group: Sanction Omega

Name: V-Max
Global Contact: @Megajoule
Level: 42
Origin: Natural
Super Group: Project Rebirth