Projectionist

I finally managed to decide on the winners of the contest. Thanks to everyone for the patience while I played through your arcs. It was unbelievably hard to reach these results as I had about 30 arcs so highly rated that they competed for the prizes. My motivations are written generally so that no spoilers are given. Remember: this is just the opinions of one single person and one that enjoys everything from Bergman to Bay

1st place: Teen Phalanx Forever! by PW (Arc ID: 67335)
An absolute blast to experience this arc with the brilliant premise; that you are not even playing your own character. With its well written humor and clever use of AE mechanics, the whole arc manages to be a tribute to your character and to the game itself. It’s an arc every one of my high level heroes will play. Every mission is a mini-adventure in itself.

2nd place: Astoria in D Minor by The Chesire Cat (Arc ID: 41565)
This arc left me confused the first time I played it and wasn’t rated that high. However, images from the various missions lingered and surfaced for weeks and I couldn’t shake the creepy feeling I got from playing it. I revisited it and was drawn further into its madness. It’s like a 70s horror movie, disjointed, with a touch of Clive Barker. I eventually came to the conclusion that this is a cult classic I can play over and over again.

3rd place: Pandas vs. Rikti by Shadowrush (Arc ID: 68930)
The cuteness of this arc doesn’t take away from the basic struggle between the two races. It is fun fighting from first to last mission and I got a real Star Wars feeling from it. Good, clean fun that leaves you grinning. And, yes, the Pandas should become a part of the game canon!

4th – 10th place

Turg Fiction: The Ghost in the Machine, Act 1 by Turgenev (Arc ID: 1013)
Humor and drama in a very well written arc. Can’t wait to play Act 2.

Amazon-Avatars by FemFury (Arc ID: 5909)
Very engaging story with an interesting contact. Good fighting and a real challenge on higher difficulties. Liked the use of primarily standard enemy groups with a custom mob here and there.

The Mantisman Task Force by Star Spangled Arrow (Arc ID: 15819)
Simply the hardest of all the arcs even on heroic level. Great custom enemies and while technically not a solo arc I had so much fun just barely beating it on heroic with no defeats that it was impossible to forget.

The Sleeping Star by Leese (Arc ID: 53951)
A very sympathetic story that makes you feel like the hero like never before. It seemed like an origin story told in an unconventional way. Final mission is a blast fighting through.

Rites of the Maenads by SoulTrain2 (Arc ID: 61159)
Tremendously well told story that also puts you in the center as a savior. The custom allies are both through appearance and speech the sexiest goat legged women I’ve ever encountered in a game. Ties in well with both game canon and Greek mythology.

Her Clockwork Heart by GreenDon (Arc ID: 1419)
A deliciously evil arc. Great steam punk theme and a good mix of humor and drama. It happened to fit my bots MM with a Nemesis past to perfection.

Cancelled in Three by JamieB (Arc ID: 34608)
Appealed to the comic geek in me big time. Fun times to try and catch all references both old and contemporary. The custom groups were well designed and were tough to fight, fun even on heroic level. It felt like the classic CoX story just waiting to be told.

Overall the standard on all the entries was very high. I did have time in the beginning before there were so many entries to play other content in the AE so I have seen how bad it can get . I didn’t rate a single entry below 3 stars. Only 2 arcs remained unplayable and were removed from the contest. I will follow up with an ‘honorable mentions’ post tomorrow with the ones that could just as well have won also.

PMs will be sent to the winners so that we can start working on your prizes. I realize a long time has gone by since I played some of the arcs and many things can have changed, but I will still send a PM with my comments to all the participants.

Thanks to everyone and to mr Hopper.

Does this mean immunity next month? I promise I'll do more than a stick figure anyways..

I just realized that TA's first post doesn't link to my original posting page . This might have made quite a few miss my comment on how the piece was made. It is indeed, as have been stated in this thread, a mix of screenshots and the original painting with some overpainting done to blend and change the characters.

If anyone who voted for me wish to change their vote it's perfectly understandable, no hard feelings whatsoever.

I had a hard time deciding between Tacky_Tricky's exquisite piece and Alex's. But Alex gets my vote not only because he chose one of my favorite artists but also that he added a theme with his characters dragging the artist towards the game, a situation I can relate to very much

Indeed I'm having a lot of fun. Workload and now a nasty cold has slowed down the process somewhat but I only have about 15 entries left to rate. However. I'm pacing myself also so that I don't burn out, I want to play each arc going in with a positive attitude and open mind. So far it worked very well.

Once all have been rated I will take the 20 with highest scores and pit them against each other in one bloody battle, eh, I mean; revisit them to set the final rankings. I hope to be able to announce the winners Sunday June 7th.

Even though I'm afraid of what a happy Foo looks like, I concur with all these wishes.

Stupid cold almost made me miss this.

My entry is inspired from walking (I wish we could, oh well; not super-speeding) through Port Oakes. On the edge of Marconiville near the harbor and Oil Spill there is this closed down diner . When the evening comes, light starts to spill through the boards. I wonder what kind of shady activities goes on in there? But most of all I wonder what it once looked like in it's heyday, hence I present:Nighthawks - CoV style

The Edward Hopper original Nighthawks

Awesome work. The question remains: Will DrainBamage pick up your dry-cleaning bill?

I got swamped with work of course, but I managed to remember and do this today: Canadian Spirit

Hope it will make it even though it's rough.

Canada, eh? Is that even a real country?

I'll see what I can do. I'm a huge fan of Due South so I'll probably have to get Detective Frasenbacker (sp?) in there too...

I don't have any patriotic heroes or villains myself, but since I'm almost done with the Fan Art piece this month, I will draw a picture of the first patriotic (any country) CoX-character who's owner replies to my post. This is of course with the condition that the Scoop may use it also.

The contest is now closed for further entries. Thanks to everyone for submitting your work. If your entry is missing in the list below please contact me as soon as possible.

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Global ID Arc ID Name
Acid Zero 1004 Welcome to Architect Entertainment
Turgenev 1013 Turg Fiction: The Ghost in the Machine, Act 1
StratoNexus 1044 The Empire - One Alliance
atiaxi 1140 Catastropic Betrayal
Morgenstern CoH 1166 Taking Flight
whatroughbeast 1173 Pro Patria Mori
GreenDon 1419 Her Clockwork Heart
Meagan 1438 A Jaunt Into Dataspace
Days 1444 The Twisted Tongue
Lazarus 1567 MacGuffin Delivery Service
DB Cooper 1626 The Golden Roller Gets His Groove Back!
GrinningSpade 1934 Love Spurned
Bubbawheat 3369 Matchstick Women
Mekkanos 4431 Soldiers of Fortune
13th Stranger 4784 Incense and Peppermints
Cath 4943 The Jo Jo Conundrum
frija 5213 Might Makes Right: The One With Tin Hats
LaLoca Mocha 5332 Bastet's Unleashing - The Full Story
LordXenite 5349 Childhood Horrors
FemFury 5909 Amazon-Avatars
Linarra 6015 Coming Unglued
RaiderRich2001 7544 RJ The Road Dog: Year One
Turbospeed 8344 Unfinished Business
Vulpy 8772 Between Light and Shadows
Lethal Guardian 10931 Future Imperfect
Wall of Knight 12285 Small Fears
Mr. Wuffles 12305 Mr. Yin's Deja-vu
Narda 13874 Broken Promises Part 1: Darkness Within
Stitch Whitewolf 15726 The string Thief
Star Spangled Arrow 15819 The Mantisman Task Force
Turbo-Ski 16952 Brass Reaver: Part 1
Thornster 17523 A Little RnR
Von Krieger 20649 Weary Heartland
OverlordIndigo 20863 A Hero is Made, Not Born
Zeroman 20968 A Day at the Zoo
BackFire 21391 Enter the Father Hat Gang
GadgetDon 24002 A Farming Tale
Tubbius 29205 Polar Emergence Neutral Government User Interface Network (PENGUIN)
JamieB 34608 Cancelled in Three
NovaFang 37783 The Incursion
The Chesire Cat 41565 Astoria in D Minor
LaserJesus 51357 Rise of the Drakule
_Kai_ 52708 Hijacking the Bitstream
Leese 53951 The Sleeping Star
Strike Eagle 55669 One Hell of a Deal
SoulTrain2 61159 Rites of the Maenads
Trem'Dei 62597 Magical Mousegirl Misadventures
PW 67335 Teen Phalanx Forever!
Shadowrush 68930 Pandas vs Rikti
Awesomus Prime 71523 A Madman's Vengeance
Acyl 74191 The Great Brain Robbery
ErinLyger 75896 The Mysterious Tablet
Sermon 81378 The Broken Chain
Dragon King 81942 Operation: Undertow
DK242-B 84105 Duality
Wrong Number 84420 Death to Disco!
Bella Blizzard 84483 Death and Taxes
Meaning_of_Liff 86654 Long Story Short: We're All Screwed
Soul-Journ 87733 A Few Cards Short of a Deck
Found Boy 87912 The Dead and the Damned
Grey_Pilgrim 88003 Belated Justice
Skydance 89545 Light if the Sun
Hericane 92202 The Lure of the Carnival
dugfromthearth 92630 I Will Dance on Your Grave
Captain Denmark 98079 Hay Fever Hits Heroes Hard
GravenImageRD 98770 A Madness of Blades
ARH 98943 Invasion on Earth BX1132!
rose 99058 The Quest for Fish Melee
Clave Dark 5 101165 TOO MANY BUNNYGIRLS!
Jinken 103878 Gamble for Oakes
Lycanus 110465 Hunter of Beasts: It Starts with a Riot…
Hellguard 110993 Looking Back: A Fifth Anniversary Celebration
Scuzzbopper 111022 Doctor Geist and the Scientific Method
ShawnVW 113811 Whitehawks
Mandu 113956 The Devs Must Die!
Manoa 114369 Project Catnip
Leif Roar 115668 Blackguards in the Night
Ridiculous Girl 119228 HERO Therapy
ObsidianDevil 120462 Entrusted with the Other Secret
Parsec 121766 UTP: Temporal Adjustment
Dark aspect 124746 Terrors of Old
YanYan 126073 The Clockwork Crusade
Renderboy 127677 A Tex-Mex Mess
SkitchNM 128646 The Magic of Longbow
Zombra 129684 Cavallo, the Colossus and the Charm of the Sorceress
Johnny Courageous 131158 Dr. Sigler and the Chronojumper
Slickriptide 132673 The Galaxy Girl Maneuver
Ironik 132772 The Toy Box
Ryo Takenoko 136188 Kidnapping an Idol
doctor 7 148594 Dorks &amp; Dungeons
Mr. Lazarus 153323 White Collar Crime
Stomphoof 153654 Return of the Three Fold King
</pre><hr />

Got a lot of entries the last week so I have over half the arcs still unplayed. I also plan to revisit every arc with a random alt on a higher than lv1 difficulty. My goal is to have the final results before the end of this month.

Lots of good stuff for me to do the weeks to come, I hope you all have patience with me.

TA's birthday? That's a global holiday, right? Wohoo, I'm staying home from work.

Oh, Happy Birthday also

[ QUOTE ]
It's a gothicorn

[/ QUOTE ]

Haha, very good. Now I want to see an emo-emu!

Reminded me of one of my favourite movies, Tron. Just had to do a quick sketch: Infinette

Busy, busy testing all the MA arcs, but here's a digital sketch I made for Patriot_America, as a reward for picking me out in an anniversary screenshot.

Mystic Fortune

Since I recently found out that MA arcs are shared between US and EU servers, I invited our European brethren to participate in the contest.

Here is a copy of a post I made on the EU forum to answer some questions about the prizes:

[ QUOTE ]


• It can be your own character, those of a friend or a canon NPC (not that many will want a Statesman figure, I suspect).
• If it's not your own character I might pose restrictions on how you wish for it to be depicted unless you get permission from the owner (no extreme lewdness, maiming etc. For your own characters no such limitations exist ). This enables you get something as surprise gift art for a friend as long as I have no reason to suspect it won’t be received amiably by the person.
• Nothing is ready-made. You will be in on the design from start and get drafts for approval.
• The figurines are mainly made in Sculptey-clay. Mixed-media refers to the fact that I might use metal, plastic, fabric etc for details. Since the figures won’t be designed for mass producing/molding there’s no limit on the amount of details and surface textures that can be put on it.
• The figurines will be painted and lacquered unless otherwise desired.
• Mini-diorama refers to an extended base of the figurine that can have additional sculpted elements (a defeated clockwork, your favorite base floor tile, a small Wentworth’s building making your character look like a giant, etc)
• I’m sorry I don’t have any examples of figurines to show you. It’s been a long time since I made any but recently decided to start working with them again. I have some practice pieces planned and I suspect the prize figurines will take considerable time to make.

Yes, Leese explained the bit about the in-game tells. All communication with EU will be resolved by PMs and public postings on the UK forum. Since I might revisit your arc several times before the final decision and arcs can be edited and republished, I won’t leave any comments until after the contest is over. I will then give any feedback you like, either privately or public. I do however give a star rating right after having played it. This initial rating is part of the total scoring.

I hope this clears up a few things

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought Juggy had my vote for sure this time, but I have to go with Lousy_Day also.

And Devs: I want that stained glass as a base wall detail by next issue, kthxbai!

Here's mine: Dominatrix vs Synapse. I know their costumes aren't exact, I had to cut some corners to get it done in time. Bloody MA taking up all free time.

My original idea was to make Madeleine Casey's TV-hero 'Live Wire' against Golden Roller, but I couldn't get the car right without overpainting a screenshot, which made me scrap that.

Not that any of this matters after Lousy_Day's entry..

*Edit* There's some blood so it's marked mature. A non-dA two-click link is in my signature.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
First one to spot me gets a free sketch

[/ QUOTE ]

You're standing to the right of the guy with the green Talsorian Shield.

[/ QUOTE ]

My right or your right? j/k

PM me what you would like me to draw for you.

First one to spot me gets a free sketch

With the MA taking up so much time and having started over several times on the picture, this is going to be close. Tomorrow hopefully...

Thanks for the entries. It's beginning to look like a contest now at least

And Morgenstern, I actually played your arc with the prisoners already and have it rated also so I'd be willing to accept it as an entry if you so desire.

Thanks for the bump. I've been so engrossed in the MA I almost forgot about this. Haven't had many entries so far, I'll see if I can put an ad in The Scope.

Turbo_Ski, please PM with which one of the arcs you wish to enter. I'll probably play both but need one only for the judging.

Good initiative, Foo. I think 'Skinvitational' should be the default commission mode for all artists. Of course, clothes should cost extra.