Turgenev

First, nicely done.

Second: On that chart, it'd be nice to see time markers for the following games:

Age of Conan
Warhammer
Aion

The first two would be nice to see for the PVP-focused crews looking for when/where there might have been fission for another game; and Aion's interesting in particular because it's an NCSoft product that, while not directly competing with COH, DOES have a natural selling point WITH its playerbase due to company affiliation.

Anyway, well written, and good points. I think the 10% drop, when considering Aion as well, does show some perspective that most people would be too quick to iron over.

It already got some love. I'm the dissident opinion in saying "Rest is just fine as-is."

Now, when you all gang up on me for saying so, make sure to form two lines, one for left handers, one for right handers. If you people need Rest that bad, I figured you'd need instructions on how to optimize your group beatdowns.

That's correct; I wanted her as a passive escort to the door for that one. Remember, she just got home from college, she's not exactly unpacked.

That part's actually the "best" way to go through the scene, as you should meet Monica first before encountering IX. By design, IX is supposed to spawn "at the back", i.e., the rooftops, but the map just doesn't seem to care...

As per my previous comment with another post, I'm going to tweak that final encounter a bit to make the choice more "clear", and what's at stake. If you walk into IX, you'll see that his escorts are carrying bodybags, with the text implication that Monica's parents are amongst the dead.

Glad you liked my "please remain stationary" line. It's a line that's pretty common, but I first heard it from way, WAY back in the early days of muppetlabs.com, where typing an incorrect URL would net you "Your HTML is malformed. Please remain still. The men in the white coats are coming to collect you."

Still cracks me up.

Link? I don't think I ever saw this mentioned on either Digest..

Tangler: You're right, there was more to that quote. I PM'd you the full text, but I see why she trimmed it for the final copy.

Ugh, my bad. I knew you wanted the Master Reichs badge, forgot which one it was. Noted for future reference, Tuxedo hates villains.

As for my absence: TOTAL screw up on my part, I had a full schedule on Saturday and just outright forgot about the run. ;( Sorry, all.

Very half-empty perception. My half-full version? "Debt is a way to earn more money before your next level."

OP: Everyone's answered you pretty definitively already, so nothing really concrete to add here. Except, remember that there are "penalties" to dying all the time, a la "slower leveling". If you die more than twice, step back, evaluate the situation and what's kicking you down. Analyze, then act; that should serve you well throughout the game.

Welcome to City of Heroes.

Wow, and they started around 945-10pm too IIRC... Sneaky was prolly tanking, any idea who the green lead was? Did you log the drama?

I don't think you see what you did there.


Noticed the renames earlier this afternoon. Didn't see a post come down the line, 'til now at least.

Don't make me post my Issue 10 Scoop speech again, rednames.

Original versions tried a few options: Ambush doesn't work, much to my ROFLness, when I tried to set up IX as the ambush and I got a full ambush of IXes. That was a kinda NO.

I also tried an if/then spawn setup, but after having it not spawn for me, period, twice... I opted against it. The two objectives seemed more stable, but I'd prefer the if/then setup if I can get it to execute properly. This map's been a frustration to me for spawn issues, but it's the most fitting map for the storyline. =/

I'll give the if/then setup another whirl and ping you on it, try to show you what I had in mind. I may cut the # of bombs from 5 to 3, just in case the counts are throwing off the spawns elsewhere on the map. (If anyone has other suggestions on how to improve spawn reliability for location placement on this map, I'm all ears...)

It's not possible. However, I wrote the "fail outro" text with the contact to sum up the experience and the consequences (Leandro has stated that he likes the fail text better... but he's pretty morose). If you'd like to see the fail text, let me know and I'll PM it to you (or you can run thru it and fail the last mish).

I'll mess with the spawnings this weekend, see if I can get it stable. I'm just afraid to report this map for fear of them just removing it.

*facepalm*

That map drives me nuts. IX is supposed to spawn to the BACK of the map, not the front, but it seems more often than not that the map just decides "oo, this looks like a nice little spot" and ignore your placement priorities... and yes, the "choice" is involved in the mission fail option, where you can lead Monica to IX and let IX take her out by stepping away. If you never get to that scenario, it's less "CHOOSE" than "COPE". XD I'll take a look at that to make sure the mechanics are working right. What difficulty settings were you using?

On discussing that the Bonannos are more legit than most: I kinda went for the slow reveal on that. The initial encounter's "neutral", meant to be weird for a Hero being approached by the Mob, and then you find out "hey, this isn't that bad" as you go through the next few missions. I dunno; I guess I meant for you to be confused to a small degree, but if it's not that clear beyond the first mish, I might need to rethink that approach.

Let me know the difficulty settings you had, and I'll run the last mish a few times to see if I can duplicate it. Thanks, Muon!

So, for 2010, I have a few more to add. Figured to add them in bulk annually instead of repeating myself.

King Legbah
Lvl 50 Mastermind, Thugs/Poison (dinged summer 2009)

Blood Supremacy
Lvl 50 Corruptor, Fire/Pain (dinged summer 2009)

Ultima Ratio Regum
Lvl 50 Scrapper, Broadsword/Shield (dinged summer 2009, transferred from Champion)

I have a stack of 45+ toons that will hit 50 when I get around to it. They're fun enough as it is.

You know me, I'm in like Flynn.

Got a few deaths there myself - virtue of being a melee type vs Reichs. A few of your proximity suicides were from trying to rez me, if I remember right.

This is my advertisement post for my submission for Dr. Aeon's Architect Challenge for December 2009. The theme, "doing evil for a greater good." My arc was, of course, immediately disqualified because I made it a choice at the very end. Oh well!

I'm always looking for feedback in, you guessed it, my feedback thread, found here! If you star the arc, please give me some info as to why you rated it as such. I'm NOT a one-star rage vendetta stalker, so if you genuinely didn't like the story or mechanics, please tell me why. On the other hand, I love high ranks, if it's deserved.

I'm happy to discuss the story points, mechanics, etc., in this thread. So, beyond this first post, please throw SPOILER warnings before you ask, and I'll do the same for my answers!

I hope you like my published offering. It was written as a one-shot, but I left the ending "open" to the possibility of a sequel if people would like more of this storyline/dramatis personae. Please review my arc, enjoy, and tell me what you think.


Architect is one of the most flexible tools for online storywriting I've ever seen. My continued thanks to the Devs for making this system possible; to the players for inspiring the authors to write for the general populace; and to my fellow authors for writing saga after saga for the noblest reason of all: To enliven the imagination.

This is my Freedom advertisement post for my submission for Dr. Aeon's Architect Challenge for December 2009. The theme, "doing evil for a greater good." My arc was, of course, immediately disqualified because I made it a choice at the very end. Oh well!

I'm always looking for feedback in, you guessed it, my feedback thread, found here! If you star the arc, please give me some info as to why you rated it as such. I'm NOT a one-star rage vendetta stalker, so if you genuinely didn't like the story or mechanics, please tell me why. On the other hand, I love high ranks, if it's deserved.

I'm happy to discuss the story points, mechanics, etc., in this thread. So, beyond this first post, please throw SPOILER warnings before you ask, and I'll do the same for my answers!

I hope you like my published offering. It was written as a one-shot, but I left the ending "open" to the possibility of a sequel if people would like more of this storyline/dramatis personae. Please review my arc, enjoy, and tell me what you think.


Architect is one of the most flexible tools for online storywriting I've ever seen. My continued thanks to the Devs for making this system possible; to the players for inspiring the authors to write for the general populace; and to my fellow authors for writing saga after saga for the noblest reason of all: To enliven the imagination.

This is my feedback thread for my submission for Dr. Aeon's Architect Challenge for December 2009. The theme, "doing evil for a greater good." My arc was, of course, immediately disqualified because I made it a choice at the very end. Oh well!

I'm always looking for feedback. If you star the arc, please give me some info as to why you rated it as such. I'm NOT a one-star rage vendetta stalker, so if you genuinely didn't like the story or mechanics, please tell me why. On the other hand, I love high ranks, if it's deserved.

I'm happy to discuss the story points, mechanics, etc., in this thread. So, beyond this first post, please throw SPOILER warnings before you ask, and I'll do the same for my answers!

I hope you like my published offering. It was written as a one-shot, but I left the ending "open" to the possibility of a sequel if people would like more of this storyline/dramatis personae. Please review my arc, enjoy, and tell me what you think.


Architect is one of the most flexible tools for online storywriting I've ever seen. My continued thanks to the Devs for making this system possible; to the players for inspiring the authors to write for the general populace; and to my fellow authors for writing saga after saga for the noblest reason of all: To enliven the imagination.

If this is your first time playing the game, you're better off doing the first 20-40 levels on your own to get a feel for gameplay. The last thing we need is a PL'd noob. No offense. I say this for your protection, we'd eat you alive here for it.

(We WILL take your money however.)

So proud of you, Tex.