twelfth

Is it worthwhile to add in my own /bug report on this? Noticed it over the weekend and was quite annoyed by it.

Odd question. Not sure how it relates to the canon, and maybe I have missed an obvious question - but...

Who is the "Elena" who appears in billboards around the city and the Isles? I take her to be some kind of performer, but what does she do? Does she have a greater place in the canon?

If I'm in a story-MA team, I usually post the text in the team chat if people ask for it.

I could sorta see not being able to use it in the actual AE missions, but I was also annoyed at not being able to use it in the SG/VG bases. I wonder if its related to that bug that will show people as being "on mission map" if they are actually in a base?

Seriously, though, I really need a patch to let me do this in the base.

Patch note 07/01/2009:

Changed Gothic Prawn to dark/ice dom; Customed Kinky Prawn's plant control to lose the damn root thingy.

Mission 3 is now defeat all in final room. Navbar text is changed to hopefully point this out without being stupid explicit.

EDIT: BACK UP TO FIVE STAR-RUHS!! Come see the new hotness!! Played it before, play it again and bring some friends!!

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Another idea that I think could be great is, remember those Arena Gladiator battles? Well, what if the same way that we earn Gladiators, we could earn Custom Critters from Dev Choice/Hall of Fame missions (or even regular published missions)?

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Oo. I like this. Would be a good way to "unlock" some of those unreleased heroes and villains from the bank missions and from some of the PVE content (like Sigil, Kadabra Kill, Lady Jane, etc.)

Improvements I would like to see:

1. Enable offsite MA interface (from the Mission Engineer Accolade) to be used in SG/VG bases. I was really upset last night when I couldn't work on an arc while in my base. It would make those SG meetings seem less tedious. =D

2. Also agree that be able to retain the Architect Souvenirs would be nice. I've already lost some really good, well written souvenirs.

3. The map overviews in the MA Creator really need a zoom feature. I can't hardly make out the icons - which might not be a big deal since the legend and the markers are bugged at this point. Still, not much use in having the markers if we can't see where they mark.

*goes to listen to some Kamelot and learn some unstoppable funk*

Notes for future changes:

Mission 3 considered too long with a defeat all condition - reasonable complaint. Possible retool to make it defeat all "in last room"; Need to figure out a way to make sure that a player can still find all of the optional goals. Also consider putting in a new optional goal which will spell out that you wouldn't need to defeat all.

Custom Group needs tweaks - Nurse & Gothic Prawn are cycling heals - which can really make things tough on a larger group. Kinky Prawn needs to lose entangle or whatever the AoE slow is. These problems were noted in testing, but considered minimal since the testing group was small. These will probably change or be adapted once i15 hits live. Note to self: need to check out AE options on test to confirm I can drop these powers.

Updates: 50 plays!!

Most of my comments were already sent over PM, but to increase your reads here, I'll expand on my notes.

I rolled this solo on Selene Dioscura, my 31 MA/SR Scrapper as the arc recommended heroes in the 20s & 30s. Diff was set at 3, my normal setting for both MA & PVE content. This particular toon is not frequently used, so she's not IO'd out and has a lot of old enhs.

[u]Mission One:[u]
Briefing Text is solid - in fact all the text in the mission briefing and the "still busy" text is solid. No typos or outrageous errors other than the "ming" issue which I and Airhead mentioned.

I noticed that some of the computer desk glowies spawned in odd places (like stuck between two cubicles in the office areas). Since you only need to find one of them, it's not a big deal if you miss one in the front or in the middle, so other players probably won't notice.

I noticed you didn't do any exit mission pop-ups. I don't miss them, so it's probably not an issue.

[u]Mission Two:[u]
I loved the haikus. I have a hobby of making silly haikus myself, so his flubbed haiku got a smile.

By this point, my plot saavy was already basically clued into what was going on.

No other comments here, 'cause I was too busy kicking people in the face!!

[u]Mission Three:[u]

Oh, Sky Raiders, ever the chewtoys of the CoX world.

I loved the boss' (Lt Anders) defeat text. This was a gag I saw in a old Scud: The Disposable Assassin comic book, so even if it wasn't a direct reference, it brought a smile to see it. Was a little curious if Anders was supposed to be a BSG reference.

I went through the whole mission without finding the glowie, so I had to do a little backtracking after I beat the boss. That was a just a smidge annoying, but nothing hideously aggravating. Not sure how to fix that since this map is supposed to be the same as the first map; shrinking it wouldn't make sense. Maybe providing some red herring glowies could keep the player's eyes and ears open for it.

Might be interesting to see some destructible items (set on rogue) for the Sky raiders to be smashing in revenge...not sure about that though. Could break the map.

[u]Mission Four:[u]

Called it on the plot twist.
Mission was very quick, very fast. No messing around.
The pop-up text mentions that the Tsoo are fighting among themselves, and I see a few survivors of the battles - we really don't hear anything from them. I think this could use some fleshing out in maybe some patrol text or some other hapless random hostage.

The Boss spawned as a (red) boss & was also pretty quick, but I had chewed up a good number of insps to counter his elec debuffs.

Selene sez: "Oh yeah! White girl kicked you aaaaaaazzz!!"
It couldn't be helped, she was listening to 80s pop.

[u]Mission Five:[u]

EB/AV Warning noted, team recommended.

As I mentioned, on solo, this mission seemed to just go on a little long. I think the map might have been a little too large considering that there's nothing to do but to beat up regular spawns and patrols. Actually, the patrols don't even really say anything to suggest what is going on. You really already know what is going on, so I know extra content and such might just seem tacked on. And again, on a team, this might run a lot more "fast & furious".

For action's sake, there are a lot of patrols in the mission, maybe defeating a particular one could spawn an ambush of Tub Ci's Tsoo trying to beat you to the punch/kick? Or maybe some glowies of defeated Loyal Tsoo which had been left as warnings against those who might want to take on the new Dragon?

The final boss spawned as a Red EB (instead of the AV I imagine he was designed as). I ended up dying about five times, the first was just sloppy mis-clicking my powers and the second was just sloppy work. After that point, I was popping purples and reds and the occasional blues to keep up with his elec armor end drain. Not too bad since I didn't have any way to debuff him and, as I said, my build is not top-end on this toon. Each death whittled him down a little bit more. I did end up using the "Socialite" Accolade placate twice when I was in trouble to help mitigate impending deaths - but that was about as cheaty as I got.

[u]Overview:[u]

All in all, a well constructed arc and solidly written. It captures some Original Flavor of the normal PVE content, which doesn't happen often in the MA Arcs. I think this actually has some replay value and I wouldn't mind doing it on a team. The plot isn't much of a surprise, but really, we're all jaded players at this point - it's sort of hard to surprise us. Even if you do, half of the time folks will call it an asspull. *shrug* I wasn't really bothered by this, the arc was fun and it played smoothly without a lot of bogging down.

I think airhead's above suggestions on customized groups isn't bad, and definitely an option if you want to change things up a bit. Still, if it isn't broken...

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'a pimped out brute'...when i see this i can't help thinking he means a brute that is being pimped out...you know, like by a pimp.

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Approved.

The slow effect is really only an issue to keep scatter reduced (although I wouldn't say 'minimized'), and I find it comes in handy with large AOE effects like Rain of Fire (which is the combo I hit on my fire/rad). IMO, the slow effect is nice, but its the -regen & -recharge that keeps this in my queue, and it's definitely what I fire off at bosses, EBs, AVs, and heroes.

Again, corruptors are not controllers and should not be compared to them.

is microtransaction the new jerk hacking?

Aw. I liked the metaness of the old souvenir, it was sort of one extra mindscrew after the rest of the arc.

I'm gonna PM ya on my brief idea for mish 5...

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Custom critters will be filling a good deal less in I15

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Wait, what? Where is that annouced? I think at this point each CC takes up like...6.25% or something. How much less? Sources, man, give me sources!!

There are a lot of redside and blueside critters (like the bank mission bosses) which aren't in AE as critters. You might be able to put them in as destructive objects, but they won't have nearly the same durability.

Do people complain this much about having to buy new costume pieces or powers or anything? Yeah, I would like vet slots, but I'm willing to shell out the 6 or 10 bucks for a few extra slots. 20? Not really, but I really don't feel like I need eight total slots.

Seems to me I recall that all the revenue for the optional extras were supposed to be earmarked for going into development budget for more content: which is how we got VEATs when we did - funds from the Wedding Pack fueled that. If the cash from this funds something like that or really contributes to building CoX into something better, I'm alright with it.

The funny thing here is that I started on redside, and when I finally went to blueside I actually started running the mission arcs in Atlas & was all "WTF?? I only did one mish, why are you sending me to another contact, gaaaa!! BTW, wtf is all this sewer team business..?"

Redside is seriously where the content was streamlined, so it sort of encourages you to look at the content rather than just screaming "lvl 1 lf PL". Mercy Island really is the newb/extended tutorial zone. On top of the relatively fast levelling, you'll also get several badges pretty fast and can start working on Day Jobs ASAP (Fort Darwin itself can get you Arachnos Agent, Pain Specialist, Monitor Duty &/or Pilot all depending on where in the fort you log out).

I finished Astoria in D Minor last night, having taken a small RP team with me based on recommendations of another person in my SG & by your appearance on Projectionist's Mission Architect contest.

Wow.

I've got a lot of compliments I want to bring forth but they are really just getting jumbled up in my mind. The writing was stellar, immersive, and jumped totally outside the idiom of how CoX skews its writing. By the time you realize that you're nowhere near a typical comic book hero story, you've already got your heart in your throat.

I was working on a similiar arc, but now I've sort of thrown my hands up, I feel sort of counterfeit in continuing it at this point. I REALLY want to use the map in mish 4 (which despite what you post here, was the first time I've seen it in MA), but feel like that would be crass imitation. We'll just have to see how it works out.

We're spreading the word about this mission arc to as many people as we can, we're absolutely agog that it doesn't have five stars (but we blame that on griefers).

Few notes:

Didn't recognize that the Heralds in mission 4 were supposed to be versions of the existing characters - this isn't too surprising as I was playing the emp/ defender and I was pretty far away from the action so I never really saw them.

I'd have to agree that mission 5 seems sort of ... off somehow. I think I know what you were going for (sort of a Outer Limits Twist mixed with a Tomato In the Mirror). The way that the story hints things are headed, I can see that some players would feel more justified in taking out the civilians ("they must be possessed! they're pawns! We're saving them!") until you get to the end and you're all...oh wait. I partially think the literal brightness of the map might be detracting from the mood as well - after the last few mishes, you're really expecting the opposite. Still, it is supposed to be the same place as the first mish. I have an idea, but I don't know how to express it without dropping too much spoilerage.

The souvenir is pure gold, by the way.

Final question: Is "The Beating Heart of Astoria" a continuation of this arc, sort of a side story, parallel story, or completely unrelated?


If you're looking for much lighter fare, feel free to try my arc, which is in the sig. A thread link is here.

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When I search for arcs to play, I only look at the 4 star ratings.

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I tend to agree. There might be a lot of great 5 star arcs out there, but if you're looking at a 5-star arc with a smaller number of plays or has been recently posted then you're probably looking the author's playtesters or their SG mates or something like that and the quality you find in playing it is going to vary. A 4-star that's got a fair number of plays or some longevity is more likely to be a quality effort.

I think mine is somewhere between 40-70 plays (at most), rated at 4 stars, but I know I've gotten plenty of compliments and 5 star ratings from those who have commented.

Fact is that if you want 5 stars, you can't ever have anyone rate it anything but 5 stars. Everyone, everywhere, has to think its perfect - or there has to be some corruption in how/why it was rated.

I also got a message similar to this on the Pawn Shop map. It's the first map on the "MacGuffin Delivery Service" Arc. Played solo with something like three bosses on diff 3

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Let’s up it to 11! – The custom with the bramble patch needs to loose it. I spent too much time waiting on that thing. You may want to remove the defeat all on mish three. It did not bother me, but it was a big map and some people hate those.

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I expected to get a lot more hate over the defeat all condition, but have not heard much about it. The map is technically a "medium" map set on random - so the fluidity of how one progresses through it might vary from play to play. Players have mentioned enjoying that mish best. I'll consider my options there.

I understand what you mean about Kinky Prawn (the custom who has plant control). I don't really want to give it a whole new powerset, but I will be seeing if I can drop that particular power once i15 comes along. The Prawns might be getting tweaked once we can customize the powers (i.e. stacked heals between Nurse and Gothic which really irritated me during one particular testing session)

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You are missing the point I feel. I really don't want to spell it out or spoon feed the plot to the players. There is more than enough information to have a very solid idea as to what is going on. If you really need a hand shoot me a tell.

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You know, that's really not necessary. I mean, I like to think of myself as a fairly reasonable reader - I understand that you want the player to draw their own conclusions. I can appreciate it, 'cause I read plenty of books like that. Not every one does, and instead of demanding that you cater to those who don't, I guess I would just caution that some folks will not feel satisfied with the conclusion. It might be reflected in comments or in ratings, but *shrug* that's the gamble ya take.

Anyway, *thumbsup*

Placed a pretty extensive comment in the thread for "...Blappy...", but I forgot to mention that I rated it 4 stars.

Title: Can You Win The Internet?
Arc ID: 885544
Creator’s Global Name: @twelfth
Mission Count: 4 (w/ one defeat all)
Notes – Arc thread is here.

I've had problems with my edits to the arc not posting for some reason to live. Mostly this has been a problem with Mission 4, where the critters are NOT supposed to be ALL Nictus (although there will be squiddies - so if you run on a HEAT, watch out). I repatched the mission last week.

2019 Have a Blap, Blap, Blappy Day Kids!

Ran solo on Celine Dioscura, 36 claw/WP stalker. Sure, she's a villain, but she's also tinked out of her skull and loves kids TV. So, I felt she had a reasonable rationale to actually want to go and rescue a kids TV show host(ess). Diff was set at 3, which is her usual.

[u]Mission 1[u]

Nice briefing, like the use of Television. I favor the Radio, but TV is an easier "voice" for authors to grab on to. I quickly envision Celine snapping to attention and vowing to save Blap Blap Blappy!

Nemesis, huh. Okay, they get stabbed a lot and its all pretty standard & ho hum until we get to that boss.

Da-hamn, that was not fun. One Death down, hosp'd ('cause I forgot I have this handy self-rez I just got at lvl 35...er...), and came back. Stabbracabra, some insps, and the Corrupt TV Executive goes down.

No further clues, though. Don't really understand why Nemesis was involved. BUT ISN'T THAT ALWAYS THE WAY WITH HIM, huh?

The Debriefing text got an honest lol.

[u]Mission 2[u]

Well, this wasn't a bad set up - and not bad logically speaking from the comic book trope book. Need info? Go to the Villain Job Fair and see who knows more about the kidnapping. A few logical inconsistencies - a fortunata suggesting she wants to change employers (I don't think Arachnos lets you do that), although it seemed reasonable for the Nemesis thugs and some of the other mobs. Again, all seemed reasonable until you got to the end and the Injustice league and junkyard dog. Lightning doesn't strike twice, right?

Oh, poo. SS/what? Invul? Maybe...not sure. I think I faceplanted three times, including two self-rezzes. Celine can do a fair amount of stalkrapping when she wants to, but this turned into an old fashioned stalker strike-and-fade fight. Take out minions, TP away, repeat until boss alone. Bu+AS, TP away, knockup with Focus, move in, hit some usual combos, placate, BU+AS, repeat. Rough.

I know after the first faceplant I noticed I had a hostage to rescue and slapped myself for not getting the obvious ally first. Oh wait, she's not an ally. Great, well, back to getting punched in the face by a doggeh.

At this point, Celine starts to wonder if she really likes this show enough to continue.

[u]Mission 3[u]

Okay! Back to rescuing a hostage! And I know this girl! Yay! Sure, they have doggehs nearby, but at least I know I can take them out quickly. I will stabby them. Bad doggeh.

Ow, crap. Those robots hit hard. I don't remember if I faceplanted trying to get Bright Angel(?) free, but I know I was chewing insps pretty frantically when I had two robots on me - even with Angel's holds. Angel ended up taking a lot of the aggro, and I lost her about three or five mobs later. Couldn't pull the robots off of her fast enough. The defense on the robots were making me really think about reworking my enhancements as I was whiffing all over the place on +2s.

At this point, Celine is really doubting whether she actually likes Blappy enough to take on this kind of challenge. Celine's more martial personality decided it would be better just to focus on the objective and not play around with her food any more. Ghosted most of the rest of the mish.

And of course, I have to go back and fight another boss. A cheerleader of some sort. Of course, after two other boss fights and knowing that I was supposed to have an ally here, I just pulled the stops out. Nailed one minions, placated Sis Boom Bah, TP'd away, drew the other minion over, took them out and waited until the bosses' regen? faded and she used up another randomly fired BU. Popped a lot of insps, BU+AS, stock combo, placate, AS again and "hit it like you mean it" and got business done. I think she did drop me once, but I hit resurgence (which gave another damage buff) and tore her up.

Still not much in the way of clues of what exactly is going on or why Blappy needs to be "brought to justice". Just some plot coupons that allow me to move on to the next mish.

[u]Mission 4[u]

I miss Siskel. Anyway.

30 MINUTES? TWO bosses? Plus Blappy? Ugh. Time to make like Coast to Coast and GHOOOOOOOOOST this Shizzle.

No messing around this time, I sprinted to the bosses, popped two reds each, pumped BU+AS and placated every time it came up. Just as a comparison, I almost never use my placate in normal play- I just scrap the hell out of things until they are dead. It's a great panic button and gets me out of trouble when I need it but I rarely use it for the damage purposes it is more commonly used in traditional stalkin'. On this it was necessary to catch a breather (figuratively) from incoming damage.

Blappy was just more of the same. Pull off the minions, placate the EB, then go back in for the kill. One death on the EB, since (mercifully) she didn't have a defense set, and that was countered by resurgence so I could BUAS with the buff. She went down relatively quickly compared to some of the other bosses, but had me down in the redline for most of the fight.

The bosses were sort of funny when you read their flavor text, although I was wondering about the changing text cases in the former Bright Angel's flavor text - wasn't sure if it was intentional to suggest that her mental state was deteriorating. I even checked to see if there was a hidden message in the random capitals. Er..wait.

Now that I'm looking at Ridiculous Girl's review, I have to agree with what is being said there. I had the same disconnection with "Bally", I assumed she meant "Blappy". I just now realized that WN was an author insert (yes, I am slow).

There's no real follow up in the debriefing. Did I save her? Did I bring her to justice? And for what? She kidnapped herself. Contract violations, maybe? I checked the souvenir and didn't have any more detail.

[u]Overview.[u]

Okay, this is a humor arc - which has some good amusing moments. There is a general story going on here, but it isn't really fleshed out - the player really doesn't quite understand what is going on or why they are involved. Why are the Nemesis involved in the first mission? Something to do with the executive, but even then it's never really followed up on. Well, that's Nemesis plots for you.

As best as I can tell, Blappy & Bright Angel are actually doing community service for some prior crimes. Only problem is that Blappy hates kids but is immensely popular for her antics anyway. Bright Angel is in a similar position, but playing second string to Blappy for years has made her cynical (and her merch sales still suck, so she doesn't even get to be disgrunted and rich). I'm still confused on why BA thinks that Blappy needs to be brought to justice, we never really understand what Blappy is doing off screen that needs to be stopped. I guess its just the player's fanaticism that drives them to pursue Blappy although she's just trying to go out on her own (sure, as a villain, but whatever!). I don't exactly understand how Sis Boom Bah enters this other than maybe a lackey for the Injustice League. We don't really find out Blappys motives until the end - and that's only in her flavor text - she's tired of being a role model and wants to do whatever it takes to become really depised.

I generally don't count the critter text as clues, since the players can't always be relied upon to click on them. I'd say that the arc in general would need a lot more fleshing out in clues as to what is going on. These don't have to be required objectives, and they could provide more opportunities to slip in more jokes. For example:

If Blappy really hates kids, I could see that the hero might run across some file cabinets stuffed full of complaints from parents or lawsuits for Blappy using the kids in her "live studio audience" in her "wacky antics" (involving explosives, poisoned pie fights, putting a kid into a "portable hole" and then forgetting they were in there for, oh, weeks, etc). I think you could really play up the Mr. Wizard meets Mickey Mouse club on dangerous amounts of crack in order to lampoon kid variety shows. And if Blappy is trying to make a WORSE name for herself, you could slip in some evidence or camera footage of Blappy trying to rob a bank or kidnap a movie star - but no one takes her seriously or something, causing more consternation. I think we could also use a little more amping up of the rivalry between BA and Blappy. Let's see the sales figures of Blappy's toys against BA's - or maybe a mildewed box of remaindered BA dolls that even the player thinks are "pretty lame" (alternatively a box of Blappy & BA dolls in which all the Blappy dolls have been open and stolen while the BA dolls are untouched - or something).

Wish I had something better to say, I think it's a good arc and its a good start to a story, I just think it needs to be fleshed out a little more. There's a lot of information just is sort of hinted at or that the player has to infer. A proper conclusion at the end of the arc would do a lot - right now it's pretty much A Winner Is You! I'd like to know what the result of your efforts here are. Does Blappy go back to her show, ever trapped by her own fame? Does she finally get what she wanted, notoriety and infamy before the public eye? I see that you wanted some questions at the end of this arc, but without a follow up or some conclusion they're just dangling plot threads.

Just as an aside, have you ever seen Death To Smoochy?