Take One

This here entire clue: It's very weirdly written, not just the "This is email message is from" but then the bulk of the clue kind of repeats itself. It would probably be best if the sentence that starts with "I have stumbled upon" is simply removed, along with the sentence following it that ends with "a computer at a Crey office".

That sounds like the seed of a great story, however. Superman lands, becomes a hero, joins humanity, enjoys life on Earth. Decades later: the ship of Kryptonian refugees arrive. Conflict ensues.

All That Glitters 3.2 revamped: I don't have much comments on this except for one thing: the clues. I've pasted in the clues I got through the arc below. The first mission has a clue about the Family/Mooks situation, but nothing about the actual information I came to collect. The second time I meet Network - the same problem. The clue talks about Network's heist, and where he hid the information, but explicitly says I don't look at it until I get outside - but outside The Doctor talks about what we found as if I already know what the information says. There are clues for Mr. Serenity and Ms. Doula, which aren't very useful as clues. Also, the one for Ms. Doula has a paste error where it says "he" instead of "she". I'd just get rid of those clues, or make them more useful than simply "these robots attacked you". The clues for the machines are equally superfluous, since we don't know what they are for. I would probably clean up the individual objective clues and create some kind of end-of-mission clue that goes through what you discovered during each mission instead. Besides this, the only problem I noticed was a Family goon in the last mission talking like a Wailer (I think it was near the Hellion guy, so maybe he was supposed to be guarded by Wailers?) and in one of the mission briefings/debriefings there's a broken piece of html (br>) at the end of a line. The EBs were tough but I was on a tanker and didn't have any problems with them.

May I direct you to the AE arcs I've made that are marked VEAT? I made a bunch of these back when the game was live and published them again here. Different level ranges, from 1 to 40+ Specifically, they are "The Tangled Weave", "Fear And Loathing On Striga", "The Warburg Connection", "A Taste For Evil", "Faultline By Night" and "Arena".

I would be fine just expanding the game forever, going "wider" instead of going "taller", if you excuse my Civilization terminology. There's a lot more between Heaven and Earth, etc. We don't need to go to other dimensions or into space, there ought to be plenty of adventures left on Primal Earth.

All right, an easy mistake to make with the adblocker. I apologize as well.

That's been the game since day one, more or less.

It's the second post in the thread. Edit: I also find your accusations mildly insulting, since it implies that we didn't recognize this reference the first time we saw The Warriors in Talos Island back in 200X.

Crushing Blow is so much faster animating than any other starting attacks that it probably doesn't matter, or it's deliberately made this way to make up for that fact. Or rather, the other attacks get their momentum starting at the end, so you don't waste half of it in animation time.

I play this on about half my new characters. This week I've played it with 5 new techno-gods I made, to get up to about level 20 quickly while not getting bored. I love this arc, although it often feels like cheating to play it.

All That Glitters 4.2: The contact has the default hologram description. Mission 1: Okay that was a lot of objectives. Well, six of them. And lots of clues. A nice way to make us active participants in the story, we don't just go where a contact tell us, we go do our own investigation, and come back with results. Good! I didn't notice any errors or typos this time. Stylistically, the briefing and debriefing was a lot of "so and so says" which became a bit repetitive. But at least it's clear who's talking. I might consider changing it so that one person, e.g. Marchand, does most of the talking and assigns the jobs in the debriefing, with input from other voices, but it's a minor complaint. Mission 2: Noticed a weird thing in the Picaroon info: A clue mentions someone being "on" Praetoria. I believe it should be "in" Praetoria. Mission 3: "everyone else knows their way around the city so they can be more efficient" - a missing word. Mission 4: Nothing to note. Mission 5: These objectives could use a clean-up, specifically Aurora Pena and Mainframe. The bomb placement sites were already placed when I found them, instead of "fading in". Once I had found the bombs the bomb placement sites also faded out, and started blinking. Not your fault of course, it's some AE weirdness. This story felt proactive, as we found most of the clues ourselves, and went investigating on them. I'm not sure if the New Praetorians are vigilantes, or even why this arc is supposedly a vigilante arc, since we're not working outside the law as far as I can tell. But I'm not gonna nit-pick. As for revelations, I don't feel like we found out much we didn't already know, just setting us up for the true revelations to come. A few things were revealed or rather confirmed, since the actions of ConDev in previous episodes have showed them having access to Praetorian tech all along. But at least now there's a final mystery to look forward to for the next episode.

I'm not the OP, but maybe something like this. With the part below the chin removed too, of course, since no collar would go up to cover the underside of the chin.

Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a somnambulist.

Unique rewards, preferably unique for each zone. Temp powers, special enhancements/recipe drops, more influence or xp for sweeping the area, badges. More challenges and repeatable missions within the zone. Special tip missions. Mini task-forces to unlock. Look at Striga, follow that model. Repeatable street sweeping missions handed out by the officer by the door who usually tells you about the zone's dangers. The mission caps your level at the zone's max, to let you enjoy the zone the way it's meant to be, without forcing people who don't want the challenge to join in.

There are other all-female groups. The witches of Croatoa. The aforementioned Furies. Even the Carnival of Shadows, since the Strongmen aren't alive. I'm not saying that all villain groups need to be sexist, but some of them might be... I mean, isn't it more satisfying to punch sexists than normal people? Most of us enjoy punching nazis after all.

We also have the misandrist equivalent in the Knives of Artemis. Are they getting diversified too? I would like to see female Warriors modeled on Atalanta, Hippolyta, or other awesome Greek heroines, however. There should be no discrimination within the Warriors. Against outsiders, sure.

Yeah I agree, that is disappointing. I actually remember reading this lore at some point, but I must have rejected it and replaced it with my own headcanon because it was so boring.

The Technology origin is a bit weird. For something to count as Tech origin, I think it should be a unique item, probably more advanced than anything in the real world, or something that only works for the user. You could say it's practically magic, just as the saying goes. Thus, a Natural hero using ordinary, non-unique technological items such as guns, kevlar vests, cars, etc should not be considered a Technological hero. To further delve into this: if the gun makes you super, you are tech origin. If you make the gun super, you are natural origin. If the gun shoots for you, you are tech origin. If you can pick up any gun and shoot better than anyone else, you are natural origin.

What?

I'd go the opposite route. Let the Warriors stand up for humanity - against the Rikti, against mutants, against undead overlords from the shadows. They are pro-Human. Earth for Humans. Want to fight back but you didn't win the super-power lottery? Join The Warriors, learn how to fight on your own terms. Be the best you can be. Fight for yourself and your family. Protect your home and your world. Don't let so-called heroes acting all high and mighty tell you what to do, or act like they are better than you just because they got lucky. The Warriors just want to find their way home through a city that is out to kill them all... They are pro-human bigots, so they don't care about your race or creed, as long as you're not a freakish cyborg, unnatural mutant, deranged wizard or insane science experiment. They are all about unity between humans, because humans are almost an endangered species in this weird world. Join the Warriors. We're family.

I would be disappointed if they gave up their style and special niche and turned into Hellions 2.0 The Warriors are fine the way they are. If you want to beef them up, give them Leadership buffs, war-cries (Cimeroran style), Shield Defense with its buffs for allies, and so on. Let the Warriors continue to sell dangerous and fickle magical items to those lesser gangs who can't handle the true Warrior lifestyle.

The Warriors are the scions of Cimerora, who are also entirely non-magical bad-asses. Maybe they could use some updates along those lines... But don't ruin them with dual pistols or boring stuff like that. Give them battle-shouts that buff the lot of them, give them the ability to summon more of their kind, give them thrown weapons or even molotovs. Keep them as the pinnacle of natural humans, because in a sea of weird freakish street gangs, they are the Warriors, and they don't need any weird gimmicks. Just a sword, a spear and a sweet-ass vest. Okay, maybe a shield?

Maybe ConDev decide to do something else under cover of the Council attack, like try to steal something very important from inside the Vanguard base, or kidnap someone, or something like that. You can then put some ConDev mobs in the mission, doing something, hinting at the real ConDev mission going on behind the scenes. Then, when we find them and fight them we figure out what they were up to and we can question our prisoners or track them to their lair. I don't remember how we found their base in the first place. Also, they would probably have a disposable base as a temporary place to reconvene after their mission, so they don't lead Vanguard back to any of their more important bases, so the final mission would then be to bring back whatever they stole, or rescue whoever they kidnapped. Oh yeah I remember now, the find was more or less accidental - Gaussian sent a group of other heroes to check out the location of a possible base. Maybe we can confirm this location during the Council attack and realize that the first patrol was sent into a lion's den. Maybe the first group was normal Vanguard troopers, and we bring the cavalry in the form of heroes like Faultline, etc. Make it seem urgent, there could even be a timer on it so that if we fail the thing they stole is lost. Since this is the last mission, the final text would then reflect this without causing the usual "so it made no difference after all" feeling when a failed mission doesn't have any consequence.

All That Glitters 4.1: Here we go again... Mission 1: Briefing: Gaussian gives us an explicitly unnecessary explanation of who he is and what he does. If you're going to do this, don't have the guy point out that you should already know this. There is a contact information window for people who genuinely don't know who a contact is, and a standard contact from the game requires even less introduction. Just a pet peeve of mine I guess, but if he was going to tell us things we already know, he might as well have given us a recap of what we had done in the previous stories in the series, because by now we might have forgotten... Which leads me to nicely ask for a recap of what happened previously in the series, perhaps in a clue if it doesn't fit anywhere else. But I admit that this is purely for my convenience since I am forgetful. Anyway, on with the show! The (sub)title of the mission: Hunting Rilti Hunters Mission: I think the guy I was supposed to find and interrogate got killed by someone else, because when I found a soldier to lead me to him, there was just a random minion left of his spawn. I hadn't even noticed his text popping up. This is not your fault, of course, just saying that it's a potential snag. Clue: "you over heard them" should be "overheard" Debriefing: The tone seems a bit dry, but maybe Gaussian is just a matter-of-fact kind of guy and isn't prone to exaggeration or emotions. Or you haven't spiced this up yet, which is fine too. Gaussian says that we have to investigate why they are gathering weapons and how they are able to use Rikti gear and even healing powers. The first question we already know the answer to: they sell the weapons, or use them themselves. I believe Gaussian informed us of this when the mission started? The second question would probably be easily answered by having Vanguard doctors check any of the Freaks I defeated and presumably sent to their brig. But assuming that none of them talk or that there's not enough left of them to poke at, I'll go along with his request for now. Mission 2: Briefing: "Fussionette" Mission: the boss has some lofty speech patterns for a Freakshow. Nothing wrong with that but he sounds less like a Freak and more like some take-over-the-world type of villain, to me. Debriefing: "Freaks were tricker than" I don't think you need to tell us that the energy traps waylaid the team, we could see that. Also, I don't know if a trap can waylay someone? You can perhaps use a trap when you waylay someone. Either way, it's a superfluous sentence, in my opinion. "Here's everything we gather from each of your reports" - I think "everything we have gathered" sounds better, but I'm not sure if it's really an error. Mission 3: Mission: Alec Parson: "What they are doing with the Praetorian Robitcs is impressive", "Eager to work work together" Pendragon: "I've heard of you deeds" Some Vanguard soldiers are hostile. Privateer: "I knew we should of loaded" Mission 4: Briefing: "You never know if they have anything else..." - I feel like this entire sentence is unnecessary. Could probably be shortened to "They were showing off their full might in Councilvania, but you soundly crushed them." or something like that, to further drive home how succesful the operation was, instead of casting doubts on our success. As it stands that sentence basically says "The council might have more robots hidden somewhere but maybe not" so it's not telling us anything useful. "The New Praetorians hve moved on" Ah, I should have finished reading. The sentence about the Council not having any robots left is proven false in the same debriefing as they are already retaliating. Well, we all knew they always have more robots hidden away. No mention of potential allies, or indications of the presence of a difficult opponent. It's not necessary but it has become a kind of convention. Popup: "the general behind the the attack." Mission: Quite a lot of "We got problems!" spamming from the Vanguard. Burkholder: "A warning volley that fotells your ultimate destruction!" - foretells Both Burkholder and The Riktiman use the same kind of lofty language. Both of them even use the phrase "fie on you" which I find unusual. Fusionette: "Let's turn our powers up to eleven" - missing an "up". Mission 5: Briefing: "Since we never responded they have probably already gone ahead without you, but based on how today's gone I know you don't mind showing up a little late to the party." -- I would remove the red part, because it sounds weird (to me) and makes the sentence run on for too long. The green part is fine but I would suggest "fashionably late" instead, to make the sentence even shorter. "You going to help them out?" - I think it sounds a bit too casual for Gaussian. Mission: Alec Parson: "Thank you for coming name" - missing a $name variable here. Grant Creston: "Some of these ConDev seem to be Praetorian refugees." - missing a "be" Capn' Reiner: his description goes "The Pixhain is an enhanced soldier with the most advance heavy artillery equipment available. Combining short, medium, and long range arms, the One Device to Destroy is a almost a Ship of the Line's worth of hurt in a much more dexterous and mobile package." - I have no idea what "One Device to Destroy" means in this context. It looks really weird. Maybe it'll be explained later on. Also, I think dexterous and mobile are almost synonymous, unless you mean that they are literally good with their fingers, so you can probably remove one of them. Lab tech: "Prtoect the device!" Allies: Only Aurora Pena seems to fight, but this might be a bug in the AE. I had to run back looking for an ally I missed, so maybe they should be optional? ConDev forces: sometimes a rikti drone is a "Brigatine", sometimes it's a "Sloop"? I think boss names should be spelled "Cap'n", since it's a shortened "Captain". Capn' Bligh: "Let's take out this Cheers Luv and his gang that invader our hideout" - should be $hisher, and "invaded" Mainframe: "scavengers pulling htemselves up" Pinkie Langston: "All these strangers in a strange land have found a home with me" - missing a "land" Clues: Consciousness Uploader: "Like the one you experienced at Infini-Life" DNA Scanner: "Though Infi-Life is shut down"; "nee Revenants."; "they had captured the DNA of the Rogue WIdow Psicicle, Marauder a Duke Mordrogar" - the list of names here seems jumbled up somehow. One of the above (Infini-Life or Infi-Life) is wrong, but I don't know which. Langston Brains: "You found a clipboard on the outside of the refrigerator which read:" - should be "reads". If the Consciouscness Uploader was used to capture the consciousness of super-subjects, does it mean that they are left mindless or that their minds are copied? I found Mordrogar running around so either he hasn't been put through it yet, or it only copies but doesn't remove the consciousness. So this was certainly interesting. I really like the odd Freakshow variants that show up in the game, and the Rikti variant is one I tend to forget because it's blink and you missed it. So it was fun seeing them here, doing Freak stuff. The Council did their Council thing, nothing out of the ordinary - but the mission fighting all their robots seemed like more of a climax to the arc than the actual last mission so that might be a problem. Finally what we all came to see: The ConDev. A rather boring name for what the group has become, interdimensional tech pirates. Maybe a name-change is coming up? An interesting concept, and I'm looking forward to find out what made them go with that aesthetic. I think I figured out that they are made up of two types of seafaring pirates, the picaroons and the brigandeers (?), ex-IDF and ex-Resistance forces from Praetoria. So unless Capn' Bligh and Capn' Reiner are the actual founders of the Picaroons and Brigandeers, I hope we find out more about the formation of this group in the next or future arcs. The pirate theme makes them seem a little silly in my opinion but that's a matter of taste, of course. And weirdly themed villain groups is not unheard of in superhero stories.

Lt. Krieg says some weird lines here. This is Lt. Demitrovich's mission, called "Defeat Lt. Krieg and crew".