Forager

Can you elaborate about how getting this error message has impacted you?

Rich folk live in KW. The cops try harder.

Add a few extra points because they all walked away thinking they were smarter than him. Dude is playing 7D chess at this point.

We should petition to change "system message" to "throw-away joke" in case there are still people confused about it's purpose. Maybe at least a note in that tool-tip/question mark thing? Ya know... for the portion of the playerbase that is "less socially aware."

I think @Clave Dark 5makes a great point. As forum members, of course we are all fully kitted with our own mez protection and softcapped defense. And there's no time for healing when you and your very real supergroup are steamrolling +4/x8... you're either fine or your dead, but thats why we all have our own rezzes. But... if you PUG, them dudes still need h33lz

Good thing nobody would ever put anything important in a system message.

Prep time.

You should be able to pick the emote for Vulnerability. It's an abstract concept that could mean so many things. You might point, taunt, clap, smack your butt at them... the player should be able to customize that one.

Welcome. The way that people navigate between missions seems really strange to actual new players. Most people here will tell you "just ask" but that is incomplete and unhelpful advice. People get around using a combination of things: team transporter, ouroborus portal, base transporters etc.. that were not part of the original game design, so they're not intuitive and not part of any tutorial. Most of the people you're playing with have also done the TF before. Some of them 100 times. The good news is this game is not very complicated and there aren't any significant consequences. Aside from badge runs, nobody cares what you do. The mission won't fail if you take 90 seconds longer to get there. You can let people know you are new if you want. They are unlikely to provide any helpful tips, but maybe you will worry less that you're screwing things up. My advice is to take note of groups that are KM or if you ever see "fighting through" or "casual" but the travel between missions will still also look like gibberish

I play mostly natural origin/themed characters. My personal criteria for choosing technology instead is the tech they use is very unique to them.

Yikes... a lot of real estate between those two examples as far as the quality of the execution lol. I didn't mean nearly as subversive or complicated as those attempts. I just mean joining the story in media res. Literally just switching mission 1 and 2 out of 5 and making 2 a flashback. Some stories are just better that way, but I'm worried about the player missing the indication that the mission is a flashback. Where would you put it?

Has anyone had any measurable success with a nonlinear narrative? I don't mean did the author think it was a good arc; I mean did the players get it? Looking for specific examples.

This thing cured my builder's block! Thanks.

I won't discuss the plot since there's a series of gags and twists. I did laugh out loud at the "Obviously..." send off line. The custom enemies are fun. They were very vibrant and didn't feel like CoH enemies. I had a little slow-down on the Portal Corp map that was partially my fault, partially the engine's. I can't really speak on the difficulty as the character I used is fairly powerful. All in all, fun romp. I got an added bonus in the form of a color combination for my own character that I never thought of, courtesy of a clone.

This is excellent feedback. It is so good that I have taken nearly every single line under advisement and made changes based on a lot of what you said. Thank you for the time and care you took with it. I would like to address all of it individually, if you care to read my responses. But the TL:DR question I have is "What alignment would you set this as?" The second mission is going to be a sticking point for a lot of people, but I believe that the best choice is almost always show, don't tell. Your guess about Rule #2 was pretty spot on, but I added the "Rules" as clues to the mission in case someone doesn't get it immediately. As for the timer, I know that most people do not play to be tested in this way. I'm ok with it. The timer is supposed to induce stress. Same thing with the targetable bystanders. By the way, did that mom actually attack you? Or did she just run at you and you got scared lol? Your notes about replay are very encouraging. A goal was to make it hard, but replayable so it wouldn't feel like a punishment. Lastly, there's no argument about the story. I didn't create a version without the first two missions because I thought they were superfluous. I thought they lacked replay value.