temnix

It wasn't always like this, but these days, when I know and understand so much of what CoH includes and shows so much better, playing the game falls into two parts: reasonably interesting and not at all. The former can also be dubbed pleasant, charming, educational and meaningful, the latter - repetitive, immature, banal and ridiculous. For example, a Prussian Prince of Automatons is ridiculous. I don't ever want to come up against him or fight his Nemesis dressed in 19th century uniforms, thank you very much. On the other hand, the Skulls or the Hellions are not very ridiculous. It is possible that a gang may involve death or devil worship. There have been examples, but even in itself it is not stupid. Nemesis is. So is, e.g., the Malta Group, and here let me quote to you from the wiki. Rinse your mouth with apple vinegar first, to stop convulsions stomach content: "Secrets within secrets. Black helicopters and balaclavas. Shadowy agencies with limitless slush funds, and black-hearted agents with licenses to kill. Hushed conversations on internet chat-rooms that mysteriously vanish. Men in black with blank identities, and deadly women with a dozen passports. A high-tech paramilitary force divided into clandestine cells and dispersed around the globe – this is the Malta Group. In a world of super-powered chaos and costume-clad adventurers, there are still mortal forces that try to control the storm. One such group is spoken of in whispers, even at the highest levels of power. Rarely seen, those who know of them detect their fingerprints staining the headlines with frightening regularity. Young heroes may never encounter these forces directly, but paranoid government analysts and conspiracy experts believe the Malta Group’s machinations are ubiquitous." Is it possible to muster more cliches from every "thriller" movie of the past 50 years in the same place? God damn it. And I'm going to spend my time bashing these? I don't think so. As I said, there are moments when I don't feel like I'm wasting it, for example: when I hear a new area district tune, written by a talented composer those 20 years ago (the one from Cap Au Diable are some of my favorites); when an NPC tells a story whose development I can't see from a mile away or uses unfamiliar or forgotten words ("rubes" came up twice lately; haven't seen "rubes" in a while); when villains show a sense of fashion; when I come into an area made charming and believable with excellently drawn buildings, arranged with details lifted from life or cleverly invented. Then even the basis of the gameplay, the dull combat, is tolerable. On the other hand, when I come into the First Ward with its vortex and forced "insanity" (bo-o-ring), or see Seeds of Hamidon I'm supposed to fight as a (sigh) Giant Monster, or I am supposed to hunt for badges and log out for Day Jobs, or stockpile Merit Rewards, or any of the other nonsense for sloped-browed juveniles, I say: uh-huh. You might think I am of the opinion that the game is pretty stupid on the whole. Yes, it is, but not everywhere. There are flower beds of talent making themselves felt, mostly when it comes to Paragon City and the Rogue Isles, and then there is the stuff for uneducated idle kids to waste time on. And I do need some kind of alternate reality to act in, the original having been spoiled and debased. So I would like to play only the smart bits, hopping from one sweet spot to another. I want to avoid fighting Nemesis, for instance, and the Circle of Thorns should be banned for unoriginality (Oranbega is a great choice for a name, however), but the Family is not overly ridiculous, Freakshow is tolerable as far as it goes, the Gold Brickers are annoying yet not without promise... My criteria are not abstruse or whimsical. Any person of sound mind recognizes total nose-blown bullshit when he sees it. What I'm asking for, then, is a way for me to level up my characters on the villain and the hero side past the worst offenders. Don't talk to me about Shards. Don't give me Roman legionaries stuck in time, the bastards. But guide me past the vortices where pop culture eats itself to endgame so that I might discover Lord Recluse's factions, what corresponds to them for heroes, enjoy the parts that have art and sense and in the process write a not-meaningless story about my character.

By a passing tanker. Here, I wrote a poem about it: As the man with a mace strapped to his back leaps high, The seagulls try to peck at his eyes. As he comes down, He hears the grumbling of NPC stomachs: The microflora is rising up in arms.

Most of social interaction in this game happens within supergroups and temporary groups players form to take on task forces and such. Other than this the most involvement other characters can have in one's life is when some passing player casts a boost on you (outside of PvP). There is also a background presence of others in the form of consignments, but by and large people just lead parallel lives. I am interested in mechanics that would get them to cross paths. Two possibilities can be called cliffhangers and sudden entrances. By cliffhangers I mean interrupted adventures that are resumed later. In comics books this is due to the scope of the story that must be spread over two or more issues, in TV series both because of that and commercial breaks. Either way the story halts at something enticing, and sometimes these breaks are literally moments when the hero is hanging off a cliff on the top of which the villain stands gloating with his whole gang. It makes one cry foul when, fading out of the commercial, the hero is somehow found standing up on the cliff, the villain is not that close, the situation is a lot better than when we left the scene. And not infrequently another hero appears just then to change the balance. Now, this is all cheating and bad writing, but it does create opportunities for stories. To implement these cliffhanger moments here I suggest giving characters a temporary power once a week or even two weeks. This is a power of emergency log-off. When the character's hit points are very low, under 20% let's say, he activates this power and is safely logged-off, but becomes unavailable for play for entire three days - the space of "To Be Continued"... The mission and the situation are captured; when the character is played again, the player returns to the same area and the same point on its map instead of materializing outside, as usual, with perhaps half hit points but also with all of the enemies still there, and maybe slightly teleported around for different breaks. (Trials etc. would be excluded.) By itself this mechanic would only make life a little easier for players, and there is no need for extra help, but it would be worthwhile with a social element included: logging back in takes a whole minute in limbo, and during this time and for a minute afterwards the mission is advertised server-wide in a special channel. Any number of other characters can hop into it with one click, exemplared up or down, and appear next to this hero to fight alongside for the remainder of the mission or simply to help him out, if outside. Sudden entrances would be similar, but without the need for logging off and spending time away from the character. Instead all characters get a toggle: while this is on and the character's hit points are low, he is listed on the server roster of sudden entrance invitations, like a standing distress call. The toggle is on by default, somewhere left of panel 1, and it can be kept going even at high health, but the character only appears on the list while he is wounded and for a minute afterwards. If switched off, i.e. if the player opts out, the toggle has a slow recharge time. As long as a character is listed as valid for a rescue, others can instantly jump into the mission. A defeated character can keep the toggle on instead of teleporting to the hospital, if it was enabled before he went down; his listing then indicates that he needs revival. Members of the supergroup get pop-up windows when one of their own is in trouble. My inspiration for this is one of the countless moments when, say, Spiderman is losing to Venom and the Iron Man flies in. Both of these mechanics would give players a chance to actually do something heroic and not motivated by powergaming and greed the way task forces usually are. Instead of banding with others for rewards let's band for others. And it should be interesting, rescuing others from unknown enemies in unfamiliar places. What the implementation would need is a good interface - a clear, simple panel for quick dispatch to one of the standing cliffhanger and sudden entrance opportunities. Those would be blinking in and out all of the time. There should also be an option for pop-up notifications and a "Respond to first call" option. Some characters might even make a name for themselves specializing in deliverances.

Another power: Corporate Control. It has two mutually exclusive subpowers: Merger and Divestiture. Merger melds the target enemy and the one nearest to him into one of a higher level with their combined hit points, for extra challenge and better rewards. Divestiture splits an enemy into two of lower levels and equal portions of his current hit points (and actually tinier).

No, it's an opportunity.

There are so many multiplayer online games old and new that I detest from the first sight, that are stupid, repetitive, unoriginal, irrelevant in all events, and because of that they are not dangerous. But a great deal of talent was poured into City of Heroes those 15-20 years ago, and that is what makes it too appealing to this day. The strongest asset of this game is its city. Paragon City and its suburbs, the Rogue Isles, are a vision of what a real city could be, to some extent what a real city was. Never mind Shards, floating isles in the sky and Pocket D that tries too hard to be cool. Any team can create otherworldly places. But a believable city that is a pleasure to be in (even without dogs, cats, pigeons, children and old folks) is a real charm. Plus there was Praetoria, and it is also glorious. It had its own style as well: except on posters with Cole the designers resisted the temptation to make it Art Deco, a natural choice for its theme that Bioshock adopted, for instance. They gave it a unique look, and it is still a pleasure to hover over it and look at the line where the distant woods meet the sandy shores beyond the river. And it is because of all these virtues that the game is a honeypot. It sucks away our time. We need to quit it. Not collectively, but everyone needs to make the decision for himself. I'm making this decision, because I'm dreaming away what is left of my life. Now I'm not being coy here or talking for the sake of talking. There are moments of painful awakening when after a very charming time in CoH one runs into some real, true art in life. A dark kind of art or a light kind. Unfamiliar or well-forgotten. Either one is like a jolt. Just now I accidentally noticed Chris Rea's 1989 clip for "The Road to Hell" on a music video service and watched it, and remembered the song. A real city? "And a perverted fear of violence chokes the smile on every face..." For the other kind I had watched "Party Girl" from 1995, with Parker Posey, the day before, and boy, I never stopped smiling. The music is wonderful, she is so beautiful, and even in the opening credits the camera crawls up the stairs past all these weird, wonderful, goofy ravers standing about, talking, transvestites, weed getting smoked, DJs, and the funky tune is climbing all the way through too. And when you see something so genuine and smart and talented you earn to party yourself like that and be with all these people and make independent movies and have fun while you can. So it is reality checks from both sides - the lonesome truth of things and love, ambition, wanting to meet the world. And I am not coming back to CoH to move my tanker around and click on the same three power buttons and then come around these boards and talk about balance or brainstorm for some new clever features any longer. This is all a surrogate. It's a honeypot. Let's give applause where it is due - but then, applause was given those 20 years ago, and get out of here. We will find something to do.

For a hero the system for getting new missions is simple and pleasant: you do quests and you get introduced to an expanding net of contacts. There is always someone to ask a mission from. As a villain there is no such thing. Referrals are rare or just broken, and it is anybody's guess where to find contacts other than by covering every inch of ground in seach of yellow circles over people's heads. For example, after Mercy I was shooed away to Port Oakes without any referral. I managed to find Mr. Bocor, but two missions into working for him I had him outlevelled, and there was nothing more. He introduced me to a contact, but that was only a broker, and I am not interested in robbing banks. Where is my expanding net here? Mission-giving NPC don't congregate in any particular places, go fish! I now hunt by hospitals and ferries for someone to please hire me. It is doubly disappointing that the plot line of working for Arachnos has fizzled out, or rather there was no such line. Arachnos rescued a number of "Destined Ones" from prison to raise them within the organization, gave them a few missions with promises for advancement, and then what? Dismissed them to freelancing? I know that characters from Arachnos appear from time to time in missions, but that doesn't amount to working for the organization nor being a part of Lord Recluse's master plan. Maybe that's because he HAS no master plan, and the whole faction is as empty as all the other villain groups. Where the hell is anything resembling a plotline? What am I doing around these islands? Bumping around Pocket D? Putting down mobs 10 levels below myself aggroed by my tanker? Listening to the fucking Radio?

When fighting NPC enemies there are two bars that supposedly matter, the pink and the blue. But I never pay attention to their Endurance and all powers that are said to drain Endurance don't do anything as far as I am concerned. They matter when used on me, they may be of some relevance in PvP, but not for defeating computer-controlled enemies. If the enemies are stronger than myself, their economy of Endurance is the last thing I care about, and if they are weaker than myself, they won't be around for long enough to let that matter. All attacks cost a laughably tiny amount of Endurance from them, hand-to-hand attacks practically none. The highest damage in the shortest time is the only objective in this game, all the other effects and protections make that possible. The most Endurance I have seen spent in difficult fights I was lucky enough to prolong was perhaps a third of the blue bar. And from my side to drain any amount of Endurance I must score a hit first, which is the number one challenge against stronger enemies. My suggestion here is twofold: first, reduce enemies' Endurance by a factor of five at least to make draining them and waiting them out a meaningful strategy, second, make them surrender when they run out of it. This would become an alternative road to their defeat. They are not SUPERvillains or SUPERheroes, after all, only smaller fry, and when they can't keep the fight going, they give up. (They are not connected to a medical teleporter either.) When this happens they should play suitable animations - raise hands or turn around to be handcuffed if beaten by a hero PC, prostrate themselves and beg if beaten by a villain. For inhuman creatures there could be a jump or they might retreat, fly or hobble away, because we don't lock zombies up. The enemies should become unselectable, yield their experience and drops, then disappear after a few seconds. Lieutenants and Bosses might have higher Endurance beyond their better overall stats and this mechanic would need adjustment in Archvillains' case, but it ought to apply even then. What is the difference between laying someone out on the floor and making him beg for mercy? You win not by knockout but by going the distance.

That info tells the opposite story, that groups drop Es to match the player. That is the reverse of my idea here - that Es need to be specifically NOT matched for convenience. And if there is a group origin connection in drops, it must be very weak. I fought a whole slew of Skulls in Kings Row, an enormous number, when I turned off XP accumulation and ground for Enhancements to sell, and I don't remember them dropping any consistently distinct Es. It should be something with magic in their case.

The Radio offers stashing drugs in some locations in Paragon City - an imitation zone, that is, big and crawling with Longbow. Access is through the submarine. Well, I didn't get markers on it to tell me where the stash points are, and it was not fun to look in the back of every alley there. In fact, the experience sucked. Only for the fourth stash did I get a star marker. When Dollface in Port Oakes gives the mission to go talk to the university professor in Cap Au Diable, the assignment is too specific: use the ferry. I, on the other hand, reached Cap Au Diable by a roundabout way indeed, through Pocket D and TUNNEL, and the quest did not register my arrival. I had to leave for Port Oakes again, take the ferry back and only then was the quest advanced to talking to the professor. Please do pay more attention to this sort of thing, Homecoming, because it is a major waste of time when something like this happens.

I think attunement should involve specific toggles that relate to particular elements for both attack and defense.

This is a question, because I don't know the answer. But if they don't, and it looks that way, then they should incline to dropping Enhancements of certain origins more than others: Relic, Focusing Device and Dimensional Entity (for brevity the Magical triad) for the Circle of Thorns, Hellions, Skulls, the Science range for the Fifth Column and the Council on account of their super serum, or perhaps equal chances of Science and Natural in their case, because they pay so much attention to physical training. The Lost are 100% Mutation. And so on. There is enough of a spread for all origins at all levels (and if not quite, then that is an indication for a new villain group to fill the niche), and this would let players focus on hunting down the groups that give them the advancements they need and with the greatest pertinence to their origin and character story. I mean, didn't the Iron Man oversee technological affairs on Earth, the X-Men deal with the mutant situation and Doctor Strange with occult threats? They got around and crossed over (see my topic on the super power of money), but they did have their interests, more than that - vocations. And we don't. We indiscriminately and indifferently punch people of all stripes. Also this consideration would give more direction to choosing missions on the Police Radio and in the Newspaper.

Expand its functions to switch dual and single-origin enhancements between origins, between types, to combine two dual-origin Es into a single-origin E if one of the origins is shared and the type is the same (e.g. a Relic and a Focusing Device for the same function give a Dimensional Entity, shaving off Natural and Mutation). It would be even more interesting to rig dual-origin Es together, whether for the same functions or a different function, especially if they didn't share an origin. For instance, in Knockback Distance combine the Vambrace (Magic/Natural) with the Kinetic Accelerator (Science/Technology) and get an Accelerator Vambrace with a slightly higher bonus than either used to give. I know that "Special" Es already cover more than one aspect of a power, but this is much more engaging than finding anything premade, even if it's powerful.

First, please make the kick a bit more energetic. You kick a snowman like that, not someone you fight. Second, why does my character have to put away the mace to execute this move? He can kick with the mace in hand, can't he? In fact, I know there is no technical limitation: dual blades characters deliver a kick while the blades are out when Brawl is used.

Some villains' main power is their enormous riches and the influence derived from them. Take Kingpin in Marvel's comics. He had super strength, I think, but mostly he was just flush with cash. So let's represent that as a secondary power set - or something main for Controllers. The set would include direct handouts to pacify enemies, bigger wads of greenbacks to make them turn on each other, throwing up cash or better firing a rocket that explodes and showers the place with money to confuse a crowd, a reduced threat radius as a "look the other way" bribe plus mobsters as pets. Another possibility is a power for leaving behind a trail of banknotes to attract all villains that already stand or will spawn where those banknotes lie, make them follow the character as if a trail of bread crumbs. That way one could gather a large crowd to oneself and dispatch them or just make life easier for teammates. The Banished Pantheon is so underpaid in their underworlds and mountain tops, they would trip over themselves for a minimum wage. The final power could bribe a whole gang of enemies to accompany the character and fight for him. Psionic-type effects.

How about revisiting them to actually write up a story behind them? I was very interested in the Lost and recently decided to read up on their background in the wiki, because it looked like I had outleveled their missions. I was prepared to regret being spoiled for it, but I wanted to know. It turned out the Lost had no story at all! None!

It turns out I'm an erudite.

I propose a megalomaniacal and flexible set made up of doomsday ambitions: the zombie algorithm, immortality, the synthetic army (pets), the mutant jungle, the pandemic (locks enemies down), the death ray, the apocalypse clock (with twelve chimes), the continuum disruptor, the Wunderwaffe, the Fhtagn, godhood. Many of these would be standing turret-type devices that engage enemies or emanate auras.

New features and adjustments to old ones are one thing, but there are some details in this game that are like cobwebs in the corners, no, more like in your face. They have been around since the beginning, annoying to no end, and I don't know why no one has taken a mop and swept all these cobwebs out. I will mention three obvious irritants: 1. Having to type in the freaking password blindly every time at login. The experience of being rebuffed a couple of times while typing it before getting into the warm and cozy world of CoH puts a remarkable chill on my desire for escapism. It is like having to pass a physical examination by a girl's parents before being allowed to her room. 2. Wherever he goes, my tanker automatically taunts everybody, including microbes, and I have to fight them off while trying to read an NPC's text with my other eye. 3. Missions that are by nature about infiltration, to obtain some item, often still require slaying everyone in the zone. You may think yourself very smart when you sneak past the patrols to the coveted crate and click on it, but only until you realize you have to appear and kill them all anyway, including oranges and reds that may be beyond your ability. Mirabile dictu, some people may not be interested in beating down endless goons in this game. Missions about rescuing an NPC and taking him to the exit really should be impossible while invisible; currently the NPC still sees the character within a few steps and it is possible to run, stop, run, stop and lead him to the exit inch by inch past his captors who stand and don't look at all surprised that their victim is escaping. The NPC ought to freeze and not move until enemies in sight are cleared away. Still, even here, if the character can manage to get to the NPC quietly and lead him out by an unguarded route, he ought to be able to complete the mission. And there should be ways for all characters to create distractions and send villains away. To these I can add the annoyance of all melee weapons making the same two-three ripping sounds on hit. After the first 10 000 times you hear them this starts to grate. The game is nearly mute already, and players should at least be able to choose from a few voice sets for the grunts that their characters make when jumping or blown back, and the same basic selection ought to be decided on for villains, but this doesn't file the nerves nearly as much as that ripping. It's suitable for claws, feral swipes and spines, given a few new noises for variety, but broadswords, katanas and dual blade attacks should make slicing sounds, maces and staves some satisfying, meaty thwacks, and axes probably get their own set. Hand-to-hand attacks ditto. This is a mental health issue.

Twenty years ago, you whippersnappers, I used to fight around Paragon City and get Training drops. Dual-origin drops started at much later levels, and I never got as far as Single-origin. And Training Enhancements were crappy, so there was still the same striving to fill the slots with something better than what income allows without long grinding, in other words, a PROBLEM, but there was one good thing about Training drops: I could use a lot of them myself. No matter what the origin of my character was, I could slot a Training Enhancement to improve one of my own or in a new slot. Even many of the ones not really important for my main powers found some use: I could and did fill the slots for Sprint, Health, all of the smaller powers with status effects I didn't care much about. If I got a power with a minor Knockback or Slow chance, I could fill the slots with stuff from my random drops without spending money I reserved for Accuracy or Damage. Now these days eight out of ten types of DOs that drop are useless to me from the get-go, no matter what. I can only sell them, and that for a fraction of the buying price. In different terms, almost no found treasure is usable except to exchange for store products at a great discount. It's like as if the One Ring was usable only by Sauron.

Specializing in circle attacks, this set includes powers that disorient and do damage over time along with some exotic whirligigs, like the EMP Poi. The littlest attack power is Morning Star on a chain. All right, you can call it Flails.

I won't tell you why I think so, but it is the Paragon Dance Party.

My tanker isn't using a shield, so his left arm is exposed.

As I embark on this game with yet another character who at level 5 can't cobble together enough Influence for even one single-origin Enhancement, I feel like coming to the board and loudly begging that someone please send 100,000 Inf my way to get me going. The price of Enhancements is completely out of order. But this would not do, which is why I came up with two systems for helping out beginning charaters and letting old Rockefellers play the role of public benefactors: patronage and mutual assistance funds. Here they are in outline and in keeping with the game's idiom. Like in Roman days, patronage is a relationship between a more powerful person, patron for villains, and a dependent, client in their case. The same bond is called sponsortship among heroes: a would-be protégé petitions someone to become his sponsor. Any arbiter or trainer and perhaps other superpowered contacts can be taken as one's patron or sponsor, spreading the cloak of their influence over their charge and uplifting him for a while, enjoying payback in the form of recognition. This translates into a loan of Inf. Good amounts are offered, at three terms: for instance, 100,000, 500,000, 1,000,000. Each "package" has an interest rate, let's say, 0.1, that is deducted from the client/protégé's Influence earnings, including sales in stores and auctions. These deductions do count towards repaying the loan, and the character can pay back the remainder directly when he has the means. The "packages" also have level limits before which they must be repaid. It might be level 10 for the 100,000 loan. The character cannot level up to that number until he returns what he is due and comes out of the shadow of the patron. Influence must also be repaid to a patron who has been outleveled and left behind by the character - a different threshold for each. Lesser patrons might offer better rates than the greats like Kalinda or Back Alley Brawler, so a character might change patrons over the course of his career, as long as he needs support. All the time that a villain or hero is somebody's client or protégé, the corresponding subtitle "... of ..." is displayed under his name. Besides striking up these relationships with NPC, players can make arrangements with other players to the same effect. A character advertising himself as a patron sets the sum, the level limit and the deduction rate, but interest-free loans are only available within supergroups. Also the PC patron/sponsor must be of a higher level than his would-be client/protégé. Badges, special titles and other usual perks can be given to characters who have supported others for the largest amounts, and they can enjoy high ranks in a dedicated listing. The mutual assistance system is a way for players to chip in for benefits. On the villain side they can join the Family-run Omerta Club (best cocktail olives in America, symbolic contribution - a finger), on the hero side - Firm Elbow (doubles up as a gym). Both systems involve regular contributions of Influence to a common pool from which member services are automatically provided. This is to be an affair strictly between players, no NPC flush. If there are no dues coming in, no services will be available. The fees should take a percentile form to be equally fair to starting and veteran characters and can take the form of deductions from earned Influence, as before, or explicit payments to cover membership for a certain term. It is also possible to give directly at any time. The regular fee may be as low as 1% of the character's Influence, but richer characters can put more in the common chest. Their names will again be displayed somewhere, badges, titles etc. their reward. What services will this system provide while there is money in the chest? There might be several, but bail can be one of them. Well, it would be called bail for villains, but for heroes - atonement. This would erase a considerable amount of debt when activated. Another is emergency teleportation: when a member of either society is defeated and if there is money in the chest, an extra button appears. Instead of going to the hospital he can be revived and teleported just outside the current mission, or put at the base portal or entrance zone in an open area. Other services are possible. There are no punishments for abusing this system, but richer players are encouraged to donate to keep it going. Every teleport, for example, will be followed by a message: "Rescued by the grace of ..."

First let me tell you about an incident I had a week ago. I'm a Prime Earth scrapper, and I went to Praetoria by TUNNEL. There it turned out that the local missions are limited to Praetorian natives. Bummer. Still, I explored in the Imperial City, fought a few Syndicate troops along the way. Somewhere near their Studio 55 something unexpected happened: I was thrown into a quest I hadn't taken. I was suddenly told to lure the Syndicate out of a building I had never seen in my life by fighting them, and some police arrived on the scene to help me, after which the spot was flooded with Syndicate mobsters. They kept running out of nowhere in droves and hurling themselves at me, making circle kicks, sunglasses shining, trenchcoat tails flying. It was hectic. I felt like agent Smith fighting all those Neos in "Matrix Reloaded." Finally, after a few close shaves, I beat them all. I could have continued to the next stage of that quest, but it wasn't my fight, so I quietly floated away, smiling to myself. Now this was a bug, of course, some global was missing, but I have that experience notched in my memory, no, decorated with a beautiful bowtie, as an Adventure. What is an adventure? Something unexpected and uncontrolled. Challenging. Maybe funny. In that case the Syndicate was new to me - their looks, their powers, their intentions were almost completely a mystery. There was something to learn, fast, and there was challenge not of a predictable type. Now my idea for all those house doors and warehouse doors and sewer grates and ground holes and cave entrances and manholes is that instead of rebuffing us adventurers when there is no mission assigned to them they would invite us to a random mission from Architect. When clicked, the door would say "This is not the place you were sent to, but there is something going on inside. Do you want to intervene?" Architect missions, but to happen there and then, dangerously, with all of the surprises and unknown objectives their creators put in. Why have something in a virtual space when you can have it in reality? (He asked.) Start from three-star ratings and above. For optimists, the entrance's script can contain the information about which hospital to send you to. Teammates might get an invite to follow and a marker, these details can all be worked out. The mission would not be explained or described in any way, nor its villains stated upfront. The difficulty would be tweaked for the character's level, but otherwise he would plunge into the unknown. Missions of appropriate tilesets would be chosen: a warehouse door would lead... to a warehouse (we really need a "normal house" or "hotel" tileset, preferably both), a sewer grate to a sewers mission, a ground hole might connect to the sandy cave tileset, the crystal cave tileset, even an Arachnos base. Here is the kicker, though: these door offers would not be available everywhere at all times, nor reliably. Rather every door might cycle through a 50-50 chance (for example) of offering a mission once every hour. If the character decides not to involve himself, the door sets a local variable blocking further offers for that cycle. The character can try next door - literally. He might choose to investigate that manhole instead of the warehouse. If a character goes in but leaves, there is no coming back, the villains have fled. Upon completing the mission and exiting the victor(s) would find a clue - a message from the mission's author with explanations, any curious facts, advertising on Architect or anything else he wants to communicate, or just a "Hope you enjoyed it!" note.