Clave Dark 5

The Dance Off That Saved Christmas Arc ID -- 44962 Author: @Poltergeist Prince Number of Missions: 3 Description: Lame Christmas schlock ruins TV every year, so why should the AE be any different? Help Santa save Christmas through a series of weak character motivations and underdeveloped plot holes that Harold Angel of The Paragon Times hearkened to as "an asinine affront to the holiday spirit!"

This is indeed the true meaning of Christmas, I feel the holiday season creeping over my cold heart just looking at it.

Great cat! I already want you to win based on the cat alone.

How would one go about doing that, just shout out "hey, anyone from Cosmic Council here? Snarky sent me!" Wait, best leave that last bit off lest they blame you for my presence...

I see what you did there... I think... *looks up "Siderophobia"* Oh wait yeah, yeah I did.

Anythign can happen, but I'd lean character chooses us. Case in point: made my then-new Grav/Dark Troller Trash Ghost. Somewhere around level 14 or maybe 20 something felt odd, so I checked back and hey yeah, I had the same power combo on another troller I had taken to like 46 some months ago, but never felt right about - so much so that I had even forgotten he existed (and I still can't recall his name right now, ha ha!). He'd never fired me up much, but had only reached that level due to inertia, "well, this is my new one right now, so I guess I'll keep playing him." I ended up cannibalizing from him a bit to kit-out the new troller, which is something I almost never do. He still sits at 46 or whatever, meanwhile Trash Ghost is in my sig lists of 50s and has, I think 20+ vet levels. I still pull him out, too.

As someone who has actually blogged pumpkin spice product reviews in the past, I must tell you my opinions right now.

This won't work (I think???) for Escorts and Rescues though, which are just so much fun and useful to script, but otherwise it's not a bad idea; I think I tried at least one Betrayal by a Rescued Boss and they still didn't work right however. I will investigate further though, thanks.

Ah, if only I could find a regular SG that would put up with me... *kicks dirt* Actually it's my nightshift schedule, that puts me sometimes playing in the morning, or maybe poking in after day-walkers' dinner times, and then also maybe in the wee hours after the witches have gone to bed. And sometimes I don't play at all for half the week, etc. No SG could fit that schedule. What I'm trying to say here is that overall I still don't mind PUGing, it's generally still fine gaming 90% of the time for me. 😃 But it is nice you found your groove there, Snarky.

Yeah, I can understand that, but it turns out that my aspirations are to make "talkies" instead of silent films that comes with explanatory pamphlets to be read later. I don't really feel it's too much to be annoyed when something in the game doesn't work, just go ask MMs about Mercs and see what they say ha ha!

That's how "people" already play the rest of the game, this single mission doesn't somehow make them play it that way. Some of us even stop to look at the pictures on the walls. 😃

I was a big fan of the AE before it broke a bit after it was introduced, I had multiple arcs up etc. I quit back then because of this bug. Now I'm seriously pondering if I should continue on this arc or just shelve it (probably doing it properly so I can get rid of my notes, and then waiting to see if they ever get this fixed before I publish).

I think it's like having you NPC hand out a pamphlet that you have to read. A cut scene would be less intrusive! Having someone say X that's only one hundred characters or less during combat isn't all that hard to miss, plus that's where you put in a lot of character work/flavor as well. It's not about Clues here, it's about story telling. I have tried to work with those word balloons popping up as soon as you enter, but here, it didn't work, you couldn't even see them, only see the blue text scroll by in your chat window, where it might easily be missed. Having to stop and scroll back, again, derails the flow of play. And this all gets back to this is broken. Mainly I'm just annoyed at myself for not thinking critically about this still being broken when I got all excited and plotted out a new AE story. So that's on me.

If you are fearing the game is unsteady or somehow wonky in ways that affects system running, I really don't see that being a possibility. The game's been back now for what two and a half years? This would be the first I'm hearing of it. This is really being handled here better than a fly by night operation.

Another forum I go onto calls this "vague posting" and tells you just report it to the board mods to look at, and then movie on.

Huh, the single time I ever did one of these, there was only two other people on it. And I don't think I've ever passed one in progress and seen anyone doing it. That one low level Mercy mission where you fire bomb a building is more fun anyway, badges not withstanding.

Sir Snarksalot, Snark Of Infinity, Vaulted Snark, Snarkitech, Snarkcana, Snarketype...

I believe we had a similar request during last month and I again agree with it. Having anything "seasonally locked" was based on subscription concerns, "they'll stay subbed, or come back in October so they can get that badge!" We're not here for profit anymore, this is a dinosaur hold-over. The Summer blockbuster is no longer just summer-based, we don't have to unlock capes or anything like that, this should be available year-round too (and Baby New Year mission as well).

Yeebus this system is so broken. I was expressly trying to not use clues as I feel they derail the flow of play, "OK, I've beat down these bad guys, let me click open a window and scroll to read to see what's important" stops you cold. Here I was reading the stickied guide and getting ideas about doing things that the game won't support right now, but is supposed to. This is why the AE is mostly used for farming. Rant rant rant. Guess I'll see if I can go poke around and find any way to salvage things, or just give up. Thanks for the detailed explanation though, greatly appreciated, you're saving me time!

I saw this post in my notification emails, where the name of who posted it is sort of hard to find. I could tell it was you without seeing the name.

I did end up taking it on the MM I mentioned that I was building above, and so far I think I'm at 39th level with her, and I'm quite glad I made room fro it. She's a Bots/Emp and Bolt does seem to "proc" off a lot for her.

Hey all, working on a question and I've run into a problem. I set a rescue and all the dailogue from both the captive and the guarding foes all tumble out at once as soon as you enter the map, both the inactive and active dialgoues. I recall there was a problem similar to this on Live, but not that it was this bad. Is it this bad and can't be dealt with? Did I forget to click a box somewhere or something? Is there any way around this or is there just no good way to have spawned characters say anything like they should? It's a bit odd as a single boss spawn in another one of the missions does speak his unaware etc. dialogue justfine, last I tested it. Thanks! (It strikes me that the MA section of the forums need some kind of FAQ thread for people to post in, to save a post by checking to see if it's already been answered or not...)

Dang, you guys are fast, I'm only like halfway through mine. :P

Does anyone know where that fashion show map is? I'm just poking through the AE again and I was looking for that but didn't see it (nor the warehouse Rave map.)

That "Santa" in the header doesn't have those winter gloves on. I therefore submit that he is not the REAL Santa!!