cranebump

The main thing I remember is the doctor telling me I had a “pristine colon.” I wanted to brag about that, but it’s hard to imagine an audience that would be impressed by such an achievement.

Guardian Arch Mage of Agony. Damn that’s a mouthful. Reminds me of this title I gave a PC in a DND campaign - 2nd assistant librarian of Omerton. Yes. He was the assistant TO the assistant (as he always reminded me).:-)

The US Army taught me Russian. Then afterwards put me in assignments where it was not needed. (Shocker, right?)

As someone who's had more than one colonoscopy, I can tell by the after-pics that proc'ing was absolutely done, but I was not awake for it (which may or may not be a good thing?).

Okay, gang. After having a crappy experience with a slow play group on Excel (namely a specific player, whose global is now blocked), I've decided I really need to put my money where my mouth is, concerning story play. I therefore intend to to be more active about recruiting regular ol' mish teams on Torch. Most of my Rider toons have not hit 50, so I don't know which ones I'll return to (if any). I might go back to L1, and run Torch versions of my Excel server toons (as I've done with Acrobattle). Anyhoo, that, and the continuing adventures of Devil Bat, will be more at the forefront. I've got a ton of AE arcs out there already, so probably less of that. In any case, I'll look for y'all out there on Torch -- the Trad Play server! (hopefully?)

That does make more sense. But I wouldn't want to wait til the 30s for the signature blast. The only early eye beam is from Rad, right? Guess if you wanted it early, you'd grab just that, then work through the fighting pool? That would sorta suck from a play perspective though. Speaking of, as someone who often skips Epics, save for anything that grants me Acc, End, the occassional DR, is there any reason why we have to wait so long to access them? Are they that much better than anything else? Any reason some of them couldn't be ancillary pools from the get go?

Are we sure this isn’t a Bananarama homage?:-) (feels like Cyc would be a Sentinel, maybe Energy/WP?)

After an interminable hiatus, we have discovered that Devil Bat has been operating UNDERCOVER! That’s right. To really get attuned to “the criminal mindset,” DB has decided to take a stroll on the unmild side. He promises to return VERY soon to relate his adventures. Provided he can extract that spider armor. That he found lying around next to some strange slag thingy. That attacked him, somehow welding the damned helmet on his head. After which he… Sorry…already too many spoilers. Just watch this space, y’all. Rest assured, that deaf, dumb and blind kid WILL be (mostly) back. P.S. Never prepay for an Uber with a Luddite. It’s a scam. They don’t even OWN cars, man…(sigh)

Did we say “beacon?” No, no. We smelled BACON. Nice, crispy ghost bacon.

I think it should summon a really big quinjet that divides into smaller pods (and some of the pods have ray guns that go FREEEEEEEM!) [my opinion of group fly can best be illustrated by the fact that I turn it off via Null the Gull for every character I have]

It's got to be doable, since KR has so many "Police v. Thugs" encounters going on (including some right near Blue Steel). It's just a matter of settings, I assume? As far as my general take on this discussion: I'm wondering whether or not we could do something with Perez Park. Maybe a TF that clears the Skulls and Hellies out of there. I know we have Clocks, CoT and Lost there, too, so the question might be, what's drawing them all in (other than the fact there seems to be no law enforcement presence whatsoever)? This nugget from the wiki gives a scenario: " The biggest problem the park has, however, is that it's become a hotbed of the gang wars in Paragon City. Two groups of thugs, the Hellions and the Skulls, have focused their conflicts here. Both of these gangs are connected to more powerful organizations, but no one has been able to conclusively determine their benefactors. One thing's for certain, though; anyone caught in Perez Park at the wrong time is likely to get caught between these two vicious groups during one of their many skirmishes. Sounds like an opportunity for a big, involved arc, with several different groups involved.

I'll just step in here and say I don't want Wind Control. Farts must fly free.

How in the hell did you get the alt versions of me to have different costume colors? That's impressive. This is something I didn't know we could do. Nice! This is such a great idea. Kudos. However, I am KR Devil Prime. Let's just get that straight.:-) Enjoyed it! Notes and such:

I could not find the arc! Maybe I did the search wrong or something. Is it Attack on Stahlheim?

Giving it a run with the KR Devil. Do I expect Art House Goodness? Of course, I do, you quirky bastard.:-) Not a spoiler here, but this was funny: Talk about putting someone through a wall... And then THIS: You're good, Dave, but you DID not arrange for them to light in trees! (did you? how?) FYI: You're encouraged to switch costumes before the finale, so I did. I only have one alt costume for the Devil, so: Where da soiree, yo! I'm only gonna mention here in the non-hidden area one thing I shared in the spoiler notes - it's the AE version of Jabberwocky. You know what it's about (you think...you're pretty sure...or do you? [yes, you do]). It's another sense experiment like DC5's Symphony arc, but the sound focus is language this time. Thing about this is that, whether you dig this sorta thing or not, it shows the range of what you can do with AE. We have lore rich stories, technically brilliant expositions, high art, and everything in between. It boggles me, man, the creativity people show. Anyhoo, worth a run, if only because there's just nothing else like it (except for the other DC5 stuff, natch).:-) P.S. 10 million points for dropping in a "'Nuff said.":-)

I went with other, mainly because I still want some sort of Utility Belt, and a single pistol shootist (maybe a secondary that apes the Dom throwing star thingy?). And Whips and Chains as an (after hours?) attack set.:-) I play archery for the flavor and speed of attacks. Never really tried to make this thing sing to the max, but I'll admit, as is, the attack set doesn't seem like much. Tac Arrow has great Utility. Really like all the things you can do with it. (I'll also echo @High_Beam when it comes to story revamps).

Latest release: Squalls and the Comet. Details are posted in another thread. No immediate ideas on the horizon, but I was thinking of going back to Asa Ronan in some manner, due to the cryptic hints that he survived the final encounter. Basic question would be: What has Ronan learned that makes him more dangerous now than he was previously? I also thought about generating some random elements, then creating a story from them. Honestly, I'd rather do that as part of a collective task, where several different designers take the same elements, the create their own stories. Then we run them all to see how they came out. I could get back to Joshua Jones, or maybe use Devil Bat as the reviewing character, then review the entries myself (which means I'd have to exclude myself from creating an arc. Or better yet, a collective narrative: we gather a team of writers to develop an experience over a certain level range. The missions piggy-back off one another, or or tied together in some way. Anyhoo, just spitballing. It's not like I don't have enough writing irons in the fire, what with the wife asking me to write a Christmas play about the Magi (so, page to stage in around 4 months). Yeah...I'm sooo superman when it comes to that (or maybe not).:-/

There's a LOT of old content that just doesn't get played at all anymore, much of it with good reason (what's the one where you have, like 12-13 rescues in one map? [or something like that?] Brrr...). Some of it could be done away with, for sure. Content tied in with the big picture storytelling would be hard to banish for good, however. I will say though, that there's a LOT of room in the "cracks" in the lore. I know this because I write AE stories there a lot, and have run other people's stories that expand on what we already have. Getting good stuff that players have created into the actual game is not an automatic task, though. That said, there's a whole lot of good-to-excellent player content already developed that could fit right in the current world (and no worse than some of the more, um, unimaginative legacy content). However, I'm not sure it'd be enough to complete with the TF train that forms the story of many, many characters these days. I mean, you can start in AP with Habashy-Fields/Costel-Thiery and get a good dose of story there, then hit KR for Stockwell/Eagle Eye. Those are decent quality openers that are ignored by teams. On the whole, though, I think, since the TF train IS the model, we really, really need a revamp of Synapse and Cit. Lordy mamma...such a gd repetitive grind. A dedicated TF for KR might be nice, btw. (Lest I forget - feel like I should throw in a nod to redside here-the quality of Redside Legacy arcs is MUCH better than Blue, but not many are playing them. All of the new HC material is better than most mundane Legacy mishes [as it should be, frankly].)

I find masterminds to require me to be more stressfully engaged managing the pets, which is why I avoid them. I feel like certain blasters I play are “lazier.” I’d rate tanks just behind that. Certain builds you can wade in, draw fire, and just sit there, waiting for your melting AoEs (if you have them). Of course, that may be the point, now that I think about it.

Same here, to a lesser extent. I'm not as good at pinpointing things as you guys (getting better, though!).:-) I DID steal the optional escort "point to objective" trick based on Anky's rec, and have attempted some use of outdoor maps that he's known for (and has mastered). Can't get too much out of my lane, though. Stealing where I can? Hell, yeah.:-)

Notes and such, for the curious (SPOILERS):

I use a trail of Reese's Pieces.

Legacy Chain is so underutilized, considering their self-appointed mission. Of course, you pretty much destroy them in Lenard's arc, so there's little reason to see them after the mid-20s. I did construct an AE arc dealing with what happened after the group got crushed (Dark Legacy), but, in the end, no amount of story-telling can make up for how non-scary these guys are. They lack oomph, and tend to be forgettable. As a player in the magic game, I'd expect a bit more out of them. But they just don't stand out. As stated above, they might as well be Luddites.

Yeah, I just bugged out when the OGs showed up. Alpha strike was an ass kicker.

Paper Tigers: