["Toxic" Community?.. My thoughts, feel free to add your own!]

11 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

I see those every once in a while.  Not just build but even to the point of powersets or entire AT's.  I kind of brace for it every time someone asks "how is <x> powerset", usually on help channel. 

 

Just recently someone was asking about how was willpower for scrappers and I said it was pretty good.  Someone proceeded to respond strangely somewhat aggressively "stop giving them terrible advice, WP is horrible on scrappers. "  I just responded, "worked great on mine" and left it at that. 

 

For a while there anytime someone asked about sentinels there would be people on help raging on how horrible they were.  That seems to have died down a bit at least.

WP worked just fine on my scrapper, as well.

[Le Grande SFMA thang (if you're looking for something broad and sweeping)]

Getting to a point where I'm going to round out a whole story that began with Ordinary People. Probably going to require going back to the beginning to drop in some foreshadowing, since the main story has coalesced as I've scripted it (I've already got callbacks/allusions to previous arcs embedded in the current arc, Time's Tender Traps). I figure I'm one mish and 1 or 2 full Arcs to completion of, for lack of a better term, a "first draft."

 

In the meantime, I've consolidated what I have so far into 3 major sections, as follows:

 

Part I: Ordinary People=Standard Operating Procedure, Hope and Bullets, The Last Full Measure: Investigation of a series of thefts leads you deep into a vengeful plot that threatens all of Paragon City. Will you and Kings Row's "ordinary" heroes be able to stop it?

 

Part II: Mobius=Friends & Lovers, Data Games, The Omnibus Project: A missing person investigation leads you into a multi-layered conspiracy, revealing an insidious organization (and a window into what happened during the "7-year gap" of missing Paragon history).

 

Part III: Time's Tender Traps=Full Circle, Much Madness, Liberation Game* (*in development): It's a race against "time" to prevent the recently discovered Mobius Strip from being weaponized. But are Wards Prime (and you) already too late?**

 

Anyhoo, it's all still something of a work in progress, so feedback is always appreciated.

 

Vaya Con Pappas,

E

 

(**NOTE: In a bit of collaboration, this arc features a crossover character from Darmian's Dark Deeds mega-tale, which has its own time-related elements [and which you should go play...now...I'll wait).:-)

[Liberation Game [Arc ID 33318]]

Heroic, lvl 24-30

 [SFMA] Wards Prime believes they can at long last free "The Five" from the Mobius Strip--if they get some help from the CoT. But will the threat of treachery, coupled with the return of the "heretical" Chalikar, doom this alliance before it can bear fruit? Part 3 of Time's Tender Traps (for the whole arc, run Full Circle and Much Madness first)

 

Things I'm already aware of:

*Typos: have to pull down text in some cases, but I know I have some.

*The back and forth of Mish 4. Have tried several fixes with internal objectives. Most things are right where I want them. Now, The Five...not so much.

*Text highlighting: I need to fix internal consistency in presentation. But feel free to point out where.

 

Thanks in advance,

E

 

 

[Can't place 16 custom boss groups, despite 16 allowed]

I’ve had the same issue. You have to keep lowering numbers until the element fits, regardless of what map details say it can hold. Evidently they lie sometimes.:-)

[[Heroic] [35-54] Future Storm's Past - Arc ID: 32791]

No aliens, but lots of gun-toting CoT “heretics.”:-)

[[Heroic] [35-54] Future Storm's Past - Arc ID: 32791]

Yeah that’s from “Much Madness.” Paula is like right there next to the console, but the NAV point always spawns at the door when the console appears in the first room. The escort target location is clearly marked in mission text, but it just won’t locate the damned console. Gives the door for some reason. I’m loathe to move her because she consistently pops up in that opening room, which is right where I’d like her to be. Moving the console might put it in a weird location. But, yeah, it’s a thing. I left it as is because the spawn points are so consistent.

[Much Madness (arc ID 33104) Tweaked, edited, republished.]

Feedback: some typos (Thanks Darmian). Also first map spawn issues involving overpasses. Clue needs to be inserted that flight pack may be needed. The vertical aspect to that map makes it bigger than it would first appear. Lost are the default baddies, but they don’t seem to be filling in spaces between patrols. Also need to do a bios check on some entries (including repurposed Omnibots used in Boundless Antiquities). By the way, I think the number of patrols I can add is maxed out. I can probably drop in more baddies next to “destroy objects,” like police cars and such. It feels like the Lost should be there, making mayhem amidst the ruckus. 

 

 Few design notes:

*The Boundless team’s NPC names are all based on mathematicians who’ve dealt with the problem of “squaring the circle.”

*Mission titles are from Emily Dickinson poem, “Much madness is divinis’t sense.”

*Sub titles are mostly from the Edda (I think...).

*”Time spikes.” Had to change the verbiage and concept due to lack of object to represent fissures. Went with snake eggs, since they vibrate.

*Shadow, Chalikar mobs should have enough variety in powersets to make each run a bit different. Basically copied the uniforms and used a simple bio, but the powersets aren’t revealed until you engage them.

*Vidar’s and Hel’s Minions are supposed to summon some critters, but I haven’t seen hem yet.

*Whipsmart from Ordinary People returns (which tangentially explains the repurposed Omnibots, since he’s a tech guy, and on Wards Prime team).

 

Upcoming: Liberation Game (tentative title): An attempt to free The Five from the Mobius Strip leads to a dicey alliance with Baron Zoria (and more Chalikar meddling). But will the attempt be more trouble than it’s worth? 

 

Some crossover with Darmian’s “Dark” arcs via the character of Angevin, and hope to work in The Legacy Chain.

 

Happy trails, kemosabes, 

E

[AE - Dev Choice]

Much Madness (Heroic, L18-22)  (ID: 33104)

Still somewhat new to the whole hero thing, you leap into action, resulting in exposure to a "time spike." Now infected by madness-inducing radiation, you must work with the Autumn Wards to heal yourself, and fend off a nefarious CoT plot. But can you head off your own personal Ragnorak in time?

 

A follow-up to Full Circle, but works independently. Custom mobs.

 

NOTE: You might need some version of flight on first map (Skyway, with its stacked freeways).

['Movie Night' AE missions]

4 minutes ago, Kyksie said:

I ran the Frozen one and it was a lot of fun; plenty of jokes and references to the movie. Only gripe is that you had to walk a escort aaaaaall the way across the Frostfire map back to the entrance.

Wow...that’s a long stretch o’ highway.

[theme based ae mission storylines]

Since Darmian mentioned them, a bit of expansion on my metastory: If you go through Ordinary People 1-3, the next iteration would be Friends & Lovers, Data Games, and The Omnibus Project. This introduces The Mobius Strip stories, beginning with Full Circle, then moving on to Much Madness. 

 

(Or just see my sit, below):-)

 

FYI: I’ve played all the way through Darmian’s arcs. Excellently crafted, clean, precise and fun. You’ll enjoy them. 

 

Happy trails!

[AE failed missions]

You can proceed to next mish on a failed timer, I know that. It's built in to Full Circle. I would argue that the occasional failure isn't a bad thing. However, the way AE works (without branches) means the next mish is the next mish, regardless of outcome. it has to be a failure that advances to the same point. Just the way it is. This makes writing the mish completion (failure) box key . What this ends up being (for me) is a lot of Deus Ex Machina stuff, for example, "Well, you didn't get to the macguffin in time, but not to worry. You kept them busy long enough for a PPD stealth team to get in there and bring it out."  In the case of Full Circle, said mish (which is VERY hard to complete successfully), is tangential to the main plot, and is mainly used as away to set the stakes for the arc (I'd say more, but people might want to play it, so I'll leave it a that). 

[10% Completion Rate]

I count 50 as potatoes, and everything else above that as gravy.

 

I don't get to potatoes too often, much less gravy. 

[Oldest player contest!]

For the remainder of this thread, I say we change the ‘l’ in oldest to a ‘d.’ 

 

Then see what happens...:-)

[Please change the appearance of Detective Miller in Brickstown to match that of Detective Miller from The Expanse]

A vote for Barney here.

[New Dev's Choice Selection (September 12th): Dark Deeds in Galaxy City & Robolution]

Ran them both. Both are deserving recipients. Grats all around!

[AE Wishlist]

Branching dialogue would be a nice addition, if only to allow splitting longer expository tracts into smaller chunks. 

[Much Madness (arc ID 33104) Tweaked, edited, republished.]

Ha! Funny. 

 

I keep assuming folks exemplar down for AE with IOS. Bad assumption probably?

["Open zones to any alignment." But... ?]

I like the alignment system the way it is, personally. Unless someone can illuminate for me what is gained by this idea (because I would not truly know).

[When do YOU give up on a character?]

Slow animations usually turn me off. But I don’t give up on characters. Just can’t play more than one at a time.:-)

[If you could radically overhaul 1 thing....]

Actually, I'd like access to branching dialogue for AE mishes. It would be nice to split up some of the text, and to offer different choices/outcomes. Trying to nudge everything into 1000-character boxes doesn't allow for much development. Just ran Shauna Braun arc, and, dialogue-wise, it appears quicker because the text is spread among many screens, which keeps to a rule I recall for email: "All relevant text in the window without scrolling." I tend to use every character I have just to advance story/plot. Spreading it out with be better for the player (if not more work for me, but I'd enjoy the opportunity to try). 

 

And, of course, more AE slots for SFMA writers (though you can normally get a few more by request).

[How much time do you spend exemplaring?]

Lots. Mainly through TFs, signature story arcs for merits.

[If you could radically overhaul 1 thing....]

More AE scripting tools and maps.

[Much Madness (arc ID 33104) Tweaked, edited, republished.]

Much Madness (Heroic, L18-22)  (ID: 33104)

Still somewhat new to the whole hero thing, you leap into action, resulting in exposure to a "time spike." Now infected by madness-inducing radiation, you must work with the Autumn Wards to heal yourself, and fend off a nefarious CoT plot. But can you head off your own personal Ragnorak in time?

 

A follow-up to Full Circle, but works independently. Custom mobs.

NOTE: You might need some version of flight on first map (Skyway, with its stacked freeways).

 

Feedback always welcome!

[Isn't it a little bit ODD?]

Just now, FoulVileTerror said:

No, @cranebump.

It's Impervium.

Ha! I stand corrected.:-)

[Isn't it a little bit ODD?]

I've noticed that, no matter how buff, how strong, how tough, how big and strong, you just cannot split Paragon power lines (oh, the number of times I've hit my head on them).

 

P.S. The lawn chairs are also impossible to break--pure adamantium, I hear.