Ankylosaur

@LordRassilon has a weekly AE run on Twitch if you can be up at like 3 AM EST 🙂

Because we are anchored in maps in the CoH world, it may be a cop out, but most of the stuff I do anchors itself there. For me, I generally found hooks in the game lore that were not explored that I wanted to explore and find an answer to that satisfied me. This meant they were mostly serious - but its my nature to throw humor in there some of the time and comics often do. Hooks that appealed to me included... Where did the Mercy Serpents come from? Where did the people in the Shard come from? What happened on the Rikti Home World? How did so many gangs start getting and keep getting Praetorian tech? What happened to the refugees after refugee island? What happened to Astoria after Mot was destroyed? What happened in the Kheldian schism after the fall of Striga and Arkhn and Requiem after the Marchand Arc? Why would Kheldians keep trying after 2.000 years of failing and bad leadership? What happened to Penelope Mayhem after the Mr G arc? What happened to Mr G's gang? What happened to Scirocco and Mistral after his crisis of "faith?" Why is it important that Moonfire was around 3,000 years ago? Who is the Order of the Wind and why do Scirocco, Ice Mistral, Borea and Levantera and the Dark watcher all have ties there? Did Merulina and Mot exist in other Pantheons or on Praetoria? Why did Helix have Kheldian powers? Why does Infernal's lair on Praetoria look like Oranbega? What happened in Night Ward after the Talons left for Astoria? How is Marshal Blitz still alive all these years after a terminal cancer diagnosis? Stuff like that... And sometimes I had a little idea for fun costumes or maps or mechanics I wanted to use and explored that - like Hammigeddon or Robolution or Spycraft and Spidermen. And then sometimes I just liked trying to take some public domain stuff and retell it as fun romp for people to go through. Half the fun was creating the costumes, the other half was figuring out how to plausibly insert it into the CoH world - like Adventures in Wonderland, Oz, and Neverland. Even in those I would just see what I could muster from the tools at hand. (Neverland definitely took a darker turn than expected! but discovered this french comic along the way that treated Peter Pan VERY differently and inspired my take.) All of it was for the fun of exploring how to craft a good story and adventure with a community eager to give feedback. (Infinite thanks to @Darmian and @Take One for detailed deep edits (and @ZamuelNow when he was Zamuel-back-then on live) and to many many others who shared feedback in DMs and emails and helped me iterate my stories to be a little better for the next runner. + @LordRassilon for the live plays on Twitch for what amounted to invaluable recorded playtests!) Truth is I stopped playing toons myself ages ago - for better or worse writing was my end game experience. Personally got a lot out of it - both from exploring the lore and from a creative outlet where I slowly got a little better over time with the help of generous and great feedback.

Nice effort - I'd limit it to one map per page - and submit a bug ticket with a link to the page once you have a clear charter for it. I'd also suggest updating the first post in the thread with other things you learn in the thread so the devs have one place to look for all the issues/fixes Others of note off the top of my head for future pages Primeva Water Map - has collection points and a rescue/anything point on the map - even in editor preview - that are not available to use (and that i have seen used in game). Praetorian Outdoor Maps - like the Atlas map above, really have a set number of spawn points, but they are duplicated as front and back. (meaning it says there are 18 front and 18 back when there are only 18 total). the net effect is you can put in more than the limit - but those beyond the limit will not spawn. Couple of the Serpent maps - similar to Marchand - have limited spawn points in their "special" rooms Atlas meteor map - can't do a defeat all since you must defeat the meteor Prison Maps - interestingly, these notoriously don't work for the 5th column/Council and Cot maps - but they do for Longbow. I suspect this is because the "Prison Door" is in the Longbow mob but missing from the CoT, Council and 5th. To see this, if you add a boss to any map, add Longobow as the group, and scroll way past all those longbow bosses to pick the boss - you will find a Reinforced Door (or something like that) you can add. (I use them as portals you need to destroy sometimes). Worth seeing if just adding their respective prison doors to those mobs fixes their prison maps - at least when their signature groups are named as the main mob of the base.

Gotcha. Sorry - missed that. I thought it did drop allies too but clearly my memory is fuzzy here. if you make a custom group of Standard AVs it makes them EBs if I recall correctly.

Thanks for the journey you have already taken! Hope Araminta explores All That Glints and All That Glows as she levels - whether or not she is a prolific documenter of adventures. Would love her feedback of course.

It may be because you can set your difficulty to face Avs or not. If you choose not to - then it drops them by a difficulty (AVs become EBs, EBs become bosses, Bosses become LTS). Or it could be that they are in a group with no other types to balance them and filling a role as a group, like around a boss or a patrol or guarding an ally. For example if you have a group of only Bosses, I think it will spawn them as a group of LTs if they are a patrol (for example)/

It does, thanks - but as you say, some of what you are looking for does play out over the course of the series rather than in a single arc. That does not mean there are not things I could improve within here. But, for example, being a little uneasy with the police is part of the intention for an arc or so - but such is being a Wyvern adjacent vigilante agent in Paragon - it'll happen from time to time. Similarly - Langston, a legitimate business expanding into Hazard Zones to reclaim them, is something the city supports - since no one else is willing to put their redevelopment money there after 20 years - and if they need high-powered security in the form of Gold Brickers - well the city can turn a blind eye since its obviously a dangerous zone. That premise though is my conceit that justifies having a Gold Bricker series in Paragon at all - so can't be resolved in a single arc. (You'll notice by arc title that most of them are in a Hazard Zone.) But, that does not mean there are not things that maybe could be resolved. As to motivation, the x.3s tend to be where you get some closure (and motivation for the next set). I was hoping that coming off of 1.3 there was enough suspicion there to carry investigating Langston forward, but clearly, for you, that is not true - so something for me to think about how to improve. The other thing here, in writing it for Vigilante, is that I was picturing the player generally being a bit more motivated to act based on what they already know of Langston and maybe needing a bit less justification in a "presumed guilty until proven innocent" sort of way. But maybe a bad premise. I can definitely try to build more motivation here and more context for stopping their expansion. Fair warning though - it's not the only time you are cast in a role that has Langston doing some potentially good things for very questionable reasons and as we have no real decision options in AE - you are cast against them because of those questionable reasons. Lots to think about - and again - thanks for the feedback!

Exciting to see Arrow Girl dig into All That Glitters! Love her Wyvern costume too - Ollerus and Hornet are glad you're part of the team and can talk archery with you. The series evolved A LOT from its beginnings as this was my first foray into mutiple arcs. It has been through a lot of rewrites and rejiggering, from me realizing more opportunities to bolster the Praetorian refugee presence in early missions (like Vagabond, Helix, et al) and then throughout as they find a home in the Gold Brickers (or council etc) to doing more call backs to the 1.1 Mercy mission (like Burke instead of Delia, and Dr. Creed finding a new home) to the introduction of higher-level Gold brickers with the Aeon Strike force (thankfully replacing my mediocre customs) to the Aeon Strike force - effectively changing the leaders in my story by fleshing out Mr. Rodney, introducingPrincess Zoe and changing my whole premise for who King Midas is - which meant a bit of a plot shift, to tightening the sprawling higher level arcs by consolidating three of them into one So thanks for the continuity and typo catches! (As Mollymauk called them - "literary kidney stones" 🙂 ) The continuity issues are part of that constant evolution. (e.g. with Hornet in 2.1 - I decided you needed additional allies in 1.3 and forgot I had that line in there.) 2.1 was actually the first of the series I wrote and leans heavily into the Vigilante role, which is why you were at odds with the Union - misperceptions of your role and all that. Was a challenge to balance what's "right" in that situation. There is less of that over time with some arcs really being much more Heroic - but as you are always tied to Wyvern in Glitters so there's always a little vigilante in it. Once Arrow Girl gets into her twenties, multiple paths open up - though not sure she will want to pursue them all - it's a lot. 🙂 Glitters is about Praetorian tech proliferation (and much more) Glimmers is about the First Warders and magic as they find a home in the now Mot-free Dark Astoria (and a bigger plot you uncover) Glints is about the Council bringing psionics into play through the Awakened after the Striga fiasco (and of course that goes well) Glows is about the 5th Column Nictus schism from the Council (and Nictus who are fed up with a lack of progress after 2,000 years of failed leadership) Monkey Business is ancillary and uses some of the later folk from Glitters to to tie in the one group the others missed - the Syndicate. I wrote it all with someone playing through from 1-54 in mind, presuming that one day people would be looking for new content to level with. That has not really happened. 🙂 Most people who have been through it tend to play a series from beginning to end with a high-level toon and so they evolved to support that - often with very small gaps in timeline between arcs. For example, you'll see this in 2.1 and 2.2 - which is why the ending felt unresolved (often it is the x.3 that is a big finale to that sequence). As someone leveling with it - will be interested in your take. What would have taken 2.1 to a five from a four for you? Whatever bits you play - will be great to get your feedback on the journey. I really appreciate the feedback and typo catches! Helps me make it all just a bit better for the next person. Thanks again!

Not sure - presuming you are timing something running to the door? Which means you need to be able to place it in the back. If that is true then not going between floors is nice so you don't have loading transitions. There are two pretty large "new" Cimerora maps which allow you to place in the back. I also "feel" like some of those DE granite caves are really long.

Agreed - I did a few series of AE stories where I tried to leverage a lot of those unfinished plots/hooks, so here are a few answers that are not yet mentioned above, I don't think. Council Fall / Striga / Fifth Column Arakhan stayed with council Nictus Requiem split off (with some Nictus?) to reform Fifth Council unsure if he brought anyone with him, like Vandal I think Nosferatu is in the Zig? UPA is leaderless? Penelope Mayhem Unclear where she is Mr. G's loyalists - include Bobcat, Splice, an Awakened, General Alito, Tub Ci and her dad along with the syndicate are are part of Mr G's arc too arc Infernal (Praetorian) In the "Eden map" of Number Six's arc you can find his axe

Its a long road to get there - but if you play my All That Glimmers arc, I have a take on what is happening in Praetoria - tied to canon but definitely a fork.

A big thank you to @Take One who did a run on this "rough around the edges" series. With some typos corrected and some (not insignificant) bugs squashed. I can call this done. His feedback helped me bolster up some of the thinner bits of it in Arc 2, giving me ideas to better show the current state of things outside of Cole's reclaimed city, and the Prime Earth invaders that keep trying to break in. Anyway - with this pass I think I can call it done! (Is anything ever done? Certainly going to polish things here and there - but the story is complete, solid, and mostly typo free - except for maybe some lingering Scorpians that should have been Scorpions - so many!)

Made a little overhaul to my lore-inspired Virtea mob that appears in 1.2. This sea-dwelling group that are related to the Coralax have had a few updates over the years as powers keep coming out on homecoming. Marine Affinity is the latest to be added to their arsenal. But in the end, it makes for a nice group with a lot of powers not found in the core game - Melee toons that are war mace or titan weapons (coralax clubs/hammers) with Bio Armor (like they are using crab carapaces as armor) - And some ranged toons with water blast and now marine affinity. - Still have some sonic toons in here too, but one is now sonic/music control So nice to be able to add some variety from what is found in game to make a unique mob

Just a small note to clairify why the All That Glitters lineup no longer looks like this in AE. Short version: These four arcs were replaced with one arc, tightening the story, and taking from 12 arcs to 9. Specifically, after Engineria's playthrough it was clear it was way too long and I tightened up this section significantly. Removed 3.2 and 4.1 entirely Originally Glitters was supposed to be 9 arcs - but after a poor initial ending, I wrote several more to carve a path to a new ending. Really though, as demonstrated by the fix - it could easily fit in 9. Cut, cut, cut... A few tidbits did get incorporated into what remained - some even moving upstream in the story - mostly into 2.3. The core of these two arcs were strong though, and had some connected contacts in The Doctor and Number 6. I re-purposed them with a different story in my "Monkey" series (Almost called All That Gleeps 🙂 ) 3.2 got some different players and a new story. This allowed me to also cover the one Praetorian group that made it to Prime that does not appear in my other arcs: The Syndicate The setting of the isles also did not gel super well with the progression of the Gold Brickers expanding into hazard zones in Paragon Was mainly in the isles to involve the wyvern contact and story there - and Wyvern going after the syndicate works just as well. 4.1 touches on the Council and the Nictus after the Fall of Striga, (in Councilvania! 🙂 ) but I cover that in more detail now in All That Glints (Council/Awakened) and All That Glows (5th Column/Nictus). So it was not that important to the All That Glitters story and had a fun Monkey angle I could work in instead. This originally continued the theme of the Gold Brickers moving into hazard zones and brought Vanguard in for the Praetorian connection. But in the end the GB were barely in RWZ, and my "Kingston Heights" zone they rebuilt next to Khalisti became more important. Also this story did not really revolve around them, but more the Rikti Freakshow, UPA, and the Council, so felt a bit tangential. Combined 3.3 and 4.2 Realized there was some overlap and maybe a-little-too-slow reveal of info. A few defining moments were in those two arcs though, so I combined them into one action-packed one - still called Calamity in Kalisti Wharf.

no such thing as unlimited spawns - each map has a limit