Ankylosaur

And me awhile to realize it! Great read-through with good laughs along the way. Loved to see the grand conclusion through Engineria's eyes. All those missions defeating Pantheon gods on the way to this paid off as you could compel them to a very small degree. That map for the summoning was a handy find - lots of spots for captives - like that Adamastor pic - and helps set the stage for a dramatic finale, and glad it felt like an epic fight! That epilogue is "newish." I felt kind of like I needed to use the Vault of the Mu map in M5 for obvious reasons, but it just fell flat after the epic battle of mission 4. And then, it occurred to me I could do what I did in Glitters, an epilogue mission, which works for a 9 arc series. Sort of a "where are they now" mission that let's you get an in-world "feel" of the changes introduced, by you, through the story. I also originally had the gods you "rescued" in 1-3 escorted to the door - but escorts are never fun. This is also the arc where I started using the term "spirit guides" for these non combat escorts that guide you to an objective. M2 is big and multi-roomed, and M3 has a million forks, so the guides are there point you the right way in what amount to very simple missions to avoid the frustration of hunting for a single objective. And i still wish I found a better character than Finn McCool for the Celtic earth and life aspects of a god there, especially after @Darmian's feedback, but never did. The name is funny though - so that is part of the reason it stayed As to the rest... Can't wait to read Engineria's next adventure!

Like @cranebump said, the story has a beginning middle and end within the arc. Usually starts with some discovery, flows into further complications, uncovers the big plot which often includes a twist, and then lets your toon wrap it all up in a final mission. For me, no mission is a complete story. Standalone arcs tell the story within the arc, but several of mine are part of a bigger series. For most series I break them into little trilogies, that tell and conclude a smaller story in each arc, so you have some closure, but also have through-lines that build to a conclusion of the trilogy, which in turn have through lines for the whole series (All That Glitters and All That Gleams are both 9 arcs that progress from low to high levels this way, in three little trilogies.) Always I did try something like a series of single-mission stories in a single arc once upon a time. It was told in a progressive way, where each mission took place at different level, and zone/mobs appropriate to that level. There were months of time between each mission and your contact, a PPD officer, ranked up in the PPD from mission to mission until he was merged with a Kheldian in the final mission. What was originally the arc "Police vs Aliens" I later split into 3 arcs, added more about the Council/5th Nictus schism, and is now the 3 arc All That Glows series.

Well - thanks to you! If memory serves, you pointed out the Langston trucks by the Maxwell Stadium to me while I was putting that together. In fact, All that Glitters - which in part justifies Langston's expansion to Paragon City through the reclaiming of hazard zones on behalf of the City, helps justify why they are in Kallisti at all. I presume some of the new arcs touch on this (and why Arachnos has a presence) but on the off chance they don't, mine kind of works to do so.

Love the official Langston presence in Kallisti - supports my All That Glitters series almost too well. Updated Calamity in Kalissti Wharf to just reference it a little. And now there are Wyvern higher-level than 44 too - not planning on incorporating them, but still.

No high level Gold Brickers by all those Gold Brick Langston Trucks near the Arena?

Saw that @El Furioso was the creator on the FAQ of the mission review site - perhaps this is the same El Furioso? Maybe and he/she can resurrect this venerable and valuable community resource? https://web.archive.org/web/20110916020239/http://cohmissionreview.com/faq/

Remember this mission directory from days of yore? https://web.archive.org/web/20120428171839/http://cohmissionreview.com//

@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? Why does Arachnos leadership stay stable when their history is anything but? 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!