Ankylosaur

Happy New Year! (Oh, the anticipation! 🙂 )

It started with Helix, a Resistance member who has Kheldian powers. I thought I could put her into 1.x to introduce the All That Glows story fork during the Glitters intro. And then that turned into the effort above, in which I realized I could insert a few more of the Resistance into the 1.x series to make it have a few more Praetorians in its post-Praetorian intro. And then that became its own through-line thread - shoring up a few loose ends from a previous incarnation of this series. In short - there are more ex-Praeotirans demonstrably embedded in the Gold Brickers. This was always stated to be the case, but now is more visible as they include known named Resistance leaders. I was able to place them throughout without change to the story - instead - putting in these known, named folk, where before there were simply generic Boomers or Brickernauts without a background.

Oh and you know, the whole "coral spawn on the same one night of the year" thing is true. How crazy and amazing is that? https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral-spawning.html Wish I could recolor the coral spires to red - but at least the red coral spawn play their role perfectly. 🙂

Me too - except when writing. When I decide to do a Coralax story, then I spend some time reading up on the Coralax and Merulina stuff - trying to make sense of it all and discover the Virtea - would not expect anyone to know that they are there - but gives me something to add and helps me justify it in my head. The AMA Lore stuff is interesting as it talks about stuff that they were thinking of as story lines - and some of that is fun to ponder.

Exactly - hard to want to use that map, and hard to not use that map. There's another in here which is similar - thematically perfect, but HUGE... That is part of why M2 is so short. Initially, I was going to do a whole freak show mission - but it was all to fight one of the freak show tanks that is part Corlax. So to balance how ambling M1 is - M2 was whittled down to just the Chum Bucket with its two mobs, since that is squarely in Sharkshead. And - trivia - the Virtea are named in the lore, though they never make an appearance in-game.

A couple of refinements on the extreme ends of the series. In 1.1 - Missing in Mercy, I found a way to include a bit more of the ex-pat Praetorian story from the beginning. I always felt that I got to that a little late in the intro arcs and came up with a way to correct that. In 1.1, you are seeking a Praetorian scientist to make sure his knowledge falls into the hands you want them to. Rather than make it just about him, I peppered in more ex-Praetorians and even created a mob "The Dispossessed" that he would have been part of til he started to make his own way out. 5.0 - Redemption in Neo Tokyo got an update too. Unfortunately, the old arc was too large, and I would lose my map server connection every time I tried to open it. So I had to pull it down and replace it - losing its plays and 5-star rating. 😞 Oh well. This was a smaller sweep, taking in some of @Take One's feedback from long ago and updating a few things now that Police vs Aliens has been rewritten as All that Glows, and All That Glints has been written, and that Glitters lost ConDev and Revenants. Some Quality of Life elements in M5 too which was a bit overloaded with objectives. I reduced them while also upping the challenge a bit for the finale on that massive map.

After Engineria explored Glitters, I realized one of the things I did not do was really do much to seed the issues with Dr. Aeon and possible motivations against him that would make you feel good about ousting him. So I thought I would pop a clue or three in the series that shared more of the Dr. Egon story and came upon something that I had totally forgotten about, and, well, needed to put in. It's a tiny change with big implications. Professor Echo. In the few instances where you encounter him in the Marshal Brass arcs, you get a sense for who he is, but of course it also leaves a lot of open questions. So what do we know about Professor Echo... He is an older Dr. Aeon from the future He (mostly) looks the same with the same armor and abilities as Dr. Aeon. His hair is white and longer and he has a beard. We see him "chronoport" - i.e. time travel further confirming he could be from another time. Dr. Aeon says something like, "Wait, you're me?" to him. Dr. Aeon's? description in the mission with both refers to him as a younger version of Professor Echo He works with Wyvern Which means he's goodish (Vigilante I presume) He seems to be working against Arachnos and definitely Dr. Aeon His armor is a tiny bit different than Aeon His armor uses the same patterns as Aeon, but, where Aeon's is white, Echo's is black - i.e. opposite (His hair is opposite too of course) Could this mean his change in alignment is that he is from another dimension - e.g. Praetoria? Or did he just "turn good" and paint it a different color? At any rate, I have put him into the story now, too, as he clearly has ties to Wyvern AND is working against Dr. Aeon. Played through the Marshal Brass stuff again, and unlike the wiki photo, he has Aeon gloves I- game now too. I also would think he is /time now instead of /FF, now that the time set is available but will see where I land with that.

You can kind of picture them singing an old Smiths song... 🙂 This is the coastal town That they forgot to close down Armageddon, come Armageddon Come, Armageddon, come

I kind of like the idea of the forking specialization, but it's probably too different from what people have today. I have often just wished the shields were defense instead of resistance to give you some inherent means to mitigate status effects without giving full status protection. Now that there are sentinels - that does not feel like it would make these classes too overpowered, but someone better with the numbers would probably say otherwise. 🙂 And regardless - I guess that would give you even less reason to switch forms.

Definitely kept me busy during Covid lockdown! And now it's on the verge of a bad habit. (I'm working on an unrelated series in my head ATM.) 🙂 Congrats on completing the whole thing! So glad to hear you enjoyed it! You are the only one who has seen it through in its post-Aeon-Strike-Force-and-new-Gold-Brickers form. The ending is a little different (originally King Midas and Guido did win independence for the big island, but like you, @Darmian and @Take One both thought that a bridge too far. I really do value feedback! 🙂 Then I thought about how Warburg is faring as a renegade and William Langston would not want that for his city. He wants commerce to flow after all. So I guess he also dupped Warburg into helping him, but only to stay under Arachnos in the end.) It's definitely long and such a long journey needs a BIG change-the-game kind of ending. I went in with a loose plan and kept seeing opportunities to add to it instead of parsing out ideas into other series. My plan was a little too loose and subsequent series have benefitted (I think?) as I have planned them out more from the beginning. It also got a little streamlined when I pulled out some mobs (ConDev and Revenants) but did not get shorter since the missions were built so some threads may be longer than needed. Its length is also why both All that Glints and All that Glows are only three arcs each. Even though they have the same core enemy group, they are separated out from one another with distinct plots and through lines. Manticore's motivations are maybe a dash questionable, but you have been with Wyvern the whole time, so felt obliged to include him. One thing I still think I might do is squeeze in more clues about Dr. Aeon really being Dr. Egon and all the horrible things he did - its sort of presumed he's an enemy of Langston, rather than giving you reasons to dislike him. Can also make it clearer that William was supplying Arachnos/Recluse with their tech in the early days after his coup when he took the Isles and therefore has a pre-standing relationship with Recluse too. As to numbering, it's odd - no question - but it's the best I could come up with to represent forks in stories and chunks of the story. Way back in 1.x you had a few mentions of "Story forks." These clues point you to the other related series that fork off of 1.3. I did what I could to help people visualize it in my signature. Have considered renaming the intro to All that Gleams to pair with the epilogue. Because the forks are after the intro, they start in the 20s to be natural follow-ons from 1.3. 2.x is 20s-ish, 3.x is 30s-ish and 4.x is 40s-ish. Thanks so much! And you've answered a big big question - was it worth it in the end? Glad to hear it was at least enough to recommend! It was super-fun to put together (even through its many reworks for new characters) and I hope you had as much fun playing it! The other series don't have the big re-write this one had to accommodate the release of new mobs, new maps, and ret-conning in things. Hope you enjoy your journey into my take of the magic side of the post-praetorian story in All That Glimmers just as much! And thank you again for playing through all of these @TerroirNoir and documenting your journey. It's been wonderful to look through your lens, to follow Engineria. It's a real gift and I very much appreciate it.

Thank you for pulling all of this together! (With arc IDs no less!)

Oh and you fought Crey VP Juan Fernandez wayyy back in 3.1 when you freed The Doctor from the Crey facility in Eden.

And yes - the fact that Colleague flies makes the exit very reasonable for an escort mission with this much danger around. If you really love having her alongside - you can even summon her if you do a little more work for Wyvern via Sgt. Schorr. 🙂 Hammers of Justice: Colleague

Its' part of why this is Vigilante and Wyvern...

If you enjoy the First Ward/Night Ward mobs/lore - All That Glimmers is all about the groups here. You might be seeing that soon, depending on what @TerroirNoir2 picks up next. (Presuming @TerroirNoir keeps going of course...) 🙂

I always wanted it to be about The Dead Milkmen and a bitchin' camero, or a big lizard in someones back yard, or someone who will dance to anything by Book of Love, or a punk rock girl, but you know - that's probably just me... 🙂

@Darmian - I loved exploring all the oddities in Nightward that you shared, like the ghost heroes, the angel, the demons. Plus the one I found! The dead milkman... 🙂

You know, that post, above started with just some small things but caused me to move several things around. When I integrated the new Gold Brickers, I was so focused on Zoe, and swapping in the high end AU Gold Brickers, that I did not pay enough attention to the change in story from the mid down. I plugged holes, putting Princes Zoe in for Dalton and Mr. Rodney in for Carmella, but did not really re-think it - and @TerroirNoir playthrough made me realize a few things - in particular that 1.3 and 2.3, section finales - did not end with a big win/fight. Mr. Rodney (as a OOB mob who spans in different forms) 8-54, presented an opportunity to span the whole thing. The integration of the Mooks in 2.x and 3.x could carry a thread forward. So this took me back to an early post in this thread about who the Langston's are and what their motivations are. I kind of subbed in the new Gold Brickers into their old roles, without looking with fresh eyes.

More updates as I watch @TerroirNoir play through Glitters. I see opportunities to do small improvements and so I do... Nothing plot-related - but some big refinements in the lower levels to add more punch to the missions and in particular the x.3 finales.

In Wonderland, on one of those Croatoa maps you mentioned, I'm even more direct. 🙂 [Note: It's a big map with optional encounters. Bring patience and be ready to explore. Rescue The White Knight to help you fight The Jabberwock; avoid The Caterpillar's Toadstool!]

Sometimes just a mission entry pop-up can help too. "You grit your teeth and resolve yourself to the manhunt ahead. Vinny could be anywhere from the highways above to the byways below." to remind people of places that might not occur to them. I certainly rarely use the spirit guide trick - it's not often it can fit in story-wise, I recently did use it on the Atlas map mentioned earlier. The Skyway map is deceptive because it is quite large. Because of the multi-tier level of it, I ended up using it in a higher level mission - not that anyone doesn't have travel powers at low levels - just they usually feel safer with defense or have more tools like stealth at higher levels to turn unexpected corners.

@cranebump - It's basically a prison door, and it's probably an error that it shows up at all, but it's a more convincing portal than the "Mystical Portal Well" at least. 🙂 If you add a boss, and look wayyyy down the list past all those Longbow Wardens in the Longbow mob, you will see "Reinforced Door" as an option. You could do a whole 2001 thing with it.

One of those weird little things in AE - finally found a use for them. 🙂

Great pic - sad story 😞

Bruto Louie is supposed to be a Mook too (I mean it's all Family I suppose, but this is just reinforcing the schism and their distribution role). - maybe I forgot to update his boss group... And it is a lot of glowies - not the last time either. I decided that they always seem to give you loads of space for them on these maps - why not fill up a few maps to make the point that there is a lot of stuff. Less important here since the warehouses already have a lot of boxes, but still.