Ankylosaur

A second best could be wandering groups with perception enhancing powers (e.g. targetting drone) - they may eventually make their way to the player and you could spawn several each wave but it would be very unpredictable.

Thanks for the playthrough and feedback. The prize is an added boon! Frankly it was this contest that got me writing arcs again several years ago - any arc exposure, reviews or feedback is a wonderful gift - thrilled you brought it back.

Terrible to hear. So sorry for your tragic loss. Keep your loved ones close.

First - holy cow - what are all those tags?! I feel like I have been at this awhile and other than SFMA, the others are rarely used. (I have even gotten lazy with SFMA frankly and should fix that.) Obviously I have been missing out or they just are not that common in practice. Second - in my experience - the devs are very generous with extra arcs as long as your arcs are story driven. Third - Scrapbot just started up his weekly contest - which is what got me writing arcs again a few years ago. The dev one is running regularly too. Looking forward to mor stories!

Welcome back! Thanks so much for bringing this back. Super generous of you to give your time and to give exposure for arcs!

If you look at earlier posts, Mission 2 in PvA1 has changed once before, and it has now again. I had used the Skyway map in its most recent iteration, because I never had before, but really its a bit sprawling and the failure flee mechanic a bit cumbersome. Plus Warshades are hard to find since they are translucent makign travel an searching on this multi-tiered sprawling map a chore. In order to accommodate Buddy Bolton as an Ally I had the conceit that he was in an impounded Sky Skiff so he could follow you on this multi-level map - a bit too much of a conceit really. It was a great scene with trolls rioting and Police vehicles, but it did not play too well. I have since found a way to use that map in All That Glints finale - so i pulled it from here. Instead, on the theme of the Police, M2 now uses a Police station map - a map that I have never been able to find a use for before, but fits really well with the core of the recent iteration of M2. Gone is the Troll riot, but the core idea of defeating a Nictus and him teleporting to another spot in another form is something I could squeeze into the tight, inflexible maps that are police stations. It also makes it nice and short, since the meat of the arc really is later and players are forced to a lower level to fit in with the "reflecting on a memory" / choice A or B ideas that make up this arc. I suspect because a few people have been playing PvA 2, some wanted to see its "prequel" which is wildly different of course. Ratings have been all over the place but - still - I want the experience on this unusual experiment of an arc to be a good one. By whittling down this interaction to just the root of it, hopefully I've taken the experience in the right direction.

Well if you are doing Vanguard - the Vanguard base allows 9 in the back but they will be pretty spread out - not sure anything can accommodate the "at once" part. The Bulge could be a cool outdoor location. The Portal cavern allows 9 in the back - not sure I have ever explored this map - now I have to go see what it looks like. 🙂

"Dual pistols lite" was on MM Thugs first I think, but I do believe Maelstrom an Dual pistols appeared at about the same time. I made a "as close as I could get facsimile" of Desdemona for some my arcs, but she definitely has some unique pieces and is not in AE. And maybe in my arcs it was just laundry day?

Part 2 is live now also, wherein I explore much more of the Mr. G and gang side of things while still in the overall pursuit of Penny Mayhem. One to go - which is already taking ever-so-slightly different turns than what I had planned...

In fact, here's a screenshot from Oct - none of mine were HoF, except the one that won that month, all others were Dev's choice. I think I took this because it may have been a change too? I think this was the first pass at trying to "feature" the latest Dev's Choice - giving it both HoF and Dev's choice...

If memory serves (and it might not) I think everything used to stay listed as Dev's choice, like @WrongNumber said. But I think the challenge was that the new Dev's Choice's of the month were not elevated to the top of the list. As that list grew longer they were not even on the first page, so in an effort to "feature" the latest, everything that was Dev's choice previously got moved to Hall of Fame. An interesting side note to this - presuming the above is right - is that because of it one of mine was given a Dev's choice for a second time since there was no indicator anywhere (except my sig?) that it had won previously. (I asked them to remove it of course to get some new ones out there.) I suspect that the Hall of Fame for farming is not how it was originally intended, but I suspect farmers like to know which ones are the most popular too.

At the end of Mr. G and Marchand's in game arcs, a few key things are established: The Council is ripped apart and weakened, opening the door to the Fifth Council returning. Some of the lieutenants are missing or in prison - leaving a power vaccuum (Requium and Arakhn and the fifth column ns Nictus subplot I mostly dealt with in Police vs Aliens 2: Nictus Evictus) The Council took some of Marauder's DNA and are working on a super-soldier program based on it. The UPA, who under Calvin Scott teamed up with the Council, was without a leader. Penny Mayhem is crazy powerful and mad - controlling all the Awakened. Wu Yin gives up his memories and Vanessa Devore, still trapped in a mask on Desdemona's face wants to help her daughter. (Dealt with the trapped in a mask thing in Glimmers). While I include Provost Marchand and the New Praetorians as allies in Glitters and Glimmers as those series in the later missions, they don't deal with the fallout of the in-game Marchand and Mr. G arcs - so that's what this series attempts to do... All That Glints 2.1: Leggo My Ego - (20-29) You meet Katie Douglas in Provost Marchand's arc. She has decided to go into retirement essentially. However, because of a cacophony of psychic noise she decides to try to find someone to shut it own - and that happens to be you. All That Glints 3.1: Beware The Ids That March - (30-40) Having met Aurora Pena investigating the same thing on Striga, she takes charge. All That Glints 4.1: Super Ego, Maniacal (40-54) Now that the villain is revealed and cornered, she lashes out! I'm hoping it turns out as a reasonable treatment of Marchand's and Mr. G's arcs while fitting in and expanding upon all the other ATG content I put out there... And - if nothing else - its a lot shorter than all of that. 🙂

ANOTHER post-Praetorian series?!?! Yes, it's true! Having forged ahead exploring threads of a post-Praetorian Paragon, despite a conspicuous lack of interest from AE players, and a series of arcs so large that it makes any of it hard to consume,🙂 there was one set of "stuff" that still lingered and remained unexplored, and, well, I'm exploring it... This time in a MUCH shorter series than the others of only 3 arcs. The three arcs in All That Glints will be: All That Glints 2.1: Let Go of My Ego - (20-29) - Final All That Glints 3.1: Beware The Ids That March - (30-40) - Final All That Glints 4.1: Super Ego Maniac (40-54) - Final Let's review! All That Glitters (Tech/Sci - 12 arcs) - is the main (or at least) first story series. It is much less about Praetorians than it is about all their tech and its impact on the power dynamics in Paragon. In fact the "Glitters" originally referred to the Goldbrickers who play a key part in this. It ends in an epic arc that changes the dynamics of the Isles forever... All That Glimmers (Magic - 9 Arcs) - is a fork off the main thread, and explores what the magic ex-Praetorians from First Ward do on Primal Earth. The story begins in Astoria, where the Carnival of Light and other First Warders find themselves reclaiming the now Mot-free zone. But behind all of it is someone pulling the strings to upend the balance of magical power and involves all sorts of magical mysteries - including Neo Tokyo. All That Glints (Nat/Mut) - Another fork off the main thread, it explores the world after the Provost Marchand and Mr. G arcs - psi and Council and UPA related stuff. Fairly sure it's ending will not be quite as epic as the other two, but it's shorter! All That Gleams - is a single arc that serves as a punctation mark on all three paths - wrapping them up and suggesting the impact they have had on Praetoria. It is even inclusive of Police vs Aliens, which is part of all of this too really. So if you want to start at the end - start here! As with all of these, I ended up publishing one arc that gave me ideas to do others. Glitters - The Ghost in the Machine was an inspiration for who King Midas was (before the Aeon SF told us) and the core start of the idea behind Glitters - though that took all sorts of new directions. It's needed some rework since the Aeon SF changed who King Midas was, but I think I have that ironed out now. Glimmers - When Carnivals Collide was about the Carnival of Light vs. Shadow - it is Rogue / you're on the side of the Carnival of Shadow - and gave me some of the ideas for Glimmers, though Glimmers is also VERY different from its inspiration. Glints - In this case I am expanding on an idea in Return to Faultline, but it is also a VERY different take on it - what was crammed into a few missions of that arc has room to breathe with an infusion of a new plotline and players.

I do feel like I have had some boss dialog not "play," but not 100% on that. It usually happened when defeating them quickly and the engine did not spit out all 3/4, 1/2 and 1/4 damage messages - but again - that was awhile ago that I recall that. I tend not to use all the damage messages as a result anymore unless its on an AV or something that takes longer to kill - so either I fixed it by changing my behavior or it just works better now. 🙂 The only time when mission text goes missing before publishing in my experience is when editing the wrong file (autosave vs actual file). However, once published, I have edited something I just republished and found it was not changed. I suspect that is a caching issue. The danger is if you edit that cached version and republish then your previous changes disappear. So, if I publish and then decide to make another quick edit, I spot check to make sure my recent previous edit is there before editing further. If it is not, I close the window and try again and it usually updates to the latest from the server. As to mobs missing - that's an odd one - has only ever happened if editing from multiple computers where one computer does not have the mobs.

Just cross-posting here in case anyone wants to add to the original bug post over in the other forum.

There are a few places in AE where a mob group is listed as a different set of levels than the mobs within it. Additionally there are some mis-labelled mob ranges too on individual mobs. The Awakened The Awakened mob group is listed as levels 20-34. The individuals within it are listed in the menu as levels 20-34. However, if you go to place a boss, they are listed as 20-54. In practice what this means is that they are 20-54 and will appear the right level when used in a mission of say level 40-50 within their original mob. However, if you integrate them into a custom mob with standard or customs outside of the 20-34 range, the game engine won't include them in a mission outside that range. For example - see the subjugator level range vs the mob level range The Goldbrickers Since the Aeon Strikeforce release there is a new set of the standard Gold Brickers in the mob who are listed as being in the range of level 36-20. That needs to be switched to 36-54 I suspect. Note that the new custom Gold Brickers (e.g. Breakers, Smelters, Brickernauts, Princess Zoe, King Midas and Mr. Rodney are not in the mob.) See the screenshot Wyvern Wyvern now caps out at level 44 - much higher than the group states (level 30 I think). I think that was after the Freaklok release.

Hear hear! @Take One tells great stories.

Thanks for fixing that and for recognizing my Hammiggedon arc! (It is still missing it's dev's choice badge in AE, and I think got a Hall of fame instead by accident, but I am sure that will be fixed soon too. 🙂 )

A few months ago I completed another post-praetoria series - All That Glimmers. This one focused on the magic fallout of Praetorian refugees. It's a 9 arc series / campaign broken into three major chunks that grow in levels. 2.1-2.3 20sish, 3.1 - 3.3 30sish, 4.1 - 4.3 40sish. It starts from the premise that the First Warders are relocated from Refugee Island to the newly, post-Mot Astoria in an effort to reclaim that neighborhood. What follows explores a hook that was going to be core content in future releases (though I take a very different path in pursing that hook) and even brings in Neo Tokyo eventually. If you are looking for something Praetorianesque, it could be something new to try. And though it may not look like it from the outside, Police vs Aliens 1 is definitely a Kheldian / Praetorian story. I've been playing around with ideas for a series about the post-Mr. G primal story (All That Glints?) but making slow headway.

Here is how I think I will fit what I have already written with the ASF... This is all spoiler - just putting this here to explain it and in the hopes it inspires someone to go through all this madness of a campaign once I get all this fixed... 🙂

Ooops! @Darmian shared this with me ... Does not quite jive with the original lore that Aeon had no idea who King Midas was, but that was hard for me to justify too, so I get it. 🙂 Regardless, making King Midas and Lawrence Langston one and the same upsets a few key premises in my Glitters campaign series so will have to retconn that all in. I have a strong idea of how to make that work though, so will be busily updating things and will share the results here. If anyone happens to be doing the new Strike Force and can grab the same descriptions for Princess Zoe and Mr. Rodney that would be much appreciated. I doubt I will have a chance to play it any time soon, and don't have a toon strong enough to solo the whole thing.

Reposting here from Help & Support… BUG?: When opening large AE files I consistently get a Mapserver timeout. So I noticed this issue first on a PC with a VERY large arc I created. Every time I tried to edit it online, it would time out. In the end I simply edited my local copy until I was ready to publish - resigned to the fact that I would never be able to edit it once it was live. More recently, I am on a much older (ancient) Mac, so it is slower to process everything (running on minimal graphics). When I open smaller arcs, it works just fine, allowing me to edit and update them. However, when I open some arcs that are not as big as the one above, but still larger than a typical one, I get the mapserver time out. This makes me think it is all about how long it takes to open a large arc. The game freezes during the opening process as it downloads and digests the arc. I presume, during that time, it is no longer communicating with the mapserver and as a result - kicks me out. Any ideas on how to fix / workaround this? (I put here instead of under Bugs since I realize the mapserver bit is working as intended - it can't talk to my client so I'm dropped - but still, maybe there is some way to extend the time when someone clicks on the Edit button in a published arc or while they are in the AE no powers editing room or something? if it is better to be under bugs please feel to move it.)

BUG?: When opening large AE files I consistently get a Mapserver timeout. So I noticed this issue first on a PC with a VERY large arc I created. Every time I tried to edit it online, it would time out. In the end I simply edited my local copy until I was ready to publish - resigned to the fact that I would never be able to edit it once it was live. More recently, I am on a much older (ancient) Mac, so it is slower to process everything (running on minimal graphics). When I open smaller arcs, it works just fine, allowing me to edit and update them. However, when I open some arcs that are not as big as the one above, but still larger than a typical one, I get the mapserver time out. This makes me think it is all about how long it takes to open a large arc. The game freezes during the opening process as it downloads and digests the arc. I presume, during that time, it is no longer communicating with the mapserver and as a result - kicks me out. Any ideas on how to fix / workaround this? (I put here instead of under Bugs since I realize the mapserver bit is working as intended - it can't talk to my client so I'm dropped - but still, maybe there is some way to extend the time when someone clicks on the Edit button in a published arc or while they are in the AE no powers editing room or something? if it is better to be under bugs please feel to move it.)

After going through it all and reviewing the story myself, I realized that ConDev is far too integrated to bother with swapping it out. it would be just WAY too much work to affect that change, with minimal benefit. So, instead, I am going with a bit more of a Minimum Viable Product approach to this. I applied it to work for today - the series is updated - and have ideas about how I will integrate the new Gold Brickers IF they become available in the AE. The changes for this phase were simple in the end.

Updated Gold Brickers = Updated Series? I soloed through much of the new Aeon Strike Force, until it was too tough, and watched the rest in a Youtube video and it has big implications for All That Glitters. In many ways it might make it simpler. I had introduced a group, ConDev, late in the series as I realized my original ending didn't fit and inter-dimensional tech scavenging Gold Brickers seemed a stretch. (No longer true!) ConDev is a hook in the lore that was never used, and I think essentially eliminated. (The original write-up for Cap Au Diable mentions them, and their logo on a building, but I sure can't find it.) The same fate for ConDev may happen here. With interdimensional Gold Brickers + a host of interesting AVs to take the place of some of the ones I created, plus high level Gold Brickers now, I could re-work this to replace ConDev with Gold Brickers which tightens things up significantly. I was able to update the Custom Gold Brickers I had created with all the new costume pieces, and they look great. If we get all the Gold Bricker new mobs in the AE, I will likely update the whole series to eliminate ConDev. -- Complicated Rename for Clarity? The other thing I am considering is renaming it all. All That Glitters 1.x is an intro, establishing the Gold Brickers as a key threat, but also introducing some post praetorian magic. So then All That Glitters 2.x follows the Gold Bricker tech thread while All That Glimmers 2.x follows the magic thread - both related, in that they address post praetoria, but independent paths that conclude in world changing events. And I think the names are just vague and unhelpful... So I am considering calling it something else and breaking it down in a convention like this: Post-Praetorian Campaign - signifies what its about, Post Praetoria, and the fact that is like an RPG campaign - that it levels from 1 - 54. Makes it easy to search for too. #.# - to break it up into it's "books" each arc (e.g. 1.1) reveals major chunks, but they conclude with a big finale at the end of the book (e.g. 1.3). intro, Tech, Magic, or Epilogue - if the numbers tell you where you are sequentially, these do too, but also tell you which path you are in. (Considering a third parallel MUCH shorter path around the Mr. G. / Aurora story) Title - teases what will be happening and where. Post Praetoria Campaign 1.1 - Intro: Missing in Mercy Post Praetoria Campaign 1.2 - Intro: Pirates in Port Oakes Post Praetoria Campaign 1.3 - Intro: Capitalism in Cap Au Diable Post Praetoria Campaign 2.1 - Tech: Boom Time in Boomtown Post Praetoria Campaign 2.1 - Magic: Death in Light Astoria Post Praetoria Campaign 2.2 - Tech: Fortunes in Faultline Post Praetoria Campaign 2.2 - Magic: Drowning in the Vigilant Isles Post Praetoria Campaign 2.3 - Tech: Terawatts in Terra Volta Post Praetoria Campaign 2.3 - Magic: Destruction in the Shadow Shard Post Praetoria Campaign 3.1 - Tech: Nervy Acquisitions in Nerva Archipelago Post Praetoria Campaign 3.1 - Magic: Shunting in Croatoa Post Praetoria Campaign 3.2 - Tech: Suspicious Maneuvering in St. Martial Post Praetoria Campaign 3.2 - Magic: Banished in the Spirit Realm Post Praetoria Campaign 3.3 - Tech: Calamity in Kallisti Wharf Post Praetoria Campaign 3.3 - Magic: Incursion in Oranbega Post Praetoria Campaign 4.1 - Tech: Risky War GameZ in the Rikti War Zone Post Praetoria Campaign 4.1 - Magic: Summonings in Nerva Archipelago Post Praetoria Campaign 4.2 - Tech: Privateers in Praetoria Post Praetoria Campaign 4.2 - Magic: Ninjas in The Wind Post Praetoria Campaign 4.3 - Tech: Grand Designs in Grandville Post Praetoria Campaign 4.3 - Magic: Gods in The Planes Post Praetoria Campaign 5.0 - Epilogue: Redemption in Neo Tokyo I know its so much that no one will play it - but will casting it as a campaign help maybe entice a few more? (Since the arcs level with it feels like a RPG campaign in that sense.) Does the naming help reveal what to expect and the two paths? Is it way too cumbersome? I put the series name first as a way to help people find them, but then the mission titles get lost - would it be better reversed?