Ankylosaur

ROFL

Thanks @cranebump for pointing this one out. I've tried, over time, to use one of each somewhere in my stories and have learned a few things with them. Here's what I know about GMs. Caveats I tend to use them as extra flavor and not required objectives. Some of this is based on memory and feel - both of which fail me from time to time... All about GMs that I can think of at the moment I believe the only time you can use them is outdoor maps, and not all outdoor maps. (But even some really small ones, like the Praetoria CMF one supports them.) You can only have one GM per mission and they always appear in a single specific spot on each map. I believe the same GM can appear taller or shorter depending on the map. (not 100% on on that) They are listed as having a specific level, but I have always presumed they scale in difficulty to the player level like they do in game. For example, put the level 20 death surge on a level 50 mission and he's not a push over However, there may be quirks as the Eochai, if on a level 50 map, will lob flaming pumpkins that explode and spawn low level fir bolg - which may be a limitation of that mob more than anything. Some might honor some poses. GMs are not part of their core mob, however, a few traditional GMs do also appear as AVs within their mobs Adamastor is in the Banished level 50 mob I think There is a Thorn AV in the Devouring Earth mob. Put him on the eden map and he looks tall like a GM I think. There is a Paladin in the Psionic Clockwork

It's actually a little fitting I released this during Mental Health Awareness month. No shortage of Gerascophobia in this story - that's the serious aspect I mentioned. This real world story I came across during my research was somewhat heartbreaking. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4283456/#:~:text=Gerascophobia is a fear of,and physiological components [2].

I think one way to accomplish people walking around that feels easy and at least for me is good enough is to add the "Non-combat" and "Single" options to Patrol Alignment menu in Patrols.

Based on the continued attraction of Adventures in Wonderland, I offer up the third (and last) in my little "Adventures in" series; a series where each story has little more in common than a name and the public domain. This one is very different than the others. Much more intimate. Mostly smaller maps, with less emphasis on the fantastic nature of the creatures like Oz and Wonderland and romps through big expansive outdoor locations. Probably plays faster too. I think compared to Oz, which spanned a few books that likely fewer folk know, this will be more recognizable, but is a very different take. And the actual book, you may not really know, but I cover that stuff in the story. It's also more serious. Was not planning on that, but then I read about a take on Peter Pan which made for a much more gripping and impactful premise. I have not read Liosel's Peter Pan prequel comic, but his core idea inspired. My story takes place now, 100+ years later so is not related, but it certainly is anchored by asking the same questions of why there is a Neverland and how did Peter get there. Anyway - not for kids. Eager for feedback as always!

That's always been the big future of work question... What is everyone going to do... And actually I'm sure they'll be a pendulum swing and a made by humans movements, etc But by creatives, yes, not just artists/entertainers - engineers, architects, lawyers, all sorts. AI works well within constraints I am sure it will be able to design a building to code lickety split. Generative AI is already being used to design parts to meet performance specs in ways a person would never think of Lawyers basically research and compile info to draw a conclusion or craft documents based on research to protect you. Seems right in its wheelhouse. Lots of unknowns ahead for all of us...

Oh - but I am sure you bring your own flavor of storytelling that your folk at the table love! However for video games, imagine how much more freeform conversations can be with NPCs, if you can talk to an NPC completely freeform about absolutely anything in-game, but only if you use a few key words or phrases will they give you a quest or will you illicit the right clues. The devs can choose to have buckets of knowledge and have different NPCs know different buckets, and even levels of detail in each. e.g., Sunstorm knows a lot about general events, is an expert in Kheldians, knows a good deal about the Council, but knows very little about Arachnos, and speaks differently to you if he recognizes you as a Kheldian. Of course the above only matters until an AI can completely freeform an entire world and plot... It's why all these AIs are like the Industrial Revolution for creatives.

If memory serves, the updates a few "pages" ago included requiring more powers in AE to give full xp. In my limited experience looking at the differences, this can make the mobs much tougher. (on sets that actually use it - a few broken ones don't still 😕 ) I suspect this was targeting farming, and have to wonder if it really scales down to level 20 well. When it comes to balancing I do rely on the tool for it mostly. It's not easy and why I also don't do a lot of customs at lower levels. At higher levels toons have more mitigation options and more inspirations to handle things that are out of the ordinary so I worry a little less. When things get into teams I've had some real challenges because of stacking. In part it's why I almost always only put defender powers on LTs. That means, when a team is running x8 or whatever, there's less stacking, and it also means they're not too hard to kill if there is some. The other way to do it is just have ratio of a few minion out of a group of several have those powers. Some things I have slowly learned to be cautious of. Poison - stacking debuffs in large groups melt tanks Sonic - see above Aura shielding, like cold or storm stacking or bubblers Flash arrow - everyone being heavily blinded from range is not fun

Here's what my experience was on the free version etc...

And that was the free version. the newer models in general are already better from what I have seen. The fact that it can do role-plays is one of the more mind-blowing use cases - in short that it can come up with relatively good dialog on the fly given context. Try this prompt... Let's do an interactive roleplay. I'm Luke Skywalker of the Resistance. You are Darth Vader of the Empire. We have met on the Death Star and you have just revealed to me that you are my father. I will try to convince you to rejoin the Jedi and the good side of The Force. You will try to convince me to join The Empire and embrace the dark side of The Force. You should be as hard as possible and essentially be uninterested in joining the Jedi or the good side of the force and try to give as many objections as possible. Are you ready to go?

What?

Echoing the above. The “secret” is I try to avoid the unaware text since I know its broken. That’s not to say that I never use it in older missions, or that I forget, or hope that on this map maybe it works, or that in some rare cases I leverage the broken-ness on purpose, but I tend to avoid it.

Added in a couple of storm blast characters, e.g. Polychrome.

So, there was not a way to add animations to the portal door "hack" but, it did occur to me that the Ward from Animus Archanus group would make for a nice magical portal in a similar way. it is more animated, appropriately magical, and hopefully stands out a bit more as a result.

First - super fun to bring back the Prince. Love how you are tying it all into the lore and playing with some lesser used gangs while also updating the post Praetoria Paragon (a path I've spent a lot of time on myself.) Great references and details all around. (In fact I thin the Destroyers may be the ONLY gang from Praetoria proper - meaning not first ward or night ward - that do not make a showing in Paragon) Some things that I am just jotting down along the way. Take em or leave em Overall: super-fun arc that ties right into the lore. Some clever customs and fun details Great stuff!

Here's a tiny and super specific one. On the Nerva - Primeva map, it clearly shows on the map preview, one rescue spot and 4 collection spots, but only supports bosses. In the PI level 50 missions that use it, you do collections. Would be nice to have the map support what it clearly is capabie of. 🙂

Well @TerroirNoir2, I'm working on something else on the same theme. You'll likely have another to look forward to by then. 🙂

What the tiger was supposed to say.... Not sure why he didn't The Shaggy Man uses his love magnet to charm though, and at the point in the story where we are, he has given that to Ozma and she has placed it over the city gates so everyone comes in feeling friendly. I instead decided to tap into his whole "zen" approach and gave him the kinetic melee which is sort of martial artsy. It's a stretch, but what can you do.

@seraphim, thanks for the feedback! Believe it or not - they are spelled Phanfasms in the Oz world. I could make the first and foremost's costume brighter, or maybe give him an animation that calls more attention to him. Jack is a surprise, but that's the Grim Valley where he often shows up. If I make it lower level, 25-34, I would put in the Eochai and some Fir Bolg in M1 for flavor too. I really wish we could get the "newer" portal that swirls, they stand out, but alas those are not in AE. the portal I'm using is a sort of "hack" - its actually a rescue - but that yellow transparent door in Croatoa where everything has a yellow fog to it makes it trick to see... I wonder if I could put an animation on it as a rescue though. hmmm... He should be - I'll double check that. Watching the twitch play through I was not noticing much of the characters speaking - not sure if that is a bug because of so many customs or something, but will check that. in addition to the main characters, M3 is your optional "explore and see how many named folk you can find" mission, where the Hungry Tiger, Allegro and others can be found. Since you have started, I went in and gave the Whimsies some small costume mods to make each individual and each tier of them a little more distinctive, but I don't think you will see those since the arc is in motion - not sure though. If you notice any typos - always appreciate those as its so hard to see them in your own stuff.

Here's hoping Engineria is not trapped in a Möbius strip.

@SeraphimKensai and @CraterLabs Looking forward to the feedback! Definitely had to make some concessions, but eager to see if it generally works even if sadly there is no Gump either... (Sadly there is a general lack of flying couch options in the costume creator. 😉 ) Certainly it would have been a bit easier if you could have just brought some of Billina's eggs. 🙂

Made some tweaks after a Twitch run I watched: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1796009524 The custom Cabal characters no longer have paralyzing bolt (with its -100% end regen ) I renamed the Emerald City Guard from things like Emerald Private to City Guard Private. Fixed a few typos I noticed. My Nome LTs were fire control/thermal and earth control/thermal. Decided to make them more offensive and changed them to fire blast/thermal seismic blast/thermal. Made the Nomes a little taller mainly because I want to make the the costumes easier to see. 🙂 Some general answers to questions from the twitch ply through

Design decisions Was fairly pleased with my pretty simple story that builds off of Oz lore and things that were left open. Of course there are already a million adaptations, but mostly I was just worried I might not come up with something original all - so yeah - pleased I did. I picked and chose which characters I could work in based on powers and story fit. No Toto of course. Sadly, I could not work in Billina, (she's awesome) and I purposely avoided Santa Claus (cause - ridiculous). The biggest limitation was file size - at about 42% I can't open any arc without timing out of the mapserver. I have many characters I made but could not fit in sitting a "Ozites-holding-group." There I have more munchkins, gillikins, quadlings, and winkies along with a few other variants of the enemy mobs that I just could not fit in and still open the file. So if you see a group and wonder why all the minions look the same, well there are a few mobs I had to go simple on (meaning only one minion) to save space. I even went so far as to shorten some character descriptions to free up some space - every word counts! There are several more signature characters I may work in some day, but they were not critical to the story. One place I could save some space is using the OOB Cabal, but then I would have had to make this cap at level 34. Still pondering that though. One mechanic decision I made, was to make the allies EBs for survivability, since it seems like groups might play these. But always concerned that might make it all a bit easy. To combat that, it meant I also made lots of signature folk into AVs. That's in contrast to what I did In Adventures in Wonderland, for example, where I made most people Bosses, with fewer EBs and AVs. I may do that here eventually depending on feedback. Very eager for feedback - let me know what you love and or hate and any feelings in between. And typos - if you see some (and I am sure there are some) let me know and I will polish those right up.

Digging back into the public domain, I'm pleased to share Adventures in Oz! A fairly straightforward romp, it is all about the customs and the plot. In terms of CoH, it is integrated into the place most like Oz, Croatoa. In terms of Oz stories, it picks up after book six in the Oz books, which is to say it uses many characters and plot points beyond those in the first book, but you don't need to know them. Was interesting to dive into the Oz world (which I have never really done before) and the recent Marvel comics were a great help here to make it easy to read, and fan wikis easy to research. Hope you enjoy! I am very open to feedback and plan to further refine it as I get some.