Kyksie

That ^^^ might be caused by the Vanguard day job.

I dug up the files for my AE trilogy from Live, which all use Lord Recluse as a contact, and tried to publish them here, but contact model was broken. I moved all my costume files out of the directory, but the problem remained. Then, I created a totally new arc with Recluse as the contact, and that was bugged as well. Recluse appeared normal in Grandville, and also appeared normal as a foe in one of the arcs.

I was putting off reviewing this because I was expecting someone else to jump in, but since no one else has... this arc is awesome. Really awesome. The player runs into a Nemesis Jaeger running around playing "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer", or something like that, I dunno. The player chases it into the sewers and finds some Family men breaking into a office, some of whom are from a custom group. This in turn leads to a warehouse, then another warehouse, then another, because as we all know everything nefarious in Paragon City takes place in abandoned warehouses. Needless to say, it was all part of a Nemesis Plot. This is really a top-notch arc. The writing is superb, with lots of details at every turn, with plenty of clues and decorative glowies. No time wasters, no overtuned mobs. For those of us who will be spending this Christmas in a empty house eating a turkey TV dinner, A Very Nemesis-y Christmas is the perfect antidote to a dull holiday season.

"John Woo" says "I need you to go kill a guy". No story, no explanation, go kill a guy. You go into a one room map and kill a guy. There's a custom group with one member with no minion description and a glowie with no text. That's it.

Maybe I was a bit too blunt. This isn't a horrible arc, it's just... not great. The player is told that the fey have come to Paragon City to steal land, which is odd because they're already here in Croatoa. We go into a warehouse to whomp some baddies and smash some "Soul Anchors", then to an outdoor zone to whomp more badguys and smash more Soul Anchors, then to yet another outdoor area, where the player needs to set up tents for a children's annual church picnic... nah I'm kidding, more baddies and more Soul Anchors. That's it. The writing isn't terrible, but it's bland and simplistic, almost childish. For example, the final badguy's villain bark is "Children taste delicious with a garlic sauce Ha Ha Ha." That's... um... supposed to be scary? There's also a fair amount of spelling and grammar errors, including a lot of words Capitalized at Random In the Middle of Sentences. There's a custom group, but it's only three or four types, with brief and sometimes missing minion descriptions. Again, this isn't as bad as some of the arcs I reviewed on the live server, which were clearly written by 12 year old listening to Megadeth while snorting Pop Rocks mixed with Ritalin. Oh yeah, did I mention I had a review column on the Live forums? Purple Lovin's Highly Sarcastic Review Pit. Anyone remember that?

Bland story, low effort, terrible spelling and grammar.

A nice quick adventure. Someone has been horking hairballs all over the Vindicators' locker room and it's up to you help Mynx clear her name. The EB at the end is a bit hard, but you have Mynx to help you, and you 'win' even if the target flees.

Like I keep saying in all the other threads: of all the 'spiritual successors', City of Titans are the only people whom I'm certain are not scammers or idiots. They truly *want* to give us a finished, polished MMO. However, I strongly doubt that they will ever cross the finish line.

I gave this a spin a week ago, and like the 872 other maps by the same author, it's pretty good. The Architect system is being hacked, so an avatar of Dr. Aeon helps you dislodge the intruder. All the actors are very well voiced. This is one of the arcs that actually addresses the player from the point of view of the AE, which raises the possibility that the player really came here to play Sister Psyche's Topless Beach Volleyball. Sadly, my beach seeking came to an abrupt halt in the fourth mission, which required me to open a safe. However, my arch-nemesis Frostfire had cunningly sealed the safe under a layer of ice, making the objective impossible to complete. Fortunately, after reloading and running that mission again, the safe was accessible in another spot.

I ran the other two arcs and they were also fun. Nice writing, plenty of detail and callbacks to the movies, not too hard. Again, my only gripe is some time-wastey bits. In Aliens, you have to escort a rescuee all the way across a big map to the exit, which pretty much means you have to waste everything between here and there. And in Ghostbusters, after you rescue the crew, you have to go to the third floor to trap a ghost, then run to the first floor to put the ghost in an ecto-containment unit, then back to the third floor for another ghost, then back to the first floor for ghost disposal, then back to the third floor for the Big Boss.

No it was that Paula chick. It tells you to escort her to a Control Console, but you actually escort her to the mission exit.

I ran the Frozen one and it was a lot of fun; plenty of jokes and references to the movie. Only gripe is that you had to walk a escort aaaaaall the way across the Frostfire map back to the entrance.

Also they spelled "Durango" wrong.

What's there to say? Yet another very well done arc, with excellent writing, and tons of detail. The difficulty isn't too high, and no maps have Objective Overload. As with previous arcs, my only compliant is that it tells you what your character thinks and says at times, which tends to annoy Real Roleplayers, like Shadowsilk Nightprowler, the immortal werewolf who sees everything as a snack, or Lady Galatea Ravenhair, the immortal succubus who sees everything as... um... yeah. At this point I'd like to thank the people in this forum who consistently poop out terrible arcs (you know who you are). Without them, my life as an AE reviewer would be terminally boring, since Ankylosaur arcs never have any major flaws to make fun of. Oh yeah, one minor glitch: the second mission tells you to lead an escort to a console, but instead you lead her to the exit. Yeah, there's something.

A nice fun beat-em-up mission. The player is starring on a sub-prime TV show, where you smash cars, tag 'babes', and meet funny parodies of celebrities. There's no story, but who cares. It does get a bit odd in places... the mobs are called "gotchas", with some Animus Arcana thrown in for some reason. The "Karen" boss in the last mission feel out of place. And, although I looked high and low, I couldn't find enough keys to enter the Pleasure Dome.

Yet another very well written arc, following on the heels of Full Circle, which attempts to provide an in-game rationalization for the time we spent apart from the City. Lots of dialog, tons of clues, and an overall great story. Like Full Circle, it tells you what your character thinks and says at times, which may annoy Real Roleplayers. My only real nitpick is the level range... 20-22. If you're playing this with your main character, like Real Roleplayers do, you'll lose all Incarnate powers and half your regular powers. Real Roleplayers get upset when their immortal vampire succubus demon wizard gets defeated by level 22 mobs, which is rather likely to happen when the map contains EBs who summon ambush waves, like this one does. Still, this is an awesome arc that any demon succubus will enjoy.

I ran this a while ago and promptly forgot all about it. It's a well written arc, with lots of detail and clues and custom mobs. I got a kick out of one of the dialog screens which has your character dining on sardines and spam; I was playing the arc with Spider-Kitty, who canonically enjoys sardines. Cuz, you, know, she's a kitty. Kitties like those things. My only complaint is that the arc throws a lot at you; all of reality is being attacked by "Dagons", and you get thrown into the "Mobius Strip" and there are a bunch of heroes who used to work together but one doesn't exist and... I dunno. Also the arc tells you what your character thinks at times, which tends to upset Real Roleplayers. That's actually two complaints. Still, this is worth playing if you enjoy heavy narrative focused arcs (and sardines).

1) Penelope Yin has invited you to join her at Drenched Donuts, where she, Doc Delilah and Faultline are having an intervention for Fusionette. "I told you," she says between bites, "I can eat as many as I want without putting on weight! I have a nuclear reactor in my chest, remember!" "It's not that," says Penny, pointedly not looking at Fusionette's thighs, "It's gotten to the point where Drenched Donuts has a guy making donuts just for you." Behind a sliding door, a skinny teen worked the glazer frantically, remembering the sinister glow in her eyes the last time he had been late with the Boston Creme. "And you're really abusing the 'heroes get free food' bit," Doc Delilah sighed. "They just applied for a second small business loan." "Jeez", Annette muttered, inhaling another fluorescent pink donut, "It's not that big a deal, I can quit anytime-" Suddenly, a loud ripping sound came from outside. The heroes poured out onto the streets of Faultline to see civilians fleeing. Penny's love of Drenched Donuts was so great that the thought of going without them had caused holes to appear in reality, spilling out demons. Kyksie and the heroes pound the holes and defeat a demon lord. 2) In an effort to find the cause of Fusionette's all-consuming lust for donuts, Penelope projects Kyksie into the Astral plane, which looks like Faultline before the rebuilding. She defeats a CoT mage named Porthos and steals his magical donut hole puncher. Porthos is invisible, forcing Kyksie to wander the map until she bumps into him. 3) Kykie takes the artifact into a SERAPH lab, punches more holes, and defeats the demon lord, who was trying to glaze the world or something. 4) And now the Clockwork King has projected his consciousness into the donut fryer, which becomes ambulatory, grabs Penny, and runs to the top of a skyscraper under construction, with Kyksie in pursuit. He tries to stop Kyksie by rolling flaming barrels at her, but she stops him by removing the plugs and sending the building crashing down. 5) Now the fryer, with the Clockwork King's mind inside, has merged with Psicurse's old Psychocrumbetron and is about to turn all heroes into jelly sticks or something. Some more punching and it's over. The threat averted, the team of heroes meets back at Drenched Donuts to relax. "Thanks, guys." Fusionette flops bonelessly into a booth. "And... uh, yeah, maybe I'll lay off on the donuts for a bit." "Are you sure?" Kyksie has a strawberry glaze in one hand and a double fudge in the other. "They're... sooooo... good!!" None of what I've written is true; Return to Faultline is actually a very well written arc with tons of detail, lots of custom mobs, and a great deal of lore on Faultline's past. My only nitpick is a few spelling errors.

Answering the Kyksie and friends alert!, Kyksie is invited to a toga party at Delta Tau Chi at Paragon University. After a few beers, she is about to hook up with Pinto when suddenly an Arachnos squad bursts in and kidnaps Dr. Hamilton, who was helping students with Bronze Age poetry while simultaneously playing beer pong. After a bit, Kyksie finds herself on the plains surrounding Troy, where she rescues Menaleus and Odysseus and others. Then another field, where she defeats the Trojans and their gods, then more Trojans on another field. Finally, we find that Dr. Aeon is planning on marching an army of Styx-powered super soldiers into modern Paragon, so Kyksie shows up in a car disguised as a cake and kicks them all into submission. If you like toga parties and beer pong, Dr. Aeon and the Wrath of Achilles is for you.

Neverwinter Nights the singleplayer game is great if you like 3/3.5 D&D. GOG.com gives it away for free every so often. The Neverwinter MMO is terrible and should be avoided. It looks nice and is a smooth ride to top level, but the endgame is a WoW-like treadmill of 'run raids to get gear which lets you run harder raids'. The really top gear requires crafting materials which cost real money, and the playerbase is the unwashed masses who infest every FtP game. Stay away.

Like I mentioned in the other thread, City of Titans is the only spiritual successor who aren't scammers or morons. They really do want to give us a finished game. However, I strongly doubt their ability to actually do it.

The first season was awsome: top-notch writing, great acting, great SFX, everything. The second season retained the solid acting, but the plot rambled and meandered without any clear focus. Gay Spock flip-flopped from being a good guy to a bad guy seemingly at random. The third season was bad, and the fourth was so horrible that one was left frantically chugging Everclear and huffing airplane glue to wipe those bad, bad memories away.

Because the arc has a level of 6-54, I used the lvl 6 Spider I made for the previous mission. 1) So, four years ago, I got an email from a buddy on the force named Buddy Bolton. He's been doing a little off the books work for some extra donut money, and just got wind that the lab he's guarding is about to be hit. Upon entering, I'm told that I can either waste the badguy or let them get away. Scarlet arrives and meets up with Buddy. A moment later, we spot a huge purple lobster and a flying purple squid running for the exit. Hoping that this isn't another LSD flashback, Scarlet and Buddy open fire on the lobster- MISSION FAILED You chose to let the bad guy get away! Like they said in Jaws, we're going to need a bigger kitty. I log off and get my lvl 50 SoA, Spider-Kitty. Her and Buddy blast the aliens into sushi rolls. 2) A few months later, Buddy has been promoted to Sergeant for his help in putting down the BLM riots. Now, he's gotten wind of some Warshade activity in Praetoria, come check it out with me? It seems a bit odd that a simple PPD cop would be handling things in Praetoria, but eh. We arrive in Neutropolis, read some plaques and chat with some decorative NPCs. A hacker named Hatchet is spotted dropping some thumb drives in the parking lot; Spider-Kitty teaches him not to litter, then takes the drives home in case there's kitty pr0n on them. 3) Now there's a lab with Council and Void Hunters and a Shadow Cyst Crystal and some sort of generator. Meeting up with Buddy again, who is wearing a snazzy suit of power armor this time, we clobber the Council troops, smash the generator, rescue some allies- MISSION FAILED You chose to let the Void Hunters destroy the crystal! Uh, yeah, that's it. I totally chose to destroy it, to keep those nasty, nasty aliens on their side of the wall. 4) Now things are going south in Praetoria again, time for the PPD to swoop in and save the day. We can choose to spank the badguys, or wait 30 minutes until the radiation kills us, or something. Kitty ventures into a bad part of Praetoria, where every lawn has at least two cars on blocks and the lawns are covered in Natty Light cans. We free some allies, then defeat Bewb Robot, aka Nightstar, except it's really Metronome. This is the version of Nightstar from the BAF, with the sequester power, making for a tough fight even as an EB. Lots of decorative NPCs. 5) Off to the Keyes Island reactors to defeat Metronome for good. He's in Siege's body, and again can sequester foes. Kitty breaks Siege, then frees some allies, then- MISSION FAILED You chose to let the Nictus steal all the donuts! Policemen vs. Aliens is yet another very well written arc, with a LOT of extra details, like clues and non-required mobs to add atmosphere. However, this arc does have some problems. It feels a bit odd for a simple PPD cop to be fighting aliens in Praetoria, even with a super powered friend like you. Worse, you never get the donuts Buddy promised you in the first mission. The idea of letting the player choose his own path is a novel one; I used it myself back on live in my award winning arc Cat: It's What's For Dinner. However, here it has some problems. In some places, it's way too easy to 'choose' the wrong choice; several times, I never even saw the objective I was supposed to defend. In other missions, the player is required to wait 30 minutes in order to make one of the choices. Finally, it feels odd to give the player a choice in the early missions, since everything that comes after will be the same no matter what you choose. Despite this, Policemen vs. Aliens is another great arc that everyone should play.

Just for the record, killing Stateman in WWD was not Posi and crew extending a middle finger to Emmert. I specifically asked Miller that during one of the Loregasms. Personally I think Emmert is a great storyteller, but he has a very poor grasp of what people actually want. Like at launch, SR/Elude made you unable to attack for 45 seconds, and Empathy/Adrenaline Boost stunned the caster for 20 seconds. Who would possibly enjoy that?

In order to experience the arc properly, I made a new Crab Spider. 1) The contact is Alan Desslock, who hates Arachnos, but he's willing to help me out because he's such a nice guy. He needs someone like me, because I'm an 'insider', but also I'm expendable, which makes Scarlet wonder what one needs to do to be considered irreplaceable to Arachnos. Maybe if she learns to make coffee just the way Lord Recluse likes it, with just the right amount of cinnamon. Anyway, Desslock needs information, so he sends me into an Arachnos base on a datasteal, and oh yeah, also kill everyone. Arachnos doesn't mind that sort of thing, honest. 2) Fort Darwin has been taken over by Longbow, but they couldn't have done it by themselves, they would need an inside man. Off to another base, where we find a receiver, and punch a Longbow Warden in the box until she spills the beans. 3) Now off to the Longbow base, to prevent them from wiping their email servers by hitting them with baseball bats. Scarlet liberates three servers, but the fourth gets smashed even before I see it, mission failed, but fortunately we managed to salvage a hard drive. 4) I've talked to the arbiters, who patted Scarlet on hte back and gave her a cookie, and gave her the go-ahead to arrest Operative Carmack. Off to another base, with is entirely brown except for pools of lava. He rants about how Professor Echo warned him about the end of the world. This is another well written arc, with no overtuned mobs or time wasters (the first map is a defeat all, but I'll forgive that because it's not to big). The only thing that doesn't click is Desslock's motivation. He tells me how he left Arachnos because they sent him on a suicide mission, maybe because he burnt the coffee or something, but still he hates Longbow so very much that he's willing to secretly help Arachnos, while I get a raise and the corner office.