Kyksie

Basically, the story should not tell you how your character thinks or feels. For example, if the arc starts with Positron telling you to go into the sewers and beat up Dr. Vahzilok, the mission pop-up should not say "You stride into the darkness with grim determination, determined to bring the foul doctor to justice." Maybe your character is rather timid and prefers to skulk than to stride. Maybe your character is a medical researcher who admired Dr. V's work but objects to his lack of ethics. Maybe you're a mercenary who's just in it for the money. Maybe you're a robot. I call it the "ocelot rule" because the people who feel strongly about this are all named Lady Shy'll'a Ravenhair, and all of them are eight-breasted ocelots who spend 14 hours a day in Pocket D, and have a bio telling you how they walk with effortless grace and smell like French perfume. Oh and they're a vampire sorceress too. There are some cases where it's okay to break the ocelot rule. If the description of your arc plainly states something, it's okay to make assumptions about the player. For example, if the above arc starts with "Your intrepid hero boldly joins Positron on a valiant quest to rid the city of evil!!!!", you can assume that anyone playing it is on the side of good. Also, IMHO it's okay to do that in an arc that's for comedy. My "Trilogy of Moderate Evil" constantly tells you what your character thinks and says, to make the jokes work.

Hey everyone, Kyksie here. As most of you noticed I stopped reviewing arcs a year ago, mostly because there are only about three people who make non-farm arcs nowadays and only about a dozen people who play them. And the three who make them invariably make excellent arcs, which is great for players but not so great for reviewers. I mean for @Cranebump, @Ankylosaur and @Darmian I could simply write "It's great" for each and every review, which gets boring. Also @Terroirnoir seems to have not only taken over the review biz, but is actually putting in more effort than I ever did, so it works out. But, good news: I've finally dug up the trilogy of arcs that started it all, back in '09 or so. Written back when people actually played as villains, the award-winning* Trilogy of Moderate Evil casts the player as a Destined One who has reached the top of the Rogue Isles food chain, and is now working directly for Lord Recluse. A level of at least 40 is recommended, 50 being ideal. Contain a bit of mildly risque subject matter. Breaks the 'Ocelot Rule' in many places. No defeat alls, feel free to stealth past trash mobs to the objectives. All archvillains will scale down to EBs, bosses down to lts. Two Chicks at Once #53229 Working for Lord Recluse, you discover Longbow has launched a cunning and titillating plot to undermine the Rogue Isles. With your help, Arachnos will strike back in kind. Contains a custom group who should be only mildly challenging. Contains two archvillains, but you'll have AV allies. The ending souvenir refers to some of my friends from the Live server. Curiouser and Curiouser #53230 How can Lord Recluse's latest plot be so secret even he doesn't know about it? How do Longbow and Malta fit in, and who invited Nemesis? In missions 1, 2, and 4, an AV/EB will spawn after completing some objectives. They are not required, but give an extra clue. Has some naughty subject matter, but nothing worse than you might find on late night cable. The arc's Dark Secret is revealed in the mission souvenir. If you've played a lot of arcs, make sure you have less than 75 souvenirs or you won't recieve any more. Cat: It's What's For Dinner #53231 Such a simple plan... steal the Orestes Rifle, kidnap Ms. Liberty, defeat Statesman. What could possibly go wrong? This is a parody of the LRSF. The last mission has an Easter Egg. I won't explain it. You either get it or you don't. In the first mission, you do NOT need to fight the Titan. The entrance is near it. The final mission has a choice of two possible endings! One requires you to beat a tough AV/EB, the other does not. *In my mind at least.

Another well written arc. The player is a villain, and the Legacy Chain contact goes on about how distasteful it is to hire you, but eh. Anyway Arachnos is sticking their spidery noses into Legacy business, so we need some info. The player busts into a hideout, steal some dyne to smoke and some doobies to sell, then finds a lead. Or was I supposed to sell the Dyne and... hmm. Maybe that's why Purple Lovin' is looking a bit green this morning. Then we bust in an interrogate more Arachnoses, discover the nefarious plan and steal the Macguffin. It ends in a nicely open-ended ending. Overall, this is yet another very well written arc, with lots of details and no overpowered mobs. Mission 4 in particular went fine. As usual, minor nitpicks are the level reduction, and it breaks the Ocelot Rule. In case anyone has been wondering why my review column has been dead for a year, I've pretty much given up on making and reviewing arcs, mostly because there are barely any arcs that aren't farms lately. I made a character on Incelcior a few months ago, and 99% of the chat is "Sitter LF AE plz". Writing story-based arcs for this crowd would be like opening an opera house in Texas.

This one is really funny!! Everyone check this out. My only gripe is the second mission. It would help if it was clearer that the player does not, in fact, have to click 75 glowies. I was about five seconds away from quitting before I found the special glowie.

I think I vaguely remember Ghost in the Machine? Not sure.

I played Lego Marvel Superheroes. It's fun, but clearly aimed at kids, no challenge at all. Pick it up if you really like Marvel and want some mindless enjoyment.

You can set mobs to flee at a certain health level; they will despawn when they get to a door. They can't be set to actually vanish.

Heart of Words part 1 - 25906 It's 'heart of words', not 'worlds', which is what I thought at first. Anyway, the contact is Professor Skeffington Lewis, who wears a purple top hat and is therefore an expert on magic. He tells us that psychically attuned people have been slipping into a coma the past few days, so we need to find the three parts of the Triforce or something like that. This leads us to the standard search pattern of an office, then a cave, then a lab, then a warehouse, and finally Oranbega, same as most task forces. The writing is very good, making reference to a number of points in CoH lore. There are plenty of EBs but none are too hard. The Training Room - 47006 A farm made for the author's SG, where you fight mobs with weird names. Low on detail right now, but the author says it's still under construction. In terms of raw XP, this is nowhere near as good as the established fire farms like Bloody Rainbow. However, I did get a Reactive Defenses recipe, which never happened to me in Bloody Rainbow. Way to go! City of No Win Scenario - 47370 This is a single map filled with the "worst enemies in the game", and by 'worst' I mean 'most annoying', like Malta Sappers and Tsoo Sorcerers. There are absolutely no details or clues, making it a no win scenario for a player looking for something interesting. Board the Mothership - 47119 Lady Gray has decided that it's time to board the Rikti mothership. We invade a Nemesis base, but it's a trap; Nemesis appears and rants about hidden cameras after Kyksie kicks him into submission. One of the minions dropped an Apocalypse recipe. Then, we head into the Rikti caverns and reverse the polarity or something. There's a boss whom we have have to avoid, not fight, a nice reference to one of the canon missions. Then, the player needs to lure out U'kon Grai, so we head out to the battlefield map and are joined by Faultline and a Vanguard mech. Finally, we fight our way onto the Rikti mothership and defeat all four Riders, H'roDohz, and Hero One. Then, Lady Gray contacts us and tells up that the true objective of the mission is to recover three pairs of her panties, which were stolen from the Vanguard base during the last Rikti Panty Raid. At least, I assume that's what happens on that mission. In truth, I have no idea what the fourth mission contains, because U'Kon Grai spawned as a Giant Monster on the third. Even with my allies' aid, my Incarnate character still couldn't even begin to dent his life total. The author states in the sendoff that a soloist can advance the plot by waiting the 30 minute timer out, but this author has the attention span of Fusionette after three Drenched Donuts coffees. Board the Mothership is a well written mission, although it makes some odd choices. Like, in the first mission in the Nemesis bases, after pummeling the boss, you find a slip of paper which tells you to check the desk, which has a combination to a safe, which has a blank book, which prompts you to search a bookshelf, but all the books are about boxers, so... you ought to check a stack of boxes?? Uhh ok. Oh by the way, if you were wondering what I meant about hidden cameras in the first paragraph... it's dramatic foreshadowing. dun dun duuuuuun...

I'll check it out!! BTW it helps if you include the arc number.

Altima Task Force - 45923 The contact is Altima, presumably one of the author's characters, who was an ordinary high school student until Dr. Quantum injected him with a serum that made him super, so he became a hero, choosing the name Altima because his father owned a Nissan Altima. No, I'm not making that last bit up. Really. Anyway, Altima tells us that Dr. Quantum is doing some vague Bad Thing, go punch him please. He's referred to as 'Dr. Quantum' throughout the arc, not 'Doc'. It is the same person, right? I'm not sure. Anyway, Doc seems to have a lot of Secret Service guys on his side, and he's kidnapped Altima's friend Tyler, and also cloned you. Why is it that every single villain in the game has a cloning machine? Can you buy them at the Paragon City Wal-Mart? Quantum has also cloned himself, which could cause a problem if the clone decides to clone himself as well, just ask Homsar. Also we're accused of a crime or something. We rescue Tyler, and clear our name by punching several dozen cops, which works a lot more reliably then it should. The waypoint for the hostage rescue is bugged, but the author compensates for this by putting clear instructions in the nav text. Then we receive a message from Altima in the future where Doc (I can't call him Dr. Q, that's someone else altogether) has brainwashed Altima, so we go there and kick him, and Doc has a plan to use plutonium to assimilate the president and... uh.. something. We rescue the prez and them go punch Dr. several times. He's an EB who summons EB backup, which was no threat to the Incarnate I was using but would probably be very difficult for anyone under 50. This is a decent enough arc; the plot is a bit hard to follow but at least there is one. The big problem is the spelling errors. There's a lot. No Haven for Westin - 46333 The contact is Electrixie, who got her name when her brother tricked her into sticking a fork into an electric socket while standing in a tub of salt water. This time I am kidding. She actually got her powers from being caught in a radioactive thunderstorm during a Nemesis weapons test. Really. She tells us that she's discovered that Westin Phipps is really not a nice person, so she wants the player to dispose of him... permanently. We go into a warehouse and punch some 'haven refugees', a custom group with 5-6 members. Then another warehouse where we find Amazon boxes containing his address, then another one where we finish Westin off. The popup states explicity that you literally kill him, which is ok because the arc is marked as vigilante, and a lot of vigilante content has the player actualy killing people. Like, take a look at this one: https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Mission:Tip_-_The_Heeded_Warning. The player receives a warning from Positron that the Council are holding perfectly legal parade, and the player is not to interfere. So, what's a Vigilante to do? Why, of course, you infiltrate the nearest Council base and reprogram the Wolfpack robots to fire on the civilians watching the parade!! Yes, this is actual game content! No Haven for Westin is another okay mission, with a nice custom group and plausible writing, dragged down by spelling errors. A lot of them. Just Like Clockwork - 46711 No attempt at a story, just lots of Praetorian Clockwork to punch so you can level up. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before a patch gives players XP for yiffing in Pocket D, but until them this is as good an option as any.

The 'GM Pack' link made my browser security freak out.

Insecurity Measures - 46658 The contact is "Dougie Hausser", the youngest cop on the PPD, who is written well, albeit annoyingly, although I suspect that was kinda the intent. Doogie tell us that the Red Caps' attempt on Salamanca has had some weird effects in IP, go check it out maybe? Kyksie decides to call in one of her acquaintances who has some experience with the occult. In other news, this is becoming less of a 'review column' and more of a 'place for me to show off my roster of fucked-up misfits'. Mary heads into a warehouse and finds Tsoo and Council working together... except they're not working together, they're being turned into 'vessels' or something. There are lots of decorative glowies here, which continues throughout the arc. Then, we discover that a cargo ship is going to crash into Lusca or something, so we head in, turn off the engines and fight some 'Spectral Tears'. They don't leave corpses behind, making it a difficult fight for a Warshade, but as the CoH veterans know, Warshades were designed for ERP, not fighting. Then another office, where we rescue Cheng, and Juliana Nehring, who attacks us because we didn't like and follow, or something. Then we need to bring in Mr. Bocor, so we take a sub to the Rogue Isles and find him hiding in a sewer. Once again, a very well written arc with great writing and decorations. I personally prefer self-contained arcs, so I probably won't be reviewing the 872 arcs to follow, but this looks like a great start.

It happens when you enter the door while hovering/flying, but not reliably.

Mission 2 was bugged; the waypoint for the hostage rescue was outside the geometry. The exact same thing happened to me a year ago reviewing another mission. Map authors, do not use the "Steel Canyon SERAPH labs" map, it's glitchy. Also... spelling errors.

Welcome to the Hellshow - 45318 Officer Raymond tells you that he's seen Hellions going into a local sewer, can you check it out please? Granted, a typical sewer has more Hellions than Pocket D has catgirls, but Kyksie's weekend is free, so she moseys in and finds a custom group, the "Hellbound", all with unique powersets and costumes. Further clues take us to a hospital, caves, and a burning forest, where we kick "Legion" into submission. He's an EB but not too hard. This is yet another middle-of-the-road arc: no flaws, but not really remarkable in any way. If it were part of the game it would fit right in with all the 20-35 content that no one ever plays, like Unity Plague and Tsoo Shenanigans. The Getaways: Confidence Games - The Three Card Monte Missions - 45278 So there's a criminal group called the House of Suits who are themed after playing cards, and they're on the run from Interpol, and this dude Bonneteaux or something has killed the kings and trumped the jacks, or something. We go to a cargo ship where lots of girls in bikinis are sleeping on the floor, or maybe they're dead, I dunno. There's a custom group called Suits, with a LOT of members, a few dozen at least, maybe even 52, all with well done costumes resembling the dudes on cards. Then we head into a the Praetorian office complex, then a cave, where we pummel Bonnoto, who is an EB who is not too hard. The Getaways is a fairly well written arc overall, but it has some problems. There's a few spelling errors, a bit of Objective Overload, and the second mission crams four tough bosses into the same room. The big problem is that I was never really sure what my role in all this is. Am I extracting the leaders? Am I working with Interpol? Am I eliminating the group so I can take their place? Maybe it would have been clearer if I had played it before downing those two martinis and smoking a doobie, I dunno. The Lost Girls - 45254 One of the best parts of playing City of Heroes way back then was the huge amount of quality-of-life improvements it received. Practically every month, a new mini patch would bring a bunch of bugfixes, tweaks and additions. Sadly, one of the the more significant QoL additions never went live before the shutdown, but had to wait until I24 on Homecoming... bewbs on Skulls. Then, just last month, the Homecoming devs took the next step, and added bewbs to a number of Arachnos troops. Plans for the next 'pages' of Issue 27 include bewbs for Family, Clockwork, and Devouring Earth. Now, our very own Cranebump has taken the next step, by using the AE to add chesticles to a long neglected group... the Lost. Detective Frietag tells the player that the Lost are raiding a pharmaceutical firm, go punch them. They're kidnapping people, and are led by the 'underpeople', who are able to resist the mental effects of the Lost transformation, and are stealing... a menopause drug? We question a doctor, and Vanguard gets involved for some reason, which is never a good sign. Maybe Lady Gray wants some of the drug, since she's like 200 years old or something. Anyway, we find out that Vanguard has (surprise) a black site, inhabited by the embewbed Lost. It's a custom group mixed in with regular Lost; the leader is an EB but not too hard. Then, the "Tiakah Tianitialli" hypnotize the PPD with their bewbs and force them to steal files, so we hop in and make with the punching once again. This is another extremely well done arc with loads and loads of great writing and lots of attention to detail. As usual, my only gripe is that being reduced to 25 is mildly annoying, but at least it's not totally random, cuz, you know, the real Lost are that level. The Book of Bond's - 44865 The contact is a mysterious shadowy figure, who gives you a dossier on the targets along with a suitcase of laundered money which is a quarter of the total pay and hopefully my mercenary code of honor will keep me from running off and spending it all on Pocky. A bit cliche, but I've heard worse. We go into a tunnel complex which is just totally packed with clues and details (Stheno eggs?) and rescue three guys. Then, we bust into a warehouse and get them all utility belts, then defeat a parallel team that Mr. Bond also picked out, then go to his mansion for brunch, but he's dying of cancer so we have to clobber him, and now the boys are taking up his mantle as a hero, or maybe they aren't? This is yet another very well written arc, with lost of clues and details. The guy was named "Ex libro", which may be a reference to Ex Libris, who worked for Cryptic/Paragon. The only thing is, I wasn't really sure how the player is supposed to feel at the end. Should we feel sad that Ex Libro is gone, or glad that he's passed on his legacy, or upset that his base is in the hands of three ex-criminals who will probably use it to smuggle in counterfeit Pocky? I'm not sure. Maybe in the future I should wait until after the arc is done to smoke up... naaaah.

It's probably impossible from a coding standpoint, but what if players got full XP and rewards from Confused foes?

I thought it had already been established that Fire was the top primary for raw damage? Maybe Water if you want the best AoEs.

So, if your goal is only to max out damage, what would be the best secondary? I'm guessing it would be either Radiation Armor, which has a recharge buff, and a tier 9 that buffs damage and has no crash; or, Fire Armor, which has a damage buff, Burn, and Rise of the Phoenix. A case could be also made for Bio Armor, which has a damage buff and is Really Awesome. Opinions?

Pretty sure we don't have *any* of the arcs that were present on Live.

According to the Live devs, you can't just push a button and transform an AE mission into an ingame mission. The file formats are different. I suppose it might theoretically be possible to write a script that would translate them, but I wouldn't bet on it.

The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year - 45220 It's Christmas time, and... oh no... Lord Recluse has forbidden Christmas in the Rogue Isles! The contact is Scirocco, who is referred to as "The Sandman" for some reason. He feels that Recluse has erred in doing so and has decided to restore Christmas. 1) Scirocco has learned that one Westin Phipps, leader of Haven House, is a beacon of hope in the Rogue Isles. The player fights past teams of Family nog vendors and attendant drunks to seek him out, and... whoops. At least we saved a girl and her puppies. 2) Santa Claus' sleigh has been shot down and Santa captured by Arachnos, so we bust into the prison tower to rescue him, but oh no, he's been transformed into a robot Tarantula. 3) Scirocco decides to act directly, by stealing the presents and letters to Santa that have been stolen, then casting a great spell to send the presents to the children of Paragon City. But things don't go as planned. I'm not going to bother going into detail about the individual missions, because you're all going to play this yourself. The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year is one of the most awesome arcs on Homecoming. It's a perfect example of what happens when you put in 110% effort. The joke density is so high it's like a ZAZ movie. Practically *everything* is a gag. There are maybe three dozen custom NPCs, all with handmade costumes and funny bios. There are no static mobs, every group is a placed encounter with dialog. On top of all that, I'm kinda suspecting that this is a parody of Scirocco's unreleased redemption arc. Before shutdown, the devs were planning a huge arc where Scirocco renounces his evil ways and goes to Paragon City to become a hero, and Ms. Liberty sends him to retrieve the Liquid Computer from the Fifth Column, but Lord Recluse is trying to thwart his efforts to become a hero, so he secretly swaps it for a 2 liter bottle of Dr. Pepper, causing Scirocco to lament his failure and return to villainy. Or something like that. Positron posted the outline for the arc (I forget where) so if this is a really is a riff on the unreleased arc, double kudos for piling meta-humor on top of the usual. I might nominate this for Dev's Choice, although I'm not sure if a holiday themed arc would qualify. Nobody wears their Rudolph sweaters in February. Nevertheless, everyone should go play this now.

Kelly Kane - The Making of a Hero - 41555 Welcome back, True Believers! Kyksie is busy helping Portal Corp thwart the Praetorian version of Starbucks's plans to open a branch in Founder's Falls, so this week's AE reviewing duties fall to Paragon's ditziest superhero, Purple Lovin'. Just don't let her hear you say that, because then you'll spend ten minutes explaining what 'ditzy' means, then another ten minutes explaining how the monorail always comes back to where it began even though it only travels on one direction. Hi gang! Purple Lovin' here. Kyksie was busy again this weekend, so she asked me to review a few AE arcs. The contact for the arc is "Your Super High Tech Computer", which I guess is something the big heroes have. Pfft. Me, I have to wait for Mynx or Penny to send me updates on my phone. At least I can play Candy Crush while I'm waiting. Anyway, as soon as I figured out how to log in (why won't it let me use 'PASSW0RD' as a password?) the computer sends me an e-vite from Lou Tefner, head of the Paragon Playmate empire, inviting me to a playmate party at his mansion. Yaaaaay, open bar! I arrive at the mansion fashionably early, grab a Long Island Iced Tea, and start chatting with the bikini clad Playmates and shirtless PlayGal Men. (the whole arc is PG-13 at most, nothing really naughty). But then some Skulls bust in and kidnap some people, so I zap them, but they stole some jewels or something. Then, former Playmate Kelly Kane appears on the Crime Computer and tells me that some of the supermodels are robbing a jewelry store, so I head in and zap them. Clues lead me to a party, where I find out some Freaks had kidnapped the models, led by sleazy producer Lamont Bannon. Bannon smiles at me, but I sigh and remind him once again that I only did it because I needed the money that one time. Further clues take me to a TV studio, then to a warehouse, where I'm joined by Kelly, who has now become a hero under the name "Techno-Bunny". We clobber a Carnival of Shadows EB, free her model friends, and head back to the party for more drinks. This is a top-notch arc, with great writing and lots of details. There are dozens of custom NPC, all with bios and individually done costumes. It does come across as a bit of a vanity piece- I'm assuming Techno Bunny is one of the author's characters- but I can forgive it because the player isn't bludgeoned over the head by how amazing she is. My only gripe is a few difficulty spikes. The final boss is an EB who summons ambush waves, which required my 32 Brute to eat a handful of pills to beat.

I once asked Positron (Matt Miller) whether killing Statesman was intended to be a middle finger to Jack Emmert. He said 'No, we had creative differences but still Emmert is a great guy'.

Uhhh this might be the wrong forum section. If you mean the mission for the Midnighters, you can find plenty of Lost in southern Skyway. Defeating them in an AE will not count towards the goal.

Yeah, my last mission got hit with that bug. Granted people can go into the NPC dialog tab to read the text, but most people will miss it. Also one other thing... unless it was fixed since live, if the player does not have a chat tab with "NPC dialog", speech bubbles won't appear.