Kyksie

Also, it's extremely easy for Fire Armor to max out their Fire resist; you can do it with just SOs. This allows new players to easily jump on the levelling train.

Huh? Whaaaaat? What universe do you live in? Go through the previous pages of this thread and search for the word "thanks". It comes up seven times. That's seven people thanking me for reviewing their arc. Now, go into the game and type "Kyksie" into the AE, and you'll find that I do in fact have a published arc. (actually two, but one is a joke) If you're going to criticize someone in the future, at least get the basic facts straight.

I gave up on Monopoly 20 years ago. In a 1v1 game, the optimal strategy is to buy absolutely everything, even if you have to mortgage. Multiplayer introduces deal making which adds another layer. But, if you have a group of peeps together who want a game, there are better choices then Monopoly.

The phrase 'raise awareness' sets off my bullshit detector. When a big charity says they're collection money to 'raise awareness', it usually means they're plowing the money back into more fundraising.

The rooting duration of the power is inconsistent with it's animation. The player forms a ball of radiation over their head and hurls it, but the rooting stops about 2/3 of a second before, so you can walk out from under the ball, leaving it hanging in midair before it launches itself. Also, Sentinel damage is terrible and needs to be increased by at least 30%.

Joule's Revenge - 42922 This arc tells the origin story of the author's character, Exquisite Joule, who is heir to the Wentworth fortune, and has a masters in international finance, and is a priestess in the Carnival of Light, and is a Marshal when she goes undercover in Arachnos, and... yeaaaaah, it's gonna be one of those arcs. 1) The "security director" tells us that the three Wentworth children have been kidnapped, so we head to the local mafia hangout for some pugilistic interrogation. It's a defeat all, but I'll forgive that because the map is small. The enemies are a custom group with about five or six types. (Nitpick: "Wiseguy Capo" is an oxymoron. Wiseguys are the street level soldiers, capos are the bosses.) Hmm, they have a stone obelisk? And Clockwork? 2) Now off to a warehouse to rescue the kids, who are being held by Praetorian Clockwork, and also by the "Carnival of Death", a custom group with about 6 members. We save the kids but one of them was grabbed as we left. 3) To some caves to rescue Juliet, and also read some books for some reason. 4) Now some time has passed, and Juliet has been trained and has a wide variety of mutant powers. We meet her in the Praetorian office map and punch the Don together. The map is about four times as big as needed, but it goes fast because as an EB Joule steamrolls through mobs. 5) And finally to some caves, where the player again joins Joule in pummeling the Carnival of Death boss. Another defeat all, but the map is small and Joule steamrolls through the trash mobs again. From a mechanical standpoint, there's nothing really wrong with Joule's Revenge. There's a few minor spelling errors and the custom groups are missing descriptions, but nothing major. The issue is that this entire arc is a *blatant* ego-stroke. The author's character is rich and powerful and respected by everyone; we know this because the arc tells us so, repeatedly. This is not sort of thing you put in a random AE. The player of an AE wants their own character to shine; we do not want to be repeatedly hit over the head with how amazing your character is, or trail behind her for two missions as she wipes out everything. This is the sort of arc you play by all by yourself, while waiting for mommy to bring another plate of Hot Pockets down to the basement.

VERY short and simple. but no flaws. The decorative NPCs were a nice touch. Nitpick; the "Praetorian Office" set feels out of place.

I Sing of Arms and the Man - 42617 Working double shifts as head of security at Big Al's Tokeville, Kyksie finds herself short on spare time lately. Hearing about a new AE that needs to be reviewed, she calls her friend Mystress Yiffstress, but she's busy yiffing. Stoner Dude is off doing, um, stuff, Mr. Neutron was eating ice cream, and Spider-Kitty went right to voicemail. Sighing, Kyksie scrolls down her address list and reluctantly calls the name at the bottom. "You come before me now," Imperious intones, "seeing me girded as for war. That is a truth known to the gods, and-" "Girded?" "Aye. And by the gods, I shall see the Usurper driven from this land-" "So you're, uh, wearing a girdle?" Imperious blinks. "Nay, I wear my ancestral armor to honor those who stood before me. A triumph will be needed, the dead honored-" "So the girdle is under the armor? That must be kinda uncomfortable." Imperious sighs. "Just go punch some people, okay?" Purple heads into some caves to rescue Imperious' loyal slave, Tullio. I'm not sure how a slave can be loyal though. Maybe Imperious has a really good medical plan with no HMO. There's a nicely done custom group, and the cave has lots of clues and decorative glowies. He brings back a tablet with a 'battle sign' or something. Then we go to another cave to capture an ex-gladiator named Crixus, who agrees to help. We then go to the temple and free more gladiators with Crixus' aid. At the end, Crixus demands the dental plan in addition to medical and paid leave, but Imperious refuses, so he attacks, but that ends the mission so it doesn't matter. This is another good arc, with lavish writing and clues, and no time wasters. A tiny nitpick is that the difficulty is a bit uneven; the boss of mission 2 is a boss who will not scale to an lt, while the boss of the last mission is an lt and you have an EB ally, making it effortless.

Garden of the Will - 42520 The contact is Pavel Garnier, and FBI agent charged with making Perez Park an actual park again (which seems a bit odd for the FBI, but eh). We infiltrate a Skull lair and retrieve an undercover agent, who has evidence telling us the the Vahzilok are up to no good. But then, as a rule the Vahzilok generally are up to no good. What about all those thing that the Doctor promised, like an end to death and disease and eight zombie arms for everyone? I wouldn't mind a few extra arms. Anyway, next we bust into the park and stop the Vaz from injecting Hellions and Skulls with some weird serum, them discover that the Vahzilok have a new leader called the gardener, and the serum was supposed to make people grow leaves or something, which wouldn't be nearly as useful as extra arms, unless it's hot and you need shade. We pummel the gardener and put and end to his schemes, making Perez Park a wonderful place for children to frolic, except for all the Clockwork, and Circle of Thorns, and the Kraken. This is another well done arc; as usual, my only gripe is the low level cap. Sorry for taking so long to post the review... it's just that "well done but not incredible" arcs don't leave me with a lot to work with. The best reviews are for stuff that's at an extreme; absolutely amazing or completely awful. AE authors, if you're putting the finishing touches on an arc and you don't think it's a masterpiece, please do me a favor and make it terrible. Spelling errors, glowie hunts, catboys in their underwear, that sort of thing.

The first map suffers from what I call "Objective Overload". Something like five glowies, two bosses and three meetups IIRC. I was going to mention it but that map was just so awesome in all other ways 🙂 But yeah, 'chained' glowies are generally a no-no on big maps, unless you have them spawn all in the same area.

You can make a custom mob and give it plenty of defensive powers but only the tier one attack. It will still do boss/EB scale damage with that attack, though. Still, strong allies aren't necessarily a bad thing. (They reduce your XP, but we're not playing architect for XP, right?) In particular, this arc ended with an EB foe, who was quickly set upon and beaten by my three EB allies. If I hadn't had those allies, a sudden EB while reduced to level 20 would be a Bad Thing.

Wasn't this in the Nightstar map? That one sometimes glitches. There are special spawnpoints atop the buildings, which are flagged for use only in the Nightstar mission, but sometimes the game flakes out and puts normal objectives there.

New Heroes of Paragon - 42432 I still have Cranebump's Vahzilok arc to write (spoiler: it's good) but I'm jumping the queue here because this is seriously one of the most awesome arcs EVER. The contact is "Super Captain Man", a kid who idolizes Paragon's heroes and likes to play hero himself. You've been assigned to him by some child outreach program which suggests that he really does have super powers himself. One of his friends has lost a doll which may or may not be magic, so we join him in a warehouse filled with Hellions, meet some of his other friends and find the doll. Then we rescue more friends from bullies and have a meeting at the secret base, then discover the doll is cursed, and invade a demon Hellion headquarters to remove the curse. First of all, the kid NPCs are just adorable. The dialog is well written, and their costumes are clearly kids' work. He wields a broom. Each map also has dozens of non-required glowies for atmosphere, and many have decorative NPCs as well. There's loads of clues and villain barks, many of them funny. I do have a few nitpicks, the most notable being that the whole arc is locked at level 20. A few of the custom mobs are missing descriptions and a few maps have Objective Overload. And... ummm... the "bully" NPC group is the second arc is cute, with "Kicking Bully" and "Vicious Bully", but "Knife Bully" really doesn't belong. Knives kinda escalate stuff from 'bullying' all the way to 'attempted homicide'. Maybe replace it with "Annoying Bully" whose sonic attacks are cutting insults, or "Yellow Water Bully" with squirt guns and water balloons. (jeez, it's just food coloring, get your mind out of the gutter). Minor quibbles aside, this is one of the best arc I've played here. Everyone go play it now.

I think a distinction needs to be made between edgy and edgelord. The former is a just bit out there, while the latter feels the need to hammer home the fact that he's further out there than everyone else. The first person's character is a shy goth with clove cigarettes, an eye twitch, and some barely visible scars on her arm that she doesn't talk about; the latter is the rape child of Hitler's occultist son and a vampire demon succubus from hell, and now she's a pain goddess who feels the pain of everyone nearby which causes her demon tattoos to burst into flames causing her even more pain. And she smokes clove cigarettes too. The former can be fun in manageable doses, the latter is best backed away from. They'll get bored in a month and move on to WoW.

This, or maybe just have objectives appear on the minimap. Unfortunately, there are at most a dozen people on Resurgence who use AE for anything other than farming or yiffing, so any actual code changes are very unlikely.

Believe it or not, I may have been personally responsible for this one! Back on the Live server, I had an AE review column in the forums, Purple Lovin's Highly Sarcastic Review Pit, wherein I review all manner of arcs in a highly sarcastic manner, a tradition carried on to this day. One of the arcs was "Is it Live or is it Memory-X?", by Armsman, who doesn't appear to be on Resurgence. The arc was generally good, but it had a few time-wasting elements, including a hostage who has to be led all the way across the map to the exit. I sarcastically pointed out that in the time I had wasted, I could have written a full AE arc entitled "Mynx's Furry Adventure", in which Mynx tracks down and battles Bobcat, then they team up to take down Nemesis, then Mynx invites Bobcat over to her place for sardines and milk, and then... you get the idea. Sadly, my hypothetical arc was rejected three times. A few weeks after posting that, I was in the AE reviewing yet another arc, and overheard an NPC saying "This is the third time my mission 'Statesman's Furry Adventure' was rejected for violating the terms of service". I suppose this might have been a coincidence, but I'm betting that some Cryptic employee saw my post and took inspiration. Then, a bit later when Statesman was killed in Who Will Die, they deleted almost every reference to Statesman in NPC chatter, and that snippet became "Mynx's Furry Adventure". P.S. I should warn you, if you haven't been to the Wayback Machine before, clicking on the link above will cost you several hours of your life. But then, this sentence is at the bottom of the page and the link is way up there, so most likely you're clicked it already, which means you are reading this sentence in the future. So, tell, me... does humanity survive global warming? Do I really need to give up plastic straws?

The Eve of War - 41583 Another arc where the player is a mid-level Resistance fighter, working with Belladonna Vetrano to help topple Tyrant's oppressive regime from within. Interestingly, the events here take place alongside the canon campaign; first the player captures guards to facilitate the attack against the BAF, then gathers information on Seige and Nightstar, then tracks down Duray. In the aftermath of the main protagonist's raid on the BAF, you head to the Shadow Realm to disconnect Nightstar's batteries or something, then into the sewers to rescue Vanessa DeVore. This is an innovative method of storytelling that works well here. The Eve of War is another excellent arc, with great writing and missions that are just long enough. As before, my only gripe is that being reduced in level is a bit annoying. Granted, the level reduction ties in with the story, however this arc throws two EBs at you, often having them appear right in front of you after completing an objective. They were beatable with the aid of some purple candy, but still arc authors need to be careful when pairing level reduction with tough mobs. Still, this is yet another chapter in an excellent story.

There are some ways to creatively get around that. For example, in a mission I just reviewed, the player rescues an AI. Later, the player is fighting some robot foes, who say "Hi, this is the AI, I'm hijacking the robot's voice synthesizer", and use that to deliver dialog. Failing that, you could just start the mission with a pop-up clue that says "Luminary follows you into the warehouse" or something. Then you fight a required boss, which gives you a clue, which reads "Luminary kneels next to the fallen Freakshow and examines his implants" or something.

After reading the thread about 'review etiquette', Kyksie has decided to try her hand at unsolicited reviews. I hit the random mission button five times, rerolling any arcs that were clearly no-story farms. After playing each arc, I sent a comment to the author. How did it go? Let's see. The Heart of an Automaton - 36759 This starts out well, with the player tasked by Number 204 to rescue a self-aware AI. We bust into an office and find the AI in a 'military grade chassis' and lead her out. Then we need to speak to Archon Burcholder, and by 'speak to' we mean 'clobber'. Along the way, we encounter a handful of robots, and the AI hijacks their voice systems and talks to you, which is an amazingly innovative way to deliver exposition without being obviously exposition. Unfortunately, the arc is not complete - many of the details for mission 2 are placeholders, and it ends abruptly after that. The author has not responded yet. Rescue Dr. Vargus and Defeat the Grim Ghost - 13986 A Girlfriend From Hell named "Hot Stuff" tells you the Skulls are trying to get into scientific research, and have therefore kidnapped a doctor, making it incumbent upon you to rescue said doctor. Only one mission, this is barebones, but doesn't have any spelling errors or major flaws. No word back from the author. Enter Tiwwwtle - 23788 A contact with no costume or bio says only "22". Accepting the mission sends you to a city map filled with CoT, with the objective "42323". At first it looks like a standard farm, but... here's the twist... one of the Behemoth Lords is named "Josh". The author has not seen fit to respond. Foul Ball - 27751 I rather liked this one. The owner of the "Paragon Knights" baseball team asks for your help because his players are rioting! We discover that the owner bought a Muzak machine or something designed to give his players an edge, but he bought a cheap one that only plays Enya, or something. This writing is a bit sparse and there's a few spelling errors, but overall this tells a good story. No word from the author yet. Arachnos Invasion in Faultline - 41757 Jim Temblor (the hero Faultline) tells me that Arachnos are invading Faultline (the place), which I already guessed from the title. He tells me that he got separated from Fusionette during the fighting, can you find her? Kyksie heads out to Faultline (the place), which is under attack by level 54 Arachnos. No Fusionette, but we find some clues which lead us to Steel Canyon, where we find clues leading to a warehouse, and... um... Sadly, the author has not yet written back.

BTW you can also reset your ratings by unpublishing and republishing.

OMG I'm actually wondering if MMO Tycoon is a good game.

When you promise no wipes and start taking people's money, that's a launch. You can call it an "open beta" or a "late beta" or a "foonting turlingdrome", it's still a launch.

Relics of a New Age Part 1 - Regnum Lux - 41637 A well-dressed man of mystery named Wesley is working for "Enos Childs", (probably a reference to the Children of Enos, although there's no one by that name in a the lore) is offering a bunch of low level Arachnos scrubs a chance at unlimited power, who can resist? At his request, we infiltrate an abandoned Arachnos base, but the wifi password isn't written down anywhere. Fortunately, the base has a time portal, so after distracting Portal Corps and stealing a flux capacitor, we travel back in time to 1967 to steal Lord Recluses's mojo capture one of his techs, Gordon Welch, and bring him back to the current year. Gordon gives us the password and happily joins our team upon being shown the wide variety of internet porn available in 2021. This is another great arc, with excellent writing, lots of clues, and no time wasters; as before, my only nitpick is that being reduced to level 15 is a bit annoying. Personally, though, I'm not too fond of stories that use time travel to solve a problem, simply because time travel can solve *any* problem, often to the point of rendering the current conflict irrelevant. The player could have planted a backdoor in the system back then, or prevented Marchand from being assassinated, or even assassinate Stefan Richter before he became Lord Recluse. Or better still, just travel back to 1938 and buy a copy of Action Comics, take it back here and sell it for a billion, and buy your own abandoned base. The author does mention that we're trying to avoid changing the present, but there are plenty of ways around that, such as traveling to GenCon in '93. Still, all things considered, this is another awesome arc.

IMHO, the fact that you can 1-star or 5-star an arc without playing it should tell us that the star rating system is doodoo.

You peeps have pretty much covered the bases already. OP, you're not 'reviewing' arcs so much as 'picking arcs at random and telling the author what you think', and that's not going to end well on the average. One might say that anyone putting an arc up is asking for a review, but in practice that's not how it works.