Mission Architect Competition for July 2021: HEATWAVE

[Take One]

I'm in a bit of a slump when it comes to making my own arcs, but I'm sitting on a ton of influence and merits. So I thought to myself, why not do something useful with all this loot? And what better way to make more quality arcs available and encourage more writers, than by hosting an AE story competition?

 

• The competition ends on midnight on July 31. Your arc, whether it's new or already exists, must be published before the cut-off date.
• The theme for the arc is HEATWAVE. Interpret as you see fit.
• Post information about your arc in this thread, the most important of which being the Arc ID.
• I am the sole judge and will decide the winner and any runner ups entirely based on my own tastes. If you want to know what I like, I have created several arcs in the AE which I feel are excellent examples of good AE writing, some of which I have listed in my signature below. If you don't want to do your homework and play my stuff, I'll say here that I like content that fits in the game world, is canon-related and takes the world of CoH as seriously as the game itself does.
• I will play the entries as they come in, so if you change anything before the cut-off date, let me know so I can re-play the arc. I will probably re-play them all after July 31 anyway, but please make sure I don't miss anything important.

 

Now, what are the awesome prizes you can win? Well, writing a good arc can be time-consuming so I figure it's worth a whole lot. I figure that the winner deserves at least 500 million influence. Two runner-ups get 100 million each. I'm the only one providing these prizes and while my coffers are vast I hope to run this again in the future, so I have to save some for the next installment.

 

So, to recap:

 

Write a story arc in the AE on the theme HEATWAVE.

Post the Arc ID in this thread, along with any other relevant information.

One winner gets 500 million influence.

Two runner-ups get 100 million influence each.

You have until July 31.

Good luck!

Edited June 21, 2021 by Take One

[cranebump]

I should have something for you fairly soon. Thanks for sponsoring!

[Kyksie]

HEAT WAVE - 41276

 

A thick, stifling heat has settled over the Rogue Isles. Snakes bask in the sun, Goldbrickers are only robbing air conditioner shops, Marcone capos frolic on the sandy Port Oakes beach. In his tower at the heart of Grandville, Lord Recluse gazes at the sweltering city beneath him, hatching a plan so cruel and vile that...

 

...sigh.

 

As most of you have guessed by now, this is not a serious arc, mostly because I'm completely incapable of writing anything that's not humorous. This arc is actually a test. When the Live servers shut down, I saved the textfiles for my award-winning trilogy of AE arcs, re-reading them daily in hopes that CoH would come to life once more. When it did, I tried to upload and re-publish them here, but something weird happened. The arcs all have Lord Recluse as a contact, and his costume appears corrupted.

 

 

I tried using different versions of Recluse as a contact, and all had the same problem. I posted seventeen times on the bug thread, and contacted the GMs via PM, Discord, snail mail and telegraph, but no response.

 

Since it's possible that my local files were corrupted somehow, I created this mission as a test. Please take a run through, and let me know whether Recluse appears correctly on your client. Heck, you don't even have to play it, just open it up and take a look.

 

[Darmian]

It's not just you sees it that way, Kyksie.

 

This is yours as I see it.

 

Then I did a test mission and tried three versions of Lord Recluse myself as contact.  Same thing.

 

(I've not played it, mea culpa, but it's 4 am here and I'm off to bed.)

Edited June 24, 2021 by Darmian

[Take One]

9 hours ago, Kyksie said:

As most of you have guessed by now, this is not a serious arc, mostly because I'm completely incapable of writing anything that's not humorous.

 

Perhaps I should clarify - I am not against humor, and indeed some of my own arcs may seem silly or maybe even funny.

When I say that I like arcs that treat the game world seriously, I mean that I prefer stories that stay within the framework of the game world and doesn't turn places, characters and themes upside down or inside out for the sake of humor. Indeed, the canon game is full of humor and jokes, but still manage to maintain some kind of internal consistency (tangled timelines be damned).

So enter any arc you want into the competition, I will accept them all, but I have presented my biases so you will know how I shall judge them.

 

If your arc is still available and you want it to be in the run, I shall play it and try to ignore the appearance of the contact - unless you write it into the story somehow. In fact, I will ignore any obvious bugs in any of the entries, as long as they don't render the arc unplayable.

Edited June 24, 2021 by Take One

[cranebump]

Officially submitting:

[borgking001a]

I am submitting "Fire Farm" Arc ID 41846, for the the contest.

[Darmian]

I have a submission.

 

"The Meteors" Arc id 42079.

 

"Ever since you registered as a super with City Hall they've had your contact details if they needed you, though you've been doing fine yourself so far. Today however, you have a message from an unknown sender on that secure line. Do you want to open it? [SFMA] [Prequel to 26756]"

 

Levels 35 - 43.

Edited July 23, 2021 by Darmian

[Soup or Man]

Here's a submission for Bluesiders looking for low-level mission alternatives. It's a moderately difficult, serio-comedic story with a twist at the end. Enjoy.

Arc ID: 42214

(Note: the level reduction for mission 2 is intentional. It allowed a particular enemy group that's there for plot reasons to be used while still posing a challenge. The rest of the missions are designed for characters farther along in their builds.)

Edited July 26, 2021 by Soup or Man
Edit; temporarily removing arc to fix bugs, will re-add.

[NyxiaSnow]

I have a submission:

 

 

I hope you enjoy!

[cranebump]

Right under the wire, @NyxiaSnow:-)

[NyxiaSnow]

On 7/28/2021 at 10:55 PM, cranebump said:

Right under the wire, @NyxiaSnow🙂

You're telling me! I had some debugging issues but @Darmian was kind enough to help run the mission with me so I could sort out issues before publishing... otherwise I probably wouldn't have made the deadline 😜

[Take One]

The competition is almost over. I will play all the entries again over the next few days and then make a final decision. The winners will be announced shortly, along with the theme for the next competition.

[Take One]

On 7/1/2021 at 2:32 PM, cranebump said:

Officially submitting:

 

I think this arc needs a lot of polish to be really great.

 

As it is now, it has a good premise and the promise of an interesting story about one of my favorite characters. Sadly, it doesn't quite hold up. My main problems are with how the missions are laid out and structured - the first two or three seem like they could have been condensed into one or two, and conveyed the same information. Then there's the strange behavior of the judge in Mission 4, and Mission 5 is a bit of a let-down after all we've built up towards. I am curious about how you managed to create a custom group with underlings in it, when I try to add underlings to a custom group they don't show up. So that's something I'm interested to find out. If you want to have a discussion about what you could do to 'fix' the story, we can have that but I will end this review here for now.

 

---

 

On 7/23/2021 at 6:51 AM, Darmian said:

I have a submission.

 

"The Meteors" Arc id 42079.

 

"Ever since you registered as a super with City Hall they've had your contact details if they needed you, though you've been doing fine yourself so far. Today however, you have a message from an unknown sender on that secure line. Do you want to open it? [SFMA] [Prequel to 26756]"

 

Levels 35 - 43.

 

This arc had very nice formatting - love the colors for the text. It's something I often forget about myself and kick myself over every time.

 

It should probably have been lower level, since it's about Galaxy City. Seeing Psi-cops and police drones slumming in the sewers doing dirty deals with Skulls and other low level mobs feels odd. Especially since Kershner's bio says that he "took some of his old precinct with him" - and Galaxy City would not have had psi-cops. You even had to make some custom Skulls to put in one of the missions. As far as I could tell there was no reason for this particular level range. I noticed some typos and such but we can sort them out privately.

 

The story was supposedly made by cobbling together several other arcs or shorter "tip missions", and it shows - there's a story about corrupt cops, and a story about the return of an ancient magical threat, and they connect in an unexpected way. Personally I would have liked to see more of a focus on one or the other. Not a bad attempt by any means, just not my favorite this time around.

 

---

 

On 7/28/2021 at 10:37 PM, NyxiaSnow said:

I have a submission:

 

 

I hope you enjoy!

 

The contact had the default AE description! Oh no! Disqualified! No, I'm just kidding, but I thought I'd point it out so you can fix it, unless it's caused by some bug.

 

The story was pretty straightforward without any big surprises, but I had come to expect some mechanical trickery from the author and I wasn't disappointed. I wonder if perhaps the choice to have three different endings was a little too complicated but the author pulled it off so who am I to complain? The only problem I saw with it was that each ending was perhaps cut short when there was just a third of the space to write each ending in, so to speak. But again, I don't know what could have been added to it, unless you had put in a 5th mission just to deal with the aftermath of your moral choice. But that might have stretched the patience of everyone involved a bit too far.

 

---

 

On 7/26/2021 at 2:49 AM, Soup or Man said:

Here's a submission for Bluesiders looking for low-level mission alternatives. It's a moderately difficult, serio-comedic story with a twist at the end. Enjoy.

Arc ID: 42214

(Note: the level reduction for mission 2 is intentional. It allowed a particular enemy group that's there for plot reasons to be used while still posing a challenge. The rest of the missions are designed for characters farther along in their builds.)

 

This arc has a few problems, the biggest of which is that the first mission uses a very big map to deliver a single objective - find a single glowie and click on it. There is some sight-seeing too, but no combat. Not a problem, usually, but the size of the map means that you can end up wandering around quite a bit to look for this clue. A few red herring glowies with triggered events attached to them could have livened up things - perhaps you find a discarded piece of clothing worn by Myl E Vanilla and you are mobbed by crazy fans when you pick it up, or similar. There's also a risk that you miss out on the most important character, Dairy Devil, who is standing somewhere feeling sick. You should really try to make it so we have to meet him, and the police woman who will be our real contact for most of the story.

 

The other problem I had was that I don't speak Spanish. Fortunately I know enough to understand most of what one of the NPCs said, but I would suggest a clue with a translation for those who are even less linguistically talented than I am.

 

So those were the problems I had. Now the good stuff. I loved this story. At first it started out kind of silly, with weird names for the NPCs and the whole premise about ice cream trucks being attacked. Then it took a darker turn, and I was wondering if it was really appropriate for the tone of the story, but as it turned out my worries were unwarranted because it all tied up nicely in the end, with a lot of foreshadowing that makes it even more fun on a second playthrough. The only thing I could wish for was even more of the funny and cool custom enemies that show up near the end. People who know me and my stories probably think I must have lost my mind in the heat, but this was really a very cool story with unexpected layers, and some genuine surprises.

 

---

 

And now here is what you all have been waiting for: the awards!

 

I am happy to give the first place to @Soup or Man for his "We All Scream for Ice Cream". 500 million influence will be coming to your in-game inbox shortly.

 

Our runner-ups are @NyxiaSnow and @cranebump - 100 million influence each are coming your way. What, Cranebump gets the runner-up award? Yes. Darmian's story is already more or less perfected, and to make it appeal more to me he would have to take it all apart and make two new stories. But Cranebump's story could become something very interesting, in my opinion. So to encourage that, I give him the prize. Not that I need to explain myself but I thought maybe my reviews up above gave the wrong impression.

 

Thank you all for entering the competition!
 

[Darmian]

Congrats to all!

[NyxiaSnow]

I'm glad you enjoyed the morality mechanics, it was fun to try pull it off in AE. Thanks so much for hosting the competition, and congrats to all the other contestants! 🙂 

[cranebump]

Appreciated, thanks. I agree on the comment about the judge. I’m also not sure what I did right, but I’m not going to belabor that at the moment. Thanks again, and looking forward to the next one!

[Soup or Man]

Thanks for the feedback, and those are good points on the first mission. Making those NPCs required objectives would set things up a bit clearer. Especially love the rabid fan attack suggestion, that would have been hilarious.

 

Sadly, I was limited for space on a lot of the Spanish lines. I tried making the bulk of the character's text English to compensate. I think there's one clue I could use after their defeat to clarify what he said in a few instances.

 

Really enjoyed writing this mission, all the best!