cranebump Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 (edited) Someone's targeting Paragon City's finest. Your job? Find out who. Before it's too late! Particulars: L10-15 Stock enemies. Callbacks from Crane's previous Row stories. Lot of guns and fire.:-) Notes & Spoilers: Spoiler Impetus: I've previously featured several PPD in previous arcs, namely Freitag, Becktrees, Westbrush, Martins and Rogers (see Shadow and Silver for the latter two; this story functions as a prequel of sorts). I thought it might be interesting to feature these guys. I also wanted to go back to KR, and my best buddy, Joe Freitag. So it started there. Narrative development: All stories answer questions (even the really weird ones they make us read in college). The first question that guided this arc is Who would want to kidnap these guys? The WHO part wasn't difficult: I figured the low level perps would want revenge. It would be a straightup "beat the clock" rescue, making this a simple revenge arc. But then I had questions #2: What happens when all those detective contacts are suddenly missing? This led me to treat this as a lead-in to the bigger plot (which I honestly don't know what it is at this writing). Cameos and such: Since Martins is on "administrative leave" in my world narrative (after the events in Shadow and Silver), I could then callback to his alter ego, Shadow Commando. Rogers IS his partner and friend, after all. This gives me a lead-in on the future finale, since Rogers is not found in this arc, and Martins is sure to go after him. As for the enigmatic "V," I have an idea for who this is. What I don't currently have is why Rogers was kept, and what connection they have to Martins (if any). So I just gave myself a nice little writing problem to work out (which is one of the reasons I do these things). I really want to avoid the revenge angle, which is so prevalent in my other stories. How to do that will be my primary concern. Design stuff: I wanted to stick with stock vills as much as possible, at least for Part 1. Beyond that, I indulged in my latest fetish: I've grown VERY fond of Defend Object as a way to spawn ambushes. Most of the time, they drop right on top of you. This was a problem early on, necessitating the use of Martins as an ally, just in case the player is running a squish, or an actual on-level toon. My exemplared L31 Sent ran it okay, and could survive, I feel, on his own. My L18 Blaster, who runs on basic enhancements as a solo toon, had real problems with ambushes (mainly due to END issues). As usual, it comes down to AT and powersets. A basic Tank would probably have few issues with everything, assuming they have the usual Lethal-Smashing resistance. Odds & Ends: Yes, I was thinking about Elvis Costello's Watching the Detectives. Couldn't make the lyrics work, so I settled on Mickey Spillane titles. True, we're talking PI's, rather than Law Enforcement det's. And true, there's soooo many titles that really don't work (Lady, Go Die! being one of them). But I only need 6 or 7, so I think I can figure something out for part 2. Either that, or I grab some titles from other noteworthy PI authors (Raymond Chandler perhaps). Threw Atta in there, tying to Lords of Death arc (the idea being that this takes place between hero's early bank mish and Dempsey/Blue Steel story). That's all for this one, folks. This is a pretty simple arc. I put it together in a relatively short period. Hope the rush doesn't show. Yours in noir, Crane Edited July 6 by cranebump 1 2 I have done a TON of AE work, both long form and single arc. Just search the AE mish list for my sig @cranebump. For more information on my stories, head to the AE forum sub-heading and look for “Crane’s World.” Support your AE authors! We ARE the new content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerroirNoir2 Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 Ugh. I am never going to get through all this stuff. I commend your writing but I'm lagging so far behind. I think my earlier reviews/playthroughs where I had a LOT more Me Time led me into a false sense of how much I could actually do. And now it's so sporadic. Apologies to everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cranebump Posted July 7 Author Share Posted July 7 No worries, TN. No one expects you to plow through everything. What you’ve done already is all good. 1 1 I have done a TON of AE work, both long form and single arc. Just search the AE mish list for my sig @cranebump. For more information on my stories, head to the AE forum sub-heading and look for “Crane’s World.” Support your AE authors! We ARE the new content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huang3721 Posted July 7 Share Posted July 7 Spoiler IMO, the Mission 3's last collectible is very clever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cranebump Posted July 7 Author Share Posted July 7 6 hours ago, huang3721 said: Hide contents IMO, the Mission 3's last collectible is very clever. Spoiler Is that the weapons rack labeled "Rogers?" I have done a TON of AE work, both long form and single arc. Just search the AE mish list for my sig @cranebump. For more information on my stories, head to the AE forum sub-heading and look for “Crane’s World.” Support your AE authors! We ARE the new content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huang3721 Posted July 7 Share Posted July 7 Usually, I'd use triggers to limit the number of available objectives on the nav window. But, in this story, spamming the nav window works great. Spoiler Yes. I was expecting another rescue or a boss battle for Rogers, but I found none. Then I saw a white star on the map labeled "weapons." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cranebump Posted July 11 Author Share Posted July 11 I didn't think about the Star entry on a clear. Perhaps I should change the label? (and I still don't know exactly where to go next with this story [in a way that's unexpected]). I have done a TON of AE work, both long form and single arc. Just search the AE mish list for my sig @cranebump. For more information on my stories, head to the AE forum sub-heading and look for “Crane’s World.” Support your AE authors! We ARE the new content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huang3721 Posted July 13 Share Posted July 13 On 7/11/2024 at 9:25 PM, cranebump said: Perhaps I should change the label? No need. It's good. The way I see it, the third mission rewards people for fighting the mobs instead of merely sneaking around. I was caught off guard when I couldn't find Rogers. Luckily, I ran the mission properly instead of sneaking around using target_name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zhym Posted July 16 Share Posted July 16 (edited) Fun little mini-arc! A couple of notes: Spoiler The intro to Mission 2 says "Try not to kill anyone," and the Nav window text says "Try not to kill anybody." So I thought, okay, that's the universal signal for sneak in, do the objective, and done. Nope. It's an escort mission, which means a lot of fighting to clear the way out. Kind of some mixed signals there. Using "Defend Object" to spawn ambushes is clever; I like it. When I ran it just now, though, a couple of the objects toward the back showed up as things I could attack, as opposed to objects to defend. I don't know if that was intended or not. I have no idea what you're talking about with a weapons rack labeled "Rogers"—my last two objects in the third mission were the safe and a crate. Overall—well, it does sort of feel half-finished. I'm so used to five-mission AE arcs that I wasn't prepared for it to end after three missions—especially not with a cliffhanger. In a five-mission arc, I figure a cliffhanger is just a necessity because an AE arc can't be longer. With three missions, there's more of a sense (fair or not) of wondering why, if you have more story to tell, you don't just tell it instead of having a short arc with cliffhanger? Although it sounds like you're not sure where this is going yet, so maybe the arc really is just incomplete as opposed to a cliffhanger? Edited July 16 by Zhym Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cranebump Posted July 16 Author Share Posted July 16 (edited) It’s because AE kicks me out lately when I build mishes longer than 3. I have regular crashes while in the editor. Don’t know whether it’s due to too many customs or what. The other reason is to switch contacts, though that wasn’t my original intention here. Edited July 16 by cranebump 1 I have done a TON of AE work, both long form and single arc. Just search the AE mish list for my sig @cranebump. For more information on my stories, head to the AE forum sub-heading and look for “Crane’s World.” Support your AE authors! We ARE the new content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cranebump Posted July 30 Author Share Posted July 30 (edited) The middle and finale arcs are complete: Part 2: A Vendetta for V (63158) Part 3: Veillance (63459) STILL having issues when I add a 4th mish to any arc I do, but I DID manage to shoehorn it in in the finale. Edited July 30 by cranebump 1 I have done a TON of AE work, both long form and single arc. Just search the AE mish list for my sig @cranebump. For more information on my stories, head to the AE forum sub-heading and look for “Crane’s World.” Support your AE authors! We ARE the new content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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