Alari_Azure

That might explain why my missions seem to be maintaining a 4 star average, but I rarely see a receipt of tickets with the message that someone has rated my arc. Maybe I'm just not noticing them, but many times I have see one message, but not the other. I think they need to make sure that people know what each click on a star will do. Either that or the assignment of the rating and the tickets should only be recorded when you hit 'finish'.

Holy crapoli that's a lot of stuff running! O.o

This line seems really odd. I have no idea what it means:
O10 - Broken Internet access because of LSP provider 'c:\windows\system32\pnrpnsp.dll' missing

It looks like your Vista needs updating and your drivers are a bit old. You might try updating those things, but you have a whole lot of stuff running that probably isn't necessary.

One thing that strikes me as a possibility for improving the limits of an arc, as far as the number of missions goes, is that the number allowed in any arc should only be limited by the 100k file size. Though, I wish they increased that to at least 125k to give more possibilities for variety to those who just want to use customs. If you want to make an arc that requires 6 or 7 missions, you should be able to do that as long as it remains within the max size limit.

For people that want to use standard enemies, it would give them a lot more story possibilities where they could make some short missions and some longer missions depending on what the objectives are. That would be great for the kind of stories where you need to go to one place to find one quick objective, then to another place for another one. Mix & match, random lengths for more variety. Unfortunately, if people want to use customs, they will probably never be able to go over 5 missions unless they use a minimal amount of custom enemies in their group. But, it would certainly seem to make more sense that the number of missions should be unlimited up to the file size.

Of course, even better than that would be if we all got an open amount of file space to use per account. As of now, we would have 300k of space to use any way we want. That way, arcs that only require 30k or 40k wouldn't be wasting the rest of that 100k space that we're allowed now (saving us 60-70k). We could create as many arcs, with as many missions as we want per arc, that we could fit by using that total amount of file space as the only limitation. That could be a real win/win for everyone involved.

If you look at an arc as one book in a series of books, involving the same characters (i.e. Lord of the Rings), then you have to see that each of them really should be able to stand on their own as one complete part of an ongoing tale. You would not want to bother reading it if each book ended by telling you that you needed to read another book, or 3 or 4 more books, to get to any real conclusion, even to that first part of the story. It leaves the reader (player) frustrated that he wasted all that time reading it just to get to the 'to be continued' tag-line at the end. There's no satisfaction for the reader if there is no climax or conclusion to the first part of the story.

It seems a little too much like a cheap trick that the author is playing on the reader just to get them to buy another book. I certainly wouldn't bother getting sucked into buying the next book, especially if I knew it could be a never-ending story that just keeps dangling a carrot in front of my nose at the end to get me to shell out more money/time for the next 'chapter'.

If the first story can solidly stand on it's own, and was interesting enough to make me consider reading the next story in that sequence, then the author did his job well and his stories are worth my investing more time/money into continuing to read the rest of the series. Otherwise, I'd just shrug the whole thing off as not being worth my time or my frustration level because I'll never really be able to get to a completely satisfying ending to any of it.

The other thing to consider in making arcs as a series that can't stand on their own as individual arcs, what happens if the Devs decide that they like the series, or at least part of it? Would they be forced to make all of the parts Dev's Choice, or would they just end up having to ignore it? If they wanted to award one DC, it's less likely that they'd hand out 3 awards to the same author for the price of one. If an arc can't stand on it's own, I doubt you'd ever get a DC on any of the parts. That might not matter to you, but if it does and you're hoping to get the DC bonanza of a 3fer, I think you could be waiting for a very long time.

It almost sounds like a lag issue that's getting the character through, but not all of the info for that char makes it to the other side of the 'portal'. Could dropped packets from the lag be causing some of this? I suppose just having a few toggles turned off is better than a full mapserver crash, but it can be frustrating if you don't notice the toggles are being turned off.

I'll throw 'Deal with The Devil's Pawn' #207266 onto the bonfire.

It's a CoT mission with a couple of customs (one's the boss).

No AV/EBs

**edited to change the arc ID for Deal with The Devil's Pawn**



Genres M-Z

Magic
---
A Deal with Destiny -- Heroic
A Dream of Awakenings (132616) -- Heroic
Chains of Blood (5492) -- Heroic
Croatoa's Great War: The Parfait Family Reunion (71880) -- Neutral
Deal with The Devil's Pawn (207266) -- Heroic
I Will Dance On Your Grave (92630)
Rex is Missing! (51702) -- Heroic
The Broken Chain (82378)[/url] -- Heroic
The Magical Miss Fitz (5079) -- Heroic
The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks (124319)
The Tannhäuser Gate (96322)

Military
---
Axis and Allies (1379)
Red Typhoon (4912) -- Heroic
Redoubt Operations #1: Fires over Kalago -- Heroic
Vanguard AQUA (58475) -- Neutral
Whitehawks (49364) -- Heroic
Wings of Deception (101926)

Misc. Adventure
---
Impossible Kung Fu Mission (111367) -- Neutral
The Portal Bandits (3326) -- Heroic
A Glitch in the Wyre (73197) -- Neutral
The Council Cargo (36951) -- Heroic
Hero Therapy! (TM) (119228)
The Second Coming of the Mega Mech (122274) -- Heroic

Mutant
---
The Legion of Mutants vs. the Iron Agents (200364) -- Neutral

Mystery
---
Blowback (18575) -- Heroic
Dream Paper (13030) -- Heroic
Dream Paper 2: Restless Sleep (16797) -- Heroic
Dream Paper 3: Broken Dreams (13064) -- Heroic
Females for Hire (110723) -- Neutral
Hunter of Beasts: It begins with a riot... (110465) -- Heroic
The Fireside Poet (189439) -- Heroic

Mythology
---
Atlantis Attacks! (30898) -- Neutral Click for Promotional Poster
Madness And The Minotaur (90124) -- Neutral
Rites of the Maenads (61159) Heroic -- Heroic
Tales of Cimerora, volume 1 : Of feathers and fur -- Heroic
The Aegis Affair (16376) -- Heroic
The Eye of Balor (88176) -- Heroic
The Four Treasures of the Tuatha De Danaan (164100) -- Heroic
The Parable of the Fruit Salad (65369)[/url] -- Heroic
The Seeds of Yggdrasil -- Heroic
The Seelie War -- Heroic
The Unseelie War -- Villainous
Witches and Warriors (53006) -- Heroic

Nemesis Plots
---
Brass Reaver: Part 1 -- Neutral
Rise and Fall of the Iron General (142200) -- Heroic
The Handbag Plot (36414) -- Heroic

Player-Chosen Outcome
---
Hunting the Dark Dragon -- Heroic
Playing Gods (51106) -- Heroic
Time's Maelstrom (147296) -- Heroic

Public Domain Characters/Literature
---
The Praetorian Invasion of the Land of Oz - Heroic

Puzzles/Riddles
--------
Grim Riddles (1396) - Heroic

Sci-Fi
---
Above Mars - Part 1: The Wellington (13215) -- Neutral
Adventures of the Space Marines -- Neutral
Adventures of the Space Marines 2 -- Neutral
Assault on Aru Prime (173115) -- Villainous
City of the Apes (171184) -- Heroic
Reach for the Stars (78904) -- Neutral
Spaced Invaders (56856) -- Heroic
That Mysterious Buzzing Sound (12774)
The Adventures of the United Earth Rangers (29549) -- Neutral (29549)
The Balance of Power (26931) -- Neutral
The Continuing Adventures of the United Earth Rangers (70237) -- Neutral
The Final Nemesis
The Fracturing of Time (171031) -- Heroic
The Knights of Rularuu (75386) -- Heroic
The Nemesis Theory - (171203) -- Villainous
Welcome to Donut World (1233) -- Heroic

Un-themed Survival/AV/Time Challenges
---
The Meatgrinder -- Neutral

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Possibly have NPC dialog turned off in your chat box? Grasping at straws here lol

<nice new avatar Telstar >

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Thanks!

That's one of my toons, Shannara Arielle (DB/WP tank). She just hit 40 and I'm still debating where to put her new slots. She's my first 40. LOL

I played an arc a while back that I seriously considered reporting for content. It used a lot of S&M type references that were fairly suggestive. Not only that, but the enemies were set up as if they were a religious order (female), which really rubbed me the wrong way. I don't even remember the name of it at this point, but I definitely wouldn't want to play it again. Maybe kids that played it wouldn't 'get' the attempt at sleazy humor, but it was pretty obvious that any adult playing it would. I don't even remember if I rated it. I think I just chalked it up as not my cup of tea and didn't rate it at all.

That is very strange. Have you tried restarting the game? It might be a glitch from being in the MA for so long while creating the mission. I've had some funky problems that happened after being in the mission creator for a long period of time. Maybe a fresh start will sync things up.

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Since MA missions always act as if you're in a TF team, you should have to drop the mission before going to another contact. Actually, it says that your regular contacts are not supposed to be available at all while you have an AE mission in your queue. Definitely sounds like a bug to me.

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Agreed...and I will be vigilante to make sure I'm not on a MA team in the future. Even still, seems like it could be a potentially frustrating problem.

Attache

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Absolutely. Especially, since you can't rejoin a TF after you leave it. (At least, that's what I understand from what I've heard about TFs. I've never actually done one.) If it happened further along in the TF, it would be infuriating to get dumped like that.

There should be no way to choose a regular mission without quitting the MA first. They need to make sure there's some type of a warning that 'you are already on a TF' that forces you to quit it if another mission is selected. They should also give MA arcs a different title than TF, so there's no confusion for the players.

Dang it! I hate that I type so slowly.

There is a 'Mission Architect' channel that, I think, is cross server (I could be wrong). There's one on the Liberty server, though I can't think of the name of it off the top of my head. They probably have one specifically for many of the other servers, as well. Just try doing a search for channels from your chat tab.

As far as here on the boards goes, there is also a section for MA questions that is more about the MA game mechanics and problems, etc., here.

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Locking higher level characters out of the AE missions in lower level zones so that they can't lure lower level characters into content based on their jaded point-of-view.

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While I am all in favor of kicking 50s out of Cap and Atlas, all this would do would turn the high-level zones into MA farm central. Lowbies looking for Portal Corp farms made it to PI, they could make it there for MA farms as well. Then high-level characters who wish to play and create legitimate AE content would be stuck sharing the buildings in high-level zones with swarms of farmers, instead of having the option to go to a low-traffic zone.

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I decided to go to the AE building in Steel yesterday to see if there were mobs of people there like there are in AP. It was completely empty except for me & the NPCs. It would be like heaven to go there when writing/editing missions. No spam and no lag FTW!

Are you sure you put the text in the correct boxes and saved the mission changes before testing it? I don't think I've ever heard of a problem like that before.

EDIT: Do you have chat bubbles turned off in your options?

Since MA missions always act as if you're in a TF team, you should have to drop the mission before going to another contact. Actually, it says that your regular contacts are not supposed to be available at all while you have an AE mission in your queue. Definitely sounds like a bug to me.

When I installed CoH, Vista put the cohupdater.exe on the desktop, not in the coh folder. If he moved it off the desktop, that might be why Vista can't find it.

If he deleted it because he thought it was 'just a shortcut', then he might not have it anymore.

Or, he might just have to right click the icon and 'run as administrator' to get it to work right, too.

It's kind of hard to troubleshoot by proxy.

I thought it was the other way around. Captives usually bolt for the exit as soon as they are released and ally's stand around, looking stupid if they are set as non-combat. Maybe it's the choices for what they do on release that you need to set for them to run for the hills.

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That HJT log is jacked up. Are you running as an admin or as some protected account? That is *really* weird looking... NO startup programs?! NO BHOs or DPFs!?

/Inconceivable! - Vizzini

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Also, this little doodad.

O17 - HKLM\System\CCS\Services\Tcpip\..\{B2A1461F-BA2A-458D-94AF-7AD26A3BC334}: NameServer = 156.154.70.7,156.154.71.7

After reading through the HJT descriptions the other day, that could be a hijacker. Not sure, but 017 seems to indicate a problem in their literature. Not to mention that this:

Platform: Unknown Windows (WinNT 6.01.3004)

Lots of people are complaining about crashing when the game is DLed through steam. Here's a thread about one.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....ue#Post13647261

Oh, and first of all get SP2 on Vista.

You're welcome. It's always good to keep windows and all antivirus, antispyware, antimalware stuff up to date. If any of those little buggers get in, they can raise hell with all of your systems. A clean machine is a happy machine and that makes a happy gamer.

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I also have a problem with Slash being a former boss in the Outcasts. Take a look at their roster over on ParagonWiki, no one without elemental powers moves beyond minion rank. Everyone LT or higher is a mutant with elemental powers, not weapons. It just isn't consistent with the existing group that he is supposed to have an origin in.

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Well, he wasn't a boss, he was just a Lt, but that still doesn't really fit their profile. Oops.

I never realized or even considered that part of the story. I never read up on the lore related to the Outcasts before I decided to do the arc. I didn't even think about the fact that they were mostly mutants. Crap, that was really stupid of me. I was trying to tie them together, but I really didn't know enough about them to do it. Like I said, I've only been playing for a year and a lot of the lore in the game is something that I don't understand very well.

I don't know how I can work around that one. I'll have to think about it. There would have to be a complete change to a huge chunk of my main characters, at least all of the bosses. They'd have to be rewritten with different power sets. If you have any suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them.

Maybe I can write them as an 'unknown' rival gang that was tired of living in the shadow of the Outcasts, Hellions and other gangs in the city, and they were tired of those other guys getting all the attention. Maybe make it a personal rivalry between Slash & Frostfire, that goes back a long time. I don't really know what else to do about it. Maybe I should just scrap the whole gang, but I'd really hate to have to do that. I can see now that I should have done a lot more homework first.

I just wanted to thank Lazarus and add his review of Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons to my thread. It wasn't a 'glowing' review, but it wasn't all that bad. It was helpful for me, anyway. I really do appreciate all feedback that I get, because it does help me to improve my writing. Since I will be doing a rewrite of Meet the Demon Spawn in the near future, his assessments will help me in that process.

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Arc ID: 100045
Arc Title: Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons
Author: @Alari Azure
Description: Slash DeMento is a former lieutenant in the Outcasts. His new gang, the Demon Spawn, have stolen some weapons and a big bomb from the Paragon City Armory. His target could be Atlas Park! Can you defeat him, destroy the bomb, and confiscate those stolen weapons before he can implement his plan?
Rating: ***

================================

Character used: Anna Nethema, Level 50 Dark Melee/Fire Aura Brute
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 50

================================

Mission 1:
It's been over four years since I've taken a hero through the Hollows, so it took a moment to remember who the heck Flux is. He fills me in about Slash and his new gang, asking me to locate them, recover the weapons and destroy the bomb.

I travel to Atlas Park and into the office that they are hiding out in. Right off the bat I start wondering why the author felt the need to highlight all of the mission objectives. Was he worried that I would somehow not see them on my screen?

I might as well just get to commenting on the "Demon Spawn" in general. I don't know what level they are meant for as apparently the entire group is custom and running from 1-54. Why do we need level 50 Outcasts? I was told by Flux that Outcasts were a member of the group, so why are there no regular Outcasts present. Their custom replacements for the Chillers, for example, don't even resemble them.

I would need a sub-level 20 character to see how dangerous they really are, because my level 50 Brute here is not getting a scratch on her.

According to Taz's description he is a big fan of Martial Arts, so why is he attacking me with claws?

Speak of the Devil? Funny you should say that, Slash.

================================

The Verdict:
I really don't know exactly what the author was trying to accomplish with this group. If you were simply going to expand on the Outcasts, why not reuse some of their units? Nothing particularly stuck out either, most of the guys with weapons just came across as Warriors rejects. I think you need to define more just what this is supposed to be. Maybe if I knew what level I was actually meant to be facing them at and if I actually saw some of the Outcasts in the group that were mentioned. In fact, what was Slash doing in the Outcasts to begin with? They're all mutants but he appears to be a natural Axe/Shield Brute.

Three stars for effort.

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I'm not sure how you got the impression that there would be actual (standard) Outcasts in the mix.

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now half the Outcasts and some newcomers are followin' him.

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You answered your own question. If the contact is saying that Outcasts are following him, then one expects to see Outcasts. One would also expect the mission not to be set from 1-50.

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If there were actual Outcasts, I would think the level range would have been fixed at their range, wouldn't it?

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Not necessarily. If you stuck standard Outcasts in with the customs then they would only spawn at their normal level range. The mission scales to the level range of the entire group, and since the customs are 1 to 54...

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If gang members leave one gang, they usually don't continue to refer to themselves by their former gang's name.

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But why would they change their own names? And skin color for that matter? (Chillers are blue, Scorchers are orange...)

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If I might ask you a silly question, since you thought there would be actual Outcasts in the mission, why would you even play it with a level 50 brute, anyway? I'd have to assume you have mostly level 50 toons to use if you haven't been to the Hollows in 4 years.

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Because since the mission wasn't going to bring me down to the correct level range, I wasn't going to see them anyway so might as well just look at the customs. My lowest character at this time is level 30, she was not going to see standard Outcasts either.

And I haven't been to the Hollows in 4 years because I got sick of the place back in issue 5, then played villainside exclusively until issue 11, when I rolled my first hero in years and she skipped the Hollows on her way to 50 as well.

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If you have any suggestions, I'm always open for them.

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You can start by forcing the arc to the correct level range.

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Maybe I should reword that intro a bit, so people won't expect to see any actual Outcasts. There are none in my custom group, at all. That's why the names and looks of the characters are not the same as they were in the Outcasts, either. I wanted the customs to look completely different, so they wouldn't be seen as the same-old guys with new clothes. I thought keeping some of their typical powers would be a good way to make it more believable. But, I wanted them to be seen as a totally different gang with a different focus than they had before.

They don't really have an actual intended level range to force them into. I wanted them to be higher level than Outcasts, but choosing a specifically set range wasn't my intention. I wanted to leave it open ended. I've had cranked up 50's tell me they died in the mission, so I guess they can be a problem at higher difficulty settings.

The basic premise of the gang is that they are no longer associated with the Outcasts (or any other group) in any way. Some of them just happened to start out there. The boss in particular. It's only meant to be a small part of the back-story of the new gang to have them tie in with an established enemy group. The boss has decided to move on to bigger and more serious crimes because the old gang was too tame for his 'big plans'. That's why I was trying to add a greater mix of weapons/powers to reflect the fact that some of these guys come from different backgrounds. I actually have a few more 'miscellaneous' characters that I created for the group, but with the limits of file space, I had to remove some of them.

And, I can understand your dislike for the Hollows. Since I have to solo, I usually only go there for a few levels after running around AP to get to level 5 or 6. Then, I head off to Steel Canyon as soon as I can handle it (around level 10-12). I haaaate the Hollows!

Maybe the arc creator changed the text and removed the 'keyword' you were searching for, then republished it?