Alari_Azure

Since you seem to be getting into a better range for my arcs, I'll throw them into the mix. They're all listed in my sig.

"Deal with the Devil's Pawn" is a single CoT mission that has a couple of custom chars, including the boss. He needed to be a mage for the story, so 'random' CoT didn't work right at all levels. If you can handle CoT, you should be able to handle this one, fairly easily. The boss might be a little tough, but not horrible. (fire caster)

The other 2 feature my custom enemy group, the Demon Spawn. 'Stolen Weapons' is a single mission & 'Meet...' is 4 missions. There are some axers and others with KB in the mix, so they can be a pain if you have little/no resistance to it. All of these customs are set on standard/standard difficulty, though.

All of the missions can be played from level 5-54. There are no EB/AVs in any of them. I hope you like them.

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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: ***

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

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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.

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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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First off, I have to say that I hate the way the forum marks threads as read/unread. I missed this post even though I have been in this section a few times since it was posted. I just couldn't seem to find it.

Thank you for playing through my arc, I really appreciate it. I'm a bit disappointed in the rating, but I suppose after not having a character run through the Hollows in 4 years, you probably found it pretty boring after playing all that time on much higher levels.

I'm really not sure where this gang should fit in level-wise. I've had people with lower level toons tell me that it was tough on them (I can attest to the fact that <10 it can be very tough, even on a tank set on 'heroic') but I have also had people 40-50 tell me that they liked the challenge. I guess it depends on what difficulty they are playing at and their build.

Now, to answer some of the other questions and comments you made.

Since I've only been playing for a year, I've seen a lot of the Hollows and the Outcasts during that time. I have a slight case of altitis (trying out different power combos, etc.) and have taken all of my toons through there a lot over the past year so I figured I'd go with creating something that was based on those experiences.

I'm not sure how you got the impression that there would be actual (standard) Outcasts in the mix. If there were, they would have been listed in the mission description in the MA page, but it only mentions a custom enemy group. If there were actual Outcasts, I would think the level range would have been fixed at their range, wouldn't it? Flux clearly states that these guys were 'former Outcasts' that beat the tar out of Frostfire and left, so they are not current members of that gang. If gang members leave one gang, they usually don't continue to refer to themselves by their former gang's name.

He also says that other 'newcomers' have joined them. They're all, basically, supposed to be 'rejects' from the Outcasts and other different groups that are looking to 'up the anty' and get into more serious kinds of trouble than the Outcasts would. The only reason I chose Flux as the contact was to tie the forming of this new gang to the leader's old one. (Flux is a PPD guy working undercover in the Outcasts, so he would have first-hand info about the situation.)

Flux: "He's been gettin' a bit too brave since he gave Frostfire a nasty beating a while back, now half the Outcasts and some newcomers are followin' him. Their numbers are growin' fast. Slash is a lot nastier than Frostfire ever thought of being."

Why does Taz have claws if he is martial arts? I could be wrong, but I thought claws were a weapon used by the martial arts chars in-game and elsewhere. (Some of the Tsoo, maybe?)

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.

I'm really sorry that you didn't enjoy the mission. My real aim here was to make a fun mission with a decent story that a wide range of players could run, without having to deal with over-the-top-killer customs or EB/AVS. All of the enemies have descriptions that add a little bit of background to the story and the gang, itself. My only suggestion would be to either try it on a lower level or crank up your difficulty setting to see if that makes it any different for you. But, since you didn't seem to be all that impressed with it, I don't really expect you to do that. If you have any suggestions, I'm always open for them.

Thanks, again, for the review.

BTW, 'the author' is a 'she'.

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And I don't mean that someone else should be providing the music. That person shouldn't indeed buy a guitar. To him it's just an expensive ornament. To someone who wants to learn to play, the investment is not for the piece of wood and string, its for the pleasure gained out of the use of that instrument.

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Yes indeed. Except in this case its the players creating part of the "soundtrack" of the game. We are adding value to the IP and yet have to pay them for the privilege.

The best thing for this game would be to open it up. I'm sure the number of MAs already created exceeds several times over the entire mission count of CoH/CoV combined. That should be the marketing hook to appeal to new subscribers, not microtransactions. But MTs are an industry trend, so probably not going away anytime soon.

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I agree with this. It's pretty sad that they make something in the game that is very appealing to players, then, after they have them 'hooked', they decide to start selling them the product that they've hooked them on. It's basically what pushers do with drugs when they hand out free samples, then people get hooked and are willing to pay whatever it takes to get another 'fix'. I don't think I need a 'fix' all that badly.

The thing that bugs me most about it is the fact that they are hooking long time players as well as getting many new players to join in order to try it out. It seems that our monthly fee isn't enough for them, so they have to find other ways to get a few more bucks out of us. I understand capitalism is a great thing, but when it starts to suck money out of us like a vampire sucks blood, IMHO, it goes a bit too far. They want to enjoy the monthly sub fees of a large player-base, but they're not satisfied with just the cash they're making off of that. They seem to want to bleed us dry by charging us for 'perks' that should be bonuses to keep us playing. I'm not so sure I need to keep up with the Joneses that badly.

Someone else was having problems because of the way STEAM installs or runs CoH. Do a search for 'steam' and I'm sure you'll find it here in the tech forum.

I think I want to withdraw my original submission, 'Meet the Demon Spawn' (151099). That particular mission needs a major rewrite. I'll probably be doing some tweaking of that villain group as well, but probably not until after I15 hits. It's very close to 100% file size, and there's very little wiggle room as it is now.

If you'd like to use one of my arcs, maybe you could use the 'Deal with the Devil's Pawn' (207266). It's a one mission arc that involves the CoT with a couple of custom characters, including the boss. Since the CoT on 'random' couldn't guarantee there would be a mage that spawned at all levels (5-54), I had to create one for the story to be consistent. This arc has been rewritten with more content added to tell the story in a little more detail. It's probably the closest thing I have to a finished arc.

The basic premise is that an undercover contact, working with the PPD, asks you to investigate a CoT mage that has gotten his hands on an ancient scroll and some other artifacts that were stolen from the Museum of Antiquities. The scroll contains a spell that the CoT want to translate and learn because it will render it's victims unable to resist them, or their rituals. It's a little more 'traditional' as far as using mostly standard characters with just a couple of added customs. Apparently, some people are skeptical about mission arcs that have all custom characters that don't have a lot of canonical background that makes them more 'familiar'. Maybe the CoT mission will have a wider appeal.

Thanks.

Since I couldn't see any details in it, I thought I'd do a little adjustment. I still don't 'get' what the problem is, but maybe some people can see it in this pic.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y39...404bc5a4_b.jpg

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So far I have figgured out <QR> as quick reply and IMO/IMHO as in my opinion/in my honest opinion

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Actually, it's generally read as In My HUMBLE Opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]Since when?

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It's always been 'humble opinion' on any board I've ever posted on, too. If your posting an opinion, one would usually assume that it's an 'honest' opinion, so IMHO would just be redundant in that case. A 'humble' opinion is one that's a little more of a 'no brag, just fact' type of thing. At least, IMHO.

Is there anything in the story that might be trademarked, like a character or group name, an item, anything like that? It might just be close enough to a trademarked name to be blocked. Maybe the title has something in it that's trademarked?

The only other thing I can think of is the description bug from copy/pasting into the chat dialogue boxes in MA. That one doesn't show as an error, but it won't let you publish the arc. The best thing to do for that is copy your descriptions, intro text, etc., from the game to Notepad (not Word or MS Works, etc.), then read it, to see if there are any odd letters that may have been hidden in MA. Make sure the description field in MA is wiped clean with no hidden spaces left behind (box = 0 chars) when you get that done.

After all that, move it back to the MA by using the mouse to copy and paste. Don't use ctrl c/v for it, either. That also seems to be part of the problem. Then, check it again to see if any odd letters were added into it. Word processors leave 'hidden chars' that freaks out MA, that's why it's best not to use one for writing unless you copy to Notepad between there and the MA.

After reinserting and checking the text, try to publish it again. If it doesn't work, do the next text box until you've checked all of it. Usually, if you're lucky, you can find it in the main page and won't have to do it all. The first ones to check would be the ones you might have edited during your session. That's likely where you'll find it.

I dunno what else to tell ya, except send a petition to see if you can find out what it is. Not sure if they'll be able to check it out, but they might. It's worth a shot.

I had an odd occurrence last week where I had just finished running someone's arc, then I decided to do some adjusting on one of my customs. When I got to the last page where you name the character, all the info, description, group was all correct, but the picture was one of the toons from the arc I had just finished playing. The toon I was editing was male, but the char that showed up was female. Shocked the hell out of me. O.o

This list is such a good idea that I figured it needed to get bumped back up to the top. I ran A Tangle in Time, #2622, last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think we need to keep adding to this list.

I was looking for dam/res and end/mod DOs for one of my toons last week. There was everything else BUT available. It's very annoying, especially since trying to buy them on a low level toon that's influence poor (or even find them at all in WW) is nearly impossible.

It seems that great minds do run in the same tracks.

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I assume "nip" is a "profanity" because it refers to drinking alcohol.
.....
the 'nip' thing probably refers to nipples. the profanity filter is ridiculous sometimes.

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I actually think "nip" is considered an ethnic slur.

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Yes, 'nip' is banned for the ethnic slur, not for any other reason. But, since most people reading this thread had no idea why it was banned, I think it's pretty silly to ban it for that reason. Most people under age 40 have probably never heard it used as a slur. Anyone under 30 would certainly not know about it. Since most people playing the game fall into the <40 crowd, at least, it seems to be a useless word to worry about. There are many more reasons to use it than as a slur.

It's the PC mentality these days, that seems to be completely out of control, that drives up the number of words that are added to the 'banned' list. If anyone did use it as a slur, I'm sure someone would report it, and, it could be easily handled that way, instead of completely banning an otherwise harmless word.

/jumps off soapbox

I had the same problem last night. I had to open the team tab to quit. It's happened a couple of times before, too. I'm thinking that it must be a bug.

Do what you want, but make sure you warn people that there's a kill-ya boss that will keep rez-ing on them. That way people (like me) that hate fighting kill-yas, even once, can be sure to avoid it like the plague.

The default for target next enemy is the tab key.

Maybe you need to restore the defaults and start over?

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Mission 1. briefing ‘snip it in the bud’, says Crimson. AFAIK its ‘ nip it in the bud'

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Just a quickie comment. I know why he had to use 'snip'. I tried using 'nip it in the bud' in one of my arcs and got the lovely pop-up message that I couldn't use that 'naughty word', 'nip'. I posted about that in the thread about 'naughty words' that are banned in MA, that was posted in one of the forums a while back. It sucks that we have to change the wording of common 'old sayings' because one of the words might have another meaning than the one that we intend.

I've had that happen numerous times, usually after a mapserver or hard crash to desktop. Sometimes, if I log the same toon on, the powers that I had running when I crashed were still running. I've even had times when my last tells were still active and if I hit backspace, I could send a tell to the last player I was chatting with. O.o

I've also noticed that it takes forever to actually log off the game. My PC activity light will keep flashing for a minute or 2 after I'm already at the desktop, while CoH shuts down.

Having a 'hot door' might be doable as long as you don't go overboard with mega-powered enemies that drop you before you can even portal in. At least, start out small and test it with all kinds of builds to make sure you're not just going to kill people who have no prayer of staying alive. If it needs a bit more, then ramp them up, slowly. I wouldn't mind having an ambush at the door as long as it's not something like an EB or a bunch of ramped up minions or lieuts with mega power combos set on extreme. The chances of my ever going back in would likely be slim to none.

Most people that would get hammered like that would be kind if they didn't rate the arc at all. But, I'd be more inclined to think they would rate it 0* if they were really ticked about it. I doubt you'd find many people that would ever go back in, in either case.

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Texas, I'll look into the network card drivers in the AM, its 1130 now my time and I've gotta be up at 5am :-(

I know the router is fine because it was play on old machine one day, put new machine next day and instant slowdown situation,

Telstar, those things, I have no idea..... maybe they happened from windows easy transfer?

I'm too lazy to physically click and drag everything so I liked the two PCs together and did that... well worth the price of the cable!

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If you have them linked in a network, are they both vista machines? If one is an xp, that could be the problem. IIRC, they don't always mesh well when networked together. It's possible that they are trying to share files that they can't really share because of the different OS. Just a thought.

I'm not sure about this kind of stuff, but why are there so many lines of services listed that have 'Unknown Owner' and (file missing) in them?

Just a suggestion from a non-geek, all of your drivers look really, really old. Have you tried updating them?

Get , Spybot Search and Destroy install/update and run it, ASAP (it's free and it's good). It should find it and block it, or at least let you know how to get rid of it if it can't. Trojans tend to be hard to get rid of once they get in.

This shameful bump has been brought to you by @Alari Azure and is strictly intended for promotional purposes only. If you have been harmed in any way by this blatantly gratuitous act, please, take out all of your aggressions and anger on the felons pictured in the above post and not on the perpetrator of this particular post.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Have a nice day.

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We all know that's pretty much all there is worth running in the MA.

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I disagree. I would, in fact, argue the exact opposite position.

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QFT

There are a lot of very good missions to run in MA. The problem is that they tend to get buried behind hundreds of pages of farms and crap.