Zamuel

While I word and think of things differently, I sort of agree with Hamster. For as atmospheric of a zone as Dark Astoria is, the pacing of the event was rather off. Rather than meeting at the graveyard and [Walk]ing through it, it might have had a bit more urgency to start much farther away yet make a mad dash with continued zombie spawns. Use the reduced visual distance as an advantage for the event. While you played off the Walk and managed to stay in character despite the heckling, in the end it took away from the story of having the guy as a zombie hunter, especially since he was in civilian wear as opposed to some form of combat gear. Also the "let's be zombies together" ending seemed cheesy and not in a good way.

Still, I'm glad you're still doing events and I hope the kinks get worked out of the ones in the future.

Er, actually my home server is on Victory but I'm still looking to see how many people take the challenge.

You know how when you get to the last clickie the game now shows you where they are on the map? What if there was a one-off item that revealed all clickies, captives, and named bosses (but not the surrounding spawn) on the map when activated. It's an optional ability but it could make some missions like things on outdoor maps much smoother.

I'm curious, does this work with Mercenaries' Serum?

Looks like a fair bit more info was presented in this video. Also, the actual video quality of the ViDocs are much higher than previous issues.

Dark Astoria intrigues me. However, (and I sort of hate to ask this) what's in it for the villains?

My challenge arc, The End of Saturday Morning (#391934), has been aching for people to step up to bat and be challenged by it. What better incentive than a contest?

The contest shall be two part. The first is running it as a challenge. Teams will run it at +2 x8 (or higher) with bosses and AVs on and take a screenshot at the end showing the teammates names and an expanded Mission tab in order to show the difficulty. The globals of the teammates will need to be PMed along with the screenshot.

The second part is trivia. There's a lot of various homages and references to cartoons and other things within the arc and I'd like to see how many can see into my madness. The main determining factor is which team can catch the most references in the arc. Things are hidden in numerous spots ranging from enemy design to bios to defeat quotes. These will need to be PMed along with the screenshot.

The prize for the winning team is 10 million inf per team member. The deadline shall be July 12. Looking to see how well people do.

The End of Saturday Morning has been changed to Final. I almost don't want to but the changes I'd like to make involve things unavailable in the MA so it's done until then.

I think bringing up the Stop 30 Fir Bolg and the mission to protect the runes from the Red Caps points to how missions can allow variety. I've both won and lost the 30 Fir Bolg mission. My first time was on a fire/fire scrapper (no mitigation whatsoever ) teamed up with a tank. It took some effort but we managed to complete it using damage and some taunts. Yet, it can also be completed with a full control basis. Other teams had a member setting up a full Trip Mine minefield. While the end result is to kill stuff, it has a solid number of ways to achieve the end goal that are all viable. The reactor trial is another example of a situation where you obviously need damage but hard control options can be quite viable.

What I think would help is more Efficiency Expert type situations. Timed missions with concentrated goals to complete. Done right, you could have a damage option, a hard control option, and a stealth option.

So today I ran through Tsoo In Love by EnigmaBlack. Fun little romp but there's a few things that could help it out.

Overview

First, it seems like it's story time. A long time ago there was a Strike Force started by a Mender Tessaract. A murderous little adventure that ended with a rooftop assassination. A very nice map with a nicely designed top floor. A while later this map graced Architect Entertainment with its presence. Unfortunately it was bugged.

I know exactly what you were going for with this map but rather than having Janet Jack spawn on the top floor, she spawned only a short distance from the entrance. While Marchand's Office is one of the nicer maps in AE (and I was intrigued when I found the exterior's location in St. Martial) it is bugged in a way that it randomly ignores the Front/Middle/Back settings. However, a differing issue is that I don't think it suits your arc. It's a rather large map and seems like it would be slightly too long for the pace of your arc if the spawns were working right. Personally, I'd suggest a two story map or a sizable one story.

Your other maps are fine. However, the arc as a whole could stand to have a little more detail. Full bios on named characters adds to the experience, especially with this being a comedy. The first mission didn't have any clues while the clue for the second probably should be expanded and tied to the hostage instead of mission completion. More extra conversations from non required enemies will probably help too. I'm torn on whether I think it would be best to leave General Tsoo as a canon mob (recolor him perhaps) or if he should be a custom.

Also, the arc seems rather firmly Heroic as opposed to Neutral. That said, you may want to change the generic Accept to something more context sensitive.

Spelling/Grammar

-Mission 1 intro

"We've gotten word that that psycho General Tsoo is so infatuated by Ms. Jack that he is willing to give anything to have her. It's gotten so bad that every one of his hencemen are trying to be the one that brings her to him."

should be

"We've gotten word that that psycho, General Tsoo, is so infatuated by Ms. Jack that he is willing to give anything to have her. It's gotten so bad that every one of his henchmen are trying to be the one that brings her to him." <- commas, spelling

-Mission 2 intro

"We have a small concert scheduled in Atlas Park today. Since's it's an open area we have to careful. Go out to the park and make sure things are alright. Right now the crew's are setting up. Ms. Jack is in route to do a sound check."

should be

"We have a small concert scheduled in Atlas Park today. Since's it's an open area we have to be careful. Go out to the park and make sure things are alright. Right now the crew's are setting up. Ms. Jack is in route to do a sound check." <- missing word

Also, I'm unsure if there's anywhere in canon that actually refers to Atlas Park as a park. With the map used, you might want to reword it as being right outside of city hall.

-Mission 2 sendoff

"Keep your eye out incase there are any Tsoo out there."

should be

"Keep your eye out in case there are any Tsoo out there." <- split into two words

-clue- General Tsoo Chickens out

"General Tsoo is not a well man by any means. he needs a little bit more help than the few lumps you gave him but at least he won't be a threat anymore."

should be

"General Tsoo is not a well man by any means. He needs a little bit more help than the few lumps you gave him but at least he won't be a threat anymore." <- capitalize

-Overall you may want to add spacing/carriage returns on the Sealed Envelope clue since it's a letter.

Something that's been going through my head recently is how a number of the more unique powers in the game tend to be labeled as trash. Now, some powers do need revising but I think it's actually a symptom of the game being so focused on kills as opposed to completing tasks. Let's take radial knockback powers. Keeping enemies off you theoretically keeps you safe but slows down kill speed, especially if you are melee. Killing enemies faster seems to almost always take precedent over surviving longer. I'd argue that this alone should be reason for more mission variety but I wonder if it would be in vain. Would more varied missions open the door for more variance in playstyle or would it simply draw the ire of players who want things the same as they've always been?

The biggest problems are the return text when you finish each individual mission and text from people like D-Mac when it isn't the main part of the arc. Everything else can actually be read in the Mission tab but consolidating it plus displaying the aforementioned parts will be a great help.

"Best" can be intriguingly subjective. I suggest to you An Arachnos Slumber Party #335317

Due to possible outcry, it might be better to simply roll the set into a regular issue. However, considering we already have a "Fringe" cape that looks like it fits a generic Native American texture sensibility, there could be a full Fringe set that could fit this need yet be broad enough to multipurpose.

I'm...intrigued...by the amount of vitriol for what seems to be a rather common sense QoL change.

I think Fleeting Whisper has the right idea and I think it can be taken even further. Make a modified version of the sale screen in Mission Architect. It allow you to eye it by name and color while also allowing you to collapse origin and enhancement type as you look for specifics.

Not merits but rather the xp and inf upon completion.

How exactly are (non-AE) arc completion rewards calculated?

After a bit of discussion, Arcanaville has a logical idea for Dimension Shift.