anachrodragon

This change is making me want to roll a new scrapper or brute... Oh god, more alts... someone stop me...

Actually maybe I'll just level my Shield/Fire tank for the time being. I'm sure he'll be able to handle big spawns.

Edit: I'm not a farmer. I just like my bad[censored] melee characters.

I had the same issue with one of my arcs. The first mission is basically "Go find the Family down at the docks and teach them a lesson." I had really wanted to use the outdoor cargo ship deck map with the docks (appears in a Scrapyarder arc) but it wasn't available.

At first I used the Mercy Island dock map, but it is tiny. I eventually wanted to expand it to include more objectives, so I compromised and basically rewrote things so I could use the inside of a cargo ship. Not ideal, but that's what I wound up with.

The Lou's Garage map seems to have a glowie spawn point outside of a wall. This may be post I15 as no one had reported problems with my arc that uses that map until recently.

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Blight (140423). The best arc in the entire MA system right now. It's pretty much a crime that it only has 68 votes as of this writing.

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I actually agree with this. I think Blight has left the most lasting impression of any arc I've played thus far.

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As of this time-stamp, I can't find this mission on AE. Has it been taken down? That's fast turnaround, if it's been removed.

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Arc ID 140423
by @Witch Engine

His other arc, Love is in the Error is fantastic as well, in a very different way.

I just searched for Blight and found it. So I don't know...

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Blight (140423). The best arc in the entire MA system right now. It's pretty much a crime that it only has 68 votes as of this writing.

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I actually agree with this. I think Blight has left the most lasting impression of any arc I've played thus far.

I actually know of someone who made a farm arc when MA launched, and got a lot of plays on it. Then when the first round of farming smackdown started, he decided to completely redo it into a story focused arc. It still has a bunch of ratings from when it was a farm.

I can't really fault him though. I'm glad he took the time to make it a real arc.

Arc ID 61866 - A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings

I soloed this on a level 14 Shield/Fire tank and had no problems. Mobs were standard lowbie fare, but the varried mobs kept things interesting, and worked in the context of the story. I'm glad you used all smallish maps. I often look at map size as a compromise in five mission arcs, sort of like a show of appreciation for the player investing time in the longer stories. The story in this arc had a lot of momentum built up from clues, and even a few minor twists along the way. I thought it was really well done.

Here are the notes I made while I was playing it:

Mission 1

The contact hasn't mentioned Chris yet, but accept text is "Find Chris and defeat his captors".

Nav bar redundant - Defeat Chris' captors, Defeat captor

Really good mission. Nice use of clues. However, I do think the optional cop ally could possibly use a clue.

Mission 2

I liked this line: Stiches' description of 'wears black' and 'uses knives' covers roughly half of the Paragon villain population.

Again accept text mentions Shane and Firehawk before you know who they are.

Again, nav bar somewhat repetative - Rescue Shane and Firehawk Find clues, Rescue Firehawk

Good short mission, nice end clue

Mission 3

I was surprised to see the Hellions. It looks like they're here for the girl too, and I caught them in the act this time.

Nice NPC dialog. I liked the hero and the clockwork boss.

Again, nice quick map

Mission 4

The CoT weren't mentioned until the mission accepted dialog, which seemed a bit odd, but was likely due to space concerns. I'd still see if you can work a short sentence about the CoT kidnapping into the mission intro dialog.

I thought 'Grow Your Own Psionite Lab' was pretty funny
Technon's dialog was funny too
Clue is good too. I liked the little plot twist with the Circle

Mission 5

Wow, you fit a lot of objectives into this map. The nav does look a bit cluttered so you might consider replacing the kids names with "4 Kids to Rescue"

Great climactic ending that ties everything together. I also thought your dialog worked really well.

Question: do you not have a souvenir or is there an issue with my souvenir file? I realized I've collected a ton of souvenirs now on this character, and I know that sometimes causes problems. I've cleaned them up somewhat now.

Overall, the story was solid, with good forward momentum and great use of clues. The variety of mobs kept it interesting, and the maps were short an quick. I thought the story was very accessible, and the gameplay supported it well. Great low level arc, recommended!

Rating: 5 Stars

I made some big changes to Tailor Made, if any of you would like to give this short humor arc a try. This was due to feedback from folks here on the forums.

Tailor Made
Arc ID: 258291
Levels: 20-29
Length: 2 missions, 10-30+ minutes (depending on optional objectives)
Description: The Facemaker has serious problems due to the terrible economy, threats from The Family, and alarming new competition. (quick arc for lowbies or 20s villains who like to smash things)

Note: Was trying to replicate a mayhem mission-esque feel, with a bit of humor. Works well solo or teamed.

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I have a couple of lowbie arcs. They're both pretty long-ish, about 2 hours each, so I'll certainly understand if you don't have the time to play either one of them. But I thought I'd toss them into the ring anyway, so to speak.

The Horsemen Chronicles (Part 1), #195149
The Wolfpack Chronicles (Part 1), #242869

They're kinda "mirror" stories of each other. Horsemen is heroic, Wolfpack is villainous.

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Your arcs look interesting, but at two hours each I'm going to have to say probably not. We're pretty casual players and if I have two consecutive hours to play this game, then I'll probably be doing a TF with my SG.

I think for the purpose of this review thread we're going to have to stick with arcs that are around one hour or less.

Nah it's cool. I understand the need to explain stuff. But in general I'd say that effort that's going in to explaining stuff here should rather be put into clarifying things in the arc itself.

I mean if you absolutely require Penelope Yin's presence in your arc, just add some descriptive text and clues so people accept and welcome her.

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Title: Future Skulls
ID: 4727
Levels: 1-15
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Canon Related, Save The World
Description: The Skulls are just a street gang now. But they have big plans for the future. Mirror Spirit asks for your help to stop one of them. [SFMA/LBMA]


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Soloed on level 14 Shield/Fire Tank. First of all, I noticed that the writing seems very polished which made things easier to follow. It was pretty easy on my tank, and the missions had a nice variety.

Here are the notes I made as I was running through it.


Mission 1

Nice clear intro, pretty dramatic, now I'm curious to know how the skulls will end the world.

Pop up - I'm impressed that I can smell darkness

Nav bar a bit redundant - Find the information, Find the Information Mirror Spirit sent you after.

A group of Skulls spawned at level 12, which was odd, but probably a bug that you can't do anything about.

I liked Bonesnap's dialog, though I think his mention of a ritual and sacrifice might be important enough to warrant a clue to summarize it.

Mission 2

Intro text is well written and clear.

Nav bar seems redundant again - Search the Coralax cavern for the information. Search for information

It's a nice change to get to fight Coralax. They're pretty under represented in the offical content.

The clue is a bit confusing. Failure wasn't really on my mind, and I'm not seeing the significance of the item - You took this small piece of the shattered urn, to remind you that failure is always possible.

Ok the end pop up explains that I feel empty handed, but I'm still not sure why I grabbed that piece of the urn.

I don't know about the end text. I'm not sure what a Guardian spell is, but it's capitalized so it must be important. Also, it's concerning that I didn't find anything but she believes others will be able to! That makes my character seem less important and also calls into question why I did this mission in the first place. I'd also like something to relate it more to the first mission.

Mission 3

Ok at least she's explained that everyone failed to find information.

Oh Jesus I was afraid this was going to be the ruined Atlas Park map. I'm glad that it's not! Still this seems like an awfully large map for a single objective.

Interesting custom mobs. I like the descriptions.

Nav text, is the Bride a "him?" Also the name of the boss isn't mentioned previously, so I would either mention the Bride in a clue, or make the objective sound more generic - Find the boss and beat the answers out of him. Find the Bride

Bride of Death had interesting dialog and is apparently a victim herself. Nice clue.

Mission 4

Nice detailed intro text, though I am wondering what the Skulls are doing in Salamanca. That seems like an odd setting for Skulls and we haven't heard hints of a connection before. I hope this and the connection to Coralax gets answered. Also noticed typo: "You have only *and* hour"

Wasn't Bonesnap the guy I defeated before? How did he come back?

The objectives were clearly marked with animations, which was nice. One of the victims was Penelope Yin. How did she get involved? It seems weird to just toss her in here.

Nice summary for the souvenir, but I'm still not getting the importance of the urn fragment. I'm assuming that will come up again in the follow-up arcs.

Overall, this story flowed well except for Mission 2 which seemed very out of place and not well connected to the main story. I'm sure it has significance further into your trilogy, but right here, in this arc it feels like "stuff that happened" smack dab in the middle of an interesting story. It kind of steals away from your momentum. There are some other minor details and a few things that seem out of place. Penelope Yin's involvement should really be developed along the way, or not there at all. I thought it was a good lowbie arc though, and look forward to playing the next installment (maybe later this weekend).

Rating: 4 Stars

BE Prologue: Gangs United, arc# 250480

I ran this on my 14 Shield/Fire Tank and Londer was on his 13 Eng/Eng blaster. The missions were suitable for lowbies, and the missions had a variety of enemy types, which made for some interesting fights. We did have a hard time following the story though, and I think the lack of clues in particular is really hampering this arc right now.

Here are the notes I made as we played through it:

Mission 1

No entry pop up

Boss says "I'm sorry but our President is in another castle!" - This cliched video game humour really doesn't seem to fit here.

No clues - Could have at least used an end mission clue


Mission 2

This one has an entry pop up - inconsistent with first mission, which doesn't have one

The Frost Giant objective was based on defeat boss and his group, which caused some confusion when we killed a giant but the objective didn't complete. His "group" was located a ways down the tunnel.

Arachnoid map looks cool but might be a bit large considering the number of objectives. It seems like we did a lot of needless walking around. Suggest using smaller sized cave map.


Mission 3

No entry pop up

At this point I'm having a hard time understanding how this relates to the first two missions. Clues and more descriptive background would certainly help.

I'm confused as to why Vahzilok are here, this is the second time they've shown up and it hasn't been explained

Clockwork? Goldbrickers? I'd like to know the reasoning behind them being involved. United Gangs, I'm not familiar with this name yet.

Why do the Evil Corp guys look like 5th Column? I'd like some explanation, or at least acknowledgement of this as well.

Variety and playability in this map is good though


Mission 4

How does the contact have all this information? I feel like the player should have been discovering this along the way. If the police are giving him information now, does he have a better relationship with them than with the other heroic organizations who distrust him as someone who reads the Paragon Inquirer?

Confused as to why finding a clue about Big Evil's motivation is optional? I thought that would be of primary importance

No entry pop up

Mobs don't belong to United Gangs this time. I saw "Hellions" and "Vahzilok"

Destructable objects have standard description, or in one case no description. I'm still confused as to what Evil was using them for.

Glowie has no text on interract or in chat

You've got two clues in this mission, but being at the end of the arc these should really be wrapping things up, not introducing new problems.


Overall, I have no doubt that there's a good story waiting to be revealed here. Your writing is excellent, and especially the setup at the beginning of the arc is good. There just seems to be a disconnect in conveying the plot to the player. The variety of mobs makes for some fun fights, even if they're confusing from a storyline perspective. I really would like to give this one a higher rating, but the lack of clues makes it feel more like "stuff that happens" than a cohesive plot. Add clues to explain these groups involvement, give the player plot points to discover, make your pop-ups consistent, add a souvenir, and I'll re-rate it.

Rating: 3 Stars

In The Shadow of the Towers, arc 1402

I played this on my 13 Archery/MM blaster and Londer was on his Eng/Eng blaster. It was well balanced for our lowbie team. This was a pretty straightforward arc involving Skulls and some greater threats. I liked the mob dialog in missions and thought the clues were pretty good, though there were some confusing points that could stand to be clarified. Nice amount of detail generally.

Some feedback as I went through it:

Mission 1

Run on sentence - I'm having trouble calling in the department's heavier guns right now, as they're stretched thin enough across more dangerous parts of the city, but I need a raid on that hideout before the gang can use what they've got.

High explosives crate contains ammonium nitrate, C4, *and* TNT. Londer's chemistry geek background chafed at this a bit. How is this crate able to contain all this stuff safely, and how did you blowing it up not level the building?


Mission 2

Awkward sentence - We might miss some of the other locations for now, but without those explosives it should put a cramp on an important part of whatever scheme the Skulls are trying to put together.

Nav bar has a lot of "find" in it. Might reword some of it - Find Skulls' plan, Find Skulls' target, Find leader, 1 crate to find

I'm a bit confused about the skulls motivation. They're intent on getting into this building, and yet have no idea what they'll find. Seems like a lot of effort and resources for a street gang to spend on this.

Mission 3

Run on sentence - I'm concerned, however, about what we found out about Lee Towers itself, because there's no way you could make a building like that without someone important, like the city zoning board or building safety commission, from finding out right away, unless you found a way to fool them or keep them quiet.

Mission 4

I almost expected a transition to sewers map here as there was a lot of talk about the Skulls in the sewers. But small map is good. I can dig this.

confused about the command codes, and clue is vague - The Skulls were given a message for you: Someone wants those command codes you don't ever remember having in the first place.


Mission 5

Pop up mentioned "absurd situation between you and Arachnos". I don't recall anything absurd involving me and Arachnos, so a bit confused.

Noticed a small dialog error in the mission (Hey $name over here). The variable showed up in the text, think it should be $Name.

I'm not sure the name Operative Dirk was mentioned prior to seeing it in the objective. Since we dont know his name, might want to change it to something like "Defeat the Arachnos Boss".

Boss defeat clue or mission end clue would have been helpful. I'm still confused about the command codes, and would have liked this to be wrapped up a bit or at least explained.

Overall, it was a nice arc for a lowbie and the missions seemed like they were the right length. I'm glad you varied them up a bit. I do feel like I still don't understand the motivation behind the Skulls actions or Arachnos's mysterious building. I think there are a couple things that could be wrapped up and clarified in this arc, even if you want to leave other things open for a continuation.

Rating: 4 Stars

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I played
Poi, Demonology, and Everything I Learned From Hellions
Arc ID: 164235

Mission 1: Maybe I'm just reading too much into it. But the "If it's for Ms. Liberty" thing in the accept text made me feel like I was accepting it because I think she's so pretty. Which could be weird if I were using a female. But then maybe you ment it as a doing it for a hero who you respect kinda thing, which might not work too well with the whole "She's too young to be a leader" thing she has going. Not saying it needs to be changed, just something to think about.

I just wanna say. I hate outdoor maps... a lot. But I'll forgive it since there isn't much any other way to imitate a street hunt mission in the MA. But I gotta say, it looks a little weird seeing an alter sitting on the street corner, maybe you might wanna think about binding that clue to a different objective?

Mission 2: Feels a little odd with Ms. Liberty being so worried about Hellions. Even weirder that she felt Statesman needed to be called in. Even if they're going to blow up a building, I find it hard to see her wanting to drag the Phalanx into a battle with the Hellions. Maybe having her want you to contact Longbow would make a little more sense. After all, they're her own private army.

Nice to see a map that I almost forgot existed. But Ms. Liberty getting beat by Hellions feels even more unbelievable then some of the previous dialogue and it's really the only thing that feels out of place in this mission. Maybe give the Hellions a custom enemy as a "Mercenary" that's their to take care of heroes for them? Or maybe something like a 5th Column Krieger, they go from 1-54 and it even says in their description that they work as mercenaries. Just need something, to explain away that problem because it just feels out of place for a high ranking signature character to have trouble with Hellions.

Overall Rating: 4 Stars. Would be 5 if some things didn't just feel so out of place. But it's definately nice to have something different to do at the pre 10 levels.

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Thanks for playing one of our arcs! I do sympathize with your feelings on outdoor missions, but sometimes there's just no getting around them.

I can't speak for Londer, but I believe there is intentional absurdity in this arc, designed to poke some fun at the sense that low level heroes may be treated a bit like kindergartners in the normal game content. Level disparity in and of itself is kind of a weird thing for the superhero genre, although it makes sense from a MMO mechanics standpoint, of course.

I also went ahead and bumped your arc up in the queue. I'll try to play it this weekend.

You know, Claws/SR sounds tempting. I've never really played SR in any capacity, so this might be the time to try it. These are my other brutes and I don't like repeating sets if I can help it: EM/Elec, DB/DA, DM/FA.

All of my characters who use Psy blast powers or EM. The pink blasts and pink pom poms have to go. Also my Rad/Dark defender might want a darker shade for his Radiation powers.

My spines stalker will get immediate attention as well. I sort of created his original costume based on the look of the spines, so he'll have a lot more freedom now.

Oh and I wonder if there's a way to make Dark Armor look better... Maybe dark blue?

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So I should get less XP on my already-terrible-for-XP arc because I think it's a lot of fun to try it with different characters?

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Sure, since all your characters share missions and XP.
What? Since when does a mission that one of your characters does ever affect your others?

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Your idea and your reading comprehension leave a bit to be desired.

To spell it out as plainly as possible:

I use a single character to do all of my initial testing whenever I create or tweak an arc.

That character plays all of my arcs many times to test all the changes.

Since doing this in Test mode is completly retarded as you get no rewards for it, I do it in Live mode.

I made arcs that I enjoy.

Since I enjoy them, sometimes I just play them because I feel like it.

Speeding Through Time gives terrible XP, but is a lot of fun.

Playing Speeding Through Time with diminishing rewards would give even worse XP.

Does that make it clearer? Your reasoning is that the only people playing the same arc more than once on the same character are farmers (as if I care what they're doing anyway), and I'm proving to you that you're wrong. You'd be punishing people who test their own arcs, enjoy their own arcs, play through their own arcs with friends, play through their friends' arcs more than once, reviewers asked to repeat an arc to see if changes helped, etc, etc, etc.

tldr: It's a bad idea.

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qft.

I cant count the number of times I've ran my fusionette arc with a new alt just because of how much more fun and easy it is than soloing atlas park or mercy if I dont feel like farming my levels.

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Yep. I can't even count the number of times I've run my own arcs. I only use test mode when the arc is really rough. When I feel it's good enough to show other people without being a complete embarrassment, then I publish it and continue improving it from there.

I made a major revision to the first mission of one of my arcs last night--this was based on feedback I received here on the forums. I ran that part of my arc about three or four times to tweak it. Yet somehow, the guy a few posts back thinks that activity is bad for the game and should be punished with diminishing XP.

Here is the updated queue:

These are first up: (Thanks for playing my arc and giving feedback!)

TheDeepBlue's arcs 1402, 61866, 2260
Justice_Blues' Low level trilogy (I think he's revising it?)
BE Prologue: Gangs United, arc# 250480

Hopefully before we go on vacation, if not when we get back:

City of Ho Ho Ho, or A Claus in Paragon, arc ID: 18775
Captain Dynamic, the Great, Faces the Great Face, arc ID: 190069
All Consuming, arc ID: #261148

Probably after our fabulous SD Comic Con vacation:

Teen Phalanx Forever!, arc ID: 67335
Lockdown, arc# 250142
Big Trouble Kings Row Style! Arc ID: 259924
The Superadine Revolution: 262739
ZAGMUK Act One: The Herald #266123

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As I said in my comment, here is my feedback on The Next War on Drugs.

Mission 1: I blew up the van full of explosives? Shouldnt' I keep the Trolls from setting it off? You are right, that joke was a crime. And again, beating on explosives, blowing them up to keep the Trolls from blowing them up?

Mission 3: Instead of a massive construction effort in IP, you could say the massive construction effort in North Steel City. Or if you don't want to reference that, Skyway might work better. There are all kinds of construction works there, but I don't really remember seening any in IP. I understand, Family = IP, but maybe they are trying to branch out to other city areas?

Nice use of chaining objectives. But why is the mission set for level 15?

Mission 5: Ran into a problem finding the 3rd clue. It spawned inside one of the trucks in the loading dock. Unfortunately, while that truck is open in some maps, in Lou's Garage it is closed. I could hear the glowie, but couldn't see it. Fortunately there was a small crack at the bottom of the truck door where I could just barely click the glowie. I would guess this map will disappear for that kind of thing to be fixed.

Pretty good story, with some nice use of MA techniques to move the story. One of my pet peeves is jumping around in levels. Why the level jump to 15 in mission 3 and 20-22 in mission 5? The jumps were small, and I didn't count off for them, but they didn't seem necessary.

I did think of a twist to your story that you may like, or not. If you have the contruction projec in Skyway, the Trolls blowing stuff up serves a double purpose. They distract the PPD and they aer destroying buildings, which will need to be re-built. Or they are taking out construcktion sites of non-Family companies, which will hurt those companies and give the Family a leg up. Just a thought.

All in all, a fun story, with some different stuff going on.
Rating: ****

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Thanks for the feedback. The level range stuff is partially due to my laziness. Mission 3 is set to level 15 because that's the level were we still see a lot of plain clothes cops and detectives. It made more sense than a bunch of SWAT officers, which comprise the 20ish PPD. I should really go back and take the ones I want and add them to a custom group and force the level to 20. I've just been lazy.

Actually I'm thinking I might just make everything a flat level 20. It seems to be the level at which the groups I've picked overlap. I really would have made it a lower level arc, but I wanted the Independence Port type Family for the end, not the "Marcone" family of the Rogue Isles.

That really sucks about the Lou's Garage map. I hope they don't wind up removing the map though. Argh...

On your story twist idea, I orginally just went with IP because if I'd gone with other lower level zones (even ones that had construction), I'm sure I would have gotten a lot of comments like "but there are no Family in X zone". I figured IP was safe due to the Family presence. I like your ideas though, so I might use some of them if I wind up doing a sequel. This was originally envisioned as a two part story. As you've no doubt noticed, it sort of begs for continuation, but I want to get this first part nailed down so I'm happy with it before I even consider a sequel.

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So I should get less XP on my already-terrible-for-XP arc because I think it's a lot of fun to try it with different characters?

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Sure, since all your characters share missions and XP.
What? Since when does a mission that one of your characters does ever affect your others?

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I think you are missing the point that it's the creator of an arc that's most likely to re-run their arc.

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I'm still for each AE arc only giving full XP the first time you finish it.

Its what it's meant for. Play lots of different interesting custom missions.
Not replay the same very rewarding one over and over.

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Great idea. Let's punish arc creators and discourage continued improvement and play testing.

Honestly, it's not really farming that's a problem. It's the idiots who annoy other people by spamming for farm teams or begging for PLs. I've often said that I don't care if people farm and/or PL, if they would just shut up about it.

This seems like a good plan. You don't need to support noobs or jackassery in order to farm. You can simply do your thing on your own.

As an aside, I'm not a farmer, but some of my characters would be interesting to see with higher difficulty settings. This seems to support those of us who just want to push our characters a bit.

Now what kind of claws brute to play? I almost wish I wasn't already leveling a DM/FA, because I think Claws/FA would be pretty cool. I guess there's always Claws/WP... but I don't know, I just find WP kind of boring.

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Title: Tailor Made
Arc ID: 258291
Creator’s Global Name: @anachrodragon
Mission Count: 2
Notes – Designed for villains in the 20s or high teens (will AutoSK to 20). Intended to work both solo and teamed. There are only a couple objectives in the large second mission, but lots of optional stuff to smash, so it can be either quick or long depending on your own pace.


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Lowdown – The contact for this fun little arc is The Facemaker. She is very well written and has perfect feeling dialog for the character. The first mission is basically a set up for the second and is very short. It could stand a little sprucing up. The second mission, which takes place at an outlet mall is well worth the price of admission. Be sure to read the info on all of the destructible objects or you will miss out.

Funny Level – Humorous

Fun Level - Fashion week in Paris!

Let’s up it to 11! – It took quite awhile to find the one object I needed to destroy. Maybe give the guys guarding it some special animation. How about using some of the other characters from the Facemaker's shop (maybe in the first mish)?

Overall Rating – Excellent fun little arc for lower level characters.


WN

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I'm glad you had fun with it

Due to yesterday's patch I actually had to go in and fix all the destructible objects. Which was time consuming, and I hope none of them were broken on your play through.

As for the first mission, I would honestly love to use the outdoor cargo ship map (you know the one used in the Scrapyarder arcs). It doesn't seem to be available though. As it is, the map I used only allows for really minimal objectives. I would do more with it if I could... or I wouldn't be opposed to using a different map if there was a suitable one.

I will definitely give the guys guarding the last objective a better animation. I just need to figure one out that works for the Family.

If I can figure out a better map for the first mission, I'll definitely add some of the characters from the Facemaker shop. That's a great idea!

Edit: Ok I went ahead and changed the first mission to a smallish cargo ship and added two of the Facemaker's "fabulous assistants". They are Exquisite Eliza and Adorable Alex.

There is a very simple reason why AE needs XP, and will continue to have it in some capacity:

The devs are relying on AE to provide new content. They're not going to discourage people from playing that content. They're also relying on AE as a selling point for the game, so it needs to continue to have some popularity.

No, the devs aren't giving up on making their own content, but there's no way they can keep up with the pace at which the players consume it. I'm sure you all remember the cries of "more content" that have plagued this game from the start. With XP, AE provides alternative content. Without XP it becomes akin to exploring things on a whim... Like the times I've been bored enough to pick up exploration badges on my alts, etc...