Bubbawheat

#CoHMA Running Agent of the OSS #525356 by @ PW aka PoliceWoman on the forums, from the Architect Arc Club input/output.
#CoHMA The arc is set in WW2 and I'm one of the "Mystery Men" who's been recruited to the Office of Strategic Services.
#CoHMA M1: I'm being paradropped into Stalag 19, one of the camps set up for superpowered individuals.
#CoHMA M1: 5th column on the zig map is used for <Wehrmacht> German soldiers. Guessing none of the wolf/vampire mobs, but solo mob sizes.
#CoHMA M1: There's no mention of entering the sewer grate. One of my pet peeves. I think inside/outside maps are more common, but #yaneverno
#CoHMA M1: Ok, there are some German Shepards, and not the cute little kind that follow you around. #WarWolves
#CoHMA M1: Actually, the <hounds> are in their own group, and patrolling the area like good doggies should.

#CoHMA M2: Some sympathizers gave Monica the location of a secret tunnel so we can sneak in and sabotage the time machine.
#CoHMA M2: The entrance to the tunnel is in a casino? We'll have to blend in. Wonder how this is going to work out in the AE.
#CoHMA M2: Ooh, in this mission I'm supposed to be changing into civvys and this is one character that actually HAS a civvy costume slot!
#CoHMA M2: Nice, I lead civvy Monica to a glowie row of lockers and she says "This is it", voila - secret passage.

#CoHMA M3: Was hoping for a short and sweet between-mission dialog and I got it. Straight from the entrance to the base.
#CoHMA M3: The time machine is already complete! But I did knock out Dr. Lizardo, its creator.
#CoHMA M3: A blast of radiation hit me when I destroyed the time machine. Oh no! Will it give me superpowers? Oh wait.
#CoHMA M3: Neat, arc ends with me being tossed to the present via the time machine, contact is original contact's son. And Monica's dead.

Will post a short summary tomorrow.

as far as "taking this long", I'd rather have it be worked on until completion instead of having a thread hanging for years on end while something else gets worked on. Although it wouldn't surprise me if they left Praetoria just short of being finished when they move onto Battalion.

I agree, I thought the scene with those above ground in the mine was pretty unbelievable. But on the other end, I really enjoyed the scenes with Jiminy, which was what the episode was about. And the thing in the mine shaft was Snow White's shattered glass coffin.

Just watched yesterday's episode of Once a little bit ago. I really liked the direction they took with Jiminy. I also had forgotten (or they never mentioned) that his dalmation was actually named Pongo. And even though they've always presented the show as if the conceit of the show was true, it was kind of nice to see some proof, even if no one else got a chance to see it as well.

From the Keyes Island beta test part

If I am a winner, I permit NC Interactive, Inc. and NCsoft Europe Limited to use my name, likeness, photograph, hometown, and any comments that I may make about myself or this contest that I provide for advertising and promotional activities. I also certify that I am at least 13 years of age and am eligible to participate in this contest.

The only ways I know of to implement a "choice" feature in the AE are:

1. Put a time limit on the arc. If the player allows the time to run out, they more or less "choose" to fail. But if you have multiple objectives, there's no way to know which ones they completed before they "failed".

2. Put a required escort. The escort can be flagged as hostile or to betray at a certain point. If they take the escort to the destination, they complete the mission. If they attack and kill the escort, they fail the mission. This can also happen with an ally escort, but the enemy mobs would have to kill them.

And of course, this really is only useful for the final mission, because the arc will continue regardless of the pass/fail choice.

Had a great time, and glad to have finally won! - Time Splicer

Praetoria will end when Tyrant is defeated, Praetorian Hamidon is defeated, a new system of government is put into place, and there's enough content to go from 1-50 within Praetoria.

Real-time notes as posted on twitter:

#CoHMA Playing Shadow of Grime Alley #144416 by @ Fantastic Foe as part of the Architect Arc club.ut.
#CoHMA M1: Gordon Stacy informs me of a new gang war moving into Kings Row. Seems small time for an arc that goes to 50.
#CoHMA M1: Found some custom <Skulls> but they're giving very reduced rewards. Like half of what the <Family> are giving.
#CoHMA M1: 1st pet peeve - large map. Very minor, but gets bigger if there's any chained objectives.
#CoHMA M1: Interesting, there are chained objectives, but the later ones are optional.
#CoHMA M1: Took a while to find the last boss on the big Steel Canyon map, but I got him. Also found a family hit w/ an unusually large gun.
#CoHMA M1: Seems this gang war is just the Family moving in on Kings Row by orders of the "Gat".

#CoHMA M2: Briefing felt kind of unclear. Like "There's no Family activity there, which is suspicious, so I'll send you over here."
#CoHMA M2: Apparently "Gat" was a Marcone that died 10 years ago. 4 years ago, some of his "protectors" were murdered. And now again.
#CoHMA M2: Seems odd to be murders on the 6th and 10th anniversary of his death, regardless if it's his ghost or something else.
#CoHMA M2: This also had another pet peeve of mine: A defeat all. But the map was small enough and no twists, so I didn't even notice it.

#CoHMA M3:Briefing referred to me as a "Vigilante" as in, not police. I thought registering as a hero got me some perks.
#CoHMA M3: had to double check the arc's morality. Labelled "Heroic" and not "Vigilante". This is Paragon's idea of Heroes, not Batman's
#CoHMA M3: Sounds like a possible non-combat mission where I learn the tale of Gat and his son.
#CoHMA M3: Police station, no enemies yet but I get the feeling it's not entirely non-combat. Found a body with BIG bullet holes.
#CoHMA M3: Found some reports that Gat's son died in a Zig breakout, but the facts don't quite add up. At least according to the clue.
#CoHMA M3: Weird, the mission completed as soon as I took the elevator upstairs. No idea how that happened.
#CoHMA M3: Two more of the family that were supposed to be protecting the Gat have died. Gordon was a no show because of an arson.

#CoHMA M4: He told me the story of Gat's son. You know Batman's origin story? It's that. Only he gets arrested and beat to death in prison.
#CoHMA M4: We agree that the son's not really dead and is looking for revenge from the last remaining chump his dad knew: Don Napoleano.
#CoHMA M4: Saved the Don, though he said his daughter has been taken. Find her down in the sewers. Apparently her name is "Daughter".
#CoHMA M4: Haven't mentioned this, but there's a lot of a custom, more modern looking Family style enemy group. Full or near full XP.
#CoHMA M4:They're called <Rogue Island Goons> and I guess they work for the new Gat. Nice, simple designs. I like them.
#CoHMA M4: The new Gat looks kind of like Daredevil, only with dual pistols. Another subtle Batman connection. His name's Wayne Thomason.
#CoHMA M4: The new Gat (just called "Gat" in mission) has an Arachnos entourage. Gordon thinks Recluse is using him to get a hold in Paragon

#CoHMA M5: And now Gordon's asked me to finish the job, and track down the Gat through the sewers and nab him for good.
#CoHMA M5: Another Batman reference, someone who I think is a Gat decoy is saying "I'm Gat-man, gat-MAN!"
#CoHMA M5: Same Gat-Time, same Gat-channel. Next boss also refers to the decoy as "that joker".
#CoHMA M5: Finally made it to the Gat, who looks remarkably like Bruce Wayne. Only with a shield and a trenchcoat.
#CoHMA M5: When looking at the arc description, I thought I saw 3 or 4 defeat alls in it. Haven't noticed any, but this has a large backroom
#CoHMA M5: Definitely a defeat all. It's the sub map so it's not horribly big, but it is Arachnos, so :P.
#CoHMA M5: ends with me clearing out the base, which Gordon refers to as "cool", not quite showing much profesionalism there.

Overall I thought this was an interesting arc. Unfortunately I thought it seemed a little to small-time for a level 50, I also noticed there were some inconsistent level ranges mixed in there. I did kind of like that it felt almost like an alternate world version of Batman, like a "what-if" world where his father was a mob boss and he became more villain than vigilante. There's a lot of subtle nods that I liked, but when they became blatant, in-your-face, and overly comical, I didn't care for them as much. The only other thing I want to mention is that the defeat all on the final mission felt unnecessary. The others were fine, in fact I didn't even really notice that they were defeat alls except I noticed in the arc description. Generally, I liked it, but it could still use some work. Good luck!

I really liked the look of First Ward, the characters, and the story behind it all. What I didn't like is how my character fit into that story. And I don't mean the specific character I took into First Ward, I mean the general "my character" (because I think I probably picked one of the best of my characters to take to FW in terms of story and difficulty).

I'd been hoping to see this thread pop up again sometime. I also have a daughter, she's 5 years old right now and just starting to become interested in City of Heroes (read: if she happens upon me while I'm playing, she forces her way onto my lap and takes control of my character. Usually to find the nearest body of water to swim in)

She doesn't have cute names for the enemies yet, she mostly just calls the villains "crappy" or "crappys" and tends to call Longbow "superheros". Earlier today I rolled up a new villain blaster that she immediately took control of. She saw a "sick RIP" that was doing the puke emote, ran up to him and said aloud "are you ok?" he replied by punching her. She screamed and made our character run off. Shortly afterwards she saw another group of two RIPs who were shaking down a random NPC. She said aloud "I'll save you" and started attacking them.

She currently knows how to move the character around, attack with the mouse, she recognizes the fly and walk buttons. Her favorite task yesterday was taking over my character that had been parked in Dark Astoria, flying her up to the top of the map, and clicking walk to make her fall to the ground, and then walk around for a while.

Ok, it's time to start Superhero leap frog. Remember, no spines scrappers. Thank you.

If I am a winner, I permit NC Interactive, Inc. and NCsoft Europe Limited to use my name, likeness, photograph, hometown, and any comments that I may make about myself or this contest that I provide for advertising and promotional activities. I also certify that I am at least 13 years of age and am eligible to participate in this contest.

Back after a short break to bring you On Your M-Arc #14 Fear Incarnate by @Solas aka SuperOz. This was a pleasant surprise to play and ended up being a pretty quick review as I didn't have too much to suggest to improve it, Enjoy!

Got a few more guesses in, and added a couple extra mil to round up to the current prize pool total of 2,500,000,000 inf! That's a lot of inf, and it could all go to one lucky person if the guess is right.

And it sounds like Grimm also got picked up for a full season and is being moved to Thursdays. Liked the last episode showing the Police commissioner reaper being a bad***, and the bobad starting to enjoy helping the main character. Love seeing him annoyed, but having him grudgingly help every single time would get old pretty quick.

Haven't caught up with the latest Once yet, hoping to later tonight.

As long as my video isn't DQ'd for being a minute late (and being a previous creation, I didn't see anything in the rules that it had to be something newly created), just wanted to mention that I got permission to use the music from the creator - OminousVoice, also a City of Heroes player.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEnfZVG9lrE

If I am a winner, I permit NC Interactive, Inc. and NCsoft Europe Limited to use my name, likeness, photograph, hometown, and any comments that I may make about myself or this contest that I provide for advertising and promotional activities. I also certify that I am at least 13 years of age and am eligible to participate in this contest.

I just learned via information coming from the Pummit that episode 4 will reveal who the true mastermind of this scheme is. So, I will be cutting off all further guesses once that episode goes live. The aim is still to guess who actually does the killing blow, but if no one gets that correct, then if the mastermind is guessed then that will be considered correct as well. So get your guesses in now, there's only a few weeks left before episode 4 comes out!

Exclusive random items - NO. Otherwise - don't care one way or the other.

from @PollyMatronic via twitter

If you don't like it, don't buy it. Simple as that. Some people will enjoy the randomness of it, but if few people take part, they won't devote more resources to it.