Bubbawheat

I agree, as it is, there is absolutely no incentive to post early. And unfortunately, I think even changing it to a random poster instead of just the last poster might not increase the participation to 50 posts, but it will get a whole lot more than just 9.

Am I the only one who thinks limiting the winner to someone that can post within a 1 minute window during the exact same time every week to be a bad idea? I would happily participate in this contest, but not on these terms. There's just absolutely no incentive.

There was one part that was spot on hilarious - the first "rrraaaah!" - everything else was kind of so-so.

Best Heroic

1. Mosaic of Shattered Dreams
2. Legacy of A Rogue

Best Comedy

2. Whack a Mole - I just wasn't personally fond of the type of comedy in those arcs, and I can be a little shameless once in a while, right?

I tend to play a variation of it during some part of my character's career. I don't tend to buy any IOs, but I will craft and slot any usable recipe drops. I tend to buy the salvage because it's near impossible otherwise, other than common IOs.

First Ward is a big zone, and it's not fully utilized in the current content. I absolutely think they are going to flesh it out some more and eventually have a Praetorian storyline all the way to level 50, even if it takes 4 more issues to do it.

If you analyze the poster another way, the other person with their back facing forwards is Loki who is the villain. So maybe Black Widow betrays the Avengers in this movie?




Yeah, it's just to show her butt.

I'm pretty sure FRAPs records audio from the computer's sound output, not specifically from the game itself. I know for sure that it picks up any audio from other sources, like if I'm listening to a song on my web browser in the background, it also records that audio. So I would imagine it will also pick up any mic input going through the computer.

Best Villainous - tough choice by the way, very good arcs and very different from each other.

1. Grunty McFisterson
2. Interdimensional Headache

Found one that was nominated for a Player's Choice award that I didn't catch the first time around. And since I'm not sure if there's a thread for it, I'll put my review for it here.

Interdimensional Headache #459592 by @Nebulhym

The Villain's Redemption: In this arc, you're investigating another dimension where the population has been nearly wiped out by a virus. You're there to clean up grabbing weapons and technology for the cash and/or for the weapon of it. But when it turns out that they're aiming the same weapon that wiped the place out at Earth, you change your tune and save the Earth and get shafted by your contact in the process. It felt like a bit of a logic jump at the end. Why are the aliens targetting Earth? Why will blowing the place up stop them for good, especially when dialog hints that it won't? Why not steal the virus before blowing it up? And at the very least, at this point when the contest is long since over, the morality of this arc should be "Rogue" rather than "Villainous".

The Arc as an Arc: The thing that stood out to me the most in this arc is the design/text formatting. It's very well designed and presented. I liked all of the flavor presented in this arc, from the alien's way of speaking, to the way bios are presented. It's all very neat and polished. The story was fun, if a bit silly at times when silly wasn't the aim. Manticore posing as Amanda Vines assistant? The contact being interviewed by Vines in the first place? But aside from that it was a fun story and an enjoyable arc.

#CoHMA Playing Interdimensional Headache #459592 by @Nebulhym nominated for best villainous/rogue arc in this year's Player's Choice awards.
#CoHMA Awesome formatting on the contact bio. Best I've ever seen.
#CoHMA My contact is Dr. Manfred Ludak, very suspicious interdimensional scientist that apparently has Recluse on a first name basis.
#CoHMA M1: He's discovered a new world with incredible psychic energy. My incentive is "incredible rewards". My job is to take some readings
#CoHMA M1: Found a Greeting Information Terminal and a hologram message that looks just like me. Weird and interesting at the same time.
#CoHMA M1: This arc is getting very high marks for design. enemy bios are readouts from the device given to me by the contact.
#CoHMA M1: clues given to me by the holograms reveal that the planet has suffered some sort of massive attack/catastrophe.
#CoHMA M1: Aliens are savage and complaining of headaches. Found a device transmitting massive psychic energy. Got an origin point for it.
#CoHMA M2: Contact seems to have a love/hate relationship with Dr. Aeon sidestory. But off to an alien urban area for psychic weaponry maybe
#CoHMA M2: In a factory building filled with armored or robotic aliens. Must find the manager? How will I be able to tell?
#CoHMA M2: Found some unarmed armored scientists chatting with each other. Curious.
#CoHMA M2: "Psychoravenous" Interesting name, also it seems to be a virus. I don't remember seeing that mentioned befor now though.
#CoHMA M2: The director informs me that "The Monarch is law". This does not bode well.
#CoHMA M3: So it's a customizable psychic virus. Time to get the way to make it. Too bad Amanda Vines stumbled here before me. Silly woman.
#CoHMA M3: Amanda's assistant is Manticore?! Oh well, Trick Arrows unite! (playing with my TA/Ice defender)
#CoHMA M3: Found a random bomb floating in midair and non-completable yet. Haven't found Amanda yet though.
#CoHMA M3: Found Amanda, found the last of the true alien race. Not feeling like much of a villain in this mission.
#CoHMA M3: The head scientist was using Amanda's cerebral data to use the virus against all of Earth. So I'm blowing up the joint.
#CoHMA M3: "Optional" "very hard" boss is directly in my path to escort Amanda to the entrance. I suppose I should have led her out before.
#CoHMA M3: Was a fun quick arc, I enjoyed it even though I wasn't as fond of the end. Seemed like a cop out.

Here we have an aerial shot of the hero runway marshall convention. Unfortunately the plane flying the camera to get this shot appears to be headed directly towards the ground as all the runway marshalls are at said convention.

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.

Nice to see this club still getting some action. Been busy with stuff myself, but will definitely be running a couple arcs soon. BTW, Fantastic Foe, do you want one of your arcs put on the front page for others to play? And welcome to the club.

there is... another...

Last night's episode of Grimm was interesting. I had hints of something greater going on. It had another group that seem friendly to the Grimms. And at first I was wondering "what the heck do bees have to do with fairy tales?" And then I looked it up and when I said that I would prefer that they take on lesser known Grimm's fairy tales rather than more well known non-Grimm fairy tales, it turns out they did. So there's that.

- not a story post, but a question. If I'm reading this right, this contest only rewards the final post, so what incentive is there to post a sentence any time besides waiting until 5 Pacific to try and get the last post in. And with everyone trying to get a post in at the last second, the story won't make any sense because the last-second posts will all be going off the last non-last-second post. I think it would make more sense to award it randomly to any person that contributed to the story (equal chances per person, not per post). That way everyone gets an equal shot, and there's more incentive to add to the story before the last-second.

It helps a little to mention that the Vahz minions give no XP and are not required to be defeated to move on to the next phase. Not a lot, but a little.

Dang, there was another one I had to remove already because it was broken. This makes 2 now. That stinks.

Also, if it's a cheap computer, you'll probably need a new power supply before you can get a new graphics card. Most graphics cards need at least 300W, most cheap power supplies are less than 200W.

congratulations, I don't think I've actually played this one yet. I guess there's no excuse not to now.

You know what the real sad thing is? This has over 20 replies and more views than the new Dev Choice thread posted shortly afterwards. This is what the AE community cares about. Complaining about farming. Who cares about a good story arc getting recognized if it's not "my" arc? It may not be the sweeping changes the AE needs, but at least it shows that the AE is still on the radar, no matter how faint the blip may be.

In my experience, there's only a very small handful of maps that actually have enemies waiting at the door. Aside from those, I can't see any reason why you would want to pop them before going in the door, instead of waiting until you load.

do lots of people actually take inspirations *before* going into a mission? I know I've never done that, heard of that, or even thought of doing that.

Best Lowbie Arc
1. The Blue Devils #468738 by @Flame Kitten (aka Coulomb2)
2. Cole in Your Stocking #474611 by @Venture

Added a couple points for clarity, and adjusted one rule in the main post. I am no longer accepting duplicate guesses. Every guess from here on must be unique. The extra rules are being added because of the dialog branching used in the current arc could be used in the finale to create multiple options as to who actually does the killing. I've also decided to clarify what it means to be the culprit. Is it the one who strung all the events together, or the one who actually does the killing. I've decided that both are valid answers, but if I had to choose between them to pick one winner, the one who actually does the killing would be considered the culprit.

The added points are:

*If the culprit is a part of a branching dialog, every option available in-game will be considered equally correct.

*The culprit may be considered to be the one who is manipulating the events to create the death or the one who does the actual killing blow. If both are guessed, the one who makes the killing blow is the more correct answer.