CyberSunset

The change away from the "Fighting the robot" loading screen took me by surprise, but apart from that I didn't actively dislike it.

Granted, I still actively miss the City of Villains loading screen. But I've come to peace with missing that (and my ability to time its appearance with the last dramatic note of the villain-side "mission complete" music, causing Recluse and friends to seemingly leap out of the monitor on a musical cue.)

But no, I think that the current loading screen is good. Kinda makes me wish there was a way to randomly cycle through all the loading screens we've had, though.

Weird. For some reason I got the botched ritual the first time I tried it, but it was gone by the time I left the mission. (And this was a few days back.) I was actually surprised that the botched ritual hadn't lasted longer.

I just got the Shard Cannon in the Super Packs. While it looks awesome, I'm a bit upset that only my Beam Rifle characters could benefit from it.

Any chance that we could expand it out to being used by Robotics Masterminds in particular? (Pluse assault rifles, certain Arachnos soldier weapons, etc.)

Well, I've not gotten through absolutely everything (ie., I've delivered valentines but not gotten badges for doing so), but apart from having to redo the Ganymede missions again (which was fine since that hero didn't have those badges yet), I've enjoyed it a lot.

...however, it struck me as odd in the Hero-side version of the Red Widow story arc that your character basically wound up committing Grand Theft.

I mean, did you ever get any indication that Crey stole the thing, this justifying you forcing your way in to take it? Because it sure felt like a case of "There's a thing you need. Oh, it's owned by this person. Ignore the fact that it's something in her personal art collection (or whatever), she's evil so you can just take it."

Now, the particular hero I was playing would've been just fine with that reasoning. ;-) But some of my more gold and silver-age style heroes might take issue with it.

I thought the little romp through Astoria was fun. Thanks for hosting!

If you do something like this again, I'd suggest having the whispers go out through tells to individuals so that not everyone gets them. Might take more work, but it could add to the creepy/suspense feel that was happening (especially after people started vanishing.)

I almost picked D...but I really like the Adam Strange-style fin on B, so that gets my vote. :-)

Looks good. Thanks.

Okay, so I've never bought a 3-Month plan before. However, this time around the combination of the loyalty reward thing and the availability of a large amount of cash at once made me decide to just take the plunge and do it. I save money in the long run this way, anyway.

So I went onto NC Soft and bought additional game time, but then it said that I was "Upgraded to VIP Status" and that I was active until December 22nd. It also said I was in the three month plan. This confused me, because I had thought that I was already a VIP player.

So, I'm assuming that I did everything properly to stay connected tomorrow when my previously paid time was scheduled to run out, but...I didn't mess something up here, did I? Should I cancel my subscription and try again?

I tried moving the text file to a different directory instead of deleting it. Now, however, rather than bringing back Cyber Sunset it just moved all the characters up a space and filled in his gap. :-(

However, Cyber Sunset's name does appear in the file with the number 0 near it. Perhaps if I replaced that and changed it to 1, or something?

Okay, about two weeks ago my main character, Cyber Sunset on the Virtue server, vanished. I don't know if it's related, but I noticed the absence a day or two after participating in a Praetorian Surge on Triumph. (Since it's an entirely different server, I wouldn't expect them to be related, though.) I sent a query about it then, and got a form response saying it had been received, and then no further reply.

A week later, I sent a second bug report, and got the same response.

Should I...keep sending bug reports? Should I wait and hope that they'll get back to me eventually instead of just forgetting about my issue? Should I...give up hope that I'll ever see my level 50 broadsword/regen scrapper again?

For a while now, a part of me has been hoping that we'd get to see some Praetorian Gladiator Badges showing up. I'd like to see the comparable toughness between an IDF soldier and a Cobra. And would a Seer summon some PPDs if the going gets rough in the gladiator matches? And a Titan brawling against some Warworks, while not unseen in-game, would be fun.

And yes, I know, gladiators seem to be shunned by devs and players alike. I always really liked the gladiator set up, though. (I even went out of my way to get the Raider Engineer badge. Not quite as big a defensive boost as I'd been hoping for, but it was still fun to use as an extra option.) Some shiny new praetorian badges could spice things up for those of us who still like the feel of those.

(Also, is it just me, or are the gladiator matches a bit trickier to find now than they used to be in the arena menu?)

Hey, complete n00b here. Well...n00b as far as PvP goes. I've been soloing and doing minor teamwork with an EB/Therm Corruptor for quite a while now, and while looking around for other things to do a friend suggested I use one of my alternate builds to give PvP a try. I decided to do a bit of research first, though, and I can't see if much has really been said as to the effectiveness of EB (although Thermal Radiation seems to have a decent amount of fans.) Is it a sub-par primary for PvP?

I think my question is...as I'm prepared to die a few dozen times when I get started anyway, would it be worth my time to make a secondary PvP spec, or should I just charge in blindly with what I've got and assume that I'll see largely the same results?

I keep wondering if I'll wind up looking in the wrong places for it. I'd assume this general forum, but...yeah.

I'm glad to hear that so many people on the forums don't need these codes and/or don't want to participate. That will ever so slightly increase my chances of finally, finally getting one of those booster sets that I don't have yet (assuming, of course, that the booster is what gets offered.)

Hey, I just played the story and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I awarded it four stars, but it could easily be a five star.

There were a few typos scattered here and there (sadly, I didn't take notes while playing. :-( I think I recall one typo in the very last thing the contact says to you, but can't remember what it was.) Nothing odd enough that it detracted from any enjoyment of the game, and probably only language nerds like me would notice, but I figured it might be worth mentioning.

I want to say that I enjoyed the "simulation" aspect of it. The Mission Architect is a part of the game's world, so it's nice to see this scenario treated as something actually happening as opposed to just some game that my character decided to play on a whim.

I'm not sure what could be done about this last one, but for some reason the first mission felt a great deal harder than the ones after. This might possibly be due to the fact that it was incredibly late when I ran the first mission and I was well rested when I completed the story, so perhaps this difference is all on my shoulders. ;-) It might have also been a somewhat more sudden introduction to the custom characters (I'm always surprised by endurance sappers) and having to adjust my normal playstyle. Not sure.

Regardless, it was a very fun and enjoyable story. Thanks. :-)

Maybe the difference in duplicated info vs. non-duplicated has to do with custom and regular critters?

And you're right, I suppose if you're totally out of file space, contact info would have to be one of the things to go.

Hmm...well, the only real jump in my story would be from mission 3 to 4 when you'd go from 15 to 34 (or 29 from the lower direction). I'll have to do some real tweaking of a lot of plot elements to get the story to work correctly lower than that (I've tried two changes, and one made it so hard that I couldn't beat it and the other made it so easy it wasn't worth my time.)

I'll keep tweaking it to see if there's any way I can make that last issue work at level 15. I'm not convinced it'll work, but I might be able to find something. Maybe I can swap the Council for the Clockwork.

Hey, I just played your latest arc. I enjoyed myself thoroughly. :-) The story made sense from the standpoint of the contact's motivation (and when the player's motivation is "pay me" it works doubly well for a villainous story.) Apart from some of the ways that the story progressed and the tie-in to your other arcs (which I haven't played yet) you could almost make this a heroic or neutral mission too if it's done In The Name Of Science or something (not that you should, but it's worth noting the option.)

Oh, spoilers below for anyone who's not played it yet.

I wasn't expecting the third mission to be timed. Maybe I missed a line saying that I'd only have a limited amount of time there when I read the mission description. Either way, though, even though I should have been getting ready for work it wasn't an unreasonable second mission to do.

On a similar note, I almost expected the last mission to be timed. The contact stated that something implying that there was roughly an hour's gap between when she left the dimension and when I first checked out that dimension's timeline. I was sort of looking forward to filling in that gap of an hour, so it was almost a letdown to find that I wasn't racing against the clock (not enough of a letdown that I think a change would be necessary, mind you.)

Regarding that last mission, there were a lot of goals. Fun goals to be sure, but lots of them. I started feeling a tad "Battle Weary" as I went through them. The only part that really bugged me, though, was the final "defeat Raid Leader to escape" mission goal. I expected him to spawn between me and the exit, thus blocking my way, but instead I had to track him down (passing the mission's exit with the hostage I was rescuing once or twice) until I finally tracked him down on the top floor so that I could defeat him and escape (until that point, all of the Agency's spawns had done a good job of tracking me down. Granted, ambushes work differently than bosses.) Incidentally, I finished everything in under an hour, so even with the confusion about the final boss an hour timer wouldn't be out of the question. :-)

My only other suggestion would be a reqest that you add some information to the "Ask about this contact" field. That was the only place I looked for information expecting to find it only to find the Architect's default responses built in.

Ultimately, I really had a lot of fun in it. I wasn't sure whether to grade it as a four or a five. I went with four for right now, but I may change my mind on that in a bit. :-)

(Incidentally, don't worry about returning my review for this one. It'll take a lot of retooling and designing to get mission 4 more to your liking, and if there's one thing I don't want it's for people to be annoyed when listening to my stories. Again, thanks for your game. :-) )

Hello, I'd like to request an in-depth review for one of my stories. I'll be taking a look at your new fourth story soon (I'll start it up momentarily, though I may have to leave before finishing it entirely.).

I should note, I wasn't sure what you meant by "uneven levels." If you mean that there are villains who show up outside of your player level, then I don't believe you'll find any. If you mean that you don't like being a level 20 character in one mission and a level 40 in another only to drop down to level 30 for the third, well, I apologize for there being a bit of that this time around.

Anyway, my story...

Arc ID: 249469
Arc Title: The Sci-Five
Author: @Cyber Sunset
Morality: Heroic
Number of Missions: 4
Description: A golden age group of mad scientists known as The Sci-Five has resurfaced after an absence of several decades. They seem to be looking for new members, and are sending invitations to mad scientists around the city asking them to audition by proving their dedication to and skill with science. It's up to you to track down the Sci-Five, learn their plans and put a stop to the villainous city-wide science fair!

Now available from @Cyber Sunset is The Sci-Five! Learn the history of one of the maddest groups of villainous scientists in Paragon's history when The Sci-Five emerges from wherever they've been the last few decades seeking new recruits! Can Paragon be saved from destruction as wave after wave of Mad Scientists rush to prove their skill with and dedication to science in this rare chance to join these supervillains from the Golden Age?

Frankenstein, Tesla, Jekyll and others will ALL be spinning in their graves when they learn that through death they've missed the chance to play...

The Sci-Five!

(Now Playing at an Architect Entertainment facility near you, search Arc ID: 249469 or @Cyber Sunset for more details.)

AE System
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Welcome to Architect Entertainment -- Neutral
Death for Dollars! -- Neutral
Bare Knuckles of Rage (9304)
Signal to Noise -- Neutral -- 67277
*

Allegory
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Who is Kidnapping the World's Great Philosophers? -- Neutral -- 86347
*

Character/Supergroup Origins
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Birth of a Fossil -- Heroic
Secret Origins(Tech) The Snake Women of Epsilon V (42221) - Heroic
Noah Reborn -- Heroic (2370)
Jumping in Feet First - Heroic - 1345
Midnight Bells Toll ----Villanious
A hero is made, not born. -- Heroic 20863
*

Classic Super-Hero/Super-Villain
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THE BOMBER --- Heroic --- Arc 16607
In The Shadow of Statesman --Neutral--1160
A Show to Die For! --- Heroic --- 30645
Check... and Mate #15095 - Heroic - Mini Task Force
Teen Phalanx Forever! -- Heroic (67335)
This Life Immortal - (5756) Heroic
Paradox Paradox - (69221) Heroic Stop yourself and Stellar from being erased!
*

Comedy
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The Extadine Lab -- Heroic (2595)
MacGuffin Delivery Service (1567) -- Villainous
ParaCon -- Heroic (1684)
The new and improved Lord Recluse Strike Force -- Villainous (though I wouldn't recommend against a hero )
The Fire Bunnies - Neutral, They are only bunnies after all...
You Say It's Your Birthday! (3630) - Neutral
Trademark Infringement -- Heroic (2220)
Hail to the King Neutral (34640)
Walk On the Wild Side - Neutral - 3580
Shirley You Jest (25474) -- Neutral
The Invasion of the Bikini Clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space! - Heroic - 61013
Gnomish Madness (30204) - Heroic
Doctor Nadir and the Hellion Heist (49661) - Heroic
Laugh? I Thought I'd DIE! - Heroic
The P.U.G. Strike force (arc 35585) -Villian
A Translator is the Wind or the Thunder in Turns -- (2936) - Heroic
What's in a Name? - Villainous
*

Comedy/Drama
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The Running of the Bulls -- Heroic 29973
A Super Team is Born -- Heroic
Cause of How Some Silly Stealed My Wings #1481 -- Neutral
How to Survive a Robot Uprising -- Heroic (12669)
Dr. Duplicate's Dastardly Dare -- Neutral
It's a Nice Day for a White Wedding (9059) -- Neutral
TURG FICTION: Ghost in the Machine, Act I - Heroic (althoughs romantic villains could try this too )
Rum Runners of Bloody Bay (3691) - Heroic
Have a Blap, Blap, Blappy Day Kids! (2019)
The Toypocalypse! (49280) - Heroic
Fishing for Fame with Red Herring - Heroic (66861)
Putting Out Fires: A Corporate Satire (20100) - Villainous
The Rise and Refall of Pets'n'Things.com - Heroic - 1061
*

Crime/Gangs
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Bricked Electronics -- Heroic (LIVE! 2180)
The Bravuran Jobs -- Villainous (16809)
The Monstrous Regiment of Lesbian Hellions -- Heroic (27178)
Win the 2009 Freak-Lympics (2150) - Villainous
Ninja Crimewave! (2142) - Heroic
Whitehawks (Arc 49364) -- Heroic
The Internet is for Crime (53385) - Villains
Plastic Pistol Peril (1135) - Heroic
Friends in Need (Of Body Parts) - Villainous (31005)
A Little RnR - Heroic (17523) click for Promotional Poster
*

Drama
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The Conciliators: Simone -- Heroic (4010)
The Fan Club -- Heroic
Matchstick Women -- Heroic -- 3369
Of Mentors and Legacy - Heroic - 1589
Digital Love -- Neutral -- 3571
*

Global Domination
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Axis and Allies -- Villainous (1379)
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Heist
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Celebrity Kidnapping -- Villainous (1388)
Easy Money -- Villainous (31490)
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Historical (Realistic)
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Wrinkle in Time -- Heroic(68920)
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Historical (CoH Lore)
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The War on Superadine - The Regulators in their 1980's drug war (Heroic) (Arc 7959)
Origins - Volume 1 (57077) -- Heroic
The Once and Future King (#71601) - Heroic
*

Holiday
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Hectic Holidays -- Heroic (36999) also comedy
Santa's Missing List - 34961
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Horror
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Astoria in D Minor (41565) -- Heroic
Dark Dreams (3615)
D!E BLACKULA D!E! (10619) -- Heroic
Don't Play With The Dead (31813) -- Neutral
The Amulet of J'gara (1709) -- Heroic
Project: Perilous - Into the Chthonian Pit (#3586) - Neutral (Unless you happen to be a mad cultist, in which case, go nuts!)
Small Fears -- Heroic
Lights, Camera, Scream! (#68627) - 3 Mission arc that get's you into the B-Horror film circuit.
*

Large-Scale Crisis
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This Is War, Part I - the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz -- Neutral
Win the Past, Own the Future - Heroic
A Warrior's Friend - Heroic
The Clockwork War -- Heroic (18672)
Flight of the Valkyries - Precursor (20272) -- Neutral
The Human Hive (#1632) - Neutral
War of the Worlds - The Anakim Invasion - Part 1, Neutral (15006)
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....ue#Post13304513
War of the Worlds - The Anakim Invasion - Part 2, The Terran Revolt, Neutral (46711)
url=http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=13304455&an=0&am p;page=0#Post13304455
Bleed the Freak - Arc ID #6919 - Heroic
*

Magic
--------
The Magical Miss Fitz (5079) -- Heroic
Chains of Blood (5492) -- Heroic
A Deal with Destiny -- Heroic
The Broken Chain (82378) -- heroic
Croatoa's Great War: The Parfait Family Reunion -- Neutral -- 71880
Rex is Missing! - Heroic - 51702
*

Military
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Redoubt Operations #1: Fires over Kalago -- Heroic
Red Storm Rising (Arc 4912) -- Heroic
Whitehawks (Arc 49364) -- Heroic
Axis and Allies -- Villainous (1379)
Vanguard AQUA (58475) -- Neutral
*

Misc. Adventure
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The Portal Bandits (3326) -- Heroic
A Glitch in the Wyre- Arc 73197-- Neutral (Fun for both the good kids and the bad kids too!)

Mystery
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Blowback (18575) -- Heroic
Dream Paper -- Heroic (13030)
Dream Paper 2: Restless Sleep -- Heroic (16797)
Dream Paper 3: Broken Dreams -- Heroic (13064)
*

Mythology
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Atlantis Attacks! -- Neutral (30898) -- Click for Promotional Poster
The Seelie War -- Heroic
The Unseelie War -- Villainous
Tales of Cimerora, volume 1 : Of feathers and fur -- Heroic
The Aegis Affair - Heroic
Witches and Warriors (53006)- Heroic
The War of Fate(12220,46722)- Heroic
Rites of the Maenads (61159) - Heroic
The Parable of the Fruit Salad -- Heroic -- 65369
*

Nemesis Plots
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Brass Reaver: Part 1 -- Neutral
The Handbag Plot -- Heroicish -- 36414
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Player-Chosen Outcome
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Hunting the Dark Dragon -- Heroic
Playing Gods -- Heroic (51106)
*

Sci-Fi
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Above Mars - Part 1: The Wellington -- Neutral (13215)
Adventures of the Space Marines -- Neutral
Adventures of the Space Marines 2 -- Neutral
The Adventures of the United Earth Rangers -- Neutral (29549)
The Continuing Adventures of the United Earth Rangers -- Neutral (70237)
The Final Nemesis
The Knights of Rularuu -- Heroic (75386)
[color= #bbff88]Reach for the Stars -- Neutral (78904) [/color]
Spaced Invaders --Heroic(56856)
That Mysterious Buzzing Sound - 12774
*

Un-themed Survival/AV/Time Challenges
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The Meatgrinder -- Neutral
*

Puzzles/Riddles
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Grim Riddles (#1396) - Heroic
*

[ QUOTE ][*]Zone Parity
This will require a bit more work, and it's something I would only expect to happen gradually. Zone parity for Striga and Croatoa, Croatoa being an excellent source of lower level magic salvage, something villains lack.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm...a good source for lower level magic salvage?

What if some sort of "hidden island" can raise from beneath the waves (because it was banished three or four centuries ago, obviously, and its cursed time is over) bringing with it lots of polished marble, magic salvage and enemies (I'm sure that the Cabal and Red Caps would be interested in investigating such a strange phenomenon), and a general lack of the squallor, trash, and disrepair that covers the rest of the isles.

Perhaps toss in the Snakes/Children of Enos for good measure, maybe some Greek myth flavoring to be suggestive of, but not tied to, the Atlantis myth (ooh, the Warriors could be active in a zone like that, redside needs more of them), etc. I'd suggest that the Circle of Thorns be present, but not in large force (they seem to have the run of the Rogue Isles sometimes), and perhaps ambassadors from Longbow and Arachnos both trying to get this new magical island's government to agree to a full annex to either the Rogue Isles or Rhode Island (or maybe the Longbow ambassadors would just settle for this new place declaring neutrality.)

What'd be a good name for this place. Bermuda, maybe? Have a Mary Celeste task force, five or six other contacts, and bam! Instant parity for Croatoa without being a Croatoa ripoff, and easy to obtain magic salvage, and a breath of fresh air for those of us who want a break from all the landfills and slums.

Alrighty, one more question for the pile...

Will we have to "Pick Allignment" for the missions we create, or will all missions be playable by anyone? Like, if I have a mission where you have to fight through a Longbow base to fight Positron (probably visiting to help upgrade their defenses or something), would a hero be able to play that?

More specifically, could I make it optional? Like, regardless of who the opponents are, could I flag a mission as only being playable by heroes, only playable by villains, or "neutral" so that anyone can play?