DeviousMe

Okay, after mulling over this for a looooooong time now, I think I'm finally ready to cast my vote:

Projectionist's recreation of "Nighthawks" by Edward Hopper

I tell you all, this was not an easy choice, especially with Lousy_Day's Michelangelo in the running there...and I think I just about got grin-lock from Shia's work. In the end though, I think Proj really did capture the original's essence best with pure and simple elegance.

((Good to hear, heh. Welcome back. ))

The forest had not creased its rustle behind the boy, and even after Pax had come upon him, plants moved to and fro in the approach of a certain Tsaiv that sounded rather upset with the dragon she now pursued.

"Miss Jovi!" the exasperated Nadpráporèík practically barked, the constant presence of a branch between her and the Tornado only more of an annoyance, "What are you thinking you're doing? Get back here! Naj! Halt! Stop! Would you-?! Listen, you-! You need to get going before-! Miss Jovi, are you even listening?"

Nope. Not at all. Nuh-uh. Sarah had heard the scream of a child and wasn't getting a single word right now, making her way doggedly through the woods in the straightest of lines until she came upon the boy and Paxtera. Her eyes went wide with shock at his terrible condition.

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"P-Please...D-Don't hurt me,"
"I'm just t-trying to find my M-Mommy,"

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"Hey, hey, no one's going to hurt you." she told the boy with gentle, reassuring tone, going into a crouch as she approached him, a hand extended toward him to take, "Come here. Everything's going to be okay."

Her other hand worked the long blue bag free of her back in the meantime, laying it on the ground beside her, then retrieved a bar of chocolate from one of the side pockets. The Tornado offered this as well, "Here, eat. I know it's not much, but it'll give you back some energy."

The Tasiv only gave a huff, crossing her arms as she leaned against a tree with a disappointed look to the Kheldian - as if Pax had somehow caused Sarah's sudden deviation...

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm all for effective communication with the player...it's just that (no offense) most your suggestions don't strike me as particularly effective. I mean, they would be for you of course, and probably players like you, but for me they would make the story way too straightforward and give it a 'too convenient' feel.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. I realize this happens in comics and stories all the time. Heck, most of the normal game is given in this kind of linearly doled out fashion and demands the unmitigated use of about one and a half brain cells. It's still fun, but now that players can write their own arcs, I want more. Not more stuff, mind you. More questions. More uncertainties, more things to think about, more things that just kind of happen because I like to think that CoH isn't a static world that only 'the usual' ever happens in.

((Looks like it. And aiight, I guess I'll switch plot tracks to option 2 then.))

"Avoidance?" another Slavic-based tone queried with casual curiosity from behind the heroes, where the door to Teivos' office had come open to allow its owner entry. He once more donned his characteristic outfit, the same ensemble of clothing and armor he had in the pub where War and Famine had first encountered the Tsaigon, though this time a cape of oddly lackluster brown topped off the garb, connected to the chest plates at about the same spot as the shoulder guards.

To his right came Griffin, the supposedly mythical creature still looking just a bit dazed. A quick shake of his head in the manner of an owl brought back focus, but it also caused the white bandage in his fire-red hair to slip a little, revealing a smidge of freshly crusted blood on and just below his ears. If it bothered him at all though, the only evidence was a quickly scratched itch that may just as well have come from simply nerves.

"I don't recall Wolfgang avoiding any questions." Teivos went on, remaining standing there for now, "He told you our 'shiny toys' are aimed at your world, and that's exactly what they are. He also told you that if der Reichsmann is...heh heh...'indisposed', you've nothing to worry about. In that event, they'll just be used to destroy the last pockets of resistance here."

"As to Sväz Spojených Rás," he continued, turning up the palm of a hand toward the photos on the corresponding wall, "or League of United Races as would a crappy English translation look, it's exactly what is says. Aaand I don't think I'm going to tell you why it's a good thing because a) you're from a world that is really messed-up and about to tear itself apart in not one, but multiple wars, which leads me to think your standards are very different from ours, and b) you really need to take a very big 'chill pill', as a friend of mine says."

The metal Caldok couldn't help but chuckle at this, and even Griffin cracked a smile. He also waved a curt, low-key hello to Isabel, hiding halfway behind the Sovereign, though his reasons for either weren't very clear...

No worries, it's cool. Unfortunately, you seem to have misunderstood some of the things I wrote back:

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If you'd like to believe I was simply neglectful of your dialog, that's cool, but bear in mind that if a team does this story arc, it's quite possible the first player to arrive at Rollister will see the dialog and the player bringing up the rear of the team will never see it, and will end up missing a part of your story.

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Actually, this is not possible. Rollister tells the player of the Dark Dragon during the fight, not before - at 1/2 health, to be specific (I used to have it on defeat, but got some feedback that it didn't feel like it belonged to someone falling over, so I moved it). You really did miss this, I'm sorry.

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Just as a point of fact, the Envoy of Shadows, who I'd argue is the main demon prince the CoT are summoning in the canonical story arcs, does not get summoned at the Thorn Tree. Nor do Baphomet or ARCH-A.

I don't have a problem with your using this map, though; I just feel the player's motivation for going to this particular location needs to be stronger.

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I wasn't saying that Thorn Isle was the only place the Circle did that stuff. I'm saying it's the only place I know of where they can do so without other people immediately catching on due to the overpowering magic presence of the Thorn Tree, which Peter explicitly states.

If you don't think that's a strong enough reason to motivate an investigation by the player, that's okay; your personal preference. I think it is. It follows logic, context, and common sense.

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It sounds like your intention is that the Space Pirates should be a joke, but if that's the case, I think you need to work on the delivery. Perhaps you could change the Space Pirates' dialog from their current gibberish to some sort of cynical nod towards the ridiculousness of this plot. Have them say something like, "Hey, it's pretty crazy that we're working for this Dragon, but the Space Pirate business has been slow ever since the Rikti built that hyperspace bypass, and the Dark Dragon's coin looked pretty good." It would still be a pretty silly story element, but at least that way the player would get to share the joke.

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Negative. Their involvement is to cast light on the nonsensical nature of many of Paragon's established villain groups by lampshading a new group via temporary appearance. Doing what you suggested would overpower that. It's an interesting idea, but not what I'm after.

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I'm not sure you understand what I'm saying. To clarify, I don't think you could navigate a submarine to the inland parts of Paragon City, which is what your clue is implying. I think it would make more sense and still have the meaning you intend if you said it connected to the extensive sewer system, which would allow villains to rapidly infiltrate any neighborhood of the city.

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I do indeed understand what you're saying. I am saying it is so. Paragon City has a ton of underground rivers that do indeed lead to its inland parts. From there, any number of things could be done, from surfacing in lakes and rivers to drilling right up through the ground from the sub, and yes, getting into the sewers. However, I do not feel it necessary to explicitly say so. Players have imagination. I want to stimulate that, not just shoehorn it in somewhere.

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You are perhaps correct that Scirocco wouldn't necessarily know about the Dark Dragon, might not realize the significance of the Space Pirates in his base, and might choose to attack the player even if the player has been fighting the Malta invading his base.

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Scirocco sees Malta and you. There are no space pirates in the final room. I made sure they did not appear there for exactly that reason. All he sees are Malta and you.

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However, as the player, I shouldn't need to defeat Scirocco as he isn't relevant to the Dark Dragon investigation. Perhaps you could make Scirocco an optional objective? It seems like eluding Scirocco and chasing after the escaped Dark Dragon would be a reasonable course of action.

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Yes you should. You are a hero. You're supposed to arrest people like Scirocco.

Okay, so hero is not necessarily equal to hero, and your character may indeed want to just drop it and let someone else handle the guy. One way or another though, I am forced to make an assumption on the personality of the player hero, and going by the majority staple, when given the opportunity to bring in a notorious, well-known, high-profile villain who has committed a multitude of crimes, most heroes will not ignore him because they happen to be doing something else at the moment.

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I'm sorry, but based on this reasoning, Peter should've called Longbow in the first place; the player was not necessary to the story at all. This may have some real world logic to it, but I feel that making the player irrelevant to the plot really hurts the story. I hope you will consider making the player more important to the plotline; the player should be the protagonist, after all!

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I don't see how calling for backup to track down the end boss is making the player irrelevant to the story, sorry. I do understand that you'd like the player to be the one doing the tracking down. Unfortunately, I can't just cater to you here. I also have to account for characters who don't have the necessary tracking skills.

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What you are saying here is that you don't get a real ending to the story if you take this choice.

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Looks like it, as I do consider it a 'real' ending and you don't. The Dark Dragon goes away, your contact isn't sure whether it was the right choice, but near as anyone can tell, it looks like things worked out okay. However, there remains just that smidgen of doubt that won't go away. Personally, I like endings like this because they keep people questioning things a little longer instead of just going 'now it's over, you're done'. I also know that's something not everyone here shares with me, you being one such person. But that's okay. I know I can't please everyone.

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I felt like this story really didn't make sense as presented. There does not seem to be a logical progression from one mission to the next. Currently, each mission has the contact send me to a seemingly random location, hoping something of interest is there. I think the story would be significantly strengthened if each mission naturally followed as a result of clues found in the previous mission.

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Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. I am a little saddened that you missed so many details, though - like the other parts of Rollister's dialogue. Those are the main clue to start the main plot off, so if you don't read them...yeah, you're not going to have any clue what's going on. And since you missed so many of these clues throughout the arc, I can't say I'm surprised that you felt the missions were random.

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Briefing: Peter Stemitz is the contact and I like how the briefing is trying to convey his personality (err, personalities). The verbiage is a little awkward though. Instead of "Perhaps you know me not. In such case, I should say I know you not; buzz off" maybe "Perhaps you don't know me. In that case, I oughta say I don't know YOU; buzz off!"

Accept prompt: usually this is written as if the player is saying it. So I suggest you change "Yes, you'll be that hero" to "Yes, I'll be that hero".

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That's the way he talks in his regular missions, so I wanted to keep that same feel. It's supposed to sound strange. The accept text is on purpose too. I wanted action responses, not verbal ones. I know most other people go for verbal, which makes it the 'accepted standard', but Pik's red, so you likely got my take on using standards.

Thanks for catching the typo, though - and the bug with the spawns. Yes, Player's an EB (not AV; tanker AT), so should've spawned as a boss for you on lowest difficulty. Odd. Guess I'll be filing another bug report.

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Puzzlingly, after rescuing the dragons they give me a classic guitar and (apparently) dimensionally warp out of there. Why couldn't they have done that before I got there? Seems like a plot hole.

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Dimensional warp? Where? I don't remember writing any dimensional warp, so I'm somewhat confused as to where you got that from. As for guarding Pik, he asks you to guard the information he gave you, not him, hence why Peter insists you can trust him in the debriefing.

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Stemitz does mention "This Dark Dragon sounds like trouble." Huh? No clue or dialog that I saw mentions any Dark Dragon. Appears to be a continuity error.

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That was in Rollister's dialogue.

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Briefing: Contact continues to think we are after someone called Dark Dragon. Since we have no info about Dark Dragon, he wants to send me to the villain respec for no really good reason other than it being a CoT hangout. This mission really needs a better lead-in.

Second part of briefing: there's a great disturbance in the Force between the first part of the briefing and the second part, and Stemitz suddenly can't sense the Thorn Tree any more, and suspects the Dark Dragon. Seems awfully coincidental timing, but okay. I might suggest you have the "Thorn Tree" vanish from magical radar before the mission

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Well, I don't really know of any other place the CoT has enough magic gathered in one place to cover up their archdemon summoning, so very much I think it's a 'good reason' to go there, which is the reason stated in the briefing. If you know of another such place though, do please inform me. I'll consider the Thorn Tree vanishing beforehand, though.

As for the Thorns, the Circle of Thorns is indeed often referred to as just 'the Circle' or 'the Thorns' by in-game contacts. Thanks for the typo again. And yeah, you'd think the Thorns would have a better handle on this, wouldn't you? That's the point.

Oh, and about 'cordite and C-4': neither of those are something you can smell from a distance pre-detonation. The explanation you're looking for is 'Malta uses heavy weapons against their opponents', which is a known fact. It's also an easter egg (like Rollister). Thanks for the info about the clues, though. I placed multiple copies of the optional glowies to make them easier for players to find. Apparently not enough though, as you didn't find the bookcase, which there are more of than the desk. Go figure.

Regarding the TacCom (character limit in clue window) and the Thorn Tree, the explanation you're looking for was in the Thorn's story and the Weedkiller Operative dialogue: the dragon hired them to take out the Thorns around. Yes, it's that simple. The Thorn also told you that the dragon called in Malta, so there's your explanation for the debriefing. I will think about putting in a 'how they did it' for the Tree, though. Didn't feel it was necessary, and I'm still not sure it is. But I'll think about it. And yeah, it's loss is really bad for the Circle and hurts them a lot, even if only temporarily, which is something the villainside respec contacts pretty much hand bells and whistles on in each of the trials.

Regrading the dragon just going home: yep, it's possible. But would you take the chance? Okay, you personally might, but Peter wouldn't. The game portrays him as someone who wants at least some measure of certainty, so I kept him that way. I will think about rearranging the briefing some though, mostly since you missed the reason for going to that particular Malta base, which really is very blatantly stated as Crimson thinking that if Malta has a dragon, than that base is where they'd stash him.

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Inside the mission: for the sake of people who aren't familiar with this map (from the RSF or otherwise) you may want to put something in the mission briefing or mission objectives that they need to go through a door to get to an interior part of the base.

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There are 2 details outside that are very easy to find which inform the player to head through that door.

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Found Sister Hecate, who has some fairly meta dialog wondering why she's just standing around guarding instead of patrolling. If she's the security chief, can't she choose to patrol instead of standing guard?

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Not until the game mechanics support it.

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I got the "Security Code" clue from Sister Hecate. It's described as "You found this code in the satchel." What satchel? None was ever named. Suggest you change to "You found this code on Sister Hecate."

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The satchel is in her defeat text.

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Deeper inside the base, the Malta and KoA give way to a custom faction of Space Pirates apparently hired by the Dark Dragon. I...don't understand why there are Space Pirates here. They haven't been previously mentioned in the story and this mission has no clues, dialog, or other information explaining why there would suddenly be Space Pirates present. The Space Pirates themselves have info stating that the Dark Dragon hired them, but this also seems somewhat unbelievable. They seem to be guarding the safe in the back; the keycode to this was presumably on the KoA boss, so shouldn't the safe be guarded by KoA and not Space Pirates? Anyway, this story element didn't make any sense to me.

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Debriefing: even the contact thinks that Space Pirates are a ludicrous story element.

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Yes, I hung a lampshade. I like lampshades.

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Inside the safe I find "Arachnos Base Blueprints". In this clue, it says "These are blueprints of a submarine dock....From its location, a skilled navigator could reach any point in the city undetected". I think you are saying that from this base, you can pilot a submarine to, say, Steel Canyon. Is this what you really mean?

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Yes. It's also an easter egg.

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Briefing: the contact is baffled by the plot of this story arc and basically asks me what to do. (I am not kidding.)

Second part of briefing: we somehow decide that Dark Dragon clearly wants to conquer this submarine base from Arachnos, and we can't let that happen. Considering Arachnos is already the arch-enemy of Paragon City, I'm not sure why Dark Dragon controlling this base is any worse, though. And what would a dragon from another dimension want with a submarine base anyway? Seems implausible.

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Hmmm...okay, that is a problem. I'm assuming the player character to be taking a lesser of 2 evils stance, which I really shouldn't be doing. I would say it's common sense to not let the archvillain you're chasing get more resources, but you have a point in asking how that is any worse than Arachnos having the place. I'll have to work on that, thanks.

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I find a glowy that gives me the clue "Message from the Dark Dragon" that basically taunts me for rescuing him. I guess he was shapeshifted into the Base Commander? It was established that dragons can shapeshift in this arc; this is kind of annoying, though, because there is no way for the player to stop this. Also, now I have to kill Scirocco. But why do I have to fight Scirocco, when it seems like we both have a common enemy in the Dark Dragon? Does not really make sense.

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Wanna know something funny? I had that for a while. People complained that it was out-of-character for their heroes to work with someone like Scirocco (criminal, villain, Arachnos top-tier, etc.) on an arc labeled as heroic. So nowadays, his objective is to kill all intruders in the base, which includes you - and yes, he will attack the Malta as well.

I do have a question here, however: what gave you the idea that he knows about the dragon? I don't recall presenting the Malta attack as anything but a Malta attack from his point of view.

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Briefing: contact now tells me that Longbow has tracked the Dark Dragon to a building in Faultline. But....Stemitz and I have been on the Dark Dragon case for 4 entire missions now, how is it that we have had no clue of where the Dark Dragon is, but random Longbow are able to find him? This doesn't make sense to me. I suggest you add some kind of clue to the previous mission that lets the player track down the Dark Dragon.

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I'll think about it. The idea is that Longbow is an organization with a ton of manpower and resources at its disposal, whereas you're just one person (of a few, if you're on a team) - so now that Peter called them, they help by providing intel, just as they often do in the regular game missions.

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The promised "player decision" occurs here. Stemitz exposits that the Dark Dragon has promised to leave in 30 minutes (I think?) but he's broken our laws, so maybe we should beat him up, too. But I need to decide whether to win the mission and catch the Dark Dragon, or not.

Since so far the Dark Dragon has only attacked CoT and Arachnos, I actually am not sure which "laws" the Dark Dragon has broken. I'm also somewhat annoyed by the plot forcing me into making bad decisions in previous missions. I decide to let the timer run out and see what happens.

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Oh, just associating with criminals, conspiracy, the whole attacking other people with gregarious violence thing. Granted, they were villains as well, but the legal system in Paragon does follow ours in that regard. The Citizen Crime Fighting Act doesn't cover that stuff.

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I let 30 minutes elapse and talk to Peter again. The final debriefing is rather unsatisfying; he just says "It's done. The Dark Dragon is gone." It would've been nicer if we found out a little more about what the Dragon's motivation was and whether this was the right choice or not. As is, I didn't get much sense of closure.

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Um...you let the timer expire and expected to be just handed this information? No. For this, you have to fight the end boss. Seriously, you give me all this 'this doesn't make sense' here, and then you want Peter to magic up info out of nowhere? Granted, his is a shaman, but here I'm the one who says 'that makes no sense; how would he know?'.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback. I don't think I'll be making the clues you missed more obvious (mostly since people tell me they're almost too obvious already), but I will think about addressing some of the details you mentioned - like why Malta is the group specifically used. I do agree that 'what can the big bad do with the base that Arachnos can't?' isn't answered, but should be, so thanks for pointing that out. That really is a plot hole.

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the ambushes from defendable objects never make a sound

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Oh snap, no wonder those things are always so egregious. Well, at least now I know why all those people using defendable objects never 'give' their ambushes dialogue.

Heh, I understand this only too well. I'm in the same boat as Turg, have had both of my other arcs shot off the first page a while ago, and have been keeping an eye on several arcs (by other authors) that are really well-made, yet keep getting bounced out by a sudden influx of fresh low-rates.

And I mean 'sudden' as in 'too sudden to be realistically gotten through people actually playing the arc and not liking it' - such as 4-10 low-rates in less than a minute. Look at it from any way you want, but there's no realistic chance of that many people coincidentally finishing that one arc just as it hits the first page, and all of them not liking it. Is it possible? Sure. But the odds of it are just astronomical. There's griefing going on here, pure and simple.

Now, are there people who will check out an arc for no other reason than it happens to be on the first page, decide they don't like it, and give it a low rating? Yes. Are there teams of people that do this? Yes. However, there are indeed griefers in this game, and they will downvote arcs for no other reason than that they feel like it.

((Mirravin, you do realize you're basically addressing Zuzana as 'Sarge' when speaking as the narrator there, right? I just wanna make sure that this is known: that's a rank, not a name. ))

'Gathering everyone properly' would probably be a greater challenge than the fox-tailed woman thought, for Zuzana and the Tornado did not heed her call. It seemed there was more to things than she believed, which may have made it a good idea to find out what - and since Pax seemed to know at least the dragon probably made her the best choice of who to do so...

Hmm...it might just be me, but with the pattern you've got there, the second color feels entirely superfluous. I think it would look better in just a solid white hue there.

The 'overconfident military buff' couldn't help but smile on the inside as things devolved, diverting just about all attention away from her oh-so-stereotypical self and her Tornado friend - exactly as she'd planned.

She took the opportunity to head for Sarah and make the two of them (and Ralf, of course) scarce, which the dragon of course didn't like one bit. The Tsaiv, however, quickly managed to convince her otherwise.

"I know you do not like it, but you have to." she whispered to the Tornado as they walked, "If this Slagg man was sent after you for what you committed, I don't have doubt he will try to execute you. We need to get you away."

Sarah nodded. She still didn't like it, but she saw the logic.

"Do not worry about them." Zuzana added when she caught the dragon looking back with concerned eyes, "I have seen such before. Many times, in the barracks. They will not seriously harm one another. Trust in me."

The Tornado nodded again as the two left the clearing, headed again into the woodwork proper. They hoped they'd managed to do so without anyone taking notice...

"More than you know." the Tornado remarked to Pax with a sheepish grin, thinking just to the example of her 'husband'; the very person she'd mentioned to the Kheldian earlier.

Of course, he was probably the least of it, what with the mad scientists, littles, fairies, rockers, mutants, rulers of one-thing-or-another, and a whole lot of other generally 'weird people' in her life. Truth be told though, only one of them she was actually afraid of...the rest she was mostly afraid for for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was stirring up all sorts of trouble.

"You want to come with?" she added, securing the bag against her back once more. Zuzana shot a glare, but did not voice her opinion...

Slagg's words were more than enough to put Sarah on edge, the elfin bard having given her a god idea of just how dragons were seen on this world. She was sure he'd come for her - as was Ralf, the collective intelligence within the aerodrones quickly commanding a protective perimeter about the worried-looking Tornado, cycloptics fixed upon the smoker.

Even the fox-tailed woman's magnificence couldn't take the unease from Sarah's mind, but though it enamored the Tornado, it left the Tsaiv cold, Zuzana stoically interplacing herself between Slagg and the dragon. Her words, however, quickly dispersed the effect on Sarah as well.

"Yeah there is." she insisted grumpily, "You were spying on us, which is..."

"Fair." the Esertosian interrupted, metal fingers held back toward the dragon in a gesture to stay her words, "She is correct, Miss Jovi."

"But..." the Tornado found herself confused, "Her spying isn't...?"

"It would were she good at it." Zuzana answered matter-of-factly, "Now, I think it best if we departed from this potentially hazardous location."

Sarah only nodded quietly, a concerned eye giving Slagg a momentary glance as the Tornado picked her bag back up...

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Devious: Right now I have two custom groups and a contact/ally. The first group is the army of robots, and the second group is the special boss of that army group.

The grand total right now is 2 minions, 2 LTs, 1 boss, 2 special bosses and an elite boss.

Do you think I can fit two more minions if I already have 82%?

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If you already have everything else you need, that's 18% to work with, which should be just fine for a pair of minions. Generally, those take only 6 to 8 percent, so I'd say you're good.

Sarah had been about to answer Pax, but when the Kheldian's attention directed itself toward the newcomers as well, she thought better of it. Still, as the humanoid spoke, the Tornado worked her head and right wing out form under her bag, setting the monstrosity on the ground with a crouch in order to unzip one of the larger side pockets.

Her intent to search became moot the next moment, however, something invisible bumping into her from behind, the start causing her eyes to snap open and wings to the like tight. It didn't last long though, Sarah putting two and two together almost right away.

"Aha." she remarked quietly, reaching out a hand to confirm the unseen drone was there, which contact indeed did tell. The sixth decloaked beside it at about that point, then faded away once more demonstratively before reappearing and remaining visible. The Tornado nodded to it, her voice still hushed as to not disturb the others with a sidebar monologue while she watched what was happening with the unidentified two, "Yeah, I got it. Hold on."

Zuzana meanwhile had had enough, and was getting rather bored with the man and woman imposing their 'I am so mysterious and obviously want something from you, but I'm not going to just ask you because I'm so mysterious' presence upon them and one another...despite the conversation (if it could be called that) obviously not getting anywhere.

"Enough with the obnoxious prattle." she thus declared, though more with cold neutrality than any sort of real annoyance, "If this goes on, nothing will go anywhere. You two: what are your identities and why have you sought us out...?"

For sets, I'd suggest 'low-tech' stuff that could conceivably have come from early on in the Industrial Revolution if conditions had been right. I mean stuff like AR (Nemesis rifle, of course), electricity, fire, ice, radiation...a lot of stuff, really. Probably not dark or psi though. Well okay, I could see a steam-powered telekinetic amplifuer...

Really, in this game the steampunk genre is just 'technology origin, Victorian style', which gives you a ton of options. A pal of mine, for instance, has Steampunk Charlie, an elec/elec blaster (I think...been a while ) who uses gauntlets and armor with high-end capacitors in them, charged by micro-steam-generators.

So yeah, it's whatever you want. Play what you think will be the most fun. Just don't forget to don the proper fahsion: earth tones, overcoats, maybe some copper machinery, etc.

Not really sure. My first custom group had 2 minions, 3 lts, and 4 bosses, and I really like the way that worked out.

So basically: do what you want. Stick in whatever critter you feel is more appropriate. Personally, I'd recommend you add another boss, but don't put it on any 'fight a boss' objectives so that larger teams will get a slightly different experience out of your arc than soloists.

Allied ambushes are presently bugged, yes. Only one (or if you're very lucky, two) of the spawned entities will actually follow the tracking path to the player. The others will just stand around at the spawn point.

A workaround (though cumbersome and probably inappropriate to your particular setting) to this is to give the allied ambush dialogue that indicates where it spawned and that the player should drag the enemy boss to them.

Not sure about canon data, but I'd imagine they'd have much the same sports as in our world. In addition, you might find something in the Paragon City backstory you can use.

Yeah, usually you do get error messages for maps you can't use...hm. What map(s) were you using, and what objectves did you have placed on them?

Wow, aggressive much? You know, I could just as easily demand the same of you, especially seeing how you're touting your personal opinions as infallible truths here. Can you prove to me that "nothing in the game is more fun to play on a team, except in the degenerate case of unsoloable content"? No. Because that is your opinion, not a fact.

But to satisfy your...ahem...'request', just take the very basic example of the boss with support (heal/buff/debuff) critters. By tailoring of the spawn difficulty and the powers associated with the support critters, it's easy to make a boss fight in which the boss has little to no support for solo players, but has enough for larger teams to make the boss very difficult to take down, and requiring the team to take out the support critters before they can defeat the boss.

I'm guessing from what you've posted up to now that for you, this would not be fun. For me though, it is, allowing me to get more fun out of playing this game with a team than without.

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There is no difference between the two.

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I completely disagree. There's a huge difference between "Impossible for anyone to solo" and "More fun to play on a team."

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Right there. Granted, fun is subjective, and some people feel that soloing is more fun than teaming in this game. Considering this is an MMO, this is something I just don't understand, though. Ergo, for me, there's a huge difference between the two.

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There is nothing of any real consequence that can be added to an MA project that will only be seen by teams and not soloists. You could include a Boss in a custom faction and then not place any spawns of that Boss, thus preventing anyone from seeing one unless they bring in a team of sufficient size as to spawn Bosses at regular points. I had one of these in one of my arcs but removed it. That's about it.

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Nope, there's more. A good deal more.

"Okay, I guess you got a point." Sarah retorted a bit sheepishly to the peacebringer, one hand reaching out the help her back up, the other in her neck below the long hair. Its palm was soon back out and upturned though, "But on the island, nearly everyone but the griffins and water dragons can do that. So..."

"Okay, okay, I get it." she stopped when Pax just gave her 'the look', telling the group, "And what do you mean 'something' is attracting people to this spot? I'd say it's called noise. Besides, I was already here with Suze."

She motioned to Zuzana with a finger, the Tsaiv raising a pair of metal fingers in return; a gesture of 'I got this covered', still not taking her eyes off the new arrivals, "I was just scared to go into that town was all. And this here's Ralf."

The hovering drone she'd indicated with a hand spread its flaps and slats a moment, then set them back down, as if to wave hello or something.

"He's my term project." the Tornado elaborated with a proud smile. A moment later, her expression grew thoughtful, however, "...though it looks like two of him are missing. Ralf, where's the rest of you...?"

He's not talking about arcs that don't scale properly to group size and difficulty (i.e. require a team to complete) - he's talking about arcs that require a team to fully appreciate (i.e. get the most out of them).

I definetely like this idea, having written my arcs to give teams things soloers don't see when playing them (and having designated one of them a TF ), changing the experience for the team for each person added. I play on Infinity, Protector, and Virtue, so I'd be happy to join in on these servers.

"I'm sure you will." Wolfgang retorted, the 'don't bet on it' in there more than obvious, "As for our target? Your world, of course. Yes, that means I still do not believe you, and that things will go ahead as planned until we know for sure. If der Reichsmann's state is as you say, you've nothing to worry about."

He said this as casually as one might be discussing the recipe of that cake in the picture, the lax shrug of one hand underscoring the candor in his words, "Any further questions? Something regarding this world, maybe...?"

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"Works." Thalathis gave a neutral nod, not seeming to care one way or another as she headed for the departure point. She'd of course be using a gate to get to Stewart Island, not much interested in crossing thousands of kilometers of sea by flight. Even a dragon in its feral form would be utterly exhausted after that, and that just wouldn't do right before a fight.

"Hey there, big guy." she shot a mischievous glance to the male fire dragon en-route, "You ready to go stir up some chaos in a hornets' nest...?"