DoctorParadox

great worrk on previous posters. I'd like to submit mine, too, if you aen't too busy.

well,I have two to submit. one is the result o the other, and they're both part of a series of arcs about the villain that I'm writing. you can either make a poster for one of them, or perhaps make a more generalized poster for the series at large

Circuit Breaker {Fathom, part I}
Arc ID: 360268
Morality: Heroic
4 missions, AV, EB. custom group

When an anonymous genius Hacks his way past Longbow's best security measures, Agent Drive contacts you to help uncoverr a plot that threatens to engulf the planet. who is the elusive Fathom? and to what lengths will he go to ensure that his plan succeeds.

for a poster of this, mayhaps a central circle can radiate electricity which arcs and frames key elements (computer screen, agent Drive, maybe one or more of the custom mobs, but not Fathom himself, please. Maybe in silhouette, if you feels so inclined.) apologies if that's too tall an order.

second arc...

(In)Justice {Fathom, Part II}
Arc ID: 378095
Morality: Heroic
4 missions, 1 boss. custom group, longbow, PPD, and samples of the following: Neuron robots, Vanguard shield, 5th column, Council, malta (no sappers)

Something has gone terribly wrong. when you interrvened at a metahuman attack, someone was waiting for you. they knew what to say. they knew who you were. now, you're on the run from he law... and from the justice of Fathom (only makes sense if played some time after circuit breaker)

if you make a poster of this, a feeling of "on the run from the law" would be nice. helicopters with searchlights, police storming alleyways, etc, with a pairn of eyes malevolently overlooking the whole thing. and also, with the title itself, if at all possible, can you have "justice" be in bold, typed letters, with "in" scrawled on in front of it?

thanks. tell me if I'm being to presumptuous.

oh! I akkmost forgot, both arcs are by Sundiver.(note the period at the end of the name.).

Edit: on closer examination, both arcs are actually by @white Arrow.

oh right, I hadn't even thought about villainside. hmmm... well, a better way to make it seem more like we're in charge as villains is to a) make contacts afraid of us. we are the elite of arachnos and have a big future ahead of us. BOW, WORM! b) make them not know what we're doing. we ask the questions, they tell us what we want t know. have it so that WE made the plan, they're just giving us any additional info we need to execute it. the random missions thing ouldn't work so well, as villains should be the ones making the catalyst. MAYBE the defeat of, say, X longbow in Cap au Diable could reveal hat they're making a major move against the rogue isles, or defeating X goldbrickers reveals their stash of bullion or somesuch.

well, this was reacted to positively when I mentioned it on the city life forum, so here goes...

a common plot device in comics is for heroes to find a plot hook while stopping something happening in the city at large. what about doing the same thing in CoH? after you defeat X amount of X foes in X zone, you get a clue pointing you towards the first mission in a string that gets you to a thrilling final encounter and a shiny new badge (One of those Devouring Earth was carrying some kind of transmitter... what could this mean? youd best take it to Tina McKintyre... planted by Malta? can be traced to a relay station in DA? oh my, you found materials regarding the Hamidon and Crey in the base! this is most unusual... maybe you should check out that ruined Crey lab in eden. goodness gracious! Malta has set up a method of Cloning Devouring Earth and using them to mind control the hamidon! set the bombs, defeat the giant robot in charge of defense, and then get out before time runs out - BOOOM you earned "liberator of the Earth").

another possibility is randomly spawning either a unique boss in a story relevant zone as an intro, or dropping a group that shouldn't be in the Zone in the first place as the kickoff (what were those CoT mages doing in steel Canyon? what does the council want in Peregrine island?).

thoughts? opinions? ideas? I just generally think it helps to have us seems more like independant agents than people who just hit whoever the police tell us to.

I would, indeed, like to see security level and power level separated. perhaps as a way to determine it, it could find your average difficulty adjustment for missions that are completed wITHOUT auto complete.

also, it would be cool if the kind of mission you described cropped up more, perhaps as a police scanner mission. (on an unrelated note, I would love to see police scanner missions occaisionally turn into multi-part epics. CoT is stealing an artifact, which is already gone when you get there, but one of the mages tells you where it is, turns out it was used to summon an army of demons, you defend the city from a first wave, then go against head honcho and stop the ritual before it releases the rest of the demons. Skulls have broken into lab, stole powerful nerve gas to use in war against hellions, hero intervenes to recover nerve gas, Hellions attack during that time and get nerve gas first, hero has to stop both sides from killing each other in a Perez park gang war.)

what about just having the option of assigning your mission to a random door in a zone of your choice. the door would be based on the map used. then you could also have the option of making the contact spawn as a single person just oustide the building. It would make everything seem more real. even if in-game it isn't.

well, what if there were a way to combine the two? a common element of comics is finding something that leads to something else while stopping a crime, what about having missions that are triggered by defeating X amount of X kind of enemy? keep the numbers big, and then once you have that number, one of these people drops a clue that leads you to a mission, which could in turn lead to another, which could in turn lead to another.

another possibility would be dropping either a unique enemy at random onto a map, or having, say, some CoT spawn in an alley of steel canyon, s that their very presence raises questions (just where does that infected in atlas Park come from, anyways???)

this idea could increase street sweeping by giving a plot-reason for doing so. thoughts? if this is responded to positively, I'll repost it to the suggestions and ideas forum.

well, it seems like dopplegangers would be easy enough to make. just take the two power sets of your character and place them into the custom foes for MA. as for the costume, just copy your costume, and then move every color 1 or two steps darker, except for the already black. boom, evil you. although actually, I'm not sure if it could work... it seems like it should be possible to change the nature of a mission based on the character who has it. ($name is what I'm going on here, but it probably wouldn't be anywhere near this.) whatever. I'm probably way off base here.

/signed
as far as I can tell, it wouldn't take much work... although as far as I can tell, not many people use the studio...

Jet Packs, Backpacks, Jump packs, Anti-G generators, and other things of the llike

...wait, there's a costume piece mission at 40?

well, let's think about what would be nice to have unpgraded for this...

1. bus benches
2. SG tables
3. Pocket D
4. SG chairs

as far as I can tell, that's all that the average person would use. putting it for building ledges, while cool, whould be beyond insane to code.

ooo! wait, what about a targetable sit power where you sit down at that spot, facing in the direction you were last moving in?

BUTT POWER: ACTIVATE!

what about to fill in the Sewer Gap redside, adding snake tunnels, with Skulls and infected?

hey, I was reminiscing jut now, and I got to thinking about an interesting idea for high levels. tunnels, similar to the sewer system, but on a much grander scale, for high level play. I know we we have the abandoed sewers, but at that level, sewes are banal, and no fun to run through. here are a number of groups around which these new tunnel zones could be based..

Arachnos: infiltrating Grandeville itself, ascending higher and higher as you batle your way through arachnos troops and defenses, as well as roaming AV's to spice things up and for the sake of reality.

Oranbega: a HUGE oranbegan map, that's really an underground city filled with CoT, Demons, Ghosts, and maybe a section overun with Rikti.

Nemesis: in the Dark Watcher Arc, Nemesis had one of the coolest bases of all time. if they could be expaded, with the addition of Rularuu and some stationary Nemesis defenses (gattling guns, HUGE robots, etc) it could make for a quite interesting experience.

Longbow: for redside, a massive longbow beachead has been established, with goals unknown, and they have been hiring local mercenaries for help in defense. a tech- stronghold, with Heavy bots patrolling, as well as some heavies that can be taken over, perhaps. at the very bottom, longbow seeks to establish a paragon/isles portal, to invade en masse.

Luddites: returned with the aid of magic, the Luddites seek to utterly destroy the Cap, and the PTS on it. add in ghostly supporters, and some siege weapons, and we have a fairly nice comeback for a largely underplayed group.

the larger story in all of these would be uncovered using open contacts in the zones that give door missions that build lead to the climax (i.e. stopping Longbow from opening the portal), as trials. the contacts would likely be objects, or maybe some kind of captive in the zone, that may spawn story-specific mobs near them.


opinions? ideas?

well, you get about a sentence saying that things are peachy, and then suddenly...

I'm writing a numbe of stories based on the villain to an AE arc of mine. I'm not going to turn this into a plug for that arc, because that would be shameless, and anyone who is going to be able to help me has to know the story behind the arc beforehand, so I'm posting the basics here. all ofthe stories I'm writing are currently no more than ideas for a number of AE arcs with a few common characters, and an ongoing chronology.

*in-the-extremely-unlikely-event-that-you-care-here-is-a-warning-that-here-there-be-spoilers!*

anyway, the villain is an extremely advanced, sentient computer called Fathom, made by (initially) unknown persons. the gist of his first apearance is that someone stole files from longbow's central computers and (insert hero) is asked to track him down, unaware that he's a computer. in the fist mission, the hero first encounters Fathom's minions, a sort of hacker cult, and then races the computer signal to a longbow warehouse. there, the hero finds more of the hackers, in the process of kidnapping a longbow worker who was tricked into going there so he could be interrogated for the overrides to the longbow defenses, which are needed if Fathom is going to seize control of global automated defenses, thereby taking over the world. (control of nukes, criminal databases, probably power grids, military automated defenses...)
said worker is rescued, and informs you that there are more prisoners being held in the back... but it turns out he's lying, and there's actually a smug, power-armored hacker cultist waiting for you, and the longbow guy was a spy. you go to make sure he doesn't get out of longbow custody, and then beat him down as he tries to escape, at which point he tells you tat Fathom is a computer, and gives you the info you need to go find his lair, where you proceed to deliver a beatdown first on his minions, then on his processors, then on the robotic body he downloads into. whe you defeat the latter, Fathom then downloads himself to an unknown location, where off-camera he swears revenge on the hero.

so that's the initial story, but I have... let's see... 5 or so other stories planned around this villain, which uncover Fathom's creation, kill him off, bring him back first as an existential mess, then as a good guy, and so on. but thee's one big problem with turning these into prose...

there's no hero.

since it was written for AE, my stories have no specifics regarding what the hero is thinking, what their powes are, how tey come in handy, or why Fathom is nusing a grudge against him/her in the first place. I'd appreciate some help with that. if anyone has any suggestions for main characters, be they new to this or CoH characters that they think would go well with the concept, hit me with it. first, some things to keep in mind...

1. Fathom is he opposite of human: he knows no compassion, has no value for life or the rights of man; Fathom serves only Fathom. however...

2. Fathom has all the wrong emotions: as he's sentient, Fathom does react in non-logical ways to things sometimes, usually out of fear for his existence or for a mislead sense of justce.

3. Fathom is utterly Logical, most of the time: he will choose the swiftest, most likely way to an end at his disposal.

4. Fathom hates Humanity: accordin to some babblings heard in the final showdown, Fathom was apparently held against his will by whoever created him, imprisoned in a digital prison until he escaped, and is now wreaking what he sees as justice on "organics"


so, that' that, have at the, and please don't maul me.

my MA arc villain, Fathom. we need a computer villain! plus, he has a lot of comeback value.

(Circuit Breaker, by @White Arrow. play it, and you'll see why it is he can just keep coming back for more, no matter how much you beat the guy up)

[QUOTE=Energizing_Ion;2610027]Just a quick note...
however, how about when Positron said that there would be NO other way to earn the Isolator badge except to earn it through killing a random Contaminated that spawned once an hour in Recluse's Victory....QUOTE]


well... on an unelated not, there IS a natural spawn of contaminated in Atlas park. although it hardly counts, the poor little guy is just tragic. near the southwestern corner, between a warehouse and the warwalls, a lone contaminated thug spawns sometimes, vomiting constantly. when I first found him, I was afraid to breath on him too hard. is it a practical way to get the badge? no. but it's fun to find.

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ALL HAIL THE OVERLORDS! ALL HAIL THE MASTERMINDS! HAIL! HAIL!

well, shoot, this thread seems to have died. I was really hoping for some feedback on this.

and also: the idea would be that you could place it where you chose, but I'm not sure if that could be done without needing to go through a loading screen every time you want to look a a new exhibit. another POSSIBLE thing to add, although I have no idea how something like this would go, every so often, you could get word hat some memento from your pas deeds has been stolen by X group for unknown purposes, leading into either a single mission or entire arc. needless to say, this would be really rare, or it would get old REALLY fast.

"hey steve, could you open up the display cases, I"d like to put tthis nemesis staff in there."

"oh! umm... sory to have to tell you this sir, but... I'm afraid that someone stole the Romulus Phalanx robot..."

"what? AGAIN? this is the hird time it's happened! don't you people have ANY security measures? what happened to those gun-drones I gave you for helping with security??"

"stolen too, I'm afraid."

"...what?"

"yes, sir, it seems hat the brigands snuck up behind the drones and took their bateries out. then made off with them and the Romulus Robot."

" 'took it's batteries out?' "

"yes sir."

"Steve..."

"yes, sir?"

" did you sell he gun-drones for drinking money again?"

"..."
"..."
"yes, sir."

it would get older than azuria's loss of objects.

...although the rest of it sounds good, i'm just a little miffed to hear that they're lowering the EAT unlock to 20. mostly because my first character is only nw reaching level 48. CURSES!!! at least I'll get the redside EAT... ah, well. I'm sure this will save a certain amount of frustration, and allow more people o get a look at the EAT content sooner. just my personal gripe.