Doctor_Gemini

My question would be, "why do you care?" I can probably count on both hands the total number of players who care how many badges another player has.

The only argument against having things for sale on the market I'm hearing is that it makes some players self-worth plummet. If a players ego relies on being in competition with other players for the best or most stuff, then I feel sorry for those people, especially given that the vast majority of players couldn't care less what you have.

Here we go again. The same logic also says that if you agree with ONE thing being on sale in the market you MUST agree that absolutely everything should be on sale in the market. That's what happens when you take things to ridiculous extremes.

I hope not. Granted, I've done the low level content so many times that I don't often want to run it, but I really dislike radio missions. That was one of the major annoyances I had redside.

Nope, although I do dislike anything with complete mez immunity. It's because I find EBs to be boring bags of HP, given that I mostly solo. I see a Boss and I'll go in and fight, use whatever tactics are open to me, and use inspirations as I need them, making the fight, for me at least, a challenge. I see an EB and I immediately take 3 purples or oranges (unless I'm on a high level tank) because far too often if I don't do this I'm two or three shotted before my old reflexes can get to a green and there are no tactics in the game to avoid it. Then the fight becomes a no-challenge button masher.

That's the problem, they have too much damage output which means either die or activate god-mode, there's no middle ground. There are a couple of EBs which are pretty well balanced, but they are few.

Thanks again for the suggestions. I do appreciate them whether I end up making use of them or not.

Wexler's teleport is the easiest to handle, it's a one-use item, I'll just have to find a place to explain that. Making the magic less confusing without lengthy explanations (that I don't have text space for even if I wanted to include a lot of extraneous information) will be the main challenge.

If I followed that sentiment I would have to stop playing this game altogether. I'm not ok with many aspects of the game. Back in 2005, I disliked enough of the game that is was not fun, so I did stop using it. When I came back 2 years later, the things I hated had been changed, and not because I quit or there had been a mass exodus.

There are still many things I dislike. I don't like the immersion breaking way the auction house is implemented, for example, but I sure as hell am not going to stop selling my drops there or buying IOs.

I can't stand the mechanics of EBs, but I'm not about to avoid arcs that have them in them at some point as that would reduce the amount of content I could play drastically.

There are many more examples, but, it all comes down to the same thing. Overall, the game is fun, and things I have disliked have been changed despite the fact that I and most of the population were using them prior to being changed. AE, for all that I quickly lose enthusiasm every time I try to write another arc, provides additional content to get me past those levels where I have played the missions dozens of times, or all I have are missions I hate to run. I'm not about to abandon it and reduce the fun of the game because it has problems.

The history of this game has shown very clearly that abandoning some aspect of it does NOT get dev attention. It gets that aspect written off. PvP is probably the best example of that.

Or it is conceptually based. For me, I'm playing my character's adventures. Although I love fighting Circle of Thorns, I don't like them on some of my tech or science based characters for whom magic doesn't fit in their storyline. If I actually ever ran tip missions anymore, I'd only run ones that had enemies that fit my concept, and for a couple of those concepts Council would be the major enemy.

The vault being stolen happened without warning. Seers don't always know the future after all. Once stolen, they M.A.G.I. seers were actively looking for the vault and an explanation as to how it was taken. I know why they found the item but not the vault, but, no text space. 30 years of running an FRPG have left me with some strong views of how divination magic works, but it tends to make me forget that what is obvious to me and people who have played in my campaign is not obvious to others. Great point, though, so I'll try to figure out how to make that clearer without the long-winded explanation of how I see seers working.

The name is intentionally mundane. Azuria explains, I think in the mission return text (if not, then in the mission dialogue for mission 2), why he doesn't have many artifacts. It's not a detailed explanation, but then it would make little sense for her to explain in detail.

Intentionally wimpy. He is supposed to give the idea that he has not seen any real combat, leaving open the question as to how he killed the Hellion boss that the patrols and Burning Mad mention.

I considered the clue as giving you more conversation you heard from Wexler than just his dialogue balloons, however, unless I'm going to add more than just that to it, you're right, I should change his unaware dialogue.

I agree, but again hit the text limit. I'll see if I have used the end mission clue and include it there if need be.

Has to do with concepts of magic that would be too long, and irrelevant to the overall story, to put into the dialogue. The scepter does not scry, but since its power was used on the vault there is a connection that seers might be able to read, which they did. They could not find Timothy because it was never used on him. Sounds like I need to put in a "don't ask how, the explanation would take too long" type of handwaving into her dialogue.

Only if he could instantly use the scepter. I probably can figure out a way for Azuria to explain that.

The idea of how that all worked in my head did not give them the actual location, just where to focus the rod to retrieve it. This gives me an idea so maybe I will change mission 4.

If she explains how the gem worked then that problem solves itself.

To me it was clear the danger she senses was the physical danger (i.e. the coralax, which I chose to assume she had not run into before even though there are a few in the Hollows), not the artifact. I'll try to make that clearer.

If she could predict every future event then she wouldn't be giving new heroes missions, she's be advising the President

Earn is a name, you should have seen them talking in the first 3 (maybe even 4) missions.

Yes.

I know why it needs to be destroyed, but the character has no way to know it, ergo, he wouldn't destroy it. That one was an unintentional plot hole.

I agree, but I doubt I could get across what I need to about the diary in the text space allowed doing it that way. I will look into it though.

It is weird, and in fact, I believe Azuria even comments on how did he just happen to drop it there.


No, but I already know how I will fix the plothole you pointed out and that will give me the opportunity to more fully explore what was done with those circle mages.

Which is exactly what you're supposed to think. Azuria is grasping at straws because she refuses to believe Timothy is not being used. I try not to write things that tell the character what they are thinking but I do point out either in the mission entrance pop-up or mission start clue that her explanation sounds dubious.

Which is exactly what it is. If only we had branching dialogue so the character could do more than go along with her. That's why I included clues that, without telling the player what the character is thinking, make it clear that Azuria's "logic" may not be anything of the kind. You're not just stupidly agreeing with her, but you also have nothing better to go on to solve this.

Intentional. I always hear him with an English accent to boot. Just a tiny bit of comic relief.

Azuria (or the clues at the end of the last mission) tell you WHEN Kanis will be at that location, so you can't just go out and get him right now. Azuria states that she feels you need more seasoning before facing a Circle mage.

Intentional. Although I am thinking it should say "4 Remains remain to be found".

They thought they were tricked.

The end mission popup suggests that maybe it wasn't a coincidence. She is a seer after all.


Its not in code. You can read the diary, however, Azuria states that the diary has another message magically imprinted on it. Not those exact words, so I'll check and see if the exact wording does not make that clear and fix it if necessary.

and in Azuria's. The proper reaction to that revelation is supposed to be along the lines of "Wait....what?"

While she might get the blame, it's actually Gregor Richardson who guards the vault.

His actions were designed to impress Azuria. That was why he took summoning devices from the vault, so he could save the day and look like a hero. That was explained in his final clue. What is not explained, intentionally, is his initial attempt to sell the vault.

Which is intentional.


Mission 4's real purpose was always to get a character who starts the arc at level 1 or 2 up to, or very close to, level 5 for the final mission. It has always been a weak link in the story. However, one of your comments on an earlier mission gave me a good idea to rework this and tie what I leave from it in better with the overall story.

That's not going to change. It intentionally leaves questions which later stories will answer. While I realize that this type of writing style does not work as well on AE arcs as in my usual form of story writing, it is how I do things. If that means lower ratings, then so be it

I very much appreciate the detailed feedback. You gave me quite a few things to tweak and to take a second look at.

Me...

Great comic GG. I can't believe how much work you must have put into it.

I feel that way about all the 40-50 content I've done so far. My two characters that have hit 50 hit 40 over 2 years ago, and the last 10 levels just felt like wading through the biggest load of dreck I'd ever seen in the game, so I could rarely get enthused to play them. (of course, I haven't done anywhere near all the 40-50 story arcs, but I find it odd that two different characters both did different arcs and they all sucked).

I've got a third character up to 40, I'm strongly thinking I'm going to mostly run AE arcs for her.

The same logic makes buying any CoX box justification to have absolutely nothing taken away by becoming a Premium. After all, I could not play a controller without one of the CoX boxes, therefore, I "bought" controllers. I could not use IOs without buying one of the CoX boxes, therefore I "bought" IOs. And so on.

GR was NOT the Incarnate System expansion, it was the new low-level zones with some new powersets expansion. Nowhere on the box does it mention incarnates. The reason someone may have bought it is irrelevant if they have chosen to stop paying a subscription, because incarnate content required GR AND a subscription and the purchaser knew that at the time.

Whether I bought CoH, CoV, or GR, I bought an overall package containing a game system ON THE UNDERSTANDING that I had to pay a subscription fee to play ANY of the game. That means if I choose to stop paying a fee, I have no "rights" to access anything I payed for previously even if the game goes F2P.

MARTy proves they would not have to do this at all, just make MARTy's AE brother with a much lower throttle. Most likely it would have almost no effect on running most story arcs.

It's not going to happen, though, for the same reason the devs have long since stopped talking about farming in AE. Someone above the dev team is perfectly happy with it.

Personally, I don't care about farming on AE, just give me a Story Arc tag so I can find non-farms. My only beef with farm writers is not them clogging up AE with farms, but them clogging up AE with 50 million versions of the exact same farm.

The CE was not put out with any promise or inference of an increase in value. In fact, only those who did not use the game codes can even see an increase in value.

I agree with Zombie Man, whoever is blocking this (and I doubt it's Positron, the way he looked when he said why it would not be on the market made it seem like he did not agree with the idea) needs to have things explained to him.

It's time to gather the torches and pitchforks and march on Castle Paragon! Send out the blasphemer! Rabblerabblerabble...