JKCarrier

You can read Venture's review of "How The Other Half Lives" here:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=134124

He gave it 3 stars. I can't really argue with anything he said, but I did want to explain the thought processes behind some of the things I did in the arc:

I've been experiencing this on Justice as well. The game isn't lagging otherwise, my netgraph doesn't show any spikes, but everything I try to do at the market takes 2 or 3 attempts before it will go through. It's very strange.

Worst. Costume contest. Ever!

I think the main point of the article is that, IF you let someone else use your account, and IF that person breaks rules or misbehaves, YOU are the one who will be held accountable. As long as everyone is playing nicely, the issue will never come up -- how would they ever know, or prove, that you were sharing an account? But if they cause trouble, it won't make any difference that it was someone else "borrowing" your account -- you're the one who's going to get banned/suspended/whatever.

I'll take a quickie, please.

Arc ID: 191775
Arc Title: How the Other Half Lives
Author: @JKCarrier
Morality: Heroic
Number of Missions: 4
Description: Is this the beginning of a beautiful friendship, or the worst babysitting job ever? Vanguard and Arachnos have agreed to exchange representatives, so each can see how the other half lives. Your job is to take a rookie Fortunata under your wing, and give her a taste of the hero's life. From the sewers of Paragon to the stronghold of the Rikti, it's going to be a bumpy ride! A story-focused, solo-friendly hero arc for levels 43-54.

Scion of Justice = Son of Corruption
Nebula Nine = Supernova Seven
Scarlet Spike = Bloody Spear

and on the villain side...

Major Manslaughter = Lieutenant Laughter
Princess Penumbra = Sunshine Sovereign
Voodoo Kitty = Fluffy the H34L0R!

I'll throw another arc on the pile.

191775 - How The Other Half Lives
It's a solo-friendly hero arc for levels 43-54. Thanks!

Thanks for checking out my arc! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

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The introduction is solid enough, although the premise is laughable - I hope I don't have to take this arc seriously.

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Yes, the premise is deliberately kind of silly. I do have a tendency to mix funny and serious stuff...I can see where that might be a turn-off if you're expecting it to be all one or the other.

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She's also level 50 (like me), whereas the mission subtitle mentioned a level 1 arachnos... again, I'm probably taking this too seriously.

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The conceit is that you've sidekicked her, so her level matches yours. That's right, she's not just an Arachnos agent, she's a dirty Powerleveler!

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Your New Sidekick Clue: entusiastic -> enthusiastic

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Ouch, good catch! I'll fix that.

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I'm using evidence from Rikti security tapes that perhaps they didn't check themselves - sounds like pretty low-tech security, like an ATM machine or a 7-11...

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The Base Commander has some dialogue where he's chewing out his soldiers over the lousy security, so they're at least aware of the problem.

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So now the Vanguard are my enemy too? Did they get Berserkified? I see the gadget is "all-purpose".

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Yes, everyone in the base is going berserk. I should probably make that clearer.

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At one point the Vanguard fled, but wasn't attacked by other Rikti he passed. I think this is a weakness in the Battles of AE, that you can't have a Rogue faction in a battle.

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Yeah, I had to fudge that a little. For the Battles, I put Rikti vs. Vanguard. But for the regular spawns, I made a custom group that had both of them in it, so those will only attack you instead of each other.

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Becky says thanks for letting her play sidekick - wasn't aware she was a good-guy in that last mish, since I ran by her. But it did make sense in the end.

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In the last mission, Becky's not set to follow you. The idea is that she just gives you the security codes to let you get further into the base. Since you can't make locked doors in AE, I set it so that rescuing her triggers the final boss objective. Admittedly, it's a bit of a kludge.

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I guess I figured tarantulas were cyborgs, not just suits, and so the original Becky fortunata confused me.

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You're right, she's been turned into a cyborg since you last saw her. I talk about it a little in the clues and the souvenir at the end.

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Becky was more capable than expected, Levantera was a lot more foolish than expected, and the hero-hostage was fairly much on target as the ally that causes too much knockback.

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I'm glad Becky worked out...I was worried that she'd be too squishy as a Minion (there wasn't a Lieutenant-rank Fortunata at the levels I needed).

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It weaves a winding path between drama and farce. But solidly written, almost no typos that I found, and a great poster.

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Thanks again, I really appreciate the detailed feedback. You might enjoy my other arc, 99458 -- it's more of a straightforward drama.

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I am pretty sure that a lot of folks just hate the market and nothing will ever change their minds. I would love to know why this is.

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The market is complicated and confusing. People mistrust things they don't understand. Marketeers don't help this impression when they go around telling people they can rake in billions with no risk or effort. Makes the whole thing sound like some big Ponzi scheme.

Arc #191775
How The Other Half Lives
by @JKCarrier

Is this the beginning of a beautiful friendship, or the worst babysitting job ever? Vanguard and Arachnos have agreed to exchange representatives, so each can see how the other half lives. Your job is to take a rookie Fortunata under your wing, and give her a taste of the hero's life. From the sewers of Paragon to the stronghold of the Rikti, it's going to be a bumpy ride!

A story-focused, solo-friendly hero arc for levels 43-54.

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Becky may just be the most memorable player-created character in the AE system.

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If that's Becky the Tarantula Mistress, she's not player-created. She appears in one of Vernon Von Grun's missions redside. But she is definitely awesome...I used her in one of my arcs too.

I'd still like you to review my arc, thanks. It's only 3 missions, if that helps.

I said I was looking forward to "Going Rogue", NOT "Going Commando"!

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Avatar for The Ocho?

What will it be?:P

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Same as the Mod08 avatar, but wearing a sombrero.

I gave "Three Fold King" 4 stars. I thought it was a solid, enjoyable arc. The custom critters are cool-looking, and they seem fairly balanced. I was playing a lvl 44 crab soldier, and was able to solo the final boss without much trouble.

I do wish I'd gotten a little more background on the Lemurians. Who are they, besides "Guys who live underground and want to invade us"? The contact, Cramer, seemed a little underdeveloped too. We find out as we go along that he's been withholding information from us, but it's not really clear why. He has an indirect connection to the bad guys, but nothing really comes of it. I'm guessing that maybe this is just the first part of a longer story you have planned? If so, I'll look forward to seeing the rest of it.

My arc is 99458, "The Unbearable Being of Lightness". It's a hero arc for levels 5-30. It should be mostly solo-friendly, but there's an AV/EB in the last mission who might give squishies some trouble. Thanks!

Arc ID #: 99458
Arc Title: The Unbearable Being of Lightness
Length: 3 missions
Difficulty: Mostly pretty easy, but there's an AV in the last mission.
Description: The noble mages of the Legacy Chain are under attack, just as they're beginning an ambitious new project. When dealing with magic, be careful what you wish for.

Thanks in advance!

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Bill Murray? (does that make me old??)

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I'm even older... I was thinking of Chevy Chase.

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After playing some more, my conclusion is still the same: no point in even worrying about merits, as I'll never earn enough to get anything I actually want.

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Same here. Under the old system, the only way to get the rare recipes was to either grind task forces or play the market. Under the new system, since the Merit drops for storyarcs are so small, you still have to grind TFs or play the market. Only it takes longer thanks to diminishing returns.

This doesn't really impact me, since I was never getting the Super Shineys anyway. But I do kind of resent having this promise of Merits dangled in front of me, only to find out that it hasn't really changed anything.

Objective:
Sidekicked/Lackied characters are sometimes not getting the reward from the Baby New Year mission.

When fighting Snaptooth, certain powers (Assassin Strike and Chain Induction at least, possibly others) will cause him to disappear briefly and then make him impossible to target for a couple of seconds. This also happens with Rikti bombs during invasions... no idea what those two have in common!

Subjective:
I've only been around for two Winter Events, and I'm already sick of rescuing Baby New Year. More ways to earn candy canes would be nice, especially since you keep adding more things that can be bought with them. Right now it's a total grind that quickly stops being fun.

The ski runs are entirely too frustrating, and way beyond my middle-aged reflexes. Instead of adding a second ski run, I wish you had used that development time to create another holiday-themed mission, or some other new content.

The halos are very cool.

The good:
It's some shiny new badges to collect.
The bonus XP is nice.

The bad:
As others have said, the other bonuses time-out so quickly that they seem pointless. Making them perma would be overkill, but maybe there's a happy medium in there somewhere.

(QR)
Sheesh, what is up with the devs and this War on Storage? "We're only going to let you store a tiny amount, and charge rent on top of that! That'll teach ya!" Was groups hoarding salvage considered a problem?

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but we plan on incorporating more and more PvP features into City of Heroes and City of Villains.

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I hope these future features will remain completely separate and optional. And that they won't involve PvE rewards.

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We’ve done a lot of quality of life features, like revamping the Badge UI

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Great news! Heck, I'll settle for working progress bars.

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A lot of the ideas on powers and PvP we implemented in Issue 13 came directly from player feedback.

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Oh, the PVP crowd is gonna looooove that one.