Leese

The only April Fool that's made me laugh has been Guild Wars' one - turning every player in towns into Gwen plushies.

Sadly they can only do the /flute emote...

I agree, we're going to NEED a MA forum when I14 launches. I guess the trick for the mods is adding one without breaking the board software again, though.

Weren't Tiscali seriously throttling or blocking CoH's traffic a while back? (could be years...) Did they stop doing that or what?

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You will never get that.

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That's what they said about buttcapes! :P

Also, necklines.

This thread has been derailed. You are all forgetting what's REALLY important.

KHELDIAN SASH PLZ!

A while back I was inspired by Jock_Tamson's epic "In the Beginning" posts on the US boards, and wrote this as a sort of weak tribute. I suggest you read some of his stories before reading this.

Then I forgot about it. Until now.

If you enjoy this and have a US forum account, I'd appreciate it if you could copy it over to that thread.

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While the Children of Statesman are all born to battle evil and protect the weak, they cannot be expected to fight constantly. Such a thing would drive anyone mad. Instead, they prefer to relax by gathering with their relatives around Atlas Park or - for those who prefer to have to shout when they talk - in the Pocket D nightclub. There they can temporarily suspend their duties, comparing each other's fashion sense and engaging in pointless arguments until they realise that perhaps time spent battling evil is not so bad.

So it was that Invul - a son of Tank - and Reg - a son of Scrapper - gathered under the great statue of Atlas and talked of their accomplishments this day. These two were old friends, having teamed together often in the past, and had a healthy respect for each other. Invul's story, of keeping the rapt attention of the Dreck from his team while sustaining little damage impressed Reg, whose ability to take constantly hits of that magnitude was uncertain. Reg's story, of effortlessly fighting for hours without pause for breath or respite was the envy of Invul however. Even he occasionally needed to take a break in-between battles.

As they talked, the two watched the city carry on around them, and realised that a strange tableau was going on directly in front of them. A Hellion had accosted a young woman and was attempting to steal her handbag, but she had held on to the strap and was pulling with all her might. The two heroes had been idly watching this, confident that a young hero would be along soon to stop the Hellion, but none had arrived. As Reg and Invul checked their watches they realised that the two had been engaged in their tug-of-war for over an hour, with neither giving any quarter.

"That's actually kind of impressive," Reg mused.

"Yup," Invul answered.

"... you think we should do something?"

"In the words of a great hero, 'They're all grey to me,' cousin," Invul replied, as the woman grit her teeth and started to drag her handbag back toward her. "We can't go around solving every problem in Atlas Park. There would be nothing left for the younger heroes to do."

Reg nodded, though he felt bad about it.

"That great hero was a child of Defender, wasn't he?" Reg asked, and Invul nodded. "Figures," Reg continued. As a child of Scrapper he tended to consider Defender's tendency to think ahead rather than charge in a sign of outright apathy, and this quote fit that conclusion.

The two continued to watch the small battle in front of them. No younger heroes were coming, but the woman and her assailant never seemed to flag or fall, their resolve only growing as the battle continued. Reg started to feel a little humbled now that he was faced with this normal woman's valour.

"I think we should do something," he eventually said to Invul.

"I suppose," Invul replied.

"I just had an idea, cousin," Reg added, and he leant in closer to Invul and stood on his tiptoes to whisper in his cousin's ear. The suggestion made Invul raise his eyebrow, at least.

"That's madness," Invul said. "Nobody's tried that before."

"I think it's a great idea," Reg said. "You can't deny that she deserves it!"

"I cannot, cousin, but still..." Invul gave it some more thought. "Well, it would be interesting to see what happens..."



So it was that Reg and Invul approached the Hellion and the woman, and reached out their hands to put a small sliver of their power within her. They had intended to give her only enough power to finally retrieve her handbag and escape, but when the power of Reg and Invul mixed within her they combined to create something far stronger than expected - a new heroine who was a paragon of Determination. Ignoring her exhaustion, the woman gathered all her resolve into one burst of strength. She seized her handbag from the Hellion and promptly started beating him with it, until he fled into the alleyways.

Dumbstruck at this unexpectedly powerful woman, Reg and Invul watched as she ran over to them and bowed.

"Thank you kind heroes for... whatever it is you did."

"No problem," Reg said, now starting to wonder if he should have done that. Invul was thinking much the same thoughts.

"Um... we should probably take you to meet some people Ms," he said politely. "What is your name."

"Will," she replied.

"Will?" Reg asked. "Isn't that a strange name for a girl?"

"Maybe..." she replied with a sigh. "My father's called Gloria though, and my mother's name is Jesus."



So it was that Will was taken to meet the children of Scrapper and Tank and began to fight alongside them, which was to her great surprise as she had thought she was just a normal, natural person. Through her strength of will she could call on powers weaker than but similar to those of Reg and Invul, and the combination was a potent one that could at times surpass her creators, occasionally to their chagrin - but that is a story for another day.

As for the Hellion? He fled from Will all the way to the islands belonging to the Spider, and told his story to the children of Brute and Stalker. It is true that they were very grateful to him. It is also true that they are not very nice people. It is probably best not to inquire after his eventual fate.

very good idea, would love to see it implemented.

well, that's just what gets used on some forums, mailing lists etc. And those are just examples.

I think, generally speaking, that it's a bit early to be trying to work this out. Once we see the MA interface, people will start using acronyms, codes and tags that are customised to the interface's requirements.

And given that the people in closed beta have probably started standardising some codes to make searching the mission list easier, any plans you make may have been superceded already.

In other places, tags work just fine and are far more self-explanatory

[HUMOR] - humorous arc
[HERO]/[VILLAIN] - for heroes or villains.
[HARD] - very difficult arcs
[KHELDIAN]/[SOA] - arcs intended for epic ATs

and so on. The only problem with them is someone will always try to put every tag that applies in their title, so you end up with something titled...

[SG][HERO][HUMOR][KHELDIAN][BORK][BORK][BORK] Not enough charact

and then they run out of letters in the title.

If there are specific people you want to play with, it will probably be worth it.

But if you're just looking for the hell of it, it doesn't seem worth it to me if you already have the US version. You'll be paying the £10 box price ($14) and £9 a month ($12.50) for two more servers (more if you speak French or German) at a higher ping than the US ones, and you will not have access to any of your veteran rewards, epic ATs or booster packs.

Best bet? You already have a trial account, so give it a shot. See how many people are on at the times you can play, and how good the ping is, and then balance that against the expense.

IIRC, exactly the same thing happens on the USA boards every so often. Once the boards grow to certain sizes, bugs start making whole chunks of them disappear...

I don't think we can move over to the new board software quickly enough.

They do, but it is very small and barely noticable without a electron microscope.

Patrol XP is basically "negative debt" so when the two meet each other they cancel each other out.

Thus when you die, your debt actually removes some of your patrol XP. If you log out with debt, your debt will be cancelled as you earn Patrol XP.

Hm, to clarify the question...

OK, lets look at the Schoolgirl/boy scenario.

If any hero can play it, it looks a bit like this...

Author: Here is a contact. She is a schoolgirl.
Schoolgirl: My friend has been kidnapped! Please, go find her!

If the author dictates that the player's character is a schoolboy/girl

Author: You are a schoolboy/girl. Your friend has been kidnapped! You'd better find her!

The latter example strikes me as having more scope for personally involving the player's character in the story, because the player's character has something at stake. When a hero is working through a contact as in the former example, it's easy for them to end up a little aloof I think, because they barely know the contact or their friend.


For another example, think of a group similar to the Power Rangers/Sailor Senshi/Green Lantern Corps. If any hero can play it, then they can't have any ties to the Rangers/Senshi/GL themselves, they're just helping them out. If the author dictates character details, then the player actually IS a Ranger/Senshi/GL, and the story can go more in-depth.


P.S. I'm not planning on writing anything like this, at least not to start with. I have plenty of more vague ideas to go on for now. I just think it's an interesting possibility with the MA system. You could have entire arcs that don't even take place in Paragon at all.

"Your character is a Starship captain, go make one"
"Your character is a medieval European knight, go make one"
"Your character is a cell phone salesman living in Texas, go make one"
"Your character is a gang leader in the ruins of Los Angeles, 2145 AD, go make him/her"

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Side note, [this arc is intended for 1-4 level 1 Japanese schoolboys/girls using any kind of weapons set] sounds like an arc based on Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. Heh.

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I was thinking Magic Knight Rayearth or maybe even The Chronicles of Narnia, but OK. :P

One problem with writing MA arcs is going to be that you won't KNOW who's going to play it. Is your player's character male, female or huge? Are they a blaster, scrapper or dominator? Classical hero, 90's anti-hero or spikey-haired anime character? Tailoring an arc to these kinds of options is going to be impossible...

Unless... what if an arc said before you started it,

[this arc is intended for a male Energy/Energy blaster dressed entirely in Enforcer gear]

or

[this arc is intended for 1-4 level 1 Japanese schoolboys/girls using any kind of weapons set]

or

[this arc is intended for an aging Golden age hero who is dismayed by the attitudes of modern heroes.]

Such arcs might be able to tell a more coherent story, because the player is playing a character the author has partially designed and knows something about. It would be a little more like a JRPG, where Cloud, Squall and Tidus are defined by the scenario writer and not the player.

Would you play an arc that dictated to you who your character is? Would you make a new character for the purpose of playing such an arc?

I once dreamt that I hacked the account of someone I knew and stole his Inv/ tanker because I wanted to see how fun playing it it.

In reality, he doesn't even have an Inv/ tanker.

All I know is, I need to get my hands on this soon or just forget it exists until it hits open/live, because I've got total hype fatigue...

Just to avoid any future confusion, the name of my BS/WP is Lady Alicia.

Hm, now that I think about it... there aren't 1000 members in the badging channels. But still... :P

Apparantly there are badges for getting a mission in the Hall of Fame or Devs Choice. I forsee rating conspiracies springing up in the badging channels... remember when I9 was released and for days the only thing people talked about in the badging channels was trading alien tech back and forward? :P

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Question, wasnt it just 3 missions in the arc? or I am thinking wrong, and GG I doubt you would rate a arc 5 stars if it was slagging people off now would you.

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5 missions per arc.
3 arcs per account. Gain more by getting your arcs promoted to dev's choice or hall of fame.

You can have up to 25 objectives per missions, so 8 bosses and an EB should be doable. And that sounds like a mission I'd like to play

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I think I'd be inclined to rate an arc higher if it produces some form of emotional reaction in me - if it makes me smile (for tongue in cheek or just plain awesome reasons) or if it tugs my emotional heartstrings (ala Wretch).

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/em nod

Very true. one of my favorite arcs in CoV is "High Roller's Last Gamble for this very reason - [spoilers] the slot machine's almost puppy-like devotion to High Roller, and his Letter from Ploughkeepsie[/spoilers] There's nothing special about about the arc's missions themselves, it's the writing that makes that one special.

The main reason I put difficulty over plot though is that no amount of good writing will make an unwinnable battle fun.

What do you think will be your personal criteria that a MA arc will need to meet to get a 5-star rating?

Not going to go into much detail here before I actually get a chance to try the MA, but in rough order of importance to me...

Difficulty balance (equivalent in difficulty to the rest of the game for the most part. Advanced challenges are fine if you give a warning in the arc description, for EG "warning, this arc forces a Void Slayer boss to spawn, solo Kheldians may have problems" or "warning, 5 AV ambushes in a row." I'm guessing that MA arcs will lock us in Task Force mode and we won't be able to buy insps or get allies to help us.)

Plot (originality is not TOO important, as there only so many basic stories to tell, but you should have something to set your arc apart. Plot should also be appropriate to the game's theme and age rating IMO)

Variety (not 5 warehouses in a row, or a custom faction made up of enemies with exactly the same powers. Don't make playing your arcs boring please)

Consistency with the real game-world (arcs where Statesman beats up civilians and worships Satan probably wouldn't wash)

Spelling/grammar (spell check your writing please)

Enemy power choices (a good challenge and interesting)

Enemy costume design (not an eyesore)


Of course, any of the above might be ignored if the arc is meant to be funny, satirical or just weird, but they'd have to do it well.