Leortha

They're bringing the servers down right about now for emergency Saturday maintenance. I'm hoping that it's to fix this bug.

Ok. My search-fu is weak today. I tried to search first. Sorry.

Long timers will remember this bug. It has to do with the fog of war on city zones. Apparently there is a limit to how many zones the game will remember for a given toon. Once you visit that limit worth of zones, the game can no longer remember fog of war clearing for any additional zones. The fog of war resets for any zones over the limit.

This mostly effected high level toons, who had visited lots of zones, and especially older toons, as there are several zone maps that older toons would have visited that are no longer accessible these days (PDP, Old Faultline, etc). These maps apparently still count to the limit for toons that visited them.

The problem was an annoyance for quite a while, especially after CoV was added. The PvP zones added with CoV pushed many older toons over the limit. Eventually it was quietly fixed.

Now we can see how they fixed it. They simply raised the limit for the number of zones that can be remembered. This worked, until the new limit is reached.

GR has now made the new limit reachable. Yesterday I took my level 50, long timer badge toon through the villain zones, collecting exploration badges. Everything was great until I reached Grandville. The fog of war clearer from the veteran rewards failed to clear Grandville. I was puzzled, but went about collecting badges. I then did a mission and exited. And the fog of war was reset. That's when I remembered Zone Amnesia, and realized that I had hit the new limit.

I'm not sure if it's possible for any toons except older toons to hit the new limit currently. The only other zone I can think of at this point that I have not visited on this toon is the Abyss. And there are at least two zone maps that newer toons cannot visit. But even so, especially if they eventually allow older toons into Praetoria, then lots of toons will be hitting the limits and experiencing the problem.

I know I regularly drop the Chance for +END from one of the END Mod sets into Stamina. I think it rolls it's chance every 10 seconds, so at 20% chance, that's a small END boost every 50 seconds, on average. When I watch the Combat tab, I see it firing about that often.

[ QUOTE ]
Ugh ... having to get the villain day jobs ... lets hope they change the requirements ....

[/ QUOTE ]

I *think* most of the villain day-job badges are just the flipped names of the hero versions. I would need to look at a post-I13 settitle list to be certain, though. But if they are, then baring some sort of mass badge loss during side flipping, you'll not be gaining/losing anything in that area, at least.

On minor correction. Grandville did not come out with I6/CoV, it came out many months later with I7, when the level 40-50 content for villains was added.

I had something like this a week or two ago. I think it ended up being because I have a line break in a field where that was not allowed, like the description. Not sure why it gave that error, but making everything back to a single line in the field removed the error.

Thanks for the review.

I've been playing with the Assassin gnome, and you are right, he's not being stealthy as I wanted him to be. I may combine him with your unfinished robot idea, and make him an in joke about him not being stealth, and maybe make a body part or two a bit robot skeletal. If I describe it right, it would make for a funny bit. Something like "He's supposed to be stealthy, but something is obviously not working quite right in that regard."

As for the names, it's Dinglebelly. I thought I had squashed all the misspellings, but looks like I have more squashing to do.

As for the warning, I added the briefing warning first, but wanted to be more subtle there so as not to ruin the surprise for those who do not want to be ruined. The other was added so I could be a bit more explicit, in a way that is easier to ignore than the briefing. Basically, most like the ending, but I was getting a small number of complaints from solo squishies. The warning is a way to not tone down the ending, but let those with potential problems know the easy solution.

Dissecting the OP's arc.

First Mission:
Text after accepting the mission: The first sentence should IMHO be two, splitting at the comma after "shape".

Burning Arachnos map is actually a Council base? Might want at least a simple explanation somewhere of why one faction is using another's base.

I like the council guy standing around with the fire equipment.

Nice set-up mission, with interesting mystery to the custom enemies.

Second mission
Clue from rebellious PM is missing a title.

Nice building of the myster of these women.

After mission check-in text. 2nd paragraph gets a little unclear with the pronouns. You have two females, Emily and the turncoat, and the "she" towards the end is a little unclear as to which it applies. I think it's supposed to refer to Emily, but it's not perfectly clear.

Third mission ties it all up nicely. The book at the end was a nice touch.

Overall I liked it quite a bit.

Arc Name: Gnomish Madness
Arc ID: 30204
Faction: heroic
Difficulty Level: Easy
Synopsis: Single silly mission. You are asked by a longbow officer to investigate the latest doing of a nefarious robitics-focused mad scientist, who has recently been purchasing large numbers of oversized garden gnomes.
Length: 15-30 minutes, at the most.
Contains one EB/Boss

I'll see about reviewing the OP's arc as well.

As for mine, I've had a number of comments wanting a sequel. And while my villain does indeed lend himself to more stories, and I do have an idea for another set of silly robots for him, I'm lacking a good, different main joke for a sequel. I've done just sending the player after him with his army of silly robots. I don't want to just swap out one group of silly robots for another. So until I get an idea for a new core joke for a sequel, I'm kinda stuck.

[QR]

This was priviously discussed here shortly before I14 went live. The previous discussion did not really end up going anywhere, but has a few additional ideas for possible tag subjects (the tag formating was different.)

The tags from the OP of the older thread included: Brutal, Easy, Inside, Silly, Serious, Combat, Story, Canonical, Dark.

In that thread I also suggested Badge (now appearing to be a Bad Idea), Custom, Stock, and Challenge.

Others suggested Non-Canon (covered by the Elseworlds already discussed), Origin, What If, Creepy, Team, and Solo.

(Check out the older thread for explanations of all of the above)

Might also want to look at Arcs Listed by Genre to see which are the more popular genres, if genre tags are to be used.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Happened to me too--I modified the description to make it clear it wasn't a farming mission. And while I have a local copy, it's not completely up to date.

[/ QUOTE ]

How does this happen? Doesn't the system update your local copy every time you make changes and hit 'Republish'? Where are the changes coming from to go to the server? Are they only stored in RAM?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you have autosave turned on, and edit a published arc, the arc is regularly saved in the "autosave" file. But since you only have a single "autosave" file, if you edit anything else that would save to that file, it will overwrite the local copy of the published mission. Back it up from "autosave" before doing such.

If you do not have autosave on, then I'm not exactly sure what happens. I suspect that it is only kept in RAM in that case.

[QR]
For those wondering how the MA complaint system works, there was a blog post a few days back from Hero 1 that goes into details on how the system works. It made slashdot, which is how I found out about it. Let me go dig through slashdot to find the link....

Ok. Here we go.

As a short synopses, arcs are pulled automatically after they receive X complaints, with X increasing as the arc gets more and more non-complaint ratings. They can be republished once when pulled, but if pulled a second time they must be appealed to CS, and evaluated by a live person. And it's only at this third stage that CoH CS gets involved. The first two pullings are done totally automatically done by the system.

[ QUOTE ]
AE System
--------
Welcome to Architect Entertainment -- Neutral
Death for Dollars! -- Neutral
Bare Knuckles of Rage (9304)
*

Character/Supergroup Origins
--------
Birth of a Fossil -- Heroic
Secret Origins(Tech) The Snake Women of Epsilon V (42221) - Heroic
Noah Reborn -- Heroic (2370)
Jumping in Feet First - Heroic - 1345
*

Classic Super-Hero/Super-Villain
--------
THE BOMBER --- Heroic --- 16607
*

Comedy
--------
The Extadine Lab -- Heroic
MacGuffin Delivery Service (1567) -- Villainous
ParaCon -- Heroic
The new and improved Lord Recluse Strike Force -- Villainous (though I wouldn't recommend against a hero )
The Fire Bunnies - Neutral, They are only bunnies after all...
You Say It's Your Birthday! (3630) - Neutral
Trademark Infringement -- Heroic (2220)
Hail to the King Neutral (34640)
Walk On the Wild Side - Neutral - 3580
Shirley You Jest (25474) -- Neutral
The Invasion of the Bikini Clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space! - Heroic - 61013
Gnomish Madness (30204) - Heroic
*

Comedy/Drama
--------
A Super Team is Born -- Heroic
Cause of How Some Silly Stealed My Wings #1481 -- Neutral
How to Survive a Robot Uprising -- Heroic (12669)
Dr. Duplicate's Dastardly Dare -- Neutral
It's a Nice Day for a White Wedding (9059) -- Neutral
TURG FICTION: Ghost in the Machine, Act I - Heroic (althoughs romantic villains could try this too )
Rum Runners of Bloody Bay (3691) - Heroic
Have a Blap, Blap, Blappy Day Kids! (2019)
The Toypocalypse! (49280) - Heroic
*

Crime/Gangs
--------
The Bravuran Jobs -- Villainous (16809)
The Monstrous Regiment of Lesbian Hellions -- Heroic (27178)
Win the 2009 Freak-Lympics (2150) - Villainous
Ninja Crimewave! (2142) - Heroic
Whitehawks (Arc 49364) -- Heroic
The Internet is for Crime (53385) - Villains
Plastic Pistol Peril (1135) - Heroic*

Drama
--------
The Conciliators: Simone -- Heroic (4010)
The Fan Club -- Heroic
Of Mentors and Legacy - Heroic - 1589
*

Global Domination
--------
Axis and Allies -- Villainous (1379)
*

Heist
--------
Celebrity Kidnapping -- Villainous (1388)
Easy Money -- Villainous (31490)
*

Historical (Realistic)
--------
*

Historical (CoH Lore)
--------
The War on Superadine - The Regulators in their 1980's drug war (Heroic) (Arc 7959)
Origins - Volume 1 (57077) -- Heroic
*

Holiday
--------
*

Horror
--------
Astoria in D Minor (41565) -- Heroic
Dark Dreams (3615)
The Amulet of J'gara (1709) -- Heroic
Project: Perilous - Into the Chthonian Pit (#3586) - Neutral (Unless you happen to be a mad cultist, in which case, go nuts!)
Small Fears -- Heroic
*

Large-Scale Crisis
--------
A Hero's Halo -- Heroic
This Is War, Part I - the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz -- Neutral
Win the Past, Own the Future - Heroic
A Warrior's Friend - Heroic
The Clockwork War -- Heroic (18672)
Flight of the Valkyries - Precursor (20272) -- Neutral
*

Magic
--------
The Magical Miss Fitz (5079) -- Heroic
Chains of Blood (5492) -- Heroic
A Deal with Destiny -- Heroic
*

Military
--------
Redoubt Operations #1: Fires over Kalago -- Heroic
Red Storm Rising (Arc 4912) -- Heroic
Whitehawks (Arc 49364) -- Heroic
Axis and Allies -- Villainous (1379)

*
Misc. Adventure
--------
The Portal Bandits (3326) -- Heroic
*

Mystery
--------
Blowback (18575) -- Heroic
Dream Paper -- Heroic (13030)
Dream Paper 2: Restless Sleep -- Heroic (16797)
Dream Paper 3: Broken Dreams -- Heroic (13064)
*

Mythology
--------
Atlantis Attacks! -- Neutral (30898) -- Click for Promotional Poster
Anactoria's Descent Into the Underworld -- Villainous
The Seelie War -- Heroic
The Unseelie War -- Villainous
Tales of Cimerora, volume 1 : Of feathers and fur -- Heroic
The Aegis Affair - Heroic
Witches and Warriors (53006)- Heroic
The War of Fate(12220,46722)- Heroic
Rites of the Maenads (61159) - Heroic
*

Nemesis Plots
--------
Brass Reaver: Part 1 -- Neutral
*

Player-Chosen Outcome
--------
Hunting the Dark Dragon -- Heroic
Playing Gods -- Heroic (51106)
*

Sci-Fi
--------
Adventures of the Space Marines -- Neutral
Adventures of the Space Marines 2 -- Neutral
Above Mars - Part 1: The Wellington -- Neutral (13215)
The Final Nemesis
*

Un-themed Survival/AV/Time Challenges
--------
The Meatgrinder -- Neutral

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
[u]Siren's call:[u] Some will be found in the hotspots on the map. There are occasionally some toxics roaming around in the northeastern corner of the map. Many say that they spawn near the Talos Park marker on the map. I've found some in the broken up grounds near the water towers on that part of the map. My experience, running solo through there, is that there will be one or two, then they disappear. My hunting was during times when the zone was relatively empty. I believe that the missions in Siren's Call can also spawn some toxics if you have a team of 8.

[/ QUOTE ]

A little more detail on the S-Call spawns. The key to the outdoor spawns (Besides the hot-spot ones) is that, in the NE area of the map, there are a number of spots that always spawn a single arachnos spider mob. This mob can be of any spider types that will appear at level 30, including the Toxics. There are at least 7-8 of these spots, and maybe a few more than that. When I was hunting them outside in SC, I was able to figure out where these spawn points were, and I would make a large circle around them, clearing them out whether they were Toxics or other, to force the non-toxics to respawn as something else. For the Toxics and the other bosses, I would use/abuse the neutral mobs around, mostly Warriors, by pulling the spiders into them. They would fight, and as long as I did 10% or more of the total damage to the Toxic, I got my badge credit. I would generally find 1-2 toxics per circut of the spawn points.

[ QUOTE ]
So why are they clickable at all?

[/ QUOTE ]

One speculation. Something I do in bases with a large hall of TPers, especially arcane ones, with beacons lining the opposing walls, is to mouse-over/click each on in sequence down the hall to see which beacon it is, in order to more quickly find the destination I want. If they were not clickable, I'm not sure I could get their names quite as easily. This is especially useful for the arcane ones, which are visually very hard to differentiate one from the other.

[ QUOTE ]
Costume pieces awarded during the 2007 Valentine’s event are once again available to players that have earned them.



I dont think I ever looked at what those pieces were I earned. So they werent available this whole time? Anyone have pics?

[/ QUOTE ]

Check out this link, midways down. It's the Heart pattern that is at issue.

Reported on the Wiki as Pool C:
Neuronic Shutdown - Acc/Hold/Rech
Razzle Dazzle: Chance for Immobilize

Reported on the Wiki as Pool C:

Neuronic Shutdown: Chance for Psionic DoT

Are all the Procs (Chance for...) still holding up as Pool C drops? If so, then this could possibly be another fill-in to go ahead and assign the remainder of these from your list to Pool C, and then see if that opens up any more patterns.

Reported on the wiki as Pool C:

Gift of the Ancients: +Run Speed [15-40]
Miracle: +Recovery [20-40]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok I've decided to fill in some of the remaining gaps for sets that look certain to be following these patterns:

AABBCC (call of the sandman, executioner's contract, ghost widow's embrace, glimpse of the abyss, malaise's illusions, pacing of the turtle, positron's blast, stupefy, trap of the hunter)
ABCDAC (aegis, luck of the gambler, sovereign right)
AAAAA (impervious skin)
ABC (unbounded leap)


[/ QUOTE ]

Could I get you to list out exactly how you have allocated Pacing of the Turtle? ParagonWiki is still listing three Pool B's on this one. I know there was debate on this one a while back, and can't remember how things fell out. If I can just get your allocation for the entire set, I'll update the wiki to match your listings.

[ QUOTE ]
Pounding Slugfest: Damage/Recharge from a delivery mission.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not really sure what to make of this. Normally, "Delivery Mission" is where you have to take something to an outside contact somewhere. These types of missions are not supposed to give any drops. So I'm not rally sure what this one is actually supposed to be from. Sorry.

And, on the same KH TF as me earlier:
Cacaphony: Chance for energy damage (Pool C)

Just got:
Decimation: Acc/Dam/Rech - Pool D (2nd respec trial)