MrCaptainMan

I'm trying out Aion for the first month, and this isn't a compare and contrast thread, but I realised today something that CoH does really well.

The tutorial and the early levels don't have us defeating rats or pigs or insects, but humans (or zombies or robots) with at least the appearance of active sentience. I think this avoids the new player thinking 'I just got killed by a pig? and quitting in annoyance.

There's also the 1player=3mobs thing, which also helps us think we're uber right from the start.

I just can't understand why CoH doesn't have 7 million players. It's just so good! Why can't everyone see the truth!

Eco.

Could you give sime more information about its level range, size, prevalence of EBs, AVs, customs, how hard it is etc?

Eco

Could you give sime more information about its level range, size, prevalence of EBs, AVs, customs, how hard it is etc?

Eco

'Rubber Poo Monster? LMAO what a name!



Eco.

I invariably forget to read the Souvenirs of the arcs i review, and then of course, they disappear (I STILL don't know what or why or how this happens). This time I just remembereed to, and the Souvenir for the Tangled Weave is great.

Eco.

I did, lol. Incidentally, for those who don't know, I was in the Mercy AE building when VEI 8 came up with his ingenious plan to 'disguise' himself as a VEAT, so i had to run all the way to the nearest facemaker, in Cap, to get that 'A' on his chest, and back again lol.

No lengths are too great for fun, is my feeling

Eco.

Phew, can't believe it's been nearly 3 weeks since my last review!

Sorry about that.

Here's another outing for VEI 8, my Earth/Earth Dom, who's now lvl 10.



The Tangled Weave, Arc ID 338575, by @Operative Tracks
Very Long (2 unique, 1 medium, 2 small maps), villainous, lvl range 5-10

This is supposed to be an alternative VEAT starter arc, so i'm sort of guilty of not playing it as intended, but the author said that any lowbie villain could do it too, so I went with VEI 8. Let's see how he does.

Off you go then, you nutter.

“MWAHAHAHAAA!!! Yes, yes, soon, soon...what? Where am I? Still in Mercy Island? By the septic gall-bladder of Hooke! I should be ensconced in the heart of Grandville by now, not scrabbling around in the cesspits of this vile scabrous desert of intellect! I must find a way to bypass the highways and byways of this perfidious archipelago and rise like the foetid dough of perniciousness to the heights of infamy! AHA! AHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHA!!!

“Wait! I have it! Yes, yes, YES, AHAHAHA!!!!!

“Arachnossss! I shall inveigle my way into the beating heart of the fool Recluses organization, and from within, like the jellyfish who lays its eggs inside the carapace of a sloth, I shall adumbrate it from within...

“First, I need to disguise myself as an Arachnos operative...now how can I do that...ah yes...I know! I'll just use my incredible scientific know-how to fashion an incredible machine, which I shall call my Mechanical Auto-Graphical Individual Camouflage Mechanism: Archetype RanKing and Evasion of Recognition device! And now, with my M.A.G.I.C.M.A.R.K.E.R., I shall create a flawless Arachnos symbol on the chest of my hazmat smock, just...so!



“MWAHAHA now to commence my infiltration of the fool Recluses organization...hmm, I think I'll rename it once I'm in charge...something more acronymic, like...the Brilliant Order Of Brainy Scientists!. Yes, that has a nice ring to it...

“I shall start with Recluses lower-rank strumpet Kalinda. I shall pretend to be an Arachnos Operative of some repute, and win her over by performing some suitable mission for her. She'll never see through my brilliant disguise!

[The contact is Kalinda. ]





“Ha! It worked! The foolish fortunata has asked me to investigate corruption within Arachnos itself! There's a leak from an Arachnos base, and I have to flush out the traitor! MWAHAHAHA, ah, the sweet sweet taste of a double-cross! She thinks me an Arachnos soldier, come to help, but I'm Just Another Traitor, ahahaha!!!

[I have to infiltrate the base, feed some false data into a computer, and wait to see who leaks it. That'll ID the traitor]

Mission 1: Spread Disinformation

“OK, here I am...la de da...just another Arachnos Operative going...about...my...duties...don't mind me...



“...that's it, fit right in...yes, yes, it's working! They think me one of them! Hm, maybe I accidentally inscribed a top-ranking Arachnos symbol or something...



[lol the map has Arachnos soldiers in it, but they aren't hostile. And why should they be? I'm one of them! - And as this arc is supposed to be a VEAT starter arc, if I was actually on a VEAT, then it would make even more sense. Some of the mobs have dialogue, and its quite amusing. I make my way through to the end room (just the right size, this map) and there is the computer]

“Aha! Now to feed the false data in...there!



“Now – what's this? An attack!



[Inputting the data causes an alarm to go off, and some traitor Arachnos show their faces, letting me have some combat.]



“That's dealt with them, the idiots! Did they really think that they could defeat me? I, I who have sauteed , barbecued, fricasseed and poached the eggs of a Kraken! And I had a cold that day, too! Fools!

[Kalinda's debriefing explains the mayhem in the base]

“Hm, so it was Operative Burch who leaked the info...he shall not escape my evil tendrils of doom, Kalinda! Send this message to Lord Recluse immediately – I, VEI 8, I, I who have manufactured DRY WATER, I shall trap this fool Burch within the hour, and all I shall expect in return is an immediate hike of a mere 20 threat levels.

[Kalinda gives me the briefing for the next mission, which is to help clear a Snake den of some invading legacy Chain]

“Yes, woman, hurry, I am eager to be after Operative Burch...what? Snakes? But...the message to Recluse...? Already sent, you say? How long's this snake mission going to take? See, I said 'within the hour' in my message to Lord Recluse...right...

[lol the hunt for Operative Burch is of course being undertaken by lvl 1 non-VEAT villains, as it's Kalinda's first canon mission]

“OK, snakes...why did it have to be snakes...? Oh, the snakes aren't the problem. Good, good...Legacy Chain, invading, eh? Ha, those magical nincompoops won't know what hit them!

Mission 2: Enter the Temple

“Right, here we are...where are these annoying arcane idiots, then?

[I have to meet with 3 Snake leaders, and defeat the leader of the raid]

“Ah yes, my slithery friends, don't worry, I'll have you free in no time. What do you mean, who am I? I am the famous Arachnos Operative VEI 8, look, see my Arachnos symbol on my chest? ...'A'...'A' for Arachnos! Bah, what do you know?

[I free the Snakes, and continue into the caverns]

“Fools! Your puny swords are no match for the volcanic might of my lavarous boulders! Burn, melt, and go 'aiiiieeee!!!!'...go on, after me – 'AIIIIEEEE!!!'

[The Chain are fun to fight and easy enough for me and my Snake allies. We mop them up and exit the map, which is the one with the giant snake statue in the room at the end. I was enjoying myself so much i forgot to take screenshots, I'm sorry!.]

“Right, that's that done, and in record time, too! Now for that thorn in my side Operative Burch – I expect Lord Recluse is getting itchy...Kalinda, I am now free to go after Burch-what's that? -Infected? Infected what? I'm not getting involved in anything to do with communication with viruses again, last time I couldn't sit down for three months-what? Oh, all right...

[Kalinda's next mission for me is an extraction. Some advanced infected specimens need to be brought out of a sewer system for experimentation. I have an hour before they gas the entire subsection]

Mission 3: Round up the Advanced Infected

“Ah, yes, the sewers! Midnight halls of the dank and the doomed! What tales these stinking holes of filth and echoes could tell, if they could but speak! Why, they could conceivably let slip the very secrets of the world! For does not every man loose more than his bowels when he sits upon the porcelain throne to offer a brown sacrifice to the Gods of Gehenna! No, no, AHAHAHA! They talk, when they squat, and grunt out their plans, their desires, their dreams and their fears...if I had but a device, a machine to grant the tongue of Babel to these slimy foetid walls, they might divulge the straining mutterings of Recluse himself! MWAHAHAHAHA!!! With such a device, I COULD RULE THE WORLD AHAHAHAAAGH! AARGH! AAEEIIII!!! CAN YOU HEAR ME, MOTHER? WHO'S LAUGHING NOW, AHAHAHA-oh, excuse me, I didn't know there was anyone there-agh, an attack! Hold, you putrid zombies!



[I find a captive sewer worker, and some Infected, free him, and continue. He follows me and lends a shovel to the fight. We continue deeper into the sewers.]

“Yes, these Infected are no match for me...and that's a good thing, for this cretinous peon is useless-oh, I'm sorry, was I speaking aloud?

[In a large room, we meet another scientist]



“Who's this? Dr Creed? Hm, I believe he's been published once or twice in 'Mad Scientist'. His work on the possibilities of extracting gold from the bladders of very tall Scandinavians was most interesting...NOT, AHAHAHA!!!!! The imbecilic meddler calls himself a scientist? Pah, he's not fit to shine the spats of Galileo! Still, much as I'd like to violently subdue him, carry his unconscious body off to my secret lab – note to self: acquire secret lab from somewhere – and replace his brain with that of a stoat, I shall on this occasion still my unquenchable lust for cruel and unnecessary experimentation in case is can be of service to me at a later date. It's possible I might, for example, have need of a third-tier brain for a control for my next pickling jar.

[I free Dr Creed, who has great dialogue, btw, and he too joins me]

“Come, my 'learned friend' – oh, I'm sorry, I thought those finger-quotes were just in my head – and you too, you inbred ruffian, let us onward! Aha! This specimen appears to be further along the genetic road to malodorous putrefaction that the rest. He'll do. Attack!



[The Advanced Infected cons orange, and would prove a bit of a challenge for VEI 8 if he was on his own. That's not cos the mobs too hard, its because I'm a combination of wuss and impatient lol. I could solo him and his accompanying spawn solo, with some pulling and hit n run tactics. But I'm happy to get the assistance from Creed and the sewer worker. We finish off the boss and move further in, fighting more infected on the way, and another Advanced. The map is a little bit too circuitous for my liking (I'm too fond of shortish linear maps, I'm aware of this), but it's not very big so I can live with it easy ]

“Ah, yes, yes, the clock is ticking, my temporary allies, and here I spy another of the specimens we have come to appropriate. Go, sacrifice yourselves for me, I command it! -Agh, incoming! Oof, not me, you shambling horror, attack them! Look, the one with the big shovel - agh – attack the scientist! - no., no, the OTHER scientist! Pah, must I do everything?

[lol the allies are a tad reluctant to attack sometimes, it seems. In any case, its a fun fight, I don't die, and another Advanced hits the deck. A little while later, we find another worker to rescue, very near to the last Advanced objective. I free the worker first, and then the four of us make short work of the Advanced, and the mission ends.]

“Excellent! Job done, as they say! Right, now, then, Kalinda, about this Burch fellow-WHAT? But, but what about Burch? Lord Recluse-my message-the time-within the hour...OK, but I've got to be quick!

[Kalinda's next mission concerns a hero who's been masquerading as a villain in order to infiltrate the Destined One project. She's holed up in a warehouse, and i'm to go deal with her and her Longbow allies.]

Mission 4: Send a Message

“Ew! This warehouse isn't being kept in very good condition! I thought heroes were supposed to be all shiny and house-proud and spick and span etcetera! Well, let's find some longbow then-ah, yes, here we are! Yoo-hoo? You, yes you! Over here, you star-spangled cretin! Yes, and your friend too! Come and 'get some', as they say in the less salubrious regions of suburbia.

[I go on a bit of a rampage, and I have so much fun that I completely forget to take any screenies for ages lol.]

“Right, now to place these explosive devices...now then, I think it was chapter 17...



“That's done, now to deal with this 'Lady Darkdoom'. Here she is...You, yes you, so-called 'villain, eh? Arachnos knows of your treachery, you dirty slattern! Ooh, Oh, yes, I can see why you're called 'hero' – anyone'd have to be heroic to go out in public with a face like that! No wonder Statesman wanted to get you away from Paragon – though if you ask me, I think he should have sent you to Croatoa instead – with you wandering around, Jack and Eochai would probably run screaming for the hills. You know, Lord Recluse was saying to me the other day how we hadn't heard much from Positron lately – but then we got a report that it was because he'd had to lock himself away with no distractions to work on inventing a paper bag strong enough to cope with your face. I can see why your ears are so big – they've overstretched themselves trying to get away from your nose. Oh, that hit a nerve, eh? - oof!

[lol Lady Darkdoom (great name, btw) has v funny dialogue and is a great fight. The remaining bombs are spawned near her]



“Right, that's that. Now to set these deadly devices of destruction, and make my wily escape!


[exit]

“Ah, Kalinda. I've done as you asked, the 'hero' is no more. Now, then, Burch.../sigh. Yes, alright...Creed? Dr Creed? Ha, you want me to kill the myopic bufoon, right? No? Then what- WHAT? YOU WANT ME TO RECRUIT HIM FOR ARACHNOS? Him? But, but, he's an idiot! Mad Scientist? Oh, sure, if you think 'talkink like ziss' and having a scary haircut is 'mad'. I wouldn't even call him an eccentric scientist! Bah, fine, I'll go get him for you. But don't come crying to me when the you send the call out to the villagers for the pitchfork and fire ceremony and all that turns up is an arthritic match-seller and a small boy with a rake! I'm telling you, it's not like it used to be! You have to do a bit more than electrify a corpse and do some fancy needlework on his forehead to get a real mob going nowadays!

[Kalinda's mission is to 'recruit' Dr Creed and his 'crew of mad students and assistants' for Arachnos' fell purposes lol. Thematically it's wonderful for VEI 8 ]

Mission 5: Recruit Scientists for Arachnos

[loving the entrance. Green mist fills the halls, and some shambling Infected stagger past the coridoor as I enter. Nice atmospheric opener]



“Bah, bah, and triple bah! Tch! 'Mad' scientist indeed. Why, I was mad when that pretender Creed was practicing his eye-crossing at his mother's teat! He's not fit to even describe himself as 'wacky'!

[in the first room, I meet some of Creed's assistants, his 'Orderlies'.]

“Ha, no match at all. Honestly, student mad scientists, tch! Embarrassing. Grow up, get a decent trepanning and lose those ridiculous medical reflectors!

[Again, I get a bit carried away, its a lot of fun. I really like this earth/earth Dom. Thank heavens for power customization, until I could recolor the effects I hated the look of earth anything.]



“Hm, a fellow scientist in trouble. Dr Geist, I presume? Let me just dispatch these troublesome ingrates. Now, the question isn't 'am I going to kill you?', but 'HOW am I going to kill you?' Slowly and painfully...or really slowly and hideously painfully? ...unless, of course, you have some use...some information, maybe, on whatever Dr Creed is working on? Good, good...Now follow me, and try not to die.

[Nice rescue. Geist is a yellow ally, and just the right amount of useful. This map is awesome. I continue, fighting Infected and orderlies – incidentally, the Infected are escapees from Creeds holding cells. There's dialogue explaining this, and battles between the Orderlies and the Infected too, making a great atmosphere]



“Come, come, my doomed friend-oh I'm sorry, did I say 'doomed', I meant 'saved'...

[Hm, I meet two patrolling orderlies who are 'invalid targets', and don't attack me, I'm not sure why. In the final room I spot Creed and a few of his orderlies]

“There! There's the pretender that's caused me to miss my deadline for Lord Recluse! Attack! What's this? Radiation? HAHAHAHA, you poltroon, Creed! I EAT RADIATION FOR BREAKFAST!!!



“No, that's not hyperbole, I do. I sprinkle depleted uranium flakes into my Greek Yogurt and wash it all down with a cup of warm heavy water. It does wonders for the bowel,s you know. Here, have a lava bedbath. Burn, burn, you, you, you CALCULATOR, YOU! Yes, that's it, struggle, one...more...crushing red hot torrent of lava and...what? Emergency teleport? Bah! He got awa-aha, but wait...no Creed for Arachnos...they'll have an opening for a Mad Scientist! AhAHAHA, MWAHAHAHAHA, YES, YES, NOW, SOON, SOON I SHALL BE AT THE RIGHT HAND OF RECLUSE HIMSELF, AND THEN, THEN, I, I SHALL BE SUPREME!!! AHAHAHA AEEIIIGHH!!! WHAAAA! SNFFFFRTTT! GNASH GNASH GNASH RRRGGGG!!!!

[nice easy fight to finish off, and then all I have to do is lead Geist out (Geist did spawn pretty close to the start, so I could have led him out much earlier and saved myself the trouble of escorting all the way back now) ]

[exit]

“So, Kalinda, I'm afraid that that microcephaloid Creed escaped using an emergency teleport of some kind. Geist here will confirm I speak the truth. So I guess you now have a vacancy for a mad scientist, yes? Well, there just so happens to be the perfect candidate standing right here in front of you! He's brilliant, determined, accomplished, and most definitely insane. Just the man for a top position in Arachnos. Oh, really, you're too ki-what? GEIST? But, but-wha-pardon? Recluse? Asking for me? About Burch? Ah, excuse me, is that the time? I think I've left a Bunsen burner on somewhere. Must dash!”

[END]

Excellent fun. I seem to be loving the lowbie arcs a lot lately. Maybe it's because I'm after an easy time of it recently, I don't know. RL is a bit onerous at present, so it's nice to not have to struggle through stuff in game too

This arc was a lot of fun from start to finish. As a VEAT starter arc, I can't really comment, as I haven't got a VEAT, but as a lowbie arc for VEI 8 it was great. The links to the other starter arcs are very nice, the humor is consistent and amusing, and the mechanics are well thought out too. The first map with its 'friendly' Arachnos staff is a lovely wakey-wakey to the player, and the last mission is a fine wrap-up.

I rated this arc 5-stars.

“Curses, CURSES!!!”

Eco.

In light of abstentions, vote-changing, and 'no award', i'd like next year's rules to more strictly delineate how the voting is done. I for example assumed that a firat choicecand a second choice were compulsory.

Its not in the rukes that people cant abstain or decide they arent going to give a second place, so we'll have to pit up with it i guess? Whats your take, Bubba?

Its not in the rules that we cant choose the same arc for firat and second either is it?

eco

Lemur. You complained about someone putting words in your mouth up there, and rightly so. Please don't assume for me wether or not my coh experience is cheapened by being able to see more of it. If you'd care to join me on freedom at 19:00 central european time friday, i can show you how difficult it is for me to get the TF experience i want. If we manage to get a big enough team together to start the LGTF, for example, i'll leave it to you to explain 'hey, we're not rushing so whats the problem?' when the other team members get annoyed because i've gone afk for half an hour to make a snack, have a stretch and chat to my mum on the phone. I'll expect everyone to wait for me too, btw.

And if you're free on saturday, lets do the Khan TF too. Maybe this time i can actually get to see Schadenfreud and whatever was in the one mission that the tank soloed without anyone else even entering.

And then we can finish off our slow TF weekend on sunday with an ITF where everybody waits for me to walk up the hill round the spiral path instead of getting a TP to the top.

make sure to keep the rest of the week free though in case unexpected factors mean we have to pause the TF and continue the next day or the day after that.

I'm not serious of course, i dobt expect you or anyone else to twiddle their thumbs while i take my time. When i was on a MoKhan attempt the other day, i understood completely the need to let the tank solo stuff to limit risk. I agreed with it too. As i said, i dont want to degrade anyone elses game. But even if you dont believe me, its NOT easy at all for me to see TFs at a sedate pace which allows me to soak up the atmosphere and read the narrative. And i think thats a shame.

I actually think that the devs will implement something similar to my suggestion some day. I think they're more generous-minded than you assume.

Time will tell, i guess.

Eco

Big Head mode, of course!

I wish DVDs came with Big Head mode for the mopvies they feature. Big Head mode adds comedy gold to everything. I'd love to watch, say, Schindler's list in Big Head mode, for example. I bet it'd be a laff riot.

Eco.

I'm a PvEer. The reason I don't PvP is the smacktalk. It might be froma minority of players as you say, but there isn't any at all in the PvE game for comparison.

I'll pop inot WB now though with my En/En 50 Blaster and see what happens.

EDIT: It was completely empty. I'll go try RV.

EDIT 2: RV had quite a lot of PvP action going on, so I flew out anf joined in. I have to say, the smacktalk was minimal. Quite friendly, actually.

However, the gameplay was horribly boring. I would fly out, try to get some attacks in on various SJers zipping around, then get held, drop from the sky and die fairly shortly after that. I repeated this for 6 deathcs, then asked for advice in broadcast. This is the result:

[Broadcast] Name witheld: keep moving, spec out of fly will help
[Broadcast] Someone else: If your being spiked, theres nothing you can do really lol
[Broadcast] MrCaptainMan: spec out of fly?
[Broadcast] Someone else again: hibernate and phase

Quite friendly, as i said, but it doesn't help. If I can't PvP with Fly, then PvP is broken IMO. I'm not going to radically change the concept of my toon just to play essentially a repeatable mission with no plot.
Sorry.

I do wish you well with your efforts to get more PvP, however, and i say again how pleasantly surprised i was at the general level of politeness and good-natured rivalry I just saw in broadcast.


Eco.

My suggestion is intended to not alter the current experience of TFs, but add more choice for the players in how they approach them.

Here's the suggestion. Apply some sort of scaling to the difficulty of mobs in a TF and also to the rewards that the TF gives

After this is done, the following should be possible:

• I form/join a TF comprised of a full team of 8, and we do the TF exactly as we'd do it under the current system, and we get rewards as they would drop now.
• I form/join a TF that's comprised of the minimum number of members currently required to start said TF, and as above, we do it exactly as we would under the current system and the rewards dropped are the same as they currently are.
• I form/join a TF that's comprised of a lower number of members than the current minimum needed to start, and I find that the difficulty has been scaled down to compensate for the reduction in numbers, and that the rewards given by the TF have also reduced in line with the ease in difficulty.
• I solo a TF with my toon's difficulty settings set to the lowest. I find that the difficulty of the TF has been reduced so that it is completable (not necessarily very easily; in fact, I think it should be a challenge, but not impossible for a majority of Players) solo, but I receive no rewards at all save the fun of playing through it.

The difficulty and reward of a TF under my suggested system would be on a curve from the bottom level of 'easiest + zero reward' up to the level of the current minimum starting numbers, and then would be the same as theya re now. This would mean that for those Players who routinely do TFs in teams of the minimum starting number or more, nothing at all would change. For those players who aren't worried about rewards but would like to do the TFs slowly to see the scenery and read the story etc, however, they could take their time, do them at their leisure, and also not take up space on teams who want to do the TFs at a faster pace. They wouldn't be getting rewards like the 'normal' TF terams would be getting, so there'd be no exploiting.

For those Players who like the challenge of for example duoing the ITF at its current difficulty, my system would obviously spoil their fun, so I suggest that the 'set the team size' difficulty settings we can apply be also used for TFs to enable the hardcore TF Challenge types still have their kicks (and I'm really not knocking them, I thimnk it's well impressive when people push themselves to do stuff like this). My system would even make their play a little easier, since they wouldn't have to find padders as they do at the moment, just set the team size to 8, hit the contact, and away they go.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? If i've missed any huge flaws in it, please tell. If anyone can think of ways to improve it, that would be great too.

Eco

I do have one RL friend who plays, but she's back in Wales and I live in Poland lol. I know of one other person who plays that does live in Poland, but I've forgotten who it is exactly. I did message them with a 'yay! i'm not alone!' forum PM when i found out, hoping that maybe we could meet up if we were close, but the response was a rather curt 'I've got plenty of RL friends already, thanks', so that was that!

Just goes to show that just cos someone lives in the same country as you and plays the same game, doesn't mean they're not strange.

Eco.

Is there a link to the trailer? I can't find it.

And, er, am I the only one who thinks the abbreviation for Dual Pistols is a little unfortunate?

Eco

Another vote from me.

Best Comedy Arc
First Place - In Poor Taste #259920 @Wrong Number
Second Place - Captain Dynamic, the Great, Faces the Great Face #190069 @Aehaed

Eco.

Lol when i took my second polish gf home for a visit, she did the 'ooh, cool castle' thing, then we walked down womanby st and she said 'whats THAT? It looks like a giant spaceship!'. Lol she meant the Millenium Stadium. It is wicked cool, isnt it?

Eco