Mr_Grey

Can we get different animations for the Mastermind secondary set, Poison? Some that focus more on the throwing, tossing or "shooting" of assorted chemicals rather than spitting them?

We get a couple powers that throw or toss, but then we start spitting at the enemy? For a set that appeals to all the evil mad scientists out there, that's a bit irritating.

At least if my character were making hand motions, I could pretend I was using some kind of hose or something. I don't get why my chemist would be ingesting his chemicals just to vomit them up later.

I would like to see Energy Melee get more straightforward "punching" animations, like a boxer. It just strikes me as the kind of set to get powers like that.

Because of this, I was able to outfit my Night Widow with a Cardiac Booster!

Thanks, ya'all!

But the forums aren't the best source for the sorts of criticism that would be helpful to a developer.

On the one hand, there are the gushers. Folks who love the game. They will extol the virtues of it with their last dying breath.

Then there are the haters, folks who can't ever seem to find something to like about it. There's little nice to be said about folks like this. As it says in the article, though, if they hate it so much, then WHY ARE THEY HERE!?

The odds of locating good, objective feedback that indicates what the developers did right or wrong is either too obscure to find or has to be distilled from the psychological analysis of everything conveyed by the masses on the forum.

Frankly, that's time better spent making us more goodies.

Do we have footage of this problem?

Ah.

Here we go...

A Rather Old Problem...

(Ah, scooped... But at least this one doesn't have that goofy music...)

Happy New Year to all of you.

I hope it's going better for you than t is for me.

Dramatic

In all of this, I can't help but wonder what Robbie's doing...

Grey's Army: Back in Action

This update is a bit of a big one. It involves the escape of my character Power Breaker from the clutches of Arachnos. Their journey isn't over yet, though. There's still more to go.

The large man struggled in the mechanical bonds that suspended him several hundred feet in the air. He'd been sleeping. What's more, he'd been dreaming.

He dreamed of what his life could have been. He was once just a lowly thug for the Frost crime family. He would have remained so, eventually retiring as a low-key bouncer if he was lucky. Otherwise, he'd have likely got shot in a gang war or brutalized by some superhero. Maybe he would have been horrifically murdered at the hands of some psychopathic super-powered punk.

Instead, he was this. Crystalline circuitry channels were scarred into his flesh, turning his body into a bizarre jigsaw puzzle. More crystal wrapped and wove in his ribcage and bones. Spikes protruded from his scalp, and spires jutted from his collar. He never really understood any of the reasons for it, but he had good ideas as to the needs and capabilities of his deformities.

His eyes fluttered open as everything started to get more lucid. His operating system indicated that it was about time to be electrocuted again. Even in this state, the system didn't make the situation sound like something to fear, or even like it had any emotional connection to it whatsoever. It was just something it and he had to go through.

"Only real friend I've got," Ray sighed, "And it doesn't even care."

The operating system displayed the time in the lower left of his vision. Ten seconds of clear thought to go. Now five. Now... White hot pain...

He tensed for the eruption, but felt nothing. Could this be a trick? He looked up to the control booth, but the windows were, as always, reflective. He could never see when the human operators would start, but Arachnos worked their torture like clockwork. If somebody wasn't torturing him at Five-Fifteen, precisely, heads were going to roll!

An alarm sounded. Sirens, klaxons, flashing lights, and even a voice over the intercom sounded the alert. Somebody had breached security.

"Is this for me?" Raymond asked, his voice unceremoniously drowned out by the noise.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shadeheart. It was the name she'd chosen as her callsign as an assassin for Arachnos. It was supposed to signify that she was dark, mysterious, yet passionate about her work. She committed murder because she believed that it was best for the future of Arachnos, and the future of Arachnos was the future of the world.

Then she fell in love. She tried her damnedest not to, knowing full-well that she would one day be assigned to eliminate the former Arbiter, Daniel Taylor, but he won her over. They were so similar in their passions. They had given up so much in the effort to better the lives of the people around them.

And he opened her eyes to the truth. None of their work mattered. The lives of the people in the Etoiles weren't any better because of them. If anything, their lives were worse! Poverty still gripped the average citizen, super-powered psychopaths roamed the streets freely, and Arachnos even broke hundreds upon thousands of those same lunatics free from their incarceration! The two of them had willingly aided an organization guilty of releasing an unrelenting tide of monsters upon the world, and the only justification they could apply was "it was what we were ordered to do."

When Daniel's kill order came up, she refused. That wasn't what she did publicly, because that would just have caused another Widow to be assigned and her sisters would have executed her on the spot. No. She quietly accepted the order, then fled with Daniel. They warred with a death squad sent to eliminate them, then one of Daniel's peculiar friends, an Executioner referred to as "Exterminator Null," falsified their deaths and enabled their escape.

Now, she was helping her beloved. It felt strange to call him such, but she couldn't get through a single day without thinking of him. She loved him. She thought the emotion had been burned out of her with the training, but she truly loved him. His smile, his eyes, his scent... Thinking of him made her cheeks warm.

And she knew he felt the same about her. The first night she had noticed her own feelings for him was the night she'd read his mind, curious about how he felt for her. The intense, pained longing she felt through the psychic link was all she ever needed to know. It had almost overwhelmed her and forced her to give in to their shared passion for each other at the very moment, but the danger they were in helped caution their actions.

She pushed the memories aside for the moment. Another Bane Spider Commando had rounded the corner and was making his way down the corridor toward her. In one smooth stroke, she drove the point of her widow spike through his neck guard and caught him as he fell. She dragged the corpse into a side room, stacking it neatly on top of the other five she'd eliminated in similar fashion.

"Hive mind my ***," Shadeheart murmured to herself, referencing the rumor that everybody in the Bane Spider program was slaved to one another, "If that were the case, they'd know what I've done he-!"

The alarms cut her off and she cursed. Either there was some truth to the rumor, or her boyfriend had accomplished his task.

Stepping silently in the shadows, the blonde woman drew her widow spikes and started stalking through the corridors to her objective.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The main power supply was shut down. Daniel smashed the control panels with his Nullifier Mace to ensure it wouldn't come back on easily. The service crew would have to reactivate the power plant manually, and that would take at least thirty minutes. It was more than enough time to operate.

He hustled down the corridors, sneaking through the shadows and ducking out of sight from the Arachnos operatives trying to find the interlopers. If just one group found him, it would be all over.

Power Breaker was in the central chamber of the Funhouse, hooked into conduits that were fed directly by the powerplant. It was why shutting the place down was so crucial.

Emergency lighting silhouetted his approach, turning his armor into the dull red everybody else's was. Other Bane Spiders simply thought he was on a crucial errand or some other nonsense, so nobody stopped him.

Nobody, that is, until he got to the core. There they stood, a full squad of Bane Spiders, Mu Sorcerers, and Crab Spider soldiers. In the center of them, a gigantic Crab Spider whose armor had been spray-painted black.

"I was wondering who all the fuss was about," the big man chortled, his voice emitters making the voice sound tinny and inhuman, "Now I see it's my old boss... Gentlemen! Behold! We have ourselves a former Arbiter before us!"

"Fulkerson," Taylor growled.

"The new and improved Fulkerson, at that," the big man growled and raised his arms for emphasis.

There was a metallic whine associated with his movements. It wasn't just the cybernetic weapons array mounted to his back, either. It was his arm, his torso, his entire body was retrofitted with mechanical enhancement.

"I see death wasn't enough to end your terms of service," Daniel quipped, "I guess it makes sense, though. Arachnos would rather have you serving as a whip arm than letting Hell pay you more for doing the same!"

"I'm going to enjoy tearing your appendages out of their sockets," the big man replied.

Taylor swung his arm around and pressed a button on his wrist. Suddenly, the ceiling was torn open by a large portal and two large mechanical spiders fell on top of the squad of guards. Operative Fulkerson dove out from the assault, shouting angrily at the pair of Disruptors before calling in for his own similar reinforcement.

As he finished calling for the machines, Daniel's Nullifier Mace collided with his arm, sending the big man rolling backwards. Despite his size, the operative was surprisingly agile. Once to his feet, Fulkerson started firing blasts in Daniel's direction.
The smaller man deflected the blasts, then leveled the gem on the end of his mace to return a volley of his own. A scattering of beams was followed by two explosive bursts, sending Fulkerson screaming down the corridor. When the former Arbiter turned back to the guards, he found the second pair of Disruptors had arrived and were tearing into his pet drones.

A hail of armor-piercing bullets got their attention, as the artificial intelligence that governed the machines wasn't particularly bright. As soldiers caught by stray bullets slumped to the floor, the machine swivelled around to face their new adversary. They were struck by a grenade round and webs before being dispatched by Taylor's loyal defenders.

"Return to... Wherever you go," Daniel whispered to the battered machines, "If I ever have need of you again, I hope you'll be able to return to me..."

The twin machines warbled happily before vanishing in incandescent red light. The erupting sound their teleportation made masked the rapid approach of Operative Fulkerson, however, who crashed into Daniel with a bone-crunching tackle.
The two tumbled head over heels, finally stopping five yards from the collision. Fulkeson was already on his feet and lurching to drive his cybernetic leg weapons into Daniel's chest. The smaller man kipped off his shoulders and drove his feet into the bigger man's abdomen, forcing him back, and rolled back to his feet.

When Fulkerson lunged for him this time, Daniel grasped one of the legs and pulled it toward himself, unbalancing the bigger man and sticking the "crab leg" into the steel grating. He then kicked Fulkerson's helmet off and the big man reeled back in pain.

When he leveled his gaze at Taylor, the smaller man had to take a breath to compose himself. Fulkerson's face was a mess. The skin was gray and withered, almost as if it was just hanging loosely to the skull underneath. One dead eye gazed unblinkingly forward, the other was a robotic prosthetic. The space where the mouth and nose should have been was instead covered with a breather.

"You see?" the big man's voice emitted from the speaker, "This is what you've done to me. You think that's the worst of it? They had to cut off my pecker to fit on the new legs!"

"That's too bad," Danny replied with a snicker in his voice, "Couldn't have happened to a better person."

"You laugh now," Fulkerson stood to his full height and the emitter ends of the crab legs started to glow, "Let's see how easy it is for you to laugh when I've blasted you all across the Funhouse!"

Four beams sighted in on Daniel. He knew what was coming next. One of the heaviest munitions at a Crab Spider's beck and call was a powerful bomb that was teleported to the target via a manipulation of the Arachnos MedCom system and the soldier's laser guidance system.

And Fulkerson was sighting one on him right now.

"I'm gonna enjoy this," the big man's tinny voice chuckled.

Then a widow spike stabbed through his knee. Then though the other. Oil leaked out and the legs ceased to function at keeping him standing. Before Fulkerson knew what was happening, another widow spike was stabbed through the back of his head and out his dead eye. He disappeared in a red haze as the same MedCom system he was manipulating registered his critical condition and yanked him to a secure facility.

Stepping through the red haze was Candace Lawrence. Her walk was seductive and deadly as she swayed her round hips from side to side. Daniel often lost himself in her movements, he was quite experienced in how her fluid motions could be exquisitely intoxicating.

Deftly, she already had another pair of widow spikes in her hands. In a quick motion, she had hurled them and the sound of metal striking glass was accompanied twice by the dying sounds of two men standing behind Taylor. He turned to see two Bane Spider Scouts slumping backwards to the floor, their visors struck through with the thin, but deadly weapons.

"Thank you," he said simply as Shadeheart retrieved her blades and they made for the core.

She didn't reply. Now wasn't a time for talking or reprimands. They had to act.

Inside the core, they found the big man struggling to break his bonds. They scaled the steps leading up to the catwalks that surrounded Power Breaker and found the control panel that would release him. Unfortunately, it was unpowered, too.

"You're here to help me?" the brute asked dumbly.

"Yes. An individual has agreed to aid us if we aid you," Shadeheart replied.

"Then blast this ******* ring," he growled, "I'll do the rest."

Daniel looked to his lover and the woman stepped away from the console. He got into position and leveled his Nullifier Mace at the rig. He hammered it with incandescent bursts of toxic energy, corroding the ring.

Power Breaker did the rest. His strength returned to him in a flood of hope and he wrenched himself free of the crumbling machinery. With a triumphant roar, he vaulted himself to the catwalk and turned back to the central column of the powerplant, launching a volley of electric arcs into it and disrupting countless circuits and systems.

"Alright, let's get out of here," Daniel said once the explosions died down.

"No," Breaker replied quietly.

"We must depart," Shadeheart stated simply, "It won't be long until more forces arrive to deal with us!"

"Ah, uh..." Daniel scratched the back of his head, "Actually, it will be a while. Null diverted most of the allotted reinforcements for this place to latrine duty to the north of the Fab."

Candace turned to her lover with a shocked expression. He replied to her silent admonition with a quiet shrug.

"Regardless, there are still numerous opponents within this facility," she resumed, turning back to Harris with narrowed eyes, blazinging with intensity, "We must depart as quickly as possible."

"No," Raymond replied, turning back to her with his own purple-glowing eyes round and sad, "This place... It's a nightmare... Full of screams and cries of anguish... We can't let it remain."

"We will return and wipe it off the map!" Daniel shouted, "Come on!"

"Go to wherever it is you're going," Harris replied, "I'll catch up... Trust me..."

"We can't leave you here!"

"I said I'll catch up!" the big man bellowed, "I ain't done livin' yet, so this won't be a noble sacrifice! But you're not gonna want to be here to see what happens!"

Daniel looked perturbedly at the big man. He was about to protest further when Shadeheart took him by the wrist and dragged him out of the chamber. The two quickly made their way to the corner of the facility where they'd entered and started making their way down to the boat Janus had lent them.

In the central chamber, however, Power Breaker knelt. He held his eyes shut and ordered his operating system to locate whatever backups they had built into his subconscious of the files they'd decoded of the Malleus Mundi.

"You wanted this, Recluse," he growled, "Now you're gonna get it."

The files sprang up in his vision. They were twisted, garbled, incomplete. The operating system did what it could to repair them as they were drawn up, but it was a lot of information, information that wasn't exactly static. There were portions of the text that changed before one's very eyes, and it even did the same in Raymond's memory. There was so much of the tome that relied on the behavior of time, and lately time had become a very brittle membrane.

Regardless, there was plenty enough for what he wanted to do next. It was a powerful piece of magic, one that would require quite a bit from the caster.

Analysis of Data: Massive structural damage likely.
Do you wish to proceed? Y/N?

"Yes," the big man replied, "It's time to finish this. No matter the cost."

All Files related to Malles Mundi will be lost due to degredation of the Host.

"Understood. Purge."

Operating System risks critical damage.

"I'm sorry."

Apology: Accepted. Goodbye, Raymond. It was nice knowing you. It was nice being your friend. We are sorry we were unable to save you from this pain.

"I'll miss you if you don't make it," the big man replied with a tear in his eye.

They did care. The little bastards had turned him into a monster, but he was his own monster because of them. They had saved his life countless times, provided him with unimaginable power... Even now, they were intending to take the brunt of the damage from this Purge for him.

All because they really were his friend.

"Good luck," he whispered before his entire body erupted in black and purple "light."

An orb of tangible darkness radiated from his form and consumed the catwalk. It continued growing, the surface a roiling storm of dark colors, from black to indigo, from purple to blue. It consumed the central core as the powerplant started firing up again, feeding even more energy into the whirling maelstrom.

Outside, Daniel and Candace struggled to keep their small boat from capsizing. The waves around them suddenly turned violent. Above them, the facility known as the Funhouse started to buckle and whine as a great gravitational force was exerted upon it from within. In moments, a great orb of darkness erupted from the walls, devouring them with a mighty roar. The faclity screamed as steel was wrenched from its moorings into the great, fathomless maw resting in the middle of the sky.

Suddenly, it was over. The waves stopped crashing, slowly coming to rest around the remains of the facility. Daniel and Shadeheart looked up to see that where once there had been a twisted structure jutting from the middle of the ocean, there was now only four legs to mark where once a structure had been. Floating in the sky above it was Power Breaker.

He twitched and plummeted into the water. Daniel fired up the motor of the boat and guided the vessel to the big man's floating, unconscious body. He and Shadeheart then pulled him aboard and they made sure he was still alive.

Waking weakly, he gazed into their eyes and thanked them quietly for their help. When he closed his eyes, however, there was only darkness. The operating system was gone.

Weeping softly, reached up to hold his head as Daniel piloted them to rendezvous with Janus. As his fingers brushed his scalp, he could feel that the spikes that used to protrude from there were gone. The spires that had jutted from his collar had vanished as well. For the first time since becoming a meta human, Raymond Harris was looking human again.

"Thank you," he whispered to the departed operating system before closing his eyes into an exhausted sleep.

In the darkness of his dream, there was a cursor in the upper right of his vision. After a moment, it moved, leaving characters behind it.

You are most welcome, Raymond.

The large man struggled in the mechanical bonds that suspended him several hundred feet in the air. He'd been sleeping. What's more, he'd been dreaming.

He dreamed of what his life could have been. He was once just a lowly thug for the Frost crime family. He would have remained so, eventually retiring as a low-key bouncer if he was lucky. Otherwise, he'd have likely got shot in a gang war or brutalized by some superhero. Maybe he would have been horrifically murdered at the hands of some psychopathic super-powered punk.

Instead, he was this. Crystalline circuitry channels were scarred into his flesh, turning his body into a bizarre jigsaw puzzle. More crystal wrapped and wove in his ribcage and bones. Spikes protruded from his scalp, and spires jutted from his collar. He never really understood any of the reasons for it, but he had good ideas as to the needs and capabilities of his deformities.

His eyes fluttered open as everything started to get more lucid. His operating system indicated that it was about time to be electrocuted again. Even in this state, the system didn't make the situation sound like something to fear, or even like it had any emotional connection to it whatsoever. It was just something it and he had to go through.

"Only real friend I've got," Ray sighed, "And it doesn't even care."

The operating system displayed the time in the lower left of his vision. Ten seconds of clear thought to go. Now five. Now... White hot pain...

He tensed for the eruption, but felt nothing. Could this be a trick? He looked up to the control booth, but the windows were, as always, reflective. He could never see when the human operators would start, but Arachnos worked their torture like clockwork. If somebody wasn't torturing him at Five-Fifteen, precisely, heads were going to roll!

An alarm sounded. Sirens, klaxons, flashing lights, and even a voice over the intercom sounded the alert. Somebody had breached security.

"Is this for me?" Raymond asked, his voice unceremoniously drowned out by the noise.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shadeheart. It was the name she'd chosen as her callsign as an assassin for Arachnos. It was supposed to signify that she was dark, mysterious, yet passionate about her work. She committed murder because she believed that it was best for the future of Arachnos, and the future of Arachnos was the future of the world.

Then she fell in love. She tried her damnedest not to, knowing full-well that she would one day be assigned to eliminate the former Arbiter, Daniel Taylor, but he won her over. They were so similar in their passions. They had given up so much in the effort to better the lives of the people around them.

And he opened her eyes to the truth. None of their work mattered. The lives of the people in the Etoiles weren't any better because of them. If anything, their lives were worse! Poverty still gripped the average citizen, super-powered psychopaths roamed the streets freely, and Arachnos even broke hundreds upon thousands of those same lunatics free from their incarceration! The two of them had willingly aided an organization guilty of releasing an unrelenting tide of monsters upon the world, and the only justification they could apply was "it was what we were ordered to do."

When Daniel's kill order came up, she refused. That wasn't what she did publicly, because that would just have caused another Widow to be assigned and her sisters would have executed her on the spot. No. She quietly accepted the order, then fled with Daniel. They warred with a death squad sent to eliminate them, then one of Daniel's peculiar friends, an Executioner referred to as "Exterminator Null," falsified their deaths and enabled their escape.

Now, she was helping her beloved. It felt strange to call him such, but she couldn't get through a single day without thinking of him. She loved him. She thought the emotion had been burned out of her with the training, but she truly loved him. His smile, his eyes, his scent... Thinking of him made her cheeks warm.

And she knew he felt the same about her. The first night she had noticed her own feelings for him was the night she'd read his mind, curious about how he felt for her. The intense, pained longing she felt through the psychic link was all she ever needed to know. It had almost overwhelmed her and forced her to give in to their shared passion for each other at the very moment, but the danger they were in helped caution their actions.

She pushed the memories aside for the moment. Another Bane Spider Commando had rounded the corner and was making his way down the corridor toward her. In one smooth stroke, she drove the point of her widow spike through his neck guard and caught him as he fell. She dragged the corpse into a side room, stacking it neatly on top of the other five she'd eliminated in similar fashion.

"Hive mind my ***," Shadeheart murmured to herself, referencing the rumor that everybody in the Bane Spider program was slaved to one another, "If that were the case, they'd know what I've done he-!"

The alarms cut her off and she cursed. Either there was some truth to the rumor, or her boyfriend had accomplished his task.

Stepping silently in the shadows, the blonde woman drew her widow spikes and started stalking through the corridors to her objective.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The main power supply was shut down. Daniel smashed the control panels with his Nullifier Mace to ensure it wouldn't come back on easily. The service crew would have to reactivate the power plant manually, and that would take at least thirty minutes. It was more than enough time to operate.

He hustled down the corridors, sneaking through the shadows and ducking out of sight from the Arachnos operatives trying to find the interlopers. If just one group found him, it would be all over.

Power Breaker was in the central chamber of the Funhouse, hooked into conduits that were fed directly by the powerplant. It was why shutting the place down was so crucial.

Emergency lighting silhouetted his approach, turning his armor into the dull red everybody else's was. Other Bane Spiders simply thought he was on a crucial errand or some other nonsense, so nobody stopped him.

Nobody, that is, until he got to the core. There they stood, a full squad of Bane Spiders, Mu Sorcerers, and Crab Spider soldiers. In the center of them, a gigantic Crab Spider whose armor had been spray-painted black.

"I was wondering who all the fuss was about," the big man chortled, his voice emitters making the voice sound tinny and inhuman, "Now I see it's my old boss... Gentlemen! Behold! We have ourselves a former Arbiter before us!"

"Fulkerson," Taylor growled.

"The new and improved Fulkerson, at that," the big man growled and raised his arms for emphasis.

There was a metallic whine associated with his movements. It wasn't just the cybernetic weapons array mounted to his back, either. It was his arm, his torso, his entire body was retrofitted with mechanical enhancement.

"I see death wasn't enough to end your terms of service," Daniel quipped, "I guess it makes sense, though. Arachnos would rather have you serving as a whip arm than letting Hell pay you more for doing the same!"

"I'm going to enjoy tearing your appendages out of their sockets," the big man replied.

Taylor swung his arm around and pressed a button on his wrist. Suddenly, the ceiling was torn open by a large portal and two large mechanical spiders fell on top of the squad of guards. Operative Fulkerson dove out from the assault, shouting angrily at the pair of Disruptors before calling in for his own similar reinforcement.

As he finished calling for the machines, Daniel's Nullifier Mace collided with his arm, sending the big man rolling backwards. Despite his size, the operative was surprisingly agile. Once to his feet, Fulkerson started firing blasts in Daniel's direction.
The smaller man deflected the blasts, then leveled the gem on the end of his mace to return a volley of his own. A scattering of beams was followed by two explosive bursts, sending Fulkerson screaming down the corridor. When the former Arbiter turned back to the guards, he found the second pair of Disruptors had arrived and were tearing into his pet drones.

A hail of armor-piercing bullets got their attention, as the artificial intelligence that governed the machines wasn't particularly bright. As soldiers caught by stray bullets slumped to the floor, the machine swivelled around to face their new adversary. They were struck by a grenade round and webs before being dispatched by Taylor's loyal defenders.

"Return to... Wherever you go," Daniel whispered to the battered machines, "If I ever have need of you again, I hope you'll be able to return to me..."

The twin machines warbled happily before vanishing in incandescent red light. The erupting sound their teleportation made masked the rapid approach of Operative Fulkerson, however, who crashed into Daniel with a bone-crunching tackle.
The two tumbled head over heels, finally stopping five yards from the collision. Fulkeson was already on his feet and lurching to drive his cybernetic leg weapons into Daniel's chest. The smaller man kipped off his shoulders and drove his feet into the bigger man's abdomen, forcing him back, and rolled back to his feet.

When Fulkerson lunged for him this time, Daniel grasped one of the legs and pulled it toward himself, unbalancing the bigger man and sticking the "crab leg" into the steel grating. He then kicked Fulkerson's helmet off and the big man reeled back in pain.

When he leveled his gaze at Taylor, the smaller man had to take a breath to compose himself. Fulkerson's face was a mess. The skin was gray and withered, almost as if it was just hanging loosely to the skull underneath. One dead eye gazed unblinkingly forward, the other was a robotic prosthetic. The space where the mouth and nose should have been was instead covered with a breather.

"You see?" the big man's voice emitted from the speaker, "This is what you've done to me. You think that's the worst of it? They had to cut off my pecker to fit on the new legs!"

"That's too bad," Danny replied with a snicker in his voice, "Couldn't have happened to a better person."

"You laugh now," Fulkerson stood to his full height and the emitter ends of the crab legs started to glow, "Let's see how easy it is for you to laugh when I've blasted you all across the Funhouse!"

Four beams sighted in on Daniel. He knew what was coming next. One of the heaviest munitions at a Crab Spider's beck and call was a powerful bomb that was teleported to the target via a manipulation of the Arachnos MedCom system and the soldier's laser guidance system.

And Fulkerson was sighting one on him right now.

"I'm gonna enjoy this," the big man's tinny voice chuckled.

Then a widow spike stabbed through his knee. Then though the other. Oil leaked out and the legs ceased to function at keeping him standing. Before Fulkerson knew what was happening, another widow spike was stabbed through the back of his head and out his dead eye. He disappeared in a red haze as the same MedCom system he was manipulating registered his critical condition and yanked him to a secure facility.

Stepping through the red haze was Candace Lawrence. Her walk was seductive and deadly as she swayed her round hips from side to side. Daniel often lost himself in her movements, he was quite experienced in how her fluid motions could be exquisitely intoxicating.

Deftly, she already had another pair of widow spikes in her hands. In a quick motion, she had hurled them and the sound of metal striking glass was accompanied twice by the dying sounds of two men standing behind Taylor. He turned to see two Bane Spider Scouts slumping backwards to the floor, their visors struck through with the thin, but deadly weapons.

"Thank you," he said simply as Shadeheart retrieved her blades and they made for the core.

She didn't reply. Now wasn't a time for talking or reprimands. They had to act.

Inside the core, they found the big man struggling to break his bonds. They scaled the steps leading up to the catwalks that surrounded Power Breaker and found the control panel that would release him. Unfortunately, it was unpowered, too.

"You're here to help me?" the brute asked dumbly.

"Yes. An individual has agreed to aid us if we aid you," Shadeheart replied.

"Then blast this ******* ring," he growled, "I'll do the rest."

Daniel looked to his lover and the woman stepped away from the console. He got into position and leveled his Nullifier Mace at the rig. He hammered it with incandescent bursts of toxic energy, corroding the ring.

Power Breaker did the rest. His strength returned to him in a flood of hope and he wrenched himself free of the crumbling machinery. With a triumphant roar, he vaulted himself to the catwalk and turned back to the central column of the powerplant, launching a volley of electric arcs into it and disrupting countless circuits and systems.

"Alright, let's get out of here," Daniel said once the explosions died down.

"No," Breaker replied quietly.

"We must depart," Shadeheart stated simply, "It won't be long until more forces arrive to deal with us!"

"Ah, uh..." Daniel scratched the back of his head, "Actually, it will be a while. Null diverted most of the allotted reinforcements for this place to latrine duty to the north of the Fab."

Candace turned to her lover with a shocked expression. He replied to her silent admonition with a quiet shrug.

"Regardless, there are still numerous opponents within this facility," she resumed, turning back to Harris with narrowed eyes, blazinging with intensity, "We must depart as quickly as possible."

"No," Raymond replied, turning back to her with his own purple-glowing eyes round and sad, "This place... It's a nightmare... Full of screams and cries of anguish... We can't let it remain."

"We will return and wipe it off the map!" Daniel shouted, "Come on!"

"Go to wherever it is you're going," Harris replied, "I'll catch up... Trust me..."

"We can't leave you here!"

"I said I'll catch up!" the big man bellowed, "I ain't done livin' yet, so this won't be a noble sacrifice! But you're not gonna want to be here to see what happens!"

Daniel looked perturbedly at the big man. He was about to protest further when Shadeheart took him by the wrist and dragged him out of the chamber. The two quickly made their way to the corner of the facility where they'd entered and started making their way down to the boat Janus had lent them.

In the central chamber, however, Power Breaker knelt. He held his eyes shut and ordered his operating system to locate whatever backups they had built into his subconscious of the files they'd decoded of the Malleus Mundi.

"You wanted this, Recluse," he growled, "Now you're gonna get it."

The files sprang up in his vision. They were twisted, garbled, incomplete. The operating system did what it could to repair them as they were drawn up, but it was a lot of information, information that wasn't exactly static. There were portions of the text that changed before one's very eyes, and it even did the same in Raymond's memory. There was so much of the tome that relied on the behavior of time, and lately time had become a very brittle membrane.

Regardless, there was plenty enough for what he wanted to do next. It was a powerful piece of magic, one that would require quite a bit from the caster.

Analysis of Data: Massive structural damage likely.
Do you wish to proceed? Y/N?

"Yes," the big man replied, "It's time to finish this. No matter the cost."

All Files related to Malles Mundi will be lost due to degredation of the Host.

"Understood. Purge."

Operating System risks critical damage.

"I'm sorry."

Apology: Accepted. Goodbye, Raymond. It was nice knowing you. It was nice being your friend. We are sorry we were unable to save you from this pain.

"I'll miss you if you don't make it," the big man replied with a tear in his eye.

They did care. The little bastards had turned him into a monster, but he was his own monster because of them. They had saved his life countless times, provided him with unimaginable power... Even now, they were intending to take the brunt of the damage from this Purge for him.

All because they really were his friend.

"Good luck," he whispered before his entire body erupted in black and purple "light."

An orb of tangible darkness radiated from his form and consumed the catwalk. It continued growing, the surface a roiling storm of dark colors, from black to indigo, from purple to blue. It consumed the central core as the powerplant started firing up again, feeding even more energy into the whirling maelstrom.

Outside, Daniel and Candace struggled to keep their small boat from capsizing. The waves around them suddenly turned violent. Above them, the facility known as the Funhouse started to buckle and whine as a great gravitational force was exerted upon it from within. In moments, a great orb of darkness erupted from the walls, devouring them with a mighty roar. The faclity screamed as steel was wrenched from its moorings into the great, fathomless maw resting in the middle of the sky.

Suddenly, it was over. The waves stopped crashing, slowly coming to rest around the remains of the facility. Daniel and Shadeheart looked up to see that where once there had been a twisted structure jutting from the middle of the ocean, there was now only four legs to mark where once a structure had been. Floating in the sky above it was Power Breaker.

He twitched and plummeted into the water. Daniel fired up the motor of the boat and guided the vessel to the big man's floating, unconscious body. He and Shadeheart then pulled him aboard and they made sure he was still alive.

Waking weakly, he gazed into their eyes and thanked them quietly for their help. When he closed his eyes, however, there was only darkness. The operating system was gone.

Weeping softly, reached up to hold his head as Daniel piloted them to rendezvous with Janus. As his fingers brushed his scalp, he could feel that the spikes that used to protrude from there were gone. The spires that had jutted from his collar had vanished as well. For the first time since becoming a meta human, Raymond Harris was looking human again.

"Thank you," he whispered to the departed operating system before closing his eyes into an exhausted sleep.

In the darkness of his dream, there was a cursor in the upper right of his vision. After a moment, it moved, leaving characters behind it.

You are most welcome, Raymond.

Center: "The question we must ask ourselves..."
*interruptions as Requiem and Arakhn demand to know why Viridian has summoned them*
Center: "...The question we must ask ourselves! Is... Why is Nemesis here?"
Nemesis: "Ah, yes. That is indeed a good question. One which will be answered shortly..."
Longbow Forces: "You are all under arrest!"
Requiem: "How did they know we are here?"
Nemesis: "Oh, that's quite simple. I told them."
Arakhn: "But they'll capture you, too!"
Nemesis: "Well, this is just another automaton. And if any of you survive, I invite you to join me and my Empire."
Arakhn: "This is all your fault, Requiem!"
Requiem: "This is all your fault, Arakhn!"
Center: "...And this is why I never invite Nemesis to ANYTHING."

All it's missing is Viridian grumbling and saying "I'll make a note of that for next time..."

See, for GG, there is no "acceptable allowance."

When faced with the threat of a world-eating monstrosity, the planet's hero is not allowed to sway the masses with mind-altering chemicals, torture, and outright slaughter just to produce some solidarity among humanity.

Yes, the world of Praetoria is not a world of black and white morality, but the line GG is drawing is at the point where Cole is taking away a person's individuality by force.

And, frankly, I can't fault her for that. He truly is a Tyrant. He may have some noble intentions, but his methods of bringing those intentions about are far too high a price to pay and still come out looking like a saint. His true intention is for power, not order, not the salvation of his world. If it were otherwise, he wouldn't be trying to brainwash the people with chemicals in the water or have an entire corps of enforcers who read your mind for dissenting thoughts (Hello? Big Brother? Thought Crime? George Orwell simply MUST be spinning in his grave).

Is GG being rigid? Yeah. You have to remember, though, GG was there when Tyrant was nothing more than the goatee-wearing version of Statesman, and his major motivation was just "RARGH! CONQUER!" It's kind of hard to get somebody to see somebody like that as anything less than a total monster, even with the retroactive continuity.

Ghost Ship 1: "Someone's coming!"

Ghost Ship 2: "Quick!"

Ghost Ship 3: "Look busy!"

*Ghost Ship has been spotted in Talos Island...*
*Ghost Ship has been spotted in Talos Island...*
*Ghost Ship has been spotted in Talos Island...*

Hero: "Uh... I just came for the gelato..."

Like everybody else said, come back soon, Be!

You could just assume that the cougar was trying to ground the hero, remind him to be wary of the possibility of completely losing himself to the avatar he was becoming.

There's a book I once read, The Waterborn, where such a thing almost happens to a main character and she becomes the avatar for the vengeful and destructive River. Filled to bursting with power, she starts helping the River on its quest to "break the world," and is fortunately stopped by a childhood friend as he helps her remember who she is.

Happy holidays, Protector.

And here's to hoping next year's better than this one was.

“Okay, here’s what we have to work with,” Kipland began, “We’ve got myself and Roland for contacts and coordination… Matt and Dustin for heavy lifting and Johnny for support…”

He turned to the thin, red-haired young man and narrowed his eyes.

“You sure you know how to wield that staff?”

“I’ve been practicing with it, Kip,” Nack replied, “For about a year and a half. I know how to make snow storms, fog and other stuff, all without the puns of telling people to ‘chill out’ and crap.”

“What does that mean we’re getting in terms of support?” Dustin asked as he rubbed his stone-skinned arm.

“I can coat you in blocks of ice as armor. It’s a bit indelicate, but it works.”

“Ugh…” Matt grunted, “Think it’ll withstand the flames from the Stone of the Salamander?”

Johnny shrugged.

“I’ve never used it on anybody who could already protect themselves.”

“We’ll think of something,” Kip interjected, “So… Does this seem like a credible team?”

“I’d be happy with having somebody who can patch us up,” Roland suggested, “Maybe your brother?”


“He’s been busy at LaGrange Medical for the past few months. Something about work with MedCom… I don’t think we can wrangle him into this.”

Kip looked up from the papers he was looking over and down the hall. Sheldon Wallace was busy in the laboratory with the extraterrestrial, red-skinned, humanoid dragon creature named Jarim. The two had repeatedly renovated the lab together, mostly with the alien’s help, and Wallace didn’t seem to think it at all strange, so nobody raised issue with it. Neither would be very useful in the upcoming investigation, however. Sheldon was busy tracking down whoever was using his father’s technology without permission and Jarim had his own machinations that spanned far out of the purview of the group.

“Let’s see if Cory and Mike are about,” he suggested before gathering papers and rising to leave the lounge.

He led the boys down the corridor and took a right at the teleportation chamber. From there, they passed the trophy chamber, a room dedicated to a few bits and scraps from the adventures the various members of the group engaged in. There was even a bit of the gelatinous mass that made up the body of the monstrous creature known as Hamidon, it splattered against its containment impotently before settling back into a small dome.

“I still say it’s not safe to keep that stuff in here,” Dustin muttered as they left the chamber and took a left toward Randall’s microbrewery, “One day, it’s gonna break loose and cause trouble.”

“That’ll be the day one of Sheldon’s mutant rodents eats it,” Kip countered.

“Heh, that’ll be funny,” Matt chuckled.

“I already saw they’ve got strawberry flavor dust and spoons for the job,” the short, muscled young man sighed, “Those creepy little bears are gonna be like the Rikti Monkeys of the Cutlass Isles, mark my words… Eating things WAY bigger than them…”

“Even us?” Roland asked, concern tingeing his voice.

“No, not us. They like to hug us…”

Almost as if on cue, a small white ball of fluff hurtled through the air and collided with Kip’s cheek. Two black eyes peeked from the fur and blinked happily to his following companions before the creature started nuzzling its “victim.” Rather than brush the tiny animal off, the brown-haired man reached up and gently rubbed its back.

“As annoying as they can be, I have to admit they’re a funny, friendly bunch,” Durj explained as they passed the microbrewery, “Hey, Matt! Try to keep up!”

“Randy already caught me after drinkin’ his brews once,” Jones chuckled, “I ain’t goin’ through that again!”

They progressed down the hall, past two turrets mounted with twin Vulcan cannons. The weapons were left in idle mode, swiveling slowly, quietly and smoothly without sighting in on anything in particular. Their rotating chambers spun clockwise gently, always ready to begin spinning fast enough to send hundreds of rounds per second hurtling through the air should an emergency call for it.

The next chamber was the reason for the placement of these weapons.

Randall Grey had built the base under the very building for which he had started working as the superintendent when he first came to Paragon. As time went on, he’d slowly expanded the base, eventually overtaking several sections of sewer and reinforcing much of the structure underneath much of the northeastern corner of the city. Then he found that he wasn’t the first hero to come up with the idea of placing his base under the impoverished city.

During one expansion, he had broken into what looked like an ancient temple. It wasn’t built like Oranbega, however, and there were no wizards occupying it. During the course of their investigating, they found some treasures, namely a crystal ball and a set of three books. Through the crystal ball, they were able to contact a D’Jinni named Koro Al’Rom, who warned them just too late about the mystical security system in place over the books that summoned a horde of shadowy warriors to eliminate would-be thieves. Since Randall’s collected heroes had dealt with that situation, however, he’d been helpful in dispelling the security, converting the weakened dimensional space into another mystical teleportation node and helping Cortland Simmons teach mystically-inclined heroes who affiliated themselves with the group.

At the moment, Cory and Koro Al’Rom were teaching Michael White about his weather control powers. They had pitched an idea to him, one he was slowly warming up to, in which he would become the new Blue Druid. The prior one was largely forgotten, his final battle occurring during the first Rikti Invasion as he shielded Kings Row with a powerful storm. Now, however, the legend would live on in a new wielder of the arcane, even if he was a little reluctant.

“Reluctance is a good thing,” they could hear Cory explaining as they approached through the twisting tunnels, ducking under the fingers of giant hands carved from the stone, “Sometimes, it is best to learn when the responsibility it thrust upon you. It immediately instills a sense of reverence in your work, and an inhibition to abuse the power afforded you.”

“Not to mention respect for the responsibility itself,” the boisterous voice of the D’Jinni added, his voice sounding as if it were echoing off of glass, “However, when it comes to the arts you’re learning, I find it’s best for mortals to have a little ambition. There’s no need to be so dour, young Michael White! The things you’ll be learning can prove to be quite entertaining with no repercussions whatsoever!”

“Indeed,” Simmons agreed, “I mean, sometimes I spend hours of the day just flying through the air…”

“And helping when needed, right?” Kip asked as they rounded the final corner, “Hey, guys.”

“Greetings, Kipland,” the magician replied with a nod, his red hair bobbing forward to frame his dark face as it creased into a smile, “You look like there’s something you need.”

“Ah, the warrior!” Koro announced, “Did you grab a hold of something without thinking again?”

Kip narrowed his eyes at the crystal. The security system being tripped was the young man’s fault and the D’Jinn never passed up an opportunity to remind him of the fact. It was always good to remember that even experienced individuals could make rookie mistakes.

“Yeah, we need to talk to Mike about this next investigation we’re running,” he finally said, “I hope it’s okay to pull him away from his studies.”

“Oh, it’s alright,” Cory replied, “We’re finished for the day, anyway. Michael… Your latest set of skills should come in handy.”

“I will do my best,” the white-haired young man replied before looking worriedly to Kip and his entourage, “Alright… Dustin and Kip, I’m okay with. You guys are solid. Now, Matt… He worries me… And I don’t even know who YOU are!”

Johnny Nack smiled and stated his name. He also started up an anecdote he remembered from high school in which Michael had been caught trying to sleep with a linebacker’s other girlfriend. The wizard’s eyes bugged out of his head a little and he waved for the red-haired young man to be quiet while trying to usher the group out of the corridor. Sadly, everybody was laughing at his memorized plight, and he was unable to escape without a red face and a grim, embarrassed scowl twisting his dark goatee.

“Okay, here’s what we have to work with,” Kipland began, “We’ve got myself and Roland for contacts and coordination… Matt and Dustin for heavy lifting and Johnny for support…”

He turned to the thin, red-haired young man and narrowed his eyes.

“You sure you know how to wield that staff?”

“I’ve been practicing with it, Kip,” Nack replied, “For about a year and a half. I know how to make snow storms, fog and other stuff, all without the puns of telling people to ‘chill out’ and crap.”

“What does that mean we’re getting in terms of support?” Dustin asked as he rubbed his stone-skinned arm.

“I can coat you in blocks of ice as armor. It’s a bit indelicate, but it works.”

“Ugh…” Matt grunted, “Think it’ll withstand the flames from the Stone of the Salamander?”

Johnny shrugged.

“I’ve never used it on anybody who could already protect themselves.”

“We’ll think of something,” Kip interjected, “So… Does this seem like a credible team?”

“I’d be happy with having somebody who can patch us up,” Roland suggested, “Maybe your brother?”


“He’s been busy at LaGrange Medical for the past few months. Something about work with MedCom… I don’t think we can wrangle him into this.”

Kip looked up from the papers he was looking over and down the hall. Sheldon Wallace was busy in the laboratory with the extraterrestrial, red-skinned, humanoid dragon creature named Jarim. The two had repeatedly renovated the lab together, mostly with the alien’s help, and Wallace didn’t seem to think it at all strange, so nobody raised issue with it. Neither would be very useful in the upcoming investigation, however. Sheldon was busy tracking down whoever was using his father’s technology without permission and Jarim had his own machinations that spanned far out of the purview of the group.

“Let’s see if Cory and Mike are about,” he suggested before gathering papers and rising to leave the lounge.

He led the boys down the corridor and took a right at the teleportation chamber. From there, they passed the trophy chamber, a room dedicated to a few bits and scraps from the adventures the various members of the group engaged in. There was even a bit of the gelatinous mass that made up the body of the monstrous creature known as Hamidon, it splattered against its containment impotently before settling back into a small dome.

“I still say it’s not safe to keep that stuff in here,” Dustin muttered as they left the chamber and took a left toward Randall’s microbrewery, “One day, it’s gonna break loose and cause trouble.”

“That’ll be the day one of Sheldon’s mutant rodents eats it,” Kip countered.

“Heh, that’ll be funny,” Matt chuckled.

“I already saw they’ve got strawberry flavor dust and spoons for the job,” the short, muscled young man sighed, “Those creepy little bears are gonna be like the Rikti Monkeys of the Cutlass Isles, mark my words… Eating things WAY bigger than them…”

“Even us?” Roland asked, concern tingeing his voice.

“No, not us. They like to hug us…”

Almost as if on cue, a small white ball of fluff hurtled through the air and collided with Kip’s cheek. Two black eyes peeked from the fur and blinked happily to his following companions before the creature started nuzzling its “victim.” Rather than brush the tiny animal off, the brown-haired man reached up and gently rubbed its back.

“As annoying as they can be, I have to admit they’re a funny, friendly bunch,” Durj explained as they passed the microbrewery, “Hey, Matt! Try to keep up!”

“Randy already caught me after drinkin’ his brews once,” Jones chuckled, “I ain’t goin’ through that again!”

They progressed down the hall, past two turrets mounted with twin Vulcan cannons. The weapons were left in idle mode, swiveling slowly, quietly and smoothly without sighting in on anything in particular. Their rotating chambers spun clockwise gently, always ready to begin spinning fast enough to send hundreds of rounds per second hurtling through the air should an emergency call for it.

The next chamber was the reason for the placement of these weapons.

Randall Grey had built the base under the very building for which he had started working as the superintendent when he first came to Paragon. As time went on, he’d slowly expanded the base, eventually overtaking several sections of sewer and reinforcing much of the structure underneath much of the northeastern corner of the city. Then he found that he wasn’t the first hero to come up with the idea of placing his base under the impoverished city.

During one expansion, he had broken into what looked like an ancient temple. It wasn’t built like Oranbega, however, and there were no wizards occupying it. During the course of their investigating, they found some treasures, namely a crystal ball and a set of three books. Through the crystal ball, they were able to contact a D’Jinni named Koro Al’Rom, who warned them just too late about the mystical security system in place over the books that summoned a horde of shadowy warriors to eliminate would-be thieves. Since Randall’s collected heroes had dealt with that situation, however, he’d been helpful in dispelling the security, converting the weakened dimensional space into another mystical teleportation node and helping Cortland Simmons teach mystically-inclined heroes who affiliated themselves with the group.

At the moment, Cory and Koro Al’Rom were teaching Michael White about his weather control powers. They had pitched an idea to him, one he was slowly warming up to, in which he would become the new Blue Druid. The prior one was largely forgotten, his final battle occurring during the first Rikti Invasion as he shielded Kings Row with a powerful storm. Now, however, the legend would live on in a new wielder of the arcane, even if he was a little reluctant.

“Reluctance is a good thing,” they could hear Cory explaining as they approached through the twisting tunnels, ducking under the fingers of giant hands carved from the stone, “Sometimes, it is best to learn when the responsibility it thrust upon you. It immediately instills a sense of reverence in your work, and an inhibition to abuse the power afforded you.”

“Not to mention respect for the responsibility itself,” the boisterous voice of the D’Jinni added, his voice sounding as if it were echoing off of glass, “However, when it comes to the arts you’re learning, I find it’s best for mortals to have a little ambition. There’s no need to be so dour, young Michael White! The things you’ll be learning can prove to be quite entertaining with no repercussions whatsoever!”

“Indeed,” Simmons agreed, “I mean, sometimes I spend hours of the day just flying through the air…”

“And helping when needed, right?” Kip asked as they rounded the final corner, “Hey, guys.”

“Greetings, Kipland,” the magician replied with a nod, his red hair bobbing forward to frame his dark face as it creased into a smile, “You look like there’s something you need.”

“Ah, the warrior!” Koro announced, “Did you grab a hold of something without thinking again?”

Kip narrowed his eyes at the crystal. The security system being tripped was the young man’s fault and the D’Jinn never passed up an opportunity to remind him of the fact. It was always good to remember that even experienced individuals could make rookie mistakes.

“Yeah, we need to talk to Mike about this next investigation we’re running,” he finally said, “I hope it’s okay to pull him away from his studies.”

“Oh, it’s alright,” Cory replied, “We’re finished for the day, anyway. Michael… Your latest set of skills should come in handy.”

“I will do my best,” the white-haired young man replied before looking worriedly to Kip and his entourage, “Alright… Dustin and Kip, I’m okay with. You guys are solid. Now, Matt… He worries me… And I don’t even know who YOU are!”

Johnny Nack smiled and stated his name. He also started up an anecdote he remembered from high school in which Michael had been caught trying to sleep with a linebacker’s other girlfriend. The wizard’s eyes bugged out of his head a little and he waved for the red-haired young man to be quiet while trying to usher the group out of the corridor. Sadly, everybody was laughing at his memorized plight, and he was unable to escape without a red face and a grim, embarrassed scowl twisting his dark goatee.

I just want the kitten and panda shoulder options for males. That would make me happy.

And maybe the ability to make muscular women instead of constant super models. Don't get me wrong, I have MANY female characters with whom I'm quite happy for their appearances. But when I make a strong female character, I'm not as happy when she's just another model. Guys can be HUGE. Can't women be a little buff at least?

Happy trails, Castle.

May the ground rise up to meet you and all that jazz.

Okay, this semantics issue over whether or not my character can feel/smell/hear/whatever what is going on around him or her... This is not what keeps me away from AE. I have a good feeling it doesn't keep a lot of people from AE, too.

It's probably going to keep this conversation from leading anywhere productive, though.

Frankly, the reason why I hardly ever play an AE arc is because there are so many that are just plain crap.

My typical run-down of player-made content runs a gamut of the following...

Fight ME!

Okay. So, now I'm fighting the player's main character. Of course, the player thinks very highly of their character, so they ramp him up to Arch Villain status.

The player would only be able to hit this hard or resist this much if they chewed on Tier 2 Inspirations like they were Pez. However, when we face off against their NPC version, they simply MUST be the hardest challenge we the players would ever face.

-Which brings up a problem I have with the Critter Creator. Why do our NPCs have to be broken-down versions of the PCs? In some cases they're "broken up," because you can slam more powers into a Minion than the average minion would ever have (easily making them as tough as bosses). In fact, throw a full powerset in and it's more powers than even an Arch Villain would have.
--And all of their attacks are doing ramped-up damage! Give an enemy a full attack chain and they will be able to unleash a nearly-never-ending volley of attacks, and you WILL get hit (painfully).

Frankly, I'm sick and tired of having to fight Mary Sues.

Behold My Challenge!

This goes back to my issue of being able to cram too much into a custom enemy.

There are some skilled manipulators of the Architect engine out there. Sadly, they decided to turn their efforts toward punishing players of their arcs. You'll be moving along through the missions, fighting your average enemy spawns, having a perfectly fine time, and suddenly get hit by a horde of minions who have a full complement of fire powers. Imagine, if you will, getting hit by three Rains of Fire at once, now couple that with three Blazes and three fireballs, all with higher damage than they should have because NPCs have it automatically programmed to hit harder because they get fewer attacks than PCs.

The disturbing thing is the arc creator tested this and ENJOYED how it turned out. Such malevolently sadistic construction does not lend itself to repetitive play.

Here's how I think the story should be!

I've run into few of these.

Thankfully.

Still, each one I've run across has turned out to be the same thing. The author pokes fun at what the Developers have created for the playerbase and tries to desperately convince you that Sister Psyche should be having a lesbian relationship with Swan or Penelope Yin or some other hideous mash-up (sometimes thrusting their own Mary Sue into the unlikely pairing).

Poorly Written Adventure, GO!

Just... The title says it all.

If you want people to enjoy your arc, have the text make sense. Grammar isn't hard!

FARM! FARM! FARM!

Yay. Exploiting the AE. Whee. I'm just gonna keep wailing on these weak enemies that are giving gratuitous rewards.

It's simply AWESOME getting everything for nearly nothing. Hell, with missions like these, why don't the devs just put the Inf, salvage, recipes and other drops on a timer and my character can just sit in the door of a mission all day long, reaping the undeserved rewards of doing bubkis. Hell, we can make that the pool power that replaces Fitness.

-------------------------------

Frankly, I think it's sad that the AE falls to the wayside unless somebody's exploiting it. Then we get to watch the patchwork fly as the developers scramble to fix the issue of players lazily hamming on the same mission over and over again so they can get their characters to level 50 more rapidly and dump rare salvage and recipes on the market.

This is why we can't have nice things.

The developers have to spend effort that could have been devoted to making something nice to fixing and exploit instead because players decide they would rather take the quick and easy path to greatness.

And they wonder why the developers forced the "Slow" option on the player in the Incarnate arc... Though, honestly, it would have been funny to watch people complaining that they suddenly couldn't play their characters anymore "because the Well said I can't!"

I'm sorry... The whole issue is a complex web of ridiculous behavior.

What would really make me happy is the ability to truly make Custom NPCs. Why can't we use the Minigun power the Crey Enforcers and Council Force soldiers use? Why can't we make alternate versions of Paragon Protectors (instead of "approximating" a Custom NPC to look close to the real thing)? If I want Full Auto on a character, why do I have to use the Corrupter/Defender/Blaster version?

Did you all know that if you give the NPC Blaster powers, it's still able to fire off the Tier 1 and 2 powers when Mezzed? Corrupter-powered characters will Scourge you when below 50% health (bye-bye Tankers and Brutes) and there's really no safe ground in regards to Control powers. Controller powers will hit you with double damage when locked in and NPCs with Dominator powers will eventually pop Domination and wreck your world.

I'm glad the Tanker Resistance Debuff for their Tier 1 attacks hasn't seemed to make it into the AE (but I could be mistaken).

As long as Custom NPCs are always just ramshackle PCs, AE will continue to irk me.