Obsidius

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Sorry to see you go was really looking forward to meeting everyone behind the scenes and boards when i would be at herocon the unofficial greeter of Justice Server Guil

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I can still go to Hero-Con, just this time I'll be a player....therefore beware!

I'm staying in the Bay area.

Ex

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Well, that's good to hear.

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Huzzah!

Ex,

You've been a wonderful moderator, a great host, and more than that, a charming person. I can't say I won't miss ya, because I will. Here's to your continued success. Like Lighthouse, Cricket, and Cuppa before you, you've been a great member of the team, taken my criticism and ribbing with the best of them, and been more than lenient with me and other forumites during trying times. We've come a long way in the last couple of years, and I hope to run into you again sometime in the future.

Cheers Ex!

With deepest sincerity,

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Do people here have no reading comprehension skills, or what? The dude said DO NOT NOMINATE YOUR OWN ARCS!:

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I would like to hear about good arcs that you have played and rated well that are NOT YOURS. I know everyone is sure their arc is the Next Great American Novel, but I'd like to hear from an unbiased third party, please!

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Sheez, you would think a bunch of people that love to write could, you know, read better.

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I'll nominate this guy's arcs then, because why the hell not. This is what I get for skimming the threads - a foot in the [censored] for my troubles

18121--The Society for Truth. It's got evil Germans. Everyone likes fighting evil Germans.

26515--The Lost Tomb of Fausto Zanetti. Battle the undead and their necromancer overlord.

Just be sure to ignore my sig below.

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Wait, there's clothes in this pack?

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whats' the emote for that one?!

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I'm pretty sure that;s the architect accolade power, though I've never confirmed it personally.

I would like to shamelessly plug my arc, listed in my sig. It's based off of in-game canon, and almost nothing else. Purely story-driven. There are 3 EB/ AVs at the end of the last three missions, so fair warning.

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Arc Name: The War on Superadine
Arc ID: 7595
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Obsidius
Difficulty Level: Hard (but soloable by some)
Level Range(s): 15-50
Synopsis:
In 1982, the Back Alley Brawler found a new drug gripping Paragon City's streets - Superadine. The Regulators vowed to get this drug off the streets before it hurt more people. This is their story.

This historical story arcs takes place from 1982 to 1986, and retells the events of the Regulators' fight against the Family and Superadine. Regulators will team up with players to help clean up Paragon's streets and bring the Family to justice. And what they find out in the end will leave even the Freedom Phalanx speechless...
Estimated Time to Play: 1 hour
Link to More Details or Feedback: here

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I've streamlined the first two missions in this arc to be a bit easier. It's still a 5 mission arc, but it should be enjoyable for soloists and groups alike. Fair warning, there is one EB/ AV in each of the last three missions

Yar, more than one cape system per character is something they're not allowed to do yet, because it increases the processing requirement for each character rendered, which is why only select NPCs can use such things. I suspect that in order to allow this, they'd have to up the minimum system requirements for the game.

But I digress. Still plenty we can do with only one cape system after all, as shown by these wonderful pictures I'll have to post some pics of my Warshade later in his new Baroque outfit. Just wish I could find a tricorner hat without a pirate theme

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and Salagadoola got an upgrade

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Love the look you've got there Obsidius!

Daednu sporting her new outfit. Really like the fringe cape over the bolero look from the behind the character view.

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Wow, you can do that? I knew you could switch out the lower part with whatever cape you want, but that... <drools>

Very nice all around. Very inspiring!

I put a Baroque-looking costume an my Warshade, but Obsidius just looks mean, almost like the Beast.

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Swank logo, swank name. Much better than NC NorCal or NC Mountain View.

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Concurred. Knew you all were looking for a better name for the studio. Glad you found one that was so obvious, but yet so right. Congrats!

<QR> I may take up reviewing some arcs in this thread (as long as no one minds), but probably not this week, due to post Spring Break school workload.

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What DO you define as a Mary Sue, then? TVTropes defines it as a (female) character that is just perfect, wonderful, is great at everything, has no flaws, and is just the best! That doesn't seem like Tanya Atta to me.

For my purposes here, a Mary Sue is a character of either sex that a) is an obvious stand-in for the author, which is adequately demonstrated by the character being one of the author's PCs or an Expy (thinly disguised version) of such, and b) is being repeatedly glorified by the arc, constantly telling us how powerful/intelligent/wonderful/special/etc. the character is.

Note the conjunct ("and"). Both conditions are necessary, neither independently is sufficient. My two mains, Venture and Starfall (from Virtue) appear in my arc "Chains of Blood" but strictly as guests. I did that deliberately to show what I thought was an acceptable use of one's own characters. I feel this offers a definite enough criterion to avoid Lazarus' charge of simply slapping a label on something I don't like.

Tanya Atta hits both conditions. She's the author's PC (has a nice big page on Virtueverse) and the arc repeatedly tells us how intelligent and powerful and special she is, even after you defeat her (Wincott says "how could you have defeated someone so powerful?") The fact that the script requires her to take a dirt nap at the end does not detract from her Sueness, especially since we all know she'll just leave the Cardboard Prison later. She also hits some of the items on the Encyclopedia Dramatica list: connection to canon character, "special" name, "special" powers (female Troll, AV status).

Also note that removing the connection to the author doesn't really fix the problem. It would make the character not a Mary Sue, but it would still be bad writing -- a "darling" that needs to be killed.

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Wow Venture, I completely concur.

When you start accepting story arcs for reviewing, I would like to submit my arc for consideration. I'm not afraid of critical criticism. Or if Hell_O_Ween wants to take a crack at it, just as well Info is in my sig.

I thought about doing this for one of my Flying characters for PvP... but Air Superiority is just too good in PvP. So is Hover for my ranged characters. Frankly, I'm torn.

<QR>

Ran some 1-star missions this weekend. I like to give 1-stars a chance, especially if they've only been rated once or twice, to see if they're truly deserving of their ratings, or unfairly spammed.

There were only one or two redeemable ones, one of which was this Valkyrie mission on the outdoor KR map. First there were 10 objectives(collecting bodies of fallen comrades), which triggered on ally rescue, which finally triggered one EB fight. Overall, not too bad, except the EB ran at half life, continuously, the clues needed more details, and the mission looked like it was supposed to move into another mission, but didn't (like what KeepDistance is discussing). But overall, I don't think it deserved a one-star rating, as it was better than other missions I've seen in and of itself.

Speaking of which...

Three arcs really stood out to to me this weekend as bad. The first one was like what KeepDistance describes above:

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all the battle elements were in place but all the text said was "C" in every field.

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This mission was like this, except almost every field in the mission was like this. Mission description, intro text, etc. The only exceptions were the Statesman/ Castle boss fights. The mission was basically a juvenile jab at these two devs for perceived wrongdoings and scapegoating for the game's PvP. So yeah, personal attacks and all that - rated and reported.

Another one was a mission filled with icy custom critters in an "Office to Caves" map. The first sign of trouble was the 25 collection objective, which was tedious. Also, the icy critters liked to stack slow, although this was more of a challenge than an annoyance. But the breaking point was the Ice/ REgen EB that activated MOG at the start of the fight, and who's regen was so high I could not make a dent. After trying twice to defeat him, but either running out of END or continuing a stalemate, I gave up.

Finally my wife and I tried one mission that had strangely named ally and boss objectives. The ally turned out to be an EB Statesman, and the boss turned out to be an EB Lord Recluse. The only problem was that the Statesman ally was follow but, apparently, non-combat. After trying for Recluses twice, with both attempts leading to faceplants, we quit the story. Might have gone better with a team, but I was afraid the EBs would scale up to AVs. I wouldn't have mided the diffuculty so much if there had been any sort of mission description, but as it was, meh.

Then you should probably stop cross-posting and contact a community rep via PM, since it appears you're already discussing this topic in one of the aformentioned threads.

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Devs, thanks a ton for MA.

My son turned 7 today, and absolutely loves COH. Evey friday night he looks forward to running a mission or two with me and my friends.

Well, I made a birthday themed mission for him. (Arc ID 22273)

The mission is nothing Fancy, just the ability to make custom characters for the whole "Super Family" to represent the whole family (as allies to be rescued) is great. He gets to run the mission tonight, and I think it will be the most memorable birthday gift he gets this year.

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What an awesome and unpredicted way to use the MA. Hats of to you Reverend! And Happy Birthday to your son!

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My group had 6 storage racks (each with a different Tier and type [Arcane/Tech]), 3 inspirations racks that had 11-13 at every level which were Tier 2, Tier 2, and Tier 3 and 4th rack that had a combination of Tier 2, Tier 3, and Special. There were 5 enhancements racks. They're all gone. We received none of our lost prestige.

WTF?!

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Seems like filing a petition would be more constructive than posting on a thread created by a community rep, who can do nothing to fix your problem, except tell you to file a petition.

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Aaand... as awesome as those are, they still ought to be free.

No more microtransactions.

Either that or get rid of the monthly fee. Both is unacceptable.

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Explain, if you will, how this is any different than buying a console game for any current platform and then buying optional premium content from the console's online store.

There's no shame in fessing up to stuff you've done yourself in the MA. It's still relevant to the thread IMO

Thanks for the additional info Z_M.

Re: re-education: I know nozzink!

Thanks for the clarification Mod8; that's definitely the intention of this thread. One can be critical without being spiteful or overly berating.

Also:

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I enjoyed the start of the mission, because I found it humorous to be able to beat up satirical versions of a prolific forum poster. After defeating the 43rd black gargoyle however, it started to get a bit old and the mission had little else to recommend it, it seemed like a one trick pony. I could potentially enjoy the arc, but it would need to work on more than that one level.

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I see what you did there

Since Mod8 closed the previous thread based upon the title, and seems amicable to opening this subject under a new heading, I've taken the liberty of making a new thread in a more appropriate forum.

If you have critical feedback about a mission arc that should be proverbially taken behind the woodshed and put out of its misery, please feel free to post ere. This is not so much to razz authors, but more importantly, to learn from mistakes in order to build better arcs.

Enjoy!

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Both of my ears work fine, but I'm still behind this 100%.

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ditto

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Agreed. At least have it as a menu toggle option for the hard of hearing/ deaf.

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I’d like to hedge off the flamers in advance, the “High Collar” clips with most of the sholderpads, sorry. I love you all.

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...and that suddenly isn't a problem?

Hey Jay, how about some more Widow hairstyles? Since clipping apparently isn't a problem?

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The sarcasm approach always works