Olantern

continued . . .

[u]Mission 5[u]

Things sort of fall apart here. The idea is good, and I like the variety of objectives and details, but it needs tweaking.

Now I finally get the chance to take down Lord Kumo, and Flower Knight will be coming with me. I enter the mission and discover I'll need to fight four generals, who I correctly figure will be analogues of the Arachnos patrons, as well as meeting Flower Knight.

This map is packed with Hawk Clan vs. Spider Clan battles, which are a nice touch, but they can cause some trouble. First and most obviously, Fujineko and the supposedly dead Sayaki reappear several times each. They need to be set to "do not spawn," I think.

A more insidious problem appears on my first fight with a general. The first general I face is Lord Mako, a Dual Blades EB whose only connection with his Arachnos counterpart seems to be his name and a few aspects of personality. With the assistance of Light Form, I get him down to 1/4 health, at which point he runs off and talks about how I killed him, even though one of the Hawk Clan spawns did the actual work.

I recover Flower Knight easily enough, with the help of a nearby battle spawn. She turns out to be quite handy throughout the mission, with one critical exception.

I can't say as much for the Hawk Clan Yojimbo who appear unguarded to assist me. Unlike the Hawk Clan Bushi doing most of the fighting in the battles, these guys seem fairly flimsy. Black Scorpion killed both of mine in one attack.

Later, I face Black Scorpion, who's identical to Mako except for dialogue and bio. Flower Knight and I easily thrash him.

I was disappointed that Mako and Black Scorpion weren't unique characters. Again, I don't know what your arc space is like, but I think they might benefit from some differentiation. Perhaps their armor could be identical, but Mako could use Dual Blades while Black Scorpion uses Super Strength. Additionally, this is just my opinion, but I think Mako's armor ought to use Samurai type 3 because it looks like waves to me (I use it on my aquatic character).

I also face Scirocco, renamed and re-bio'd as the "Oracle of Wind." I can see why you didn't change him. His powers and weapons fit fine with the Peragon milieu. That said, I found it odd that two of the four generals were reworked Arachnos Patrons while the other two were "stock" Spider Clan types. I'd usually expect them to be all one or all the other.

Finally, Flower Knight and I beat down Gaki-Onna (great name!), Ghost Widow recolored. Her bio is still Ghost Widow's and needs to be changed. She's tough, but several purple inspirations take care of her.

Her defeat spawns Kumo himself, I suppose because something has to trigger it. The clue mentioning it is nicely atmospheric. I know from the clue in mission 4 that I'll be facing Lord Recluse, so I stock up on inspirations and get ready.

I tried to take him down three times, using multiple purple inspirations, my Light Form (a clone power of Unstoppable, which includes massive +recovery), and a couple of obliging spawns of Hawk Bushi and Sisters Sayaki. I just couldn't do it. I could take him down to about 1/3 of his health before his electrical attacks drained my endurance past my ability to recover it. That, combined with his ability to call Bane Spider bosses, made short work of all the allies as well as me. I finally gave up, a bitter end to an otherwise great arc.

I really don't think Recluse makes sense here. Yes, there's an AV warning, but Recluse is in a class by himself. The rest of the arc was easily soloable by me, a pretty lousy player, if truth be told. Having the difficulty jump like this is just as jarring as the shift in point of view I mentioned above. Further, while you've provided an acceptable explanation for why Lord Kumo is dressed like a modern mastermind with spider arms and electric powers, why does he have Bane Spiders appear to assist him? Arachnos, as such, has played no role at all in the arc up to this point, so these things are really out of left field. I don't see how you can fix that issue without using something other than Recluse.

If you still want the fight to be unusual or unusually difficult, I recommend taking a look at another "parallel Recluse," Romulus from the ITF. Part of the challenge of Rommie is the Nictus trio that spawns with him. Maybe you could do something similar for Lord Kumo, making a special "bodyguard" group that makes him stronger. (For an example from an MA arc, check out my "Heart of Talos," arc #175660, which features what is essentially an unarmored debuffer AV supported by bodyguards with a power designed to prevent melee characters from running roughshod over the AV.)

All in all, as I mentioned in my feedback tell, I'd give this about 4 stars as-is. It can easily reach 5 if you fix some of the outstanding mechanical and stylistic issues. Goodness knows it's a good story; I really love these "Elseworlds/What If . . .?" kinds of things. Thanks for writing it and for reading this review!

Edit: Like the reviewer above, I didn't actually give a rating, since I couldn't finish. I'm a fellow inhabitant of Liberty, so if you want any assistance in testing, please let me know.

[ QUOTE ]
For those interested in going through an arc that is relatively new and less polished, I have a new story arc that I've published:

A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force
Arc ID: 260284
Keywords: Challenging, Save the World, Magic
Length: Very Long
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 45-50
Description: Samurai and ninja battle for honor in a faraway realm. But someone has introduced firearms to the land, tilting the balance of power towards the evil Lord Kumo and the Spider Clan. Will you journey there to restore the balance? SFMA, Asian fantasy, L5R, wuxia, dimensional travel. Warning: AVs!


The final mission is fairly challenging, including several AVs and several allies. I'd particularly like input regarding game balance of that mission. I was able to solo it on a level 40 katana/willpower scrapper (the theme of this arc is squarely aimed at katana scrappers), but it may be quite tough for squishy characters.

It's had very little critical review so far, so any feedback would be most appreciated!


[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, here goes. I think I was the first person to play this arc (nearly) all the way through, though my SG-mate who had to quit partway through seems to have been the first to rate it. Oh, well.

Note that this review will contain massive SPOILERS for those those haven't done this arc. You Have Been Warned.

Because the most appropriate character I had for this, a little tengu katana scrapper, is only in his teens at the moment, I played this arc mostly solo with my level 48 PB, Mr. Foudroyant, on Tenacious (difficulty 2, so I get bosses and EB's). I find PB's work well for testing things because they have a lot of unique tricks, yet they still capture some of the "squishy" feel.

[u]Mission 1[u]

Flower Knight, of the hero tutorial and Ouroboros, asks me to investigate a dimension recently discovered by Portal Corp. based on a series of dreams she's had. This sounds goofy written up here in this thread, but it works very well in the arc itself. Incidentally, Flower Knight is written well throughout the arc; she has a distinctively earnest voice without sounding like an annoyingly incompetent child.

The mission accept text is in the form of a complete sentence, but it's lacking a period at the end. All the mission accept text seems to have this issue.

The mission takes place on one of the Croatoa outdoor maps, which is pretty and appropriate, if somewhat difficult to navigate. The custom group in here, the Spider Clan, has nice designs and bios. I particularly like the ashigaru arquebusiers.

One (very) minor problem is that the Spider Bushi (minions) and the Daimyo (bosses) look very similar except at close range. Ideally, you could find a way to put something resembling a samurai banner pole on the Daimyo. We don't have banner poles, but maybe you could try a cape to simulate one.

This mission has several goals. First, I locate and lead out Fujineko, a female samurai of the Hawk Clan, who are apparently the good guys in this dimension. Ordinarily, I'm not a fan of escort missions, but this one does have one advantage. After leading Fujineko to the door, she continues to follow me around the map without needing to be in "sight" range, which helps when playing a character who's flying around this somewhat difficult to navigate map looking for objectives. One additional, very small suggestion for Fujineko is to use the Onimochi Warrior overlay for her outfit, to make those neat dragons on the back show up more clearly. I notice that you did this on the Spider Clan samurai.

Second, I have to rescue a couple of oppressed peasants, and there are related patrols of Spider Clansmen discussing how they're going to oppress people. I love these goals. They capture the medieval feel of the arc well, and they're just fun in a kind of campy way. The emotes and text used by the captives and captors are perfect, too. One minor suggestion is to have the peasants perform /e bow (the Japanese-like one) when rescued. This goes for Fujineko, too, for that matter.

I also located a gravestone, a Defendable Object. Clicking on it gives some interesting information. I recommend putting this in a clue rather than the object's description, since I don't think many people would think to check the information for the object itself.

While wandering around this mission, I notice that the dimension is known to its natives as "Perogan." I pronounce this aloud using my sketchy knowledge of Japanese transliteration, recall that I'm fighting the Spider Clan, and I realize that this seemingly pseudo-Japanese dimension is an analogue of Paragon City. I love this conceit, and it's followed pretty well throughout the arc, but it raises a couple of confusing features in later missions, as discussed below.

By the way, it just occurred to me that given this motif, maybe the Shugenja, mages who use Fire powers, should use Electrical powers instead.

Finally, I have to fight Jinkenzo, who's just a named Daimyo. He's a recurring character, who I just realized is the samurai equivalent of a prominent CoV NPC (duh!), and his dialogue throughout the arc is great. You can't help feeling sorry for this guy. That said, since finding and defeating him on this big map is an objective, I think you might want to make him more visually distinctive than a typical Daimyo. I'm not sure how best to do this or if you even have the arc space to do it, but with bosses spawning more frequently now, it would be helpful for players who are trying to find those objectives.

[u]Mission 2[u]

I return to Perogan to investigate some dimensional travel weirdness that seems to be connected to those arquebuses that the Spider Clan have suddenly acquired. This mission takes me through a Cimeroran caves complex, which is a good choice of map, and has some fun dialogue from Jinkenzo and a new, named Daimyo, Ohanko. Note that this is the same as the named Huntsman in "Oh, Wretched Man." I'm honestly not sure what having Ohanko in here adds, although I have nothing against including him, either. However, if you're pressed for arc space, I'd suggest cutting him rather than some of the other elements. (It didn't help that his dialogue refers to Jinkenzo's dialogue, which was slightly odd in my play-through, which spawned Ohanko first, then Jinkenzo.)

At the back, I face Lord Aion. No, no relation to the new NCSoft MMO; this one is a feudal Japanese mad scientist. Yes, he's as goofy-looking as he sounds, which provides a needed touch of lightness to the arc and reinforces the Peragon/Paragon connection.

I was surprised not to get a clue for confiscating all the matchlocks in here, but I'm not sure one would really add anything to the story. Unfortunately, the arquebuses look like high-tech blasters because we don't have an "arquebus rack" collection detail. Oh, well.

While fighting Aion, an ambush of ninja (Chimera minions) appears. Nice touch. I had figured these were supposed to be Peragon ninja, but my clues and, when I return to her, Flower Knight, tell me they are indeed Chimera's minions. Interesting.

[u]Mission 3[u]

Flower Knight sends me to see Sister/Lady (her title changes depending on context) Sayaki, a Peragon noblewoman who's become the "Oracle of Void" (shades of Legends of the Five Rings). For some reason, she lives in a cave, which the entry text of the mission treats in exactly the right way. The map's empty, so I'm expecting ambushes. At the end of the map, I find Sayaki guarded by some Chimera ninja.

Rescuing her is easy, but getting her out is tough, since the map is now populated with Chimera's minions. Even though she's an EB, due to several bosses spawning close, the ninja's caltrops take her hit points dangerously low. Fortunately, I have Glowing Touch. I suggest giving Sayaki flight, like Sister Psyche and Sister Solaris of Cimerora.

An odd thing happened in this mission with enemy names. Some of them were designed Cockatrice, Basilisk, and Gorgon, like ordinary Chimera ninja. Others, however, were "Jonin" and "Shinobi." I have no idea why this is or if it means anything; just though you should know.

I also get two great clues in this mission, a piece of poetry and a prayer, which add nicely to the samurai-era ambience. I am a little confused by this point, though. According to the clues, Sayaki was romantically involved with Chimera. Huh? Praetorian Manticore and Peragonian Sister Psyche? The context implies that this relationship happened a long time ago and that it's been over for quite a while (years, maybe), which was even more confusing, given that the Praetorians only recently seem to have acquired transdimensional travel. Also, what was Chimera doing in Peragon for all that time? All these questions are more or less answered in the next mission, but I did find it pretty bizarre here in this one until I got the clarification. I was wondering for a while if you'd mixed up the dimension where Chimera comes from; it could be read that way.

[u]Mission 4[u]

With the contact text and the clues in this mission, my confusion about Chimera is cleared up. Now I'm storming his fortress in Peragon, which is a graveyard like the one he hangs out in in Praetoria. There are several glowies here, more weapon racks and a crate.

The crate gives an interesting but potentially problematic clue, a note from Black Swan to Chimera about the armor of "Sir Recluse," who is apparently supposed to be the Praetorian Lord Recluse, a hero slain by Tyrant. Now, this is fine at the moment, it's well-written, and it explains the final boss in the next mission, but I question whether you want to refer to such a potentially important NPC when anything you create is likely to be invalidated in 6-12 months in the Going Rogue expansion.

I also get to destroy a neat-looking portal to Praetoria and read a note from Tyrant explaining how Chimera got tangled up in this Peragon place to begin with, which resolves a lot of my story confusion. (That said, what ever happened to Peragonian Manticore?)

Aside from the glowies, I also have to defeat Chimera. There's nothing special to report about this fight. He has fine dialogue, and he's not too difficult. When I read his defeat clue, I'm shocked to learn that after I defeated him, Chimera killed himself! He declaims a nice little haiku, which I found to be a great touch.

However, I'm not sure if you want to write a character who your players may face later in their careers out of the game world. Additionally, there's the same problem of getting invalidated by Going Rogue as mentioned above. That said, it did perfectly fit the mood of the arc and added a nice touch of pathos.

Upon mission completion, I get a clue called "Kharmic Connection." Spelling- should be "Karmic," I believe. Anyway, it tells me that Sister Sayaki has flung herself off a tower. I assume this is meant to be in response to Chimera's death. This fits the mood of the arc, but I found it jarring. Let me explain why with some Creative Writing terminology.

City of Heroes can generally be said to take place in the visual equivalent of what writers call "third-person limited omniscient voice." Your character doesn't address you, but you know the thoughts of your character and what you can observe from that character's viewpoint. However, you don't know what any other character is thinking or doing unless they tell your character. Suddenly getting a clue like this switches the authorial voice to "third person (full) omniscient," meaning you as "reader" have access to all characters' thoughts and perceptions, not just those of the one you're playing. Just as in literature, this kind of sudden shift in viewpoint, especially halfway through an arc, is very jarring.

I'd rather see this handled by an explanation from Flower Knight (she does mention it when you exit). If you want to leave it as-is, I think you should make clear that Sayaki has sent you this vision telepathically for some reason. This may have been what you intended all along. If so, it needs to be clearer, and Sayaki needs some reason, however trivial, to do it.

Mission 5 has enough issues, good and bad, to deserve its own post. Stay tuned!

Edit: Fixed number.

The other groups covered in that series (KoA come to mind) also got excellent treatment.

For more about Warriors, you could always try my MA arc, "The Heart of Talos," #175660. It takes the Warriors up to the higher levels and ties in with some existing bits of game lore. (Ignore the the "don't solo it" note in the description. i15 made it easily soloable, especially if you make use of the ally in mission 2, but my edit to that text isn't taking.) /endshamelessselfpromotion

Thanks. That's how I'll handle it for now.

Any reports of this captive happening with other failable missions, such as missions where a boss runs?

While testing a new arc tonight, I encountered some buggy behavior. Along with several other goals, the mission at issue included two instances of a "release captive" goal. All the enemies' and hostages' dialogue and animations played correctly, and the hostage properly ran away once the captors were defeated.

However, as soon as the hostage reached an elevator, the mission failed. The system seems to be treating the hostage as an escaping boss. Has anyone else seen this happen, either in a published mission or in testing?

I should add that the mission at issue could be "legitimately" failed, since it is timed, but both times I tested it and saw this bug, I had well over an hour of time left. I wonder if the "failable" flag is part of what's causing this problem.

I saw a BP zombie attempting to dig a hole in the floor of a warehouse this evening. Rotting brains, indeed. On the other hand, Tuatha, who used to paw the earth, howl, and whatnot, are now all standing around with their forehooves crossed behind their backs.

On an only slightly more serious note, I'd love to be able to pick some "idle" animations for custom groups.

(QR)

Ah, here this thread is. I've been meaning to post in it for some time and been unable to find it. Here's a bit of feedback I couldn't fit in the tiny textbox we're provided.

Venture: I'm not sure BlueHawk Whatsername's being imprisoned makes sense. Judging from your commentary on other arcs on these forums and the content of "Blowback" itself, you believe the game world should operate in a more-or-less realistic way.

With that in mind, legally, I think Bluehawk would have a very strong case that she was acting under duress (the text mentions implants, among other things), which would mean she lacked the necessary mental state to be found guilty of any crimes with which she could be charged.

I'm not sure if these qualifies as "clever" or not, but I used what I think are interesting mechanics several missions of arc #175660, "The Heart of Talos." While I created it because I liked the story, I also meant it to be technically interesting.

First, I'm pleased with how I handled the final AV fight.

Most AV fights in Architect missions tend to fall into one of two groups. Either the AV doesn't have a defense set, in which case it goes down at a reasonable pace on a small team or in the blink of an eye on a large team, or it has a defense set, making the mission impossible for a small team and time-consuming for a large one. I've also seen too many teams where a character with mez protection, usually a scrapper, can shred an AV in seconds without breaking a sweat.

To get around this problem and to try something I've never seen in a dev mission (though the Romulus fight is vaguely similar), I decided to make the challenge more the combination of the AV and his surrounding spawn. The AV himself is damage and debuff-based, meaning he has a lot of attacks but no special defense. He is surrounded by a spawn of all-lieutenant Shield characters with Phalanx Fighting, Grant Cover, and the Shield damage debuff power. The idea is that you can use a variety of strategies depending on team makeup (or a solo character's abilities, for that matter). Scrappers may want to wipe out the lieutenants first to ensure that so many of them don't floor their damage against the AV. Controllers can easily render the lieutenants harmless with AoE mezzes and take out the AV directly, blasters can nuke the entire lieutenant spawn and kite the AV, etc.

So far, the only times I've had trouble with this mission have been on my attempts solo the encounter where I've made the wrong tactical choice. I've done a LOT of testing with different team sizes and makeups, so it seems pretty balanced. If anyone is interested, the mission that uses this is the finale of arc #1754660, "Heart of Talos."

Turning to "clever tricks" to HELP player characters, the same arc has a mission to defeat an Elite Boss (stock, not custom). The EB's there for flavor as much as challenge, and I wanted to ensure that any kind of character or small team could get past it.

Accordingly, I created an ally who's Broadsword (standard)/Empathy (extreme) set to "ranged," which means he prefers buffing. This has worked out splendidly. For squishy characters, the ally acts as a tank. For hard-hitting types, his Fortitude and Clear Mind turn them into dynamos.

Finally, in another mission in the same arc, there is an Elite Boss who has to be defeated. The player doesn't have an ally this time, and since the EB is Fiery Aura, this might seem too challenging for some AT's/groups.

However, the EB is a different faction from the enemies on the rest of the map and is aligned "Rogue." A careful character could probably get the regular spawns to defeat the EB. The regular spawns in his room often "soften him up"; indeed, I gave him Healing Flames to ensure that they don't always defeat him.

Again, this is all in arc #175660. Frustratingly, this arc has gotten the fewest plays of any of my three, possibly because of all the warnings I had to cram into the description about an AV without assistance provided to the player and the hard-hitting nature of the custom faction (which is due, in my opinion, to the overpowered damage of the ranged attacks in melee sets; otherwise, they just use straightforward, no-control-power weapon sets).

I'm trying to create another "strange mechanics" arc at the moment, in anticipation of i15's extra slots option. Any further suggestions?

I just wanted to add to the chorus of praise for this arc. I just played through it, and I'd easily place it in the top five arcs I've done since i14 launched. The writing on the contact and in the first mission is particularly impressive.

That is a nice poster.

Now make vol. 2, dangit! /e crackwhip

(Vol. 1 was one of my favorite MA arcs so far, and I think I've done about 50 arcs by now.)

I'm working on ideas for more all the time, since one of my three has already been broken by a patch and a second is likely to be broken (by file size bloat) by the i15 patch.

I wish patches didn't keep breaking things that way, but at least it gives me an excuse to make more arcs!

I'll chalk this up to yet another piece of background the devs have forgotten about. There's so much information, and there are so many writers who've touched the game over the years, that it's a suprise things are as consistent as they are.

It's also yet more proof of the theory that the Rogue Isles were originally meant to be laid out in a completely different pattern. For instance, the Nerva Archipelago, a U.S. posession, is inexplicably on the far side of the chain from the U.S., and there are a number of other inconsistencies. This could actually make a pretty good MA arc: The Rogue Isles originally DID lie in a different pattern, which someone changed. Why does no one remember it?

Care to take up the challenge?

And, to Spacenut: If you have no trouble suspending disbelief about a volcanic explosion larger than Kratatoa (for what it's worth, neither do I; it's a comic-book world, for heaven's sake), I recommend not visiting any review threads in the MA forum.

(QR)

Want a good, consistent version of Time Travel? Read Connie Willis's "Fire Watch," Doomsday Book, and To Say Nothing of the Dog. The last one goes into the most detail about how time travel might work.

If you don't consider that version of time travel believable, I've got nothing for you and suggest you let people who are less exacting enjoy it for what it is.

[ QUOTE ]
Five years ago, someone said something very wise. There will always be vocal idiots who will scream and moan and threaten to quit, no matter what the developers do. That's not even noteworthy. It's only when the level-headed, respectable posters begin saying, calm and cool, that they are no longer satisfied with the game that we need to worry.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly. This is why I'm concerned.

[ QUOTE ]
. . . I'd recommend bringing plenty of purples and greens.

[/ QUOTE ]

For what it's worth, three purples and a couple of respites have enabled me to solo almost anything an AE arc can throw at me with any character.

Thank you all for posting (for the most part) positive comments. I recently saw someone arguing in another thread that "our community used to be good, but now it sucks." As long as you all are willing to post in threads like this one, I don't think that's true.

Thank you all.

Still feeling pretty down. As I like through the forums here, all the posts that actually discuss the game are commenting on things that are horribly wrong with it, how it will fail, and how much better Champions Online will be. Oh, and that i15 and the MA are failures and/or broken.

Don't even get me started on in-game, where when I try to form a team of people I don't know, I routinely get at least one, "Oh, this isn't an auto-sk to 50 farm? See ya." (Most of my SG friends have decamped to an new server for no apparent reason, where they tell me they spend all their time powerleveling.)

As I've said before, I suspect that i17 will see this game's last sunrise.

Consider "The Key and the Chain," #193451. It deals with the Legacy Chain and Banished Pantheon. While there's a level 40-50 group listed in the arc, that's the BP; they're functionally identical to the 20-29 versions. There are a few EB's scattered around, but you're given help for all of them. (PLEASE send me feedback about whether the friendly "ambush" shows up to help you in mission 2!)

In testing, I was able to solo the arc, including the EB's, with a level 26 DB/WP scrapper (natural level, not exemp'd) with few problems, so you should be all right.

tl; dr version: Depressed poster looking to be cheered up.

Am I the only one who's strongly reminded of the Issue 5 era right now? Massive anger on the forum over game changes, frenetic developer work, and an expansion on the horizon?

I'm becoming more and more convinced that we'll see the same situation we saw in the i6-i7 period. I'm concerned that NCSoft expects big subscription increases based on the expansion. Frankly, I just can't see any expansion, update, patch, or change, no matter how fantastic, enabling the game to do more than hold the line in terms of subscriptions. We've been suffering a laudably slow bleed in subscribers for some time (or at least, we were up through the last quarter for which that information was released). While I hope all of the recent changes haven't turned that slow bleeding into a gushing artery, I still don't see how an expansion can bring in huge subscriber numbers.

I imagine the widespread player dissatisfaction doesn't help with the game's numbers, although the effect is probably less than what reading these fora would lead one to believe.

All of us who were around for the period after i6 remember what happened when the expected huge numbers didn't materialize: dev staff cuts and development reduced to a trickle. Frankly, I don't think the game can survive another blow like that, especially with its age and competition waiting in the wings.

Finally, I suspect that i16 will contain some game mechanic that creates even more anger among the players than the current MA fallout/i15-is-too-small/the-writing-is-horrible/what-have-you mess, just as the outrage over the Global Defense Reduction was nothing compared to the outcry over ED. Why do I think "ED 2.0" is coming? In an i15 beta discussion thread and several other places on the forums, we've heard rumblings from the devs about how groups, and buff stacking in particular, trivialize the content. I fully expect to see some form of the PvP diminishing returns added to all PvE encounters soon, as well as possible reductions in character attributes. If it eventually results in a more balanced, enjoyable game, this is good, right?

Personally, I'm not sure. I don't think a five-year-old game can survive the outrage and subsequent account cancellations this kind of change would create. It was okay to anger the playerbase when we had around 130,000 subscriptions and no competition in sight. I question its wisdom when subscriptions are closer to 100,000 or just below (THIS NUMBER IS PURELY GUESSWORK! NO JUSTIFICATION!), the game is older (meaning longtime subscribers are more bored and more ready to jump ship), and there are plenty of competing MMO's on the horizon (including one that sometimes seems as if its development team's main goal is to torpedo CoX, not produce its own work). I just don't think the game can take any more shocks.

So, please, I ask you, my fellow forumites, to tell me why I'm wrong to be this depressed about the game's future. Show me that there's still some positive feeling out there!

For your contact, you might try looking for Will-o-Wisps under Red Caps, which look like red Sprites. If you don't mind the contact being pretty large, you might be able to use a Hamidon Mito; I know there's at least one arc that does this.

In answer to your second question, consult paragonwiki.com for all your game-related informational needs.

[ QUOTE ]
*Facepalm* Seems it really is gonna take the wrath of the devs to get it through people's heads rather than just threats.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't envy their position. They can either allow MA to be abused horrendously or bring down the wrath of heaven on its misuse, progressively alienating more and more players with each exploitative loophole they close. I suppose I'd go with "stop the abuse and suffer the consequences" myself, and I think the devs will do the same, but that combined with all the other angst and threats to the game out there means the servers may be pretty quiet places a year from now.

But do even the run-of-the-mill bosses "bulge with oversized muscles?" I'm not sure. I certainly see plenty of characters, player-made and otherwise, with larger ones.

[ QUOTE ]
don't have time now to reply to everything or for lots of detail . . .

[/ QUOTE ]

. . . but you gave plenty for me. See, this sort of thing is what I like about Venture.

This happened in a case handled by a friend of mine from back when I worked for the government. As a bit of background, I should point out that American search and seizure law generally permits police to enter dwellings and search things that are in plain view without a warrant if a resident permits them to enter but cannot do so without a warrant if no one has consented to the search.

In this case, a sheriff's deputy arrived a house to serve some papers in an unrelated case. He knocked on the door and was told, "Come in." Just to be sure he'd heard correctly, he announced who he was and was, again, told, "Come in." He entered through the unlocked door. No one was inside, but there, sitting on the table out in plain view, was evidence of a crime (some tax thing, I think). And sitting in a cage nearby was a parrot . . . that had told him to "Come in."

The person who owned the house asked the court to suppress the evidence the deputy saw lying on the table, arguing that no one had consented to the search. The court disagreed and let the government use the evidence, pointing out that a consent to search is valid if the officer reasonably believes it has been given by a resident.

Therefore, just to be safe, people should probably gag their parrots before leaving the house.