Quantum Phantom

I do hope so. Really. I hate to think such a cool feature would die permanently.

I gotta ask - 20 level 50s? Holy Cow!

No offense, but I can't imagine how much time that must have taken.

EDIT: I see you joined the forum Dec 2004, so assuming 5 years and a few months in change of playtime, that means you've leveled a character to 50 about every 3 months on average. Figure anywhere form 40 to 80 hours to do that. So, 40 to 80 hours per three month period, or about 20 hours/month on average, for 5+ years playing? That's commitment.

Typical MMO forums if you ask me:

Fanbois - who think any complaints against the game are forbidden
Trolls - who always talk negatively about the game
Realists - who try to be constructive in their comments, not overly negative, and not overly positive, but find themselves in the overt world of the fanbois and trolls

As a realist, I must say that CoH is probably going to be around for several more years, but it won't be very populated. I moved to Freedom from Protector, because Protector is dead as hell. It's not CoH's fault. It's just typical for any MMO. Even the great EQ is still around, and I played that game off and on since it's birth up until about a year ago. They keep releasing expansions, but the game is so dead. Very hard to find groups, and most of the zones are empty as can be. I don't think CoH will last as long as EQ has, but I'm sure it has some more life in it. This little patch may cause some people to quit, but not enough to kill the game outright.

No, CoH will die a slow death, like most MMOs, where subs just steadily drop off over time. It will retire quietly to the realms of games like EQ, SWG, and others who are technically still alive, but only sparsely populated, or possibly go the way of games like MxO, which finally shut down in July of 2009.

No apologies required. I have since moved on. I know my arc is a descent arc, regardless of what Venture says. And I've had several players tell me it was fun. That is praise enough for me. Did I ever say it was unique or original? No. But what is? Everything has been done already. Everything else is a derivative of something that has already been done. Even the dev's choice arcs are full of derivative stories and mechanics. But, I accept that as a fact of life. A wise man once said, there is nothing new under the sun. Venture is obviously just a negative person. I've known plenty of those, and my response is always to ignore them once I realize that.

But yes, back on topic, AE is dead. I have logged in every day since the patch to play, and every time I go into the Freedom AE Atlas building, there's like 3 people in there.

It is very sad.

UPDATE: One of the bosses on Mission 3 has had some difficulty tweaking (downward) due to feedback. A few spelling corrections were made throughout the arc.

Exactly! Any mission that has a story and dialogue that is tied together needs the ability to have chained objectives. Not all of them do, but chained objectives are very handy.

And on top of that, to say that the majority of AEs that use them are badly done, is like stating the obvious. The majority of ALL AEs are badly done. That's bound to happen when you have thousands of AEs written by people who can't write a story to save their lives, or who have no idea of how to design good encounters, or who don't know how to tweak difficulty settings for monsters, or for that matter who don't have an artistic bone in their bodies when it comes to costuming.

I'm not pointing to any specific AEs, but you gotta expect, regardless of the tools we're given, that the majority of the AEs are just poorly done. Sure, everyone might think they're the greatest writer or whatever, but that doesn't make it true. I'm not trying to be elitist here, just making a point. Not everyone can be a da Vinci, or a Rembrandt. But they CAN have fun doing it, and in the end, that's what I think the best part of the AE system is. Everyone can see what its like to be an MMO content developer (in a very modest way), and have a good time doing it, even if they would never actually be hired by an MMO company.

And to finally get back on topic here - it is sad to see the system being so heavily nerfed, resulting in far fewer users, and the disenfranchisement of competent AE authors.

Don't be ridiculous. There is no more or less travel time in mission 1 than normal. LOL. You haven't even played it, and you hate it. Too funny. You have no idea what map was used, or how things are placed. You make assumptions without any experience at all. The arc has a 4 star rating, with 22 rates so far, so I must have done something right. I'm not shooting for the moon here, but just trying to make something fun and compelling. Play it before you use strong words like hate to describe it. If you still hate it then, to each his own.

You travel toward the back, killing mobs along the way, then back to the front, as part of an escort mission, but along the way you find another objective and a boss to kill. Simple. The only reason people would run back and forth through the map 4 times, as you say, would be if they deliberately choose to ignore the objectives right in front of their eyes. And that can happen on any mission.

Moving on...

Megajoule, nobody said I was using travel time as content. I don't even know how that would be done, nor why you would assume that is the case. The content is the story, the mobs you kill, the people you save, etc. Travel time is - travel time.

But, if the both of you think travel time in a 1 floor warehouse is excessive, then maybe you should try some other MMOs that aren't so heavily instanced, with instant teleports everywhere you go - like EQ or WoW. Then come talk to me about excessive travel time.

What took me 60 hours to do my arc?

1. 5 Custom villains with well done costumes, power choices, full dialogue and descriptions.
2. 1 Custom villain group again with well done costumes, power choices, etc. (5 mobs in all in this group)
3. 3 fully detailed missions with all dialogue and text well written, and thought out. MANY changes here.
4. Interesting encounters that are more than just go kill this guy or go save this guy.
5. Lots of play testing, minor tweak, repeat.
6. Lots of difficulty tweaking.
7. Several rewrites of a few of the missions to get them just right.
8. Oh, and this was my very first experience with the tools - so I had to learn how to use them, and to learn how to use them effectively to pull off things that most arcs don't do.
9. And let's not forget the time I spent advertising in Atlas AE and Atlas Park, and the time trying to get groups together to run it with me (for play testing purposes)
10. Iteration, iteration, iteration. A former boss once told me - You spend 90% of your time on a task in the last 10% of the work to be done.

My 3 mission arc uses about 99% of 100k.

Take mission 1 for instance <SPOILER ALERT>:

You come into the map, and are expected to rescue someone. Toward the back-middle of the map you find a body bag. Upon opening it, you discover the person you were meant to rescue is already dead, and your new objective becomes to locate a deep cover operative (which you are told about in the introduction to the mission). You find him at the rear of the map, being hassled by enemies. You rescue him, and he tells you the person you were meant to rescue left you a message, hidden in plain site. You must now escort him out of the building, and find that message. You find the message, and it spawns the final boss which killed the person you were supposed to rescue. There are ambushes that happen as well at specific moments during these objectives.

As you can see, this isn't a typical go in kill X boss and rescue X person - mission complete. It has been painstakingly set up to spawn objectives in a specific order to make for a good story. Its basically a 4 objective mission, but not all at once. Dialogue and clues are all fully detailed.

Mission 3 uses a great trick to have a boss that gets away, etc.

So you ask what takes me 60 hours to do an AE - there you have it. It's not much different than building content for a game as an actual developer. I speak from experience. It can take a long time to get it just right. But the more comfortable you get with the tools, the quicker it goes.

I'm fairly certain my one, and first Arc (393301 - Questionable Ethics) will be dramatically affected by this patch. 3 Missions, all of which have rescues, 1 with many battles between an enemy and ally group, and 1 with an ally (who is actually an enemy that just gets away).

Here's the kicker - I have spent over 60 hours working on it (finding the right maps for the objectives and atmosphere, writing the story, tweaking and testing the difficulty, figuring out how best to create the encounters with the limited tools, costuming the custom villains, advertising in game, etc.), it is my first Arc, and pretty much the day I finished it is the day the new patch came out! And on that same day, I go into the AE building in Atlas, and it is dead, dead, dead.

Thank you so much for killing my desire to make more AE story arcs guys. I spent 60+ hours making a fun, well written story, with interesting encounters that make use of captives and allys that exist solely for story, and you destroy all my hard work with the wave of a hand. I've only gotten 20 ratings last I checked, and something tells me that number isn't going to be going up very quickly now.

UPDATE: Mission 3 reworks with new boss and new encounters

UPDATE: Mission 1 has been completely reworked - new map; new dialogue; new objectives; new plot twists; Difficulty tweaks; All Missions have had some minor text tweaks, spelling corrections, and the Omega Security forces have been altered slightly

Future Plans: To rework missions 2 & 3 to include new story ideas as well as objectives

Thanks again for the feedback. I've done some difficulty tuning to make the AE a little less frustrating for not-so-great teams to get through it.

But . . . I'm not going to be changing the story. There's no room to add any more text (I'm maxed at 100k nearly), and the story, while not an original epic masterpiece, is as good or bad as many of the stories done by the actual content devs of CoH (plenty of which are derivative, boring, or unmemorable). At this point, the story is pretty much set in stone. I appreciate your feelings about it, but I just don't have the time or desire to rewrite it. If anything, I'd rather move on to a new AE, with a new story altogether. Not to mention I've gotten many compliments from others who have played it. Can't please everyone I guess.

I'm not shooting for the moon with this AE; just trying to make something fun to play that has a descent story. My goal was not to create a completely original story, but what story truly is these days? Give me a story, any story that someone has written, and I can find a story from movies, books, TV, or video games that was done before it, and that is essentially the same plot. There are really only a few story archetypes out there. The rest are derivatives.

UPDATE: Costume tweaks for Hollow Point, and the Omega Labs Security forces; Difficulty tweaks for Hollow Point, and Omega Labs Security forces; Minor text and dialogue revisions; Removed 1 objective from final mission; Revised power pools for Hollow Point, and a few of the Omega Labs Security mobs

Thank you. Finally, someone who completed the entire arc. Your feedback is well taken. The story is a bit generic, I agree. It's my first arc, and I really didn't sit down to craft a compelling story before I started it. I just wrote as I went, learning how to use the AE system as I did. This whole thing was more of an experiment than an attempt at a top notch story. (Though I will mention that I have had a few others tell me the story was very well done - but everyone's opinion is different.)

That being said, you mentioned quite a few things I have to agree with. The AE system is very limited. I wanted to do more, but I was constrained by the maximum size (100 kb) very quickly. Having a custom mob group and custom bosses put huge strain on the file size, and I was forced to cut text and dialogue down, as I went over budget rather quickly. The tools just wouldn't let me do some things, and some things were problematic. For instance, originally I put destructable truck bombs in mission 2, instead of glowies that went "Boom" when you clicked them. Problem was though, that sometimes Longbow would blow up a truck bomb while fighting a battle with the 5th Column, and the missions would then be bugged and uncompleteable. I was forced to settle for the glowie bomb objects. And as for civilians looking strange on mission 2 - I chose "Random", which pretty much leaves their 3D models to the mercy of whatever the AE system chooses. Otherwise, I have two options - have them all identical in appearance, or create 4 separate rescue objectives and choose each model individually.

Finally, yes, there are bugs where enemy AI would fight each other for no reason, and Longbow would even fight you for no reason in mission two. I have no idea why, but , as far as I can tell, it's a bug with the system, and not my AE specifically. My explanation is that the chaos being created by the player and of the ensuing battles simply causes sporadic friendly fire.

Thank you for the kudos on the boss and encounter design. I'll look into revamping Hollow Point's costume, and his powers, as well as Captain Ivanov's powers. In the groups I tested with, about a dozen or so, most groups had trouble with both of them, and died several times before taking them out. It is hard to know if he is balanced or not, when some people such as yourself have no problems with him, while other entire groups are obliterated by him. Some players are obviously better than others. Do I tweak them for the best players to have a memorable challenge? Or do I make them easier so the not so good players don't get frustrated and quit the AE? It's a fine line to walk.

In testing, I felt as you did about my custom enemy group (Omega Labs Security). The riflemen would web me, and the vamps would sleep me, and the mistresses would slow me. They would make short work of me if I didn't use some strategy first in target selection and what not. I do believe I will up the challenge level of the minions though. They are set to Standard right now, and I think they could use a bump to Hard.

I have considered removing some objectives from the last mission. I think you are right that it feels like too much to do, but then again - I just did the Positron TF for the first time last night. It took 4 hours to do, and we had to get through some 20 missions, several of which included defeat all objectives in large maps! So, I don't feel so bad about that anymore. Then again, I hated the Positron TF, and shook my fist at the devs who built it when we finished it. That's a TF I will never do again with any other toon. I have also removed Agent Deacon from mission three since you played. I decided the surprise story element wasn't compelling enough, and preferred to have the free space for my custom enemy group.

Again, thank you for your feedback. I wish there were more options, as I had some great ideas I just couldn't implement due to limits of the system. But overall, my first experience with the system is favorable. And the reviews/ratings have been overall good. It started out with a few 5 stars, and is now sitting at 4 star with about 10 ratings so far. Your feedback however has been the best thus far, and I plan to implement some of it at my next opportunity.

UPDATE: Mission 3 has been removed and mission 4 has been moved to the mission 3 slot. Mission 3 wasn't all that great, and I needed room for a custom enemy group. The Arc is very tight now, and ready for your team to tear into it.

Feedback needed on the custom enemies, including Omega Labs security and all custom bosses/AVs. Too tough? Not tough enough? Look cool? Look bad? All feedback is good feedback. Thank you!

Arcs by genre. This thread differs to the CoHmatoes thread as it links to authors' information (sometimes posters!) instead of reviews. A

Note: I cleaned up some of the formatting and deleted any obviously broken URL tags for the sake of readability. I could not figure out how to fix the bullet color-coding.

2nd Note: I've had some problems when displaying this page while having the "Number of Posts to Show Per Page" set to a high number (in my case, 100 posts per page). This causes a programming error on the forum, leading to non-display due to the large amount of text in the posts. Drop your limit down to 20 posts to work around the issue. -Turg

Bullets colored for heroic/neutral/villainous. Non-existent arcs removed. Lists alphabetized. Arc IDs updated.[/color]

AE System

• 15+ Min TUTORIAL = Knowledge is Power: Architect Entertainment & YOU! (I15) #28470
• 5th Anniversary Flashback Smackdown #126896
  
• 'Captain Dynamic, the Great, Faces the Great Face' - Tryouts #190069
  
• Death for Dollars #1050
  
• Signal to Noise #67277
  
• Welcome to Architect Entertainment #1004

Character/Supergroup Origins

• A Hero is made, Not Born #20863
• A Mother's Nightmare #6955
  
• A Rose's Thorns #113224
  
• Birth of a Fossil #18632
  
• Jumping in Feet First #1345
  
• Midnight Bells Toll #?
  
• New Flame Rising #161066
  
• Noah Reborn #2370
  
• Of Futures Past #254599
  
• Polar Emergence Neutral Government User Interface Network (PENGUIN) #29205
  
• Secret Origins(Tech) The Snake Women of Epsilon V #42221
  
• The Amazing Rat Race #1144

Classic Super-Hero/Super-Villain

• A Crusher Crimewave #1 : Crisis at The Citadel #179354
• A Crusher Crimewave #2 : Escape from The Zig! #83458
  
• A Crusher Crimewave #3 : The Fall of Mocker #123613
  
• A Show to Die For! #30645
  
• Check... and Mate #15095
  
• Daybreak Patrol Needs Help # 321834
  
• In The Shadow of Statesman #1160
  
• Marketing Opportunity #83747
  
• Paradox Paradox #69221
  
• Sidekicks Can Be A Pain In The Cape #28430
  
• Teen Phalanx Forever! #67335
  
• The Golden Age Secret of the Paragon Society #344596
  
• This Life Immortal #5756
  
• 'Tis Nobler in the Mind #257226
  
• To Save A Single World #83744

Comedy

• A Show of Hands #296884
• A Translator is the Wind or the Thunder in Turns #2936
  
• Celebrity Kidnapping #1388
  
• City of Norms #132944
  
• Daytime Divas #94504
  
• Death to Disco! #84420
  
• Doctor Nadir and the Hellion Heist #49661
  
• Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662
  
• Gnomish Madness #30204
  
• Hail to the King #34640
  
• In Poor Taste #259920
  
• Invasion on Earth BX1132! 98943
  
• Jerk Hackers! #162482
  
• Laugh? I Thought I'd DIE! #68429
  
• MacGuffin Delivery Service 1567
  
• Martian Chimpanzees and the Cyborg Cheerleaders of DOOM! #69947
  
• Mean People. #16690
  
• None More Black, Dude! #86312
  
• Papers and Paychecks #298290
  
• ParaCon #1684
  
• Rise of the Drakule #51357
  
• Return of the Revenge of the Son of Drakule Part 2: First Blood #84543
  
• Shirley You Jest #25474
  
• Shortbow #143566
  
• Teen Phalanx Forever! #67335
  
• The Extadine Lab #2595
  
• The Fire Bunnies #10377
  
• The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076
  
• The Invasion of the Bikini Clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space! #61013
  
• The Minimech Cometh #119664
  
• The new and improved Lord Recluse Strike Force #7901
  
• The P.U.G. Strike force #35585
  
• The string thief. #15726
  
• Too Many Bunnygirls! #101165
  
• Trademark Infringement #2220
  
• Walk On the Wild Side #3580
  
• You Say It's Your Birthday! 3630

Comedy/Drama

• Cause of How Some Silly Stealed My Wings #1481
• Death by Snoo-Snoo! #247372
  
• Fashion Apocalypse #14840
  
• Females for Hire #110723
  
• Fishing for Fame with Red Herring #66861
  
• Freaks, Geeks and Men in Black #161629
  
• Have a Blap, Blap, Blappy Day Kids! #2019
  
• How to Survive a Robot Uprising #12669
  
• It's a Nice Day for a White Wedding #9059[
  
• Kidnapping an Idol #136188
  
• Papers and Paychecks #298290
  
• Putting Out Fires: A Corporate Satire #20100
  
• Rum Runners of Bloody Bay #3691
  
• Teen Phalanx Forever! #67335
  
• The Cat's in the Cradle #8776
  
• The Great American Skull Fry #372980
  
• The Running of the Bulls #29973
  
• TURG FICTION: Ghost in the Machine, Act I #1013
  
• TURG FICTION: Ghost in the Machine, Act II #174557
  
• TURG FICTION: IX #351787
  
• The Toypcalypse! #49280

Crime/Gangs

• A Little RnR #17523
• Battlin' Tom's Murder Extravaganza! #99803
  
• Bricked Electronics #2180
  
• Celebrity Kidnapping #1388
  
• Fatale Attraction - Part 1 of 3 #181264
  
• Fatale Deception - Part 2 of 3 #227466
  
• Fatale Corruption - Part 3 of 3 #232783
  
• Females for Hire #110723
  
• Lesbian Hellion Liberation #208830
  
• Mechanical Mayhem #76721
  
• Meet the Demon Spawn #151099
  
• Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons #100045
  
• Plastic Pistol Peril #1135
  
• Talos Vice #338380
  
• The Bravuran Jobs #16809
  
• The Internet is for Crime #53385
  
• The Superadine Revolution #262739
  
• Whitehawks #113811
  
• [ZQ] Power Play #187269

Drama

• 7662 - The Fan Club #5898
• A Flame the Burns Bright #112548
  
• A Warrior's Journey: The Flower Knight Task Force #260284
  
• Clonus, Parts 1 & 2 #21499 & # 21290
  
• Digital Love #3571
  
• Matchstick Women #3369
  
• Of Mentors and Legacy #1589
  
  
• Questionable Ethics #393301
• Talos Vice #338380
  
• The Conciliators: Simone #4010

Global Domination / Destruction

• Axis and Allies #1379
• The Twilight of this Blue Orb #98529

Heist

• Celebrity Kidnapping #1388
• Easy Money #31490
  
• The Great Diamond Heist #96169

Historical (Realistic)

• A Wrinkle in Time #266880
• Destroyer of Worlds #352820

Historical (CoH Lore)

• The Consequences of War #227331 and 241496
• The War on Superadine #151088
  
• [ZQ] The Once and Future King #71601

Holiday

• Battle of 15 April #72140
• City of Ho Ho Ho, or A Claus in Paragon #18775
  
• Hectic Holidays #36999
  
• Santa's Missing List #34961
  
• Santa's Workshop of Misfit Toys #134140

Horror

• All Consuming #261148
• Astoria in D Minor #41565
  
• Creepy Crawlers #82553
  
• Dark Dreams #3615
  
• Die Count Daddy Macula Die! #10619
  
• Don't Play With The Dead #260107
  
• Duality #84105
  
• Hunting the Hunters #93362
  
• I Will Dance On Your Grave #92630
  
• Lights, Camera, Scream! #177826
  
• Project: Perilous - Into the Chthonian Pit #3586
  
• Small Fears #12285
  
• Something Comes to Yarmouth #58812
  
• The Amulet of J'gara #1709
  
• The Children of Astoria 217499
  
• The Zombie Apocalypse Task Force: Something wicked this way comes #91456

Kaiju

• Attack of the 50 Foot Villain #363366

Large-Scale Crisis

• Akhdar Blood #247198
• Alpha and Omega #60015
  
• Bleed the Freak #6919
  
• Breaking The Barrier (And Putting It Back Together) #347029
  
• Flight of the Valkyries - Precursor #20272
  
• Is it Live or is it Memory-X #70210
  
• The All-Seeing Eye #57352
  
• The Clockwork War #18672
  
• This Is War, Part I - the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz -- Neutral 1356
  
• War of the Worlds - The Anakim Invasion - Part 1 #15006
  
• War of the Worlds - The Anakim Invasion - Part 2, The Terran Revolt #46711
  
• Win the Past, Own the Future #1429

Magic

• A Deal with Destiny #61748
• A Dream of Awakenings #132616
  
• Chains of Blood #4829
  
• Croatoa's Great War: The Parfait Family Reunion #71880
  
• Deal with The Devil's Pawn #207266
  
• I Will Dance On Your Grave #92630
  
• Rex is Missing! #51702
  
• The Magical Miss Fitz #5079
  
• The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks - A Moth Cemetery Tale #124319
  
• The Tannhäuser Gate 96322

Military

• Axis and Allies #1379
• Red Typhoon #4912
  
• Redoubt Operations #1: Fires over Kalago #1297
  
• Redoubt Operations #2: Wrath of the Imperium #269283
  
• Whitehawks #113811

Misc. Adventure

• Impossible Kung Fu Mission #111367
• A Glitch in the Wyre #73197
  
• The Council Cargo #36951
  
• Hero Therapy! (TM) #119228
  
• The Second Coming of the Mega Mech #122274
  
• Who is Kidnapping the World's Great Philosophers #253920

Mutant

• The Legion of Mutants vs. the Iron Agents #200364

Mystery

• A Hero in Need...is a Friend Indeed! #375018
  Blowback #4643
  
• Dream Paper #1874
  
• Females for Hire #110723
  
• Hunter of Beasts: It begins with a riot... #110465
  
• The Fireside Poet #189439
  
• What Rough Beast #255143

Mythology

• Atlantis Attacks! #30898
• A Warrior's Journey: The Flower Knight Task Force #260284
  
• Madness And The Minotaur #90124
  
• Rites of the Maenads #61159
  
• Tales of Cimerora, volume 1 : Of feathers and fur #12647
  
• The Aegis Affair #16376
  
• The Four Treasures of the Tuatha De Danaan #164100
  
• The Parable of the Fruit Salad #65369
  
• The Seeds of Yggdrasil #48907
  
• 7662: The Seelie War #2462
  
• 7662: The Unseelie War #2453
  
• Ecloga Prima (Haec excursio in lingua Latina) #309162

Nemesis Plots

• Brass Reaver: Part 1 #244755
• Rise and Fall of the Iron General #142200
  
• The Handbag Plot #36414

Player-Chosen Outcome

• Hunting the Dark Dragon -- Heroic #2922
• Papers and Paychecks #298290
  
• Playing Gods #51106
  
• Time's Maelstrom #182874

Public Domain Characters/Literature

• The Praetorian Invasion of the Land of Oz #168841

Puzzles/Riddles

• Grim Riddles #1396

Samurai

• A Warrior's Journey: The Flower Knight Task Force #260284

Sci-Fi

• Above Mars - Part 1: The Wellington #159769
• Adventures of the Space Marines #2133
  
• Adventures of the Space Marines 2 #2171
  
• Assault on Aru Prime #174856
  
• City of the Apes #171184
  
• Spaced Invaders #77971
  
• That Mysterious Buzzing Sound #12774
  
• The Adventures of the United Earth Rangers #29549
  
• The Balance of Power #26931
  
• The Continuing Adventures of the United Earth Rangers #70237
  
• The Fracturing of Time #171031
  
• The Knights of Rularuu #75386
  
• The Nemesis Theory - #171203
  
• The Portal Bandits #3326
  
• Welcome to Donut World! #1233

UPDATE: Mission 2 has been reworked from the ground up. Dialogue, mission text, and clues are now clearer. Map has been changed to Empty (no enemies), with the exception of enemies on patrols, battles, and objectives, making this map a much tighter experience.

The first 3 missions are now soloable; they can be completed without killing the main bosses. Mission 4 requires a descent team for the final boss.

Recommended level range is now: 20-50

Hey thanks for the feedback. I truly appreciate it. I will need to rewrite missions 2 to make it clearer I think, based upon your feedback.

I have also made some difficulty changes to the mission since you played it. Hollow Point has been reduced to 'standard' as opposed to 'hard'. His ambushes have also been decreased from 'hard' to medium'. Basically considering its the first mission, If felt like it was a bit too hard. I have also increased the first mission's time limit to 1 hour, because in testing I noticed some groups wanted to kill everything in site before finding the traitor.

Oh, and Agent Deacon starts out dismissive with you, because he hasn't gotten to know you yet. But as you progress through the Arc, he warms up to you.

Again, thanks for trying it out and giving me feedback. This is my first arc ever, and I am still tweaking it. Hopefully I can get it nice and tight.

Try my new (and first) 4 mission canon related arc: Questionable Ethics

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=215674

Good story, dialogue, and interesting missions. Custom built bosses with unique costumes.

Questionable Ethics
Arc #393301
Morality: Hero
Faction: 5th Column, Omega Labs Security (custom group) + unique custom bosses and AVs
Your global/forum name: @Quantum Phant0m
Difficulty Level: Built for a team. DO NOT try to solo this, unless you are the ultimate EB/AV killing machine. Expect some tough fights and plenty of ambushes at inopportune moments. Includes custom elite bosses and arch villains.
Recommended Team Size: 4+ (You'll need a good solid team that works well together for this arc)
Level Range: Minimum 30+; Recommended 40+
Typical duration: "Long" - 1-3 hours (3 missions)
Arc Synopsis: A 5th column traitor has information leading to a eugenics facility, where inhuman testing is being conducted on heroes and civilian captives. Work with C.I.A. Section Chief Agent Deacon to locate the facility, rescue any captives, and level it to the ground.

WARNING: May contain elite bosses, arch-villains, and extreme arch-villains.

Mission One - Issue #1 - A Silver Tongue Tells No Tales
Mission Two - Issue #2 - Not For the Feint of Heart
Mission Three - Issue #3 - The Omega Man

All feedback is welcome.

Oh, I hadn't realized there were 2 other new power sets. That's good then. I still don't like the demon summoning stuff though. As one poster mentioned, the whole demon thing is over done. And, while I acknowledge there are SOME magic based comic books, I'll make my point again that the ratio is very low. I know most of us can name a dozen comic book heroes off the tops of our heads, with maybe 2 of them being magic based.

I'll learn to cope. But if one more person tries to read my tarot cards in game again, I'm gonna scream. :P

I enjoy City of Heroes, as a new player (my main is only lvl 38); however, despite having pre-ordered GR (for the dual pistols), I'm not really all that excited about this power. I joined City of Heroes to get away from fantasy MMOs. But that hope was soon blasted when I began to see zombies, mages, elementals, and other fantasy creatures littered throughout the game. Not to mentioned the myriads of magic-themed dressed "super heroes". Now we'll have demon summoning characters running around everywhere too.

As a long time comic book reader, with a modest collection of my own, this type of stuff is normally uncommon in the comic book hero world. I'm not saying it never happens, but the ratio is low. Most comic book heroes are aliens, mutants, or simply naturally endowed in some way (good with guns, bows, batarangs, etc.) Sure, sometimes superheroes fight magical beasts, or undead, or whatever, but what I'm getting at is that its very uncommon.

All I am saying is that I hope in future expansions we see some more true blue super hero stuff added, rather than magical powers, magical monsters, etc. If I wanted fantasy powers or to fight fantasy monsters, I'd go play any number of the myriad fantasy MMOs, a few of which do already have demon summoning classes.

Otherwise, the class looks cool, and I'm sure many people will enjoy playing it. It's just not my idea of a good addition to a super hero themed MMO. I very much enjoy the dual pistols class (very Punisher like), and I am looking forward to the graphics update, which I believe will breath new life into the dated graphics.

Questionable Ethics
Arc #393301
Morality: Hero
Faction: 5th Column, Omega Labs Security (custom group) + unique custom bosses and AVs
Your global/forum name: @Quantum Phant0m
Difficulty Level: Built for a team. DO NOT try to solo this, unless you are the ultimate EB/AV killing machine. Expect some tough fights and plenty of ambushes at inopportune moments. Includes custom elite bosses and arch villains.
Recommended Team Size: 4+ (You'll need a good solid team that works well together for this arc)
Level Range: Minimum 30+; Recommended 40+
Typical duration: "Long" - 1-3 hours (3 missions)
Arc Synopsis: A 5th column traitor has information leading to a eugenics facility, where inhuman testing is being conducted on heroes and civilian captives. Work with C.I.A. Section Chief Agent Deacon to locate the facility, rescue any captives, and level it to the ground.
Link to a more info/comments thread: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...71#post2741871

WARNING: May contain elite bosses, arch-villains, and extreme arch-villains.

Mission One - Execution at Dawn - A Silver Tongue Tells No Tales
Mission Two - The Feint - Rumble in the Bronx
Mission Three - The Omega Man - The End of Evolution

All feedback is welcome.

Count me in please - 38 Elec/Elec Blaster - Quantum Phant0m