Sakura_Kishi

just an update to let everyone know this is still in the works... I've been very side tracked and not able to play much of late. Hoping to sit down and capture stuff this weekend.

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[NPC] The Sarcophagus of Thellos: ....a....wor...wor....worshiper?....
[NPC] The Sarcophagus of Thellos: I....thoug....thought...I...was....for....forgott. ..en....

I like this dialog, but Thellos clearly doesn't have a Vanguard translator, so probably should talk like a Rikti.


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If PW doesn't mind gonna interject an alternative thought on this one part of the review (having played through the arc myself). Since the Rikti were originally humans from another dimension... I think it's fitting for their goddess to speak "normally" also... As a Goddess she can probably transcend linguistic barriers speaking directly to the heart/mind.

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The plot synopsis given in this briefing is rather confusing, introducing a lot of stuff that sounds like it happened in a previous episode. I remember I ran through Prisoners from the Land of Oz; I don't remember Ojo being in it, in fact I think Dr Vahzilok was the big bad guy. For someone just starting with this story arc, though, all the stuff about Ojo being the kidnapper, but Ojo not being the real Ojo, is rather confusing.

It also seems rather discordant for a contact from Oz to send you on a mission to Portal Corporation. I'm not sure I fully buy that Ozma would consider an attack on a place that isn't even in Oz to be this important.

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Ojo was added to the previous arc after you played it... I remember your advice at the time was to strengthen the Oz connection.

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I do think there needs to be more explanation for why Ozma knows that this, particular moment that she's sending me back to, is the correct one to fix the time paradox. She could either see it in Glinda's book, or maybe have two different conflicting memories due to her timeline changing...something like that. Without some more motivation for going to this particular point in time, I think it is a little too coincidental that she would guess the right one.

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The reason she knows is because you found the book that detailed those events. Basically The book (as described in the arc for those who arn't familiar with the series) has Jinjur take control of the Emerald City. There's two seperate points where Tip, The Scarecrow et all are trapped in the palace this could easily be either of them but those are the points when Jinjur is closest to a total victory, so that's most likely when they'd choose to support her... if they were going to time travel to the events in that book to support her.

And as for her being able to send you... the Nome King's magic belt (which is technically Dorothy's but does get often used by Ozma especially in the original six books) can pretty much grant any wish posed to it. Like Glinda's book and Ozma's magic picture it's one of many deus ex devices in the series.


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I like the Oz Invasion Army's costumes, but they all need descriptions; Flying Monkey, Accolyte of the West, Quadling Soldier, Munchkin Medic and Gillikin Archer all currently have the default minion/lieutenant info.

Accolyte of the West should be Acolyte of the West.

I'm surprised that Gillikin Archer doesn't seem to have archery; it used nothing but sonic blast on me.

Munchkin Medic maybe should be made shorter? Perhaps the min height?

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The archer does have the archery powerset and has used it every time I've been through maybe I'll make it double archery... As for the Munchkin, not all Munchkins are short... the ones Dorothy meets in the first book are yes, but after that they're all described as being of normal height. The different enemies are color coded to the different countries (Munchkinland is Blue, Winkie Country is yellow, Quadling is Red and Gillikin is Purple).

There's two reasons why they don't have descriptions, one is this arc is already at 100 percent... secondly they end up being used twice here for two different groups... I did create a seperate group for Praetorian Oz and for Jinjur's Army of the Revolt but there was not enough room to use them.

There would be drastic changes to both groups if I had enough room, and full descriptions on all of them.

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The Scarecrow is an Elite Boss plant control/illusion ally! I think this may be too powerful. He summons a lot of pets which makes fighting a little confusing too.

Tippetarius is also an Elite Boss ally, so now I have 2 EBs helping me; this is probably too much help. They beat up the mission boss, Queen Jinjur, without me needing to help. I'm on the lowest difficulty, also, so they're probably AVs on higher difficulty or with larger teams. You might consider lowering them to be Bosses instead.

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Okay I'll look into tweaking them... I made all special characters either EBs or AVs originally because I do have common "Land of Oz" troops who I might want to use at some point.

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I've now destroyed the Time Machine, and the mission title is "Destroy the time machine", but the mission is still going because I haven't defeated the base leader. The mission title maybe should be rephrased to something more general so it still makes sense even after the time machine is gone.

Kind of odd that Nightstar's robots are here, but the Praetorian boss is Antimatter.

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Antimatter created the nightstar robots too... there's currently no anti-matter group in the Mission Architect (you might notice that Antimatter is actually positron re-named), the closest to his troops are the synapse robots (which are actually identical).

But I figured he could use the Nightstar bots if he wanted to since he created them.

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I kind of think the guards on Dorothy should say, "Surrender Dorothy!"

Dorothy Gale's description mentions a magic belt, but her costume does not have a belt.

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That's cause Ozma's using it... (I'm roleplaying as Ozma on Virtue so the arcs kinda get a bit dogged down with my personal story); in the books the Silver Slippers were lost forever when Dorothy first used them to return to Kansas, and when she finally re-appeared she captured the Nome King's belt, which kind of took their place. But while it was hers, Ozma used them most often after the book in which she captured it. Anyway I might take the belt away from Ozma and give it Dorothy at some point in my roleplaying at which point I'll change their characters accordingly.



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Debriefing is pretty short, but maybe that is OK. We never did clear up what was up with Ojo though did we?

Souvenir: "elluded" should be "eluded".

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Sure we did... it was just never stated directly... here's the qoute form the briefing for mission 3.


It's good to be solid. But this just proves how dangerous time travel is. Now we still don't know what connection the Praetorians have to do with the duplicate Ojo, I mentioned before... wait of course. If that's another Earth then logically there's another Oz on that Earth.

Really the whole point of adding Ojo to the Prisoners arc from before and mentioning him here serve two purposes, one to interest Ozma in the portal Corp break in... and two to help draw the conclusion that there's a Praetorian Oz... though the player should come to that conclusion from meeting the Praetorian Dorothy in her Special Agent outfit.


As for the time travel, there were a number of reasons why I chose to do this. One I liked how it allowed me to introduce Tip, in a way where there was no lengthy exposition needed for Praetorian Tip... and secondly I wanted a way to revist some of Baum's events and be able to do this in the context of the CoH universe.

But you did give me an idea of how to rework the story to make it more Ozzy but keep the general flow of the story.

I would be very interested in helping. I can do some help with the website, as well as help write content (I'm a very big fan of both English and Japanese Steam Punk).

I am interested in developing other talents that would be useful in this project but at the moment all I can bring is my writing ability, html knowledge and a deep enthusiasm for the genre.

This is going to be delayed a little bit. been in the middle of a move here and my desktop is still at my Grandma's place. I'll let you guys know when I got the first one done.

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Sorry it took so long, my other projects have been getting the better of me.

Played as a lvl 50 MA/SR scrapper solo on challenge level 3. Ozma of Oz is the contact, good looking character. First up, she warns you about Ojo and his companions mentioning something of a distraction, then you end up going to a building with a bunch of Dominatrix's minions. They have downloaded The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum and have captured a scientist. In the final room, I find Special Agent Gale, who shortly runs away to the nearby elevators, and Dominatrix.

When I get back to Ozma, I find that she is fading away, the Praetorians are messing with her timeline and I now need to go back and rescue her when she was hidden in the form of a young boy. This is an oranbegan map (not a terribly annoying one) with minions from the invasion army of Oz. The custom enemies are very well done with great costumes that fit perfectly in the Oz mythos, and they were not too challenging either. Though none of them (of the couple that I checked) had any custom descriptions, which might help on some of those not quite as familiar with the Land of Oz. I liked the look of the soldiers, but I didn't recognize the name of their group.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty good arc. I liked the writing, I enjoyed fighting the Praetorian enemies, which I haven't had a lot of experience with, I think I've only fought less than half of them so far, and hadn't seen Dominatrix or Antimatter's minions. The missions were pretty well layed out, although the third mission didn't seem necessary as an essential repeat of the first mission. It was late, and I probably missed out on a few things, but I enjoyed it!

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I ran out of room that's why there's no description on the custom enemies aside from the named bosses and ally's when the next issue hits it looks like we'll get more space freed up which will help.

As for the group name that was a little bit of a concession to space as well, originally there were two groups, "The Army of the Revolt" which was the actual name of Jinjur's army in the book and "Praetorian Oz" for the group in the final mission. The Praetorian Army would have had men instead of women (the Army of the Revolt was all female), the Army of the Revolt wouldn't have had flying Monkeys and the Acolyte would be different too... it looks like when the next issue comes out we have a bit more room to play with, so hopefully I can fit all that in.

Thanks for the review, I'm suprised you think the third mission is un-neccesary, first off it let you destroy the Time Machine which was stolen in the first mission, and secondly it provided a segue into the final mission by having Anti-matter spill the beans. I really think it does need to stay. Also, wanted to cement Gale's apperance once more before she ditched her agent suit for her Empress costume.

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As far as I'm concerned, there's no possible way that the Automatons are powered by steam, based on Maxwell Christopher's first mission where you go to an old pre-war Nemesis owned business that has been completely abandoned, and find Nemesis Automatons still there and functional. They're likely powered by some sort of battery that either lasts for an extremely long period, or is rechargeable.

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But maybe the battery is recharged by a machine that runs on steam.

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While I still don't have time to go over everything in detail, this makes me want to throw physics books at people.

Cooling systems do not make heat "go away". You can't actually "cool" things. "Cold" is not an energy or a force, it is the absence of heat. A cooling system is really a heating system that makes something else hot in part by taking heat away from something you don't want to be hot. The air conditioner in your window is not cooling your room; it is heating the outside air, sucking heat out of your room to do it. The ice in your soda is not cooling your soda. The soda is melting the ice, losing energy to do it.

If you've got a Nemesis automaton with a steam engine in it, using lots of heat to make steam and keep it hot, that heat's got to go someplace. You can't just "install a cooling system" to make the machine put out only as much heat as a human body. If Nemesis technology is Exactly What It Says On The Tin, as the writers insist, then the only place for the heat to go is the environment around the robot, meaning not only would it stand out like a sore thumb on any kind of heat or IR sensor, but it may not even be too comfortable standing anywhere near one. If, on the other hand, Nemesis is using the same kind of Applied Phelbotinum as the rest of the world's super-science and superhumans in general (the customary favorite at least since Marvel's OHOTMU, being "extra-dimensional energy sources"), we're back to "Nemesis technology only looks archaic but is really cutting edge", only it's not described that way. It would mean that DATA, Aeon, etc. would easily be able to tell from examining it that the steam parts were useless cosmetic affectations and the real work was being done with the usual tricks, but instead the writers insist on:

1) Steam power
2) ????
3) Profit!

It's not cool, it's just bad writing and there's no justification for it.

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I love how you keep saying, "I don't have time to explain it," what's so hard about saying that heat is infact the speed at which the particles that make up an object are moving (just like the state is caused by the dispersal of those objects as they move faster or slower). And yes something get's colder as it transfers the energy in it's particles to something else's particles which in turn gets faster. (I know that's a slightly simplistic explanation).

But why the need to act so superior about it? That's grade school science, any high school grad should know that, it's not a big mystery.


Anyway... all this grumbling about Steampunk technology misses on key point of the genre.

Basically when one writes Steampunk you go back and write a piece of science fiction like you were someone in the Victorian/Edwardian Era... You work from their asthetic and usually they're understanding of physics and technology... meaning it really doesn't even have to make sense by today's understanding.

You can even use outdated theories in steampunk, it's perfectly acceptable in a steam punk novel/comic whatever to refer to space as an aether field, instead of a (near) vacuume... Infact it's kind of expected.

Of course when you try to mix that logic, with a universe that also clearly has modern technology and understanding, that's what makes it not work.

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A person with a brain and time travel wins...

...if there are no limitations on the time travel, time travel alters the One and Only Timeline, and they are the only people out there with brains and time travel.

Otherwise you end up in endless wars of "I killed your grandparents 'first'!"

[/ QUOTE ]That's what is known as the 'timey wimey ball.' And it's very stupid.

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Except when Bill and Tedd do it!

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All of your arcs are great Police Woman, but I think we gotta go with the Nazi one Now with less Masterminds right?

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Sure, if that's the one you like! With it being a silent movie, I'm now totally picturing a CoH version of Triumph of the Will. Is that bad?

Anyway, yes, I reduced the mastermind count a lot - only bosses should ever be masterminds now.

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Well... it's actually my least favourite of your three arcs, but I think it works best though I might try the Teen Tita... I mean Phalanx one too.


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I know you've already played through them, but I would love to see The Lost Choir in sepia tones, scratchy lines, and set to ragtime.

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I'll try and get around to it... somehow I think the last mission would be the final boss music from Final Fantasy XI though, it just seems appropriate.


Okay, I'm gonna edit this post in a minute and make a Queue, thinking about this idea I think the review will actually be seperate from the movie... it'll be a playbill or movie review, and I reserve the right to add dailog to make the story make sense for my character this won't be anything major just a few lines to sorta set the tone.

I'm gonna actually do my own arc first as a test before I do everyone else's, and because I need some promotion .


I need to produce films for:

Lazarus - Any Arc
Police Woman - Any Arc
Mekkanos - Either Arc
theHedoren - Copper Legion
Deathbug - Any
AwesomusPrime either 181165 or 71532
Venture- Two HouseholdsAlike 126582
El_Condor - Any
Mr_Squid - Super Rikti Relgious Mega Arc of Awesome and Death... AKA The Lost Choir
LaserJesus - Drakule thingy

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Sounds like lots of fun. Feel free to use any of mine, whichever strikes you as most cinematic.

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All of your arcs are great Police Woman, but I think we gotta go with the Nazi one Now with less Masterminds right?

Alright, thanks for stepping up. I'll pick one of them and get to work on it.

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Word of Gawd is that there is a 500 page Story Bible (written by Manticore?) and has been since Day One.

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I find that hard to believe, unless the font used is VERY BIG.

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I think this is a game created for a world created for a game.

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I'd be surprised if the setting existed before the game in any form more comprehensive than some scribbled notes. The setting seems clearly built around, and designed to facilitate, the game. And if you were to ask me, I'd say that's why it's failed to expand beyond it.

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Any perceived 'thinness' to the material is probably due to the fact that the world/game is intentionally designed to be iconic and generic rather than specific.

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It's the lack of depth. The whole "iconic" thing may very well have been seen as a way to circumvent the need for detail and depth. And, for the specific purposes of a game, that might even be true. But, when stepping outside the boundaries of the game, it's apparently not enough to carry the IP.

For example, I have no desire to read the single (?) City novel. What I've seen of the comics has been pretty uninteresting and, yes, "generic"... though I'd probably say, "cliche'". Also, I don't think the RPG ever got off the ground, but I wouldn't care if it did. I wouldn't pick it up.

And this is all coming from someone who's a big fan of the game. I've been here 5 years straight, haven't strayed, don't have any interest in any other MMOs that're in the works.

If the world really doesn't capture my imagination and interest, how's it going to catch the eye of anyone not so vested in the game?

Well, based on its history so far... it doesn't.

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I think the main thing that has hurt the 'feel' of the City IP over the years is that there is not what I would call a clear progression to the enemies.

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I'd say this is still thinking in terms of a game.

I'd put the blame for the hurt primarily at the feet of the signature characters (most of them, anyway), as they are very much the IP's signature. By and large, they're more avatars than they are characters, so when they've had to be just the latter, they've usually fallen flat. Unfortunately, their lack of substance continues throughout most of the setting and its other elements.

To sum up, I find the whole shebang pretty flimsy and implausible and, based on the IP's overall perfomance, it looks like I'm not alone in that assessment.

If I were to scrutinize the setting to the point where I'd question the feasibility of "Nemtech", I'd be lost looong before I ever encountered it. My ability to suspend disbelief would start to crack at: why does anyone even live here?

I "survive" this setting by just rolling with it, focusing on the immediate and personal, making ample use of the blur effect on the big picture, and conveniently disregarding the nonsensical.

But when you add MA to the equation, this approach could run into some problems with audiences that don't subscribe to it.

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Honestly I think what's hurt the expansion of the IP isn't a weakness of the signature characters, but the fact that aside from the novels everything else has been foccused around selling the game. The comic made many references to game mechanics, such as badges and enhancements and such... this is not needed, yes your hurt by not being able to show the Sig heroes administer the final blow to Tyrant or Recluse, but you don't have to have a comic world where they say "it's all a game cause we get teleported if we get hurt", or talk about other game mechanics like that.

A talented writer could take what's presented in the story material and make a decent comic, cartoon or movie about this series... it could even included some of the silly stuff, but just strip the series down to it's basic core don't try to reference every bit of game jargon.

Heck, I think I could do it, (don't judge my writing by my forum posts please). And I know how to do it... and there's plenty of other talent out there that can do it. If secondary media is not treated like a commercial for the game it can work.

What about Pneumatic tubes? Those are a much more steampunk-era feel application of either compressed air or vacuume in tubes, which is still in use today (though on a much smaller scale then in the past).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumat...#Current_usage

I mean think about how this system was used in the Shadow, something like this would fit in well with the Nemesis motif.

I liked the idea, that another member had for video reviews and would like to try my hand at it...

But I don't like talking on a mic, so here's the deal... I'll make your arc into a silent movie! I'll edit it with text cards sharing my reactions as I go through it... I'll even add film grain, and do portions in black and white if you want (obviously I'll want to show custom baddies in color...).

I love video editing and can use the practice, I will make your arc look good... and give you an honest review.

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I'm starting this thread to siphon discussion off of Venture's 2nd review thread, so it can go back to focusing on reviews.

Some points made so far (paraphrasing):

Venture: Nemesis technology being steam-powered is too ridiculous to swallow. The devs should have made it steam-powered in appearance only and given it some other actual basis for operations. The worst faux pas is the Nemesis automatons, which should be easy for anyone to spot if they're really done with steampunk technology.

Time travel is never a good plot device because it should be an I Win button for anyone who can use it. Plots that attempt to use it end up falling victim to Timey Wimey Ball, Idiot Ball, or Fridge Logic problems.

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I'm a steampunk fan, some of my favourite works are Steampunk and I love that Nemesis has it... so they'll take it away over my dead body.

Time travel can be done right... but unless you destroy the time machine you're right they can just keep trying and trying (depending on that time travel theory your using... if it just creates a new splinter timeline, who cares except the people in that timeline).

well my characters finally copied... always after you give up and ask and look like a fool right?

I've been trying to copy characters onto the test server to no avail for the past 3 days, I'd dearly like to test the new Task Force and try a couple other things and play with the MA system's new features but I've tried copying several characters about six times and it's no go.

I can create a new character on test and get in, but the copy just won't work.

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Do you know David Caruso?

I know him, did I ever tell you about the time he taught his son how to drive? He did it by entering him in the Indy 500. The kid wrecked and died. David said it would've happened sometime.

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Nah, I dunno him... I'm just talking about the character he portrays and making fun of his acting ability.

I'm really talking about how the defining aspects of the character of Horatiao Caine are sexyness, bad-assary and no emotional range or acting ability.

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Changed theme due to sudden inspiration. e.g. Creating a player character of my custom MA boss, who will mostly play time travel themed arcs. Player or canon.

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Well I'd always love more feedback, I hope my arc fits your theme... there's only one mission where you travel through time (The second) originally there were going to be two instances of time travel and be 5 missions long but there was not enough room.

Don't want to spoil the arc for you, but yes there is a time machine and time travel that plays a theme throughout the first 3 parts of it, with actual time travel in part 2.

Anyway the Arc is 4 missions long.

Arc Name: The Praetorian Invasion of the Land of Oz
Arc ID: 168841
Faction: Praetorians/Custom Group
Morality:Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Sakura-Kishi
Difficulty Level: 3-4 out of 5 *each mission has at least one AV Mission 4 has 3. Missions 2 and 4 each have two Helper NPCs

David is hands down the most effortlessly sexy and badass man alive. He exudes sex appeal and bad-assary... he has both of those traits in such high quantaties that it doesn't leave room for anything else like acting ability. That's why his vocal range consists of how he holds/wears his sunglasses.

hey just wondering if this is still happening cause I was looking forward to it.

Playing it right now and as noted above there are a lot of grammar problems. Some sentances are just redundent. Like this

know in Cimerora as Lady Persephone, known as a collector of rare and mystical artifacts.

You don't need to "knowns" it can just be Known in Cimerora as Lady Persephone, a collector of rare and mystical artifacts.


The bio on mental crush is a bit confusing too...

but all this changed when she turned 16, when she lifted her boyfriend out of the car. <--- a car that was on fire, smashed, what? you need to fill in the details and remember we don't know what you're talking about, until you tell us.

The running away bit was interesting I didn't get why that was a failure at first but made sense when I realized it was gonna tip off this Electra person. the Mission could have been made more clear.

The last missions introduction is written the best out of all the of the ones in this arc. I feel very sorry for the girl whose prom we're crashing...

Anyway I didn't finish ther arc either unfortunately... not because I couldn't solo the EB (I did with my Kat/Regen scrapper though it took every accolade and dirty trick I have). But because it seemed Mylia didn't spawn after I placed the trap, not sure if it was a bug I did try twice.

I gave it 4 stars because it did seem interesting, but that was being a bit generous. There's a lot of grammar that needs to be fixed and things could be explained better (maybe a tad too vague yeah).

Anyway if you want to try one of mine out please try "The Praetorian Invasion of the Land of Oz" Arc 168841 (for level 50s)

I did kinda like the herogroup especially the garbage can shield guys, they looked pretty cool.

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Hey folks, here are the arcs we are starting with tonight!

Brains Over Brawn, arc 133458 by Sovereign Savior
Skirmishes in Time, arc 157672 by Master Gabriel
Invasion of Space Clowns, arc 1262 by Ashcraft
The Praetorian Past Arc, arc 165889 by Black Tabby

Hope to see you there!

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couldn't stay till the end but deffinitly had fun. Next week I will stay for the whole thing (and hopefully we can do my Arc? )

might not make it this evening, hoping I can still... if I don't move my arc to next week please.