The Hound

Astoria - Saturday 24th 9:32PM

Mechanical bodies littered the streets outside of Moth Cemetery. Walking through the wreckage, looking down at his slain creations, was Clemenz Okatov, known to many as the super villain Doctor Desecrator. His golden armour gleamed in what little light there was and the combined colours of his cape danced about behind him as a furious wind picked up.

Clemenz pressed two fingers against his helmet's built-in radio as he tried to tune his signal and communicate with his digital henchman, the artificial intelligence known only as Xavier. Soon, despite heavy amounts of interference and static, Clemenz registered Xavier's voice on the other end.

"Sir, another wave of drones has been prepared for deployment. My readings show the last attempt faired poorly against the defenders of the Cemetery. I will continue scanning for a possible-"

Xavier was promptly cut off from Clemenz and was instead replaced by a voice Clemenz knew all too well.

YoUR atTeMPTs tO GAIn MY poWER ARE fuTIle
YOu Will FEEd mE
YoUR hATred
YouR AMBiTion
All WILL SaTISfy MY HungER

Clemenz knew that voice, that disembodied unforgettable voice, was right. He had come to Astoria to exploit the situation, to steal the powers of the death god and ascend to glory. But he hadn't expected the notable opposition from the Talons, the Knives, and even the Tsoo. If he stayed, if he continued his mad campaign to snatch Mot's powers, it would end up the other way around; Mot would devour him, and he would be powering the death god. Soon, Xavier's voice crackled back through.

"-you there sir? You dropped off of the grid for a moment."

Clemenz looked about at the bodies of his destroyed soldiers before taking one last look at the looming silhouette of Mot's maw that stood in the distance.

"Xavier, re-route all functioning Desecratoids still in Astoria to my location. Astoria is lost to us, I will take our remaining forces and retreat back to the Isles. Mot has won the battle... and he looks set to win the war."

Gotta wonder why Mother has set up shop outside the confines of Praetoria. If you were turning people into psychic police you'd think you would want to do it somewhere where you won't be disturbed by blood-hungry mutant creature things.

And by the looks of that Neo-Shivan, its 'face' is made of a weird looking rock. What if the meteors ARE the invasion force?

Anyone else looked in the background of the... Headcrab-ified Seers? Is that Mother Mayhem's hospital back there?

I've only got one at the moment, but...

What alignment do you find is easiest to write stories for?

We all knew it was coming but I was blown away nonetheless.

SPOILERS.











I have to wonder, what does all this have to do with the Silence? A friend suggested to me that Eyepatch is a mercenary working for them but there's A LOT more to it than that. What kind of a position do you have to be in to have command of an army of Clerics and have the authority to ally yourself with Headless Monks?

A wild guess is that Eyepatch gets Melody/River to the Silence and the Silence take her back to 1960 in an attempt to elude the Doctor but that opens up some gaping paradox-inducing plotholes.

Totally wasn't expecting that at the end. Though that does open another question.

SPOILERS













How long exactly has Amy been in that room with Eyepatch checking up on her? Many people would probably say that the Silence took her there but we saw Amy have an encounter with the woman just before the Silence kidnapped her.

I like the look of this sort of trial. I hated Lambda and BAF because of how utterly grindy they were, but Keyes Island looks like a step in the right direction with the rewards.

Anyone else thinking of purposely failing the trial just so poor Anti can get a break from his boss?

I have to go with the 'manipulation' bit for true evil. You can't be an insidious mastermind if you don't have someone you can trick into doing your evil plans for you Emperor Palpatine style.

Something which is more insane than villainous but still ranks high up in the Big Book 'o Evil IMO is, as someone mentioned, someone being a villain when in their mind they're doing the right thing. I'd say this is improved when said villain goes entirely off the deep end and, suddenly it's not about conquering the world to save it from itself, it's about destroying humanity because you see them as parasites and that wiping them out would be for the best.

I enjoyed it despite constantly crashing over and over. The amount of War Walkers first spawned in St. Martial combined with the amount of players that attacked them caused me to crash three times.

It got a little easier to handle when we moved to Cap though, especially when the Praetorians started attacking Mount Diable. I think it was somewhere near this point I remember messaging Beastyle to see if Emperor Cole himself would appear for tea and biscuits. But alas, I was told the whole event was beneath the Emperor's notice.

Lambda Sector, fifteen minutes to invasion...

Tavish Quist stood in the facility's courtyard at the head of a column of soldiers. Infact, he wasn't the only one. Other columns filled the inside of Lambda and the roads surrounding it were riddled with WarWorks robots. Quist had been taken out of his more convenient and subtle uniform and placed in the IDF armour he wore during the start of his career, albeit with some modifications. Quist looked around to the rest of the soldiers, their faces fixed on the space infront of them, waiting for the signal to 'port over to Primal Earth. Soon, the first column of soldiers began disappearing in a brilliant blue light which slowly worked its way across the courtyard. As he stood there waiting for his time, Quist reflected on his meeting with Praetor White...

"Ah, Quist! Welcome back home!" The Praetor extended one of his behemoth fists, holding it out in a friendly gesture towards Tavish who took and shook it, somewhat cautiously.

"Always a pleasure to serve the Emperor, Praetor. That Evaluator said you'd be briefing me on my mission?"

"That's right." White beckoned for Quist to follow him, strolling inside a lift leading down to Lambda's labs. The Praetor pressed the third floor button and the lift doors closed.

"So, what am I smashing up? Portal Corporation? That power plant that utilises demon energy?" Asked Quist, eager to know what exactly his mission was.

The Praetor simply laughed. "Tavish, we ain't sending you on the frontlines for this one. You won't be much use to us if you end up dead because of those punks in Primal. I got something else in mind for you."

Quist raised an eyebrow, looking up at the towering Praetor. He was about to open his mouth when, suddenly, the elevator doors swung sharply open to reveal a group of Seers surrounding several unconcious members of Vanguard and Arachnos. The Praetor walked out of the elevator with Quist following behind.

"These, Quist, are Primal punks we managed to swipe. Tilman's had her girls mindwash them. You know what that means right?"

Quist nodded. "They act normal but have an undying and secret loyalty to the Emperor. It's something they can spread to others too."

The Praetor grinned and walked over to an orange tinted screen which showed a map of the Isles. After typing a few keys, the orange was broken up by small red dots. "These are your targets, we'll deploy you to a different location than the main force. Take a squad of four men and raid these locations. When you're done, radio in back here and we'll open a small portal to bring one of the Mindwashed guys through. Make 'em look like a survivor of the raid or somethin' like that."

Quist nodded along, his mouth half-open in interest. "Am I the only one with this sort of special honor, Praetor?"

White laughed, shaking his head. "Other Powers Division and super-powered folks are also involved, but I ain't able to give you any more info than that. You just concentrate on getting the Mindwashed in place, that's your job."

Quist soon came back to the present as the teleportation light engulfed his legs and made its way up to the rest of his body. It was a few brief moments before the light dissolved and Quist found himself in an alleyway in New Haven, Cap au Diable along with two IDF Rangers, a Seer Auger and a large and imposing BCU.

"Alright squad, follow me. This is for our Emperor!"

I logged on this morning thinking I'd still find my global as @Royal, as it always has been. But since I wasn't sent an email or anything otherwise to tell me someone else apparently had my name it automatically changed to @Doctor Desecrator.

The Portal geek in me decided to step in and I've now been renamed to @Wheatley.

Meanwhile, on Keyes Island...

Tavish Quist was leaning against the side of the Water Treatment Plant, looking over at the Keyes Reactors. Dressed in the attire of his black and gold uniform, Quist stared over the fenced-off reactors for the longest time, watching the Clockwork and small amounts of PPD patrol the various levels of each towering structure. His peace was interrupted by the sound of mechanical footsteps walking up the pavement to the side of him.

"Tavish Hannibal Quist? Also known as Subject Eight, Powers Division Top Dog and Elite Agent of the IDF?"

Quist looked to his left and saw a man dressed in a golden trenchcoat and a scanner covering his eyes. Part of his face was riddled with visible veins and his legs had been replaced by cybernetic augmentations. Quist grinned, lowering the dark blue shades he was constantly seen with to get a better look. He knew who this man was.

"You're the Evaluator I take it? You look like that sort of type."

The Evaluator remained emotionless, Quist couldn't pick up a flicker of humour or curiosity in what could be seen of his face. Just a cold sense that the Evaluator lived for one thing: His job.

"Agent Quist, I am here to escort you to Lambda Sector for immediete briefing on what your role in the attack will be. Please, follow me." The Evaluator walked past Quist, who in turn pushed off of the wall and began walking alongside his rather dull companion.

"Any idea on the opposition we may be facing? As the Evaluator you must have some information on enemy movements." Quist asked, trying to make the entire walk to Lambda have some colour to it.

The Evaluator simply turned his head to Quist before looking back infront of him, walking along the oddly silent roads of Neutropolis.

"Intelligence tells us that Primal Earth has detected the dimensional breakdown as well. Reconnaissance suggests that they have already had a meeting involving major meta-human groups. There will be strong resistance, but that is to be expected."

"I see." Quist said, looking around the empty streets. It was an incredibly quiet walk to Lambda, even the Ghouls weren't anywhere to be seen.

Finally, Quist and the Evaluator reached the front doors of Lambda Sector; Praetoria's prime military installation, Tavish couldn't help but let out an impressed whistle every time he stood infront of it. The two guards stationed at the front gates gave the typical Praetorian salute, which was returned by Quist.

The Evaluator simply stood a few feet behind Quist, looking at the gates. "Praetor White is waiting inside the facility. He will debrief you on your time in Primal Earth before moving on to the invasion plans."

Quist looked over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. "You're not coming?"

The Evaluator shook his head. "The Emperor has ordered that I remain within the Magisterium during the length the invasion is active."

Quist shrugged and moved through the now-open gates of Lambda Sector. As he strolled towards the facility's underground entrance, he gazed around to see IDF personnel jogging laps in their armour, battle formations being practiced, lines at the firing range for soldiers looking to take out their opponents with the fewest shots and WarWorks robots being repaired and calibrated. As he neared the Lambda facility, Quist turned around for one final look around the courtyard. A smirk formed on his face.

"Oh yeah, we can win this."

With the Praetorian Surge nearly upon us and what apparently seems like rednames taking up the mantle of our terrifying invaders, a wish got to work in my mind which was 'Darn, I'd love it if players got to be NPCs for these sort of events too.' That wish eventually warped into an idea which leads me to this post.

Invasion mode for the arena! When you start up an arena match, you choose the gametype you want (Pentad, Battle Royale, Duel ect.) clicking on 'Invasion' would then present you with the map and the attacking faction that you want to fight. (Rikti, Praetorians, Zombies) When you're all ready, the amount of players present in the queued match then get split into two teams, either by the computer or by the one organising the match. One team will be the defenders, positioned squarely in the middle of the map and ready to hold out for as long as possible (possibly with some NPC help of their own depending on the map) while the other team takes on the role of the attackers. However, the attackers aren't their normal player-character selves. Instead, the attackers become the faction-specific bosses. War-Walkers for Praetorians, Heavy Assault Suits for Rikti, Nightmares for Zombies, you get the idea.

Also aiding the attacker team will be mobs of NPCs which will appear after a timer has expired (much like the Reinforcement timer in the Trials) and rush towards the centre of the map. These mobs will be weak for the first minute or two of the match, mobs full of Minions with some Lt.s scattered about, but will eventually become bigger and more decked out with Bosses the longer the defenders can hold out. This mechanic also applies to the attacker PCs as well. So, while an attacking Praetorian team may start with War-Walkers, four minutes in they may get the option to switch to Goliath War-Walkers or Olympian Guards, while seven or eight minutes would warrant the presence of Marauder, Battle Maiden, Siege and/or Nightstar.

To prevent the defenders from cheating, like bouncing around the map with Super Jump on to increase their time unfairly, two options are available: Either make the centre of the map the defense point which must not be taken by the attacking team or the defenders instantly lose the match, or make it so that any defender who goes within a certain distance away from the centre for a prolonged period of time is automatically killed Battlefront style.

After all defenders have been defeated or the centre has been taken by the attackers, the teams are switched and the defending team takes on the role of the attacking bosses. The team who held out the longest in the end wins!

Anyone else notice that the... Slender Men Aliens? Were actually listed in the credits as 'The Slient'?

Requiem

Siege and Nightstar

Emperor Cole (It's just something I can picture him singing after he becomes Emperor )

Sebastian Frost

Shock Treatment

I don't hate Praetoria, infact I actually like it, but I don't like the direction it's taking either.

Cole was interesting because he was like a sort of tragic villain. Almost like he believed he was saving the world by doing these terrible things and that it WAS the only way, in his mind, that he could save the world. Personally, I felt quite torn over whether to serve him and help understand him better or to fight against him to ensure that his methods don't continue.

But... that was all just thrown out the window when it was announced that Cole was infact completely evil and he had the intention to take over all of existence. Great way to ruin an interesting villain.

How would I have done it? I would have still had the war between Primal and Praetorian Earth but I wouldn't have had it the main focus of the whole story, only partly. I also wouldn't make Cole all "HERP DERP TAEK OVA TEH MULTEEVERSSSSSS." Instead, I'd write arcs from the perspectives of both Primal Earth forces and Praetorian forces. Primal Earth sees the Praetorians as the real bad guys and reckons Cole really is a power-mad dictator bent on... well, taking over the multiverse, while the Praetorians see themselves as just defending their home and their way of life after sacrificing so much to keep their civilisation afloat. I just think that would make for a more interesting story.

About this whole Incarnate business? I'd tie it into Rularuu somehow. The idea of the Well being a sentient being of great power just seemed a little silly. We have multi-dimensional entities that can eat entire worlds and the main villain chosen to be behind all this mystical Incarnate business is a disembodied spirit that possesses people? Rularuu's been sitting in the Shadow Shard for a good long while, I'd pull him out as the main focus of the Incarnate system. We've even got Darrin Wade, who'd be a great plot device in this, to bring Rularuu's forces through to Primal Earth. You'd be arch-villain heavy with all of Rularuu's aspects leading the charge too!

So yeah, I'd seperate all the story telling and deep gray morality stuff with the Praetorian War and set all these raids and trials and whatnot against Rularuu. Could probably even expand some Shadow Shard lore while you're at it!

My review of The Do-It-Yourself Laser Moonbase Project by @Twoflower.

The contact... what to say about him? I found him utterly hilarious. I've played some arcs with the dialect that Igor speaks and I can say he does it the best. I love how he pokes fun at nearly all of the villain contacts from levels 1-50 as well.

I loved the missions and I especially loved the bosses like Officer Gentleman and Hans Toten-Toten... that guy who's name I can't remember. I adored the over-the-topness along with the references to the periodic table and Zero Wing. Made me feel like a real moustache twirler. All in all, I can see why this arc got a Dev's Choice; it's funny and it has some nice moments in it.

The only nitpick I have with this arc is that there is no dialogue anywhere except on the objectives. There were so many opportunities for a random placement or patrol to be thrown in that I couldn't even count. A joke about Hans' ridiculously long name for example could be put in mission two. Just to liven up the atmosphere a bit and make it more immersive.

My conclusion though? Five stars from me.

Thanks again for another review, even though we've moved on!

As people can probably tell, I've made a few changes since the first review, most notably I've completely rewritten mission four from its original setting of rescuing Doc Zapster from Arachnos. I've added a small optional chain of objectives in mission two which start with saving the Sneaky Freak B4KST4BB3R. A few other changes involve dialogue tweaks and editing out the Zapster bit in the souviner text. (Which I shamefully forgot about.)

Currently, I'm working on getting rid of that awful purple text. However, deleting even one letter that turns the words purple seems to completely take everything else out; other colours, paragraph gaps and more. Then it just seems to leave me with all my original dialogue but without colour, paragraph gaps and has added the <br>'s and such as actual text. I will eventually get rid of it, but it'll take a while.

Anyway, I'm planning on getting into the reviews again for the club. Just been a bit busy but you can expect a review on a DC arc before Saturday.

Thanks for the feedback Coulomb! Glad to know that you liked it quite a bit. I'll buff it up and maybe rewrite a mission or two to give it a more 'Freaky' feel.

Unfortunately you seem to have been the only person to have played it for its run. Oh well, thanks for playing it in any case!

Hi guys! Ol' Royal here. I know some of you haven't heard from me in a while and there's a reason for that. I've recently been swaying back and forth on that 'Should I Stay Or Should I Go?' line. And, after much deliberation, I've decided to leave.

Although I love it, I was never very big in the RP community. Doctor Desecrator, Sterk, Evaluator, Malus Atrum. You might have heard of one or two of those names, but you won't have heard of them all. I've finished all I can mission-wise and the RP was all that kept me staying. Unfortunately, the age of Base RP is upon us and, not being very successful in the SG business, I don't see much of my characters' futures being spent in them. Every time I take a character to Pocket D I suddenly feel my enthusiasm drain out of me and feel like I just can't walk up those steps to the blue bar and strike up a conversation with anyone. The people I did have plots going on with seem much more busy with others and I don't want to be that nagging little voice in the back of everyone's head going "WHAT ABOUT MEEEE! YOU'RE FORGETTING ABOUT MMMEEEEEE!!!"

I've been logging on these past few days to see if I can rekindle my interests, but to no avail. I just log on and seem to aimlessly float around the game world with no real objective. Like I'm being bored for the sake of boredom.

So, to all you Unionites, I'd like to say thanks. Thank you so much for a fun five years, thank you for the great ingame plots we've had, and thank you for putting up with me and my astonishing stubborness to never make a hero and my extreme persistence to always stick to being an evil lurker of redside. Hope I'll see some of you in the future in the big evolving world of Mumorpgrs!

P.S: No, none of you can hav mai stuffz.

Oh yeah! Best Doctor Who special in a while! Loved everything about it. Again, no spoilers. It was just great!

And again, the preview for the next series. Looks like we'll see the Ood, weird looking dolls and... Slender Man?

The Blue Devils

Let's be clear, right here and now.

I LOVED this arc! Right from start to finish I couldn't tear my eyes away from the computer screen! I couldn't find any grammar mistakes, anything wrong with the enemies, and just enjoyed the arc as a whole. I especially liked the Vigilante options and how dark they were. In fact, that's probably one of the best things about how this arc starts off: how dark it can be. You weren't in the kiddie world anymore, people really were being murdered and it rippled throughout the story.

I have nothing bad to say about this. Maybe that the level range could have increased slightly as the missions went on? I dunno, I knew I'd need Inspirations at one point and they got me through some of the harder bits.

All in all, a fantastic arc that is a must for any lowbie to run through! Five stars from me!

A Vague Notion.

I'm not going to lie, the amount of warnings this arc was tagged with scared me. But, as an author and a member of this here club, I soldier on!

Okay, good introduction on Mission One. We're introduced to the people we're supposed to help and we go through a bit of banter about aliens. The only thing here that confuses me is that the contact refers to the Rikti as not "real aliens." Uh, does that means he knows anything about the Rikti's true origins? Or the common knowledge that the Rikti are from another dimension? I'll suspect it's that latter for now and dive in to rescue this little girl! I liked the pop-up as I entered the mission too, very descriptive.

The exit pop-up for Mission One has one typo. I think resuced is supposed to be rescued

Second mission starts and I have about four objectives to blow up! I liked how they all began with an 'R' too. The first one goes down and I am ambushed by a group of customs. Unfortunately, my curiosity about a good looking group remains floating around as they have no bios. I suppose this can work too though, bios can sometimes give too much about a mystery group away before the author wants that to happen. Did I also spot a Harry Potter reference with one of the altars?

Another mission done! But our work is not yet done!

Mission Three and I am starting to like the humour the contact is pulling out. Though I can't smile too much because the cold weather has forced my lips to shred themselves at the first sign of being stretched. So in this mission I have to rescue three hostages. Simple enough, though it seems they are all vaguely familiar...

As I near the exit with the third escort, I come across a bizzare sight. A new group of enemies! Kewl! Let's just send all my henchies in to destroy that boss and... oh, I died. Let's try that again!

So, it takes Bodyguard mode and a number of my debuffs to even myself out with this boss. And it only gets hard as the fight goes on because she calls in some cronies and her "sister" to help her out. Both eerily reminded me of Silver Mantis. And both had an extreme amount of evil mes attacks. Still, I was victorious! To my surprise, the mission finished there, even though I still had to lead the third abductee out of the mission.

Fourth mission and it's time to get some information on these new characters! From Longbow! Oh dear... Longbow...

When I enter their base, I'm pleasantly surprised that they're on my side. Even Ms. Liberty is there to greet me. However, she warns me that I should only take what I need and go, as there is some info here that could prove dangerous in the wrong hands. So it's only luck I am running this arc with a brain-in-a-robot-suit Mastermind bent on world domination!

I search around the non-hostile Longbow base, coming across Captain Dietrich and Zenflower and a large amount of bantering Longbow with some rather amusing lines. The glowies, in the form of cabinets, always give me the same response though. The first one I look through says that I've "come up empty handed." when really I got a clue. I understand that this is a bit of a bug in the MA though. Also, all cabinets are named 'Looking for the File.'

Oh, wait, it appears there's one more cabinet holding the file on the person I'm investigating! Along with the computer for the girl I first rescued! Awesome, now I'm set and it seems an interesting plot twist has occured at this point. Also, in the Return Success dialogue, there's a typo, 'Initiatve'

Onto the last mission. Now I found the hostage in this one easy enough, but I hate Oranbegan maps as they always stick some glowies in a small and easily missable space. But anyway, I found them all and then found the Psionic Amplifier and noticed that its description is the same as that of the Rikti Portal Amplifier. I'm sure this isn't intentional though. So, anyway, the final boss appears, we do battle, and she gloriously falls before my might!

Here's what I liked about this arc: The custom characters that were well designed, the plot twist, Nigel Kaine's sense of humour. These were all strong points in the arc that I loved and adored to the very end.

The things I didn't like were: The custom characters had no description, even towards the end of the arc, not even the final boss had one. And the Oranbegan map. Not alot, but it took me a good fifteen minutes to find and place all the Psychic Dampeners, and my curiosity about each and every custom minion still remains unquenched.

Still, a good arc that I can tell effort has been put into. Four stars from me!