Tubbius

In light of folks messaging me saying "they'd really love to play my arcs but. . . ." I've gone through and fixed the copyright slips that the filter hit. To update:

"This Costume Contest Sponsored by Tubbius" was unpublished. There are simply too many fixes on too many custom characters for me to deal with at the moment, and that arc's weak story-wise anyway.

"Fox Hunt" was unpublished. While this arc showcases some fun villain dialogue from Tubbius Regalis, and folks have complimented me on The Fox, this was also arguably my weakest overall arc in terms of a cohesive story. That and I refuse to rename the pro-wrestling homage "The Paragon Bomb."

"Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City" was renamed "The Hammer and Sickle Cross." All references to "5th Column" were adjusted to "Fifth Column." Funnily enough, this is where the arc was before my last adjustment, when I learned that, in-game, the game references the "5th Column." So much for consistency!

"PENGUIN" was surprisingly unscathed in all of this, as was "PENGUIN Part 3: Waddle to the Big Top."

"PENGUIN Part 2: Waddle's Revenge" saw the same changes to the "Fifth Column" that were in "Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City."

"City of Ho Ho Ho, or A Claus in Paragon" was renamed "City of Ho Ho Ho." All references to "Paragon" were eliminated throughout the arc.

I REALLY, REALLY hate feeling like I have to dance around this filter just so I can play my arcs and so that others can do the same, but I'm tired of having folks slam my work with negative ratings because of a filter that's out of my control. If I ever get the opportunity to return these arcs to their former states (and names!), I gladly will, but for now, I just wanted a fix, even if it's a frustrating fix to implement on my part.

Good luck to the developers who are working on this issue, thanks to the players who've been messaging me about my broken arcs, and wishes of good fortune and many plays to the rest of the MA Community!

Copying entire dialogue sections, or the whole book? Either way. . . whoa. :O

So I guess we wait for an ETA on all this. I trust they're working on it.

And here's Waddle the Penguin for submission! Already a smart little penguin, he was mutated as a product of Crey Biotech's manipulating during the PENGUIN Project. Waddle was gifted with human--though childlike--intellect, ice and healing powers, and phenomenal jumping skills to compensate for the little bird's lack of flight. Waddle escaped and began a desperate quest against Crey's labs to find the one thing that meant something to him: his missing Poppa.



That work ok? Oh, yeah. The lil' penguin's a hero on JUSTICE. Ice controller/empath/ice epic mastery. @Tubbius

"Paragon" is still a problem for my arcs with the word Paragon in the title and my character The Paragon Bomb, an homage to over-the-top 80s pro-wrestling.

I also have various villain NPCs who have the villain group "5th Column" who are being flagged.

There's lastly an armored villain NPC of mine named "Zealot" who's being flagged. He can be renamed and redesigned easily (that arc needs some work, anyway), but what about the other stuff?

Thanks!

I agree with the OP. Ultra Mode and a new computer make a great combo. I got a new computer less than a month ago for my birthday, and last night, I was able to survive my first Rikti Invasion in Atlas Park. It ran a little slower than normal, but not too much; frame rate kept going nicely enough, everything was still smooth and steady, and I had fun for once being able to do something besides spam Healing Aura.

I think it's safe to say that the player reaction to this concern shows that players do indeed care about the Mission Architect and wish to see it carefully and correctly implemeneted, maintained, and controlled. If the people at NCSoft had any doubt of such, I'd hope that the amount of attention being paid to this by, at least, the players on this thread should show them that we, their gaming public and AE community, wish only the best for the tools placed at our disposal and for the game at large.

Thanks to NCSoft in advance for their continued vigilance in attempting to work out a solution. We don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but here's hoping they're working on a workable fix or set of fixes that can see this concern worked out to the best for all involved.

Thanks for the update on "Soon," by the way. It's appreciated.

Here's hoping it gets a live fix soon that works. I'd love to get up to 200 rates with 5 stars showing, and I'm so close.

"Bride" as in "The Bride," as in Kill Bill.

So where'd the Copyright List posted a few posts up come from?

Here's hoping!

Bug report filed with arc IDs and names as of 11:20 PM Eastern. Here's hoping there are some quick fixes. Since all this went down, my arc that's in the 5 star, Page 3 slot has gotten a 3 and a 4. Yeek!

Sigh. I really want this fixed. But for now, I really want a shower. Off I go!

<_<

Here's hoping the MA server going down fixes all this stuff.

Just checked. . . about an hour ago (12:30 PM EST), give or take, I got a message saying the MA server was down. Now, (1:39 PM EST) things appear to be back up, with no changes. The same errors are still present in my arcs, but I did get a 5-star on Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City, at least.

Ok. New problems as of a recent issue, I guess?

351727 "Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City" opens up fine, but the comment submission screen reads "Invalidstringreplacement" where the title should be. Odd. Also, two enemies in the arc who use "5th Column" for their Enemy Group are coming up with the "Profanity/Copyright Protected" line. It's also flagging "Aragon" in "Paragon City." I suppose THIS all explains why I got a 3-star on this arc the other day.

302196 "PENGUIN Part 2: Waddle's Revenge" seems broken. Custom villain Toxin has "Profanity/Copyright Protected" on his Enemy Group, which is "5th Column."

29205 "PENGUIN" works fine. No errors.

18775 "City of Ho Ho Ho, or A Claus in Paragon" gets the same result as "Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City" in terms of "Aragon" and "Invalidstringreplacement."

101933 "This Costume Contest Sponsored by Tubbius" is broken. Custom hero "The Paragon Bomb" is the problem with that "Aragon" in his name.

334049 "Fox Hunt" is bugged. Custom NPC "Zealot" is flagged for his name. "The Paragon Bomb" makes a return appearance with the "Aragon."

402239 "PENGUIN Part 3: Waddle to the Big Top" appears to work fine. No bugs.

I'm still here, folks, and I'm still looking to be in the Club. Work has been keeping me REALLY busy lately. I'll get back to this ASAP.

Glad to hear that you're having fun in the AE looking into arcs that are meant to be loved and played and shared!

Ack! I just played through an awesome arc. . . but I forgot the "less than a hundred plays" thing. Oops. Well, here's a quick review of "Of Sound Body and Mind", arc 13107, by @Mr. Mud, all the same.

It's all about stomping Family and Freaks in a quest to recover some cybernetic fists of a fallen gangster. The bad guys--a multitude of different sorts of mafiosos and the like--are well fleshed out, and the Freaks are handled in typically fun, Leet-speak Freak fashion. Well done!

There were only a few minor typos--"O|-| D43R" in the first mission needs the A and E symbols reversed; the intro text to mission two slips on "receive" and "leave my money to."

The arc ends up with a great, fun twist at the end. Good work to @Mr. Mud!

A 4-star arc I've not played with fewer than 100 plays. . . .

I'll see what I can do tomorrow night when I get home from work, I guess.

I played "Johnny Sonata and The Hitmen." My first real observation, after I realized that I was running a villainous arc, was that my character of Tubbius (level 50 plant controller/empath/ice epic), who looks like Santa Claus, was being asked to bust some musicians out of jail.

Only in City.

The contact: he looks sharp, overall, except for one problem. There was, at least on my screen, very obvious graphics clipping on his shoulders, meaning the blue of his shirt was horribly showing through the yellow of his sleeves. Overall, he has a well-written personality and dialog, drawing on stereotypical mobster types from films. It does get fairly grating in the long run, but it works.

Mission 1: Good overall. It's a little counter-intuitive to have to go into the sewer system section and thus into the busted Zig to find the drummer, but the real issue with the level is having to escort him back to the Arachnos ship you're inexplicably borrowing.

Mission 2: The only issue I really have with this mission is that there's no in-game rationale for being forced to crack the four safes--and there's no mention of WHY you should even go for "the jewels" in each as opposed to other goods. Yes, the contact says you should "help yourself," but a little more meat here would be nice. This is when I first noticed that the arc doesn't use clues at all, at any point.

Mission 3: Quick mission through some caves fighting Circle. It's REALLY easy to miss the "Byzantil" reference that proves important to the next section of mission dialog. The NPCs are written particularly well here, for what little text they do get.

Mission 4: I could follow the story well up to this point. Johnny Sonata knowing "mumbo jumbo guys" to get inside the sleeping True Blue's head and fight for his soul. . . . It just doesn't really seem to fit what we've seen of Johnny so far, as he's shown no prior inclination toward the occult, even going so far as to blow off the idea that his brass section might even be magically backed. Also, the notion of Johnny and True Blue both having sonic powers is a little much to ask, but in a realm of fantasy like this, I guess I can forgive that much.

Oh. . . and Eliza "True Blue" Woodson is an obvious reference to Elwood Blues in name and look.

The arc can perhaps best be summed up as "The Blues Brothers meets The Godfather meets (in mission 4 only) A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors." It's arc 1001, which means that it was a GOOD arc, perhaps even exceptional, in the early days of the MA. It's still good, despite my personal faults with it, still coming out vastly better than most of the AE stuff out there, which is largely just fluff or farms. . .

But when comparing it to any of the OTHER really good, story-based work out there? It's solid, yes. It's cleverly put together with some subtle humor and almost flawless writing (there are a few minor spelling and punctuation slips).

My big issue? It's not that the arc is outdated by newer arcs with more shine and sparkle. It's not that the arc is technically flawed in terms of gameplay or bugs. To me, while "Johnny Sonata and the Hitmen" is GOOD, it just doesn't really have that "WOW" factor I'd hope to see in a longstanding Dev's Choice. That said, I certainly don't see any problems recommending it for the occasional run overall, and it IS deserving of recognition.

THAT would be cool, Aliana.

Thankee, PW. If I recall, one of my own arcs is one of the new ones. Here's hoping it stays that way!

I usually experience around 200-300 ping when playing on Justice, even if my girlfriend and I are both sharing the connection to the router which is in the other room. As of late, though, for roughly the past week, I've been experiencing lag spikes of anywhere between 900-1000 ping up into the 5500-6000 range, even when I'm the only person active on the connection and fairly late at night. As far as I know, all of the hardware at the house is still in good condition.

Is anyone ELSE lagging like crazy on Justice as of late? I'm east coast US, but I've never had this kind of trouble before. Could it have anything to do with the fact that my mom is on Facebook playing various games often while I'm trying to play COH?

I know all this is REALLY vague, but I'm no computer man. I'm just looking to see if anyone else is experiencing similar stuff.

Thanks.

I'll hunt down a Dev's Choice to play through this evening if I can, when I get home from work.

That would not be cool.