Twoflower

I've got only one suggestion / request.

Mission Architect doesn't belong under Player Help. It's not strictly a question and answer board; it's also for advertising your arcs, for posting reviews, for discussing the system's nuances and foibles, etc. Putting it under "Player Help" doesn't make a lot of sense. Putting it under "For Fun" would be more appropriate, as it's a general AE discussion group.

(edit: misread a player suggestion as the proposed structure. But my original point about shuffling it stands)

Everybody's getting that message, AE or not. Guess the system sort of "initializes" when you first log in and resets. It'll probably get fixed.

Confirmed on the UStream, the publishing team is looking into the oddities in the copyright / profanity filter.

Just reposting it here for folks who didn't know. (I didn't know, until Zwil confirmed it.) So, hopefully happy times ahead for the folks who feel AE is completely ruined by the filter.

Making threats, yelling, screaming, and carrying on won't make the servers come up any faster.

It's not like they could've avoided any downtime whatsoever. Obviously something had to be fixed, something serious, and even if you postpone you eventually have to bite the bullet and do it. Better to do it now, for a smoother ride later.

Plus, they started this upgrade at 1:30 in the morning. That's above and beyond the call of duty.

Have some patience and quell the Standard Forumite Rage, okay? Contribute to the gross national product or just play some other game today. You can get back to playing tonight.

Arc Played: Cracking Skulls #115935 by @Flame Kitten
Character: Valerie 2.0, L28 Bots / Time Mastermind

(Note: I tend not to go into a lot of detail or typo reports on my reviews; I look at the story as a whole, the flow of it, the writing style.)

This is a good, solid police story. It's not some over the top save the world arc, and doesn't need to be -- it's a lowbie themed street crime story and hits all the right beats for one. Taking down punks, confiscating goods, arresting pushers and buyers alike... but with an added element, the Necrodyne, to make it feel more important than a basic newspaper mission. Good to see something straightforward and well crafted.

Using a canon detective who explains how Supradyne works was also a nice touch -- that'll make this a terrific intro arc for new players, who may not understand the lore behind the drug, or what makes it unique to this universe. I've always wanted to see more about the effects of Dyne, since all we hear is "it gives you superpowers" and apparently sometimes turns you into a Troll. Seeing some enraged users hurling giant rocks was a nice touch. But most importantly, by saying "This is what it is" you can set up a counterpoint to "This is what's ACTUALLY going on" later on in the arc. It's not taken as an assumption that the character or player knows Dyne inside and out, and that's a good call to make.

Also a great touch -- the custom Skulls in the second mission. I sent my bots in, figuring blah blah blah skulls no big deal hey wait a second they're using Dark Blast?! and I like being surprised like that. The costumes were such a good match that I didn't notice until they started attacking! Nice.

Finally... NICE ambush at the end. Really adds some atmospheric flavor to the story.

Great work. This did exactly what it set out to do, no more, no less, and I applaud the tight storytelling.

With the release of Freedom and the ability to buy as many story slots as I want, I'm pleased to present the story lovers of AE the first arc in my Twoflower Drives a Dump Truck of Money Up To Paragon Studios Front Door Initiative!

Good news, everyone!

It seems the bug is fixed. Loading an arc which was giving me costume errors yesterday into the editor today... no errors, and it's publishable!

I'll start releasing new arcs weekly, I think, until I clear out my backlog.

My personal hope is that the AE publishing / custom costume bug is fixed. It was a low priority one, and understandably so, but I'd love to get some more story arcs I have sitting here published...

Played Welcome to M.A.G.I. I needed something to level my freshly rolled lowbie, and whaddya know, here's a lowbie arc!

Wexler's the first dread wizard I've seen in a trucker cap and sunglasses. I was highly amused by that.

Nice touch recoloring normal bosses -- gives them some style AND keeps it safe for lowbies, compared to using a full on custom. Wexler MIGHT be a bit too strong for an L1 who has poor accuracy, though... I was an L10 stalker, and had buildup, which cut through his defenses and laid him out instantly. I'd have to test with another AT fresh from tutorial to see if he's okay for others.

Spotted a few instances where a comma could've been inserted before a name. "I recognize you NAME" and "I was just going to call you NAME", for instance. Also, a few lines need closing periods appended, like "We'll... meet... again... NAME". Otherwise, no complaints, and those are hardly major complaints.

Liked the mystery unfolding, with enough evidence for and against Tim being a turncoat to keep things lively but not confusing. Good stuff.

Arc 517859: Crime is Art and Art is Crime, by @Twoflower. Newest arc. Feedback welcome; may need tweaking to the custom enemies, ferinstance. I can't make edits until the AE bug is fixed, mind you.

I'll get on playing two arcs soon!

I was the one who originally reported this bug.

We found out about it too late in beta for anything to be done in a timely manner. The problem is the consolidation Jay did in the player costume editor, which trickled through to AE... but produces costume files that AE doesn't know how to read. Even a costume set entirely to the default look will cause problems.

For now, best advice is not to tinker with your arcs. Let it sit until the bug is fixed. They ARE working on it, we reported our findings and the devs are aware of the issue. Once it's fixed you should be able to edit your existing arcs without having to re-create everything from scratch. (I don't know that for sure, but that's the only sane way to fix the problem, so.)

I was able to make a killer death metal roadie lookin' outfit using the shoulder bands and corset pieces for female. The boots are also quite nice.

I'm still going to take travel powers. In my builds, I tend to need one-slot or two-slot powers so I can have something that's effective without pouring tons of slots into it -- lots I need to put in attacks or debuffs instead. Travel powers really fit the bill here.

Plus, in Incarnate Trials, having combat-ready travel powers (Rocket Board detoggles, Ninja Run doesn't get that high) is damned handy.

But, now I won't feel I HAVE to get those travel powers in there early on if I want to get somewhere higher level without getting mashed into paste by street mobs. That's handy.

As for detoggling... it's a pain, but it's not like the devs didn't NOTICE the 58,194 complaints in beta about this. That tells me this is the only way they could do it under their current animation and power system. And if it's a choice between that or no rocket board, I'll take the rocket board and smile. It IS kinda awesome, even if you have to toggle up after arriving.

I'm in the same SG as Gale and Pyro, and yeah, we've been noticing increased drop rates without any booster or windfall activated.

The question now is: Bug, or Working As Intended?

If it's a bug, man, cash in while you can, because the salvage market is gonna FEED on this. If it's working as intended... your inventory may get cluttered but it could mean an end of charging 100k+ for a common bit of salvage, which I'm all for.

That's a shame, Wrong Number. If you're not interested in an Arc Club, that's fine. Thanks for considering it.

Moving on...

MARTy doesn't even enter into this discussion. We aren't making farms and he won't affect us at all. It'd be NICE if the Designated Helper changes thanks to MARTy watchdogging, but that's tangential to the point of the thread-- getting a club of authors together to try out each other's stories, yes?

As for ratings, we could RECOMMEND "five or none" for the reasons we've all cited, but I guess there's no way to enforce that. But whatever, you know? Let's just get in there and write and play for the love of story itself.

Looking forward to exchanging some ArcIDs!

I'm going Force Field / Beam. (Boo, hiss, Defender!) But if I had the option, I'd go Beam / Force Field (yay Corruptor) since Beam works great with Corruptors.

"Why not Sonic?" Well, I've tried sonic in the past, and all it seems to do is get you killed slightly slower. Damage resistance on a character that's hardly a tank to begin with doesn't go a long way. Whether solo or trying to avoid taking fire on a team, I got mauled frequently on my sonic. And the endurance costs, man!

With Defense, from FF or from Traps or technically from Time, you can AVOID many shots entirely. You can also stack up the bonuses from Thunderstrike, Scorpion Shield, Manuvers, Steadfast, etc. I've got a FF/Beam build right here that's near softcap on S/L/Ranged and well past it on Energy. That means something which debuffs you simply doesn't land, too.

You can do the same thing with Traps as a Corruptor, and have a wild spray of other nice tools, to boot. If I didn't already have two trappers at 50 I'd run that, too. Kinda bored of traps now.

I'm in.

As for negativity, I think things like this help fight that. We need some postivity, to show that even with the issues AE faces, stories can and will be written. We will persevere.

I also agree to "five or none" when it comes to ratings, with this caveat: No hard feelings for no rating. It could mean you just don't feel it's a stellar arc, it could mean you don't like the ratings system in general, whatever. As long as you don't help downvote an arc, it's all good.

Honestly, I prefer them being given out over time rather than in huge bursts. Especially if we're going to have quarterly rotating content -- I don't want to be caught without tokens when something comes around that I think I'd like.

I didn't know that they were considering burst tokens before. I'm glad it got the axe. And I'm still paying less for my VIP than most, so hey, score.