MA Super Team Starting and we want you!

This sounds like a lot of fun. Some of those times get early for someone on the West Coast, but I'll have to see what I can do about that waking up thing

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Check out one of my most recent arcs:
457506 - A Very Special Episode - An abandoned TV, a missing kid's TV show host and more
416951 - The Ms. Manners Task Force - More wacky villains, Wannabes. things in poor taste
or one of my other arcs including two 2010 Player's Choice Winners and an2009 Official AE Awards Nominee for Best Original Story

Sounds like a mess over there.

As for us, we will have to manage but I am sure we will find a worthy starable person. Better make a list for Halloween themed arcs I guess.

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It looks like the weather is going to prevent the electrical work on my home today (something about being in the rain while working on live wires or something) so I should be there at noon.


WN

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Check out one of my most recent arcs:
457506 - A Very Special Episode - An abandoned TV, a missing kid's TV show host and more
416951 - The Ms. Manners Task Force - More wacky villains, Wannabes. things in poor taste
or one of my other arcs including two 2010 Player's Choice Winners and an2009 Official AE Awards Nominee for Best Original Story

Nice run this afternoon. We played all Halloween/Horror arcs. Here is what we ran:


Halloween Night by @BinkDeBook Arc ID: 227436

The Amulet of J'gara by @Lazarus

Hallows Eve and The Pumpkin Master by @Ms Liberty Too Arc ID: 102372
NOTE - Thia one we could not finish because the boss never spawned.

Little Red Riding Hood: A Grimm Tale by @Stars and Stripe


WN

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Check out one of my most recent arcs:
457506 - A Very Special Episode - An abandoned TV, a missing kid's TV show host and more
416951 - The Ms. Manners Task Force - More wacky villains, Wannabes. things in poor taste
or one of my other arcs including two 2010 Player's Choice Winners and an2009 Official AE Awards Nominee for Best Original Story

Yep, was a fun group as usual, too bad the missions came up lame this run.

Halloween Night:
Had some great dialogue and good looking custom enemies, but, unfortunately, they were way overpowered and overpopulated. Those ambushes of stunning, slowing, holding, etc witches were beyond nasty. I think we had 4 or 5 team wipes before we just stealthed our way out of it.

Note to the author- your custom allies almost never survived long enough for us to encounter them. We could see thier chat, but didn't actually see a live Hesling until we completed the mission objectives.

Amulet of J'gara:
Probably the best of the bunch, but that's really not saying much this weekend. The concept, dialogue, and story for this arc were solid but it suffered from "your princess is in another castle" syndrome: too many wild goose chases making the arc feel like filler.

The second mission could be deleted completely without losing any story and we were joking that the Midnighter hostage (McNeil?) must be competing with Fusionette for most times captured. Between the repetition and fluff there's a good story, tho.

Hallows Eve & the Pumpkin Master:
Looked like a fun mission filled with classic halloween monsters, but either the mission was bugged or it's designed as a trick on the players since the objective was "4 Pumpkin Master" (we figured that meant defeat or find 4 pumpkin masters) but there were none on the map. The enemies that were on the map had great costumes, tho! After beating up 1/4 of the map and not seeingn any progress we scouted, couldn't find anything, then quit.

Little Red Riding Hood:
This one was...strange? It had 27 plays and a 5 star rate so we had high hopes...zoned in, beat up Red and a group of Red Caps then mission completed. Huh????

Not sure if it was a bug or what. I scouted around after and found the Big Bad Wolf stuck in the ground and couldn't attack him. Red's costume was nice and her dialogue was good, but I think we missed something here.

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Craft your inventions in AE!!

Play "Crafter's Cafe" - Arc #487283. A 1 mission, NON-COMBAT AE arc with workable invention tables!

Next Saturday (11/7) I'll be running some missions at night if anyone wants to join me. I'll be starting at 8pm EST and will be on to do mission for about 3-4 hours.

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Mind you, we are looking at this thing form a team play perspective. Yes, we read every briefing, debriefing, clues, bio's and dialogue. We give each other all the time needed to read everything, to find out where that big bad monster spawned that was promised. But fair is fair, in a team it is harder to spot as many details then when you play solo.

I doubt that you can find more attentive teams playing your arcs then you find with this superteam. But when all is said and done. It remains a team and that limits our perspective.

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Today's run included the following arcs:


Grim Riddles 1396 @Mantid

Speeding Through Time 51728 @Geek_Boy

Illpracticed Malpractice by @Zamuel Arc ID: 246459


WN

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Check out one of my most recent arcs:
457506 - A Very Special Episode - An abandoned TV, a missing kid's TV show host and more
416951 - The Ms. Manners Task Force - More wacky villains, Wannabes. things in poor taste
or one of my other arcs including two 2010 Player's Choice Winners and an2009 Official AE Awards Nominee for Best Original Story

This Weeks Schedule:

Tuesday starting 6:00pm EST - MA Super Team Member Arc, we will randomly pick one of the member's that show up and they will get to choose which of their arc we all play.

Saturday Noon EST - Open Teaming.

Saturday 8:00pm EST - Lead by OzzieArcane.

Sunday Noon EST - Open Teaming.


WN

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Check out one of my most recent arcs:
457506 - A Very Special Episode - An abandoned TV, a missing kid's TV show host and more
416951 - The Ms. Manners Task Force - More wacky villains, Wannabes. things in poor taste
or one of my other arcs including two 2010 Player's Choice Winners and an2009 Official AE Awards Nominee for Best Original Story

I'm thinking some Fearghas arcs would be fun to run this weekend in celebration of his promotion to Doctor!

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Craft your inventions in AE!!

Play "Crafter's Cafe" - Arc #487283. A 1 mission, NON-COMBAT AE arc with workable invention tables!

Last night we had our first "Play Our Own Arcs" night and FredrikSvanberg won the draw. We had a good time playing an arc of his that he is working on and is almost ready for publishing. Hopefully, our feedback will be of use to him.


WN

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Check out one of my most recent arcs:
457506 - A Very Special Episode - An abandoned TV, a missing kid's TV show host and more
416951 - The Ms. Manners Task Force - More wacky villains, Wannabes. things in poor taste
or one of my other arcs including two 2010 Player's Choice Winners and an2009 Official AE Awards Nominee for Best Original Story

The feedback was useful although at times a bit confusing: "Maybe too many ambushes." "I like ambushes!" "I want at least 5 ambushes per mission."

Seriously though it was good to run with a team to see what needed changing. I had no idea the arc was so bloated; I could solo it in 20 minutes but it took our team of four people 2 hours! I'm already thinking about what I can cut out to make it run smoother.

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Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522

I must have been nerve-wracking to run your own arc on a team full of critics, your avatar seems very appropriate for the occasion ;P

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Craft your inventions in AE!!

Play "Crafter's Cafe" - Arc #487283. A 1 mission, NON-COMBAT AE arc with workable invention tables!

Today we did MA Roulette. The way it works is that we randomly pick three Keywords and then hit the "One Random" button.


Ideal for Teams, Mystery and Sci-Fi got us:

Measure of a Machine by @Creed Buhallin Arc ID: 267757


Custom Characters, Origin Story and Kid Friendly landed us with:

Old Dog, New Trick by K10 Arc ID: 81318


WN

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Check out one of my most recent arcs:
457506 - A Very Special Episode - An abandoned TV, a missing kid's TV show host and more
416951 - The Ms. Manners Task Force - More wacky villains, Wannabes. things in poor taste
or one of my other arcs including two 2010 Player's Choice Winners and an2009 Official AE Awards Nominee for Best Original Story

Another fun weekend of MARC-ing! We had a full-8 team running for most of the missions but villains were strangely absent this week...maybe too much Halloween candy?

Anyway, the random button did us good. We played 2 solid arcs, gained a couple levels and cracked wise as usual!

First up was Measure of a Machine by @Creed Buhallin Arc ID: 267757

In this arc, our team is recruited to help find a lost SG mate and wind up thwarting a larger plot by an evil Crey scientist.

This mission only had, like 7 plays so we really didn't know what to expect, and it was noted in the description text that it was made for a specific SG. So, right from the get-go we were skeptical.

We were worried a bit more since "Sci Fi" was one of our filters, yet our contact was dressed in a knight's armor and spoke like a character from Asgard...

But we quickly realized that he was merely a member of a Supergroup that had sci fi, heroic & fantasy type characters in it. Much like the Avengers have Thor, the Vision & Capt A, but are not considered a "fantasy" group. Still, initially it was hard to think sci fi when reading the mission text.

But, luckily, the story was solid and flowed well from mission to mission. Clues were well placed & thought out and the boss dialogue wasn't generic "I'll smash you" text. Also, all of the enemies (save the final AV) were existing groups so balance wasn't an issue.

Areas for improvement:

• The "Asgard-speak" needs some grammar checks, ie. thine vs thus vs thee
• Some maps were a bit large for the few objectives needed
• Patrol dialogue would be nice to keep things fresh and flesh out the enemies' motivations. I think the first NPC chat we found was the final room of mission 2! That's a whole lotta quiet.
• Timed mission text says the team has 30 minutes to complete, but the mission is actually set to 90. Apparently the contact hasn't adjusted to Midgard Time 90 minutes was definitely better since the map was huge, so I'd update the mission text to match.
• Final AV's background didn't seem to fit the story which led up to him, but maybe that's because we're not privy to the personal history of the character in the SG.

Overall, not a bad arc, esp. since it was written for a specific SG we'd never heard of and for the parameters we searched: 3-4 stars.

Next up was Old Dog, New Trick by K10 Arc ID: 81318:

This one was a treat as K10 is one of our MA super team members and he normally plays the character whose origin is revealed in this arc. It was too bad K10 had logged off right after our first arc, it would have been fun to get his feedback as we all ran thru his.

The arc was a charming story of a how a bomb-sniffing dog becomes a super hero of Paragon City. Lots of fine details in each mission, including bios on existing NPC models and a final mission filled with custom enemies. Be sure to check out the ending souvenier for an extra sweet finishing touch.

Areas to improve:

• The final enemy group didn't mesh well visually or thematically. The powersets worked well together and nothing was overpowering, but as a group they seemed very...random.

One thing we noticed while playing with the random button was the lack of choices for "Kid-Friendly" arcs. There's an untapped niche just waiting for an arc writer to make their mark!

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Craft your inventions in AE!!

Play "Crafter's Cafe" - Arc #487283. A 1 mission, NON-COMBAT AE arc with workable invention tables!

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Tonight we ran

Arc# 250480 BE Prologue: Gangs United (Yeah my arc but it fit most our level range)

Arc # 335253 Fusionette Must Die! (Though we didn't finish it because of length and difficulty)

"Fusionette must die!" was definately interesting what we saw of it. Spoiler Image

Next time I'll try to have a bigger line up of arcs ready for us to choose from. One thing I would like to say to EVERYONE. Remember that MA arcs work like a taskforce. So if you have to leave in the middle of one. Please quit the team before you log out. I forgot about this fact till after one of our members left.

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We didn't even get to the most difficult part of FMD! if you wanna try it again next time. I mean I've soloed it but there are lots of non-required bosses that can slow you down if you stop and fight every one.

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I know we didn't get to the most difficult part. But you said we probably wouldn't be able to do it with only 3 people.

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True. Great job running this event, btw.

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Today we had a full team of eight members and a decent mix of heroes and villains. We played "Make It or Break It" which means we played only arcs that are currently rated 5 stars and have under 100 plays. The first arc we picked was:

Sister Psyche TF Abridged by @Big Rab Arc ID: 306814

It had 29 votes and was rated 5 stars. When we finished playing it had 35 votes and was holding at 5 stars. Two people decided not to rate the arc.

After this arc I had to leave, so maybe someone else could take over and fill in the rest of the run?


WN

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Check out one of my most recent arcs:
457506 - A Very Special Episode - An abandoned TV, a missing kid's TV show host and more
416951 - The Ms. Manners Task Force - More wacky villains, Wannabes. things in poor taste
or one of my other arcs including two 2010 Player's Choice Winners and an2009 Official AE Awards Nominee for Best Original Story

After you left we tried an arc which was called, if my memory doesn't fail me, "Iron Brood: The Proving Grounds". It seemed like it was some sort of SG arc, possibly used for hazing new members or at least sorely testing their patience. It was described as a VEAT arc, which is cool.

We all pretended to be loyal soldiers of Arachnos and started beating up Luddites on the Cap au Diable map with great gusto. The first map seemed promising with an interesting potential plot hook concerning Luddites trying to join the Lost, for some reason - possibly because Rikti technology is bio-mechanical in nature, but that's my own personal conjecture since there was no actual explanation given.

Unfortunately the arc didn't build any further upon the premises set in the first mission so we never got to know why we were ambushed by Clockwork either. By the third mission (which was a completely pointless kill-all in a sewer filled with sewer monsters - a mix of Vahz, Lost, Hydra and Shivans(?) for some reason - we never found anything resembling a plot to explain this mix) we were prepared to call it quits but we gave it a vote and decided to try for one more mission.

The next mission was on a cargo ship map full of Wyvern and Lost and had something to do with a new drug being smuggled somewhere. This seemed familiar because the second mission had a similar set-up but used Tsoo - a decidedly unusual enemy in Cap au Diable (which was where this all was supposed to take place). After a team-wipe on the first destructible crate filled with drugs we could find we decided that enough is enough.

I have no idea what the initial or final ratings of this arc were and frankly I don't care. I gave it 2 stars because it didn't seem to be a farm, even if it made a good impression of one.

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Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522

That arc was a great disappointment. Especially after the first briefing which set the mood rightly. It did not follow up and we abandoned it in the 4th mission. It felt as if the author stopped caring about his arc after mission 1.

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