Thank Goodness It's Mission Architect Thursday!

I wonder if it would be good for you to post something in the corresponding server forum as well. I also wonder if only one team is good. However, community oriented events is probably the right way to rebuild AE's status.

BTW...pics?

Thanks for a fun time, Z.

For those that didn't make it, here's how it went down:

If you're at all familiar with these kinds of community events, then you know they usually start sometime between 4p and 6p Pacific. So, even tho there was no time posted, sure enough; about 530p a redname was sighted on Protector!

Zwill hovered above an enthusiastic crowd of heroes under the Atlas statue for about 20-30 minutes fielding questions on the upcoming CoH: Freedom update, then (after a suggestion) moved the party to RWZ's AE to get things started and allow villains to join in the AE fun.

We easily had enough for 2, maybe 3 teams but Z was the lone redname so, like the Highlander, there could be only ONE! He randomly picked names from Broadcast and formed team "Totally radical, 4shure, 4shure!" Okay, that wasn't the official name but it, like, sounded good in my head, 'kay!?!

Z let us know that we'd be playing an arc suggested in this thread: #60197, "Becky's Revenge." A couple of us on the team had played this arc before and there was one player who got particularly excited when they realized the arc was about THE Becky from CoV! (If you've played Vernon Von Grunn's arc, you know which one we're talking about!) We we not disappointed!

The action was pretty fast paced and I'm not sure people took much time to actually read and follow the story, but those that did seemed to enjoy the dialog and how well the arc fit into existing canon. Of particular note was how well the missions scaled up to a full team of 8. Nothing felt unbalanced and a good time was had by all At the conclusion of the arc, team chat exploded into like, totally, the most bitchinest, radical, valley girl speak eh-var! 4shure!!

On the flip side, the group missed some of the dialog, tho, as Z was not completely familiar with the workings of shared & unshared AE mission text. He didn't copy/paste any of the "Busy" text (the dialog the contact gives if you go back to them mid-mission), he didn't paste the contact bio (tho I'm not sure Becky had one), and he accidentally clicked the first mission's debrief text closed before pasting all of it for the team.

While I was sad the team missed out on more of the details that makes this arc great, I'm actually kind of glad a redname had to experience the issues we, as players, have to try and work around when teaming thru an AE arc every day. Maybe they'll be more likely to consider a future update to address these concerns.

All in all, it seemed like everyone had an awesome time and were hungry for more! Thanks again to Zwillinger for taking the time to put AE back in a good light and generate some interest in this unique game feature

Suggestions for future Thursdays:

1- Initially meet in RWZ so villains can also ask questions about CoH: Freedom or whatever you want to discuss, pre-AE event. (note: on certain servers you may want to choose RWZ 2 or 3 so as not to interfere with forming iTrials)

2- If more than 1 redname is available, have them lead a 2nd or 3rd team.

3- Educate rednames on the limitations of shared text in AE missions so they know what needs to be copy/pasted into team chat. Contact bio, Busy txt, and Debriefing txt are only available to the team leader. (also, the notification that a Clue has dropped only shows for the leader so they would need to say "Clue" in team chat to inform the rest of the team to check their Clue tab)

4- Encourage slower play & reading. Ask that the team takes the time to read the mission text before entering. This is for 2 reasons: 1: the mission text box refreshes each time someone zones, making it difficult to read if teammates enter while reading. 2: it avoids the "Hot Door" team wipe if a patrol or close spawn aggros on the team while they're reading inside and unaware.

5- Play more than 1 arc...time permitting, of course! Becky's Revenge was only a 2 mish arc so it was over pretty fast. Easily could have slipped in another 2 or 3 mish arc!

Well, I was lucky enough to be picked.

The story was light and fluffy (without spoiling anything) and the ending had a hilarious in-joke to players. The dialog was very well put together and believable for the characters involved; the word-of-mouth exchanges you receive make it obvious why the characters were chosen.

On the first mission the enemy groups were scattered pretty wide, making debuffing difficult. On the second mission, at times they were so clustered into one another they bled together. Both of those have the potential to cause difficulty issues, but we had a lot of mez and debuffs, so we didn't have any problems.

It was a fast, simple, and enjoyable time. But even as an upbeat arc, the storyline wasn't as involved as I would have liked. There also didn't appear to be much of a motivation for the player (your character) to be taking part in the story other than Becky's involvement, at least from what I gathered. That's just my opinion.

I understand that it's partially the fault of the system for not letting teammates see return dialog, but after so many years I figured that people would know better than to use it for important information. There were no clues and no souvenir was awarded at the arc's completion. Had Z not pasted the final mission's return text, I would have had no idea how the thing really ended.

I five stared it, because it was an entertaining story and I had a good time. But the story's delivery, particularly to teammates, could use some work.

Thanks Z, for picking me to come along. And thanks @New Age Ronin for making the arc.

As an aside, I don't recommend soloing Faultline on a character with no mez protection.

Thanks to Demon Shell and BackFire for these write-ups! These were the sorts of fluff/info I was hoping for from Zwill, but I do recognize that his defined job may not allow time for such frippery .

I think the way info gets blocked from players other than team leaders was probably something they already knew about; if the rest of the game allowed it to be shared more easily, I'm sure we'd have that too. Whether or not they can write up some code to change that is something I hope they're looking into now.

My experience with this limitation just means I make a mental note about arc X to replay it again later solo. Maybe this should get tossed out to the inexperienced masses as something for them to consider - not the best option, but one we have right now.

Going over my favs list recently and wanted to nominate another arc:

#144447 "Gladiators of Venus
5 mish arc

Freitag and I invaded Champion today and played Fear and Loathing on Striga #350522 by @FredrikSvanberg with a super team! I forgot to take a screenshot actually, shame on me, but you know who you are!

The Arc was really interesting and the first 3-4 missions were a blast. Although to be quite honest I was too busy leec... erm, reading descriptions, clues and whatnots to really show off my wee Crab.

Keep recommending more arcs if you think they are Dev Choice worthy!

I would like to nominate the following arc for this honor:

Madness + Murder = Bedlam! (arc# 259194) by @Swelter.

And Ava, it figures you forget to take a screenie the one time I make it to something like this! ;o

Question: At the end of the month, does only the best of the four arcs played have a chance at getting a Dev's Choice, or do all four (or five on some months) arcs have a chance to become Dev's Choice based on their own merit - so anywhere from 0 to 5 arcs each month could become a Dev's Choice?

I would like to submit the following recommendations :

by @dragon-hawke : arc 221617 - Unification of Villainy

and

by @twiztid dragon : arc 217401 - Creature Feature Cruise of Terror

I'd like to recommend a collaborative set of beginner arcs that are alignment specific for the end badge reward but awesome nonetheless for those just starting out or getting introduced to AE :

Arc 137005 : An Introduction to Mission Architect : The Heroic Badge Collection

Arc 206108 : An Introduction to Mission Architect : The Villainous Badge Collection

Arc 448313 : An Introduction to Mission Architect : The Rogue Badge Collection

Arc 448387 : An Introduction to Mission Architect : The Vigilante Badge Collection

Submitting another long-time fav:

#1396 "Grim Riddles" @Mantid
5 Mishes

Any word on which arc was picked this week?

This week's arc was #346904 "Against the Wickerwork Khan" by @Clave Dark 5.

Justice was this week's server pick and Avatea showed up to lead at about 4pm Pacific. Unfortunately, the team was filled by the time we even got word of a dev sighting and what server she was on. But Bubbawheat and I hung out in the lobby to see who made it and what was played.

We recognized @Tubbius when they came out of mission 1. And I found his mini-review in the Excellent Arcs thread this morning.

I'm a celebrity?

I'd like to add in a recommendation. I had a blast playing through this huge, epic 5-part story. The villain group was very original.

Arc 149433
The fall of Mender Moebius : Part 1 : The Beginning of the End
by @Dragon Surge

Arc 331466
The fall of Mender Moebius : Part 2 : Arachnos Park
by @Dragon'ness

Arc 324392
The fall of MEnder Moebius : Part 3 : The Abductions
by @Kindred Dragon

Arc 263911
The fall of Mender Moebius : Part 4 : Penultimatum
by @Twiztid Dragon

Arc 263823
The fall of Mender Moebius : Part 5 : The End of the Beginning
by @Dragon-hawke