Archipelago (Completed)

[Explorer of Time]

Mission 70/83: Steps of the Rite

Before giving the Tal'darim an opportunity to strike first, we pre-emptively hit their homeworld of Slayn with a massive Protoss aerial assault, building up a large army of Destroyers backed up by a few Carriers and a Mothership, slaying their four Guardians, and destroying all their bases and two of their three remaining Motherships. In the process of warping in the fleet, we were attacked by Void Shadows, weak fascimilies of Terran, Protoss, and Zerg units created by a powerful Void entity through the planet's large supply of Terrazine Gas. We had thought to be impossible to create now that Amon is dead, but if something else is capable of creating them... it's best to be sure. I'll put our top scientists on it.

In the meantime, we've obtained several treasures from conquering Slayn. First off, we found some Wheat Seeds for PoryKid's Stardew Valley shortly after arriving on the planet, and the two Motherships we destroyed had a Protein for Jbsundown's Crystal and a Garoozis Yu-Gi-Oh card for Arcaneum. It's been a long time since we've found a new Yu-Gi-Oh card, and we were wondering if the game had died off in the Koprulu Sector in recent days. This seems not to be the case, and we found the card's original owner imprisoned by the Tal'darim below the Northeast Guardian's chamber, and sent that Duelist back to Domino City for Arcaneum to duel.

The Northwest Guardian had a TM14 (Blizzard) for Raven's Gen 1 game, the West Guardian had three Bombs for Alex Fox's LttP, and the final Guardian had both an Ultra Ball for Arcaneum's LeafGreen and genetic sequences to improve our Zerg Flyers' attack.

With Slayn conquered at long last, we have nearly avenged Alarak's rip-off. The Tal'darim still have one planet left, Typhon, which they are sending all their remaining forces to for a last stand. They also have a Xel'naga Worldship in the Sigma Quadrant en route to Typhon, that we plan to intercept before they have a chance to merge their forces.

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

Question for everyone: How do you feel about completed games using !collect? Basically grabs all of that completed game's items from other games.

Example: Completed Civilization 6. Types !collect into the client. Takes Progressive Space Port out of Bom-omb Battlefield (Star 1) in James's Mario 64 game. (Disclaimer: Did not look at the spoiler log to see if that was there.) Might show as that star having been collected. Cannot really say for sure.

If I understood the description of what that does correctly, I'm personally completely against it. I'd really rather not have checks in whatever game I'm playing simply not be there, because I'm the type who's gonna check them anyway. If it just turned everything unimportant into a green rupee for example, that would be fine, but if I open a chest and just get nothing, or worse, the chest is already opened to begin with, there goes most of my mid-run intertainment. Feel free to correct anything I may have misunderstood though.

 

[𒈟Lavemu𒐫]

don't know much about whats happening here but hope yall are having a good time and good luck 💖

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

don't know much about whats happening here but hope yall are having a good time an d good luck 💖

Thank you Lavy! ^^

And we're using a program that takes all the collectable items in a game (think the stars you collect in Mario 64 or Mega Man's weapon upgrades) and mixes up where you find them in game (think getting Ice Man's weapon after beating Drill Man). Now, after all the items are mixed up, it then takes the items and switches them with the items from someone else's game (think Mario finding Fire Man's weapon instead of a star in Bob-omb Battlefield), and after the item is collected in one game, it gets sent to the other. So in order for everyone to beat their games, everyone else has to play their own games so all the important items are unlocked. I hope that made sense!

 

[Devalue]

If I understood the description of what that does correctly, I'm personally completely against it. I'd really rather not have checks in whatever game I'm playing simply not be there, because I'm the type who's gonna check them anyway. If it just turned everything unimportant into a green rupee for example, that would be fine, but if I open a chest and just get nothing, or worse, the chest is already opened to begin with, there goes most of my mid-run intertainment. Feel free to correct anything I may have misunderstood though.

Sounds like you have it right. Tested it quick to be more precise by making a game with Pokemon Red, Link to the Past, and Terraria. Used !release and !collect in Pokemon to simulate a completed game. Went into Link to the Past. Jumped into Kakariko Well. Saw four unopened chests in the front (1 rupee, Terraria's Tackle Box, Piece of Heart, and 20 rupees) and one already opened chest behind the bombable wall (which would have been Red's Full Restore).

Will probably hold off on !collects for completed games until you finish your games. Appears to be kinda close-ish in Link to the Past. Still needs Flippers, the Turtle Rock medallion, Ice Big Key, and Silver Arrows, by the looks of it. Does not know Zelda 1 enough to judge that. Sees three untouched dungeons and a boss. Probably needs a Raft for one of those.

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

Sounds like you have it right. Tested it quick to be more precise by making a game with Pokemon Red, Link to the Past, and Terraria. Used !release and !collect in Pokemon to simulate a completed game. Went into Link to the Past. Jumped into Kakariko Well. Saw four unopened chests in the front (1 rupee, Terraria's Tackle Box, Piece of Heart, and 20 rupees) and one already opened chest behind the bombable wall (which would have been Red's Full Restore).

Will probably hold off on !collects for completed games until you finish your games. Appears to be kinda close-ish in Link to the Past. Still needs Flippers, the Turtle Rock medallion, Ice Big Key, and Silver Arrows, by the looks of it. Does not know Zelda 1 enough to judge that. Sees three untouched dungeons and a boss. Probably needs a Raft for one of those.

Thank you for clarifying. And thank you for offering to wait as well, but if the majority of players want to have stuff already done for them so they don't waste time, then don't hold off on my account. I just can't personally understand why people want less things to do in whatever game/s they chose to play. Like if a specific check or two sucks to obtain, just turn that/those location/s off? Anyway...

Yeah, you're right about ALttP, and for Z1 I need my Flute, Raft, OR just my Triforce pieces and Silver Arrow, because I have all the items I need to get to Ganon (if the way was clear), I just need the thing to kill him, and the 'keys' to the door.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Thank you for clarifying. And thank you for offering to wait as well, but if the majority of players want to have stuff already done for them so they don't waste time, then don't hold off on my account. I just can't personally understand why people want less things to do in whatever game/s they chose to play. Like if a specific check or two sucks to obtain, just turn that/those location/s off? Anyway...

Yeah, you're right about ALttP, and for Z1 I need my Flute, Raft, OR just my Triforce pieces and Silver Arrow, because I have all the items I need to get to Ganon (if the way was clear), I just need the thing to kill him, and the 'keys' to the door.

As one of the people who wanted !collect, I'm fine waiting for you. I'm likely going to finish tomorrow and !collect will only save me ten minutes at most. I wanted it primarily for mission prioritization.

 

[Setsuna]

Question for everyone: How do you feel about completed games using !collect? Basically grabs all of that completed game's items from other games.

Example: Completed Civilization 6. Types !collect into the client. Takes Progressive Space Port out of Bom-omb Battlefield (Star 1) in James's Mario 64 game. (Disclaimer: Did not look at the spoiler log to see if that was there.) Might show as that star having been collected. Cannot really say for sure.

Positive: Collects fewer useless items. Speeds up the people still playing by removing things for them to do.
Negative: May become confused why something that normally gives an item does nothing.

Personally views it as a good idea. Wanted to hear what others think.

I don't think it's a bad idea, it can make things cleaner, but I don't think I want it, personally.
The way I see it, there isn't really a reason for games that are already completed to take away the excitement of what something an incomplete game could find. Like for example if you've been really excited to get your Cut HM in a Pokemon game so you can check one item, and you finally obtain it from someone so you go to check, and there's nothing there because it's already been claimed without you, I think that'd be really discouraging. The mystery of "everything could be something important so I should check everything" has been really appealing to me and it would rob that feeling from me if some of my checks were removed because they had already been claimed. Basically, I agree that removing useless items from the pool would be good and make things quicker, but I personally think it would make things less fun by removing the uncertainty that keeps it thrilling.

This is just an assumption I'm making, so feel free to correct me, but based on the multi-world tracker it's looking like every game that's completed has cleared out their checks 100% anyways. I don't think it matters unless you've completed your game but still aren't able to obtain a remaining check that you know is an item that's very helpful for someone else. I don't think the person with the completed game benefits from that either, because they don't have a goal to work towards and don't benefit from taking an item for their game from someone else.

I think something like the !collect command could potentially make things go faster, but given this is a whole group activity and part of the fun comes from everyone being able to help everyone out, I think it could majorly imbalance people's games or experiences with their games.

Feel free to take this with a grain of salt, I'm playing one game that's like 95% finished by this point. But for however much my opinion matters, I'm strongly against it.

Edit: Though I did also want to ask this, are we in a rush to have people's games completed? Do we have a deadline of any sort?

 

[Explorer of Time]

Mission 71/83: Maw of the Void

To make sure the Tal'darim can't link up their remaining forces, we hit their Worldship in the Sigma Quadrant during their retreat to Typhon. The Worldship had several Rip Field Generators that would rapidly damage all our unshielded units, but thankfully our Terran forces (our Protoss being out of range) had four shielded Battlecruisers available to destroy the Generators. We also came across several imprisoned Dark Templar who aided us in destroying the Tal'darim, who were quite useful because they were both shielded and cloaked. Our main attack force, once the rip fields were down, was an aerial assault with our four Battlecruisers and every available aerial Mercenary unit, with the Dark Templar assisting us against ground targets not near a Photon Cannon. We destroyed the last Tal'darim Mothership, too, leaving them without a single Mothership to defend Typhon.

This Worldship had quite a lot of treasure for us. First off, the Mothership we destroyed carried 50 Time Shards for Setsuna, and the Dark Templar prisons each had an item for us. The southwest prison had 10 Arrows for Alex's LttP, the north prison had a TM47 (Steel Wing) for Arcaneum's LeafGreen, the east prison had a Laser Targeting System to improve our Marines' attack range, and the last prison had an upgrade for Supplicants, a Protoss unit I don't have.

The Rip Field Generators also had treasure. One had a Small Key for Alex's LttP, another had a Stardust for Arcaneum's LeafGreen, and a third had a Cup of Noodles for Devalue's Earthbound. Since Protoss do not have mouths, we believe that this Cup of Noodles was for the ships original Xel'naga inhabitants. It's amazing they've stayed edible all these thousands of years.

A fourth Rip Field Generator had a Music CD (Operator) for the Bomb Rush Crew to listen to, and the fifth had a Nugget for Jbsundown. The sixth had a Red Skull Key for Sever the Wicked (E4M3), a place in Hell that Doomguy is sure to want to explore. From the last Rip Field Generator, we found The King Map for Vendily. Then we hit the Artifact Vault itself and found Railgun Turrets for Terran Ravens, but we have no Ravens yet that could make use of them, and it's unlikely we'll get any in time for our last missions.

With the Sigma Quadrant cleared, it's time to launch our assault on Typhon and win the war with the Tal'darim once and for all!

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

As one of the people who wanted !collect, I'm fine waiting for you. I'm likely going to finish tomorrow and !collect will only save me ten minutes at most. I wanted it primarily for mission prioritization.

My games are close enough to finished that it shouldn't matter all that much, but thank you for the consideration, I appreciate that. 🎀 If you'd really prefer to have the command used for your run now, then let it happen, it's all cool.

Also what you said is pretty much exactly how I feel about it @Setsuna, but the way you said it was much clearer than how I did, so thanks for putting it into better words.

 

[Setsuna]

Also what you said is pretty much exactly how I feel about it @Setsuna, but the way you said it was much clearer than how I did, so thanks for putting it into better words.

Eh what can I say, I like to talk a lot.~

I don't have a whole lot to add besides a thank you to the people who have found my keys so quickly! I was expecting them to be found over the course of two or three weeks or something, but I'm just missing one before I go out and about to fight my final boss.
The only thing I've got to mention is if my Power Thistle gets found, I'd like to be messaged or pinged here or something, it's the next thing I'll grab with a hint whenever possible.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Mission 72/83: Supernova

Our forces traveled to the planet Typhon, where the Tal'darim Protoss were making their final stand. Knowing they were outmatched and about to die anyway, however, the Tal'darim launched a missile that hit Typhon's star and made it prepare to go supernova. The exploding star bombarded the entire planet with massive waves of fire during the daytime. With the Tal'darim base east* of us, we needed to fight through them to move our army and mobile Terran buildings east to evacuate. We hit the Tal'darim with an army of Banshees and Marines, plus a few miscellaneous mercenaries, and took down their bases with several minutes to spare before our bases were incinerated, and made it to a safe evac site.

*Typhon has retrograde rotation.

We found eight treasures here that we quickly scooped up before leaving the planet. The landing zone we cleared had a Full Restore for 5qwerty's FireRed, and we found an Apicot Berry for Arcaneum's LeafGreen just north of our base. South of it, we found a Queen's Double Yu-Gi-Oh card for Arcaneum, and the western item was just a useless Protoss relic, so we let the fire incinerate it and told everyone the Bomb Rush Crew stole it from under our noses, getting them 8 REP.

Moving forward to attack the bases, we hit the middle Tal'darim base first and found a suit of green Armor for Doomguy, then found a Partial Invisibility for him just east of the base. The southeast base held tech we can use to make our Protoss Arbiters' Stasis Fields last longer, and finally, the last Tal'darim base had an Artifact Vault that contained tech to increase the range of our Terran static defense structures.

The Tal'darim have now been completely defeated, and we will face no further Protoss enemies. We remain at war with only one enemy faction in the Koprulu Sector... the Zerg Swarm. With no other distractions, we can now focus entirely on them, and will land an army at Char to slay the Queen of Blades herself soon.

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

One idea about that 'collect' command that could work (provided there are more sessions of this ran) is to do one series with the understanding that the command will be used by all players, and the next series could be done with no one using it, then switch back and forth like that. That way no one has to settle for just one way or the other, and can pick games to suit whichever version that's coming next.

 

[Explorer of Time]

As a side note from the mission logs I've been doing, I'm looking over other Archipelagos, and Doom 1 and/or 2 look like they'd be fun to try in a hypothetical future Multiworld. Possibly Sonic Adventure 2: Battle as well, if I can figure out how to set up their levels in a way I want.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Notices no Shipping Bin for PoryKid (formerly Coolkid) yet, either. Should be a Sphere 1 check too. (Edit: Looked at the spoiler log. Nooooope.)

That shouldn't be a problem now, I just found it.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Mission 73/83: The Gates of Hell

With our armies now focused entirely on the Zerg Swarm, we sent our Terran soldiers en masse to attack Char and secure a landing site for us to safely land the Keystone. We received heavy reinforcements from eight Drop Pods, and trained almost all of our mercenaries, giving us a huge army to attack and destroy all the Zerg in the area.

Two drop pods landed in areas with treasure, the fourth having Void Ray schematics for our Protoss, and the sixth having a Jumbo Buffoon Pack for 5qwerty's Balatro. The 8th drop pod's occupants also gave us information on how to halve damage taken with low HP via Damage Control, and we sent the info over to Sora and Goofy to help them out. It doesn't work on our units, though.

We also destroyed six spore cannons, each of which had treasure. Two of them had Balatro Jokers, one having Ride the Bus and the other having Cartomancer. We gave these both to 5qwerty. The southern Spore Cannon had a Pecha Berry for 5qwerty's FireRed, and the northeast Spore Cannon had a Max Potion for Arcaneum's LeafGreen. The eastern Spore Cannon had 21 Coins for Vendily, and, most importantly, the southwestern Spore Cannon had a valuable Shipping Bin for PoryKid's Stardew Valley. We also found some Bok Choy Seeds for PoryKid growing underneath the last Nydus Worm we slew.

With a landing zone secure, we can now land the Keystone, and all we need to do is fortify it until it's ready to fire and kill the Queen of Blades, leaving our Kerrigan clone as the one and only Kerrigan. Once that's done, we will have fully secured Char.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Mission 74/83: All In

We successfully landed the Keystone on Char, and heavily fortified our base against the Zerg attacks, hiring as many mercs as we could until we hit our pop cap, then building and lifting off as many Planetary Fortresses to provide 0-pop flying fortresses to assist in base defense. The Queen of Blades herself came after us on five separate occasions, but each time we hit her with overwhelming firepower and forced her to retreat. Once the Keystone was fully charged, we fired, obliterating every last Zerg on Char including the Queen of Blades.

We found five new items in the aftermath, none of them very important. First, we found Protoss Havocs for ourselves, and this was followed up by another Red Flute and Liechi Berry for Arcaneum's LeafGreen. Then, we found a Moomoo Milk for 5qwerty's FireRed, and finally a Hiro's Shadow Scout Yu-Gi-Oh card for Arcaneum.

With the Queen of Blades slain and Char fully secure, the Zerg Swarm has been broken and now lies completely leaderless. However, there are still a couple billion uncoordinated Feral Zerg throughout the Koprulu Sector, and I have a plan to defeat them all with minimal losses to ourselves.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Mission 75/83: Amon's Reach

Now, to unveil our plan to deal with the feral Zerg... We happen to have the blueprints to a device called a Psi Emitter, taken from our leader's time in the Sons of Korhal before her defection. Psi Emitters attract Zerg to attack whatever location they're placed on. A powerful Zerg entity can resist the call of a Psi Emitter, but we've either taken control of or slain every single one. And now we can herd the Zerg to a battleground of our choosing.

Said battleground, of course, will be Shakuras. Home to the only significant rival we have left, the Nerazim Protoss, and also to a Xel'naga temple capable of destroying an entire planet's worth of Zerg if properly charged, just as it did during the Brood War. And to arm it, we need the Uraj and Khalis crystals, which we happen to have in our possession due to a couple of raids during the Kaldir War.

Now, to plant the Psi Emitters. We need to plant a few on the neighboring worlds of Endion, Borea, and Antiga Prime to make sure we guide all the Zerg to Shakuras, which is easily done since all of them are well within our space, but planting Psi Emitters on Shakuras itself will prove to be more difficult. Thankfully, a recent Zerg attack on the city of Talematros has given us an opportunity to offer our "assistance" in defending the city.

I warped in a base on the surface, and trained up some Instigators, Annihilators, Void Rays, and a Mothership, all crewed by my most loyal Protoss, and had them easily dispatch the un-coordinated feral Zerg attacks. Strangely enough, we were also attacked by Void Thrashers, entities formed to carry out the will of a Xel'naga, though they were all easily slain. If the Void Shadows on Slayn weren't enough proof, this is. There is a second Xel'naga out there, apart from Amon. Thankfully, it has no corporeal form and no non-void minions to control, so I'll send an army into the Void to deal with it soon.

Back to the mission, after dispatching the Void Thrashers, we cleared the infestation of Talematros's Launch Bays and allowed the civilians of the city to evacuate to our own planets. We plan to keep them there, as this entire planet is about to be overrun by Zerg. We also looted the city's three Solarite Reserves, and planted as many cloaked Psi Emitters as we could throughout the city, ensuring that while the city may be cleared of Zerg for now, it won't be for long.

The Solarite Reserves had a Pinap Berry for 5qwerty's FireRed, stronger Protoss Air Weapons for ourselves, and a Silver Feather for Vendily. The Launch Bays had a Timer Ball and Full Heal for 5qwerty's FireRed, an X Defend for Arcaneum's LeafGreen, and a Projectile Refill for confused_piplup. I don't know if the Silver Feather is important, but nothing else here is.

Now... all we have to do is wait. I'll command the mission into the void so our armies have something to do before the Zerg arrive.

 

[Devalue]

Thank you for clarifying. And thank you for offering to wait as well, but if the majority of players want to have stuff already done for them so they don't waste time, then don't hold off on my account. I just can't personally understand why people want less things to do in whatever game/s they chose to play. Like if a specific check or two sucks to obtain, just turn that/those location/s off? Anyway...

Views Archipelago through a different lens. Learned about multiworlds before hearing about Archipelago. Only linked up Link to the Past games. Watched people play it in real-time. Always kept routing in mind. Asked "What will get items the quickest?". Do you head into Palace of Darkness without a Bow for quicker checks, knowing you cannot complete it, or do you do slower, out-of-the-way checks like the smith chain? Do you skip Ice Rod Cave until you get the Flute/Pegasus Boots? That kind of thing. Thinks like this to minimize people getting stuck and waiting for items.

Caught some videos of people playing Archipelago, eventually. Played in real-time also. Set their goals with available time in mind (sometimes). May not have time to do 7 crystal Ganon. Maybe 4 crystal Ganon, though. Personally liked the lower requirements. Spices up the game when you may not enter a dungeon for a few seeds in a row. Grumbles at the trip through Castle Tower, for example. Sees it rarely enough to be a little special.

Never actually saw or played Archipelago asynchronously like this, as a note, except for the faster-paced competitive GT Archipelago. (Knew this style existed, though.) Remains in the usual mindset of time efficiency. What item gets you the most items for other people? How quickly can you beat the game and send out everything?

Must strike a balance of time and gameplay, of course. Points to Terraria with its Mechanical Bosses goal. Only requires 1 item to beat the game (Hard Mode). Ends way too quickly. Decides between Golem (several required items, but easy boss) and Moon Lord (fewer required items, longer checks, but harder boss) goals usually. Excludes a couple of annoying checks, like the 1 in 1000 key drop or the Blood Moon fishing Hard Mode boss.

Circles back around to !collect. What still makes that interesting, personally-speaking? Forces you to re-evaluate your usual routes. Normally avoids leveling Foraging to 10 in Stardew Valley. Could be a different story if levels 5-10 still have items after, say, 10 games out of 23 have collected their items.

I don't think it's a bad idea, it can make things cleaner, but I don't think I want it, personally.
The way I see it, there isn't really a reason for games that are already completed to take away the excitement of what something an incomplete game could find. Like for example if you've been really excited to get your Cut HM in a Pokemon game so you can check one item, and you finally obtain it from someone so you go to check, and there's nothing there because it's already been claimed without you, I think that'd be really discouraging. The mystery of "everything could be something important so I should check everything" has been really appealing to me and it would rob that feeling from me if some of my checks were removed because they had already been claimed. Basically, I agree that removing useless items from the pool would be good and make things quicker, but I personally think it would make things less fun by removing the uncertainty that keeps it thrilling.

This is just an assumption I'm making, so feel free to correct me, but based on the multi-world tracker it's looking like every game that's completed has cleared out their checks 100% anyways. I don't think it matters unless you've completed your game but still aren't able to obtain a remaining check that you know is an item that's very helpful for someone else. I don't think the person with the completed game benefits from that either, because they don't have a goal to work towards and don't benefit from taking an item for their game from someone else.

I think something like the !collect command could potentially make things go faster, but given this is a whole group activity and part of the fun comes from everyone being able to help everyone out, I think it could majorly imbalance people's games or experiences with their games.

Feel free to take this with a grain of salt, I'm playing one game that's like 95% finished by this point. But for however much my opinion matters, I'm strongly against it.

Edit: Though I did also want to ask this, are we in a rush to have people's games completed? Do we have a deadline of any sort?

Sees the Cut HM example differently. Would be happy to not waste time on it. (Presumably looked ahead.) Also prefers picking up 2 item balls that someone can use over 8 item balls that includes a bunch of finished games, to use a different example. Could stem from playing Archipelago solo a lot (and watching randomizers/multiworlds for far longer) or something else. Shrugs.

Automatically releases all the items in your world upon completing your game, to be clear. Never benefits the completed game to use !collect.

No hard deadline, no. Estimated a (very rough) 2-3 week runtime for this in the first post, though. Hits the 2-week mark in about an hour from this post. Hates to keep people past the estimate, rough as it was. May have obligations beyond then that prevent them from playing.

That shouldn't be a problem now, I just found it.

Sphere 7 Shipping Bin. Ick. Only ventured into one area of Earthbound that is higher than Sphere 7. (Had some one-off checks beyond it, to be fair.)
__________

Speaking of the two-week mark: currently at 72.96% completion. Should be teetering on the edge of completing multiple games. Hopefully cascades into more games being completable.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Sphere 7 Shipping Bin. Ick. Only ventured into one area of Earthbound that is higher than Sphere 7. (Had some one-off checks beyond it, to be fair.)

That's not that bad in the grand scheme of things. Starcraft 2 has 17 spheres in the Grid format I'm playing, and one of the hinted Progression items I found for Setsuna was from my now-complete Sphere 16. That being said, spheres are basically meaningless in this game since I don't need any specific items to progress, so it's more reliant on how much time I have to do missions. I could've gotten it over a week ago had it been hinted.