Ankylosaur

I know I was bit late to the game, and a bit outside the arc and community's heyday, but enjoyed contributing and running through others' arcs too.

So many provided feedback and advice that helped me refine mine further, and I still had ideas to improve them. So hearty thanks to Glazius, Zamuel, SupaFreak, FredrickSvanberg, Clave, Backfire, and many many more. From encouragement to detailed feedback to just the end of an arc's feedback, you helped my arcs improve and evolve, and for that I am grateful...

So sad they, and others' hard (and fun!) work , are disappearing...

Clave, I agree. I have barely been playing the game itself. Never even explored any of the epic stuff, but have spent a lot of time working on arcs over the last year.

Going to miss the creative outlet and community that supports it.

Thanks for all the time spent helping us refine our arcs.

I know in my case, your feedback and efforts were immensely valuable. A shame that the stories end here.

So glad you mostly enjoyed Condemning Croatoa. It has been through several iterations and a few big changes over its life.

The plot was not supposed to be a set up for the hero arc, per se, but rather a re-imagining of the hero arc from the villain-side. The hero arc is to stop the Red Caps plan to "subsume Croatoa into the Spirit Realm," and in Condeming Croatoa you instead help the Red Caps achieve their goal on behalf of Arachnos. Now exactly what "subsume Croatoa into the Spirit Realm" means is open to some interpretation, but that last mission and the resulting disappearance of Salamanca was my take.

THE MIDNIGHTERS
Thrilled that you liked my additions to the Midnighters. Theirs is an odd stock group in that they include Nerva Spectral Demons and Animated Living Armor as their bosses. I wanted to have people in these roles, and to focus on their magic (summoning and animating) in different ways. Taking the cue that they are a bit of a Victorian-esque or turn-of-the-century occult group, I thought having them summon things like spirits and undead and demons is in keeping with that and would be a fun way to expand the group. I also wanted to bolster the lower ranks because there were so few minion types.

I understand your umbrage at the term Japanologist, and I too feel it is a bit jarring and odd, but believe it or not, that was the term around the turn of the century for Europeans who studied Japan. So, ultimately I thought it fit in well with the Egyptologist and Demonologist and so I went with it--I might change it yet--it's not like they traditionally summoned Oni.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanes..._Japanologists

BTW, Monty is going to be /Time when that finally comes out in AE--what with his foresight and all.

THE CABAL
Similar motivations for adding to the Cabal here. There are fewer Cabal minion types than there are LTs or Bosses in the stock group I think, so I wanted to bolster their minion ranks. Witches and nature seem a natural fit to me, and the elec control set is new since the Cabal came on the scene and had their same purple lightning.

THE EOCHAI
This was a bit of an exercise to execute. I wanted to see if I could come up with a way to take down a GM in an arc. The army of 20-odd Dark Servants worked in all my testing, mainly because a big group of them is constantly healing each other with their AOE heal, and over a little time, they win, but I think i was not testing with larger mobs with my soloers. I tried running this after your review with a larger mob and of course he also summons larger fir bolg mobs and the dark servants get blown away on those summons.

To correct it, I might consider making this fight optional. I could just the mission complete after you defeat the initial boss and perhaps have triggered battles as a result... Maybe even make Waylan activate your ring so the Dark Servants don't appear to you until after you free him. Which would mean I could include even more...

TRIGGERED EVENTS
In most arcs I try to explore some new things for me. In this one, those new things were fighting a GM and using a lot of triggered events to make the maps feel like they evolve. I felt that worked particularly well on the last map--glad you liked the Red Caps taking prisoners too.

LEADING KATIE
I hear ya. I am not sure what to do about leading her out to make it better. It is such a tiny map--but it is trapped with things for her to get gummed up on as you mention.

I could make a custom her and have her fly--that might not do much though. I could just have her run out into the Red Caps arms--but that feels pretty inauthentic/contrived. I could have you fight her perhaps? She is the point of M4 so its hard to imagine it without her. Not sure I have a solution for this one...

SUMMARY
Thanks again for the review! There is some great actionable feedback here that I can use to hopefully make it even better.

BTW, I did contact the cohmissionreview admin about Robolution not making it up on the site even after a month, but alas--no reply. I fear it may no longer be being supported.

Is Mender Lazarus available to use as an ally in the mobs somewhere?

I am suspecting not, but hoping someone knows for certain. I know he is in a standard mission as such, but I did not see him in Pets or Civilians and nowhere else occurred to me as a group to look under.

Zamuel, thanks so much for the detailed review of Robolution. It is so hard to edit one's own work, so the detailed review is helpful. I would love reviews/feedback of all my arcs over time, if you can stand it. Nothing is ever perfect, and I am sure all of mine can benefit from the eyes of the Handyman.

VOICE
As to the voice, I have not really found a strong voice for this contact yet. Respectful, a bit reserved and maybe a little superior is what I was going for. He is pretty much a part of the Arachnos machine and is not going to reveal a ton of personality as a result--but that does make for a dry contact.

I chose the term "bots" to use a distinct term for the Battle Drone, Protector Bot, and Assault Bots other than robot. This was to distinguish from either the Arachnobot Destroyer or the Rogue Robots or even the Jump Bots. It's true that it does not sit naturally though with the speaker's tone--so I will think on that and see if i can come up with a better term.

MOTIVATING VILLAINS
You're right, it's hard to have much motivation for mission 5. I'll see if I can't make that stronger with your suggestion or another idea I have.

With most of my arcs I try to do at least something small I have not done or played with before. In this one, I have experimented with both ally betrayal and failing objectives--being able to keep the story thread even if a mission fails. Not so different that its a different play experience if you explore the failed path too, but it was fun to build an arc that works well-enough either way.

CUSTOM MOBS
The other thing I tried to do here was involve a lot of different groups to explore the dynamics between them a bit. Rather than work on creating a new custom group all together, I sprinkled in a few custom mobs to the existing mobs.

And yes, the custom Sky Raiders are there because of level range or in the case of the Raider Engineer, he did not show up in the list when pulling the standard group into my custom group. In his case, I also wanted the Raider Engineer to take on a different role with the "bots." The Sky Raiders are the only group that summons them at an LT level. While I was at it I made the inferno raider and assault raider fly because everyone and their cousin has jet boots by now and a groups called the sky raiders should. In fact, you might add the complete level range and missing Raider Engineer to your list.

IN CLOSING
Thanks a ton for the feedback! I will be applying it to Robolution soon and may explore some other ideas with the arc too.

These are great ideas, though cut-scene movies feel a bit trickier to implement and prone to overuse.

In general though, I think this is a weakness of arcs, task forces, and trials throughout COX. In teams, it is hard to know what is going on story-wise because of some UI things (e.g., only the leader talking to the contact; clues being under a menu instead of more readily accessible) and because not everyone is in it for the story so teams tend to rush through.

I guess its been this way for so long that I have tended to accept this and write for the solo AE player. Well, also because its hard to find teams to play AE in the first place.

Welcome back!

I played Rider's Ribs Restaurant and one of the Dhahabu Kingdom ones previously--does this allow me to submit my arcs for handyman consideration?

All of them can use some attention I am sure, so have at any of em that pique your interest. Robolution is my newest and therefore had the fewest refinement passes or feedback.

Thanks so much for the detailed review! I was pleased with how Rularularian came together, and I am glad you mostly enjoyed it.

I agree that Mission 4 takes a dash of patience as you hunt for wisps. I am taking a tiny indulgence here as it is the only chance the player has to see the Rularularian in their "native" terrain, and the only map available for it. I went with the floating animation on the wisps as you never see them standing on the ground in-game, and am hopeful that their orange glowiness coupled with the overlord's huge size generally helps players to pick them out. I am pleased you liked the optional glowies in this same mission in the Rularularian base--per your stream of consciousness.

As to optional glowies elsewhere, I understand why they don't sit well with you. I put them in to explain additional logic or add additional flavor for the rare person that may want such things, and because of that, I keep them optional. Those that have no interest can skip them altogether. Unfortunately, yours is the one use-case where this does not work--you read everything even when you are not interested. So while I hear your concern, I am not sure it is a common issue.

Bullets are another style element I like to use--it's true. I try to write them conversationally, and just think of them as a special type of punctuation--and I prefer them to a series of semi-colons or staccato sentences. I picture them as being a list that someone is talking through while maybe counting off on their fingers. People do talk that way after all.

These are style elements that I am sure you will encounter again if you continue reviewing my arcs, so unfortunately I must caution you to prepare for further disappointment.

As always, thanks for the great and thorough review. Your perspective is always helpful, and I have already made some changes based on your feedback. Presuming you are still willing, I look forward to your future reviews of Condemning Croatoa and Robolution.

(Incidentally, I submitted Robolution to cohmissionsreview almost a month ago I think and it has yet to appear.)

Thanks again!

I'll throw mine into the fray again, in my sig.

I recently added Robolution as a new arc that you can consider (though Serpent and Rularularian may be my strongest.)

If what dugfromtheearth said is true about having an ally triggered, for mission 4, I would try this--trigger a "defeat a boss" that spawns after the glowie is clicked. Set the boss to Mother Sun and make her alignment "Ally" and have the surrounding mob appear as "Single."

I think that will be close to what you are after.

If I am not being too selfish by asking for additional reviews, can I add Condemning Croatoa and Robolution to your queue? Both are sitting at 4 stars and I would love your insights to help me improve them.

Condemning Croatoa is up on on Cohnissionrefiew already and Robolution will be...

That's an interesting question mauk2.

Just to throw in an my perspective, part of the motivation to work on many of my latest arcs was because this contest provided a guaranteed audience. Whether an arc wins a contest or not, it is encouraging to know while you are developing it that it will at least get a few plays.

So hopefully it does encourage some to try out developing arcs of their own.

An even greater boon to me than the influence is the "publicity." It's hard to stand out in this very crowded field that is AE search. While the influence is wonderful, its great for an arc to get some attention and to help boost the number of plays.

So thanks again Trekkin and the American Legion for running these contests!

What probably happened was the custom group you had only had those 6 EBs in it. So spawning around the boss were the "minions" that were 6 EBs.

If you can set a boss to single (can't recall offhand if you can, I use that with allies), or set the map to empty and then set the boss surrounding group to none, you can have your boss (EB) encounter appear alone.

Or just set a different mob to surround the each EB.

Hello American Legion! I know you have not wrapped up May yet, but is it too early to submit #245534 Robolution for June?

Thanks for running the monthly contest!

If I am not too late, I will throw in Condemning Croatoa again. My latest arc has not come together in time.

I was considering using him awhile ago and noticed he was in there also under an id of some sort like P2940 or something equally curious...

Look under unique maps, Cimerora. It's called Phoebus point I believe.

I only know it as I use it too as the first map in the serpent beyond the horizon.

I am always eager to get more plays. I think my strongest may be Rularularian in my sig. I am mid-refinement on Serpent, but it is a strong contender too (once marked final again).

With no limits I guess I will submit all in my sig for consideration?

Thanks for considing them, and more importantly, promoting AE!

One key thing here that came out loud and clear too is that the Mu bit is all a bit of a distraction from the main Snake story, which was not my intent either--so I may need to tone that down in some ways.

I'm even considering pulling them out all together--all those animal head costume pieces provide a lot of potential for Bast and Ra/Horus, etc. to make some sort of cameo and their followers to be the one driving the Apep-worshipping snakes out of Egypt. I've not come up with a great way to do that yet, and unfortunately there is a dearth of maps that seem to fit what I am considering so I may just change who Hequat is, like you suggest.

(Oh and speaking of Maps, I took another look at that Stheno map you mentioned and it has the same problem as Freak-lympics, and Marschand's Office and the like in that it has no "back." The room I'd want to be the "back" has 0 spawn points for anything--making it kind of useless.)

I've made some improvements based on your feedback already, and will definitely pull out all the stuff that indicates this happens before the Mu island is raised from the sea as it sure does seem like the timeline does not align.

Thanks again for the review--it's helpful to have such a detailed discussion about it.

As to Sister Solaris, she is the Macguffin of the story really--not the best motivator, but something to drive you forward besides Humphrey's interest.

GlaziusF noted this issue in one of my arcs, and the captives/allies have mobs around them.

I think its a new bug.

Oh, I see, so the Oranbegan defeat of the Mu rebels, the rise of the Mu island and civilization, and round 2 all completed say, by 10,000 years ago, and then everyone headed east to Europe Asia and Africa and west to the Americas from the Rogue Isles/Mu island to have magic blooded Mu babies. My view of Hequat wandering around for awhile laying low and spreading mu-ness and directly rebuilding her worship-base for a few thousand years before finding a home does not fit that it's true.

As to the Snakes, I am surprised that you did not get that part.

Being persecuted for their worship of Apep, the Egyptian god of the underworld, chaos, darkness, and death, and for their transformation to his aspect, they headed west to find him. They sought the mythical island where he lived, Bakhu.

Humphrey speaks of this...

Did you hear Sysus speak of another group of Gorgons fed up with being persecuted and led by Stheno? Sysus said they headed west, "towards the mouth of Apep." So they probably have already found the Rogue Islands.

Heading west, in search of the serpent beyond the horizon, they found Mercy island instead.

And the rest, as they say, is fictional history...

But it sounds like, for you, making the transitions clearer (which I have done) and replacing the Mu with some other group persecuting the worshipers of Apep (which I have not done) would clear up the whole story. In fact, if I just removed Hequat and had this Ancient Mu cult thinking the Snakes knew the way to the old island of Mu and wanted to spur the migration, that would fit with your understanding of the canon...

Well I am pleased that I got a couple of 4 stars in Design and Gameplay. For the most part the issues here are easy ones to rectify.

As to story, well, I think that is due to my, perhaps wrong, interpretation of a vague canon piece--when the Mu civilization was on Mu island. And as to details--specifically transitions--I can improve those where they are wanting.

As before, I am not expecting a response, I just feel I owe an explanation of why I did what I did, for better or worse...

DETAIL
You point out that there are too many clues, and I can appreciate that position, though it does stand in stark contrast to the feedback of too few details in the last arc you reviewed. But I understand that you felt you had too much optional info and were missing the critical info.

To be fair, most glowie clues are optional, I think placement is totally random usually, and for players that are not into reading every last word, they can be easily skipped. The transitions are not always in the clues.

For those that are into reading everything, I had hoped the clues would add extra flavor, but I think in your case they overwhelmed you or were not clear. The ones in M2 relate mostly to the multiple roles of Hequat through the ages, which I'll explain later, and the ones in M3 are there to give extra justification to having an Arachnos base in Cimeroran times--if the base was only for the purpose of researching the Snakes, it would make it seem a bit of an extravagance? (Why not just transport the Snakes to the present to research or spend more time in Mercy digging them out?) It is for much more than the story at hand.

TRANSITIONS
Part of your criticism was that the transitions were difficult to follow because of the flavor info. I tried to make them clear, but as a professor once told me, if you want your reader to notice something, say it three times, and I did not do that. I can easily improve this, but I thought I should list them here as they were when you encountered them.

M1: The transition is a map found on the General, and Humphrey explicitly refers to you finding that.

M2: Both the high priestess and a patrol refer to the Snake's ships being waylaid on the way back from Cimerora and Solaris being taken by the Mu. I think I will have your ally say that as a clue as well since you missed these dialogs.

Also you discover as a clue with the rescued Mu adept, the map to the Arachnos base.

Obviously a bit of misinterpretation on Humphrey's part as to which Mu to go after, but like you he did not suspect any ancient mu.

M3: This transition is a real problem as the way to get the clue is an optional glowie. I was working from the premise that Humphrey is with you, and while the glowies are optional, he always takes the option when you don't and could fill in for things you may have chosen not to investigate.

One of the clues explains that Arachnos is observing a nearby cell of Mu, and so since you knew the Mu took Solaris, you are to conclude you should investigate that--Humphrey explains it too, but I appreciate that it is important to actually find it yourself, so that's easy to fix and just make the glowies required.

M4: Hequat takes you to the map which tells you exactly where to go and Humphrey refers to it. It's true it does not have a clue, only dialog and chat window notice, but it seemed clear to me. Perhaps it was not?



TIMELINE
It seems like one of your issues beefs with the story was that Hequat should not be here. You believe (and are probably right) that she raised the island of Mu from the sea long before the Romans. (I have not found something that specifies when this happened specifically.) She was never part of the story as I started, it was only after I researched some other stuff that it seemed like she fit in.

Understand I was not (since I wrote this 6 months ago) privy to the DA incarnate stuff (and am still not really as I have not played it). It sounds like a lot is revealed there related to all of this. So bearing in mind that I knew none of that, let me explain why I drew the conclusions I did and included her...

Hequat is a goddess of magic, goddess of the Mu. The Oranbegans and the Mu fought 14,000 years ago or so and...

The Oranbegan histories say that Mu'Rhakmet and his followers fled across the sea. The Oranbegans assumed that they had returned to the old lands of their goddess, and this assumption would lead them to disaster. For what they did not know was the Hequat had provided a new land for her people. An island risen from the sea, an island that she would call Mu. (Pasted from http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Mu)

And, you point out the raising that island caused the big fight with Calystix because he and Merulina's worshippers were getting along very nicely beneath the sea right there, before Hequat came along. Now, when did this happen? It's hard to say, but...

The first records of a priest called Calystix date from ancient Rome, where a Legion discovered an ancient temple to a Cult of the Shaper. This cult was led by a high priest called Calystix who ordered the townspeople to slay the Legion. The soldiers were nearly overcome, but they won and put the temple and the town to the torch for their abhorrent practices. (Pasted from http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Calystix)

So, extrapolating a little, Calystix shows up in Roman times, because that is when he is displaced from his home by Hequat. Ergo, the Mu island was raised in Roman times. (I believe now that this is inconsistent with the lore you got from DA).

But where was Hequat in between being expelled from Orangbega and raising Mu? Well, I supposed the reason the Oranbegans thought she went to the lands of the old goddesses, is that she did--for awhile. I mean the Mu civilization couldn't have lasted for 10,000 years or so, probably 1 to 2,000 tops which gives a displaced goddess a lot of time to kill before she raised Mu island. So she spent time gathering minions throughout the ages appearing different to each group from Babylonian to Sumerian to Egyptian civilizations, etc…

Even within a pantheon there is evolution of gods and their roles and in Egypt there was "evidence" (ahem) Hequat was around. The priestesses of Nekhbet were called muu (mothers) and wore robes of Egyptian vulture feathers. (Hequat wears white feathers). Heqet, the goddess of fertility, has a similar name and her persona eventually evolved into Isis I believe -- the goddess of magic, her Greek counterpart is Hecate, the goddess of magic. There were muu funeral procession dancers too in Egypt. So it seemed likely that somehow tied up in all this, Hequat spent several thousand years, building followers, maybe in different aspects, before founding her Mu civilization and fighting Merulina, etc.

It takes some stretch of the imagination, but a lot of history gets lost in 14,000 years, so there is room to interpret and put my own spin on it, and that is what I did. Kind of like the devs took the Cretan Minotaur and stuck em in Rome as a race instead of an individual--so too are some lines blurred for convenience here.

On top of all of this, we know that Snakes have a sort of Egyptian styling, based on costuming, and Grecian background, based on history (Stheno is the sister of Medusa), so it all seemed like this Mediterranean-civilizations-thing would work well together.

STORY
So, Hequat, bored of travelling around every few thousand years, and seeing another civilization start to fall (Egyptian) and her worshippers dwindle, decides to cut her losses in the Mediterranean and wants her worshippers to move west to uninhabited ground. For whatever reason, (conflicts of the gods) her Mu hunt or follow the Snakes. So to end the final thing holding her group to the area, she wants to wipe out the snakes in the Mediterranean to spur her followers to seek out the remaining ones at (what we now know as) Mercy Island. Once at Mercy, she will raise the island of Mu, and Calystix will get all po'd and head for Rome for some weird reason.

But Hequat is so weak, because her minions are so few, that she doesn't even feel like she can take the Snake leaders head on. Instead, when the Snakes abduct Sister Solaris, and you start nosing around, she concocts her plan to turn the tables on the Snakes and abducts the already abducted Sister Solaris from them, moving her to the main temple instead of their little cave base, and luring you there.

I totally get that this does not fit with your understanding of the canon, and quite likely with the actual documented stuff we get to see--but that is the story for better or for worse. Hequat did not raise Mu island right when they were kicked out of Oranbega in my interpretation, but much later. And if you are willing to accept that, (which I totally understand you are not) it makes for a good story.

MAPS
I thought the Snake Arachnos base worked well. It's not too big and does have the snake skins. You do have to run back to the base entrance because the person you fight just arrived at the entrance. And you have to run back to the control room, because the self destruct is set in the base control room. A tiny bit inconvenient, but all realistic enough and a pretty small map to have to travel the length of.

MOBS
I have read your reviews of other arcs before and based on your feedback to others about avoiding voltaic sentinels, I meant to and thought I had! I'll strip that out. And Oil Slick Arrow is just something that seemed mighty appropriate to the era--more so than any other TA secondary. Oh and lastly, I can tone down the "human form" mobs, e.g. removing fear and confuse to be more in line with the Snakes they evolve to.

IN SUMMARY
I really appreciate your detailed review! I received some fours for design and game play, which please me. (This was the first time I created my own groups from scratch, so I was nervous about appropriate balance--I have some tweaks I should make, but no major criticism).

As to two stars for detail I have some very actionable things to make the transitions more obvious. For most, I suspect your issue with too much detail is overcome by the fact that it is mostly optional already, for those that don't want it. As to transitions, I can expand and further reinforce those.

As to the two stars for story, well, the plot is built on my interpretation of a somewhat wide-open 14,000 year timeline that may have had more structure put to it since I wrote this. I could strip out Hequat and the Mu fairly easily I suppose. I'll ponder that, but in general it makes for a good story as is, and may even be able to be squeezed into the current timeline with a little imagination. If I had not gotten such positive feedback in general from others that have played it, I would be more prone to dash my interpretation I suppose.

I eagerly await your review of Rularularian. As it plays with canon, I don't have illusions of how liberties I may take with something vague in there will sit with you. It's likely my explanations for nebulous hooks in canon may clash with your sense of things or with something much more tangible. Still, I remain optimistic. If nothing else, for what it's worth, I hope you enjoy your time in my stories, even if just a little!

So I was using some of the Mastermind pets in a mission as rescued allies, and I wanted them to betray after a certain point.

The game considered them betrayed, in that now they were an enemy I could fight, but they just stood there. Just like they were disabled. (They were set to aggressive and moments before had been fighting alongside me.)

I swapped them out with a regular boss and when the regular boss betrayed he betrayed guns a' blazin'

I gather this is just how the pet AI behaves?

It's touching that pets never want to betray their master I suppose.

I'd like to throw Condemning Croatoa into the fray again -- ID found in my sig.

Like Clave_Dark_5, I have not had a chance to put something new together. I got distracted refining some old arcs, but, I am working on one for future contests!