anachrodragon

Just got back from the Meet and Greet. It was a lot of fun, and I wanted to thank the Paragon Studios folks for putting it together. No big game news or anything, just a lot of good conversation and beer.

Also, Scott Kurtz going off on a tanget was the most... er memorable... part of the panel.

Just wanted to say, sorry we've been really busy. We should be able to play a couple arcs this weekend, but then PAX is next week so there might be a bit of a delay before we get to the rest of the queue.

We're really looking forward to making some new alts when I16 launches though.

Hey, I just wanted to say that I'm really glad you found the feedback helpful. It's really great to see all the creative stories people come up with, and it's gratifying if the thoughts and opinions we offer actually help people when crafting their stories.

I had a thought on this:

Matchstick Women, Arc ID 3369 - by Bubbawheat

Bubbawheat was nice enough to play Londerwost's arc a couple days ago, so he's at the top of the list. We played this on my 21 Shield/Fire tank and his level pacted 21 BS/Fire scrapper. It seemed oddly fitting for two fire based characters. We were on the middle difficulty, which in retrospect was probably a mistake, but oh well.

Right off the bat, I like the contact. The idea of visions from a mysterious flame, without the contact having any overt personality, is pretty unusual.

I did think there was some redundancy in the description that stood out:

As you look closer to make out what is in the corner it begins to take shape, you feel as if you could reach out and touch it. Without realizing it, you see your hands in front of you, reaching into the flame. Suddenly you can clearly see what is now in your hands. It's a bomb! Startled, you drop the bomb but you don't hear it hit the ground. As you look to see what happened to it, you realize that what's in front of you is a different place. The scent of smoke fills your nose as you realize that in front of you is a burning base.

I'd suggest going through this and changing up your descriptions a bit.

The first mission has a nice progression with the objectives. One mainstay of the superhero genre, that is sadly minimal in this game, is the save people from the burning building scenario. I'm glad to see someone include this in the MA, and the water pipes were a good touch.

A Curious Woman - I get what you're trying to say here, but this could be mistaken as "inquisitive" woman, as opposed to "peculiar".

Ok, back to the mysterious flame. The dialog is pretty solid here. I should note that I like the colorized "look closer". I look closer and find there are women to save from a fire.

We found a boss "The Perfect Match" but alas it was not one of the 2 leaders. Then we found "Perfect Match Leader" after that. I have to wonder at the names. I like "The Perfect Match", but it sounds like a singular name for one boss. "The Perfect Match Leader" sounds, I don't know, sort of redundant. I'd suggest coming up with another witty fire-based name. Same for "Perfect Match Recruiter", it's just not a particularly interesting boss name.

One of the girls to rescue was surrounded by people holding torches. The animation was really helpful when scouting for the hostages. Alas the other hostages didn't have distinctive animations around them, so they took a while to find.

Also, I have to wonder how many of your custom mobs have blinding powers, it seemed like I was getting blinded a lot.

We got a clue called The Turncoat Matchstick, at first I was confused about who this was referring to, as I didn't recall an NPC by this name. Then I realized it's referring to "Perfect Match Leader" who gave me some information, but didn't really seem like a "turncoat".

This clue is a bit hard to follow. I think you've got some awkward sentences going on:

"The turncoat Matchstick told you about their leader. How Emily took in women who had power, who felt alone and scared. Emily promised a family of women just like her, where they would all live together in harmony. But it turned out to be more of a cult. Scarring the members so they wouldn't leave."

The Curious Woman seems to be an ex-Matchstick woman, someone who isn't bothered by the flames and was a potential Perfect Match. Ok, is there anything more to her than that? She's shown up in two missions so she has to be important.

Ok, back to the flame. Now it's showing me another burning building, but one that seems calm.

We enter this building and find a clue describing Emily's tragic childhood.

Then we find Emily herself, who is apparently itching to destroy her own cultists. Is this her master plan?

Through the course of beating her up, I guess we remind her of her horrible childhood experience with the flames closing in, and she decides she is actually happy to die and finally achieve some peace.

I know what you were trying to go for here, with making Emily a more sympathetic character, and then releasing her from her torment, but I think it could use some more development. First, Emily's dialog could be misconstrued as you tormenting her all over again. Second, the earlier clue in this mission isn't enough by itself to change gears into sympathizing with her. I think you need to introduce hints of this angle earlier.

Also, Emily was pretty tough. She spawned with two healers in her group and a lot of mobs that blind. I think Londer and I were on the verge of being chain blinded. We managed to get through it by killing healers first, popping yellows, and knocking her down a lot. I know some of this was probably due to our difficulty setting though, which might have been too high considering our level honestly.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame allusion seems uneccessary. Not sure where that came from. Also I was disappointed that the Curious Woman wasn't involved with the conclusion.

Really nice summary souvenir. Also, great idea to put the arc ID in the souvenir. Why didn't I think of that?

Overall, great premise! I think the fire angle is under utilized in the game, and it's a typical super hero plot device. Nice unique contact. It was great to see something non-traditional here. Some text is a tad awkward, but that's not a big deal.

Transition from bad guy to sympathetic character seems too abrupt for Emily. You just found out that Emily is the ringleader and she's done these horrible things, but now you're supposed to identify with her after reading one clue about how she had a tragic childhood. I'd develop this angle earlier by making her seem like a more complex character through clues in mission two. I'd also give some of the bosses in mission two more creative names, and give more distinctive animations.

Rating: 4 Stars

Thanks for the feedback. I know you're right about some unevenness. I'd debated myself whether or not to use any comic relief, and I'm still debating that. It's part of the reason this arc is still listed as "looking for feedback". It's a work in progress, and I'm expecting to do some adjusting.

Regarding mission three, sorry you found it boring. People tend to either love it or hate it (usually because "but my XPs!"). I know it's something unusual, but I think one of the strengths of the MA is that there's room for the unusual. Honestly I don't think it's too long for what it is. It only takes a couple minutes, which is *a lot* shorter than a glowie hunt on an outdoor map would take, and you still see tons of those in official content, as well as MA arcs.

On a couple of dialog choices: "intoxicated" applies to all types of chemical impairment, not just alcohol. Also, I've seen "all hands on deck" used in the context of police action lots of times. I'm sure I could change it, but I think it fits.

As for commas... well I have to admit this criticism throws me off. I went back and read my first mission intro dialog and found half a dozen of them, so I don't think this indicates a particular aversion. The only thing I can guess is that you don't like the style for BAB's "voice".

I have to say, and you've no doubt experienced this yourself, that using BABs as a contact is hard, because there aren't a lot of examples of dialog for him in the game. So I was left with as quandary. What kind of dialog do I use? Casual and friendly? Street slang? Hardass? Hmm... Well using any amount of slang kind of rubbed me the wrong way, plus I wasn't confident there was a way to do it without sounding racially insensitive. I decided to go with kind of a "down to business", serious style with a fair number of shorter sentences--which means there are more periods than I would probably use normally, but that should actually make for more full stops as opposed to breathlessness.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to checking out your Trollbane. It will be interesting to see someone else's interpretation of BABs, as again, the canon leaves a lot of room here. And hey, if the punctuation doesn't follow exactly what I would do myself, it doesn't matter... it's not something I base my ratings on.

Argh, I seem to have missed several arcs from the last page. Sorry about that. I think this is our updated queue, but feel free to correct me if I've missed anything else.

As noted before: I'm reserving the right to change up the order depending on our playtime or other factors (what I mean is that shorter arcs may get played earlier). Also if you play one of our arcs and give feedback you'll get bumped up to the top of the list.

• ZAGMUK Act One: The Herald, Arc ID 266123 - by Sumericon (may have to wait until we can duo)
• The Boneyard, Arc ID 253542 - by Captain_Zero
• Mercytown, Arc ID 6017 - by Tangler
• BE Prologue: Gangs United, Arc ID 250480 - by OzzieArcane (redoing this one)
• A Twist of Destiny, ARC ID: 300379 - by Garielle
• Tales of the PPD: One Hell of a Deal, Arc ID 55669 - by Xyzyx
• Grim and the Green, Arc ID 61156 - by Quinch_NA
• Why Can't We All Just Get Along?, Arc ID 299242 - by Psychoti *or* Operation: Clean Streets, Arc ID 301688 - by Psychoti (note we'll do both of these if you play ours)
• Trollbane, Arc ID 12669 - by TeChameleon
• Uninvited, Arc ID 307732 - by Lazarillo
• Matchstick Women, Arc ID 3369 - by Bubbawheat

The Elephant and Castle is a bit small and stuffy, but hopefully it will work ok.

My husband and I will be at PAX this year to meet everyone yet again. Looking forward to it.

Strike!, Arc ID 18401 - by Geek_Boy

Geek Boy was awesome and played several of our arcs, so he goes to the top of the list and gets an immediate review, which we just happened to have the time for this evening. I played this on my 22 Bots/Traps MM and Londer was on his 22 Ice/Pain Corruptor, on the lowest difficulty.

At the beginning I'm a bit unsure what I've done to earn this guy's trust, but the idiot seems to trust me. He mentions that he needs some signatures gathered in support of their cause. He also mentions that he wants access to some Cage Consortium records. At first I was unsure whether he was indicating that I should get the records, but it appears he's just rambling about them. He really just wants signatures from me, but I'm going to get the records anyway.

I really liked the introspective mission accept text, because I think it helped to establish the setting. You're a bad guy, who wants to thwart the Scrapyarders' plans. My only problem here is that the text is formatted the same as the normal mission text. I would change the color at least.

The mission is a straightforward warehouse full of Cage Consortium. I liked the safe cracking details. It was a nice touch.

This clue could be fleshed out a bit: "This is like a laundry list of ways to not stay employed. These guys DESERVE to be treated like that." I would give an example from the list here. There's room to have something humorous.

Alright, so we're framing these Scrapyarders. Entering "Darth Vader" on the petition is awesome.

I don't know who the who the Scrapyarders have their hearing with. it doesn't seem like the Rogue Isles establishment would be very sympathetic to the plight of the common man, but whatever.

There are a couple of awkward spots in the contact's dialog here:

"Right now what we could [use] is some more funding."

Odd sentence:

"None of us are rich men and if we're going to be able to keep these guys from losing everything if it comes to a strike."

Apparently we are getting "donations" to help the scrapyarders in the event of a strike. I liked the Family boss's dialog. His pitiful cries about his numerous children were pretty funny. I am a bit confused though. I was under the impression that we were taking money from the mob, but it looks like we were actually forcing them to set up a press conference. I would add something about the press conference and framing the Scrapyarders in the clues, so it's not so out of the blue when the contact mentions it.

This line is pretty funny:

"I know I had my doubts at first, but I'm really glad you came here to help us out. I don't know how I could do this without you"

The goal "Find a way to 'assist' the protestors" is ambiguous but it's pretty easy to figure out. We just had to search the outdoor map for the protesters, which were not hard to find.

I like the fact that our contact is voluntarily headed to jail and that he's "Already used his one phone call"

The mission goal "Keep this from turning around" is again ambiguous, but it's not hard to figure out. We're off to take out our contact, who whines piteously about how he thought we wanted to help the common man.

One nitpick, this clue felt really odd:

"Yeah, I know there's some clever joke to make here but I haven't thought it up yet."

Overall, I really liked this and felt it was a unique story that flowed well. I felt like a real ******* which I know was intentional. One thing I would probably do is add more introspective text throughout--like you had in the accept text of the first mission--to really illustrate your dastardly intentions. Just color it differently than the other dialog. I think the "you're being a dick" angle is unusual enough that you might want to play it up more.

Rating: 5 Stars - Recommended for villains who want to feel villainous

My husband and I maintain a review thread of lowbie arcs. We're altaholics and always have lowbies around to play arcs. We got kind of tired of the fact that so many MA arcs tend to skew high level (or skew farm really), so we figured we'd try to help out the lowbie arc creators out there.

I'd definitely encourage you to make lowbie arcs. All of my arcs are for lower levels myself, and while they don't have tons of plays, I've gotten feedback that they're enjoyable. So they're serving their purpose at least.

For your new lowbie arc, I'd suggest a few things:

• Make something you enjoy and play it a lot. I can't even count the number of times I've run my own arcs to tweak them. Even if very few other people play your arc. You'll always have something you can run on your own new alts, and enjoy.
• Start small. Try to make a story that fits into 2 or 3 missions. I have learned from personal experience that people gravitate toward the shorter arcs over the longer arcs. If you've got a simple but tight story that fits into a small arc, I think you'll get more people playing it. I think a lot of arc creators underestimate how much other players value their time.
• If this is your first arc, don't get bogged down in feeling you have to create custom mobs. There is tons of canon out there that is under-utilized. Just grab something that intrigues you and use standard mobs. I'm not saying you shouldn't use custom mobs, just that it's not necessary.
• Design the story so that the player feels important. I have complaints about the lowbie content in the game, because a lot of times it feels like you're just trudging through Snakes again wishing you were higher level. Some of the better lowbie arcs I've played tend to let lowbies do something with a bit more impact.

Anyway, those are just my suggestions. If any of you folks do get your lowbie arcs rolling, feel free to stop by my review thread for some feedback (in sig).

Here is the current queue in rough order. I'm reserving the right to change up the order depending on our playtime or other factors. Also if you play one of our arcs and give feedback you'll get bumped up to the top of the list.

• ZAGMUK Act One: The Herald, Arc ID 266123 - by Sumericon (may have to wait until we can duo)
• The Boneyard, Arc ID 253542 - by Captain_Zero
• Strike!, Arc ID 18401 - by Geek_Boy
• Mercytown, Arc ID 6017 - by Tangler
• Why Can't We All Just Get Along?, Arc ID 299242 - by Psychoti *or* Operation: Clean Streets, Arc ID 301688 - by Psychoti (note we'll do both of these if you play ours)

We should have room to take on more arcs, so if you've got lowbie arcs that need feedback, feel free to add them.

Defying Fate by @Getsumei Kitsune
Arc ID: 110866

We only had time for a short arc, so we duoed this quick three mission arc on my 21 Fire/Shield tank and his 22 Spines/DA scrapper. It was nice and quick and had small maps, which I appreciated.

In the briefing for the first mission, the contact had a lot of information for me, perhaps too much. She told me very specifically to find a computer and hack into it. This is just a minor thing, but she could have been a bit ambiguous and let me figure a few things out on my own. Also, there were Council in the lab that were never fully explained. What significance to the story did they have? There was a almost too conveniently located disk with the computer. In fact, you point out that it's conveniently located enough, that I was wondering if that would have later significance. Did it contain a virus or something? Alas it was not to be a further part of the story.

Then we're on to an evil boss called Suoitigalf--which is unpronouncable, so you probably should have just left it Flagitious. And suddenly there are issues with demonic sacrifice. Now I'm confused, the demonic sacrifice doesn't seem to fit with a story of an evil biotech company. I liked the fact that the map was short and sweet, it's one of the few good Oranbega maps out there. I also liked the NPC dialog, and the detailed description on Seer Zenaku. However, I couldn't stop scratching my head wondering how this mission fit with the previous one.

Also there was a very long run-on sentence that I should point out:

"To keep the world safe from this menace, you'll need to defeat both Suoitigalf and the Circle of Thorns demon he was negotiating with, and rescue two of my colleagues and I after the Circle casts the summoning spell to bring us to them."

In the third mission I find we're killing scientists. This kind of rubs me the wrong way for a hero arc. I mean, are these evil scientists? Or are they hapless unwitting employees (like the contact herself and the other sacrifice victims). Their descriptive text said only that they were scientists... So I felt rather bad about killing them. Also, where are the bioroids we've been hearing about? I'd expected their appearance in the last mission. The other issue I had in this mission is that the ally is too powerful and too aggressive. She really steals the show in this mission, and the end boss is weak so it's anticlimactic.

Finally, plot twists don't belong in the end text of the last mission, the player should discover them through the course of the story.

Overall, I think you made great use of small maps and had good attention to descriptive text and other detail. This is one of the very few arcs I've played where I have no complaints about the presence of a kill all mission. The text was well written and flows well. I had no issues reading it aloud to Londer, except for that Suoitigalf name, who I just started refering to as "the dude with the name".

I think the story has some serious consistency problems, like you just tried to fit too much into one short arc without developing the various threads enough. The magic plus biotech thing is unusual and doesn't fit together naturally, so it's going to need more development to make those aspects mesh. Consider replacing the Council or adding some kind of demon foreshadowing in the first mission. Also it was a let down to be slaughtering scientists rather than demon-infused bioroids or something.

Rating: 3 Stars

I guess I hadn't thought about it, but it makes sense that they wouldn't want characters on innactive accounts to gain XP. However, I think they could improve the system by:

A) Letting people know in game when their pact breaks. I'm thinking a pop up window or something

and

B) Letting characters that are the same level re-pact, or form a new pact. It's never made sense to me that a level pact has to be made below level 5. I can understand not letting a low level pact with a high level, but what about letting two characters that are both the same level form a pact? My husband and I both have characters at level 40 for example. I don't see how it would be eploitive to let those characters pact going forward.

What do you put on autofire?

I just made my first /SR brute, and for the life of me I can't figure out whether to put Practiced Brawler on auto, or a quick recharging attack (like Brawl). I have two other brutes, an /ELA and a /FA and I usually put a quick attack on auto. Then it occurred to me that with my /SR I might not want to do that...

Any advice for someone who's an old time brute player, but new to SR?

I just wanted to say that this is going to be a completely awesome change for really much more seamless teaming all around. As someone who belongs to a large coalition of SGs, which often has multiple large teams running at once, I'm looking forward to this as much as power customization. This may be my favorite new feature of I16. I can't wait 'till my global chat is no longer filled with "does that team have SK space?"

I have two villainous arcs. The first one presumes some naivety on the part of the player character villain, which I know is considered a mortal sin by some of the folks on the forums. But since the whole thing is a tongue-in-cheek, not serious, gratuitous gross out arc, I'm just going to say "tough". I think it accomplishes what it's intended to do and provides some fun along the way.

The other one is motivated mostly from flattery from the contact, the Facemaker in this case. I think flattery is pretty easy to go with, because it should apply pretty universally. Everyone likes to be told they look stunning, or they really rock. This can apply to heroes and villains in fact.

The other typical one for villains is the old greed motivation. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to assume most villains might want to take advantage of an easy money situation. Of course things never turn out to be as easy as you expect, do they? You could do something like make the contact "Guy With Expensive Watch". He could respond to your character as if your character were intending to rob him.

Remember there is a new issue on Test now, they may have changed something about the format of those files that makes the live servers not able to recognize them. I have no idea if that's the case, but it's just a guess...

I'm going to suggest my own arc, Tailor Made, as it's short and easy and designed for levels 20-29. It's villainous, but don't let that stop you.

Tailor Made
Arc ID: 258291
Levels: 20-29
Length: 2 missions, 10-30+ minutes (depending on optional objectives)
Description: The Facemaker has serious problems due to the terrible economy, threats from The Family, and alarming new competition. (quick arc for lowbies or 20s villains who like to smash things)

I've soloed it more times than I can count on my own characters, including my 20s blaster.

Welcome back. I hope your vacation was good