anachrodragon

The Superadine Revolution, Arc ID 262739 - by SpaceNut

Londer and I duoed this on my 21 Fire/SD Tank and his 21 BS/FA Scrapper, on the lowest difficulty.

Right away, I like the contact's dialog. It's well written and good flavor for the Family. In the intro text, you talk about the Skulls a lot, so upon entering the warehouse mission, I was expecting to find a mission full of Skulls. When I found Family I was a bit confused.

When I find Tommy he says "My orders come from the top! Sal is acting crazy! The Skulls are distributors, nothing more!" and then "Now that the truth is known, I'm getting out of here!" Does this mean the truth about the Skulls that we haven't even met yet? I'm confused because I don't think it's exactly a secret that the Skulls distribute Superadine for the Family.

Then I meet Sal the boss dude and find out that he's trying to use pure Superadine to make powerful Skulls that are loyal to him. So now I'm thinking that Sal is actually the big bad guy, and the skulls must be working for him.

Unfortunately the contact tells me that Sal was actually something of a dupe and the Skulls are perpetuating some kind of plot with other members of the Family in order to get more of the pure stuff. This really feels like we've changed gears again, after mostly ignoring the Skulls in the first mission. Alright, I'll roll with it, but the story has gotten off to kind of a rocky start.

I go into the next mission and the Skulls are saying "Forget the Dyne, take out $Name". This is also somewhat confusing as I thought they were really focused on getting all this Dyne. Also, it's a kill-all, argh...

So now I know that the Skulls are making a move on the Family. Good, this story is starting to pick up some momentum. The only problem is... ugh... another defeat all, on a large-ish map.

In the next mission I find Joey "Two Shoes" Denaro, a Family boss who's decided to join the Skulls. I thought this twist was good, and the story was holding its momentum here. Unfortunately, the map was another lengthy warehouse map. While not a defeat all, it had a lot of objectives and was time consuming to find them all.

Also, I was intrigued about Joey "Two Shoes" Denaro and read his descriptive text, but didn't find anything more than a standard description. In fact this is the case for all of your Family bosses. It's a shame that they have generic descriptions, because you've given them colorful, interesting names.

Finally I accompanied Tommy to Striga to stop an attack on the Don's office. I rescued Tommy and he immediately ran off across the map and suicided into a big pack of mobs. I wonder, do you have him on aggressive, or is this a bug?

We defeated Marrow Drinker and stopped the Skulls' attempted takeover. We rescued the Don... or was it? Well it turns out the Don left some clues. But they were ALL THE WAY DOWN ON THE FIRST FLOOR.

Sorry for the frustration there, but as we were painstakingly backtracking through this mission, I was lamenting how anticlimactic an ending this was. I told Londer this: "If the clues are on the first floor, I swear I am giving this arc 3 stars."

Well, they were on the first floor, but after I saw your well written contact end dialog, and excellent summary souvenir, I had to think about it for a while. Ultimately, I decided, like Londer, that this arc is too well written to get three stars, even if I found aspects of the gameplay frustrating.

Overall, very enjoyable writing. Starts off a bit confusing and ends a bit anticlimactic (due to the clue hunt), but the core of the plot is good. It just needs tightening up. Consider using smaller maps and removing kill all objectives, in order to shorten the necessary playtime. Also consider adding custom descriptions for all your Family guys with the cool names.

Rating: 4 Stars

Well, I'm sold on making another Elec alt now. I have my 50 EM/ELA brute, and love him, but was having mixed feelings on an Electric Armor scrapper. Now with this change, assuming it goes live, I'm getting excited about playing the set again.

Now what to make?

I've played Katana and Dual Blades and would prefer to avoid those. Spines could be tempting, although I have a Spines stalker. I've never played Martial Arts... Hmm...

If this is true, then I'll have to rework my build. Also, if this is true I might have to make a ton more Electric oriented alts when I16 goes live. Oh darn, more alts....

(Wonders how a Spines/ELA scrapper would fare...)

I've played a lot of great arcs. I mean a lot of really well put together, very entertaining, thoroughly enjoyable arcs. But I know the Devs have limited time, so I'm limiting my list to the few most memorable arcs I've played:

Arc ID 140423 Blight
Arc ID 67335 Teen Phalanx Forever!
Arc ID 190069 Captain Dynamic, the Great, Faces the Great Face

I thought I should add here that all of my arcs are designed for lower level characters:

The Next War on Drugs, Arc ID: 245042 - Street level crime story. Story driven and text heavy, but tried to design it so missions were relatively quick. Heroic, levels 12-20.

The Liquefactionist Manifesto, Arc ID: 191029 - This one is gross. Sorry, it's intentionally rather disgusting. I made it due to a bet with a friend, so this is the way it's intended to be. It's also a decent starter arc for a lowbie villain. Villainous, levels 5-20.

Tailor Made, Arc ID: 258291 - A short comedic arc for fashion conscious villains. Help the Facemaker solve her problems, and smash stuff along the way. Only two missions. Villainous, levels 20-30 (but absolutely playable by lower characters).

Poi, Demonology, and Everything I Learned From Hellions, Arc ID: 164235 - This one is my husband's very short arc for new heroes. It was tested with brand new baby heroes straight out of Outbreak. It's my favorite arc to play when I make a new alt. Heroic, levels 1-14

My husband and I also have a review thread going for lowbie arcs (see link in sig). I think I'm a fair reviewer, and I rate mostly how entertaining and polished the story is. In fact, I don't think I've given anyone less than three stars yet. If you want your lowbie arc reviewed, feel free to add it to our queue in that thread.

A couple things from the Comic Con panel:

They'd like to do MM pet customization, but it definitely won't be for I16. For the human type pets, they could conceive of sort of a dumbed down version of the character creator with limited options. No promises though. There was some suggestion that this could include female minions if it happens though.

There was also a hint about demon summoning having whips.

Teen Phalanx Forever!, Arc ID 67335 - by PoliceWoman

I played this on my 17 DM/FA brute (I know it's not a hero, but we can pretend right?). Right away, I'm liking the concept. A teen version of my hero... this is new and refreshing and it's the sort of stuff I'd never see from the devs. It's just the sort of thing the MA was made for IMHO.

I see Kid Valkyrie first. I like her description and flying power armor. Gosh her dialog is pretty chipper. Just what I'd expect from the "good girl" of the team. Next up is Manticora. She's the "bad girl" and doesn't hesitate to give me some attitude. She also seems to get lost a lot on our way through the sewers. At least the hostages are easy to find.

Along the way I find the other Teen Phalanx members, and then it's off to fight Doc Vahz, who goes down without much trouble. In fact I think the teen Phalanx guys showing off their prowess, but just about one shotting stuff befor I can get to it.

Excellent, now I'm a full member of the Teen Phalanx, but alas I was not given a standard issue Teen Phalanx communicator. Now I have to catch up with the rest of the team and fight the Clockwork King. He warns me about the King's archvillainy, and then I'm off.

On the one hand, I think it's a cool custom map, and I like the idea of being on a team of teen heroes fighting AVs. On the other hand, it's almost exactly like the first mission, except replacing vahzilok with clockwork. It drags a bit, even though I really do enjoy the concept. I guess part of me wishes the map were smaller, but then you'd loose the custom lair map and that would be a shame.

Manticora ran off to meet someone named Sta--Stacy. How strange... Also, I thought the World of Clockwork thing was silly and fun. The custom mobs helped to keep things interesting though, so it did help the momentum through a mission that might have felt too long otherwise. The King's dialog was great.

Alright, monitor duty next. This sounds like fun... er, I mean it sounds like a chore. Boy watching that monitor sure was boring. At least I got to sneak through the personal belongings of some of the Teen Phalanx. who knew that Val wore gold panties? And really, I probably shouldn't have touched those trick arrows with bizaare attachments. Then I got to beat up some intruders that sounded like they'd spent too much time around internet memes. After that I met up with Val and BABy, who weren't too happy that their stuff had been snooped in, but forgot about it promptly when Clamor showed up. This was a really awesome, colorful, engaging, and well scripted mission. Totally enjoyed it, and got a kick out of the clues.

Time to get to the bottom of this, and find out who this Mr. V is. The Council base is a tad large and sprawling, and I would be getting tired of meeting up with the Teen Phalanx by now, if their dialog wasn't so amusing. The main villain is great though, and well worth the long jog through the Council base. The ambush of robotic doubles was surprising and well executed.

Overall, excellent writing, highly polished and a fun unique story. You've created some of the most engaging and memorable NPCs I've seen in MA thus far. They do steal the show at times but I don't think there's any way around that, given the premise. I think the only thing I'd suggest is maybe remove buildup from the Teen Phalanx. Heavy hitters like Val could probably solo this whole thing.

Rating: 5 Stars - Highly recommended.

The "For Fun!" section of the forum is serious business.

Big Trouble King's Row Style, Arc ID 259924

First, I'm going to be upfront about my personal tastes. I love street level crime stories. This is one of my favorite genres and one that I feel is under represented in the game. I siezed the opportunity to play this arc on my street hunting, natural level 14 Archery/Mental blaster.

The first thing I noticed was that the contact's name was "Det. Darcy Armand". The "Det." seems a bit odd here. I'm not sure if this is a real abbriviation for detective, but even if it is, it just looks a bit out of place. I suggest replacing the name with "Detective Armand." Also, the character's name in the intro text is orange, which isn't really necessary. I'd suggest changing the objective: "Would you mind helping me get to the bottom of this?", to orange instead.

In the first mission I noticed that every objective has an exclamation point. I would probably remove the punctuation for the objectives. I liked Detective Armand and thought the gun fight animations were a good touch. I thought her dialog was good, although I think you have some of it attached to the Skulls accidentally: "Gravedigger Brawler: I need back up! The Skulls have me cornered!" I also noticed that your glowies could use interract bar text.

As for clues in this mission, I only saw one clue which was "Processed Superadine!" (again probably overuse of exclamation points). The mission end pop up told me that this was a Superadine distribution hub, but I'm not sure how I figured that out. I'd suggest adding another clue, possibly an end mission clue that would lead to that conclusion.

On to mission two. The contact tells me that multiple gangs are forming an unusual coalition. I almost feel like the player should discover some hints of this in mission one, then the contact can expand upon it. Otherwise the information seems a bit out of the blue and handed to the player on a platter. Suggest adding some hints in a clue in mission one.

The mission was a pretty straightforward outdoor street sweep, with mobs from various gangs, now belonging to a group called West Side Coalition. I'm looking for a guy named Gravediggah or Gravedigga (spelled differently in the clues), who's been doing the organizing. I also noticed a typo in Armand's text: "picke". Also the end clue mentions Mama Yaya, and I haven't seen that name before. Suggest adding this to a clue.

On to mission three. I'm tracking down this Mama Yaya woman at a local club. I like the variation in mission size, a small mission following a large outdoor mission. I also like the voodoo motif and the zombies. Mama Yaya has good descriptive text, although she belongs to a group called Gangsters Inc., which I don't think I've seen before. She proved to be a bit much for my blaster the first time around (I think there was an ambush), but I came back and dispatched her quickly. She also had a good clue but refered to her boyfriend as "Gravedigger" this time. (Gravedigger, Gravedigga, Gravediggah?)

Time for mission four: Now I'm going to an abandoned medical facility to track down a Hellion named Kid Chango. At this point I'm wondering if we'll find out the secret behind the gang coalition. I was surprised to find a Face Reaper guarding the citizen, from the faction "Rouge Vahzilok" (I think you meant "Rogue"). In any case it seems a bit late in the story to be introducing yet another new faction. Couldn't this just be normal Vahzilok? Finally, Kid Chango told me about "Gravedigga", but I didn't have any clues about the Vahzilok or the experiments on citizens. I'd suggest adding a clue when you release the hostage.

Ok, next up mission five. Superadine X is a new compound and Gravedigga was sent to oversee its distribution. You mention that this is the pure Superadine compound the Family uses to give abilities to its officers. I'm having a hard time buying this as it's my understanding the Family keeps their "pure" Superadine heavily guarded, keeping it strictly for their most loyal made men. I'm doubting they would want to distribute it at all, let alone trust it to anyone outside the highest ranks of the Family. I would change this to say it's simply a new strain of Superadine with unusual side effects, and it's being tested on unsuspected citizens.

The mission was on a warehouse map that might have been a tad large. The objectives seemed a bit too spread out. I found Gravedigga, and I liked his dialog. The zombie ambush was interesting. I think it might of been a bit out of place considering that we've already dealt with Mama Yaga, and we should really be beyond that stage of the story now. I also felt like there should have been an end of mission clue to sort of tie things together. We still haven't seen a whole lot of explanation of why all the gangs agreed to work together. I thought the contact's end dialog was a little sparse, but overall was a decent ending.

There doesn't seem to be a souvenir. Including a souvenir could be a good place to summarize the events and tie up loose ends.

Overall, this has the makings of a good story and is a fun street level adventure. There are some places where the flow of the story could use some improvement. I think additional clues could help a lot in this area. I also think the Family connection needs to be reworked a bit; they're not going to give their most prized secret formula to a low level Skull gangster. Also, you seemed to loose focus on the idea of the coalition, and I think you need something at the end to explain and tie that up. There are a few little nitpicks above as well. The only other thing I will say here is, please cut back on the exclamation points. I was beginning to feel that everyone around me was on the edge of hysteria. Replacing them with periods would improve the tone of the story.

Rating: 3 Stars - This has the makings of a good story, it just needs to be tightened and cleaned up

Captain Dynamic, the Great, Faces the Great Face, arc ID: 190069

Londer and I duoed this arc on our communist themed comedy duo: Eastern Bloc, level 10 Bots/Traps MM and Pinko Taxi Bot, level 10 Ice/Pain Cor. Our choice of characters seemed strangely appropriate for this arc.

SPOILERS BELOW








I really liked the intro text, and chuckled a bit at Captain Dynamic's obliviousness. Also have to say I liked the use of $Name in the mission accept. I think it's the first time I've seen that done.

I was really confused about how "I need you to visit those Snakes, and their leader, Sskrinssafa, and find out whether Great Face has succeeded in making Rikti armor." became this: "Save the cat - save the world". Then I had the dawning realization that this was intentional absurdity, and by that time I was laughing pretty hard at Mindy's lengthy description. So someone must have overwritten the mission eh? Well this completely lacks continutity, but it's intentional, so I'm going to make the choice to just roll with it.

Now for the next one... The mention of Captain Slippery and the Euronators had me laughing. Note: hopefully "worned" was misspelled on purpose.

Inside the mission, the dialog for the captain dynamic look alikes is really funny. We did note a crate with interrupt text that said "You are disturbed". Not sure something else caught my attention, or if you're making accusations here. Overall, the empty crates are funny, but I noticed that some of them repeated, which I don't think is really necessary. Once you've seen the joke once, you're not really accomplishing anything by having multiple objectives with the same text. Euronator robots had suspiciously yellow leg armor, eww

Now here's the biggest problem I found: At our low level, Lost spawned rather than Rikti. This sort of ruined the Rikti technology aspect of the story. I'd suggest probably setting the level to 30+ to ensure that players get Rikti.

Minor nitpick, the end mission text from mission 2 says this:

I have a new mission for you, "Captain Dynamic".

But I think you want this, because he's quoting himself:

"I have a new mission for you, 'Captain Dynamic'".

On to the next mission, the hacking is hillarious again, as is the nav bar. I do question the presence of the snake "Constructor". It seemed sort of out of place, like it's the punchline for a joke you never got a chance to tell. If we'd actually encountered snakes in the first mission it might have made more sense to me, but I don't know, it seemed strange that they showed up now. Also Captain Slippery spawned as a lieutenant which was a tad dissapointing, but I did think his dialog was hillarious.

Overall, absurdity is really hard to convey, especially in a medium like this. I think you did a great job though, and the arc accomplished its goal... and was really enjoyable and funny. The only real issue I had was the Lost that spawned due to our level. Also, while I think the first mission is a surprise and very funny, it seems pretty disconnected from the rest of the Euronator and hacking story line. If there's any way to add some more relevance I think it would help there.

Rating: 5 Stars - Funny and highly recommended!

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Post Deleted by Moderator_08

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... what?

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Doubtful. I think someone's trying to start crazy internet rumors.

QR

Here's the thing, it's fine if you don't like something. I don't think anyone's saying "you have to be all hugs and like everything." But it's not fine if you go on a personal crusade to destroy something. That is just counter productive to the idea of encouraging more story-driven arcs, as opposed to the farming content we all hate.

Also, it never hurt anyone to be a bit gracious when giving opinions.

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I'm still at Comic Con but I wanted to say that the devs and the other NCSoft folks have been awesome during what I'm sure is an exhausting Con for them.

I have to admit that I was pretty excited to hear that they want to extend customization to MM pets at some point in the future.

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Holy [censored]! I can finally have my all women Merc squad?

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In theory yes. Though they said it was something they would like to do, and didn't make any promises about timeframe. Still nice to know its on their radar.

Off the top of my head:

Defenders 6
Controllers 5
Tanks 2
Blasters 3
Scrappers 2
Kheldians 1
Brutes 3
Corruptors 4
Dominators 2
Stalkers 2
MMs 2 (swore I'd only have 1, but wound up with 2)
VEATs 3

I'm still at Comic Con but I wanted to say that the devs and the other NCSoft folks have been awesome during what I'm sure is an exhausting Con for them.

I have to admit that I was pretty excited to hear that they want to extend customization to MM pets at some point in the future.

QR

I wanted to thank you for reviewing Tailor Made. I'm mostly using the MA for writing practice so it's gratifying to hear you enjoyed the dialog.

I actually started out with mostly fashion related destructable objects, but early feedback wanted more variety in the objects to destroy. I'm ok with that and I know I'll never please everyone.

Anyway, I'd comment more but I'm posting this from my phone at Comic Con. I just wanted to say thanks for the review!

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It's okay to argue. It's okay to yell. If the author is a good author, they'll take what they've learned and create even better things in the future. Though I wish people would stop asking people who make it a duty to provide criticism to provide them with their criticism and then deny the criticism.

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In Witch Engine's defense, he never asked anybody to review his story. The arc was posted here by another person who really enjoyed it. This brought the critical eyes upon it.

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This is why some of the venomous responses here bother me. He never asked for a critique from any of the forum heavyweights, hell he never advertised his arc here. The only thing this demonstrates to me is that if you put a lot of time and effort into an arc, and its popularity grows beyond your own SG, prepare to be raked over the coals.

Just a note to say that Londer and I are in San Diego for the next week, so we're taking a break from reviews. Now to get ready to head down to Comic Con!

I heard about Blight a while ago due to word of mouth, because you know, I know people who know people who know people.

To this day it has made the most lasting impression of any arc I've played. Thank you Witch Engine!