AwesomusPrime

S'okay.

I'm afraid... someone hold me.

No thoughts re my comments/questions?

I've been reviewed twice by Venture, both three or under. As you can see from the review itself (quoted below) I've done extensive rewrites and plan to do more slight revision, but it still doesn't look up to snuff. thought I'd seek a second opinion before moving further.

Probably best to pay this arc high level, 45+.

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Arc #181165 "The Case of the Late Richard Faraday"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: "just a bunch of stuff that happened", typos, some plot issues

Reviewed on: 6/18/2009
Level Range: 20-54/1-54/1-54/1-54/
Character used: Venture/Virtue

This is a re-review of an arc originally published as #1285 "Training Day". The original review is appended below the line.

Act I now opens with Detective Morgan asking you to help recover Officer O'Leary from the Freakshow. There's an account in the acceptance text of how the operation leading to his capture played out and a warning about a "Dr. Armington" being involved. The various "bad cop" tropes are gone. O'Leary appears to be Claws/Regeneration EB this time with one of the Cultists for a guard; there are some other Cultist spawns present as well. Armington is technically a Rescue detail; he's negotiating with the Freakshow when you arrive and after you beat them ("freeing" him) an ambush wave of Cultists spawns to "cover his escape" as he runs. The debriefing has info from Freakshow 101 in orange text (typo: "thier").

Act II now has you accompany Morgan to the facility they're treating O'Leary at. Most of the info is in the acceptance text again (typo: "optomistic"). The Cultists are already there with hostages, one of which tells you the nanotech the Cultists use is a virus. OK, and this building that is full of people using the stuff is not quarantined...why? Morgan does tell you in the debriefing that O'Leary's nano wasn't weaponized; presumably this was true of the stuff infecting the Cultists but that needs to be spelled out here.

Act III is now a mission to go get Armington. Morgan gives you a little info on Faraday, who's been mentioned by the Cultists a few times (typos: "abotu", "dispursed") and is supposed to be dead now. The map is an abandoned tech base full of Cultists, augmented by a few new models with more nanotech. A Cultist Ascendant's approach text says they're planning to dump the nano into a shipment of the Freak's Excelsior (typo: "compount"). Armington is a Robotics/Devices Elite Boss; he rants a bit as you beat him up then on defeat gives up the location of the transmitter that controls the nanovirus and Faraday's location. This is repeated in the exit popup just in case you didn't get it the first time. Morgan is sceptical about Faraday being alive; this guy is a Paragon City cop, right?

Act IV is the Fight Scene: Morgan and O'Leary accompany you to Faraday's hideout. This is a 90-minute timed mission with an AV warning (typo: "swat", should be capitalized and/or punctuated). You have to take out six "virus bombs" (is it really a good idea to break these things?), the control computer and Richard Faraday, Dark Blast/Dark Miasma AV/EB. There are several Boss level Cultists to deal with as well, but it's a pretty straightforward kill-the-Big-Bad run. The souvenir points you to a second part but this arc does stand on its own.

The arc is improved from its earlier incarnation but still has issues. There is no theme, there are some plot holes (noted above) and more than a few typos. It's serviceable but not much more.

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Arc #1285, "Training Day"
tl;dr: 2 stars. Offenses: many plot holes, surprise EB/AVs, spelling errors, "just a bunch of stuff that happened"

Detective Morgan of the PPD's Vanguard Liason Office wants your help in tracking down a "Docter Armington". An apparent typo in the first briefing is not a good sign. Armington has taken an Officer O'Leary hostage. Morgan tells you if there's nothing to bring back to make sure he's not suffering, and reminds you there's no such thing as a brutality charge in his unit. Um, yeah.

The warehouse you're sent to is filled with custom-faction bots. O'Leary has been turned into a cyber-zombie Claws/SR EB (no warning, but nice job on the model). Defeating him spawns a new objective: "Rip Armington a new one for what he's done." Um, this is a Heroic arc, right? Armington is another EB, Bots/FF, and may try to run when low...I'm not sure. On defeat he says "Teleport activate!" but the defeat text says you can rest easy knowing a monster has been taken to justice...um, which is it?

In Act II, you learn that O'Leary survived the battle and now has control over his new body. The scientist responsible is adapting the nanotechnology that was used on O'Leary ("Lockgear") for battlesuit use. Hmm, nanotech that warps people body and mind developed by a mad scientist now being adapted into Vanguard battlesuits? What Could Possibly Go Wrong? You're asked to oversee a transfer of the equipment. Once on site the objectives are to retrive 5 components, rescue O'Leary (down to Boss) and defeat Armington again. The enemies on this one are Freakshow, with a patrol of the custom drones tossed in for color. Armington is back with a bunch of Freaks for guards; when you start beating on him he hits you with a threat we don't often see in City: "I will make you MY MONKEY BUTLER!"

Yeah.

When Armington gets low on health "Michael Faraday" spawns, a Dark Blast/Dark Miasma AV with machinegun-toting "Cultists" and Energy Blast/Dark Armor "Cultist Ascendant" LTs, the latter's info saying they've been upgraded with Lockgear. They spawned Rocks Fall Everyone Dies style. Even the Contact doesn't know who Faraday is. In Act III you're sent to bust up some of Faraday's cultists in an effort to learn more about him. The mission takes place on an Arachnos lab map, with an Arachnos raid in progress. Heard at entry from a Cultist: "Faraday will whipe this world of life!" Um, yeah. You have to search various computers until you find a Clue stating that Lockgear was invented by one of Faraday's cultists and given to Armington in the hopes that it would end up in Vanguard's hands. Sure enough, Faraday now has control over both Armington and O'Leary, so for Act IV you and Morgan have to recover the Lockgear nanotech before it goes all grey-goo on everyone. Somehow, though, the mission takes place in a sewer. You have to destroy three objects. O'Leary and Armington are present but don't have to be fought. Morgan is supposed to be available as an ally, but spawned in the last room.

For Act V you get a letter from Faraday taunting you into a final showdown. This being a comic RPG you're not allowed to call in an air strike. The match takes place on a small sewer map. It turned out O'Leary was available as an ally but he was behind Faraday and behind some geometry so I didn't see him until well after the fighting was over. Faraday spawns as an AV/EB again and calls multiple ambush waves as he dies.

The plot does not make sense in a lot of places and there are more than a few spelling errors. It also assumes the player is a graduate of the Harry Callahan Police Acadamy. This needs a lot of work.

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I'm also surprised that the arc only came up one star, but I do see where work is needed as I said. I guess I want to know what you'd want from this arc to call it 4-5 stars. I'm happy with 4, but who doesn't want 5.

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Act I now opens with Detective Morgan asking you to help recover Officer O'Leary from the Freakshow. There's an account in the acceptance text of how the operation leading to his capture played out and a warning about a "Dr. Armington" being involved. The various "bad cop" tropes are gone. O'Leary appears to be Claws/Regeneration EB this time with one of the Cultists for a guard; there are some other Cultist spawns present as well. Armington is technically a Rescue detail; he's negotiating with the Freakshow when you arrive and after you beat them ("freeing" him) an ambush wave of Cultists spawns to "cover his escape" as he runs. The debriefing has info from Freakshow 101 in orange text (typo: "thier").

Act II now has you accompany Morgan to the facility they're treating O'Leary at. Most of the info is in the acceptance text again (typo: "optomistic"). The Cultists are already there with hostages, one of which tells you the nanotech the Cultists use is a virus. OK, and this building that is full of people using the stuff is not quarantined...why? Morgan does tell you in the debriefing that O'Leary's nano wasn't weaponized; presumably this was true of the stuff infecting the Cultists but that needs to be spelled out here.

Act III is now a mission to go get Armington. Morgan gives you a little info on Faraday, who's been mentioned by the Cultists a few times (typos: "abotu", "dispursed") and is supposed to be dead now. The map is an abandoned tech base full of Cultists, augmented by a few new models with more nanotech. A Cultist Ascendant's approach text says they're planning to dump the nano into a shipment of the Freak's Excelsior (typo: "compount"). Armington is a Robotics/Devices Elite Boss; he rants a bit as you beat him up then on defeat gives up the location of the transmitter that controls the nanovirus and Faraday's location. This is repeated in the exit popup just in case you didn't get it the first time. Morgan is sceptical about Faraday being alive; this guy is a Paragon City cop, right?

Act IV is the Fight Scene: Morgan and O'Leary accompany you to Faraday's hideout. This is a 90-minute timed mission with an AV warning (typo: "swat", should be capitalized and/or punctuated). You have to take out six "virus bombs" (is it really a good idea to break these things?), the control computer and Richard Faraday, Dark Blast/Dark Miasma AV/EB. There are several Boss level Cultists to deal with as well, but it's a pretty straightforward kill-the-Big-Bad run. The souvenir points you to a second part but this arc does stand on its own.

The arc is improved from its earlier incarnation but still has issues. There is no theme, there are some plot holes (noted above) and more than a few typos. It's serviceable but not much more.


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Ok, I've some points and questions... who doesn't.

First off thanks for the detailed typo assessment, always a plus. If more people did that when they mentioned that they saw typos I wouldn't be fixing one a month, I'd be fixing all of them.

I'm going to take as read you saw no issues with act 1, unless the Freakshow 101 comment meant that it was a little too remedial to require explanation, but as a school teacher I know that the average person is not the brightest person. Better to spell it out sometimes, and introduction is the best place for exposition.

Act II, it is mentioned in the intro that the nano-tech is neutered. I will double check to make sure I'm not mistaken, but I was fairly certain it was. However, you are the second person to mention this so I will attempt to make it more clear. Unfortunately that text box is at 1000 characters, so it will take some doing.

Act III, is it clear by now they needed the excelsior so that the effected would survive transformation? I used the repetition in case someone wasn't watching the dialogue, but since it's basically explained again a third time by Morgan, I can probably nix that.

Morgan is supposed to be a low level contact giving out a high level mission basically. Originally this was made more clear by the details of Faraday's past life. In essence Morgan has dealt with nothing more advanced than low threat Freaks, his average fair being Hellions, Skulls, and small time groups like the Cult, only now the Cult has returned as something more sinister. As I said it was much clearer once, but it was also a wall of text, so I cut large swathes of it. I'll either make things more clear or tweak Morgan's reaction slightly.

That said I would posit that it is within genre convention for characters to assume the dead will stay dead even in a milieu where the dead clearly do not stay dead. I know (or feel I do) your stance on this type of claim though, so we'll leave it at 'I'll look into it'.

I'm going to change Act IV so that destroying the computer spawns the bombs. Without the control signal from the computer they're useless and inert. I'll also make that clear in the debriefing.



Now the 'question' re the theme.

I would concur that the theme in this narrative is weak, but I do not agree non-existent and so I would ask you politely if you could elaborate. I will tell you my 'vision' of the theme so you perhaps may better tell me where you see I fell short.

I saw the theme evolving around a minor threat from the past, emerging in Post-Rikti war Paragon. Now a substantial threat that has cropped up unseen over night, as opposed to a minor nuisance, making his presence known at the worst possible time (with Rularuu , Nemesis, Arachnos, The Coming Storm, etcetera Paragon has a lot on it's plate).

The theme itself is this villain presenting a lose-lose situation to the player. Allow Faraday to win, and doom Paragon City, or defeat him and allow him to sacrifice himself, furthering his deification among his followers. Now originally this was much clearer, and the final mission was to be fail-able, but arc size constraints basically frustrated me into finishing it prematurely.

It was a complete story, but I published it knowing the theme would be well hidden from all but the most careful observations.

What, if anything, do you suggest? Or was your comment 'It's serviceable but not much more.' meant to convey you'd given up on this arc as anything more than time filler no matter what was done to it.

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I really like steak. I hate tofu, though.

The grocery store I buy my food at sells both.

Do you honestly think it's reasonable for me to bang on the manager's door and demand that, because I hate tofu, that any money that I spend on steak should be used to further enhance the store's stock and inventory of steak, and that it specifically not be spent on maintaining the store's tofu stock?

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While I understand the OPs sentiment, this is in fact the reasonable presentation of the situation.

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Lol well put.

I've got no problem with the price either. I do feel sympathy for those who aren't as rolling in filthy lucre as me, but if the West hadn't won the Cold War, well our Mission Arkitekt Slotz would be free of course, paid for by the State, but we'd all be wearing identical dungarees and going schitzo trying to deal with wonderful idealism vs the corruption of human greed while we toiled in the fields.

Consider the $20 as a retroactive War Bond payment in the fight against Communism.

Eco.

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Funniest post I've run in a long time! 5 stars, one just for a Cold War Communism reference!

I think the slots are rather pricey, and I'm hoping they'll see this feedback and modify them a bit. It will mean the difference between my buying 1 or 2 slots and buying 5.

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At this pricing if you buy two slots because 5 are too expensive you're an idiot. Sorry.

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You should be. If my budget only allows me $10 to spend, then that's what I'll spend. If I'm only interested in writing 2 more arcs, then that's all I need. Should I tell you what you need now and prounounce you stupid if it's different than that?

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You can if you'd like. You might well be justified. It still makes more sound financial sense to have patience and pool two months disposable to get 5 arcs. If you really want it nao, you need to accept that you're throwing money away.

That said I'm really cranky right now for 50 other reasons, so I'm probably going to look back on this and consider myself a troll. In that vein I will admit that, while what I said remains true, I could have said it nicer.

And on another side note, this discussion really should be in the other MA section. This section is supposed to be for stories and lore, not discussions like this.

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ok, this is even double ubber exploit, you got offered more slots for a price, but the size of your missions will exeed your stock anyways.
So i bet next move will be: ok, we sold you more slots, but your story arcs exeeds the stockage limit, so we offer you more space for only 5 usd per SA??????

Keiser Soze got hold of NC SOFT.

No wonder why mod 08 told me we would have some explanations very soon.

He felt ashamed.

did i trolled on this? yup

I posted it in 3 different forums.

If i get a tell, i remove all my accounts.

im not lookin for attention, i want to jet, but im lazy^^

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I sent you a tell. Can I has your stuff?

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Lol well put.

I've got no problem with the price either. I do feel sympathy for those who aren't as rolling in filthy lucre as me, but if the West hadn't won the Cold War, well our Mission Arkitekt Slotz would be free of course, paid for by the State, but we'd all be wearing identical dungarees and going schitzo trying to deal with wonderful idealism vs the corruption of human greed while we toiled in the fields.

Consider the $20 as a retroactive War Bond payment in the fight against Communism.

Eco.

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Funniest post I've run in a long time! 5 stars, one just for a Cold War Communism reference!

I think the slots are rather pricey, and I'm hoping they'll see this feedback and modify them a bit. It will mean the difference between my buying 1 or 2 slots and buying 5.

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At this pricing if you buy two slots because 5 are too expensive you're an idiot. Sorry.

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$6 to save a 100k file? No thanks.

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Gotta go along with this. I don't mind them selling more story slots, but the price is WAY too high. I'd maybe pay $5 for like 10 extra slots, anything more than that is a little ridiculous.

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This is actually the price scheme suggested by the players who suggested purchasable slots initially... but hey, short memory is short, and entitlement is the word of the day around here so no shock.

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Arc #170547, "The Beating Heart of Astoria: A Play in Five Acts"
tl;dr: 4 stars. Offenses: Everyone is Jesus in Purgatory

Reviewed on: 6/12/2009
Level Range: 40-54/40-54/40-54/40-54/1-54
Character used: Agent Cerulean/Justice

A "Stagehand" claims you are to the the lead actor in a play about Astoria. The briefing appears to say that you should disregard anything in the canon for the purposes of this mission, which is never a good sign. After an overly obfuscated and pretentious introduction to three characters (The Assassin, The Thaumaturgist, the Paladin), you are sent to the burning office (Hellions) map (Banished Pantheon spawns) to meet up with the Assassin (Assault Rifle/Super Reflexes Boss ally) and destroy the heart of the beast. Freeing him spawns three altars to destroy; destroying them spawns a horde of (friendly) Stagehands that announce the heart of the beast is exposed. Only it isn't; when you get to the last room the Big Bad is an Understudy (Sonic Blast/DiedTooFast) who claims to only be the herald of Mot. In the debriefing the Assassin concludes he can't be of any help to you as there is no single target for him to kill.

Act II's briefing continues in this vein, not explaining what it is you're going to do until after you've agreed to do it. In the acceptance speech the Thaumaturgist mocks the Assassin for expecting the villain to reveal himself in the first act and concludes the only course of action is to sacrifice an innocent to Mot in an attempt to appease it. This is probably why the Stagehand said "the characters are damned but the cast will not suffer for their actions".... You enter an office map and meet up with the Thaumaturgist (Radiation Blast/Dark Armor), which spawns three sacrifices to find. The guards on the hostages warn you that the script has been rewritten. Freeing the hostages (who are all willing to die for the greater good) triggers another Understudy (Sonic Blast/Fire Blast Boss), who says Mot's hunger is insatiable. The Thaumaturgist concludes in the debriefing that the task is impossible.

Act III brings us to the Paladin, who basically wants to just kill everything and let the gods sort it out. You're sent to the Chimera graveyard map to detonate a bomb. Fortunately I had Hide so I could just run around with impunity looking for the damn thing.... Destroying the bomb starts its countdown but there isn't enough time for you to escape. You have to find the Paladin, who uses his power to shield you both from the explosion. The debriefing reveals the bomb had no effect at all, and the Paladin steps aside.

Each having failed, all three of your former allies turn to the service of Mot in Act IV. So, off with their heads. You're sent to the Mother Mayhem map to take them out. You have to defeat a Pantheon Mask first to spawn them. Along the way are some non-hostile ghosts who complain about the ailments they had in life and such. Only the Thaumaturgist presented any real difficulty for me thanks to the huge defense debuffs. The Stagehand tells you in the debriefing the end is next, but not a happy one, as it was never the lead's role to save Astoria.

For the finale the Stagehand sends you to sing for Astoria. I don't sing, court order... Anyway, you're sent to one of the very short one-room Council maps with a single glowie labeled "Microphone" and Mot, an AV/EB (who is your Contact, but we saw that coming). You're told in the nav bar to sing and then meet the stagehands backstage for a feast. Noticing the AV was hostile I attacked and killed it; it never fired back. Then I clicked on the glowie and got Mission Failed. According to the briefing, this was actually a success; evidently had you followed the script you would have freed Mot. Instead he returns to his prision defeated. The souvenir explains what all this was supposed to symbolize, which in retrospect was weakly foreshadowed in Act IV. I don't think a good story requires this kind of heavy-handed exposition.

I've been marking down arcs for being "just a bunch of stuff that happened" and getting flak for it. This arc is an example of one of the things that can happen when the Architect goes too far in the other direction. In this case we've hit the "Everyone is Jesus in Purgatory" negative trope where everything is so mired in symbolism and allegory that you can make up almost any account at all to fit the references. The dialog is very good and the Architect uses the available tools very inventively, but the result is a near-incomprehensible mess. This would have been a three-star arc at best if not for the technical skill behind it. If you're a theater or LitCrit major, or enjoy trying to make sense out of Lost, this arc is for you. Otherwise prepare to be boggled most of the time.

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This arc sounds absolutely awesome!

I've used that card with this game, while the 9800 I'm using now is much prettier, it certainly is more than playable. I also was running a scant 1 gb of ram.

Five more reviews until my rerun... squeeel!

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So, my brother has stopped playing and he doesn't want to play it anymore.

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I'd say this is why people didn't quite understand.

Isn't mounting discrimination against mutants expressly mentioned as a cause of young mutants banding together under the Outcast's banner, hence the name?

Seeing a lot of plays the last two days, if anyone has any feedback please let me know. Although I'm enjoying the FIVE STAR RATINGS

That's right, five star, some come on down and enjoy what some other people have indicated may possibly be an enjoyable experience!

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Issue 14: Indian Giver


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Wow
Any idea how racist that term is?
And historically incorrect?
Just asking.

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oh no, here come the PC police...

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Ironically my post came right after yours. Just wanted to say, I don't know about other people, but I don't see this as a PC thing. I don't live in India, and so the indigenous people here do not include my landlord Nazir Malik, they include my down stairs neighbor Berny and his wife Chris.

Further, one cannot assume that because they are not European they are in some way untrustworthy, and if you say you don't think Native's are untrustworthy why compare a schemer to a native?

Finally, why have a catch all term for the various indigenous peoples? We don't refer to Russians, Chinese, Indians, and Arabs as 'Asians' just because their all from the same continent. The Native Americans living near me are Mi'gmaw for example, as opposed to Inuit or Ojibwa.

I dunno, I just think in this day and age, PC or not, we can stop using the various as insults.

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City of Heroes: Too little; Too late?

I have others too:

Issue 15: Mediocrity
Issue 14: Indian Giver
Issue 13: True Lies
Issue 12: Age of Heroes

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Issue 16: Only sticking around to [censored]?

[/ QUOTE ]Or possibly, Issue 16: Still whining about PvP

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How about Dandelo: Dirty Racist, or maybe my offense is because I'm Canadian, I've been told that Native American's don't get the same level of respect everywhere in NA, but I'd like to think they deserve more than to be the butt of a joke.

I mean you wouldn't say "Issue 14: They j###d me" or "Issue 14: [Censored] stole my bike" because that would be horribly offensive. Or I dunno, maybe you would.

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Great discussion. Both sides have made some excellent points about whether "Kid $name" or "$name" make more sense for a player's $sidekickname. I'm definitely reading it all, and appreciate the input.

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I guess if you're not wiling to budge on such a minor detail, (there really aren't 2 sides here), there's no chance in hell of convincing you that your Nazi arc has a morally offensive theme. You take too much glee in your creative output to consider the moral implications.

But, nevertheless, I suggest you rename that arc "Nazi's Win Forever!" Or subtitle it "A Shaved Head's Damp Dream," (title toned down, but hopefully you get it).

Then if people continue to play it, or tell you they enjoy it, I'll consider moving to Canada.

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I would enjoy such an arc, and I'm not a Nazi. Also I live in Canada. So....

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I posit that Kid $Name works in more cases than $Name does.

I don't care if it works in more cases than not; it doesn't work in enough cases to warrant using it.

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Fixed for you, assuming you've not shifted your PoV.

Alternatively you could have said : It fails to work in enough cases to warrant not using it.

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Clash of Justice Egos? Sounds like a mission arc coming to YOU soon.

But let's stay focused. Who is AWESOME on Justice?

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Me.

I'm going to be less subtle: I highly recommend AGAINST playing GMs for fools. If one of them should look at your incident history, they may decide to reprimand you for persistent rule breaking.

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The more common term hereabouts is kill-stealing. It is considered impolite, though there is no formal rule against it. If another player follows you around doing it constantly, there may be grounds for a petition claiming harassment.


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From experience, probably not much will be done. Thankfully it doesn't often happen.

I want in on the ground floor of this, both of my arcs (181165 and 71532) are yours for the taking.