Bubbawheat

Came back with a vengeance... also known as two 40+ scrappers to finish the final mission. This time as we worked our way through the map we found the Oracle of the Wind aka Scirocco first and he killed two of us, but the scrappers made short work of him on my short trip to the hospital. Then we ended up finding several Hawk clan Yojimbos, I suppose they would have been a bit of a help if I had known about them earlier. Just luck of the spawn. Next we take out Gakki-Onna (sp?) aka Ghost Widow - which one of the scrappers apparently had never fought before. He mentioned that she had a funky hold and didn't recognize gw as her acronym. Black Scorpion and General Mako were next, though they were actually custom samurai AV who looked fairly similar to the rest of the Spider Clan. You could possibly have Black Scorpion dressed in the red and black of the Scorpion Clan and have his bio mention that he used to be from the Scorpion Clan (although I realize I forgot to read his bio, so it's possible that it did). And Kumo dropped mere seconds after he dropped his banes. We return to Flower Knight who decides that she wants to stay in their dimension as it feels much more like home and wishes me well.

Very nice arc, I enjoyed it and loved the L5R feel to it though the fan in me wanted to see a little bit more accuracy, though I understand if you're just trying to skirt any possible copyright issues. I agree with what some of the other reviews said that some of the samurai in armor look too similar to each other, but there's not that many options for samurai costumes, so I don't have any advice for you on that front. Also, this problem is seen in a lot of the Praetorian enemy groups, like Chimera, so it's not a huge issue. But as far as I'm concerned, it's another 5 star arc from PoliceWoman!

Bubbawheat's review - Part 1

[ QUOTE ]
A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force
Author: PoliceWoman
Arc ID: 260284

Keywords: Challenging, Save the World, Magic
Length: Very Long
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 45-50
Description: Samurai and ninja battle for honor in a faraway realm. But someone has introduced firearms to the land, tilting the balance of power towards the evil Lord Kumo and the Spider Clan. Will you journey there to restore the balance? SFMA, Asian fantasy, L5R, wuxia, dimensional travel. Warning: AVs!


[/ QUOTE ]

Played this last night with Cerulean Archer, my level 38 Trick Arrow/Ice Blast defender, or "blastroller" as I like to call her.

I'll start off with some of the things I knew about before taking this arc on:

I knew Lord Recluse was a boss in the final mission and that he spawns an ambush of Band Spiders at 25% health as one of his innate abilities. And because of this, it would be difficult to solo, I also knew that a version of Ghost Widow shows up as well, but people have had an easier time with her than expected.

Undaunted, I pressed on. The first thing I noticed is L5R in the tags section at the end. I'm a big Legend of the Five Rings card game fan, even though I haven't played in a while, but I'm very familiar with all of the clans and hope to recognize something in here.

My contact is Flower Knight and she's excited because she had a very vivid dream and later found out that her dream looks exactly like another dimension that is similar to Feudal Japan. Her security level is too low so she can't go check it out herself, so she calls on me to help. Her voice is very well written throughout the arc, except in one spot which I'll mention later.

I get to the mission and see Spider clan bushis, archers, and shugenja. I'm not very familiar with the Spider Clan in L5R lore as it was fleshed out after I had left the game. All I know is that it is the current evil power, and I believe in the game it's led by Daigotsu. But in this arc, they are led by Lord Kumo (which I believe is Japanese for spider, or at least there is a creature in the card game that is a spider and is named Kumo). There's also a boss (I believe he's optional) that seems like he will end up being minor comic relief (and my guess is later proved to be right). The mobs are designed quite well and the clues in the missions are interesting and varied. I also find Fujineko (the one on the right), a member of the Hawk clan, who I'm supposed to lead to the exit, though she continues to follow me and fight alongside me anyway. The Hawk clan is only a minor clan which I don't know much about, though their coloring is much more reminiscent of the Crane Clan.

For the second mission I'm sought out to find a woman that is referred to as the Oracle of Void, though it feels like there should be a "the" in front of "Void", and there is in one of the clues later on. The Void is one of the five rings, the others are Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth. The oracle of the Wind shows up later, but it would be a nice touch to add the others, though I wouldn't be surprised if there's simply not enough room. I like how this mission is set up, and now that there is the option to have an "Empty" map, I first get the feeling that I might actually just be talking to her, but as I get to the end of her cave, I see that she is beset by minions of Chimera. I free her and take her to the entrance where more of Chimera's minions have showed up. I take them out and she tells me where Chimera's hiding out, time to take him out. I also find a couple clues that hint at a romantic relation. I can't remember if it's clear here, or if it's revealed later, but this romantic relation is with Chimera himself.

The third mission sends me to take out Chimera and find some glowies. It's the graveyard with the deep pit in the middle, and I circle all the way around the outside, and halfway around the inside finding all the glowies and coming face to face with Chimera himself. He's extremely tough for my fragile blastroller, but after several trips to the hospital, and a lot of "luck", I am victorious.

Coming back to Flower Knight, she reveals in a wild panic that the Oracle of the Void has killed herself. But then she immediately calms down and gives me the next mission as if nothing had happened. I look in my clues and find a touching dream I had... at some point in time, unless it refers to the Oracle's dream. I did feel that Flower Knight's reaction was comically over the top, especially when she immediately calms down afterwords. I would recommend either toning down her reaction, or continuing her reaction slightly in the next mission briefing. But we have the information we need, and Flower Knight's coming along, security level be damned!

Onto the final mission where we have four generals to defeat as well as Lord Kumo. Flower Knight is the only listed ally, though I'm sure Fujineko is around here somewhere as well, especially since she's the one I find first. And second up is... I forget the name, but it's this dimension's Ghost Widow. I also notice that at least one of the generals doesn't have a name change: Black Scorpion. Though there is a Scorpion clan in L5R which is a great clan, but has many members on the darker side. Next up I rescue Flower Knight, and then comes the dreaded Lord Recluse, I mean Kumo. Things are tough, but with two allies... wait a minute, Fujineko's off fighting those minions over behind him. Come back here! Flower Knight's getting killed! Bah, too late, and now I'm dead as well. I'm persistant and I make many more tries, with a trayful of purples, and get him down to his Bane summon. But ultimately I have to call it quits. I intend to finish this with a team soon and will finish my review when I do.

I'm sure you'll be able to tell who I'm a fan of.

"37! My girlfriend dropped 37 dropships!"
"In a row?"

"The Rikti aren't even supposed to be here today!"

"You know, there's a million fine looking Rikti in the world, dude. But they don't all invade you while you're at work. Most of 'em just drop bombs on you. "

-------------

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for Rikti."

"Say, would you like a chocolate covered Rikti? They're a little melty but damn are they exsquisite."

"I went out with him once after we dated. He tried to screw me some place very uncomfortable. "
"What? Like the back of a Rikti Dropship? "

---------------

"All every woman really wants, be it mother, senator, nun, is some serious Rikti-bashing."

"How bad could it have been? "
"Well, have you ever seen a nun call a small child a [censored] Rikti rag?"

---------------

"Were they sent to the Rikti homeworld?
"Worse. Wisconsin. For the entire span of human history. "

---------------

"Affleck, you the *Rikti bomb* in Phantoms yo! "

"It may not be my way, but damn if there doesn't go one happy family. All right, gang, let's just shoot some tear gas into the diner, and then when the guys come out with the Rikti monkey, we'll... That was them, wasn't it? "

---------------

"I'd like some coffee: black."
"Can't you see we're talking: Rikti."

Check the Stories and Lore section, especially the reviews threads. Most reviewers play the arcs solo, and will comment if things are too difficult for a solo player.

[ QUOTE ]
Shrike is a she! *POW*

[/ QUOTE ]
What? There aren't any women on the internet, silly you.

The results so far:

Eddy Swan + EnnVee = Ancient
VexXxa + Yogurt = Swap Gender
Turkey Lurkey + Mariner = Ancient
TremDei + Flame Enchantress = Praetorian/alignment swap
Larissa Rasputin + Gray Huntress = Praetorian/alignment swap
Bayani + Clobbertime = Classic
Hericane + Cauda = Ancient
Juggertha + Nightmyst = Parody
Suichiro + tuter king = Swap Gender
Bubbawheat + Hercules = Praetorian/alignment swap
PeteyCat + Red Valkyrja = Modern
ddgryphon + BlackJackDavy = No theme
Xzero45 + Barron = Animalistic
mousedroid + RedFirefox = Futuristic
Fukushu + The Foo = Ancient
Blackberry Thorn + Johnnykat = Futuristic
Power Stream + The Masked Shrike = No theme
General Knowledge + John Printemps = Modern

You know, I appreciate your reviews, but I was just thinking... except for the final thoughts at the end, your reviews aren't really very useful for anyone except the author. The play by play comments don't really mean anything unless you already know what's going on in thea arc. Just a thought.

LBox

Nice, thanks for trying to bring light to it, but it seems like it's probably not going to continue due to lack of submissions. Which is disappointing, because they were enjoyable.

Simple answer: Take everything on SR, skip nothing. They are all parts of a whole that eventually add up to something great.

Slightly more complex answer: If you plan on IO'ing to get softcapped defense during normal play (eg. not PvP, challenge AE arcs, other scrapper challenges), then Elude could be skipped.

Thanks for the review, all the comments about "arresting" and the final fight with Emily really made my day, thanks for that The Greenfire Matches are Thermal/Fire blast and like any healers, it's a good strategy to take them out first. I've been considering adding more customs, but I'm not entirely sure what would be a good fit, as I've used pretty much all the fire combinations, as well as two re-colored standard mobs (longbow flamethrower - "Pyromaniac", and Carnie Senechal - "Flame Dancer")

Improved team search:

Indicator for team leaders, option to filter by on a team or not on a team, added "looking for AE missions" flag, team size column (like in global friends)

Arc Name: Lost and Found
Author: Montague Castenella
ID# 586
Moraility: Heroic
Level Range: 10-50 - Lost/Rikti, Circle of Thorns
Played at: level 20-21
How I found it: Reaching level 10, Montague Castenella contacted me.

So, I decided to stretch my legs, figuratively speaking and venture out into the real world, also figuratively speaking. I've heard about this Midnighter Club through a few of my contacts, but they were all working with me on a purely unofficial capacity, so I decided to seek this organization out to become a member.

My databases tell me that I need to become "Entrusted With the Secret" before they will allow me to enter their Ouroboros, and access to all sorts of time travel. That is my ultimate goal... for now. I understand that meeting with one Doc Delilah would be the easiest way to become a part of this secret organization, unfortunately I don't have the correct access as she only refers me to Penelope Yin and Yin doesn't want to talk to me either. Instead I decide to go through the Midnighter Club itself and talk to Montague Castanella in the Steel Canyon Library.

He first tells me the haphazard tale of one Percy Winkley who apparently gets himself kidnapped a lot, and has done so once again. It's up to me to rescue him from the Circle of Thorns who are not a whole lot of fun to fight at my current combat level, especially with all of those ghosts roaming about. Afterwards, it's time to check in on some Lost and a Rikti boss: Ci'dion as well as downloading some information from four computers. Apparently downloading information from Rikti computers means grabbing some soft crystals, grabbing a net of more crystals, taking a vibrating orb of electricity, and I think I broke the last one as it spilled a bunch of green mucus all over. And Ci'dion isn't very talkative, merely mentioning that he doesn't like magic. Well, me neither so we have one thing in common at least.

After I defeat Ci'dion my next task is to rescue Argot'BurWat from... Ci'dion... in what appears to be the exact same building. So, why wasn't I able to just do this the first time around? Once again Ci'dion isn't very talkative, he just whines about being defeated by me last time. Next up it's a meeting with Lady Jane of the Dawn Patrol who is in over her head with some Circle of Thorns. I rescue her and she joins me to clear a path to a treasure chest containing a vial of Hero 1's blood from after he had become... altered. Which if my data is correct is something that you don't normally find out until dealing with Lady Grey in the higher security levels.

Finally, it's time to do some walking and talking. Hitting up Argo'BurWat, Azuria, and Montague to collect the final ingredients which I have to take to a university to combine into a Lost Curing Wand. And finally it's time to test it out, which involves going to Perez Park and finding a group of Lost and curing one of them only to be attacked by all of their previous teammates. After curing enough of them, I'm granted the password to get into the Midnighter's Club and am introduced to the contact Mercedes Shelton which according to my information has access to "the secret". So it's now only a short matter of time before I will have access to this "Ouroboros".

Three Stars: Good.

You PM Niviene, I personally don't think it deserves a sticky by itself, I just put a link in the already stickied Reviewer List.

When i16 goes live, what character are you going to immediately go to, or create, to change the colors of all their powers?

The clown blaster that will now have a full rainbow of different colored blasts?

The ice armor that is now a white crystal armor?

Dark blast to become an evil red hellflame blast?

As for me, I don't know if I'll change them, but I will definately check out all the different animations for my level 50 MA scrapper. Don't know if I'll change them, as I like the kicks, but I'll definately check them out.

There are thousands of players who play the AE, there are a lot of lazy players that don't hit "next" or "search", that's why when there's a new dev choice arc, it only takes a couple weeks or so before making its way up to 999+ plays.

Thanks for the kind words, though you spent more space pointing out the typos that I fixed shortly after your /tells ;^_^ as well as adding a short bio for the holo shifters which I'd been meaning to do for a while now. I'm glad I put those lyrics in even though they have nothing to do with time loops, they certainly make an impression on most everyone who notices them.

And this must have been my day to come up on everyone's review list.

I dunno, it seems that even though you weren't sure what was happening, you came to the right conclusions on your own based on the clues and information you were given. I can tell it's an earlier playthrough, as most of the typos have been fixed by now. The map choices have been a bit of a struggle, I tried using a CoV skin for the last one in an earlier version, but it was only slightly different lighting.

I might spend some time looking for a similar looking dilapidated warehouse map for the final mission and work on the spawns a bit more to try and get less backtracking, and more clarity at least on what's going on in that last mission.

Thanks for the review, it seems that today was my day to come up in everyone's queue.

Wow, that's the first time I've gotten a complaint against my custom mobs. Typically I get compliments on them being well balanced. The only things that had garnered complaints previously are the fire defence on the bosses.

Thanks for the review, It seems today was my day for reviews.

I tested this the other day:

There was an arc that had a low number of votes that I had previously rated, but it no longer showed it's star rating in my search.

I jumped on and gave it a quick star rating - the same as it's current average.

I hit refresh and the number of votes had gone up by one.

I think that A-E are all valid options depending on the circumstances.

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for putting this together. I think your description of us is pretty right on:

(except you misspelled "Londerwost")



[/ QUOTE ]

Whoops, was going mostly from memory and always think of it as "Wanderlust" with the L and W swapped. Fixed now.

Thanks for the review, the advice sounds pretty solid.

The "look closer" was originally not there at all, and only in the accept text until I realized that other teammates looking in the mission description wouldn't see that part. I like the multi-colored text if I have room for it.

The first mission probably needs the most work, though I enjoy it on its own merit. There are only 4 "on fire" bases to choose from, Arachnos base, Arachnos warehouse, Hellion, and Skulls. I liked the look of the Arachnos the best, but didn't want Arachnos in there. I'm not sure exactly what I want to do with it, but I've gotten enough "Council in an Arachnos base?!" comments to change it to something else.

I chose fire hydrants because they spray water when destroyed. The only other similar mechanic is the giant cauldron... maybe the Croatoa witches? I don't think I have enough room for another custom group.

The pyromaniac's bio should be made a little closer to the Fire Dancer. They're not mutilated because they don't have fire powers of their own. Surprised you didn't mention they are a recolored longbow. It wouldn't surprise me if you didn't realize it though, getting rid of the star patterns does a lot to change their look.

The Matchstick Women are based on my character(s) "Burnt Matchstick" which is why they have black heads instead of red, and Emily's "villain name" and original display name was "Burnt Matchstick". That means I need to add in some references to "burnt matchsticks" somewhere in bios and whatnot.

Curious girl "runs off" because she was originally set as a wandering ally (like quiet girl still is), but I changed her to a following ally so as to be actually helpful, and to actually see her fight.

I've already dropped Emily from an AV to an EB as I've had a couple (but only a couple) comment on the difficulty. I'll keep an eye on it for now.

Hopefully will have time for edits soon, and I'll let you know when they're live!

What I think is a good idea for the front page:

3 random Dev Choice
3 random Hall of Fame
3 random 5 star
3 random 4 star
3 full random arcs

That way the Dev's Choice don't dominate the front page, and it gets rotated every time it's refreshed.

<ul type="square">[*]airhead (editorial of arcs with fewer plays)[*]Altoholic_Monkey -- Indies (1 mission) | Sequels (2-3 missions) | Epics (4-5 missions)[*]anachrodragon &amp; londerwost (lowbie arcs only, read first post, QPQ appreciated but not required)[*]Beach_Lifeguard[*]Bubbawheat | (In Character) [*]DeviousMe (QPQ) (no longer accepting submissions)[*]Dragonslay[*]Frozen_Northman (QPQ)[*]Glazius (read first post for conditions)[*]HolyEvilAoD (no longer accepting submissions)[*]Jophiel[*]Lazarus -- New (Semi-QPQ), Old[*]LaserJesus -- Old, New[*]Misho[*]Parkin (read first post for conditions)[*]Peacemoon (QPQ)[*]PoliceWoman (QPQ) | Reviews of arcs written by other Reviewers[*]ridiculous_girl (QPQ)[*]SteelSky[*]Stomphoof (QPQ)[*]Talen_Lee[*]TerminusEst13 (Focuses on BAD arcs)[*]theHedoren (QPQ)[*]Venture[*]Wrong Number (Humor Arcs, QPQ)[/list]
EU reviewers
<ul type="square">[*]Col.Blitzkrieger (no longer accepting submissions)[*]Leese[*]Master_Zaprobo (In character)[/list]
Review sites
<ul type="square">[*]City of Guides - Mission Architect[*]CoH Mission Review[*]Mission Architect Advanced Search Site
[*]Choosing the right reviewer: This lists most of the currently active reviewers and gives a short synopsis on their style of reviewing in order to help you choose who you want to review your arc.[/list]
Note: QPQ = quid pro quo: Play and rate/give feedback to the reviewer first in order to get a review on your arc, some are more lenient on this than others. Also, tends to have a shorter queue.

Also, some non-QPQ have more than one reviewer with some not accepting new submissions, check the most recent page for up-to-date information.

Semi-QPQ means that the reviewer only requires it for longer, in depth reviews and not for short, quick reviews.