Coulomb2

It's now time for the next installment of...

...oh wait. I guess Perturbation is up again.

Claiming the Isles (The Nemesis Strike Force) (Arc ID#448371; 3 stars)
(Rogue Morality)

You know, there’s nothing like just kicking up your rocket-booted heels after a nice month of engaging in heavy criminal enterprises (and pulling in boatloads of cash) and just relaxing with a bit of villain fantasy at the Architect Entertainment building. Besides, you never know when you’ll come across a pretty clever idea some well-meaning author has just foolishly posted for perusal by the villain underground. Sure, none of them can hold a candle to the sheer genius of my *real* plots, but there’s always some element to these stories that I could rip off to tweak the master plan here or there.

Besides, my normal hang-out in Oroborus – tweaking various past timelines to better favor my future plans meeting with resounding success – has recently been flooded by these pathetic wannabes with delusions of godhood. Morons. Don’t they know there can only be one ultimate incarnate? And that it’s going to be me? In any case, it was time to get out of there for a while…

So after ‘hacking’ Pro Payne’s forum account to see what was next on his list of reviews (your password was your *birthday*? SERIOUSLY? Idiot.) I was pleased to see it at least had a somewhat villainous bent to it. So I plugged in the ID and got started…

The basic premise: Lord Nemesis is seeking a meeting with me. He’s happy I agreed. He wants to know if I’m willing to do something for him, in return for a dumptruck’s worth of cash. He can’t help but make a few offhand remarks about how simultaneously simple and yet ‘brainmeltingly’ complex the reason for meeting with me is. Get to the point Tin Man…


You know, the MA room is not the most secure place for your clandestine meeting, Nemmie – but seeing as how you brought a dump truck full of money, I’ll let it slide.

He’s got an automaton built to look like a PPD detective. He wants me to kill the real detective, so the automaton can take his place. I don’t really need to be paid to kill people, so I suppose the money is to buy my willingness to continue on with the automaton part of the plan. Whatever. It’s time to beat up some cops.

Notes: Already this seems pretty ‘off’ for a Nemesis plot – he’s being far too straightforward (and, frankly, the fact that he flat out calls his plan ‘brainmeltingly’ complex seems like a very un-Nemesis like thing for him to say). There’s really no reason for him to give me even the details that he does. Offer me lots of money to kill the detective; write into the story later that he slipped in an automaton to replace the slain detective. Also, ‘I knew we’d be meeting so it’s very nice to be in a convienient place and time’ is pretty awkward sounding – do you mean something like “I knew we’d eventually meet face to face; I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. I trust this is a convenient place and time for you?”)

It took precisely no effort to break into the PPD office; from there I broke up a couple of ‘meetings’ and found the Nemesis automaton who was to replace the detective (seems a bit odd there was no objective mentioning him). Oddly, the detective automaton seemed to be wielding rather modern looking twin pistols, but he was helpful in a fight.


Intoning my voice upward at the end of his name isn’t doing it for me. That irritates me. You better be pretty good in a fight, bub.

Note: You might want to consider either switching his set to assault rifle and arming him with the classic Nemesis rifle (which just makes him more consistent with how the automatons are usually armed in other arcs), or perhaps make his guns something more old fashioned, like flintlock pistols. Granted, I am aware that most automatons in other arcs are not the types of people you’d expect to be armed, whereas a police detective would be – so it does make a kind of sense the automaton would be armed normally for a police detective, but it’s still something to consider. Also, it seems rather odd an automaton would have willpower as a defense set – as a matter of opinion, I’d think invulnerability makes more sense.

All good things must come to an end, though – after two floors of beating down ‘the man’ I found my target. Somewhere along the line, my automaton friend had become distracted (maybe it saw a cute coffee-maker or something?), which actually made it a bit odd when the detective kept referring to the double I’d brought with me.

After dispatching the detective, I left the automaton in the office, and headed back to Nemesis. Maybe he had some more paying jobs for me?

Notes: The writing in the clues is a little awkward, in part because they make observations that won’t necessarily match what the player is thinking. For example, the fact the automaton is ‘obsessed’ with Nemesis (which I take to mean he’s slavishly loyal and devoted to Nemesis – obsessed may not be the best word there) doesn’t strike me as creepy per se. That a Nemesis automaton would act as though it ‘idolized’ Nemesis makes sense. Contrary to this was the clue given by defeating the real detective: it suggests that things start up like ‘business as usual’ the next morning at the PPD office. While Nemesis’ very short debriefing suggests the arriving officers were ‘curious’ about the attack, it seems to me like there’d be more ‘awareness’ and *concern* that the office had been attacked by a villain – and that the automaton would try to cover the true motive by telling the PPD ‘reinforcements’ that ‘although the police lost some good men, they did manage to fight off the villain.’ Throw in mention of an APB with a description that doesn’t resemble the player’s character at all (the automaton trying to lead the police off the trail), and I think you’ve got a more believable end to the mission.

I do see now why the automaton had the power sets he did – they’re the same as the detective. That said, unless there’s very little room left in the arc, it might be a nice touch to make the real detective and the automaton identical looking mobs with different power sets.

Next, Nemesis informs me the Freakshow is engaged in a raid somewhere in Paragon City, and it is vitally important that I gain their trust, even though I’m going to seem to be there to try to stop them. Huh? That makes no sense… Okay, I’m supposed to get to the Freak’s raid leader, and do what he asks to gain the trust of his faction.

Note: We’ve quickly gone from I’m doing this for Nemesis for a nice, fat paycheck, to ‘I must do as I’m told because *I’m* Nemesis and you are my peon.’ Or at least that’s what it’s seeming like. The easiest way to buy into the premise of this arc is to suppose I’m acting as an extremely high-priced mercenary for Nemesis. Remember that *any* level 45+ Rogue or Villain is at the top of their game; it’s unrealistic to assume they will act as anyone’s lackey at this point, so I’d highly recommend you do anything possible to play up the fact I’m being paid very well for these tasks Nemesis is having me do. Add that he’s adding a nice big premium onto my pay to not ask questions – just make sure the job gets done!

A short ride later (presumably Nemesis has a boat or steam powered jet or something to get me to Paragon) I find myself in a city block overrun by Freakshow. Given that the Freaks are always looking for a good fight, they’re more than willing to go toe to toe with yours truly; the fact they probably thought I was a hero coming to spoil the fun didn’t hurt, I’m sure.

As I took down Freak after Freak, I tried to spread the word that I wasn’t a hero – I was here to help the Freaks do whatever act of senseless destruction they were no doubt here to do. They kept telling me that I needed to talk to their main man, Thrash (which is something I’d only be allowed to do if *they* didn’t put me down first – well, not really, but wouldn’t it be cool if that’s how the mission was put together?). So I tracked Thrash down.


Hey, cool! It’s like your name is instructions on what to do with you…

The Excelsior-addled mountain of muscle put up a good fight, but he wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. And beating the tar out of him, but not slapping a med beacon on him to teleport him to the Zig, was (predictably) enough to earn his trust. He told me he’d make me an honorary member of the cell if I’d finish the job of planting bombs around the city block. For what Nemesis way paying me, I was happy to oblige. (Note: The clue made it sound a bit like I was planting them all around the city – but saying I’m planning them around the block strikes me as fitting the mission a little better.)

Upon my return, Nemesis told me that he was expecting Thrash to ask me to help with the bombing (well, duh… anybody could have seen that one coming – oh, and, by the way, it’s “In fact” not “Infact” – minor typo there). But he also clued me in to the fact that one of the buildings targeted was a Fargo Industries lab that was working on a ‘power dulling’ technology. Nemesis acting as though he was interested in the ‘tech, which made me wonder why he was okay with the Freaks blowing it sky high?! If it was important to his plan (and my continued payments) I could only hope another of his agents had spirited the details of the technology out of the lab before the bombs went off.

Well, as long as I got paid, it wasn’t really my problem; at least not yet. So I waited for Nemesis to give me something new to do – nothing wrong with adding yet more zeroes to this year’s paycheck…

Oh, wait. According to Nemesis - *now* I’m going to break into the lab and steal the tech. And I’ve got about thirty mintues before the building comes down. And he’s getting uppity with me, demanding I do what he says (reminding me that I’m in his employ). Bad move, Nemmie. Handing me a nice check doesn’t buy you the right to mouth off. Way I see it, this is *your* problem, what with your “master plan” involving having the building blown up *before* you got what you needed out of it.

After negotiating some extra hazard pay (easy once I pointed out that without my help, he wasn’t getting his precious ‘tech), I headed into the building. (Note: Yeah, the commentary here is kind of a jab at the fact that it’s risky, story-wise, to have the contact ‘talk down’ to a very high level character. But I’m also secretly hoping that it gives you some ideas as to how to “re-frame” some of the text to, perhaps, make the player feel more ‘motivated’ to play the missions…)

Not surprisingly, the lab was in fairly poor condition. Nemesis informed me that the Detective Jenson automaton would be in the lab (I’m guessing he was leading the PPD there), and would help me find the device. (Quick Note: It’s just a minor nitpick, but I think “Detective Jenson Automaton” would be a better name than “Detective Jenson?” given that I’m well aware of the fact he *isn’t* the real detective.)

The lab itself was crawling with Longbow and PPD trying (unsuccessfully) to shore up the structure – and no doubt trying to get anything of value (and any injured people) out before the building collapsed. Much to my chagrin, the PPD had brought a hero with them…


[Insert clichéd offcolor joke about frigid women…]

…but, powerful though she was, she showed the same general weakness to a beating with severe malice that most of those stupid enough to face off against me show.

Stupid Longbow should be thanking me, actually – I gave a whole horde of them an excuse to mediport out of the building before it collapsed. I found the “Power Duller” device on the fourth floor of the lab, picked it up, and headed out with more than ten minutes to spare. Hopefully Nemesis would be pleased enough to add a little extra bonus into my already substantial pay.

Nemesis was happy with my work, and made a casual mention that not only was this device key to his plan, but that with it in his possession, we were ready to begin with the final phase of whatever he was up to.

Or at least we would be, if it wasn’t for his obsessive need to always have a backup plan.

Hey, what can I say? It’s your money, N-man. If you want to pay me the big bucks to run some idiot side errand for you instead of going ahead and seizing the glory (or whatever you’re up to), who I’m I not to take your cash? Especially if I still get my cut of the ‘big plan’ later on.

Notes (In character, this time): It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a Power Duller might have some role is weakening or eliminating superpowers – and this thing looks like it might be able to emit a field large enough to affect a lot of stuff. Now, I have no reason to suspect *I’m* the target of this thing: Nemesis has got better things to do than take me out for no apparent reason. But let’s face it – you don’t get this far in the Isles by blindly trusting that ArchVillains are going to just leave you alone once your buisiness with them is concluded. Especially if you’re walking away with enough of their money to buy and sell the whole of Hawaii three times over… so before giving this thing to Nemesis, I think it’d be best if I install a hidden kill switch so that I can remotely turn this sucker off if I need to. So provided Big-N behaves himself, we’re all happy. But should he decide the bill for my services is too high and figures that his very own Power Duller’s gonna let him skip out on his monetary obligations to me … well, it’ll be time to teach him a very hard lesson. (And no, none of that is in the arc; take is as an indication that any villain or rogue type is going to be aware of the potential for ‘contact betrayal’ and would probably take steps to be ready for it – just in case.)

After lecturing me on the value of having a backup plan (“so that your plan may continue even when your opponents think they have succeeded” – and even more condescending statements about how ‘obvious’ Nemesis’ genius is and how, if I’ve got a brain in my head at all, I’ll see things his way), Nemesis reveals that the backup plan is to upload my biometrics into his fabrication systems so that he can start churning out automatons of me. Notes: Nemesis’ dialog here needs some work: he says “processes” when I think you mean “purposes” – and “you” instead of “your.”

Yeah, Nemesis. If this was real life, I’d be thanking you for the wads of cash, and telling you to find some other idiot to copy – and then ripping apart your feeble attempt to stop me from leaving with my life. But this is MA-land where I can play along with catching an idiot ball the size of a small moon. Alright, fine. I’ll just play along for story purposes.

“Sure boss. Upload away. Where do I need to stand?”

Got it. I’m going to head into your base, *fight* my way to the computer (so as to give your men some practice in fighting me, to “keep them at the pinnacle of their training” – or some such nonsense), and then upload myself. (Note to self: Riiiiight… not only am I giving you the ability to replicate me, I’m also giving your men a crash course in every aspect of how I fight, requiring me to *not* leave a trail of corpses in my wake so that they’ll learn something.)

So anyway, I head into the base and get started…

The base is actually an old warehouse filled with Nemesis troops. In all honestly, fighting my way through them was a decent enough workout (aside from the occasional quintuple vengenced Colonel, which, now that I think about it, was not that bad a workout either.)

There was a big, bad Fake Nemesis there, and he summoned a big bad Nemesis ambush. But it wasn’t anything “judiciously taking out all the minions and badly injuring the Colonels before you try to hit them all with a single AoE” couldn’t handle.


You know, this brings up a good point… If I’m supposed to be helping your men keep themselves in top shape, wouldn’t it be a lot more cost-effective to just stock the base with your men, and avoid several million dollars in damage to all of your robots, whom I *can’t* just beat into unconsciousness?

Found the upload device in the back. Uploaded myself. Let the betrayal begin…
Note: More so than the first three, this mission had a “it’s just filler to give you something to do between missions three and the real grand finale.” Doesn’t really advance the plot any more than using the mission briefing text to say Nemesis pulls out a scanner and does a full body scan. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy playing the mission, but it wouldn’t hurt for there to be more of a point to it beyond just taking up time (which is what it feels like right now).


Golly gee willikers, Mr. Wilson, you don’t think it’s dangerous for me to upload myself, thereby allowing Nemesis to make thousands of souped-up copied of me? He’d never use them against me, right?

Color me surprised, but Nemesis hasn’t yet revealed his betrayal. He actually offers me my money now (…although I’d prefer the story be offering payments after every task...), or to double it if I help him in his real scheme. Okay, I’ll at least see what that real scheme is…

(Not like I’d actually walk away while he’s got detailed plans on how to build copies of me anyway. In the real Rogue Isles, I’d be finding a way to deal with that right after this plan of Nemesis’ was over. Heck, if we’re going with the whole ‘for real’ approach, I’d never had let him ‘build a better me’ no matter how much he paid.)

Well I’ll be – he’s going to play it straight. At least it seems so. We’re going to head over to Grandville to unseat Recluse himself. The Freak are running interference, and have prompted the Big Spider to send his lieutenants ‘out’ (It’s not clear exactly where), leaving Recluse alone. That leaves, Nemesis, myself, and those copies of me to take out Recluse – who should be weakened by the power nullifier. Not only is the pay right up there, Nemesis offers to make me his second in command – not a bad place to be. Means there’s only one rung to climb when it’s time to become the new head cheese.

(Note: Again, the writing is awkward here, but I do like how the arc makes it clear that I’m doing what I’m doing for the money, and not just become I’m a loyal lackey. Granted, there are some thing’s I don’t buy I would have agreed to, but let’s move on with the story…)

I arrive in Grandville, accompanied by the familiar ‘Arachnos sounds’ (Huh? What is that supposed to mean?). Shortly therein I encounter Nemesis, who will be my ally here. That’s good, because Recluse can be an awfully tough nut to crack.

Heading down the Grandville tower, Nemesis and I tear through the Arachnos legions, until we encounter Recluse himself. Sadly, Nemesis, overconfident idiot that he is, decides to go gallivanting around the room taking pot shots at every major spot inside. The combined agro is more than I can withstand – but, fortunately, the same idiotic AI that makes Nemesis act like Fusionette also means nobody perceives him as a threat after my defeat. That’s fortunate, because perhaps I can clear the remaining spawns from the map before I pick up Nemesis again, allowing our combined firepower to defeat Recluse… we can hope.

Okay … round two at least lets me clear out all of the spawns from the chamber where Recluse is. Thankfully, as I write this, his minions are timing out and respawning (not that I’ll focus on them when I attack Recluse for real.) So now I’ll grab Nemmie and attack Recluse directly…


Hey, here’s a plan, Nemmie. Why don’t *you* solo Lord Recluse this time around, and *I’ll* stay in the back and take potshots?

…Okay, that didn’t go so well. So it’s time to break out the Biological Mutagens and the Chemical Burn Nuke. Nothing like stacking a major damage resistance debuff on the bad guy while giving myself a huge damage buff. This is too much for Recluse to take…

And Lord Recluse is defeated. Mostly because of all of the stuff *I* brought to the fight – Nemesis’ lame little ‘Power Duller’, or whatever, had practically no effect.

And then Nemesis turned on me, calling in my automaton to ensure my defeat. Which was rather pointless, because I’d just faced Recluse and was fresh out of nukes. So it wasn’t like I was going to beat Nemesis…

But that didn’t matter anyway. All I had to do was defeat my automaton, and then I’d be able to walk away from this whole thing, *billions* richer (and with no worries of more of them coming after me, because ol’ Nemmie didn’t bother to back up the programming and put his all in this one copy…). What did I care if Nemesis controlled the Rogue Isles? As long as there were no more perfect copies of me running around, and I had enough money to buy an archipelago a whole lot bigger than the Rogue Isles, I was fine with the situation.

Note: Obviously this just illustrates what I see as major flaws in the potential ‘fun factor’ of this arc – the whole final mission is a build up to a giant ‘f.u.’, and the ONLY point of the previous mission was to set up that very same ‘f.u.’ – which was not terribly hard to even see coming.

Stuff I didn’t hate: While the mission design itself is pretty standard stuff, that isn’t a bad thing (because it works). Since the author avoids “kill alls”, but tends to use what at least seem like moderate-sized or larger maps, the arc is very flexible in terms of letting the player control the pacing. Players interested in rewards and combat have decent numbers of foes to fight through in each mission (I was set to +0/x5, and routinely got between 300-400 tickets dropped from foes, with an equal sized reward at the end of each mission), but a player who wants to quickly move to each objective and not linger in the missions could theoretically play through the arc (especially the first four missions) quite fast. Another plus is the Rogue alignment of the arc – the arc’s premise pretty much requires you to be acting as Nemesis’ lackey, which is something that would test the patience of most level 45+ villains, but is right up a Rogue’s alley, since you can justify what you are doing by supposing that Nemesis is paying you obscene amounts of money for your services. And … if only the other would consider this in a rewrite … it at least has the potential to remove the overly tired cliché of your villainous ‘ally’ predictably betraying you in the end. Done correctly, the arc can easily be reworked so that Nemesis has no motivation to betray you, and you have no motivation to do anything that would create a conflict *worthy* of betrayal.

Which brings me to…

Perturbations: I hate to say this – I really do, but, in my opinion, as written, the arc just isn’t that good. There are two mitigating factors. One, it’s just my opinion; maybe I’m crazy and most of the people who play it think it’s a lot better than I did, in which case you can safely ignore my criticisms. But, two, if you are inclined to bear with me, I’ll try to explain in more detail where I had the biggest problems, and what I think can be done about them.

As written, the main villain betrays you right at the end of the arc. And does so in a way that makes the whole final mission very anticlimactic for a variety of reasons. One, the betrayal itself is so obvious that you can see it coming from a mile away. That alone would be a gripe, but not a deal-breaker. What turns it into the latter is the fact that in order to set up the betrayal, the arc writes your character as a stunningly oblivious, world-class moron. And then, to make matters worse, even requires you to do things that are not consistent with the arc’s alignment. Finally, look at how it causes the mechanics of the mission to work: best case scenario is I defeat Nemesis, walk all the way back to the mission entrance, and end the arc by fighting my clone (far easier than either Nemesis or Recluse – and doesn’t even award any XP). *OR* Nemesis actually defeats me, I go to the hospital. Zone in. My clone is right there; I beat him for no XP, arc ends. Either option is not even remotely as thrilling as the fight with Recluse was.

See, as a villain, I’d expect Nemesis to betray me no matter what, so I’d be taking precautions to avoid it. One example would be to secretly program a virus into the upload so that my automatons will be loyal to me, allowing me to turn the tables on Nemesis the moment the expected betrayal comes. Heck, you could even have Nemesis “expect” me to do that, and block the virus so the automatons *still* turn on me. *Anything* would be better than what actually happens – just blindly doing what Nemesis tells me to do, in spite of the fact that, as a player, it’s so glaringly obvious what I’m doing is going to come back to haunt me.

But here’s the thing: none of that is necessary at all, because it isn’t even a villain arc. Presumably, I’m playing a Rogue. That’s great, because it can be used to sidestep the entire issue. My motivation is money, not power. Nemesis doesn’t *have* to even offer me a place as his right-hand man in the last mission. That enticement isn’t necessary: all he has to do is offer me a fortune so large that I can leave the Rogue Isles and retire in style (or whatever). What do I care if Nemesis has the Isles? I don’t care about world conquest, or having power over millions. If it’d been an option, I’d have gladly said, “The price is right, Nemesis. But keep your offer of power – all I need is the money.”

So the fight ends with Recluse. Nemesis pays me. He’s now master of the Rogue Isles, and I’ve made a fortune to end all fortunes getting him there. I retire somewhere far, far away – at least until the next time someone offers me a large enough pay check to be worthwhile. It’s not a perfect ending, but it’s far more satisfying than walking headlong into a trap that I saw coming three missions ago.

Now, granted, if you remove the betrayal component, you need a different purpose for the automatons. An easy option would be to have them as allies in the final mission – perhaps even throw in several placed bosses, or even a “patron” AV (perhaps one of them remained behind with Recluse?) to warrant the extra firepower.

Or, you could go down a completely different route: make mission five mission four (with perhaps a ‘prototype automaton’ to help, in addition to Nemesis), then have mission five be the assault on the Nemesis base where the automatons are being manufactured – you’ve helped Nemesis gain control of the Isles, you’ve been handsomely paid, but you can’t allow him to keep making endless copies of yourself, so you need to finish up by destroying the base where they are being made.

All of these suggestions are aimed at giving the arc a much more satisfying conclusion – which, in my opinion, involves removing the betrayal element (just too many pitfalls there). But let me finish up by mentioning several other things that I think need work here:

1. I’d really play up the “Rogue” aspect; don’t just assume you’re on retainer. Have Nemesis open each mission with a monetary offer even more lucrative than the last – to paraphrase Spaceballs, “You’re not just doing it for the money – you’re doing it for a whole sh*tload of money!”

2. Have a friend read over the dialog and clues and offer pointers as to how to “say what you’re trying to say” better – some of the text reads rather awkwardly, and this kind of thing is always useful; I’d be willing to bet a lot of authors here do something very similar to improve their work (or, at the very least, read everything in their arc several times out loud to see how it sounds).

3. Try to find a way to tie in the Power “Duller” better – it doesn’t seem to have any effect, which makes that whole part of the plot seem pointless.

4. Likewise, either rewrite (or rearrange) the backup plan involving your automatons so that their inclusion in the story isn’t all negative.

5. Try writing in some “internal monologue” for the player making it clear their character has serious misgivings about what Nemesis is up to - *especially* when it comes time to upload for building the automatons. Even add objectives into the mission that could be the character’s attempts to subvert or put controls on Nemesis’ plan – a high level rogue is going to be *very* leery of anybody’s attempt to build robot copies of him or herself that are even more powerful than the original; even if the money is just too good to pass up, you’d expect the character to automatically take steps to keep the automatons from being used against him.


Summary: There’s nothing wrong with the mission design or the pacing – although there’s nothing terribly noteworthy about it either. There’s potential in the story, especially if the Rogue aspects of it are played up. As is, the arc would be similar in quality to one of the early ‘canon’ arcs, but the arc is held back by serious flaws in the plot that require the character to (1) do things that seem pointless, or (2) act unrealistically stupid. Collectively, they really bring the score down.

Score: 2.962

That officially clears round one. I will be open to suggestions again the moment I update the OP; I'm technically closed again the moment I get six viable arcs (but there's always next time!) I do at least suggest you read the OP so that you know the ground rules; remember I'm open to requests for minimum in-game ratings, but you do have to make it clear in your request! If there's nothing mentioned there, I *don't* have a lower limit for the in-game rating (although it'd have to be a truly awful arc to actually get 1 star in game.)

Okay, first, I'd like to throw in my 'entry' into the club: "The Blue Devils" (ID#468738)

It's a brand new arc, with only two plays so far. It's five missions long, and is intended as a "starter" arc (all missions are levels 1-5).

I've had two goals in writing it:

One, I've tried to write it with the idea that it can serve as the very first arc the newly created character of a more experienced player can play (much like "Learning the Ropes" it's intended as alternate low-level content, but this time it features a custom group so even the foes won't be the standard low-level foes.)

Two, it's an attempt to create a balanced, but very low level custom group, using the custom XP system. In other words, the mobs basically have the bare minimum powers I could give them and be worth 100% XP (or close to it) at level 5. Obviously because they're custom mobs, they are harder than dev mobs at that level would be.

And now...

The Murders in the RWZ Morgue #452144 by @FredrikSvanberg

(Quick reminder: I try very hard not to read others posts on the arc of the week, so that my comments are ‘genuine’ and not influenced by other opinions.)

Based on the description, sounds like an interesting premise. I look forward to seeing how the author has used the MA system to put together a one-mission murder mystery.

The Mission: Okay, so the girl’s been strangled by someone with fingers that don’t look quite human, and the mom’s had her throat cut by an energy blade. And the Rikti are attacking the Vanguard base. Seems pretty obvious they’re involved, and Longbow is erroneously assuming the energy blade is a Vanguard talsorian blade (or however you spell it) – but it’s probably a Rikti energy blade. Of course, that leaves the question of what Rikti were doing in a Vanguard base? But I still need to find the suspect…

Actually, the warning in the arc description that there’s “some” fighting but it’s mostly just reading clues probably gives the wrong impression. I fought through plenty of Rikti to find Le Bon; heck the arc strikes me as both short and action-packed.

I got Le Bon back to the saferoom, then looked for more clues to prove his innocence. The next part of the mission is a string of clues that point toward the real culprit being a Rikti monkey that escaped out of a box, and ran through the base to pick up an energy scalpel (there goes my ‘it’s a Rikti blade’ theory). But I don’t yet know how it got there. Or why it’s trailing blood everywhere? Or even how the Vanguard didn’t notice a bleeding Rikti monkey moving through their base…

Okay, so the monkey is a pet, smuggled in. Reasonable enough. And it wants to lead me back to its master, who is likely the real killer.

Well, actually, it’s master is the Rikti diplomat Dup’n. Apparently, his monkey escaped, hid in the base, saw the doctor perform an autopsy on a Rikti soldier, went berserk, realized it had made a mistake, and tried to hide the body. I suppose the daughter was with the mother at the time, although just from the clues alone, that’s not totally clear.

Likes: The mission is put together very well, and it’s actually quite fun to play through. By and large, the murder mystery is interesting.

Dislikes: I did think the solution was a let down – it came right out of left field since the diplomat didn’t even appear until the very end, and there really wasn’t much of a clue as to why the monkey would go on a killing spree until you actually see the solution at the end of the mission. I think the arc needs at least some foreshadowing that the diplomat exists to make the solution to the murder a bit more satisfying. Also, an additional (or even optional) clue where you find an autopsied Rikti warrior in the base might be good, so there’s at least some clue present as to what might set the monkey off. Heck, a few more ‘red herring’ clues added to the mission might be useful (so the player doesn’t automatically assume every clue is relevant to the mystery). And I was never clear why the Rikti monkey *started* with bloody paws – it seems like he’d only have blood on his paws *after* the murder… unless I was following the trail backwards, and the monkey had hid in the box afterwards, then left again.

In other words, I’d favor some more (perhaps optional) clues scattered about – some relevant, some not – to really make this feel more like a murder mystery.

And no, I’ve never read Murders in the Rue Morgue, so I wouldn’t know if that story also has the same ‘plot holes’ in it (nor would it convince me that more clues wouldn’t make the arc more fun).

It was still a very fun arc! (Five stars given in game.)

Score: 4.458

And now for the Thanksgiving edition of the Continuing Adventures of Pro Payne. Okay, not really - I'm just following my stated schedule, but, hey, it lined up just right, eh?

PENGUIN Part 3: Waddle to the Big Top (Arc ID#402239; 4 stars)

Quick Note: I just feel that, for whatever reason, my crop of screenshots for this arc review were just not up to par – and considering just how low ‘par’ is for me and screenshots, I apologize for that. In other words: my normal screenies aren’t anything that deserve mention. I don’t even pretend they’re high quality. There just there for fun. But for whatever reason, they just weren’t even *my* version of ‘on’ this time, and I’m sorry about that.

So here I am, minding my own business, taking a nice stroll in the park, and WHAM, my old friend Waddle meteors into the park bench next to me. Jumping up and down, he’s waving a ticket in my face, excited about a free circus that has come to town, and eager to invite his good buddy Pro Payne to join in the fun. I’m game, although a little voice in my head tells me that before long what should be a nice fun time will devolve into the screaming, and the crying, and, I suspect, large blue auras making whooshing sounds and sucking out my endurance.

Note: ‘More flapping of the ticket all around, back the way he just came’ doesn’t quite make sense. You’re saying he’s heading back the way he came, flapping the ticket around as he does so? Plus – although this is just nitpicking so don’t think too much of it – if he’s walking away from me, how would I see his beady penguin eyes?

One thing furthers my suspicions – the ‘circus’ is in a warehouse in King’s Row. Oh, and the ticket actually calls it a ‘Carnival,’ which Waddle can’t quite pronounce.

Yep, I thinking I’m about to be facing off against some soul-stealing evil clown women. Doesn’t mean Waddle and I can’t have a good time protecting the citizens of King’s Row from the Carnival of Shadows.

Sure enough, the Carnival had decked out the place in their rather creepy ‘funhouse’ style. As we entered, we were greeted with terrified screams (and a Carny patrol talking about a Mr. White, and some sort of ‘secret lab’ – odd, I wouldn’t think the Carnies were the type to set up labs.) Waddle ran off before I could stop him. Apparently I lost him worse that I thought, because I actually found a Carnival captive, Phineas K. White, first. Very eager to escape, White handed me a bag of cotton candy he swore up and down was a clue, and then ran off. I’d look into it a bit later, after I was finished rescuing anyone the Carnies were holding prisoner here.


Hopefully Jenny is impressed with my workout routine: three reps of saving people from killer Carnies.

Next was Jenny Hall, a fitness guru working for a local health food chain called Muscle Sprouts. It appeared that her ‘hobby’ of jogging through exceptionally dangerous neighborhoods had gotten the best of her, although, oddly, she seemed more concerned that Candy (the chain’s actual founder) would be angry about the delay in her getting back to the shop than the fact she’d almost been forcibly recruited into a deadly criminal gang. Something there didn’t track…

I found Melinda White, investigative reporter (at least that’s what the Carnies seemed to think she was), next. I freed her from her Carnie captors, but all she told me was that Phineas was convinced there was something in the cotton candy – which I already knew.

Still no sign of Waddle, though. I was starting to get worried.

As I worked through the warehouse, I found another reference to Mr. Snowy, this time referencing the cotton candy. Definitely something in the candy.

Ah, I found Waddle near the back of the warehouse, subdued by a bunch of Carnies. I quickly freed him. The little guy still had the ticket, which actually ended up having a useful clue, now that I had a chance to look over it – apparently, the Circus was sponsored by a Mr. Snowy’s Fluffy Stuff. Given the Carnival references to Mr. Snowy, I had a pretty good idea where I’d be headed off to next…


Now Waddle, remember, don’t go running through entire dark and scary warehouses before your good buddy Pro Payne figures out where you are!

Waddle agreed. In fact, Waddle nearly had a conniption when he saw the logo for Mr. Snowy’s Fluffy Stuff (and the fact that it was on PENGUIN street).

When we arrived at the address, we heard a cry for help from an old man – time to rush in and be heroic!

Note: It appears as though you’re using a convention that blue text represents action (or expository text) rather than speech (which is fine – no problem with that), but, to be fair, it’s probably not necessary to color the mission entry pop-up (or the exit pop ups) blue, since it’s usually assumed they’re expository text setting the stage. Not a big deal, obviously. Just a thought that popped into my head when I entered the mission.

Waddle was (naturally) a ‘rescue ally’ near the front of the map – but I found him very quickly; I’d assumed the author’s intent was to have him with you the whole mission as an aide, and it worked as intended. By the way, having him focus on control powers worked quite well; he was boss rank, which made him nearly impossible to defeat, but I felt the damage he was doing was not overly ‘intrusive’ – he was tending to lock stuff down, but it was still me doing most of the damage.


No Pro Payne adventure could possibly be complete without a gratuitous and utterly pointless action shot of Our Hero throwing fire into a random group of unsuspecting bad guys. Er, girls. Mostly.

Mr. Snowy’s office was overrun with Carnies, but that came as no surprise. On the second floor, I found a computer from which I pulled an interesting file. It was a purchase order (presumably for cotton candy, although the clue didn’t spell it out), along with a note expressing Snowy’s displeasure at a “pair of clowns” bouncing around the production vats. He also suspected they’d put something into the order. I suspected he was right.

I was guessing the Carnies were here just to cover their tracks – but since that would probably involve catastrophic bodily harm to Mr. Snowy, I headed further into the office to see whether or not I could find the old man.

In a conference room on the third floor, I found several of the Carnies preparing to ‘punish’ Mr. Snowy for ‘ratting them out to the penguin and the hero.’ (Actually, they were just trying to get him to confess.) It really did look as though Mr. Snowy himself had no ill will toward anybody – he just needed to be more careful with who he was doing business with. So I let him go, after freeing him from his Carnie tormentors. But, as fled toward the office building entry, he did mention that secret lab the Carnies had been talking about at the warehouse: it wasn’t one of his, but obviously had something to do with whatever the Carnival was up to here.


Okay, Mr. Snowy, chill out. All of the mean Carnies have been arrested. You’re safe. No need to run around like a lunatic. (Get it? Mr. Snowy? Chill out?)

Note: If you want my advice, I’d say lose Jack Frost on Waddle. The little guy is plenty helpful without him – from a game mechanic perspective, JF is probably Waddle’s most XP leeching power, and his very presence seems rather counter to Waddle’s expressed hatred of animated things made of snow (or really all snowmen, animated or not). Furthermore, I noticed a tendency for Waddle to just stand around and not follow me at all. I have no idea if that has anything to do with Jack, but it did make me wonder.

Also, although I’ll point it out again in Pros and Cons, the Carnie dialog actually strikes me as a bit too “generic criminal” here: especially in more recent dev created missions, their “party girl” aspect is really played up – “Did you rat us out to the penguin and the hero” should probably be more like “Now sweetie, you wouldn’t have been getting chatty with any heroes, would you? What about arctic fowl? No? Come on, you can tell me?”, and “It’s a hero!” should be closer to “Oh, now who invited you to the party, darling?”

Mr. Snowy gave the police a full report, which they delivered to me. The report confirmed my suspicions: the Carnival had set up a secret lab they were using to contaminate Mr. Snowy’s cotton candy with … something … I wasn’t sure what yet. Whatever it was, it was time to shut down the lab.

Note: It’s here where I think the story has it’s weakest link. There isn’t really a clear way that I would know exactly where this secret lab is – at least that I’ve noticed. A really obvious thing, like a clue dropped from a Carnie boss in the last mission, would be helpful. Be careful, though – you’ve established Mr. Snowy isn’t sure exactly what the Carnies are up to, so he probably wouldn’t be a good way to drop a clue as to the lab’s location.

Also, the ‘detail’ about the Carnies wanting to ‘make their own [cotton candy]’ strikes me as a bit off. You’d think the Carnies would know how to make cotton candy – I honestly think it’d be better to find a way to play up the ‘contaminate an existing product’ angle. If you establish that Mr. Snowy’s got the best cotton candy in Paragon, and everybody knows it, and loves his stuff, then the Carnival has a motivation to contaminate his stuff, rather than make their own, which neatly sidesteps a potential problem: as written, I don’t completely buy the Carnival would need Mr. Snowy for anything. After all, you’d figure they can make their own cotton candy, and it’s clear they already have the contaminant. So do they really even need Mr. Snowy? This way, there’s a reason for them to need Mr. Snowy – it ensures their plan will reach a wider audience, because everybody knows, trusts, and loves Mr. Snowy brand cotton candy.

Okay, critique aside – time to put a stop to whatever is going on at that lab!

The lab was an old, abandoned ‘base’ of some sort that the Carnies had moved into. Almost immediately upon arrival, Waddle raced away to do some ‘exploring’ – completely missing a whole mess of Carnies guarding a crate of chemicals. (Based on the description, they were dangerous hallucinogens they were using to contaminate Mr. Snowy’s cotton candy.)

I destroyed the chemicals, and then headed further into the lab.

Note: Here the Carnie dialog just made no sense to me. “I know this is bad stuff, but why do we have to stand here and guard it?” In this case, I’m not sure why ‘bad’ requires it to be guarded – or even why the Carnies guarding it would think it’s ‘bad’. The thing is, it’s *valuable* - that’s why it needs guards, right? So, I’d suggest playing up that fact – it’s clear the stuff is being guarded, so no need to point that out. Instead, I’d focus on the fact that the chemicals are vital to the Carnie plan: “Once we get this stuff into Mr. Snowy’s cotton candy, the party’ll never stop! Half the city’ll be seeing pink elephants.”

This time around, Waddle had definitely bitten off more than he could chew – he had been subdued by the Carnies, and needed a rescue. I was more than happy to oblige. There was only one more crate of Carnie chems to conflagrate (sorry about that), which was enough to shut down the whole operation.

Note: This is a level 30+ arc; it *needs* a ringleader! A Carnie boss (preferably a Dark Ring Mistress, but if there’s a random option to preserve the level range, that’d be a compromise) overseeing the operation to defeat. As is, the third mission is very short, and quite anti-climactic…


Dude, Waddle. Big evil clown-thing attacking your good buddy Pro Payne over here! The inanimate crate that isn’t threatening anybody can wait…



Two points. One, there’s a certain genius to making the character ‘adorably simple minded’ – it fits very well with the game’s sometimes less than stellar AI. Two, props to the author for actually mentioning (in a clue) the rather silly (but completely acceptable) cliché that the best way to handle a crate full of dangerous chemicals is to blow it up.

Waddle, of course, was extremely happy that we stopped the “bad clown’s” plan. But I thought it important that he not come away from this thinking all clowns and circuses were bad. So I took my new little buddy to a real circus… not a bad way to end the day, actually.

Pros: The arc is short and sweet, with very straightforward missions. The story is simple, and easy to follow. I particularly liked how the mission briefing text was written (always important, as that frequently carries much of the story). The development of Waddle as a character was very well done, and builds quite nicely on what’s presented in the previous arcs. It also really adds a lot to the arc – he’s a likeable character. The basic premise also caught my interest almost immediately – in this case, I simply thought more needed to be done with the story. I thought the writing for the mission briefings was the best of the whole PENGUIN series, and I really enjoyed the way they were presented.

Cons: It certainly wouldn’t hurt to add some more ‘flavor’ objectives to the missions – patrols and the like. The number and content of the clues seem appropriate – it did feel like there were some places where the arc could have benefited from ‘end of mission’ (or mission start) clues, though (pay special attention to where you’ve mentioned ‘you’ll look at something later’ or where your character is given something to look over’ – nothing wrong at all with putting that in the dialog, as you’ve done, but there were a few places where you could also have used those nice, high character count clues to really expand the story).

My biggest “gripe”: the Carnies just don’t sound right – they’re ‘voice’ here is more ‘generic gang’ rather than how their dialog is often written in the dev content – especially in more recent missions. A close second is the whole “why is Mr. Snowy needed” thing I mentioned earlier – I’ve got comments regarding that in the walkthrough, so I won’t repeat them here, except to repeat that I’m not suggesting Mr. Snowy be removed. There just needs to be a more solid reason for the Carnies to be using him, rather than just making their own cotton candy. Finally, the Carnie plot feels overly open ended; they’re trying to drug up the population of Paragon City, but a few clues putting more detail into the plan would be nice. What are the Carnies’ trying to accomplish? Even if the goal is nothing more than “random violent mayhem,” having a Carnie waxing philosophical about how much fun the “upcoming party’s” going to be once Paragon’s citizen shed their “silly inhibitions” would help give the Carnie plot a more solid motivation.

Summary: It’s a good arc. Just a little more would make it great! More specifically, it struck me as starting out strong, but kind of ending on a weak note. As always, hopefully the feedback will be helpful for improving the areas where the arc has weaknesses.

Score: 3.96

Only one more arc left before it's time to open back up for round two of submissions!

And a happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

A Clone of your Own

Note that I try very hard to not read others’ comments before playing the arc and writing my own. I'll go back and read what's being said after posting this.

Mission One – Cute title! Gave me a laugh. Mission itself is straightforward. I like that the clones are using random powers. But why would Mephit contact me, and not some other villain? Wouldn’t he be afraid I’d become enraged that he’d cloned me without my permission – as opposed to some other villain, who might not care he was fighting clones of me? Mephit’s files do seem to have a typo (a double period – either it’s supposed to be single, or it’s supposed to be an ellipsis). Where’d Mephit even manage to get my DNA?

I take it Mephit sold my DNA (and perhaps a cloning formula) to the Freakshow, but, again, where’d he get it? And how exactly do I know where their lab is?

Mission Two – the pop up when you enter is actually a comma-splice; it should be two complete sentences. When you rescue your clone, in the clue it probably should read “you’ll take them for a nice walk down…” (rather than “down a nice walk down”).

The mission ‘completed’ right after the lab equipment was destroyed, but the clone pod was still there – based on the objectives (and the clue) it almost seems like this should be part of ‘destroy any equipment you can find.’

The debriefing, and the intro for the third mission make it sound like I go to Mephit’s lab for something, but then just leave when he ignores me. Doesn’t make much sense to me why I’d do that…

So then I just decide to take him down and destroy his lab? Not sure I follow…

And I didn’t quite get the remark about carrying his own pistols. I take it he’s dual pistols, and now I (the player) am aware of this. But it seems like a very abrupt way to reveal that information – like you’re making a joke based on something I didn’t even know about until you made the joke.

Why would me taking orders from myself dissuade me from using Mephit’s cloning research for my own purposes? It seems like I’m saying that I’d be afraid of one of my own clones ‘taking over’ for me and becoming the boss – but I don’t buy I’d be afraid of that (This, IMO, is just a case where the author is projecting thoughts and motivations onto the character; if they match what I, as the player, expect, there’s not a problem. If they don’t, it comes off as “bad” – this is one of those cases where it didn’t). It might work better to turn the last mission into a ‘Destroy Dr. Mephit’s research lab in retaliation for his interference’ and make it an optional objective as to whether or not you should actually destroy all of his research (versus using it for your own gain).

Mission Three – Wait, after ‘rescuing’ Dr. Mephit, I totally forgot what exactly the objective involving him was… (I just kind of assumed I’d be beating the tar out of him, but it seems more like I just leave him there – and there’s no clue that gives any additional information; yeah, I should have paid more attention, but sometimes it’s useful to know if a player will still follow what’s going on, even if they’re not as focused on the story as they should be.)

You know, “Perfected Clone” may sound a bit better than Perfect Clone – but that just opinion. I was hoping my clone would have more dialog. Kind of liked what he opens with, but he just doesn’t say much through most of the fight. The battle with him is pretty much the climax of the arc, so it seems like he should say more…

I actually missed the computer with the files on the second floor – moved forward and defeated my clone (obviously), then went back and got the files. But that ended the mission, even though it was clear Mephit spawned in somewhere to stop me. It seems like he should be a required objective, since taking him down seems important to the story.

EDIT: Okay, the souvenir does actually explain several elements of the story that I had questions about; now if they were just incorporated into the arc a little more completely? Also, that code that was supposed to make the title red didn't work; I just saw the code itself with no change in what the incorporated text looks like...

Likes: Short, fast-paced arc; frankly I wish there were more of these in the system (that aren’t just farms). Not that I’m not a fan of the long, involved ones – I am, but I also think there should be more that are still story-oriented, but fall into the short and sweet category. Mephit had a cool design. Giving most of the clones random powers was a nice touch – kept the fights with them from getting tedious. Basic story idea has a lot of promise. The clue on the computer, suggesting I *am* a clone was kind of neat.

Dislikes: *Way* too many holes and loose ends in the story for my taste. Where did Mephit get the DNA? (Might be helpful to make this connection more clear) – were the Freaks involved because Mephit sold them the research? It felt like the main characters (Mephit, and the Wily Freak) needed to be more developed – I feel like there’s a really neat story here, but it isn’t getting told: the player has to piece it together from fragments. Granted, some players like that kind of story-telling, but I’m not a huge fan. I suspect, though I don’t know, that a large fraction of the player base isn’t a huge fan of this style of ‘very detail sparse’ storytelling, so it is potentially reducing the arc’s appeal. In other words, to me, the arc felt very … incomplete.

Summary: Good foundation, and I like the general idea. But it feels like there needs to be more, IMO. The arc has a very ‘incomplete’ feel to me. Gave it 4 stars.

Score: 3.042

I'd like to nominate:

Best Heroic/Vigilante:
Task Force Mutternacht (Arc ID#349522)

Best Villain/Rogue:
Until the End of the World (Arc ID#431270)

Best Comedy:
(My choice is already seconded, and I haven't played that many comedy arcs...)

Best Short:
(Haven't played enough of these to make a judgement call).

Best Original Group:
The Golden Age Secret of the Paragon Society (Arc ID#344596)
(I think this one is technically a second).

Best Lowbie:
(My choice already seconded).

Breaking the Barrier

I decided to have a crack at this one with my very-rarely played level 41 Radiation/Kinetics defender, at 0/x1/No bosses just to see how it runs using a squishy and a player with little (coherent) experience playing a defender. Especially solo.

Likes: Basically, pretty much the same as when I ran it with Pro Payne. Briefings, Mission Design, etc. all fall into the 'good to excellent' category. The Nagans remain a great example of a very well designed custom group with lots of variety. They're balanced - at least as balanced as any level 40+ custom group *can* be. And they've got personality.

Liked the pacing and flow of missions 3-5. With one exception, the allies were actually helpful. Sure they steal XP, but as a defender it's fun to have a team to buff up - and the allies (again, with that one exception) were not so powerful as to keep me from getting decent amounts of XP.

Dislikes: The only place where the arc felt too hard was mission 2. And it was the Nagan ambushes that did it. Especially the one off of Suziku. The thing about a squishy is that when you're facing a foe that summons in a bunch of robots, you're mashing buttons to fire off buffs, heals, restore endurance, and dealing damage. I'm aware that there's text, but if I stop to read it, I die. Then, I'm attacked from behind by a HUGE group of Nagans. Well, not *huge* - but four minions and a lieutenant. And that's pretty big if your life depends on keeping two things stunned/held while you duke it out with #3. (Again, let me remind you, I'm not even remotely skilled with playing defenders - just trying to give you a worst case scenario and hope *something* is of use). That must have been one of those text bubbles I wasn't reading while I was trying to stay alive.

Everything else actually seemed a tad on the easy side. And keep in mind this is coming from someone who doesn't really know how to play the character he's playing...

Iron Samurai was over the top, though. In mission one, I ditched him cause I was too fast for him, and totally forgot I had speed boost (again, not good with this character). By mission five, I'd wised up (and I wanted to see what would happen if I actually kept all of my available allies buffed and healed). I don't even know why me and my lizard chicks were there. He slaughtered everything in sight by the time I pulled a speed boost and siphon power off of something (occasionally, I'd just run in there and spam Irradiate and Neutron Bomb just to get some XP once Samurai finished with them). The sheer speed with which he ripped through the real Dr. Aeon was ... um ... fast.

(And yes, I'm aware of the mechanics - we're talking a downgraded elite boss under the effects of speed boost, siphon power, and fulcrum shift. He's going to be a hard hitter. I get that. I'm just saying, I'm squishy, and not good at being this particular type of squishy - and it was a breeze. If IS was a boss that downgrades to a lt., though, I imagine I'd still be able to keep him alive - as would most defenders, even the ones who aren't very good at it, like me - but he wouldn't do such a thorough job of dominating the fight...)

Oh, and I re-affirmed the arc's 5 star rating. It's a great arc, and I see no reason to change how I rated it earlier. But it won't affect the plays or current rating. At least Laz gets tickets...

Chalk this question up to simple curiosity - I'm not upset, or thinking this is a problem that needs fixing; just curious if anyone else sees this:

I know we all get really strange feedback on our arcs from time to time - messages that make the player who sent them look like idiots, *drunk* incoherent idiots, or flat out mean-spirited jerks. *That's* not what I'm referring to.

I also know we all get 'feedback' that's just the default 'leave feedback here' message from players you don't want to submit feedback, but hit submit on accident rather than quit. I'm not curious about that either.

What I'm asking about it this: how many of you get feedback where you've got the default message followed by long, completely random strings of characters? I'm not talking a string that suggests somebody trying to navigate and forgetting to close the feedback window (e.g. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwqeqesswwwwsssqqrr), I'm talking about random keyboard mashing (e.g. jlk;k;lh';;ljlyudfdf9090((())[[][]}}}}lll;l). Often immediately preceded (or followed) by an empty 'complaint' filed against the arc. ('Empty' = no comments, as opposed to a b.s. complaint that has no merit).

My curiosity was piqued when I got three of these in a row (but over two days) from exactly the same global.

Purification is *by far* the arc I see this the most on. My others, I might very rarely get the 'random string' comment (but far fewer than Purification) - and no complaints.

Anyone else seen this? Any ideas as to what it is? Sure, I've got some pretty basic ideas of my own, but I'm really just curious...

First off, let me just say how much I sincerely appreciate the response of the authors for the arcs I review here - in this case I literally mean that simply hearing from the authors after I've posted these reviews is a large part of what makes the work (and it's a lot of work) that goes into this worth it. I know it probably seems natural to post a response to a review of your work (although, in many cases it's really closer to a play journal with commentary), but it's appreciated none the less. So thank you!

Task Force Mutternacht (Arc ID#349522, 5 stars)

As I keyed in the code for today’s architect adventure (and jumped into the Pillar of Light), I found myself on the rain-drenched deck of a Longbow carrier, the shores of Warburg in the distance. Agent Indigo told me that the Malta operatives here were looking for Access Bypass modules, hoping it would help them gain access to the Arachnos weapons of mass destruction here. I agreed to help stop them.

Note: In the send-off “those tiny pieces of tech will be able allow Malta…” should likely be “those tiny pieces of tech will be able to allow…”

Indigo gave me the location of the temporary Malta HQ here, and I was off.

Just inside the warehouse entrance I found that the Malta had captured a hero named Mr. Inquiry. Inquiry’s MO was to follow up old or otherwise discarded leads. Given the secrecy Indigo and her cohorts work under, it didn’t surprise me at all that Inquiry saw this operation as one of his ‘old or discarded’ leads – plus, I had no idea how long this Malta operation had been underway.

It was trivial to find the Access Bypass modules, but deeper within the base I found the Malta negotiating with a high ranking Longbow agent, an Officer Kyle. The agent wasted no time turning on me after I arrested his Malta ‘allies’, spouting rhetoric about how all heroes were really secretly agents of destruction, and how we’d get what was coming to us. The fact he “wasn’t sorry he did it” was what got my attention. Some plan was already underway, and I doubted it was going to be the kind of thing that was ‘For the Public Good’ based on Kyle’s crazy rantings.


Kyle and his Malta allies. They weren’t expecting the interruption…

Notes: A couple of things I thought were noticeable omissions. First, rescuing Inquiry fulfilled the ‘Find some clues’ (or Find out what was going on), but I didn’t actually find out much of anything from him. He really should grant a clue when rescued – it just seems odd that I’m looking for a clue and ‘succeed’ but don’t really find anything that seems terribly salient. Also, the mission completed after I opened the fourth crate, but it was clear according to the objectives I needed to find and arrest the leader of the operation (presumably the longbow agent). I went ahead and finished that, but it seems like that should be set to required, rather than optional – especially given that the success pop-up and Indigo’s debriefing both refer to him. That would have made no sense if I’d just hit ‘Exit’ the moment I finished the mission…

What worried Indigo most was Kyle’s reference to something called the Jackson Film. She flat out told me I’d just walked into something dangerous, scribbled an address down on a scrap of paper, and asked me to meet her there in a few hours. I, of course, agreed.

At our next meeting, Indigo made it very clear that she was about to ask me to do some very questionable things – things that would be decidedly unheroic (and, in most cases, flat-out illegal). I wasn’t comfortable with what she was asking, but I agreed to hear her out.

She handed me a briefcase containing a costume, and a large amount of cash. My first task was simple: I needed to obtained some secured documents in a police warehouse. The warehouse’s director was a crooked cop, and could be bribed the look the other way, but it would be foolish to assume I’d get out of there without having to resort to violence.

Indigo had set up a cover identity for me – I would be posing as a villain called Dystheist, thereby (hopefully) keeping my reputation intact.


It is now time to become Evil Pro Payne, and don the unbelievably vile and internationally recognized uniform of evil. What do you think? Needs more skulls? Oh, and a goatee. ‘Cause, you know, I’m Evil now.

Note: In the clue regarding the briefcase and costume she mentions it is the Facemaker who is responsible for my new digs (even though we all know it was I, Pro Payne, who programmed my perfect and awesome new villain costume into the MA system!) – but then refers to ‘them’ and ‘they’ (obviously talking about the Facemakers as a group, rather than Facemaker herself). It just needs a minor tweak to read correctly.

Inside the evidence warehouse, I find that the Freakshow have come a-calling, although I don’t see any evidence that they know anything about what I’m looking for. It looks like they’re just here to cause havoc and loot the place.

I find Jake, the corrupt officer, pretty quickly, and bribe him. He gives me the master code for the safes in here, and I get to looking for the documents – fighting cops and Freakshow alike. I find the safe with the documents at on the second floor of the warehouse, but a hero has responded to the ‘villain raid.’ It looks like I’ll need to defeat him or her to escape, so I head back toward the entrance.


I appreciate that you’re trying to be all clever, what with it being a song and all, but if you call me ‘honey’ again, bub, you’ll burn…

Note: I have to say that several of the messages in the chat window as you are searching for the documents seem a bit out of character to the setup in the mission briefing. They imply that I’m frequently tempted to steal some of the valuables in these safes, yet the briefings play up how repulsed I am at the fact I must play the part of a villain. I think it’d be better to use the ‘failed’ searches to play up how much I don’t like what I’m having to do here. It’s the lockers that give you a chance to play up any ‘temptation’ angle – since I’m supposed to be searching out a safe, I should know not to check out the lockers, so your justification ‘Oh, I’m just making sure evidence isn’t tampered with’ works well. Heck, I’d even play *that* up more than you do – you could even add a flavor clue to this objective (You know you don’t need to look in these lockers, but some impulse drives you to anyway. You’re repelled by the thought of stealing anything in here, but you do find yourself noting how easy it would be, if you wanted to… or something like that). And one final note for this mission: In the clue you get when you find the documents, it tells you that you cannot get into the document box so you ‘take it anyway.’ Again, just my opinion, but ‘take it anyway’ sounds like you didn’t really need to take it, and did for the heck of it. It should be more like ‘you’ll just have to take the whole thing.’


Actually, that wasn’t my opening shot, per se. That was really my Tank ally. My fire doesn’t really seem to be hurting you all that bad…

Before the previous mission, Indigo had made it clear that once I’d starting my ‘villanous career’ we couldn’t have any more direct contact: I’d need to keep in touch via couriers. When I got to the contact point, I found tickets to the Rogue Isles, and my marching orders for the next task.

I was to head to Haven House in Grandville, and deliver the documents to Westin Phipps. Evidently they were all of the evidence in Longbow’s case against him. But whatever Phipps had on that film was far more dangerous than the evil that would be caused by allowing him to maintain his role as an Arachnos operative working to crush the hopes and dreams of Grandville’s downtrodden.

Unfortunately for me, Longbow was staging a raid as I arrived. They knew their case against Phipps was about to go up in smoke, and that they needed to move now, or not at all.

Finding Phipps was easy. I freed him from the Longbow capture squad. In return, he grabbed a gun and promised to follow me to his admin officers, where I’d find the film Indigo was after.


You’re a cruel one, Mr. Phipps…

I also found another villain who’d been captured by Longbow a high voltage cyborg named Giga Watts. His help proved useful, as we were ambushed by Blast Furnace the moment I got my hands on the film. The hero wanted a rematch after the earlier defeat I handed him. I hated having to do it, but I put him down yet again.

Phipps requested I escort him out of Haven House – he figured the officer calling the shots was now on premises, and wanted me to get a look at him (followed by me pounding his face in). As much as I would have preferred to drop my cover and pound Phipps to a pulp instead, there was a job that needed doing. I escorted Phipps back to the entrance.

Of course it was Mr. Inquiry that was leading the operation to take Phipps in. That presented an even more serious wrinkle – as genius as my villain costume was, Inquiry was likely to recognize me from earlier. That would mean that I’d have to make sure the beating I was about to give him would keep him hospitalized long enough for me to finish the operation. I could only hope that after this was all over, a sincere apology, a large fruit basket, and lots of flowers could patch things up between us.

Oh the up side, Inquiry didn’t seem to recognize me after all – perhaps the sheer speed with which he went down (what with Phipps and Giga Watt helping me) helped. Mind you, I didn’t feel good about that, but at least it meant I didn’t have to do anything that would deliberately slow his recovery.


Okay, okay. So I had a few bean burritos on the way to the Isles. But geez, don’t you think passing out is a bit melodramatic?

Of course, that rat Phipps decided to attack me in an attempt to get the film back. That wasn’t wise on his part, considering how much I already wanted to beat his face in. I was happy to oblige.

On my way back to Paragon City I took a look at the film, but could not determine what exactly it was that was so important about it. I headed to the designated meeting point to find a hologram emitter and a burning barrel. Indigo (or, rather, her projection) remarked on her surprise at finding Inquiry there, and requested that I destroy the film. That really went against my better judgement, as I didn’t yet know exactly what it was I was destroying. Indigo was convinced whatever was on that film was ‘horrible’ beyond compare, though. Reluctantly, I did as requested.

I didn’t know what would be next, but it was worse than I expected. Many days later, Indigo surreptitiously sent me a transmitter, informing me that Inquiry had been spending nearly all of his time and effort (after his recovery) pulling together everything he could on my villainous “alter ego.” Given how skilled Inquiry was as a detective, that was very bad news. Not because he might uncover the link to me (part of me wanted to have to answer for all that I was having to do ‘for the greater good’), but because doing so could expose the whole operation – an operation whose true motives I was becoming very frustrated at being left out of the loop of.

What Indigo was asking was deplorable – she’d manufactured evidence that would peg Inquiry as a Council double-agent. Oh, and while I was busy uploading it to the Council computers (along with some security degradation software that guaranteed just about any enterprising hacker would “find” it, allowing Inquiry’s “duplicity” to go public), I also needed to smuggle out a Council Vampyr (once Jefferson Davis Jackson) who could confirm that the film I’d acquired and destroyed was the real deal.

I agreed to do the deed, but if I wasn’t going to be given enough of an update to make it clear why all of these terrible things had to be done, it wouldn’t matter how much Indigo trusted me. I’d turn myself, and her, in – go States Evidence if I had to. What I needed was simple: to have enough information about what exactly was going on to make my own judgement call about whether or not I was doing the right thing. Not only had I decided that would need to be forthcoming when all of this was over, for Indigo’s sake I’d better agree these extreme measures were really necessary.

When I got to the Council base, Longbow was already there. I quickly rescued the Base Commander, Vitale, from them. Vitale was all to happy to have me take the Vampyr off his hands – he regarded Jackson as nothing more than an incompetent coward. He pointed me to the rear of the base, and I set off, keeping an eye out for the network servers on which I’d be planting the “evidence” against Inquiry.


Hey world! Guess whose really working with the Council? And a bunch of other villain groups?

Jackson was in the back of the base, as I figured he would be. I’d already managed to upload the evidence that would slander Mr. Inquiry, so now all that remained was to escort Jackson to safety. Of course it wouldn’t be *that* easy. Mr. Inquiry was waiting for me near the base entrance.

I defeated him, but learned he’d deduced my “true identity.” I doubted it would matter, given that the evidence I’d just planted would more or less destroy his credibility. But even the mention that Dystheist and Pro Payne were one in the same could put enough people on the trail to eventually piece the truth together. I didn’t know yet whether or not my ultimate fate would be to turn myself in and answer for what I’d done, but if I was going to get to the end of this to make that call, I couldn’t let Inquiry interfere. This time, the beating I gave him would keep him down longer. Hopefully long enough to find out from Indigo why exactly I was being made to do all of this.

Once I got Jackson out of the base, I took the opportunity to ask him if what was on the film was ‘real.’ That he confirmed it was wasn’t what worried me. You see, my next question was going to be to ask him what exactly was on the film. But something he said chilled me to the bone. He was the last eyewitness to what was on that film.

And with the film destroyed, if Jackson was silenced, whatever horrible thing had transpired would be lost to history forever. And I might loose my chance to ever find out if the things I’d done was worth the price I was making everyone pay…

Note: Although the mission makes it clear that I’m setting up Inquiry as a double agent for a whole slew of villain groups, as you can see from the narrative, it seems far more natural to limit it to the Council alone. Frankly, my gut instinct even says that not “overdoing” it would make it more likely the falsified information on him would be believed – in other words, the planted evidence, in my opinion, would seem more plausible if it didn’t resort to overkill to make him look bad. (Council double agent = hmm, he must have had a secret agenda all along, but what was it? Double agent to the criminal underground = wow, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear somebody was trying to ruin his reputation.)

It didn’t take long for my fears to be confirmed. I escorted Jackson to the safehouse, made sure he was secure, and then went to a nearby unmarked pay phone to call Indigo and report the task was done. The building I’d just put Jackson in went up in a massive fireball – if I wasn’t so naturally resistant to fire, the blast might well have killed me too.

What was on that film was now lost for good – its last witness slain. Only I knew that wasn’t true. There was one more person who knew what I’d worked so hard to cover up – one last person who could give me answers.

It was time to become Pro Payne again. I raced to meet Indigo, figuring she’d be at her normal haunt in Founders Falls. She didn’t even get her “I’ve got nothing for you…” speech out before a delivered a quick punch that sent her reeling.

I was going to get to the bottom of this, and, frankly, I had nothing to loose.

Indigo relented. I honestly don’t know how she couldn’t have seen this as the inevitable consequence of what she was trying to pull here.

She told me the truth – or rather showed it to me. She had what I took to be the last remaining copy of the film. She showed it to me.

SPOILERS – If you don’t want the secret revealed until you play the arc for yourself, STOP READING NOW!






On it I saw something that was every bit as horrible as what Indigo had originally intimated. I saw white-sheeted racists barring the doors of a church full of innocents and setting the place ablaze – what Indigo referred to as the Christmas Choir Massacre of 1951. I then saw Statesman’s own wife, Maiden Justice, helping the racists. There was no attempt to hide her identity – she was there, her dazzling aura illuminating the scene as she moved to ensure nobody could escape. The church burned to the ground, everybody within murdered by a hero. Or so it would seem.

The truth was Indigo didn’t know if the film was real or fake. Nobody did – except perhaps Statesman himself. But it didn’t matter. Without a way to prove it a fake, it getting out would destroy the world’s faith in its heroes – at least that was Indigo’s fear.

I knew that one day I’d have to get to the bottom of what really happened here. But, for now, this was not something that could get out. Unfortunately, Mr. Inquiry had recovered faster than I hoped. And what was worse, it didn’t matter that revealing the truth here would undoubtedly cause more harm than good. He’d tracked us down, seen the tape as Indigo showed it to me, and would now make good on his belief that the unadulterated truth was always the best course of action.

In principle, if this crime had really been committed, I wasn’t sure I disagreed with him. But I knew one thing for sure: a revelation this horrible – if true – demanded extrodinarily solid proof of its truth before it could be allowed to wreak the havoc that would follow upon becoming known. We didn’t have that proof. Ironically, in trying to hide what evidence there was, Indigo might have also damaged our chances of ever finding out if what was on that film really did happen. That would be a problem for another time, though. Inquiry had to be stopped. It looked like I would have to act as Dystheist one last time…

Ms. Liberty was holding a press conference in Atlas Park, and Inquiry intended to “hijack” the conference and air the film. It just so happened that there was a very large police presence there as well due to the fact that a trio of villains had just tried to pull a bank heist right before the press conference. Their presence would prove a handy diversion.

In my guise as a villain, I destroyed the broadcasting equipment and freed the villains. We then hunted down Mr. Inquiry. The once-proud hero was no match at all for the combined power of four villains. I got the film off of him, and waited for Ms. Liberty to arrive. Frankly, there were two people in all of this who had a right to see the film – Ms. Liberty, and Statesman. And giving it to Ms. Liberty would, I had no doubt, ultimately, accomplish both.

But there was one final obstacle. Indigo arrived on the scene before Ms. Liberty. She made a big production of being here to stop Dystheist’s rampage, but the reality was darker: I was the final ‘loose end’ in the conspiracy to hide the Jackson film. She was here to force my silence by killing me.


Mental Note: Next time take off the villain costume before you walk up to someone with a license to kill. At least that way her buddies won’t help her wipe the floor with you.

Ironically, she succeeded. But Pro Payne can’t die for real. One Rise of the Pheonix later she was being medi-ported away to recover from her injuries.


Well, typically if a villain is handing you a filmstrip, it’s probably not going to brighten your day. But don’t worry. I have a feeling the honorable, upright, just, and incredibly handsome hero Pro Payne will be by soon to comfort you.

Ms. Liberty’s reaction to the film was predictable (not in a bad way, story-wise, though); she was very upset, and vowed to learn the truth of what really happened on that day in 1951.

My personal opinion? I suspect her quest will ultimately uncover the film is a fake. Why? Because I had just accomplished exactly what I think the film’s makers had wanted to accomplish. Through the use of completely manufactured evidence, I had ruined the career and reputation of an upstanding hero. Jefferson Davis Jackson just screamed patsy – I had little doubt whomever arranged the massacre had intended for him to see it and film it as an ‘ironclad’ way to ensure its authenticity. And then they arranged to have him made ‘immortal’ to make sure he was around (and able to authenticate it) until the day came where using the film’s revelation would be useful to whomever had masterminded it.

But, ultimately, it doesn’t really matter if I’m right about that or not. One day, the truth will be known. And either the few of us who know about the film will have the peace of mind of seeing Maiden Justice vindicated, or we’ll learn, that as so often happens in life, that sometimes a revered hero shows that they are all too human in so dramatic a way that admiration can’t help but become bitter disappointment (or worse). Only time would tell.

Pros: One of the pleasures of this project is that eighty percent of the requests I get are from authors that have put extraordinary time and effort into their creations, and it shows. Frequently I feel all I’m doing is sorting through A quality work, doing little more than making distinctions between A-, A, and A+. So what makes this stand out against the other high-quality arcs? The story was so engaging – it did such a good job of drawing me in – that I found myself thinking about the loose ends even after finishing it. And that’s another major plus. Often times, loose ends in an MA arc are just annoying. But in this arc, the most glaring loose end (that you never do learn the truth about the film) is a great example of when you can make the story better by not tying everything up for the player. It was a sign of just how good I found the story – I cared enough about what was going on that it was natural to spend time and effort thinking about what I really thought the truth behind the film was. The story was also very well constructed, with excellent pacing – the author did a very good job of constructing the missions in a way that advanced the story.

In short, this arc is a real standout. Very, very well done.

Cons: It says something that the cons are really just differences of opinion – I throw them out there, but in most cases I think the only response will be the author doesn’t agree with my opinion, and we move on.

If anything, I think Indigo’s assertion that the revelation on the film would destroy the public’s faith in heroes is somewhat overstated. I absolutely buy that there would be public outrage, and that outrage would largely ignore the open question of whether or not the tape is genuine (which is typically why it’s just a bad idea to try a case in the court of public opinion). But I think there is almost an expectation that some of the people we’ve looked up to as outstanding examples of moral virtue, and whatnot, are going to turn out to not be quite as heroic as we thought they were. I have no question that these revelations would turn the public against Statesman – and perhaps even Ms. Liberty. But all heroes seems a bit much. I’m not saying Indigo’s fears are unfounded – after all, given that Statesman is currently one of the most powerful beings on Primal Earth, the public abandoning him would likely not be the best move (it’s not like all those villains are going to show mercy because the hero camp ‘lost’ some of its most powerful allies). But recasting it as “it would be disastrous for the public to lose its trust in some of our most powerful defenders” strikes me as a bit more plausible.

I also thought it a bit off that you go visit Indigo in the hospital at the end. Again, personal opinion, but she just tried to kill you – basically for no better reason than you know the secret. It’s not like she just trying to rough you up to show you there’ll be consequences if you ever talk. She fully intends to murder you. I mean, my word, even Mr. Inquiry gets to live (albeit likely in a psych ward). Frankly, I’d never speak to her again. Perhaps a letter from her (that you read once, then wad up and throw away, still disgusted with her actions) explaining her actions would be more realistic? Or maybe making it clear she isn’t trying to kill you – her attack really is a warning to convince you to hold onto the secret, and never tell another soul. Granted, you then immediately ignore that by talking to Liberty, but after you defeat Indigo, it’s pretty clear your message is “whatever threat you want to level at me, I’ll make my own call as to who to tell and who not to.”

Finally, I think, in particular, while looking for the safe in the warehouse, I’d remove the references to how tempting it would be to take the money in the ‘decoy’ safes. The text up to this point has really emphasized how distasteful acting the villain is for you – it seems a bit contrary to that to suddenly have your character feeling genuine temptation every single time he ‘tries the next safe.’

Score: 4.955

Just played the arc this afternoon. I'm reserving this space for more detailed feedback, but I'll post a quick summary for now (And now I've had the time - so the more detailed feedback is posted below...).

The good: I don't think there's any problem with the basic idea for the story. In that respect the arc's got a good start; there just needs to be more development. Also, it's obvious that thought and time have gone into this.

The bad: The arc feels like an 'outline' rather than the finished product. I really felt like I was playing something that was in the very early stages of design, and needed a full fledged rough draft, followed by several revisions. I'm talking lots of proofreading, and some major revision of the clues. In my opinion, what this arc needs is DETAIL and polish.

Okay ... now for the more detailed stuff. You probably don't need to be told this, but keep in mind these are just my impressions and opinions; use what you can, discard what you can't.

The mission briefings look like effort has been put into them, but the writing needs a few revision pass throughs. The phrasing is stilted (more than I’d expect from a portrayal of a Midnighter addressing me in a formal way – it really reads more awkward, than actually formal) and there are a lot of typos (most are punctuation errors, with a lot of issues where pronouns are used when it should be a contraction instead). Some odd choices for color, I’d recommend using paler colors (pale green, pale blue, yellow) just to aid with readability.

I've noticed a *lot* of places where 'Nemesis' should be capitalized... You may hate the idea, but you really do need to carefully read over all of the text in the arc (ALL of it!!!) and check for things like this.

The missions themselves are straightforward and simple, which is really neither good nor bad. A lot more effort needs to go into how the objectives are arranged in the mission (better use of front, middle, and back to order things in the mission the way the objective text suggests); also, I’d suggest more effort aimed at pulling multiple objectives into a single plural objective (e.g. “3 Computer to access”, rather than “Access the First Computer, Access the Second…” and so on). Map choices were a bit off too in the first half of the arc; they didn’t seem to fit what was going on that well. It was especially noticeable in the second mission: why would the Nemesis lab developing all this tech be so run-down?

I think it’s completely appropriate to place clues where they were placed, but more variation in what they say would be good. Basically, put more effort put into having them advance the story; they’re closer to ‘play calling’ right now: they’re not so much being used to actually tell the story by clarifying things that I didn’t already know as they are being used to give me slightly more detailed updates on what I’ve just accomplished. Here’s an example based on all of the clues about the power cores: Instead of repeating a rather generic: “You’ve defeated this Nemesis robot and ripped out his power core.” Try to just dream up some very specific variations to put in each core. “Hmm … this one’s got a strange coil in it that seems to be gathering a lot of charge.” “Odd, the pistons here look much too small for a steam engine, yet, somehow, the thing does seem to be steam powered.”

The story’s got a good start, but it feels more like an outline at this point that needs a lot of fleshing out. The basic idea is sound: Nemesis is trying to upgrade his robot army by incorporating upgraded designs from the other villain groups – and modifying them with his most advanced technology. He’s then going to use them for a massive invasion of Grandville. But, in my opinion, the thing that makes a story come alive are the little details – the “fleshing out” I was referring to earlier. Why Grandville? Why the heck are Necrotech Master and Eliminater XXXXX (whatever) having such a hate-on for Recluse? Granted, I know they are there to help defeat the AVs, but there’s got to be a way to more realistically insert them into the story. The whole time travel aspect of the story seemed almost tacked on – or perhaps it was just ‘watching the timelines for trouble.’ Frankly, the story would have worked perfectly well with almost any level appropriate contact, and no mention of time travel, or time manipulation, or whatever.

The custom mobs really make their entrance in the final mission, but why do they look so random? There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to their design… more like the author selected one of the costume presets and then recolored it. Also, the re-purposed robot mobs (from Malta and the Council) really should have something other than the default descriptions – there are a lot of avenues to take here, but one would be to put ‘clues’ to something odd going on in the descriptions: “Does that Malta Titan have jets of steam coming out of the seams between its armor plates?”

The effort and potential are there, but the technicals need a lot of work – a LOT of work. I’ll be honest – when I played it, my impression was ‘meh’, you’ve got an idea to start with, but just about everything needs more fleshing out – more attention to detail. And, frankly, more variation (especially in what the clues say). I felt like I was playing an outline – one where some work would make it a good story, but for now there’s a lot missing.

OH! And one final observation. Why the heck does Necrotech Master actually summon ninjas?! I mean, I figure he's just one of your characters making a cameo in the arc, and the 'real' version must be a Ninja MM. But I can tell you, the ninja thing just threw me. I figured he should be summoning zombies. Zombies re-animated by technology. Which means he'll also have lots of nasty trinkets at his disposal (which he might have, but I was too floored by 'why the heck is he summoning ninjas?' to notice).

Yes, yes, I realize it's probably a reference to 'dealing death' rather than 'animating the dead.' But still, I'd imagine I'm not the only one who'll wonder about that one when playing the arc. Two solutions: make him summon zombies (it's not like he really has to be your character), or, if you hate that idea (and I can understand that), at least expand his description to explain why anything named 'Necro' isn't 'Necro.'

Score: 2.67 (I'm using the exact same scoring system as I do for the Pro Payne thread. Makes it look like I'm being all objective. I'm not. It's totally subjective. So take it with a small NaCl boulder.) I didn't give the arc an in-game rating (it needs to break the 3.0 barrier so that I can at least give it 4 stars in game).

Count me in!

I'll add one to the pile as soon as I have one I want added to the pile.

To Soul Storm: Unfortunately, in the interest of being as fair as possible, I honestly think it's best to stick with the ground rules I posted in the original post for this thread. The only issue I have with taking requests "mid stream" is that it isn't fair to the (hypothetical) people that are playing by the rules and holding off making a request until the queue is empty and I open it up for suggestions. I'm not saying I won't review your arc - just that I'm going to have to request that you re-submit your request for it when I re-open my queue for more suggestions (likely in about a month or so - I do about one of these major reviews every two weeks).

The reason Wrong Number got an 'exception' is she was running a contest at the time. She didn't request a review, but to enter the contest, you played her arc and provided feedback. So I did, and rather than sending my feedback as a long series of tells, I just posted it here because, well, why not?

Until the End of the World (Arc ID#431270, 5 stars)

Move over Pro Payne. You sanctimonious, worthless, pathetic little wanna-be. You’ve never even faced a villain for real. If I actually met the likes of you on the street you wouldn’t even be worth the time it would take to crush your powerless butt into the pavement. But don’t think that if you ever did get delusions of heroism, and tried to stand in my way, that I wouldn’t kill you with the barest flick of my wrist. Without thinking twice. Loser.

So why bother with Architect Entertainment? Because it’s time to see what this technology is really capable of. If I’m impressed, I might just steal it for myself. If not, you idiots better hope and pray that I’m not in the mood to burn the place to the ground and sell off the salvage on the Black Market.

I stroll into the Architect building in Sharkhead, find the nearest ‘Architect Patron’ and pick him up by his hair. I ask him to recommend a good ‘arc.’ He asks me what kind of arc I’m looking for. I pull out a few of his teeth, one by one, to motivate him to answer the question a little faster. Once the annoying pleading for mercy dies down, he says, “Twy numba 431270; Ih wa good.”

I throw him in the closet. If he’s right, he gets to live.

I stroll on up to the control computer. I key in the ID.

A chick named Razorwyre, who has been acting as my informant, contacts me via a secure line to inform me of chaos at an Arachnos warehouse in the vicinity of the Fab. She’s not sure exactly what’s going down there, but we both know that I can almost certainly take advantage of the situation to make off with some choice tech. The spiders are sure to blame the thefts on whomever started the problem, so provided I put down anyone who could ID me, I should be able to get away with all of the goods, and none of the blame.


A disadvantage of Energy Aura: my cloak is an important part of my defense, but it makes it dang hard to see me in screen shots.

As I was heading to the warehouse, Razorwyre had one last note for me – this place was one of those warehouses where Arachnos gets really serious about their security. To breach the network’s defenses, and gain entry, would have required better hacking skills than Razor’s ever seen (or believes exists), or a better AI than the one the spiders have guarding the place. She mentioned a final possibility, though – only the intelligence and adaptive potential of a living human brain could match Arachnos’ defenses, and that ‘brain’ would have to be able to operate at superhuman speeds. So perhaps it was a speedster who was also a hacker that was responsible.

Immediately upon arriving at the warehouse, I got my first clue as to the identity of the original thief – I found a protector robot near the entrance. It fled upon ‘spotting’ me – saying that its objectives were complete.

I found a crate with high-tension cables (at least according to the label) – but the cables had already been stolen. I tried accessing a nearby computer terminal to determine what had happened, but I was almost immediately locked out. That wasn’t a surprise to me. It simply meant I’d have to beat the information out of the Arachnos base commander.

On the way I ran into who I presumed was the original thief. He’d been detained by Arachnos, and turned on me the moment I freed him. That was just as well – as far as I’m concerned freeing him from Arachnos’ clutches only meant he now belonged to me. He’d help me or die. He chose death, stating there was nothing left here to take any way. I defeated him easily, but he was able to mediport away before I could deal a killing blow. Figures.


I get it. You’ve got a lot of robots. Big deal. The moment you die, they become a whole mess-load of salvage for me to sell on the Black Market.

I fought my way into the main storage room of the base. I found, and defeated, a Bane Spider Executioner wearing an upgraded prototype of Arachnos armor, downloaded a wealth of Arachnos secrets, and then tracked down and killed the base commander.

I was careful to execute all of the Arachnos repairmen there too (idiots didn’t even fight back), along with a patrol that had responded to the base commander’s distress call. With everyone in the base dead, I could at least be reasonably sure Arachnos would not be aware of my role in all of this. If they were, I’d cross that road when I got to it.

Note: Very nice use of optional “flavor” objectives. They were spread throughout the mission, but especially noticeable in the end room.

I quickly returned to Razorwyre, who confirmed my suspicions that the Arachnos had no idea I was involved. The official blame was going to the base commander, and the unidentified robotics mastermind who had originally broken in. Razor informed me that the spiders had placed a nice bounty on his head.

That just made my day. I owed that poser a painful death for not just letting me kill him the first time around. Getting to collect a bounty was just icing on the cake. I set Razor to locating him.

It didn’t take long. A little bit of legwork on her part pegged the guy as a mercenary named Terminal Velocity. He’d retreated to Sharkhead Isle, and had been hanging around near a Council base in the Pit. It appeared he was casing the place – they were shipping in large amounts of robotic equipment, which he could use to bolster his robot assets. A spy informed Razor the moment TV entered the base.

I headed in after – the plan was simple. TV’s mediporter likely linked to his base, rather than an Arachnos hospital (for obvious reasons). And his base probably had plenty of stuff worth taking. So it looked like ‘ol TV was going to get to survive one more beating from your truly – just long enough to get a bead on his base. Then, it’d be time for me to take his stuff, and give new meaning to the Terminal in this joker’s name…

Part One of the master plan went off without a hitch. I found Terminal Velocity just inside the base entrance, accompanied by several of his more advanced robotic minions. His pathetic robots were no match for me, and I beat him into unconsciousness quite rapidly. He mediported back to his base, unable to remove the tracking module I’d placed on him.

I’d deal with him soon enough. It was obvious the Council was up to something that might prove interesting here, and I wasn’t about to just leave this base without a nice, old-fashioned raid to take whatever would be useful – not to mention to figure out just what Terminal was interested in finding here.

Hrm … it was clear Terminal Velocity had help getting into this base, likely in the form of an advanced AI. What was even more interesting, was that an advanced, adaptive AI was exactly what this base was working on. Among the many Council files I pilfered, I’d located a troubleshooting report indicating the current AI was advanced enough that striking the correct balance between the type of autonomous thinking that can lead to self-determination, and failsafes to ensure utterly loyalty to the Council, was an ongoing problem. It appeared it was a worse problem than the Council realized: it looked as though their AI had actually helped Terminal Velocity access their base.

With all of the valuable information in hand, and the Council base laid waste, it was time to put an end to TV’s stay of execution. I was practically salivating at the chance to annex his base into my own network of hideouts. Once I’d commandeered a crew of minions to run the place, I was sure I’d be able to turn his research to my own ends.

Razor prattled on a bit about stuff that didn’t interest me – but a nice “get to work NOW” look ensured she’d be hard at work decoding the secrets of the Council AI.

First, though, she was tasked with finishing the trace on Terminal Velocity. It appeared his base was not ‘officially sanctioned’ by Arachnos; it was instead leased through the Family. Of course, the Family was likely to inform Arachnos about it once they’d heard Terminal Velocity was a wanted man (never mind that if Arachnos got their hands on him, the bounty might very well go to the Family). Razor had pulled TV’s “destiny” file, and found some useful information.

Note: There’s a minor typo in the intro text – last paragraph “those Destiny files are a goldmine”, ‘those’ should be capitalized.

Razor had warned me that a mercenary company that offered up information on bounties in the Isles had posted Terminal’s information. She’d pulled the post back down, but didn’t know if anyone had seen it. I figured that meant I’d be facing at least one other villain here for the bounty.

I also figured I’d be facing a whole mess of Arachnos, and I wasn’t disappointed. Two operatives were waiting for me at the base entrance. Operative Murphy wasn't really terribly interested in a fight. Too bad for him that I was. Operative Edwards, on the other hand, seemed to think that only Arachnos had a right to be here. I proved him wrong.

Further into the base I found a robot on the verge of self-destructing. It actually looked almost completely human, and, upon spotting me, decided to take me with it. It was not terribly difficult to defeat, and was very obviously patterned after someone. Given what Razor’s report on TV said, I was guessing that this robot was a copy of his deceased sweetie.


Poor Terminal Velocity. Your robot wife “loves” you so much she’d rather blow herself up than actually spend any time with you. And the moment I show up, she gets all self-sacrificial, fighting to the death (hers) to stop me. Anything to get away from you, loser.

Of all the rotten luck. Here I was, hoping that I’d have a family I could capture and torture just in case I couldn’t find Terminal here, and the @#$!% had to go and be dead. Based on what robot-girl said, it was pretty clear I wasn’t going to find Terminal here. That angered me even more. Thankfully, I got to take my rage out on some nobody merc who had answered the bounty.

I found Terminal’s makeshift regeneration chamber and destroyed it. That’d ensure once I did track him down, there’d be no chance he’d survive his injuries. I also found his lab’s central repository, and gathered as much information as I could (a process with included fighting off yet another android defender).

It wasn’t hard to figure out that poor Terminal was heartbroken after his @#$!% got herself killed, and was trying to reproduce her in robot form. Apparently the idiot’s little Xerox wives kept self-destructing on him, what with the guy’s inability to program an AI that could make wifey seem lifelike and all self-aware, yet not decide Terminal was a loser and needed to be cast to the curb. That must be why he was so interested in the Council failsafes.

Well, TV’s lab was now in my hands, and most of his little robots were scrap. And next time we met face to face, I’d do him a favor and end is pathetic pining for his dead wife the best way I know how: if you’re dead, you can’t be depressed any more.

According to the records I’d stolen, the wife’s name was Iron Valkyr. Her destiny file listed a whole bunch of known associates (including her boy toy, TV, but that wasn’t news to me). Still, one of those associates might be “convinced” to lead me to wherever Terminal was hiding out.

Razor again proved her ongoing usefulness to me. Most of Valkyr and Terminal’s old associates just move from place to place – living it large after a score, then going back to the flophouse after the money runs out. TV never lived that that – which suggested he had a base. But one other friend of his was in the same boat: no records of him moving around. Evidently this guy – Detonation – must have had a base he stayed at too. And thanks to a dumb prank the Freakshow had tried to pull, Razor was able to figure out that Detonation’s base was in the basement of a Freakshow hideout. Apparently they were more than willing to take the cash Detonation was paying them to rent out the place (kept ‘em in implants and Excelsior, I’d imagine).

The big tipoff was the fact that a whole bunch of robots that looked a whole lot like Iron Valkyr were breaking into the place. Who knew exactly what was going on, but that at least suggested I’d find Terminal Velocity hiding there – or at least I’d be one step closer to tracking him down. Heck, assuming Terminal Velocity wasn’t there, I might even be able to access a robo-wife’s memory banks to track down any *other* back up hideouts he might have. And that was assuming I didn’t find Detonation there and “convince” him to talk.

I was a bit surprised to find that the basement wasn’t a tech lab; it was a heavily Freakshow modified dump, filled with a large number of crates. They were all labeled as containing explosives, but several were empty.

The Freaks were busy trying to clear out the swarm of TV robots that were invading the place (apparently I was wrong about it being robo-wife; they were just his typical minions). I didn’t take sides – it’s a lot more fun to indiscriminately put down anything that moves, and the Freaks are always fun. It’s like fighting punching dolls, you kn… what? Pro Payne already said that? Loser.

Anyway, I found Terminal Velocity only a little of the way into the hideout. He was already in a dust-up with the Freaks. Never let it be said that Perturbation isn’t considerate. I let him finish off the Freaks (who didn’t seem to be able to put so much as a dent into him), so that I could have the pleasure of killing him (FINALLY!) alone.

His little robot friends did a surprisingly good job of shielding his worthless butt. The beat down went well at first, but then nearly every one of my blows was deflected time and again. As TV’s repair bots managed to heal my foe (somehow), the Flash bots were having little trouble penetrating my defenses (psi attacks give me screaming migranes even with my aura on full overload).

It didn’t matter. Just when Terminal thought he might gain the upper hand, I decided that play time was over. I stopped pretending that I didn’t have all the insight needed to find the weak spots in his silly little bubbles, and ripped him apart.

Heh, the look on his face was priceless. At least it was while his face still looked like something…

I still needed to figure out what exactly was going on. I “rescued” a Freak who didn’t want to play nice with his fellow Freaks. The Freak was a follower of ‘The Hammer’ (who I later figured out went by the name Malleus). He told me that Hammer had taken Detonation’s girl, and that had created a schism between the two Freakshow leaders.

Far from being grateful, the Freak attacked me. Good. Gave me an excuse up today’s body count.

Note: In the clue you get by rescuing the first Freakshow (it may be the second depending on what exactly their location settings are), it refers to Terminal Velocity’s ‘ally’ here as Detonator, but elsewhere (in Razor’s briefings, and in the mission itself) he’s called Detonation. Also: it’s rather hard to follow exactly who is who in the clue. Not impossible, mind you, but hard.

Further in, I found a clue as to what the Freaks were planning: they were looking to set up bombs all over the Isles, evidently starting with Grandville. More power to them. Still, there had to be a way to benefit from this little scheme of there, unoriginal that it was. I figured a good first step would be to get Detonation to tell me everything he knows.


See? This is why you have to watch your back if you want to make it in the Isles.

One severe beating later, Detonation talked. I showed my appreciation by letting him live. Well, assuming he doesn’t ultimately succumb to his injuries. His problem, not mine. Anyway, I found out it really was a replica of Iron Valkyr that led the attack on this base, but she was already gone. She and Detonation knew each other from way back. Terminal Velocity talked her out of joining the Freaks, but she and Detonation stayed in touch. Detonation waxed philosophical about how she wanted to make her mark on the world, and how nobody deserved to die in the medical transporter malfunction like she did, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. Get to the bombs. Detonation then told me that he liked to set bombs in places where they could do the maximum damage – and Grandville was the prime target, what with that tower and all not exactly being built on sound architectural principles.

Bingo. I killed the rest of the Freaks there, and hatched a plan.

Iron Valkyr’s android copy was self-destructive. The Council failsafe that TV installed, though, was now keeping her from self-terminating. But the same programming did allow her to sacrifice herself for a ‘cause.’ Blowing up Spider City qualified, and if she got vaporized in the blast, more the better.

Too bad I wasn’t going to let it happen – her technology would be far more useful to me being carefully analyzed in the labs in my hideout, rather than as floating wisps of vapor. And, hey, as an added bonus, she gets to die (what with the need to dissect her to get at said technology). Everybody wins.

Time to head to Granville and bag myself a walking gold mine.

Detonation’s information led me to a lab somewhere under the main tower in Grandville. Chaos had already broken out – Detonation was here (Idiot. Looks like he gets to die after all), along with Malleus, their respective Freakshow factions duking it out. Valkyr’s robots were all over the place as well, along with Rogue Arachnos.


You must be Malleus, what with the hammers and all.


Okay, seriously, Detonation. What did I JUST GET FINISHED telling you about turning your back on somebody like me?

I made my way deeper and deeper into the base. Iron Valkyr had left guardian robots (including an older model of herself) along the way, but they were no match for me. Neither were the Freaks – although plenty of those morons were already roughed up by the various fights they had picked. “The Hammer” was the first to go down, followed (further in) by Detonation. I sent both of their corpses to an Arachnos hospital with my mediport tag – I planned to make it known that I’d saved the Spider’s collective butts from a major disaster in Grandville, and they owed me big. And, hey, if they didn’t want to pay up – well too bad, since I now had the detonator to the bombs (I left most of them armed), and it’d be a shame if a slip of the finger set caused a few million in damages…

I also found a few other tidbits – including a report detailing Arachnos research efforts into prolonging the life of those with terminal cancer. Wasn’t sure what to make of that. Maybe I can sell it back to them?

And then, along came Iron Valkyr. She fed me some nice story about how all of those personal items I’d been rummaging through were something “Brian” (Terminal Velocity) would want when he got back, and so she was going to have to stop me (especially given that she figured I was here to stop her). Whatever. I was too busy pumping power into my auras and charging her to give a care about what she was prattling on about.

She got in an early hit, obviously pleased with herself, and convinced nobody could survive a strike that hard. Her look of ‘concern’ was priceless when she saw me just shrug it off as little more than a flesh wound. Didn’t even get a finger on me after that. For once, I was careful to do (relatively) little damage – just enough to shut her down for good. Then I scooped her up, and headed back to my hideout.


Cha Ching! Time for a payday!

It was time to set Razor on reverse engineering her technology. I’d save the most powerful bits for myself, and sell whatever else I could. Not a bad day’s work…

…

Okay, so it looks like Architect Entertainment has got some potential. At the very least, I got a good work out. But I was pleased with my experience, and the recommendation, so that patron I threw in the closet got to live.

Stuff I didn’t hate: I really like this kind of storytelling for a villain arc. I’m the one in charge – not working for anybody (i.e. my contact is my lackey, not my boss). In the course of the story I’m not pulling any punches (unless doing so would very clearly be in my own self interest). I’m in it for money and power, and anyone who has to die along the way dies. I literally (and this might be evident in the walkthrough write up above) would decide on my own what I thought my villain would do next, given the circumstances. And that is awfully, awfully close to what I was doing in the arc. Excellent job.

To be honest, the custom group didn’t stand out a lot, but, on the plus side, I found it to be well balanced: challenging but not frustrating. (And don’t misunderstand – “not standing out” doesn’t mean I disliked them.)

Another major ‘plus’ is the fact that there was absolutely nothing ‘plot critical’ that wasn’t clear to me. This was mostly because of very good use of clues – if I needed to know it for purposes of following the plot, it was in a mission briefing, or in a clue. Not once was I confused about something because I’d missed something only present in the dialog spam in mission. (And, whatever I did miss – and I’m sure there were things – it wasn’t the kind of thing that would leave me confused as to what exactly is going on.)

The mission design is worth a mention as well: they were, in general, fairly complex missions, many of which had chained goals. But the map selection and placement of the objectives (in so far as you *can* place objectives) always kept things flowing forward – I, at least, never had to backtrack or go searching for an objective. (Granted, most MA authors who have recent requested reviews do this very well, but it’s worth mentioning.)

Obvious, I thought this was a very well made, high-quality arc.

Perturbations: I can always come up with stuff to nitpick – so just take the stuff you think is useful, and ignore all of the stuff you think is idiotic.

I did kind of think the mission briefings could use a little sprucing up – I recall there being very little color overall. Paragraph structure and writing was just fine, though.

The custom group did the rank differences very well – it was very easy at a glance to tell the minions from the lieutenants (although I admit that this kind of thing should never be a requirement for an experienced player, I always appreciate it when I don’t have to mouse over everything in a group to tell the minions from the lt’s and the bosses). I did have a feeling, though that I would have liked to have more visual cues to tell the minions apart at a quick glance. This is definitely a group where it’s to your advantage to quickly identify certain minion types before others and defeat them first (I typically tried to take down the ‘Flash’ bots first, followed by repair and protector bots – the combat bots were usually lowest priority). Being able to more easily tell them apart would help. I’m not saying they were identical in appearance – just similar enough that the amount of time it took to visually distinguish them is about the same amount of time it takes to mouse over them an eliminate all confusion. In the real world, that’d be a stupid thing to do if there were such a thing as a robotics mastermind - but it’d make the gameplay versus them a bit more fun (in my opinion, obviously).

I’d have preferred to see at least a minor mention of the optional objectives in the nav bar. That’s really more a style thing (some authors think it’s important, others think it’s totally unnecessary), but, hey, in case you’re keeping tabs on who prefers it versus who doesn’t, count me in the ‘prefers it’ category.

Detonation struck me as in need of a custom model – obviously he should look ‘Freakshow,’ but I was actually a bit disappointed that he was just a regular tank. (Are the super stunners available? I honestly don’t know, but that might be enough variation – well, assuming your response is something other than, ‘no, no, I think a tank is fine.’)

Final Thoughts: I actually found the love story between the two main antagonists to be rather endearing, in a twisted sort of way. In terms of actual difficulty, only Arachnos gave me any issues – and that didn’t come as a surprise (even with overload active, I have very limited ability to deal with psionics). That said, I was only defeated once during the entire arc (and that was only because I’d stumbled across a bunch of Arachnos who’d happened to be a psi-heavy spawn, I was out of purples to bolster my defenses, and I was already injured from the previous fight). That’s certainly well, well, WELL below any threshold where I’d question the difficulty.

And that’s it for now! Again, excellent arc!

Score: 4.827