Coulomb2

I can honestly say I never saw this coming, but it certainly made my day. Heck, it made my whole year!

Thank you so much for the congratulations; I really appreciate the thought! Well, what else can I say, except that I hope anyone who gives it a try really enjoys it!

Oh, heh. I know what I can say!

Long live Dr. Aeon! And Death To Television!

Done! Editing my queue to include it as I type this...

At long last, Pro Payne's final queue is now full! Pro Payne is no longer open to suggestions. A special thanks to everyone who has submitted arc suggestions. I hope that anyone who is still following this thread enjoys this last set of reviews as Pro Payne, at long last, completes his climb to level 50!

Here’s my current queue:

338575 A Tangled Weave
230187 The Hero of King’s Row
349034 A Taste for Evil
350877 The Greater Good
350522 Fear And Loathing On Striga
352400 The Union of the Mask
349298 The Better Part of Valor
355068 The Galactic Protectorate - 06
1044 The Empire – One Alliance
302196 Waddle's Revenge
346904 Against the WickerWork Khan!
292389 Tales of Cimorera, Vol. 2 (will jump queue at level 49.3)
254599 Of Futures Past

Pro Payne is currently level 48, about four or five bubbles in.

The next arc Pro Payne played was Matchstick Women – actually a replay, but I approached this arc as if this was the first time before going back and looking at what I’d thought of it previously. That turns out to have been a good idea, since my first play of this arc was quite a while ago, back when I was totally burned out on posting reviews, and wasn’t even doing mini-reviews of most of the arcs I was playing. Apparently, I gave it 5 stars back then too – and I do remember it being a good arc even then. But it was long enough ago that the replay almost does feel like the first time… so without further ado:

Matchstick Women (Arc ID#3369, 5 stars)

The story begins when I see a mysterious flame out of the side of my eye. Intrigued, I look closer, and the flame seems to take on almost humanlike (and feminine) qualities. Then, I literally start to see things: I think I see a vision of a group of women in the expanding flame – and an Arachnos base that has been set on fire. Much to my surprise, I suddenly find myself in the burning Arachnos base – somehow drawn or teleported there by the flame I’m been staring into.

Inside the burning base I find a large bomb, and a mysterious woman with a large collection of firefighting equipment. I destroy the bomb, but it does no good since the sprinkler system doesn’t appear to be operational. The mysterious woman attacks me, accusing me of starting the fire – I defeat her, although I’m still confused as to what exactly is going on. In any case, there are four sprinkler control valves that I need to activate in order to get the sprinkler system working again. Each is guarded by members of a strange cult of scarred, fire-wielding women – it doesn’t take a genius to figure out they probably have something to do with this fire. (I know they’re scarred both from hints in their individual descriptions, and also from the mission debriefing). Thankfully, since the women primarily use fire to attack, they prove not to be terribly difficult opponents.

Aside: My character’s confusion (evidenced in the preceding two paragraphs) certainly seems to be part of the developing story – I’m supposed to not yet know what’s going on or why; it isn’t a case of me having missed an important clue or me just not following a clear story. The technique has caught my interest and made me want to keep playing through the arc (and there’s something creepily compelling about the cult of fire-obsessed women too).

Next, the mysterious flame shows me a vision of a building. I seem to be surrounded by the strange women, but they aren’t threatening me. They’re inviting me in.

The mission that follows turns out to be both interesting, and genuinely creepy. I find myself in a compound where these strange fire-wielding women are being trained (the trainers appear to be others of their own kind who have already mastered the skills being taught, which certainly makes sense). It doesn’t take long before I get the distinct feeling that I’m … well … being recruited. Actually, not really recruited so much as “evaluated for the potential for recruitment.” I find a journal, but save it to read later. I then find what I take to be a recruiter for this strange cult (called The Matchstick Collector) who has summoned up some fire demons, but would like for me to eliminate them for her, since they are too weak to be of use. I do so, and she is then very eager to escort me out – which I do, and she thanks me for visiting. (I get the distinct impression this was supposed to be the very end of the mission – I wonder if a clue here having her say that I should go talk to Emily and then she will escort me out would work better here, although getting her to spawn in the final room might work too, assuming having her ‘escort me out’ really is supposed to be the last thing that happens.)

Ignoring the Matchstick collector’s eagerness to get rid of me I proceed up the elevators to the second floor of the compound, where I find Emily, who is very obviously the leader of these women – but after having seen me doesn’t seem to want to have any dealings with me: evidently I was judged unworthy to either join her cult or help her in whatever she’s got planned (probably the latter, since I’m male, and the whole cult is female).


Pro Payne is judged by Emily and found wanting. You can also see the Collector, who, by this point, had escorted me out of the base. It didn’t take.

Most interesting of all is what she’s got planned. I find on a bulletin board references to “the cleansing” and a map of Steel Canyon with four buildings circled ([b]I almost sense a hint that the Hellions are not behind all of the fires in Steel Canyon – or at least they soon won’t be). I also find some medical supplies intended to treat burns. There doesn’t seem to be anything else for me to do here, so I exit the mission. Once out, I read the journal that I found – it’s the tale of a girl who had been a potential recruit of this cult, but had a change of heart when she realized that they used torture through burning not only to insure loyalty (the torture disfigures the recruit to the point that she feels she will only be accepted by others in the cult), but also to unlock a recruits potential insofar as fire abilities go (something this girl certainly benefited from, even if she deeply resented the method). Hmm … I wonder if this girl seeking my help is the Mysterious Flame who is acting as the arc’s contact?

Aside: The fact that I’m actually a fire character really enhances the feeling that these matchstick women at least see me as a potential ally – more so than if I had different power choices, although the references to what I’m doing here really are vague enough that a character without fire abilities would at least feel like they were being evaluated as a potential ally for this cult. The two possible bugs I noticed: the Matchstick Collector would seem to be more effectively placed in the final room, rather than where she spawned in. Although I can see the logic behind Emily also showing up in the final room, I’m of the opinion that what she says wouldn’t be too terribly jarring even if I encountered her in the middle of the mission if it isn’t possible to have both her and the Collector always spawn in that final room. But that whole thing could easily just be a compromise the author had to make due the proper details not being available for the back room. The second one had to do with finding the two clues. The first of the two that I found was the painting – and then the mission objective updated to “find the painting” (even though it was the bulletin board I was looking for). In any case, so far I’m finding myself getting very caught up in the story!

Once again I stare into the mysterious flame, which seems to show me an image of these Matchstick Women “mobilizing” on some sort of recruiting drive – they have kidnapped some potential new recruits, and it’s going to fall to me to rescue them. The “roundup” is happening in Steel Canyon. Apparently the map with those locations marked were actually the places they were going to find and pick up the recruits – not the location of the Cleansing as I’d previously thought. In fact, the Burnt Match that I fought at the very end of the mission made it clear that this Cleansing was going to be the next step after they’d collected this crop of “potentials” – Emily, the leader of the Matchstick Women, was now convinced that these fire powers originated from a parallel demon dimension, and only by cleansing her cult’s members in a huge fire could they cross over into that dimension. (I get the sickening impression that the fires of the Cleansing are meant to completely burn away the mortal flesh of the cult’s members, which would, at the very least, remove them from this dimension, as they’d be quite dead…)

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself in recanting the tale. After my arrival in Steel Canyon, I set out to rescue the potentials – I found a scared girl (I think that’s what she was), a quiet girl, the mysterious girl back from that first burning Arachnos base (who is apparently their strongest candidate), and, ultimately a frightened girl. The first three have clearly unlocked potential fire powers: even though the mission text states that the first two quickly run off after their rescue, they actually followed me around and attacked several of my foes; their tendency to follow me seemed very weak though – they would randomly then stop following me and I’d quickly lose them. The mysterious girl (I think she was actually called “the peculiar girl” in the mission) looked like she was intended to follow me around, which she did. The frightened girl didn’t follow me around, and I never saw whether or not she actually had fire abilities (I presume she did, though). I also fought the Matchstick Collector (whom I remembered was one of the main recruiters of the cult) – I defeated her and then found the Burnt Match I mentioned earlier.

The Matchbook Collector’s boasts seem very appropriate, considering how I am (rather ineffectually) using fire to injure her. As she’s mostly using fire on me (and is, thankfully, just a boss), it’s a long, but winnable, fight.

Note that even though the Collector was the first leader I found, after her defeat, the mission objective said to find her, even though it was actually the Burnt Match I was supposed to be looking for.

It was the Burnt Match whose journal I’d found in the compound – although she had to put on a good show, she actually wanted me to help stop Emily’s plans. I had a feeling that was going to be my next task.


You *might* be able to just barely make out the “mistake” in the mission objective text here. Maybe.

Aside: At this point in the story, I am again a bit confused by what the mysterious flame is all about – I had been wondering if it had something to do with that Burnt Match that wanted to “rebel” against the cult and see them stopped; but at the moment it doesn’t look like that’s the case.

Now the mysterious flame leads me back to the compound, where the Cleansing is in the process of being performed. What I find there is fairly straightforward: the Matchstick women there attempt to stop me as I fight my way to Emily. On the way, I find Emily’s journal, where I learn that she was trapped in her home as a young girl as it burned down. Although she was saved (meaning somehow she survived, although it is never clear exactly how – it could be anything as mundane as she found shelter in the collapsing, burning house just long enough for rescue workers to get to her, to the fire triggered her own latent fire manipulation abilities allowing her to ‘will’ the worst of the fire away from her, to beings of fire coming to her granting her powers and bidding her to teach others ‘the ways of the flame’ or something similar…), Emily Metzer was horribly scarred both mentally and physically by the flames.

Aside: The story seems to leave what really happened to the player’s interpretation, although personally I suspect what really happened was the second scenario I mentioned (the fires awakened latent, possibly mutant, powers in Emily), while Emily’s fractured and insane mind believes it is the third scenario that happened.

In any case, by this time, Emily’s mind is almost totally gone. I think she believes being consumed in the flames will either transport them to the demon dimension she thinks their powers originate from, turning them into beings of pure, fiery power, OR she just thinks being consumed in flames will do the very same to their cult on this plane of existence – turn them into beings of pure fire. Either way, she’s wrong, and it’s up to me to stop her, and save whatever of the Matchstick Women haven’t already been killed. I face Emily in combat (and am near-ecstatic to see she doesn’t have firey aura powers, meaning that I can actually injure her, making for a fun, challenging fight), and ultimately defeat her – but she’s already so badly injured by the fires closing in (and, sadly, likely the fact that I burnt her to a crisp given that I’m a fire-based character) that she dies almost immediately after.


A pause for a moment to reflect how badly Emily hitting me with Incenerate would have felt if I didn’t have 74% fire resistance. Eight ticks of 73 would have sucked.

After escaping the building, it seems clear that the mysterious flame was some aspect of Emily’s tortured soul made manifest in an attempt to stop her plans – my take on it is deep down whatever good was left in Emily knew that all the cleansing would really accomplish is to kill everyone, and wanted it stopped. Thankfully, she got her wish…

Pros: Obviously, work has gone into the writing for the mission briefings, and I found them good overall. The mission design was very good (with one minor caveat mentioned in the Cons section). The clues were great, and it goes without saying that the custom group was extremely well done: excellent backstory, great design (it’s kind of freaky how much they actually resemble walking matches), and very good power selections overall (the author did a very good job of putting together a “varied” faction that is nevertheless primarily based on fire powers). The story was good overall too (again, with some minor nitpicks I mention in the cons sections) – and this is one of the few arcs where I felt compelled to add some points for “theme.” It seemed to me like the author was going for a combination of creepy and tragic, and that’s exactly how it came off to me.

Cons: As with nearly every good arc that I’ve really enjoyed, just about all of my “Cons” are nitpicks that really can just be traced back to personal tastes. So I basically present them in the sense that if others have given similar feedback, or something I mention has also been bothering the author too, then perhaps the feedback will be useful. Otherwise, rest assured I thought it was an excellent arc.

First, like I said, the briefings are good overall, although the style in which they are presented can make them a bit hard to follow – not so much in the sense that I don’t understand what I’m reading, but that I’m confused as to what exactly is going on. There’s a definite feel that you’ve been thrown in the middle of the plot with only minimal effort to bring you up to speed. Some players are a big fan of that, some aren’t. I think of myself as kind of in the middle, but this was just a bit too much of that for my tastes.

I only had one minor nitpick with the mission design – mission one, two, and four are short, tightly designed, and fairly fast paced. Mission three (the only outdoor mission) therefore really stands out as being considerably longer, and less focused in driving the story forward. Keep in mind I didn’t actually dislike the mission, I just noticed that it felt a bit out of place compared to the others.

The story, while I found it very good, struck me as leaving a lot of loose ends for the player to puzzle out (heck, you can even see me trying to do this – it’s up to the author to determine how successful I was – in the mission writeup above). Again, I don’t mind that technique, but there was a bit too much of it for my taste. Which makes my next nitpick rather ironic:

One place where something was spelled out, where I actually didn’t think it needed to be is Emily’s delusion. As written, although I think I see exactly where the author is going with it, the delusion behind Emily’s insanity (the demon dimension thing) seems “tacked on” (again, as presented); It almost seems like there’s no real ‘lead up’ to it, but rather it’s a response to someone complaining that there wasn’t any real motivation behind why Emily is doing what she’s doing or that we need more evidence she’s insane. IMO, it isn’t necessary – it’s already pretty clear that she’s gone nuts…

And finally, let me present a few technical things I noticed that probably should be fixed, since I do think fixing them will make the arc seem just a tad more polished (although, again, it already seems very polished). They were (1) mislabeled mission objectives (particularly in cases were two separate objectives were melded into one while both were still active), (2) a minor issue with mission 2 where it seems I’m escorted out before I even finish the mission, and (3) some of the allies don’t behave the way their “rescue” text implies – still have a tendency to follow me around rather than run away immediately. All stuff that can probably be fixed with another editing run through the arc.

Score: 5.08

Overall, an excellent arc that really sucked me into the story!

Pro Payne is open to submissions – but has only one slot left (and is nearing the end of his quest to reach level 50). Even after he becomes level 50, he will still play through, and review, the remaining arcs in his queue.

Pro Payne’s current queue:

3369 Matchstick Women (replay)
338575 A Tangled Weave
230187 The Hero of King’s Row
349034 A Taste for Evil
350877 The Greater Good
350522 Fear And Loathing On Striga
352400 The Union of the Mask
349298 The Better Part of Valor
355068 The Galactic Protectorate - 06
1044 The Empire – One Alliance
302196 Waddle's Revenge
346904 Against the WickerWork Khan!
292389 Tales of Cimorera, Vol. 2 (replay – this arc was modified to deal with some XP issues that kept me from completing it; to be as fair as possible I will allow this arc to jump the queue the moment I pass three bubbles into level 49 since it seems grossly unfair to whine about XP, have the author fix it, then refuse to play the arc until after I’m at the level cap).

With the new semester started, I will almost certainly only have enough time to post a review about once a week (and certainly there will be weeks where I just won’t have the time). And now, on to this week’s review!

Pro Payne had completed the last of the Safeguard missions, and was eager to return to the fictional world of Architect Entertainment, where he would again have access to the fire based powers afforded him by the computer simulations.

It was now time for him to return to the world of Drakule, in an adventure called:

Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers from Hell (Arc ID#340316, 5 stars)

Once again I found myself talking to Dr. Von Hecksung. He’d been cast out from the Order of Drakule Hunters, and returned to his monster-killing roots. He was interested in recruiting me to help fend off a recent wave of Werewolf Bikers who had taken to invading Paragon City.

Always up to a nice round of monster killing, I agreed.

Shockingly, the monsters were attacking dance clubs (it’s just kind of a given that monsters will either hang out in or attack dance clubs). Even more shocking, I not only found werewolves, I also found drakule spawn, led by an evil (if hot) vampire countess (the “hotness” is actually part of the satire, explained in their description – if fact, much of the satire in these arcs are in the descriptions of the custom mobs). I defeated both the countess, and the leader of the werewolves, and then found the most unholy abomination of them all: a flat out ripoff of the end of Underworld (ironic since that movie is itself sort of a ripoff) – well, I can’t really call it a ripoff as it was clearly deliberate satire (again, read the mob’s description). I defeated the deadly hybrid vampire werewolf, and left the club to see what Von Hecksung had found.


Oh no! It’s a werewolf-vampire hybrid! And it’s blue! Just like in the movies! (…course, if memory serves that whole movie was tinged blue)

I also noted that this arc certainly deserves its “challenging” warning – this is not one to be soloed by the faint of heart (or someone who gets frustrated by dying), but I still made it through the mission okay.

Anyway, Von Hecksung speculated that the werewolves had obtained a supply of hemoblood (probably forcibly) from the vampires. He wanted me to hit a garage where the werewolf bikers were hanging out and interrogate them for information. Eager to prove my monster killing skills yet again, I entered the warehouse.

Within, I found a whole pack of those biker werewolves complaining about having to take orders from a “retard.” Oh man, I hope this is a sign I’m going to get to beat the crap out of yet another incarnation of Ashton. There was one of the vampire leaders here too: apparently another high-ranking vampire had been kidnapped by the werewolves (I didn’t know if she’d be here – although I had a feeling she was being held by Grendel, leader of the werewolves, himself).

The finding and beating of Ashton made my day. Out of pity, I simply beat him to within an inch of his life, trading him that final inch in return for some info. I found out this whole thing was really his fault. He was so annoying, Dethe kicked him out of the underworld. He then hooked up with a werewolf biker gang and told their leader (the aforementioned Grendel) all about Drakule and hemoblood. Naturally, Grendel was interested, and was sending out werewolf bikers to attack nightclubs looking for a supply of the stuff.


Yo Ashton! I’m here to (nearly) kill you, again!

(Aside: This actually seems, at least right now, to be a minor plot issue. If werewolves and vampires were mortal enemies, then how exactly does Grendel not already know about hemoblood? Granted, I can just barely accept that they’ve been killing vampires for ages and never knew where they came from, but that does seem like kind of a leap – something about the way Ashton explains what happens leads me to think this is the first Grendel had ever heard of vampires, which contradicts Von Hecksung’s earlier statements.)

In any case, Ashton promised to tell me where to find Grendel’s lair. Given that they had just kidnapped a major member of the Cult of Drakule, it was a given they were about to have a fresh supply of hemoblood. I headed to the lair, expecting some very difficult fights.

The lair turned out to be a lab (actually the lab from the ARCH-A mission). It was under attack by the werewolves, which I found confusing because I thought this was supposed to be their lair. It didn’t take me long to figure out this was actually the vampire’s lair (and where their supply of hemoblood was kept), and the werewolves were raiding it trying to get the hemoblood.

Aside: Hmm … it almost seems like the story for this arc was originally supposed to go one way (werewolves and vampires are “old” enemies, and the werewolves have kidnapped a ranking vampire, possibly as a source of hemoblood, although that last part is just speculation), and got re-written before it was published (Grendel used Ashton to figure out where the vampires were getting hemoblood and attacked their lair – the vampire leader was never in any danger).

Or maybe I’m getting story from a whole set of different sources that this arc is satirizing mixed up with what’s actually in the arc. Still, I would recommend the author go back very carefully and check to make sure (especially check the dialog of that vampire leader in the second mission). And you may want to consider looking for lines of mission briefing text that could keep the player from getting confused and highlight them. Again, it may not be the author’s fault so much as the tendency of a player whose seen the Underworld movies, played the Vampire RPG, read a bunch of vampire novels, etc. to read in things that aren’t there – but there are likely other players like me who might do the same thing. Heck, I could even argue that those players might be the ones attracted to this arc, and therefore might be a disproportionately high percentage of those who actually play it.


Behold, as the mighty Father Grendel runs from me like a scared puppy!

In any case, I found and killed both Father Grendel, the werewolf leader, and Duchess Raven…something (can’t remember while I’m writing this). As with the rest of the arc, all challenging fights, but fun overall!


Duchess Ravenharte! Her name was Duchess Ravenharte! She wasn’t too pleased to see me.

And, of course, I found the source of the hemoblood – the broken body of Elukard, barely kept alive by being suspended in his own blood (well, more hemoblood anyway) and being harvested for whatever his half living body could produce – that’s what I assumed they were doing, it doesn’t actually say that in the arc (I assume that because Elukard is not fully undead – at least I don’t think he is – that he can naturally produce blood just like a living person can, and unlike a vampire. But, unlike a living person, his ‘blood’ is actually hemoblood).

Pros: Like the others in the series, I found this arc to be a very well done “dark comedy” – it was a good mix of serious and silly. The plot is actually somewhat serious, with the satire mixed in quite liberally in the monster descriptions and Von Hecksung’s almost comical level of bloodlust. Like the other Drakule arcs, this one is not terribly long and it’s quite easy to stay engaged with the story. Furthermore, there are two separate well-designed custom factions (composed entirely of custom mobs) – and (as near as I can tell) they’re all new designs. Put simply, it’s a fun arc!

Cons: The biggest one is difficulty. To its credit, the arc comes marked as “best for team play” and “challenging.” The author means it. In my estimation, if you had the difficulty setting at minimum (+0/x1/no bosses – and yes, I’m well aware of the fact that you can actually set it to -1, but I figure the lowest most players will go is +0), a combat oriented character in the hands of a competent player would have very few issues – some of the fights with the bosses (i.e. downgraded elite bosses) might catch you off guard and result in an untimely defeat, but overall you’d probably be just fine. On the other hand if your character is not terribly combat oriented, and you are soloing, I don’t think this arc is for you – in other words, you’d be well advised to take the author’s warnings seriously. But, keep in mind that most combat oriented solo characters play above +0/x1, and if you’re one of those be advised that you’re in for a challenge (again, exactly as the author warns). So why the heck would I consider a challenging arc that flat out warns you it’s challenging a “con”? It’s simple: I honestly think so many aspects of this arc (and even this series of arcs) almost strike me as tailor-made to players who like to solo to the point where I think the difficulty level of the arc (even if it is intended) could potentially alienate what could be some of this arc’s biggest fans. That’s just speculation on my part, but hey, this whole review is just an opinion piece anyway.

The second issue were the (possible) plot discrepancies I mentioned before. I have no idea if they’re real (in which case hopefully pointing them out would have helped the author out) or (as I suspect) me reading things into the plot that aren’t there because I’m drawing on what the arc is satirizing. But if the latter is the case, I can see other players (especially the ones reasonably familiar with what the arc is satirizing) doing the same – and the arc could therefore benefit from highlighting or otherwise drawing attention to parts of the mission briefings that could make the actual plot clearer.

One last note – I honestly can’t decide whether or not I liked the fact the dance club appeared yet again (it really is almost getting to be a running joke, but I can’t decide if I’m feeling like the joke is getting old). I can certainly tell you though which joke I’m not tired of: beating up Ashton. I was glad to see he made an appearance: I just don’t think this installment would have been the same without him.

Overall this was a well done, humorous arc that was a lot of fun to play – provided you are not put off too much by higher than average difficulty.

Score: 4.66

Check out my sig (I'll bet you're getting used to hearing that by now).

Of the arcs listed there, Freakshow U (1 mission) and Cracking Skulls (3 missions) are pretty quick plays.

Oh, and to be fair, there was another little nice touch Lazarus put in this arc:

Warning, astronomy jargon follows!

The Nagans hail from Beta Hydri - this is a very well thought out choice, as this star is not only real (a fact I missed until I talked to Lazarus online), it's a G2 IV type star. This means it is a star only a bit more massive than our own sun that is just beginning to evolve off the main sequence, and would likely be on the order of about 7 billion years old. A very good choice for a technologically advanced alien species.

I, however, mistook the star for Beta Hydrae, which is B8 III, and would be a very inappropriate choice for a star harboring an intelligent civilization. Beta Hydrae is part of the constellation Hydra, while Beta Hydri is part of Hydrus (a southern hemisphere constellation I didn't even know existed until last night when Lazarus pointed out the fictional home of the Nagans was not in Hydra.)

Needless to say, I was very impressed. Why? Because I'm a professional astronomer, and I don't normally get so soundly "trounced" (so to speak) in my own field. Well done!

Thanks for the mini-review, Lazarus! I appreciate the feedback! It came as a pleasant surprise: I’m typically mostly interested in people playing my arcs and letting me know whether they liked them or not – I know full well giving detailed feedback on an arc is a lot of work, and can be quite trying if it ends up being an arc you didn’t enjoy (as seems to be the case here), so I really appreciate the work you put into this.

Let me answer some of your questions and address a few of your concerns, and then I’ll get out of your hair.

Pro Payne is open to submissions, and has two slots left.

By the end of today’s arc, he was just shy of level 48, and was sitting on about 8,500 tickets, and about 24 million influence. Right after Breaking the Barrier, I switched to his alternate “just a regular guy with no real superpowers mode,” updated that mode’s enhancements (cost about 3 million inf, but since I’d waited to level 47 to do it, I was able to slot in 50s – the last set of enhancements that mode will ever need). He’s playing through the police radio missions that will give him access to the last Safeguard (along with its temporary power, and that “do nothing” accolade you get for collecting all of the exploration badges) – of course his difficulty is back down to +0/x1 (+1/x2 is much too challenging for a build that doesn’t use any of my overtly fire-like primary or secondary powers).

He’s still got four missions to go to unlock the Safeguard, but just leveled up to 48. So only two levels to go before the end of the project! (And yes, I absolutely will finish playing through the arcs in my queue – heck, the last few are an excuse to actually enjoy his full build at level 50 before his “semi-retirement”!) If you’re considering requesting a review, don’t delay – if I do hit level 50, and I’ve still got open slots left (and I’m not yet out of arcs to play, and I probably won’t be), I do intend to close submissions anyway.

One final note – the holiday vacation is over for me, so updates will likely be less frequent than they have been over the past two weeks. My goal is to try to do one review per week, but I’m sure there are going to be busy weeks where I just won’t have time to devote to getting a review out (just to give you an idea, playing a five mission arc while writing the playthrough notes, and then figuring out the score and adding the Pros and Cons typically takes a total of 4-5 hours, and some weeks I just don’t have that kind of time).

Here’s the current queue, and then on to today’s review:

340316 Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers from Hell
3369 Matchstick Women (replay)
338575 A Tangled Weave
230187 The Hero of King’s Row
349034 A Taste for Evil
350877 The Greater Good
350522 Fear And Loathing On Striga
352400 The Union of the Mask
349298 The Better Part of Valor
355068 The Galactic Protectorate - 06
1044 The Empire – One Alliance
302196 Waddle's Revenge

Breaking The Barrier (And Putting It Back Together) (Arc ID#347029, 5 stars)

My contact here was the Iron Samurai, but we didn’t have much time for chit-chat. He had wanted to see me because of recent Nagan activity (and I had a fair amount of experience dealing with them), but we were quickly interrupted when a nearby office building was attacked by strange monsters. I quickly went to investigate.

For whatever reason, the instant I heard “strange monsters” I just had this feeling it was going to be the Rularuu. I was right – and was glad for Iron Samuri’s help (I found him just inside the entrance), although we did get separated very early in the mission. This was one of the rare times where I wasn’t deliberately trying to ditch an ally, but I didn’t feel a strong need to go back for him (I was holding my own just fine), so I pressed on. I found three captives: one told me about some strange lizard people (Huh? I guess that’ll be clearer a little bit later…). A second clued me in to the fact that a Storm Elemental was probably propping open whatever gate the Rularuu had come through. Well, to be honest, I actually had figured it out because I’d already found and defeated the Storm Elemental, and closed the rift. The third captive wasn’t in the hands of the Rularuu, though – they were captured by the Nagans. The Nagans also had some stolen, and modified, portal technology, and seemed oddly surprised to even be here – like this had not been the expected result of activating their portal device… perhaps multiple gates to multiple worlds had been opened (which might explain a bunch of lizard people, although I didn’t find any in the office). I managed to capture all of the Nagans but one: a Tech Suziku managed to teleport out once I defeated her.

(Aside: This arc’s definitely off to a good start! We’ll have to see how it plays out, of course, but I was impressed with the use of mission objectives, by the humor displayed by the Nagans, and I thought the “bring you up to speed” clue you get right after accepting the mission was a very nice touch. If the Nagans are the lizard people, you might want to add that to the clue – but they may not be. I’ll need to wait and see.)

Iron Samurai informed me that portals dumping Rularuu were opening up all over the city – whatever the Nagans had done, it had weakened the “barrier” between here and the Shadow Shard. While Samurai headed out to deal Rularuu sightings, I headed into the Nagan hideout where Tech Suziku had fled: I needed to try to get her to tell me what was going on.

Incidentally, one of the first things I did once I was in the hideout was to zoom in really far – a lot of the Nagan’s faces are obscured, but once I was zoomed in it was clear that the Nagans are lizard-like, confirming that they are the lizard people referred to earlier. In retrospect it makes sense: a Naga is a kind of snake demon or spirit, after all.


Oh Hey! They really are kinda lizard-like! Granted, I really should have know that by now (keep reading…)

And then I found that clue from Cobalt Stinger. Given how long it is (and the fact that I have it before the mission was completed) makes me think I must have gotten it when I first accepted the mission, and just had a complete brain fart and didn’t notice it. Well, back to the story…

I found Tech Suziku, who was willing to make a deal. She told us that several Nagans had been captured in a raid on Aeon’s lab, and she had actually tried to use the portal technology to teleport them out of captivity (and that’s when all hell started to break loose). She’d offer to help us repair the damage provided I’d head over to the Rogue Isles and rescue her colleagues. Naturally, I agreed.

While in the lab I rescued four Nagans (who proved to be very handy allies in battle), and then confronted Dr. Aeon directly. I managed to defeat him, although he did show some rather unexpected combat abilities (he was basically like a claw pattern Paragon Protector). After his defeat (which he claimed didn’t matter because he wasn’t the real Dr. Aeon anyway, which was consistent with his very odd powers), I acquired the codes to his research data, which I downloaded.

The notes were interesting: Aeon had been working on both Portal and Time Displacement technology, and complaining of raids by the Nagans. Even more intriguing was mention of ‘taunting’ by Tech Suziku – it implied she and Aeon were having something of a back-and-forth.

We didn’t really have time to explore that angle, though – Suziku had come up with a way to repair the dimensional fabric: we would set up a number of field emitters to stabilize everything and then let the rifts “heal.” But first the Rularuu had to be contained (so that they couldn’t continue to damage the dimensional fabric while we were trying to repair it). To do so, I traveled to the Shadow Shard to set up a force field that would cut the Rularuu off from their portals, preventing more reinforcements from arriving in Paragon City.

With access cut off (as much as possible), it was now time to do what needed to be done to fix the damage. It should have been simple: head over to the Portal Corp lab and activate the stabilizer – but the lab was now under massive Arachnos attack! Fortunately, I had plenty of help, both from the Iron Samauri, and also from the Nagans. Together, we rescued all the scientists that had been taken hostage, we defeated the real Dr. Aeon (who was leading the attack with several of his clones), and activated the stabilizer!


If you look really carefully, you can actually see the Aeon clone who took me down flying to the left and off the screen as I hit Rise of the Pheonix.

Pros: This arc does all of the “standard” stuff very well – great mission briefings, excellent mission design (incorporating some very complex goals, and yet the pacing of the missions is very good: at no point did I feel like a mission was getting overly long), and good use of clues. The custom faction is well designed, and has a good backstory. While the faction is very challenging (a wide variety of powers and plenty of mobs with hefty debuffs), to be fair (1) I found them about equal in challenge to the Rularuu and the Arachnos, so they don’t seem out of place in the arc at all, and (2) You really only face them in the first two missions, and only in a limited capacity in the first mission. But the two things I think this arc did best was the characterization of the enemy factions and the main storyline. The Nagans were both interesting and, through the use of humor, the Nagan characters (especially Suziku) were actually endearing at times. And the main story kept my interest at all times – I’ve played through literally hundreds of story arcs, and I have very frequently come across stories that I thought were technically good and fairly creative, but for whatever reason I was only moderately interested to see how the story played out: with this arc I was genuinely enjoying being a part of the story and very curious to see where it was going. Very well done!

Cons: The most obvious downside is exactly what the arc author warns you about – the arc is clearly labeled as challenging, and with good reason. As I mentioned before, the Nagans are quite the challenge thanks to their varied attacks and debuffing abilities (never mind the fact that they agro on you from a long way off). Frankly, that’s exactly what makes Arachnos one of the more challenging factions as well (although they’re a bit easier to “pull” in bite-sized chunks). And the Rularuu are just plain hard as well. So just about every enemy choice is a challenging faction. Then, many of the placed bosses are quite challenging as well: the Storm Elemental bosses are no pushovers, and, ironically, Dr. Aeon’s clones are actually (IMO) considerably more challenging than the “standard” Dr. Aeon (imagine an elite boss version of a Paragon Protector…). To aid you, you are given access to multiple allies – many of them boss class. Normally I’d complain about “overpowered” allies, but for this arc they were very helpful, and I was glad to have them (and I’d argue having some boss class was necessary, as any allies that were lt. ranks or lower very frequently died within a few fights – especially in rooms where multiple spawns would agro onto me)! The lab maps were appropriate choices story-wise, but were especially brutal, frequently containing moderate to small rooms with multiple spawns. Obviously my difficulty settings exasperate this – but a squishier character would probably have some problems even set to +0/x1. However, in this particular case I’m not really inclined to complain overly much on the difficulty: you are warned it’s a challenging arc, much of the challenge is coming from standard factions that are perfectly appropriate for the advertised level range of the arc, and, to be honest, I can’t think of many ways the challenge could be reduced and the arc still work – I suppose it’s possible there are lab maps available that might not have quite as many of those “rooms of death,” but I also understand that they still have to be large enough to accommodate all of those complex mechanics that are a real highlight of this arc. Honestly, my final opinion on this would be the arc would benefit a bit from a rather mild decrease in the challenge – but I certainly wouldn’t call the arc too challenging considering the circumstances.

The only other “con” were a few threads in the story that didn’t seem quite developed enough – or didn’t seem to really go anywhere. The main storyline struck me as just fine, and amply explained. However, I did find myself wondering “what’s up with these Aeon clones”? I think I was wanting more of a “story” reason for them to be there – but if there was, I missed it – to me they just seemed to be there as a sort of “misdirection”, an excuse to fight Aeon over and over again without defeating the real one until the very end. Also, related to this was the bit about research into Time Displacement – that never seemed to be developed or made part of the main story. I gathered that it was meant as a hero-side tie in to Project Destiny, or possibly even Recluse’s Victory – or maybe foreshadowing a future story arc? And finally, the arc made (literally) a passing reference to some sort of dialog that had been going on between Aeon and Suziku, but that never seemed to be developed (and I was kind of curious to know more).

Finally, the “lizard people” thing. As you can tell from the “playthrough notes,” I was evidently being exceptionally dense in not figuring out that the Nagans were the lizard people until half a mission after the clue telling you exactly that was given to me. Ignoring that little bit of stupidity on my part, though, I do think that at least until the beginning of the second mission it might not be clear to the player that the Nagans are the lizard people referred to (and I can’t really think of a specific reason it would be important to withhold that info specifically until the first mission is totally over – after all, the mission objectives make it very clear in the first mission that there are Nagans present). That would be an exceptionally easy fix, though: in the briefing for the first mission (or in that “bring you up to date” clue you get once you accept the first mission – which, by the way, was a great idea) even one reference to your past dealings with “those reptile-like” or “scaly-skinned” Nagans would make that connection a bit clearer (the reference to the fact you’ve dealt with the Nagans before is already there – I’m suggesting nothing more than just adding an adjective.)

Overall, an excellent arc!

Score: 4.795

Congratz, Bubbawheat! That's a very well done arc!

Pro Payne is open to submissions, but only has room for two more arcs. See yesterday's post - should be about three posts back - for more details and my current queue.

Yesterday Pro Payne did his customary random search, and actually came across a two parter (which I played both parts of).

Forging an Empire, pt. 1 (Arc ID#297471, 2 stars)

For this one I had to break out the goatee and become evil Pro Payne. Evidently, in spite of being a level 46 villain, I am, in fact, the lackey and sniveling subordinate of my contact, the Iron Cancelor (spelling error in the arc). He orders me to scour a Council base looking for parts; I don’t find any because the base has already been hit by a group of heroes. So I.C. decides I need to hit Vandal’s personal lab. But he doesn’t know where it is, so he sends me into a random Council base to get the access code from the base commander. The base commander is an Ascendant Archon who promptly enters hibernate, summons in two ambushes, heals back up to about 75% life, then flees like a little wuss. Pro Payne comes up empty (i.e. the mission fails). I.C. threatens me, obviously displeased that I have failed him. Then he states “he had a backup plan” (no further details) and the arc proceeds with the next mission as though I’d never failed. Next I am to invade Vandal’s base using the access code I stole (wait … didn’t I fail to steal the access code?!), defeat all Council I encounter, and subdue Vandal.

Vandal certainly put up a pretty good fight (actually, he managed to beat me down about three or four times – that “Overload” field of his lasts longer than I thought it did; but, for the record, the repeated defeats here did not affect the score I gave this arc – the author certainly gave me ample warning an AV/EB was going to be the goal of this mission), but I did defeat him, and found several bits of Citadel’s technology. Apparently, that’s what I.C. was looking for – however, he told me “this was just the beginning.” I was now to examine an abandoned weapons facility. He didn’t seem to know what was there, but did know that Malta and Nemesis were looking for whatever it was, and wanted me to get it for him. I was thinking “can’t we just stay focused on the task at hand, whatever your grand master plan is?!” – but (evidently) I.C.’s the boss here and I have to do whatever he says. So into the base I went (after a short diversion to level up).

Inside the base, I had to steal a weapon schematic, a large number of weapon parts, and defeat every single Nemesis and Malta soldier in the base (Boo!). I then returned to I.C. He wanted me to raid a Rikti portal base for technology (after he took all of the weapon-building equipment I had just gotten for him). So into the Rikti base I went.

I collected all of the components, and all of the Rikti portal coordinates they had in their central computer and then studiously delivered them to the Iron Cancelor. At this point the arc abruptly ended (well, really I think I’m supposed to start up the second part, but at least the mission briefing doesn’t point to the next arc or anything…)

This arc is actually a pretty good example of the bare minimum I’d be looking for to award something 3 stars. The mission briefings are the minimum that I would still consider an average effort, as is the mission design and the clues. No additions to the score – no deductions. Until you consider the story. Here I am, a level 46 (47 by the end) “villain” – and I’m basically acting as a gofer for some other villain. And I mean that in the most literal sense: I’m just hitting one enemy base after the other stealing technology and delivering it to my “master.” And just because he tells me so – no payment, no mercenary opportunities, no reason for me to do this.

So here, specifically are the issues. This would be an “average” arc, except for the fact that there’s no real story development (the story just kind of derails after the 3rd mission, when all of a sudden it seems like I’m just being sent on random collection tasks with no information on what exactly it is that I’m collecting), there’s a gratuitous defeat-all (it’s vaguely justified, but it’s also on a pretty big map too), the “motivation” is totally level inappropriate (sure the goal is supposed to be “world domination”, but I’m just the lackey here. At level 45+ I should be the one seeking world domination), and the author has made no real attempt to give a reasonable “salvage” of the story should you fail the 2nd mission (which there’s really no reason for that mission to be failable in the first place).

Score: 1.92


Forging (somebody else’s) Empire, pt. 1: A typical mission. Pro Payne is looking for data in this Rikti Base.

And on to...

Forging an Empire, pt. 2 (Arc ID#297472, 2 stars, 3 given in game – just barely)

Wow … this one quite literally starts up *right* where the first part left off. The author is just treating the new M.A. slot as five extra mission slots to finish up his or her arc. Which is actually not something I have a problem with – my problem is with the sheer abruptness of it. There not even an attempt at closure or to make the first arc at least even partially stand on its own. We just launch right into arc #2.

Okay, anyway, apparently all of that technology I stole originates on Praetorian Earth, so now Iron Chancelor is sending me to a world that has been taken over by Nightstar so see what I can find. (I want to just say that as villain Pro Payne, I better get the chance to beat the ever-loving **** out of this presumptuous little *** by the time this maxi-arc is over. If this ends with me literally helping I.C. take over the world, and I get nothing, it’ll be -100 on the score. Okay, not really.)

I found myself in the midst of the city, battling Nightstar’s androids. I defeated a whole host of her android servants, and even Nightstar herself (no clue as to exactly why she was there – I guess just doing an inspection or something…). I continued to fight Nightstar’s android servants, looking for a damanged Class III android. Eventually, I got kind of bored, realizing that this feeble world must be packed to the gills with nothing but Nightstar’s Spectra class ‘droids, so I activated my (amazing) Ninja-Run and rapidly… um … sorta “swished” through the place look for that damaged android I (apparently) needed to find. I found her, finally, and she promised to give me all of her secrets. I don’t know why she caved so quick … I mean, I didn’t even threaten her or anything … but she did. And I delivered them (the secrets) to I.C., like the dutiful level 47 lackey that I am. Argh.

Hmm. I.C. seemed almost appreciative this time. Almost. In any case he sent me into Neuron’s domain, since Neutron is the one who has the “final” schematics for the weapon. Dangit, I thought I’d had those since that Council raid two missions ago. Okay. Okay. I’m going to just do this.

For the Iron Chancelor!

Wait. What am I saying?!

Oh you can’t be serious. The mission is a defeat all! Really? REALLY? Ugh. Apparently I’ve got to get Neuron’s weapon designs, and all of the supporting research that goes with them. And then I’ve got to wipe out every last thing in this place. I don’t know why. Just cause, I guess – no problem. Pro Payne’s a supervillain. He’ll give it a shot. While in Neuron’s base, Pro Payne does find some information: I’m not entirely sure about this, but it seems like the “weapon schematics” I’ve been looking for are Siege’s technical readouts. Either that, or Seige is building the weapon on his factory world, and Neuron’s been monitoring his progress. Either way, after clearing out a rather large lab map of all of its robotic inhabitants, I return to the Iron Cancelor.


Forging an Empire, Pt. 2: Oh, hi there Neuron! I’m here to st… OUCH! OUCH!

I.C. now informs me that he will put aside his hunt for Anti-Matter (huh? When did he say anything about hunting Anti-Matter?), and instead have me capture Seige’s factory. Once he has control over the factory, he’ll be able to churn out his army of robots and conquer the world. Once again, I agree to do his bidding.

I.C. gives me a virus that will allow him to take control of the factory, and I then head to Seige’s world. Oh for Pete’s sake. I have to defeat every foe in the giant outdoor factory map! Why?! I have the freaking virus? Can’t I just take defeat Seige and take over the factory, and leave I.C.’s newly produced armies to clean up?

As I move through the factory, destroying RAM Series robots, I am treated to a rather pleasant surprise – apparently there are three terminals where I need to upload the virus, and each successful upload summons in (“constructs”?) three patrol sets of Iron Infantry – so I *do* actually get some aid in clearing the factory after all (metagame: not to mention the fact that all those patrols are taking up plenty of spots that would be used for enemy spawns, which does make the defeat all somewhat more tolerable). A second nice surprise comes as I defeat Siege: a bunch of Longbow arrive, led by Citadel and Luminary. I start clearing out Longbow, and defeat Citadel. It’s then that I notice that the Iron Chancelor is actually here as well, and will act as my ally. At first I’m a bit miffed to be dealing with an Elite Boss ally, but then I notice that for some reason Luminary has spawned in as a Hero (in spite of my settings). And I don’t mean “says Hero but it’s really got the stats of a boss” – she’s got 28,000 hit points and 800 end, and hits like a truck.

Although I made a fairly heroic effort to defeat Luminary anyway (with the aid of inspirations, and Iron Chancelor’s help), in the end I had to give up, after I.C. was defeated in combat. The heroes carried the day, and I quit out of the arc. In this case, I was willing to rate it since I did nearly manage to complete it.

The continuation has the same issues as the first part, although I’d say the mission briefings are even more terse (to the point where I considered them slightly below average, although only slightly). The issue with the story is the same: it doesn’t make much sense, actually seems to contract itself in places, and there’s still the issue with why such a high level villain would be acting like a lackey or subordinate. The clues also seemed to have had a little less effort put into them two. On the up side, this arc was only three missions long (I don’t intend for this to be sarcastic: if it hadn’t been for the defeat alls, it actually would have felt a very good length for an arc like this), and didn’t have a mission that you could just pointlessly fail and then simply ignore the failure. Also, while not terribly original, I did like the visual design of a few of the customs – and the major characters really did have decent descriptions. Frankly, I found that the “extra good” in this part was worth just a bit more than the “extra bad.” (And that’s ignoring the fact that I totally failed the arc because Luminary was a Hero-class bad guy – but until I’m sure that’s not just a bug, I’m not going to count off for that.)

Score: 2.045

Next, I'll be playing Lazarus' "Breaking the Barrier" arc. I'll play as much of it as I can today, and try to get the review up by tomorrow or Thursday.

This posts's not a review (although I've got one for a random arc on the way - this one ends up getting a bit more effort than many of the other "one random" arcs I've done). Instead, I'm listing my current, updated queue, along with a few notes (and responses).

Pro Payne is currently level 47. His difficulty is set to +1/x2, although I try very hard to be reasonable about difficulty issues - basically, I only grade down on difficulty if I suspect I still would have had problems even set to +0/x1: e.g. it was a *singular* opponent that was giving me fits; or you've got a dangerous custom group on a map where spawns tend to be tightly packed, and you made use of lots of ambushes, etc., etc. He's got two slots remaining in his review queue. Please be aware that to be as fair as possible, if you've already got an arc on my review list and you request something for my last two slots, you *might* get pre-empted by a new author. If that happens, and you'd like for me to play/review a different arc for you (to replace the one on the queue), just let me know!

Here's the queue. My plan is to take a crack at "Breaking the Barrier" tomorrow (and it is now time for Pro Payne's very last "Safeguard" to get the very last temporary power - he will be in his 'alternate' mode for this: read the very first post if you're curious what that really means, and set to +0/x1.)

347029 Breaking the Barrier (And Putting It Back Together)
340316 Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers from Hell
3369 Matchstick Women (replay)
338575 A Tangled Weave
230187 The Hero of King’s Row
349034 A Taste for Evil
350877 The Greater Good
350522 Fear And Loathing On Striga
352400 The Union of the Mask
349298 The Better Part of Valor
355068 The Galactic Protectorate - 06
1044 The Empire – One Alliance
302196 Waddle's Revenge

(If you've made a request and you are not on this list as of the date of this post, please let me know!)

To Tubbius: No worries! Waddle's Revenge is on the list! And welcome to the MA Arc Finder channel!

To Turg: Please do let me know - I do plan on breaking out Pro Payne from time to time even after he hits 50, and there's a good chance I might actually make a second go at the level 1 through 50 thing in M.A.; no way I'm going to do reviews if I do that (since my primary interest would be to see how much faster things go if I'm not devoting so much time to writing reviews), but there's a good chance not only Pro Payne would give the arc another try (if you want me to check out any fire related tweaks on your end boss), but that a non-fire character would give it a try...

I agree with the OP, and, in fact, wholly disagree with those who have called "bull" on her conclusion: anything less than 5 stars = no plays. I honestly believe they are speaking on opinion rather than actual personal experience. I agree with her because I've seen exactly that happen with my arcs.

My arcs that currently have five stars get an average of a play a day (once they pass a threshold, which seems to be about 20-30 plays). My arcs that currently have four stars get fewer than one play every six months. That's not opinion. That's is, in fact, exactly how it's happened for me, and, I'd suspect most other people.

I've had three arcs go from four star ratings to five star ratings (and yes, it took months for that one play that bumped it up to five stars to even happen). For all three arcs, the instant they hit five stars, they started getting about a play a day.

Two of the arcs maintained that rating. One of them lost it after a few days. The ones that maintained the rating get about a play a day. The one that lost it hasn't gotten a single play since it lost it - that was a few months ago.

I agree completely with Wrong Number. A rating of 5 stars = you are voting that the arc is worth other players taking a look at. A rating of less than 5 stars, EVEN 4 stars = you are voting that the arc is not good enough to ever get played again. And if your vote actually takes it to less than 5 stars, you have *ensured* it will not get played again. Heck, that's why even my scoring system is so strongly weighted toward giving 5 stars in game; there almost always has to be a major technical issue (like XP issues, an ubeatable foe) or the writing has to be TERRIBLE, not just average but actually very bad, before I'm willing to risk voting a five star arc into oblivion. And yes, in the rare cases where I did notice that my vote caused an arc with more than about ten plays to lose five star status (which is vary rare because most of the arcs people suggest that I look at really are good enough that I think other people should play them), I have changed my vote to return it's five star status. I'm not cruel, and I will not be the one responsible for condemning an arc to never be played. Heck, there's been times were the arc was 4 stars, and I ended up giving it 4 stars (again, rare - much of the time I've thought it was worth 5 stars) - and almost every time I've checked just to make sure a 5-star vote wouldn't bump it up to 5 stars. And if it would, I've just gone ahead and given it 5-stars.

It may not be the intent behind the rating system, but, as I've said, I agree completely with WN's assessment of the effect of the rating system.

What I don't know is if the effect of the system is exactly what the Dev's intended - if they wanted to ensure that the system was set up in a way to make sure that very, very, very few arcs actually got regular plays. That's always something you have to consider, because if its true - or at least if the effect of the system is acceptable to them (and, frankly I think it is), then the odds are very good no attempt will ever be made to overhaul the system.

Pro Payne is still open for suggestions. There are three open slots left!

He’s currently one bubble shy of level 47. His current queue is:

347029 Breaking the Barrier (And Putting It Back Together)
340316 Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers from Hell
3369 Matchstick Women (replay)
338575 A Tangled Weave
230187 The Hero of King’s Row
349034 A Taste for Evil
350877 The Greater Good
350522 Fear And Loathing On Striga
352400 The Union of the Mask
349298 The Better Part of Valor
355068 The Galactic Protectorate - 06
1044 The Empire – One Alliance

And now, on to my last set of reviews for 2009.

Ghosts Gone Bad (Arc ID#304263, 2 stars)
I was contacted by some old woman called “Segway” who told me the tale of one “Baxter Figgins.” Baxter was an expert in the occult who’d lost his wife to a car accident. He wanted to bring her back, and in the process was allowing spirits to spill over into our world. I “invaded” the decrepit warehouse where he’s set up shop and captured him, but an associate of his was working to open up another mystical portal. I closed down the portal (I found it in an abandoned office building), but couldn’t find the associate. The ‘associate’ turned out to be Baxter’s wife, Lydia, returned from the dead as some sort of hot, orange-skinned necromancer elf woman. Okay. This arc’s got a foundation, but it is just plain incomplete – the story is more like an outline than a real story, and everything else is just not there: no clues, most mission objectives aren’t filled in, the final big bad doesn’t have an actual faction, just to list a few.


Apparently, if you die and are then brought back to life by your necromancer husband, you don’t come back as you. You come back as an orange skilled elf-lady.

Score: 1.715

Cliff Em All (Arc ID#257335, 2 stars)
Hmm. James Hetfeild (lead singer for Metallica, and yes, the name was misspelled in the arc…) has tasked me with getting some CDs “he’s not proud of.” I’m thinking this could be interesting/amusing or really bad. (I do note before entering the mission that it’s not looking good at all: ‘ol James is not particularly articulate or coherent.) Once in the abandoned office building, I find myself “stealing back” five boxes of St. Anger CD’s from a bunch of evil fans, groupies, managers, and record companies. Okay, I have to admit it was rather amusing, which is why it is such a disappointment the author didn’t actually put more effort into the arc: the custom group was fun to fight but there’s just nothing here! Granted, I also probably should have reported this one, but I didn’t think to do it.


I’m not sure why an entire evil record company bares more than a passing resemblance to a very tall Westin Phipps, but I can tell you a large number of evil record companies went down in flames this day.

Score: 1.67

The main review for today (albeit a short one) is:

Tis Nobler in the Mind (Arc ID#257226, 4 stars, 5 stars given in game)

In order to avoid posting spoilers for this arc, I’m omitting my customary narrative. I did write up a short version of it anyway though. If the arc’s author would like it PM’ed to him, I’m happy to do it. (It isn’t terribly long, and there’s not much to it – just my normal recounting of playing through the arc.)

Keep in mind that while I’m trying to avoid any undue spoilers, it’s very possible some slipped in in the Pros and Cons section below, so if you would like to play this arc (and I do think it’s worth a play for sure) and don’t want to risk anything being spoiled, stop reading now!

Here’s Pro Payne’s honest attempt at a screenshot from the arc that is as spoiler free as a screen shot can be (other than the obvious fact that I’ve revealed that in one of the missions you are in an office building and you fight at least one group of Arachnos).

Pros: The arc’s missions are built well, use a wide variety of maps, and were able keep my interest. The arc’s story line was not terribly difficult to follow (which is good!), and it made very, very good use of clues to help advance the story. The mission briefings were a bit on the short side, but were well done overall – and their length was consistent with what I perceived to be the personality of the contact. It was a solid, fun-to-play arc.

Of course, as is usually the case, the Cons section is much longer since it’s here that I prefer to put suggestions that I think might improve the arc, so bear with me.

Cons: This is probably the most “spoiler-risky” part of the review, so, seriously, if you don’t want to risk any spoilers before playing the arc, stop reading. One issue I had was the dichotomy between what I as the player and figured out about the story very early on (I was suspicious at the very beginning of the second mission, and I had a pretty good idea as to exactly what was going on by the end of it), and the fact that my character (in the context of the arc) clearly had no idea what was happening. This may have been the author’s intent, but I do think the story would work better if the player was kept completely in the dark longer. Honestly, I think the second mission should have even fewer “clues as to what’s going on” in it. In particular, I would recommend making the “mission intro pop-up” text for mission two seem completely normal – like absolutely nothing is wrong at all. The author may even want to consider replacing the “recolored” foe at the end of that mission with a normal Arachnos boss, but keep his dialog the same (since battle dialog is easy to miss, the cute part about this is the player might not even notice there’s something “off” about what the boss is saying). Then, optionally, you can actually have the mission exit pop-up say something to the effect of: “That’s odd. You know you were just in a warehouse, but you can’t remember exactly what you did.” That would possibly delay the player from figuring out what exactly was wrong. Although thing that might be interesting to try is to actually make the custom bosses in mission three (and four?) actually seem (look) more villainous (but again, keep their dialog the same). You might even consider actually using some Arachnos or Praetorian AVs (such as Ghost Widow and perhaps Chimera) as “visual stand ins” for the AV-class bosses in missions three and four. All of this might help “sell” the story more to the player.

The second thing I’d suggest is a bit of juggling around the powers in your custom enemy faction. Here is specifically the issue I was having, game-play wise: several of the lt’s and bosses are masterminds, and someone (I thought it was the minions, but it might have been one of the lt’s) was spamming web grenades. Now one or the other I wouldn’t necessarily have an issue with. And even combining the two isn’t necessarily bad per se. But when you also give some of the baddies perception boosting powers, then all of a sudden, you are routinely aggroing multiple spawns across the room (since lab maps are kind of notorious for having fairly small rooms where two or three different sets of mobs can spawn in – normally they’re just far apart that you might be able to effectively pull and not fight them all at once, but these guys’ perception was making that much harder). So in very short order you’re facing walls of summoned minions that you actually have trouble maneuvering around to get to the masterminds that summoned them because you’ve also got six or seven web grenades on you.

Just for your amusement, here was the most pronounced example of that. The ally in the final mission spawned in right next to the first “big bad” in the mission, and said “big bad” then ran to the far elevators, aggroing at least two other groups (I didn’t run through them, but thanks to the boosted perception, they saw me the instant I rounded the corner). To make matters worse, there were ambushes tied to either the big bad, the ally, or both. By the time I died (and it was by no means instant – I really did last quite a while in this fight, which is one of the reasons I wasn’t terribly upset by the set up), the entire corridor was flat-out wall to wall with mobs attacking me. On the up side, that did have to be one of the most spectacular castings of Rise of the Pheonix I’ve ever seen.

Finally, although I do absolutely see why he had the power, you might still want to consider removing Confuse from that second big bad in the last mission. While it’s not unusual for me to have one break free for situations like that, he managed to actually confuse my ally (I don’t know if he does that a lot in your play-throughs, or if I just got really unlucky), which turned my ally from “something to help a soloer to complete the mission without having to assemble a team” to a pretty big liability. Plus, as I recall, there is actually a pretty good “in-story” reason you could call on to explain why that particular big bad wouldn’t be able to confuse you any more (much less your ally).

So again, a good solid arc, but definitely one where I think some tweaks could be made to make it even better.

Score: 4.41

Pro Payne is open for submissions. I’ve got five “empty” slots left before I close submissions – that will probably give me enough “review” arcs to finish out this project.

Pro Payne is currently level 46, and is playing at a difficulty of +1/x2 (with bosses allowed to spawn but AVs “downgrade” to EBs). Please keep in mind that I will not “grade down” for difficulty if your arc would be “more playable” if I reset to +0/x1 (regardless of whether or not I actually do set it to that level to play the arc). The only exception (and it isn’t really an exception) is if there are one or more “placed” foes (e.g. bosses) that I simply cannot beat, since they’d be there even if the difficulty were lower. Keep in mind that Pro Payne is a Fire/Fire scrapper, so it may be risky to suggest an arc that utilizes a high-rank (Elite Boss) foe with 90% fire resistance.

Pro Payne is “decked out” with IO sets (just about every power I want an IO set in, he’s got one in at the moment), is currently sitting on about 1,300 tickets, and somewhere between ten and twenty million inf. Incidentally, he certainly could have had much more inf. If I’d wanted him to, but I’ve been perfectly content to keep him in the 10-20 million range: if used the money to get the IO sets, and the tickets mostly to buy uncommon and rare salvage needed to make the sets (and to buy high priced rares to sell on the market). Yes, it would be more cost effective to just buy the uncommons on the market, but, as I mentioned before in earlier posts, one interesting conclusion from this project is that an MA-only character is just never wanting for “resources” – even being rather cost in-effective, I’ve had no trouble keeping him totally up to date enhancement-wise (through all stages) with tickets and money to spare.

For this “final run” to 50 for Pro Payne, I’ll be conducting the major reviews just a bit differently than before. I will mostly be writing them in character. What that really means is that I’ll be writing them more in first-person, as Pro Payne is playing through the arc: which literally does mean that if I seem to have missed something in the runthrough of the arc, that probably reflects the fact that I really did miss it (or got confused) while I was actually playing the arc: knowing that might be helpful to some authors.

And now, for Pro Payne’s most recent adventures…

Roundup In Paragon (Arc ID#333593, 2 stars)
An arc with a very simple, if somewhat amusing premise – a bunch of undead cowboys have invaded an office building, and need to be stopped. The arc simply exists as an excuse to fight a custom group. That’s a pity, because with some effort to give the arc more of a story, this one could be a rather fun little one-mission romp. There were technical issues as well: no real mission objectives, a major typo in the text of the one clue in the mission (in essence the clue title was the clue text), and the (seemingly pervasive) “the custom group is missing one of its ranks so everything is worth 50% XP” error. It does make me wonder if this arc was actually once a farm, and the author simply abandoned it after the changes hit. A pity because with a bit of work, it could be a lot of fun (without being a farm). As it stands now, though:

Score: 1.955

Pro Payne is thankful to find that Undead Cowboys are just as flammable as living ones.


Blowback (Arc ID#4643, 5 stars)

Crimson, terse as ever, sent me to investigate a Malta base that had received a shipment of “strange materials.” He told me there was no need to clear the place out, but he wouldn’t actually mind if I did. Within the lab I found a cryptic e-mail to a Malta Officer named Enigma-Silver 6-3 (something about a delivery and guests needing to RSVP in 24 hours), and four Dimensional Flux Generators – devices capable of creating wormholes suitable for dimensional travel. The things actually looked like they’d been used recently.

Even more alarming were the new soldiers in Malta’s arsenal – including new classes of human-sized titans (among them Enigma Silver 0-0-1, a boss-class version of the fire-flinging Perseus class titans I’d encountered elsewhere in the base.


How can something so thin and gangly-looking be a “Titan”? (This one was a boss-class version, by the way… and I was very happy to finally face something that flings fire, but isn’t horribly resistant to it.)

Crimson had found the same stuff in the base he investigated, but we had very little time to act on it – the Rikti had launched an attack on Steel Canyon, and it was pretty clear they were using the same Dimensional Flux Generators Malta had to bypass the War Walls and facilitate the assault. We weren’t clear on why the Malta would be helping the Rikti, but I rushed to Steel Canyon to try to find out (and, of course, put down the assault).

The Malta had fielded a “coerced” hero agent, Blackhawk Avenger, whom I defeated after a protracted fight. She wasn’t much on words, but she did hint at displeasure that Malta was helping the Rikti. For their part, the Rikti war commander also indicated that whatever the terms of this alliance, the Malta had lived up to their end of the bargain – and that the Rikti considered them no more than allies of convenience. I defeated most of the Rikti invaders, and rescued several citizen that had gotten trapped in the crossfire – but hadn’t learned that much yet about what exactly was going on between the Rikti and the Malta.


Hey?! What did I ever do to you?!

It ended up being Crimson who filled in more of the “big picture.” The Rikti attack had been focused on three buildings (one owned by a venture capital group, one by an environmental group, and one by a law firm). All three were previously known to be of interest to the Malta: each had given Malta trouble in the past, and they had evidently cut a deal with the Rikti to focus their attacks there (presumably in return for the War Wall bypassing technology the Malta had lent them).

There wasn’t enough time to really get into specifics, though: Bluehawk Avenger had recovered from her injuries, and had been sent to the Rikti base where the attack had originated from – alone. It looked very much like the Malta were trying to ensure someone who had the inside scoop on their dealing with the Rikti would “die in the line of duty.” I went to the base to “rescue” her from that fate…

I intercepted Bluehawk shortly after the start of her attack on the Rikti base. Apparently, our speculation had been off. She told me that her control implant had actually been removed by her superior, Enigma-Silver 6-3, who had basically set her free and told her to run. It had been her choice to attack the Rikti base in the hope that she could rescue some of the people they had captured (which we subsequently did). When we were finished with the rescues, she told me that it was 6-3’s superior, Enigma-Silver 2-0, who had ordered the deal be made: the Malta needed to teach some lawyers and bankers who wouldn’t play ball a lesson, but a direct attack would be too obvious. So they cut a deal with the Rikti to spearhead the attack instead (for their part, the Rikti got captives, and a chance to launch an assault deep into Paragon City). But 6-3 had then started acting strange, including having the Malta med techs remove Bluehawk’s implant and setting her free. It seemed to me that 6-3 was having a major attack of conscience triggered by how abhorrent he found the deal with the Rikti to be, and had decided to do what he could to sabotage the Enigma-Silver cells’ operations.

Crimson had some news that increased my confidence in my assessment. He knew of three other supers (non-combat telepaths) that were being held in a Malta base that had been in 6-3’s charge. He’d also received reports that the Malta within the base had started firing on each other. I wasn’t sure if this was 6-3’s attempt to further damage the operations of the Enigma-Silver cell, or 2-0’s attempt to shut down a part of his cell that had gone rogue, but my duty was clear – head to the base and try to rescue the telepaths from the crossfire. Crimson agreed.

The base was guarded by two Zeus-class Titans (oddly, it actually felt good to see them even as they were busy sending me to the hospital, something about ‘familiarity’), but was awash in battle between the “advanced” Malta of Enigma Silver cell, and the more traditional variety. I found it worth noting that apparently the advancements were not really giving them an edge – the “old-school” Malta they were pitted against pretty much wiped the floor with them, leaving me mostly on clean up duty.

But the telepaths were a lost cause; I arrived too late to save even one. I did, at least, confirm one part of my suspicions: Enigma-Silver 6-3 had been so disgusted by 2-0’s “pragmatic” deals with the Rikti that he’d, well, given his “two weeks” – in the most violent method possible. Still, by the time I finished clearing out the base, I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d stumbled into the middle of a cleanup operation or 6-3’s attempt at vengeance. (For the record, I didn’t overhear any conversations from any battles.) I returned to Crimson, hoping he could shed some light on things, above and beyond what I’d already figured out. Which was ironic, because he’s not really known for that sort of thing…

Oh wait. I’d downloaded an e-mail while raiding 6-3’s base, but hadn’t had time to read it. Ah. It did look like 6-3 was having an attack of conscience - Enigma Silver 2-0’s plan to use the Rikti to cut down some civilians who wouldn’t play ball was just the last blow in one too many instances of “do something against your ideals to support your ideals” than 6-3 was willing to handle. There looked to be a civil war of sorts in Malta’s Enigma Silver cell. I still didn’t know what the attack on 6-3’s base was about (specifically whose “cleanup” it was since both sides had reason to want to “clean house”, so to speak), but it didn’t matter at this point. It was time to talk to Crimson and see what he’d fill in.

Crimson didn’t want to talk about the base, because there were bigger things brewing. Apparently 6-3 and the Malta who still thought they had orders to follow his lead had been on the run, trying to evade 2-0 and the rest of Enigma Silver, while I was busy raiding their base. But just about the time I finished with the base, 2-0’s forces and caught up to 6-3’s. In Steel Canyon, no less. If that weren’t bad enough, the Rikti (led by the very same war leader, Jo’Dar, that I’d defeated earlier) were convinced that Bluehawk’s attack had been a direct result of Malta attempting to betray their arrangement. So a large contingent of the Rikti had boiled up out of the sewers to engage both factions of Malta.

Left to their own devices, they’d probably take each other out, but I needed to minimize collateral damage – so I headed in to defeat the three leaders. I mostly avoided the battles sprawled across Steel Canyon in favor of the omnipresent Rikti patrols, and the leaders of each of the three factions. First came 6-3, who really did apparently lead the more “advanced” Malta faction (so at least that question was settled): he seemed more … confused … than anything – a man torn too many ways between the inflexible ideals that led him to become part of the Malta group, and the reality of how Malta feels it must conduct its business to reach those goals. Ja’Dar appeared to be little more than a bio-engineered maniac – the Rikti had given him a kind of organic “supercharge” (yes, he was a recolored Hro’Dotz) to help him exact his vengeance. And, for his part, Enigma-Silver 2-0 was the consummate professional: my presence there was just a distraction from the real task of putting down 6-3 and whatever rebel Malta were taking orders from him. Too bad he underestimated me. Whoever he was, and whatever he knew, though, were lost – an incendiary “suicide” device made sure nothing was left after his defeat.


Pro Payne versus the enigmatic Enigma Silver 6-3

With Steel Canyon secured, I returned to Crimson. My reward for all my hard work: 6-3’s real name. Richard DiStefano. The sad conclusion of the career of a lifelong covert ops agent ruled by his fears: he became a spy for the U.S. out of a fear of the communists. He became a member of Malta when his fear of the communists was replaced by a fear of the power wielded by supers. And, in the end, he came to fear the monster he’d become furthering Malta’s objectives. I suppose by trying to get out he thought he could escape all of the crimes he’d committed.

He was wrong. I saw to that. His fate would be decided by his willingness to cooperate with government officials interested in Malta’s inner workings. None of that mattered to me; I was done with the whole affair.

Pros: Little needs to be said here – in all of the major categories I usually look at for an arc, this arc is solid. The writing’s good for both the mission briefings and the clues. Solid mission design and a well balanced custom group. Difficulty is very appropriate to the advertised level range. And the overall story is good too: has the twists and turns and intrigue you’d expect from an arc involving the Malta, yet isn’t too terribly hard to follow. In the realm of pure “gut-instinct” opinion I found this to be the least interesting storyline of this particular author’s arcs (where gut-instinct really boils down to I can’t explain exactly why), but I still thought it was a nice, solid tale. One thing that I did notice is the degree to which this arc can be made “variable length” – several of the missions could be played through relatively quickly if you just hunt the objectives, yet will take a fair amount of time if you take a more completest approach (which I tended to do).

Cons: I’m going to use the “Cons” section mostly for little suggestions on things that I think would improve the arc. Obviously, they’re just my opinion (I say that a lot, eh?) – things that I think would have increased by enjoyment of the arc and that I hope would apply to others playing it, but, as always, that’s up to the discretion of the author.
First and foremost, I saw the choice of rank for some of the big bads to be a bit off. The best way I can explain it is while there weren’t any technical problems with Bluehawk Avenger being an Elite Boss and Ja’Dor (or Jo’Dar?) and Enigma-Silver 6-3 being AVs (who downgraded to EBs for me) – beyond Avenger being rather overpowered in the mission where she’s an ally – their rank did conflict a bit with my “does it seem natural for them to be this high a rank”-o-meter. Sometimes when you run across a foe that’s EB or higher, it “feels right” (makes perfect sense the foe would be significantly stronger than the faction’s bosses) – but sometimes it just feels more like the only reason they are that powerful is because the author wanted to increase the challenge level, and that’s what it feels like in this arc. I honestly don’t remember if 2-0 was an AV or not (I don’t even know if that Malta AV is available in M.A.), but I do remember thinking that 6-3 would work perfectly well as just a regular boss (and would feel more, well “Malta” – a group that often seems practically defined by its lack of central, key figures with AV levels of power). And, related to that, the “upgrade” to Ja’Dor almost seems “forced” just to ensure that the Rikti have an AV in play to match the AV (or two?) the Malta have in play. I honestly think it would “feel more right” (for lack of a better way of explaining it) if Avenger, and 6-3 were just regular bosses, and Ja’Dor was his original Chief Soldier boss form (likely recolored, but I didn’t know for sure), rather than a recolored version of Hro’Dotz (although I did notice and like the fact that his Hro’Dotz color scheme matched his Chief Soldier one). I do think the author has done a very good job of designing “upgraded” Malta, but I found myself thinking they didn’t quite match the visual feel of the normal Malta units. Frankly, I thought they seemed a little too thin, trim, and athletic for Malta: I know that’s very nitpicky, but it was surprisingly noticeable when you see them side by side with the “regular” Malta soldiers. I also thought the upgraded titans needed to be considerably larger and bulkier looking – I definitely get that the whole point of the upgrade is to make them much more “covert” and mobile (and therefore small) than the normal Titans, but, wow, there just seemed something really incongruous with calling something man-sized a Titan, not to mention that I did honestly find it a bit hard to believe that the Malta would go all the way from lumbering hulks of mecha to sleek, slender androids in one upgrade.
Although this arc does explain exactly why the Rikti were working with the Malta (e.g. explaining what both sides were getting out of the deal, which then justifies why it was made in the first place), the truth is that, when playing through the arc the feelings of “why the heck are these two factions working together?” are strongest in the second mission. While that very same mission does drop two hints as to why the Rikti and Malta are working together (with Crimson filling in more information in the debriefing), those hints are delivered by in-mission dialog, which can be very easy to miss (and likely lead to players getting through the mission without having a good handle on what exactly is going on). I can’t speak to the level at which someone who didn’t catch these dialog clues would be frustrated by that “what’s going on here”? feeling, but I can honestly say I would have been if I hadn’t caught the dialog clues (which didn’t fill in all the blanks, but at least made it clearer to me that the blanks would be filled in, if only I’d be patient). Perhaps a clue or two to expound a bit on Avenger’s and Ja’Dor’s in-combat dialog?
Related to that – the new Malta units did seem a bit “out of the blue” (no pun intended). I certainly readily bought the concept behind why they were there in that first mission, but I did find myself thinking that maybe a bit of foreshadowing in the mission set up would help to “introduce” them a bit better.

Score: 4.66

Pro Payne’s current queue will be listed shortly. The next arc will be Tis Nobler in Mind – although since the author requested that I avoid spoilers (well, if memory serves, left it to my discretion, but it wouldn’t have been mentioned if no-spoilers wasn’t important to the author on some level, so I opted to go with no spoilers), it will not include a written runthrough of the arc (or screenshots), and the Pros and Cons sections will be carefully edited to avoid anything I’d consider a spoiler.

Pro Payne is currently open to submissions.

Here is my current, updated, queue. I almost certainly won't have a chance to play any of these arcs until next Monday (too much Christmas stuff going on), but this puts it in a short post instead of needing to wade through one of my review posts for it.

4643 Blowback (technically a replay, although the first time with Pro Payne)
257226 Tis Nobler in the Mind (No spoilers will be posted for this arc.)
347029 Breaking the Barrier (And Putting It Back Together)
340316 Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers from Hell
3369 Matchstick Women (replay)
338575 A Tangled Weave
230187 The Hero of King’s Row
349034 A Taste for Evil
350877 The Greater Good
350522 Fear And Loathing On Striga
352400 The Union of the Mask

Depending on the exact length of these arcs, and that Pro Payne is currently set to a difficulty level of +1/x2, I seem to get through about 3 to 4 review arcs per level (taking into account playing random arcs, and the fact that I don't hesitate to sometimes use Pro Payne to play test changes/modifications/improvements to my own arcs). So my best guess is I've got room for about five more arcs before I'll close submissions until I've played through most of the queue - that may, at long last, be the end of the Pro Payne project as I have tentative plans for a "finale" to the project that may get him the rest of the way to 50.

Time for another update from the world of Pro Payne’s quest to reach level 50 in M.A. He’s getting closer to the ultimate goal – Pro Payne has made it to level 46.

Pro Payne is open for submissions. Listed below is his current queue: If you’ve put in a request for your arc to be played, and don’t see it here (and you don’t see a review for it), let me know.

4643 Blowback (technically a replay, although the first time with Pro Payne)
257226 Tis Nobler in the Mind (No spoilers will be posted for this arc.)
347029 Breaking the Barrier (And Putting It Back Together)
340316 Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers from Hell
3369 Matchstick Women (replay)
338575 A Tangled Weave
230187 The Hero of King’s Row
349034 A Taste for Evil
350877 The Greater Good
350522 Fear And Loathing On Striga

Pro Payne actually started by remembering a few of the adventures he had during the Player’s Choice contest a while back. A few mini-reviews:

Sabrina’s Tale (ID#1237, Score: 4.42, 5 stars)
Certainly a good story and a well done arc … Pro Payne followed the sad tale of Sabrina, a person who “was never meant to be” but was given her chance at an existence anyway. My only specific complaint is that the defeat all, while not obnoxious or unpleasant (it was on a pretty reasonable map, if memory serves), didn’t seem strictly necessary. But the truth is any additional critique of this arc is a bit pointless since it is now a Dev’s Choice arc.

I honestly don’t remember if the next arc was part of the contest, or just one that I’d intended to revisit once I was “post 40.”

Ghost In The Machine, Act II (ID#174557, Score: 4.125, 4 stars, 5 stars given in game)
Pro Payne and Dani work together again, this time to uncover a magical plot and a sinister conspiracy run by an ancient, secretive group. Story wise I liked this arc every bit as much as the 1st one, and I’m looking forward to playing the sequel, when I get a chance. There is, however, one thing I really didn’t enjoy, and that truly does seriously take away from the fun of the arc: the very last villain is a Fiery Aura elite boss with 90% fire resistance, and healing flames. I’d fought him before when I played the arc the first time – I’d quit out and not rated it as I was totally unable to beat him. It almost happened again, but I just narrowly managed to eek out a victory. Like I said, I was a big fan of the first arc, and really wanted to play this one – but if you are using a character whose primary method of dealing damage is fire, I really would either recruit a teammate or just don’t play this arc with that character – pick one who doesn’t focus on fire damage; defeating the big bad with a fire character was an absolutely miserable experience.

And finally, Pro Payne is now truly “caught up.” So no onto his recently played arcs:

Tales of Cimorera, Vol. 1: Of Feathers and Fur (Arc ID#12647, 4 stars, 5 stars given in game)

Daedalus – master inventor of ancient Cimorera – need Pro Payne’s help. Daedalus had a plan that he hoped would help secure his homeland against tyrants and traitors, like Romulus and his evil minions. His apprentice, Servius, had an important role to play in this plan, but had been kidnapped by Romulus’ traitorous warriors, and was in need of rescue.

Pro Payne fought his way through the cave where Servius was trapped. When rescued, Servius told Pro Payne that he was a master mapmaker, and Romulus and been interested in his maps – in fact, Romulus’ troops and managed to steal most of them, although Servius wasn’t quite sure which one or ones he was interested in. Pro Payne led Servius safely out of the cave, facing and defeating Melleus, who was leading the legions that had kidnapped Servius in the first place.

With Servius safe, Daedalus wanted Pro Payne to go confer with Sister Solaris. Solaris and some of her Sybils were traveling through a forested area outside of town when contact with them was lost. Although Solaris could probably take care of herself, the Sybils most likely needed rescuing from the Cimoreran traitors that were holding them – Pro Payne scoured the countryside, freeing three of Solaris’ Sybils from captivity. What was somewhat disconcerting is the fact that the guards holding each Sybil were talking about offering the Sybils to “their beastly friends.” Pro Payne didn’t know exactly what they were referring to, but the last Sybil he rescued – Lepida – told him the Romans were being led by a Satyr named Lurco.


Pro Payne takes a moment to admire the fact that Sister Solaris’ Sybils are not hard on the eyes.

Pro Payne sought out and defeated Lurco, learning from the Satyr that he had been sent by the “Satyr-Lord” specifically to capture in Sybils, and the Satyr were in league with Romulus. Ironically, Pro Payne actually found Sister Solaris last, although, as he suspected, she certainly didn’t really need his help.

Daedalus was not happy to hear about a potential alliance between the Satyr and Romulus, and could only think of one way to put an end to that particular threat: Pro Payne would need to enter the Satyr-Lord’s realm, confront him, and defeat him in combat. Daedalus would be present to help, and warned Pro Payne that the Satyr-Lord was a demigod, and would therefore be a very powerful foe.

As planned, Pro Payne met up with Daedalus in the Satyr Lord’s forest, then faced the Satyr-Lord himself in combat. While Pro Payne did emerge victorious, the Satyr-Lord had an interesting trick up his sleeve: he called on the aid of a large flight of Harpies once the battle seemed to turn against him. The Satyr-Lord confirmed that there was effectively an alliance forming between the Satyr, the Harpies, and Romulus – the former would provide physical and mystical support and be provided with slaves, seeresses, and nymphs in return (which explained why Romulus’ forces had tried to kidnap the Sybils and deliver them to the Satyr).
That meant the next step would be to confront the Harpy Queen, Kalthyn. At this point Daeldalus thought it wise to bring Pro Payne completely up to speed, before he traveled to the Harpies’ realm. They were seeking a powerful magical artifact that could be used to protect Cimorera from magical fiends: ironically, such a thing would prevent Romulus from getting any use out of any deals he opted to make with beings like Satyr and Harpies. Of course, Romulus wanted to find the artifact too – to destroy it. And Servius had been gathering maps that he hoped would unlock the secret of where the artifact could be found. So Pro Payne only had until Romulus figured out which of the stolen maps led him to where the artifact could be found – not only would defeating Kalthyn deny Romulus the aid of her Harpies, she might also have information that could get Pro Payne to the artifact first: if Romulus had located the artifact’s resting place, Kalthyn would probably know where he was headed.

Pro Payne entered the Harpies’ realm, rescuing some of their slaves – including a powerful Minotaur named Kretoros. Kretoros told Pro Payne that Romulus had sold him as a slave to the Harpies. As payment, Romulus had wanted the Harpies to “open a portal” for him. Uh oh – apparently Romulus did know where the artifact was and was now on his way to collect is. Pro Payne quickly interrogated Kalthyn, who told him Romulus’ destination: the dark realm of Tartarus.


You might hear a slight ringing in your ears. Fortunately you’ll be nowhere near them.

Although invading the underworld would be dangerous, Pro Payne didn’t have much choice. Thanks to Kalthyn, he knew exactly where in Tartarus Romulus was – so he journeyed there, hoping to get to the artifact first. Luck was with him, for he did find the artifact – the Helmet of Achilles – before Romulus did. Then, for good measure, he hunted own and defeated Romulus himself – fighting with the aid of a rather surprising ally: the shade of Icarus, Daedalus’ deceased son.

With Romulus’ latest plan foiled, Cimorera was safe, at least for the time being.

Pros: Both the mission briefings and the technical design of the missions were excellent, and I really enjoyed the story. The arc had a wide variety of custom mobs that were, visually, very well done. I did consider the maps very well chosen too; still, the thing that this arc does best (beyond the design of the customs) is tell a fun “mythology” story, so to speak. It did a great job of expanding on Cimorera (which even still seems largely underutilized in the game), and addressed something that seemed oddly lacking in the “canon” stuff for Cimorera – the monsters and other beasts of ancient myth.

Cons: The most glaring issue in this arc is one that many players will certainly find to be a big deal: many of the custom mobs either only give out 50% XP because a “class” is missing from their faction, or they just flat out do not give any XP at all (presumably because a “required” power has been removed from them in the custom power choices menu). The former is annoying enough – but the latter is a pretty big black mark that just doesn’t need to be there. Of course, it’s understandable that the wide variety of customs has resulted in some space problems, but one thing the author may want to consider is using “filler” from the other factions (after all, they have an alliance) – for example, even though there’s just not enough space to give the Harpies all three ranks, it might work well to downgrade the Harpy bosses to lt’s, and put a Cimoreran traitor or Satyr boss into the Harpy group. They’d only be (relatively) rare spawns – except perhaps in very large groups – but it would bring the Harpies up to normal XP levels. The “shades” from the last mission are no doubt trickier – but since it *is* Tartarus, maybe the demonic bosses from the Circle of Thorns might work? But, as I mentioned, what really adds insult to injury is that some mobs just flat out aren’t worth XP at all – including the Satyr bosses (called Sorcerors), and even Kalthyn herself. On the up side, it doesn’t happen that often in this arc. On the down side, the fact that it happens with some of the most challenging fights in the arc is probably just not a good idea. Combined, the XP issues here are definitely worth taking stopgap measures to fix: I have little down that there are many players out there who will flat out 1 or 2 star an arc for XP issues. Of course, once the space limits are expanded, the stopgap measures can be “updated” and the extra space used to fill out the “incomplete” factions. The only other “con” is really just a nitpick – there are a few very minor writing mistakes in the arc – mostly in the mission briefings. The author has overall done a very good job (in my opinion) of making Daedalus talk in an “old fashioned” way – but there are a few places where the phrasing doesn’t come off quite right. If it hasn’t been done already, having a friend (or significant other) proofread the dialog (and reading through it out loud yourself) can be very helpful here.

Score: 4.34

Next, Pro Payne indulged in his typical bit of “random arc” fun between player requested arcs. The first to come up was:

Tough Stuff (Arc ID#266131, 1 star)
Oh dear. My recommendation: just avoid this arc. The (nearly) non-existent mission briefings manage to somehow be truly awful, as is the mission design and the custom group. I’d label this atrocity as a farm, but the faction is missing bosses and so isn’t even worth normal XP. Oddly, although the arc is labeled as ‘challenging’ the customs are actually not too terribly hard – they weren’t exactly easy (and their powers made absolutely no sense; the same could be said of their names), but I’ve certainly fought customs that were much harder.

Score: 0.25

The next one to come up was:

An Error In Architect Entertainment (Arc ID#242127, 4 stars, 5 given in game)

This arc ended up being a pleasant surprise. Pro Payne is contacted by some of A.E.’s programmers and tasked with putting an end to a virus infestation that has invaded the system. While the plot itself isn’t original, it’s done well enough, and the mission briefings taking the form of e-mail exchanges was a nice touch (although there was at least one place when the “e-mails” were reading more like a real time, if one-sided, conversation). Plus, this has got to be one of the few times I’ve played an arc where there were custom mobs using powers from the Ninjitsu set where I didn’t have the urge to strangle the author by the end of the arc. A well done arc, overall!

Score: 4.055

At this point Pro Payne opted to fire up Vol. 2 of Tales of Cimorera.

Tales of Cimorera, Vol. 2: From Tartarus with Love (Arc ID#292389, Unrated – see below)
This arc started out with Imperious contacting Pro Payne and directing him to investigate the ruins of an ancient temple of Vulcan. Romulus’ troops were gathering there, and Imperious wanted to figure out what was going on.

While there, Pro Payne found several things that looked like they might not be all that great for Romulus to get his hands on – a schematic for a “clockwork wolf”, a recipe for a special alloy, and an intricately constructed bronze clockwork ‘eye.’ He also found an underground vault that appeared to have been emptied of whatever it was holding.

While in the temple ruin, Pro Payne battled Romulus’ Envoy, and found that the traitors had been sent here on the orders of a powerful general named Aulins Rutilius Lapithus – they were spearheading some sort of secret project.

It didn’t take long for Pro Payne to get an idea of what that project might be: Romulus’ troops attacked the home town of Servius (Daedalus’ assistant from the first volume of the arc), and their forces appeared to be bolstered by a large number of mechanical automatons.

Pro Payne rescued Servius and helped fend off the attack. From Servius he learned that the name of the alloy the attackers were seeking (whose formula was found in the temple) is Triton’s moss. But, after defeating the general leading the attack, Pro Payne learned that Triton’s moss was only used for a certain, very specific automaton – one that had not yet been brought into the fray.

Seeking a large supply of the alloy, Romulus’ forces, bolstered by the automatons, assaulted the Temple of Neptune; Pro Payne was sent to defeat the attackers and drive them from the temple.

It was at this point that the XP issues with the arc prompted Pro Payne to exit out and cancel – at this point the hit to the score of an arc I otherwise thought was good would have been too much. (See below) If the issues with XP in this arc are corrected, though, I’ll be happy to play through it again and finish the review.

Pros: If anything, I actually thought the story for this arc was off to an even better start than the previous arc. It’s definitely got potential – and all of the things that were positive aspects of the first arc are here as well.

Cons: You guessed it. XP issues. This time is was bad enough to just not make it worthwhile to finish the arc. The specific problem is this: the arc features a rather complex (and actually pretty challenging) custom group with two minion types, two lt. types, and at least one type of boss. One of the minion types (the Bronze Automatoi), one of the lt. types (the Toxotes), and the boss type I encountered (the Silver Colossus) are not worth any XP – again probably because a “required” power has been removed; unfortunately, in my opinion this custom faction is just too challenging in a fight for half of the mobs that spawn to not give any XP. My strong recommendation is to add back in whatever the missing required powers are – it’s not a space issue in this case, so either it’s an honest mistake, or the author removed powers that he or she thought didn’t “fit” well. If it’s the latter, while I can understand the desire to make a custom mob’s powers fit, as a player I’d much rather be facing mobs that have a few powers that don’t quite fit their theme (as it were) than not getting any XP at all from them.

Score: Not scored at this time.

Pro Payne immediately moved on to:

The Golden Age Secret of the Paragon Society (Arc ID#344596, 5 stars)

Pro Payne’s contact was the ironically named Firecracker Kid (really “The Firecracker Kid”) – in this case the irony stemmed from the fact he was, in reality, a rather old man. And pretty crotchety to boot.

The Firecracker Kid was the sidekick to a hero named Red White and Boom, and part of the Paragon Society – a golden age supergroup whose membership mostly retired in the 70s. Kid wanted Pro Payne to stop a break-in at what looked to be an old bunker where the Paragon Society kept some of their stuff. He also wanted me to bring him back a locked case, and was very specific about not opening said case. Pro Payne quickly found that the 5th Column were responsible. While he prevented them from destroying a statue that had been stored in the bunker, the case had already been found by the Nazi goons and its contents taken. What was a bit odd was that the case contained some microfilm that the villains had looked at, then burned.

The Firecracker Kid was not happy at all. He was sure the 5th Column had stolen something sensitive; something that could be used to sully the good name of the Paragon Society. He was quite intent on Pro Payne getting it back (presumably the 5th Column had a copy of the microfilm, or at least had stored the information somewhere, and Pro Payne needed to get it out of their hands).

Kid’s godson, a hero named Sherman, had already headed into the 5th Column base where the stolen information had been taken. Oddly, Kid was very adamant that Sherman be “kept out of the loop.” It didn’t take Pro Payne long to find Sherman – a hulking tank of a man. Get it? Sherman tank? Yeah, kind of corny, but Pro Payne likes corny, if it’s done well. Anyway, Pro Payne and Sherman tracked down the base commander, Commandant Hecker, and proceeded to very forcibly arrest and detain him. Pro Payne also found some microfilm on Hecker which he dutifully neglected to tell Sherman about.

The Firecracker Kid, however, was characteristically hard to please. He told Pro Payne that everything we’d found out so far indicated the 5th Column was planning on reviving a project the Paragon Society shut down at the end of World War II – they had returned to an abandoned lab the Society had all but destroyed back then, and Sherman had already run off to stop them. That last part was what Firecracker Kid was really miffed about – even going so far as to accuse Pro Payne of “telling Sherman too much” (something Pro Payne adamantly denied, not that the denials made any difference to F.K.).

Since the 5th Column were starting up some sort of experiment in the lab, it fell to Pro Payne to destroy all of their equipment and defeat the Oberst commanding the operation. Pro Payne destroyed a cloning tube and a control console – apparently the project involved some sort of cloning program. Furthermore, the control console had a link to some other base – apparently taking out whatever the Column were doing here was not going to be enough to stop the project completely. The project commander was directing the repair of some old equipment (more cloning tubes, it seemed) and, oddly, referred to Pro Payne as more “volunteer labor.” Once defeated, the commander hinted that Sherman had already been captured or killed (he didn’t specify) – a fact that was confirmed by something Pro Payne had found earlier in a crate: Sherman’s costume and cape.

The Firecracker Kid decided it was time to finally come clean and fill in the gaps. Back during WW II, the Column had been working on a cloning program designed to create a race of Aryan “supermen” – and Sherman was the result of their research, although he was only an infant at the time the Paragon Society shut down the project. Sherman had never been told about his heritage, and had been raised instead as an American hero. But Firecracker Kid had now realized that he could not hide the details of Sherman’s heritage any more. Although he had told Sherman, he didn’t take it very well at all, and had run off to the second base. (Note: This part of the story did confuse me a bit, and made me wonder if I’d missed something earlier. If Sherman had been captured by the 5th Column, how did F.K. tell him about his heritage? Or did all of that happen before the third mission, and Sherman ran off to the first base, got ‘captured’ and taken to the second base? )

In any case, Pro Payne went to the second base (the one the control computer from the first base was linked to) to rescue Sherman and shut down the 5th Column’s operations there. The base proved to be far more modern than the first one (i.e. it used the normal tech lab map rather than the abandoned one), and while exploring it Pro Payne found a photo showing the old Paragon Society. The photo had been riddled with darts – Pro Payne had a bad feeling that the darts were the result of Sherman being upset at being lied to for all these years. Pro Payne found Sherman, but the former hero was now dressed in black and red, and calling himself “Panzer.” Panzer claimed to have been the victim of some sort of mind control device – he was just barely managing to keep himself under control and not attack. He needed Pro Payne to help him find the device; hopefully once they had it in their possession they’d have a chance to reverse the process.

Once Pro Payne had found Panzer, the two of them tracked down the base commander (Blitzkreig). During the battle, Blitz uttered a “command word” that triggered Panzer’s brainwashing, turning him against me. Pro Payne had to fight off and defeat both Blitz and Panzer, and he still needed to find something to reverse the mind control and restore Panzer to normal (i.e. Sherman). He found and cracked open a safe which contained the mind control device, and used it to reverse the effect on Panzer – he was once again Sherman, and now on the side of the good old U.S. of A. again.


I liked you better as Sherman. Stupid Mind Control ray…

But there was more: Blitz had been carrying a clipboard indicating a large amount of material from this base had been sent to another base called “The Wolves’ Den.” Apparently, the 5th Column’s revived plan to create a super-race had not yet been shut down, but Pro Payne didn’t have anything to go on regarding where the Wolves’ Den might be.

Surprisingly, it would be a few more months before he got a lead. Sherman had spent the intervening time tracking down the Wolves’ Den, and had finally found it. He (and F.K.) wanted Pro Payne’s help to destroy it. Pro Payne readily agreed.

The Wolves’ Den was populated by the completed prototype clones of the “supermen” project. In order to ensure the project ended here once and for all, Pro Payne needed to defeat all of the clones and destroy all of the base equipment, which he did. With every aspect of the old 5th Column project destroyed, the world would now be safe from their race of evil supermen! Needless to say, The Firecracker Kid was very pleased with Pro Payne.


Nazis. I hate these guys. (Yes, that was referenced in the arc – a very nice touch, I might add.)

Pros: With the exception of (what seemed like) a few loopholes in the plot, I found everything about this arc well done. The writing was top notch (both in the mission briefings and the clues – and this was the first time I’d seen text color used to track which mission the clue belonged to), the missions were fun to play through, the story was very good, and the custom group in the last mission was very well designed. The arc had a kind of corny humor to it that, frankly, worked quite well. A very good job.

Cons: The “Cons” section always seems long, doesn’t it? Actually, most of the time that’s a good sign – it often means the “flaws” I’m focusing on are so nitpicky that I feel compelled to justify why I’d even complain about something so minor. So here goes. Oddly, although I liked the principle behind the “colored” clues – in practice I found clues written in non-white text to be just a bit garish. It’s a very minor nitpick, but I do think that perhaps limiting the color coding to the clue title and leaving the clue text white might be a little “easier on the eyes” but still be a very effective way to match clues to missions (which is not to say the colors hurt my eyes or anything – it really was just a case of me not liking full clues written in colored text). What I think was the biggest loophole in the story was the one mentioned in my writeup: mission three leads me to think Sherman had been captured (or gone with the 5th Column) before I got there – yet the mission debriefing makes it seem more like he just left the base and went to talk to the Firecracker Kid. As always, it’s possible I missed something (as this arc was coming at the end of a marathon playing session). I didn’t like the “months passing” setup to the final mission. While I did understand the fundamental reason for it (the 5th Column presumably needs time to grow the clones), I’m just not a very big fan of the “a lot of time has passed” shtick (saying that it’s the next morning or even a few days have passed is, for the record, just fine by me – but very long stretches tend to disrupt my suspension of disbelief, in part because I always find myself wondering why my character would have just “taken a break” for so long – since obviously he hasn’t done any missions during that time). The tactic might be slightly more effective outside M.A. where an arc’s author might, at least in principle, be able to insert a large number of other random missions before offering the final mission of the arc – OR at least tell you to go do other things if you with to RP the passing time and thereby leave it up to the whim of the player – but that’s just not an option in M.A. since you have to finish the arc you’re on before you can do anything else. I know it sounds rather stupid, but I’d almost suggest adding a note to the mission briefing mentioning that if you’d like to roleplay your character being idle for a long time, you can log on with a different character and play him or her for a while: I’d go so far as to say that the break caused by playing even one mission on a different character makes the idea that a few months has passed on the character playing the arc more palatable (assuming, of course, the player even has any sort of potential issue with this). Of course, the simplest solution is just to omit the reference to months passing – honestly, if there’d been no reference to a lot of time passing (thereby making me question why so much time had to pass), I probably wouldn’t have even keyed into the fact that the clones would take time to grow. In other words, I think you’d be surprised how many players won’t even question the fact that the clones seemed to have been “instantly grown” if you remove a reference to a lot of time passing between the fourth and fifth missions. Of course, I might be wrong about that…

Score: 5.42

Whew. Is it just me, or are these updates getting longer?