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It’s time for the next “episode” in Pro Payne’s ongoing struggle to reach level 50 in Mission Architect!

The Galactic Protectorate (Arc ID#47143, 5 stars)

While Pro Payne was contemplating the next simulation he was going to load into the A.E. computers, he detected a strange signal coming through the console. From what he could determine, it was some sort of communications signal, and, after he spent a few seconds fiddling with the controls, the Holographic Contact “materialized” into an image of the hero Synapse. “Synapse” claimed to be from an alternate version of Earth, and had established a link to the A.E. systems in this dimension. He also claimed that the Earth was suffering under the occupation of a powerful extraterrestrial invasion force, and very few of its heroes remained free to resist. In a last ditch effort to find help, Synapse was attempting to establish contact with other, parallel worlds in the hope that he could find heroes there willing to help.

Pro Payne wasn’t sure he could trust this Synapse from an alternate Earth, but he was certainly willing to see how dire Synapse’s need for help really was. [Note: For this and the remaining arcs in this series Pro Payne used his normal fire-based powers since these were MA missions, even though according to the mission set up he technically should have been using his alternate no “superpowers” build.]

Synapse claimed that he had modified the portal technology on his world to make a direct link to MA’s data column – Pro Payne could now use it to transport to key locations in alternate Synapse’s version of Earth. Synapse first planned to send Pro Payne to Atlas Park to rescue some captives held by the Galactic Protectorate soldiers. Some of the captives were resistance fighters and sympathizers while others had little interest in joining the resistance, but were still being detained by the GP’s troops. The biggest surprise was the fact that Atlas Park had been all but destroyed in the occupation – and there was no doubt that the GP troops were hostile to Earth’s heroes. Although Pro Payne’s suspicions were not completely alleviated (Synapse did seem to say a few things that made a red flag go up for Pro Payne, making him wonder if he was being manipulated, or at least not given the whole story), it was clear that this alternate Earth *was* under alien occupation, and in desperate need of heroes. Pro Payne was committed to helping.

Next, Synapse reported that the resistance had located a communications hub where Pro Payne could likely learn some valuable intelligence about the Protectorate – anything would be useful in fighting Earth’s occupation. The excursion was more successful than Pro Payne and Synapse could have imagined. First, Pro Payne learned the protectorate army was divided into 13 divisions (0 through 12); the overall leader was a Lord Cosmic, and the remaining divisions were led by powerful generals. The Earth had been occupied in a pre-emptive strike, and Statesman had offered to negotiate a peace and represent Earth in something called “Planetary Judgement” – he had never returned to Earth, and it was his absence that prompted the resistance to take action. But it was a losing battle. Most of Earth’s heroes had been captured or killed in battles with Protectorate troops. And it was in the communications hub that Pro Payne learned where Manticore was being held. Manticore was one of the captured heroes, and a leader of the resistance. His capture had been a major blow to the resistance, and he was slated for execution.

Pro Payne quickly traveled to the base where Manticore was being held. Synapse had a clever plan: this base was where Manticore was to be executed, so Pro Payne’s task was to rescue him, defeat the base’s leader, and then file a falsified report that Manticore had been executed to put him off the radar. The plan worked perfectly – Manticore was back among the resistance fighters, and the humans had won the first major struggle against the Galactic Protectorate in a long time. But the work was far from over – it would take an effort of epic proportions to free this alternate Earth from the Protectorate’s thumb.

Pros: The arc features a fresh and distinctive custom enemy group with well balanced powers (with a minor exception listed below) and very interesting descriptions. Kudos to the author for keeping the arc to three missions – it certainly helped to keep the custom group from getting boring, given that they are the main foes in every mention. In spite of the slight feeling that there is a lack of closure, the arc itself does a good job of being self-contained. The mission design and pacing was very well done: I found the missions interesting and fun to play. The fact that I was never bored while playing the arc, and did want to see more by the end means (to me) that the author has done a very good job with the design and story of the arc. But here’s the main reason I liked this arc (and its sequels) – this is one of the first arcs I’ve played that attempts to create an alternate world to ‘explore’ the story of over a series of very digestible episodes. I’ve been looking forward to something like this (I seem to be one of the rare players here that actually rather enjoy epic stories that span over a very large number of missions), because it’s actually giving Pro Payne something that is notably missing in MA: a sense of continuity in the story lines (the Drakule series is the only other arc series that comes to mind that offers a similar sense of continuity, which is one of the many reasons I like it so much: both arcs are among the few MA offerings that actually help make an all MA character feel like they are part of a larger story). There *is* a definite campiness to the Galactic Protectorate series – in my opinion though it is slight enough to actually be charming, and has actually increased the enjoyment of the arcs for me.

Cons: Like I mentioned above, there is a slight lack of closure – often a symptom of arcs that are telling a larger story over the course of a “campaign.” But if you aren’t intending to play the other arcs in the series, and many players in MA (and on this forum) have flat out said that they don’t like playing “series” arcs, then this lack of complete closure may be a detriment. Although I did very much enjoy the custom group, I did have two nits to pick: the level of healing in the group seemed just a tad excessive (something, by the way, that I haven’t noticed with the different divisions in the later arcs) – and I did find myself wondering if GP division 0 was an all-female division for some reason; certainly nothing was mentioned in the arc. (There might have been a male lt. in the faction – I don’t remember for sure – but it was a case where I got the definite sense that the whole division was nearly all female.) That the division was all female (or perhaps spawned that way) didn’t bother me in the least, but it was noticeable enough that it did seem odd that there was no explanation or even mention of it in the context of the arc.

As per the author’s request, Pro Payne didn’t play the arcs back to back – instead he filled the time between the arcs with random searches; something he’s been wanted to do for a while just to see what he could find and how well it worked. Plus, at Pro Payne’s current level, an entire arc often amounts to less than a bubble of XP, so adding (non-farm) “fillers” that will only get very short reviews has an advantage. Finally, I do find random searches to provide a useful context even for considering ratings I give arcs. Whenever I wonder if I’m just being “too easy” by giving nearly every suggested arc a “good to excellent” grade (mostly 4 or 5 stars, with some 3’s thrown in there for otherwise good arcs that really could use some spit and polish), I play random arcs to remind me of what a 1 or 2 star arc really is. It’s kind of sad that that ends up being the case, but it is fun to randomly stumble across a good arc that wasn’t on the suggestion list two – even if it still seems to be a pretty rare occurance.

So without further ado, Pro Payne’s mini-reviews.

While waiting for the next contact from the alternate Earth, Pro Payne occupied his time by attempting a purely random search (no parameters for this round) in A.E.

Something Stinks (Arc ID#112877, 2 stars)

In this adventure, Pro Payne found himself investigating a stench in the sewers. A strawberry stench. ‘Cause, you know, strawberries smell … bad. Huh. Turns out that the whole thing was a combined Freakshow / Council / Snake plot to make a sewer purifier with mutagenic properties.

Pros: The missions were short and easy to complete.

Cons: There was a surprised timed mission and an utterly pointless kill all. The Snakes in the last mission were spawning grays mixed in with the on-level stuff. Very poor English – not much evidence of proofreading.

Next…

Attack of teh fluffies (Arc ID#153802, 1 star)

Some little girl’s stuffed animals and become animate, and were attacking. Pro Payne needed to stop it. After a series of protracted battles against some decidedly non stuffed animal looking mobs and their evil stuffed animal leaders, Pro Payne found himself pitted against “Teh Snugglies” – the master stuffed animal. Apparently millions of years of stuffed animal evolution had made “snugglyness” a synonym for “summons a horde of robots and is wreathed in auras of fire.” Okay. Needless to say as [bleep] near every [bleeping] fire defense power was selected, that snuggly little [bleep] wiped the floor with me repeatedly, without me able to put nary a dent in its life (well, really I was able to, but a burst of healing flames every minute or so made sure that the jerk could heal up in the minute or so it took for me to get back to him after rezzing in the hospital). I didn’t stick around long enough to see if the snuggle monster had Rise of the Pheonix too (as I’d already used time more than once to no real effect). Pro Payne had to ultimately admit defeat in the face of the overwhelming snugglyness of fire and laser blasting robots.

Pros: Actually, the dialog of the little girl who kept sending me after her animated stuffed animals was kinda funny.

Cons: None of the custom mobs (which were all that were in the mission) had any descriptions, except for the bosses, who had a credit for whichever player had designed the costume. Of course, this also led to there being no real rhyme or reason behind why the stuffed animals had the powers they did (yeah, when I see stuffed dogs, I think “hey, if stuffed dogs ever animated and wanted to take over the Earth, they’d have cold powers.”) Actual mission objects were not present, especially for collections. And, of course, the aforementioned robot-summoning, 90% fire resistance with a heal elite boss lord of all snuggles who did such a great job of introducing Pro Payne to the joys of hugging the floor.

Oh! According to the A.E. terminal, Pro Payne is getting a communiqué from Manticore on alternate Earth! Thank goodness!

(Next Wednesday: the next arc in the GP series, and more random whackiness - misspelling intentional).

Another *possible* difference between Wrong Number's situation and here is that here the votes are very public. Granted, there is a privacy option, and sure, I could have used it to cast my votes by PM directly to Bubbawheat rather than publicly - but for some reason that I can't explain that sits very poorly with me.

The best I can explain is this: there's at least a chance voting for myself *publicly* can backfire on me badly - that more than one person might decide that I'm being unsportsmanlike and therefore not cast votes for me when they were originally contemplating doing so. That strikes me as fair, and is perfectly in line with the motivation I posted: if I'm going to lose, I'd much rather it be because others didn't vote for me rather than because I didn't vote for myself.

Finished playing through two categories. If it's still out there, let me say I'm one of those folks who would benefit from extending the deadline an extra week to give me time to play more of the arcs.

(I won't comment on the arcs here - my plan is for all of the nominated arcs I've played through to get mini-reviews in Pro Payne's thread as he's the one playing through these arcs.)

Best TO Range (1-15):
First Place: Day Job Hell - A Villain's First Day Job #322480 @Clave Dark 5
Second Place: Mercytown, the one with the fish #6017 @Tangler

Best Comedy:
First Place: Freakshow U #189073 @Lethal Guardian
Second Place: In Poor Taste #259920 @Wrong Number

(Yes, I was lame and voted for my own - yeah, I admit it. I'm one of those people who wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I lost because I refused to vote for myself when it was allowed in the rules. Ironically, I'd *much* rather lose because other people voted against me than because I voted myself out.)

Pro Payne is closed to suggestions. After today’s post, only the Galactic Protectorate arcs are still slated for reviews, so it won’t be long before I open the thread up to suggestions again.

Pro Payne has been playing through the 2009 Player’s Choice Awards: I don’t want to cast votes except in categories where I’ve played more than two of the arcs, and my strong preference is to play all of the arcs in a category before voting. For the record, I do intend to post the same “mini-reviews” I’ll be posting for the random search arcs I’ve been playing while working through the backlog of requests: just the rating and a brief summary as opposed to the full reviews.

So on to today’s review:

A Sleeping Star (Arc ID#53951, 5 stars)

Pro Payne was waiting to get on the tram when he was approached by a young girl named Leese, who had an odd request, albeit one appropriate to a hero. Her friend, Alice, was supposed to meet her, but hadn’t shown up, and she was worried. Pro Payne set out to investigate – and quickly found he wasn’t the only one looking for Alice. The Crey were also looking for her, but even more ominous was the Void Slayer. Now what would a Void Slayer want with an innocent young girl? Something very bad was in the offing.

Compounding the “something strange is going on” feeling was the fact that Pro Payne actually found Leese doing a ‘field investigation’ of her own. Apparently the young girl had superpowers, and still felt the need to recruit extra help in finding her friend. Pro Payne would soon find that Leese’s decision to seek help was a wise one…

Fortunately, Pro Payne found Alice’s address, and found Alice’s diary – which he gave to Leese to read through for any clues as to what exactly Alice might have stumbled upon (Pro Payne doesn’t like to rifle through young girls’ diaries). The diary hinted at Alice having found something in a nearby wood. Pro Payne went to investigate, and found the Council already there, scouring the place for something. On closer inspection, it was actually primarily the Galaxy branch of the Council involved in the search (lead by a nictus in Black Dwarf form): Pro Payne was beginning to get an idea on what Alice had found out here. His fears grew when he recovered a strange white crystal that the nictus had found in these woods – a crystal the Peacebringer Sunstorm confirmed was the fragment of a destroyed Kheldian colony ship. Either Alice was safeguarding a Kheldian, or had actually bonded with (or been possessed by) one – either way she was now of great interest to the Council, and that couldn’t be good.

Pro Payne quickly went to investigate the Council base where the forest search parties had originated from, and his efforts were quickly rewarded. After defeating an Archon Fellows, he found an after action report that confirmed the Council had kidnapped Alice after learning she was bonded with a Kheldian. He also learned where the Council was keeping Alice.

Leese was all to eager to help Pro Payne and Sunstorm raid the Council base where Alice was held; to help protect the young hero, Sunstorm lied, claiming there were two Council bases listed as possible holding sites for Alice in Fellow’s report. Leese would investigate the first one (which Sunstorm knew to be abandoned), and Pro Payne and Sunstorm would investigate the second. Pro Payne got to the Council base, but he was already too late: the 5th Column had completed a raid on the Council. They’d acquired Alice, leaving behind a very upset Arakhn, who had been masterminding the Council operation. The Arch Villain was keen to take out her frustrations on Pro Payne – fortunately Pro Payne was feeling awfully inspired that day, and managed to fight off his attacker and extract the final pieces of the puzzle in the process:

Alice had bonded with a Kheldian, but it had been an act of desperation on the part of the alien being – a last ditch attempt to survive the destruction of its Colony Ship. The Kheldian was comatose, but Alice had access to its powers. When 5th Column spies in the Council had caught wind of their “special” prisoner, they realized that they might be able to learn from Alice how to force a Kheldian into a host while keeping it comatose, but allowing the host full access to the Kheldian’s suite of powers.

The bad news quickly got worse. Leese, like most heroes, had a Mediport device that would teleport her to safety if she was grievously injured. Pro Payne got a call from Medipatch (who was monitoring Leese’s vital signs should she need to be teleported to safety) – Leese had just taken serious injuries, but the teleport was being blocked! Sunstorm quickly realized that the abandoned base Leese had been sent to was actually the staging point of the 5th Column operation.

Pro Payne rushed to the 5th Column base, rescuing both Leese (and making sure she was teleported to safety) and Alice. The latter was quite the challenge, as the Council itself hit the base with a recovery operation (spearheaded by a very irate Arakhn) – so Pro Payne and Alice had to fight their way through a phalanx of Council nicti, and an Arch Villain eager for a rematch, to escape the base safely.

In the end, both Alice and Leese were safe, and the Council and the 5th Column had been denied their prize.

Pros: I probably don’t say this enough (as this isn’t certainly the only arc where this has applied), but I did appreciate the writing quality that went into this arc – the language, spelling, and grammar were very well polished. I’ve played many arcs that could have put a lot more effort into that. The mission design was also very good: the missions were, overall, interesting, and the pacing was good. While the story didn’t exactly blow me away (although I’d be at a loss to explain why), I certainly enjoyed it and it kept my interest throughout the arc. The arc was well done, and plenty of fun to play.

Cons: Really just a few technical things: in the fourth mission, Sunstorm didn’t seem to have any actual dialog. He just said “I” when I rescued him. In the setup for the last mission (as indicated in the story above) I was contacted by “Medipatch” (via my cell phone, according to the story) with information that Leese was in trouble. I actually found myself wondering how the heck they knew to contact *me* … perhaps having Sunstorm mention right before mission four that he’s requested that the Mediport system actually alert me if something happens to Leese (just to be on the safe side) would make that call seem less ‘out of the blue’ – although, honestly, just having them call Sunstorm instead of me would work too: Sunstorm could easily say something like “Oh no – I told Mediport to call me if anything happened to Leese, just to be on the safe side, and I just got the call nobody wants to get…” (or something like that).

A very good and enjoyable arc overall!

For next time: Pro Payne begins the Galactic Protectorate series of arcs (well, at least I post the review of the first arc in the series) – these will be somewhat shorter (in part because the arcs are themselves shorter), and I’ll also start posting the mini reviews of the random arcs Pro Payne has been trying out in the downtime between playing the GP arcs…

I'm a very information oriented person, so of course the more details about the judging and selection process the Devs wanted to give the more I'd like it. But I also understand why they almost certainly won't divulge that information.

However, the one thing I'd really love is a list of all of the arcs that were actually in the judging. Here's why: To me there's a huge difference between my arc getting seen and judged and found lacking, and simply being removed from the running just because I made some mistake in the submission process.

As an example: if the devs really did see Freakshow U (just as an example) and didn't think it was good enough to make the cut and didn't think it was good enough for dev's choice, then it's a safe bet that it'll *never* win even if I submit it next year, and that it'll never be dev's choice - ever. That means it's time to move on (to new arcs; I'm not talking about quitting) - submit a different arc next year, and, unless F.U. somehow makes Hall of Fame (which it flat out doesn't appear to be on track for), that the arc is best thought of (for me) as in the "not a priority to keep up there when the time comes that I want the slot for something else." On the other hand, if it wasn't even looked at because it got disqualified for some reason (maybe the devs wanted all of the entries in a single e-mail, instead of one per e-mail... who knows) - that tells me that it *might* have a chance in the future, if I don't make the same mistake so that it actually gets looked at and judged.

A few more things. (1) I would love to know which arcs were close to getting nominations, but didn't quite make it. And (2) I really wished that the devs had actually given at least some in game feedback on the submitted arcs - I think I was secretly hoping that it would be a chance to have some idea what the devs thought of my arcs. Really, both points are related - both bits of feedback tell me if there's a point at all in making a few modifications to what I think is a good arc and trying again, or if it's just too far gone (at least in the dev's eyes), and it's time to move on to new ideas.

Reminder: Submissions are closed until I get through the current round of reviews (6 more to go after this one); then they'll be opened again! Also, I'm using Pro Payne to play through as many of the players' choice arc noms as possible so that I can cast 'informed' votes - those arcs, like the random searches I've played between the Galactic Protectorate arcs, will get listed here for posterity (a rating, along with a few sentences summarizing my thoughts), but won't get full reviews.

Current Status: About one "bubble" away from level 42.

Pro Payne wanted a change of pace, so he reached into his tights (who knew they had pockets) and pulled out a small container. Within was a goatee (fake, obviously) and some spirit gum with which to apply said artificial facial hair. And thus Pro Payne became Evil Pro Payne!

Of course, Evil Pro Payne needed a place to start his (very fictitious) villainous career...

Day Job Hell: A Villain's First Day Job (Arc ID#322480, 5 stars)

Not known for his villainy, Evil Pro Payne needed to start at the bottom - and you just can't get any more 'at the bottom' than working for Fats Squalor, director of the Mercy Island Sewer works. On the up side, Fats offered E.P.P. some badges for his efforts, which worked surprisingly well, given that he's got a depressingly small number of badges ever since the great "badge stripping" of '09.

Anyway, Fats directed Pro Payne (just imagine the 'Evil' in front of his name from now on) to plant a series of tunnels with some time release Snake-B-Gone. Evidently, the Snakes were using it as their toilet, and the poisons would discourage them from coming back. While he was at it, Pro Payne was also to collect (and clear out) some of the Snake Guano, which had a rather distressing tendency to animate into poison spitting Guano Monsters. While in the tunnels Pro Payne ran across Jim - fellow employee of Fats and an 'old friend', albeit one that just plain lacked Pro Payne's drive to rise to the top of the villainous food chain.

Ugh. Shouldn't have thought about food while cleaning a guano infested snake toilet-cave. But what's this? Pro Payne found a lock box with money and receipts from a jewelry store robbery (apparently Fats forgot about it down here). Wow! A bonus pay day *and* potential blackmail material all in one. It almost made cleaning up Snake Guano worthwhile. And in another interesting turn of events, he also found what appeared to be an ancient Urn or Vase: Pro Payne figured he'd better keep that one to himself.

After finishing the job, Pro Payne is rewarded with his 'badge' from Fats. This badge is a rather aggravating turn of events, as what essentially amount to a piece of paper with 'Poo Cleaner' written on it does not a badge make (Note: No, I don't think this was what the badge actually was, but I do remember it being something equally lame - which of course, was exactly the point of the story).

Next, Fats sent Pro Payne into the sewers to clear them of a growing infestation of Sewer Tuatha de Dannan. Yes, STD's were running rampant in the sewers, and it fell to Pro Payne to clear them out. While in the sewers Pro Payne ran across another 'friend' (a villain wanna be named Ronster), found yet more evidence that Fats had multiple questionable criminal enterprises going on the side, and even 'rescued' a Tuatha chief being threatened by the Clockwork, whom he proceeded to beat out an explanation of what exactly that Urn he'd been hanging onto did. Interesting... at least in principle, since none of the clues actually said what the urn did, just that Pro Payne now knew what it did.

After exiting the sewers, Pro Payne was awarded another 'badge.' Pro Payne thought he was completely justified in complaining to Fats about the remarkably low production quality of these new badges, and was rewarded by being fired. Given, however, that Fats had already been talking at length about a retirement party (or some sort of party) he was throwing for the sewer workers, Pro Payne started to formulate an idea for revenge.

Step One: trash Fats' office, and see what else I could find there that could be used as incriminating evidence to present to Longbow, while, of course, pocketing as much of the ill gotten gains resulting from Fats' numerous attempts to cut corners in his administration of the sewers. After all, any good villain needs start up funds, right?

Step Two: crash Fats' party, beat the tar out of the old boss, complete the set up, and let Jim and Ronster take the fall while Pro Payne makes off with all the loot. That, it turns out, is where the Urn would come in handy - after executing his dastardly scheme, he used the Urn to teleport away to safety, just as the massive Longbow raid on the party began.

The end result? Pro Payne made out like a bandit, and Fats, Jim, and Ronster get to lounge in jail. As word of Pro Payne's revenge/double-cross scheme spreads through Mercy Island, rumors that Pro Payne is the next up and coming villain to be watching start circulating.

By this time the spirit gum is getting a little crusty (it's kind of old), and the fake goatee is starting to itch, so Evil Pro Payne removes it, becoming heroic Pro Payne once again. Perhaps some day soon it will be time to see what Evil Pro Payne's next scheme is...

...but in the mean time, it looks like a helpless little girl is running up to Pro Payne with an unmistakable 'I need to ask a hero for help...' look in her eyes. (Wednesday: a review of A Sleeping Star.)

Pros: Excellent mission design. Clever use of re-purposed standard mobs. Wonderful writing on the clues and the mob descriptions. Excellent use of humor, and a very engaging plot that does a wonderful job of keeping the player the center of the action. Excellent mission pacing and good choice of maps. The bottom line: this is a very, very good villain arc, and well worth playing! Opinion is always subjective (yes, I know, profound), but I did think this was hands down Clave_Dark_5's best arc of the three I played.

Cons: I could only think of a few things that would (possibly) make an already solid arc even better. It's a very minor nit, but the 'perfectionist' in me wanted some explanation as to why snake guano animates into guano monsters (apologies: that may have been in the arc and just forgotten, but I'll mention it *just in case*) - at least beyond something that amounts to 'that's just what snake guano does'; I dunno - maybe a CoT artifact that is known to cause inanimate stuff to animate or something. To be perfectly fair, though, the obvious undercurrent of humor in the arc does, IMO, make the player more willing to forgive very, very minor missing details, so it isn't a big issue (and, again, there may have been an explanation and in the last few weeks I just forgot what it was). Second - and just a little more important - it did bother me a little when the Tuatha Chief explained what the Urn did, but that didn't actually come with any clue that actually told me (the player) what the Urn did. I'm not a big fan of feeling like my character knows something that I don't, especially when an integral part of the plot involves my character acting on that knowledge. If there was one thing I'd change about the arc, that would be my first priority. (And I'm positive this isn't a case of me just forgetting about the clue - at least when I played the arc, the lack of any actual indication of what the urn did until the last mission really stuck out in my mind, which is why I mention it here)

And now, time for Pro Payne to get back to those Players' Choice arcs!

Cheers, until next Wednesday!

Let me toss this one into the fray:

The Lazarus Project (Arc ID#124906)

Time for another Pro Payne update!

First, disclaimer: Pro Payne is still closed to suggestions as I work on getting the reviews posted. I've got 7 more reviews to post; at what appears to be my average rate of 2.5 per week, I estimate that in 3 weeks I'll be ready to open the thread back up to another round of suggestions - so be thinking about which arcs you'd like Pro Payne to play!

Pro Payne fairly recently reached level 41, a milestone in the sense that, in terms of time investment, he's about at the halfway point in his journey to level 50 using A.E. content. His main "in AE" build is 'filled out' with I.O.'s (and has been since the late 30s), and he's slowly working on sets to replace the generic I.O.'s, but it does look like he's on track to be "totally IO'ed out" at about the same time most of my other characters would be. His alternate "out of AE" build (used only for his 'paper mission' and 'safeguard' runs, to simulate the fact that he doesn't have access to his fire powers - or anything overtly 'super') is mostly decked out in SO's; so AE rewards have certainly been sufficient to ensure that I've been able to keep two builds decked out with enhancements for nearly all of his career.

Over the weekend, however, I'm sad to say that "tragedy" struck (I'm over-stating it, so don't be too worried). I was doing quick tests of a mission, and forgot to open up my Clues between logging on and finishing an arc - so I triggered the "wipe out all of my A.E. souvenirs" bug. This is a very frustrating bug that I wish the developers would actually correct. Why is this important? Well, I use the souvenirs to help jog my memory when posting the "review stories" for this thread. Fortunately, I thought to start taking better notes about two weeks ago, so as to improve the reviews I post here (I hope), but the next three arcs that are up for a review were from before I was taking more detailed notes.

So, my apologies to Clave_Dark_5; these are not really up to par, in my opinion, but I'll do my best!

Too Many Bunnygirls! (Arc ID#101165, 5 stars)

The time had come for Pro Payne to give back to the system that had given him so much. The proliferation of missions revolving around the infamous 'bunny girls' had just gotten out of hand, and Pro Payne vowed to get to the bottom of the endless tide of bunny girls, and put an end to it.

The first step was to rescue some victims that had been captured, seduced, enthralled, or otherwise rendered helpless in the presence of a horde of bunny girls - hopefully he could find clues as to where the proliferation of bunny girls was originating, and do something about it. Pro Payne went down the bunny hole to bravely face the threat, and 'rescued' a large number of 'helpless' civilians. One civilian, in particular, was troubling: apparently this civilian was in the final stages of being transformed into a bunny girl (by some as yet undetermined agency), and was in the process of being indoctrinated into the sisterhood. From the encounter Pro Payne learned of a fiendish device - a bunny girl ray - that could transform the innocent into the ... uh ... bunnies, providing an endless supply of bunny girls to population a near infinite supply of truly awful bunny girl arcs in M.A.

Pro Payne had additional motivation to find and destroy the bunny girl ray: a tabloid photographer had managed to snap a shot of him that (with some editing) could prove rather embarrassing - adding Pro Payne to the long list of heroes whose careers had been ruined by bunny girl related scandals.

Fortunately, the encounters in the rabbit hole gave Pro Payne an idea where to go next: the bunny ray was being held in a lab. Once there, Pro Payne could seek out more clues, and destroy the ray. Which is exactly what he did, and in the process learned of the ultimate source of the bunny girl invasion: an evil scientist who happened to be the head of the very tabloid that had made its name ruining hero careers with compromising bunny girl photos! The fiend!

The scientist (herself the victim of an early, prototype version of her bunny transformation process) needed to be stopped before she could invent yet another bunny ray. That Pro Payne would be able to set fire to the offices of the tabloid was just a bonus (if your stock and trade is printed on something flammable, it is often best not to try to blackmail someone with fire powers). Needless to say, the tabloid was shut down permanently, and the world made safe from the proliferation of bunny girls!

Pros: The author does a lot right in this arc: the humor is understated and (IMO) rather clever - the staff of the tabloid really stands out, with some very funny descriptions (and powers that do a good job of fitting their profiles). Humor arcs can get rather 'draggy' - many jokes just aren't meant to be dragged out too long: and this arc felt just the right length to do what it intended. It was just long enough to tell the (funny) story, but not so long the humor got old. Of course, the arc (like so many arcs recommended by the serious authors on this forum), showed a high degree of polish - always a plus. And, of course, most important: I really did genuinely find the arc both fun to play, and very amusing. Well done!

Cons: I only remember one - the basic concept of the bunny girls being "all alike" makes sense in the context of the arc, and looks good in principle, but the reality is that it does make fighting the custom group (which factors into all missions in the arc) start to get a little dull (just a little) by the end of the arc. My main recommendation was for more variety in the appearance of the minions in the arc - although I think I remember reading elsewhere that the author had gotten similar comments in other reviews (after I played this arc) and had already made a few changes. But I may be misremembering.

Next was... (and remember that some of these details may be pretty far off since I'm going by memory)

AE's Premium Quality Mission: "Guaranteed Qualityyyy Loading Error" (Arc ID#143476, 4 stars, 5 stars given in game)

To recover from the silliness of the bunny girls, Pro Payne decided on a foray into some more serious M.A. arcs - and ran across one designed to simulate the invasion of a Rikti base. Pro Payne's AE rep loaded in the mission parameters and...

...thus began a nightmare of broken mission scripts and endless bugs. In effect, every attempt to get the mission working just seemed to break things even further (even when Pro Payne was sent on alternate missions to keep him occupied and try to investigate the problem) while the AE staff tried to iron out the bugs. Ultimately, Pro Payne had to fix the problem himself, while rescuing the AE staff assigned to work on the problem from a plethora of bugs that had started to infest the system.

He didn't get his money back, but at least he got a lot of Architect tickets redeemable for cool prizes!

Pros: Certainly the arc has its moments - and some of the dialog is actually quite funny. From a technical standpoint, the arc is polished and well done: as I mentioned before when reviewing arcs that are making fun of buggy programs, it can be a challenge to make an arc fun to play (and fairly easy to progress through) and still give the impression nothing is working as intended. This arc does a good job of making that happen: I do honestly thing the author accomplished what he set out to accomplish in this arc, and that's worth at least 4 stars (for arcs that are better written and better executed than the 'typical' CoH/CoV newspaper mission, which is my standard for 3 stars).

Cons: Humor is so subjective, and this time around the humor didn't work as well for me, probably for several reasons. One, I've already played through a couple of arcs that play up this concept; this arc didn't really add anything fresh to that (although, to be very fair, it didn't really do anything worse than the other arcs did either) - that's not so much the author's fault, but it doesn't change the fact that it keeps this arc from standing out as much as his other two. Related to that, and really what I saw as the biggest 'subjective humor related' issue with this arc, is the much more specific bent of the arc's humor. I'd argue that legions of bunny girls or (from the arc I'll review on Friday) the crummy origins of a villain (stemming from his really crappy first Day Job) are considerably more 'general' sources of humor than what is essentially an IT nightmare. While the 'customer service' aspects of the joke worked for me, the debugging and programming aspects of it didn't work as well (since that isn't where my expertise lies).

In short, the humor of the first arc (and, it turns out, the third) was IMO aimed at a broader audience, but this arc struck me as a bit more narrow. I thought it did what it did well, but in this case I did feel like I wasn't really the audience the arc's humor was aimed at.

Okay, that's it for today! Next time: Day Job Hell: A Villain's First Day Job! (which, as I hinted at above, is a very well done arc - it ended up being my favorate of the three!)

Let's say (just for the sake of argument - this isn't real in the least) that the 66 month veteran reward was the ability to, once every three months (i.e. once per vet. reward cycle), choose an M.A. arc and instant promote it to Hall of Fame status. In that hypothetical world, the subject of today's review would be this cycle's choice.

Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black (Arc ID#161629, 5 stars. VERY 5 stars)

Pro Payne was shocked to be approached by a member of the Freakshow (a juicer actually) asking for help. He need not have been worried, for his contact-to-be was actually a reformed salesfreak who desperately needed help: the pawn shop where he worked was under attack by "ninja chicks", and he really needed a sympathetic hero to save his reformed salesfreak friends, who were just trying to turn their lives around. Pro Payne was suspicious, but agreed to help. Unfortunately, his hesitation may have been rather poor judgement: the ninja chicks were the deadly assassins of the Knives of Artemis, and they had already murdered two of the reformed Freakshow. One remained unaccounted for (other than the contact): a "Pete" (the Pwnzinator) had skipped work a bit early to go meet a girl he was into (named Kat) at a nearby dance club. Fortunately, Pro Payne got to Pete's computer before the Knives managed to erase it - evidently Pete and some (as yet unidentified online 'friend' named Target242) were really into conspiracy theories. The fact that the Knives appeared to be here to kill the reformed Freaks and "destroy the evidence" suggested at least one of the wild theories Pete and Target had been discussing might not be so wild after all...

Off to the club, where both the Freakshow and the Knives were searching for Pete and Kat. Fending both off, Pro Payne was able to save the two, defeating a Freakshow boss called 'Teh Crushifier' (who Pro Payne was very amused to see talked like the K'tang from Star Control 3; it was rather a sad thing to have to beat such a gem of a Freak down).

Editor's Note: Pro Payne is recounting this tale from a few weeks ago; he remembers he got a clue that lead him to a warehouse at a particular address - he wants to say he got it off of Teh Crushifier, but he really doesn't remember. Pro Payne next investigated a warehouse where Pete the Pwnzinator and Kat (who had now taken on the hero identity of Darkfire Avenger) had gone to further unravel the conspiracy the Knives were trying to hide. It was no great surprise that he found the Knives' partner in crime, the sinister Malta Operatives, there, and Kat and Pwn in serious need of rescue. But Kat and Pwn were certainly onto something: Pro Payne also found the ambassador from West Libertalia (no idea - can never remember that country's name), Keyes, who was anything but friendly. There was good reason for that: he was actually a Malta imposter using some sort of advanced holographic disguise technology. Thankfully, Pro Payne found the real Keyes (also being held by the Malta) and (unfortunately) the remains of some of his entourage.

Now things were falling into place: Ambassador Keyes' pro-metahuman agenda (what he saw as the best way to combat the massive problems his country was facing with the proliferation of villainous groups like the Sky Raiders) had run him afoul of the Malta group, who believed that Libertalia should be solving its problems without metahuman help (guess whose help they *should* be depending on, in Malta's view); Malta's plan was have Keyes' agenda do a complete about face using an imposter in place of the real thing (who, of course, would never go along with the plan).

Pro Payne needed to stop the plan. Step One: Malta was getting the holographic technology from Crey, so put an end to that particular deal. Pro Payne accomplished this with the help of none other than Target242, who turned out to be a disgruntled Crey employee, angered that his holographic technology (the very same the Malta were making a deal for) was being used to further nefarious ends. Guided to the Crey lab where the deal was taking place (again, by Target), Pro Payne arrested everyone involved before the Malta could get their hands on more of the holographic projectors. But there was a distressing wrinkle - two of the projectors had already been delivered to the Malta group. While one of them was the projector Pro Payne had gotten off of the impostor Keyes, the other was unaccounted for - and the Malta operatives Pro Payne was fighting off kept referring to the initiation a backup plan called Operation Requim, now that Pro Payne was doing a great job of spoiling their original scheme.

So, step two: stop Operation Requim, a direct attempt to assassinate Ambassador Alwani himself (I believe Alwani is West Libertalia's head ambassador from at least one other 'official arc' - one of the Sky Raider arcs I think. Presumably Keyes is a target as well, although he hadn't yet arrived as the Operation was beginning) in Steel Canyon, before he can give a speech supporting Keyes' goals, as a major, last-ditch blow to the efforts of U.S. Metahumans to establish a helpful relationship with West Libertalia. Pro Payne rounded up Pwnzinator, Darkfire Avenger, and Target (all intent on helping defeat the conspirators), and together they stopped the assassination attempt, rescuing Alwani from harm (and defeating the Malta assassin, who was using the holographic device to pose as a Longbow 'Officer Chavez' - who I took to be in charge of security.)

The conspiracy was foiled, Pro Payne had the thanks of the West Libertalian government, and three new heroes had gotten their first taste of a life of crime fighting. Not bad for a day's work.

Pros: This is a great arc! Great pacing, very entertaining story, wonderful characterization. It does what it does very well. Enough said! It is worth mentioning that when the arc was recommended, the author had some trepidation about the difficulty level (in part due to the fact Firey Aura is one of the weakest defensive sets); however, I didn't have any real problems - the most difficult fights (and the closest I came to defeat) were the ambushes that involved sappers (which had a tendency to fly up into the rafters before the ambush even reached me, and proceed to drain me dry while I desperately tried to search out where they were). They were a challenge for sure, but I can't really complain about difficulty in an arc where I didn't even die once (well, if I did, I don't remember it, so, at the very least, it wasn't more excessive than I'm used to).

Cons: Only one: in an arc this well done, you want more - more clues, more details, etc, to further flesh out the story. That's about it.

Very, very well done!

To MoeDownJoe: A valid point, although I’d like to add that if Monty was a Warden, and had escaped, I would have automatically assumed he’d escaped with whatever information he was looking for, even if I didn’t know exactly what that information was, or how he’d obtained it; a mission failure popup and Crimson’s mission failure briefing could possibly fill in those holes. But important to that point is the fact that I automatically assumed that Malta had enough information to construction variants of the Ballista armor by the last mission, regardless of whether or not they had the prototype Moment was wearing. I’m certainly willing to concede not everyone playing the arc might have assumed that or figured that out. And it’s funny that Aliana_Blue mentioned trying to re-color and rename the Lanaruu elementals – I was thinking exactly the same thing as I was reading your response.

To Mekkanos: No problem – I am very familiar with time on hand being much too short to be able to write any sort of sensible response. I also understand the pain of having an arc filled out to 99% - even if you think the feedback would improve the arc if implemented, you just don’t have room to implement it (and I certainly don’t operate under the assumption that my feedback is ever useful – sure I offer it to try and be helpful, but implied in that is that it is the sole discretion of the author to determine whether or not the feedback can actually improve the arc; my idea of an improvement could easily be someone else’s idea of something that would need to be nitpicked.)

First, let me say that I very much regret letting the time get away from me, and failing to post any nominations - I'm quite sorry about that, but I am very happy to see that most of the arcs I would have wanted to nominate got nominated by someone else anyway. Anyway, without further ado:

Best DO Range Arc (15-25)
First Place: Ctrl + Alt + Reset #137561 @Bubbawheat
Runner Up: The Invasion of the Bikini-Clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space! #61013 @Aliana Blue

Best Multi-Part Arc (2+ arcs)
First Place: The Audition Part 1 #221240 and Part 2 #221241 @MRCaptainMan
Runner Up: Turg Fiction: Ghost in the Machine, Acts I and II #1013 #174557 @Turgenev

With double XP weekend out of the way, once again Pro Payne resumes the fight for truth, justice, and level 50 in M.A. So, without further ado, today's review:

The Glory of Moment (Arc ID#328789, 4 stars, 5 in game)

Today, Pro Payne was contacted by Crimson with a troubling offer. Word in the intel world was that a notorious Malta agent, the shapeshifter Moment, was involved in a Malta operation that was about to go down. Whatever the operation was, Crimson was not about to let it be carried out, and so he solicited Pro Payne for a pre-emptive strike against a Malta base in Warburg. Pro Payne's goal: collect intelligence on what the operation was, and where Moment could be found. While Pro Payne's heroic nature didn't allow him to fully approve of a pre-emptive strike, in this case Pro Payne agreed with Crimson that such a strike might be necessary to prevent whatever the Malta group had in mind.

The Warburg base was well guarded, but Pro Payne found the information he was looking for, and defeated the base commander just for good measure. The news was not good, though - apparently Moment had infiltrated a Longbow base, and rumors of a recent defection by a hero to Arachnos had made Longbow especially paranoid - they had no intention of allowing Pro Payne to just explore their base at a whim. While he tried to keep Longbow casualties to a minimum, it was quickly clear that Moment was not exactly laying low: the agents in the base were remarking that the base commander, "Moe Monty," was behaving rather erratically. Suspecting Agent Monty was really Moment, Pro Payne confronted the Longbow Ballista. His hunch was correct: Moe Monty was Moment, and although the villain tried to escape, Pro Payne was well prepared for a confrontation with the shape-shifting Malta agent, and was successful in capturing him. But the news was not good: after defeating Moment, Pro Payne found evidence the agent was funneling data about the Longbow's Ballista armor to the Malta group.

That Moment escaped from the infirmary came as no surprise - and that Crimson used it as an excuse to have Pro Payne put down Moment for good was also not a surprise. Pro Payne tracked moment to a seagoing vessel - while searching the ship for Moment, he learned the truth: the Malta agent wasn't really a shapeshifter per se. Or, at least moment of Moment's documented forms were not really the result of shapeshifting: Moment was one of a small group of Nicti that had been pursuing other organizations to work with, feeling the Council were not proving to be allies adequate to their long term goals. Most of Moment's forms were simply bodies the Nictus has possessed. Pro Payne put a final end to it: he destroyed the shadow cyst crystal that likely served as Moment's home, and then faced and defeated Moment himself - now truly shapeshifted into his Black Dwarf form. With no where for the Nictus to flee upon defeat, Moment expired.

There was but one thing left to do: the Malta group was launching a "test run" of their new "Hyperion-class" battle armor, based on Longbow's ballista design. Their target was an Arachnos base, and their goal was to obtain materials and manufacturing capability to make more suits of the battle armor - possibly the precursor to a full scale invasion of the Rogue isles. Although the Arachnos within the base were certainly not friendly, Pro Payne's goal was to destroy the Hyperion prototypes, which he did. While it's doubtful the loss of the prototypes has totally removed Malta's ability to make more of the armor should the necessary resources become available, it was at least a major setback.

Pro Payne never relishes having to kill (and yes, the fact that he knows he's just 'role playing' these stories in the virtual environment of A.E. does help), and was eager to move on to other things.

Pros: A neat twist on Moment's true nature and origin, I liked the story, and thought the arc and the missions were well done. While I do think that the story does take some liberties with the canon, the truth is I think the author did a good job of keeping the twists and turns small enough to be easy to accept - put another way, even though my gut instinct is that if I really dug in, and put more effort than I'm willing to carefully researching the game's canon, I could probably find some conflicts with the author's version of things (the most obvious examples being the specifics regarding the Nictus life forms - I *think* shadow cysts store unbound nicti, so it would make perfect sense that Moment would need one between 'possessions', but I was always under the impression that the black dwarf or dark nova forms were - somehow - only available to a merged nictus; even though they are shapeshifted forms, the nictus still needs a real body to actually shapeshift). The bottom line is they are little details of which I'm not at all certain, which is why this is a "pro" of the arc - it struck me as a very good job of taking (perhaps) some minor liberties with canon in a very inoffensive way (and yes, it's just my opinion, but when you are using established characters in established groups with official backstory, you are certainly interacting with the game's canon).

Cons: Difficulty, plain and simple. Yes, the author warned me about the difficulty level of the arc, although I do think the arc itself could do a better job of warning you when very challenging fights were impending. But to me, the biggest issue with the difficulty was actually the question of "is the difficulty a necessary part of the story - is it adding to the story?" In this case there were very specific examples where I thought the author's point could be made, yet the arc didn't need the challenge level that it has. One worth considering is the possibility that Lt. Moe Monty doesn't *have* to be a Ballista - sure the base has research into the armor, but that doesn't necessarily mean Lt. Monty actually needs to be one; I honestly think he'd work just as well as a Warden - certainly not a deal breaker, but something worth considering to make the arc more accessible to more soloers (and yes, I did keep him from escaping, so none of these observations reflect any personal frustration at being defeated - I actually won all of the fights with the Ballistae, and did feel like I'd been defeated an excessive number of times, although it did feel a bit border line in the last mission). When I first played the arc, I believe there were five 'Malta Ballistae' in the last mission (the Hyperion armors); again, just a case where my only quibble was quantity, not concept: personally I think the story would work just as well if Malta only had one or two prototypes. I did check today, and either I was wrong about the number of Hyperions (there were only three in the last mission), so either that was the author responding to my online feedback, or I just have a bad memory. But I will say that three is certainly better than five.

Giving this arc five stars online was easy - the real struggle was exactly what to "officially" rate it. I really agonized between 'just shy of five' and 'just barely five' - the story is solid, and, in my opinion, only needs just a few tweaks here and there (perhaps a few more clues - I wonder if Moment would work a little better story wise if he shows up as an unbound nictus, although I don't know if those are even available in MA), as does the difficulty (I'd still recommend some minor tweaks downward, but that truly is a matter of personal taste). It's just my opinion, but it was just enough to bring my official rating in slightly under five, but again, I did enjoy the story and the arc. Well done!

Next time: Freaks, Geeks, and Men In Black!

I can add on some low level arcs as well: try out Learning the Ropes (levels 1-10), Cracking Skulls (levels 1-14), and The Lazarus Project (levels 1-20) - all are intended for low level play. You can find the arc IDs in my sig.

Today's update will only have one review. Unfortunately real life got in the way this time - the day's work took far longer than I anticipated. Furthermore, I fear I must confess that selfishness plays a role as well: I want to take full advantage of double XP weekend, which I can only do by playing the game rather than writing about it. So I regret that my review of "The Glory of Moment" will be moved to Wednesday, so that I'm not tempted to unduly rush when writing its review.

As always, the rating I give an arc in game is one star higher than my official rating. That's a moot point with today's review, though.

The Rikti Accession (ID#278757, 5 stars)

Pro Payne honestly doesn't remember if he's ever done anything with the Vanguard before, but evidently his name had come up on at least one of their lists, because he was contacted by a Rikti diplomat named C'Kelkah. She claimed that the Vanguard had recommended him for a sensitive mission she could not entrust to her fellow Traditionalists. Thought patterns that could only be described as those of a dangerous heretic were infecting the Rikti mental network, and their source was a Restructurist base. Pro Payne, not a huge fan of the Rikti faction intent on wiping out all of humanity and claiming the planet for their own, agreed. Not only did he find the heretic - said heretic was awfully odd looking for a Rikti - considerably thinner and less imposing looking than the standard Rikti, the heretic was no pushover. Thankfully, Pro Payne prevailed. C'Kelkah, however, had a dire warning: the strange Rikti was just the first of a new Restructurist program aimed at giving Rikti meta-human abilities, that they may better counter Earth's heroes and villains.

Thus far, the Rikti were little more than powerful mutants with advanced technology, some of whom had very highly developed mental powers. So, in a sense, they're all already meta-humans, just with a rather limited scope in terms of abilities - but arguing terminology struck Pro Payne as counterproductive. The bottom line was that the Rikti were about to gain a lot more options at whatever the Rikti equivalent of character creation was. The thought of a whole new breed of Rikti capable of the wide array of innate talents displayed by Earth's metahuman population was daunting - Pro Payne vowed to help C'Kelkah put an end to the threat.

Pro Payne, occasionally with the aid of Vanguard agents (including one Kenneth Rhodes), Pro Payne hit more than one Rikti base, seeking clues as to the origin of the Meta-Rikti, all the while fighting off increasing numbers of their kind: the program to produce them was clearly paying off even as Pro Payne sought to shut them down. The breakthrough came with the rescue of the first Meta-Rikti, a scientist named Tk'Lankah. Tk'Lankah was actually the product of a program to try to block the mutations that turn human embryos into Rikti. The program was only partially successful (evidently) - since Tk'Lankah didn't exactly look human - still the process had apparently taught the Rikti scientists something they really didn't need to know: that splicing meta-human genes into templates based on Tk'Lankah's "more human" DNA could create a new breed of Rikti with a far more 'interesting' array of abilities than was the norm.

Of course, the hitch was these new Meta-Rikti were in constant pain, and quite insane - and leaking the equivalent of mental pollution into the Rikti's mental network. Not that Hro'Drohtz, who had okayed the project, really seemed to care.

Pro Payne's response? Hit every base associated with the project and erase or destroy all research he could find. Oh, and beat up Hro'Drohtz just for good measure. Before Pro Payne could rest on the laurels of success, however, he learned that his old pal Kenneth Rhodes was concerned that the project never be allowed to be restarted. So 'ol Kenneth was going to do something (he doesn't really remember exactly what it was - but he thinks it involved magic). In any case, it was really, really bad (sorry, I don't actually remember the specifics, but it did sound pretty atrocious at the time, and certainly would have resulted in lots of innocents dying, something most heroes just don't really like). Even Lady Gray didn't approve, and Pro Payne was sent to stop Kenneth, which he did (even though Kenneth was pleading to be allowed to finish his plan - but Pro Payne's just not that big a fan of genocide). With the threat of the Meta-Rikti put down, at least for the time being, Pro Payne accepted C'Kelkah's thanks, and moved on to his next adventure...

Pros: As indicated by my 5 star rating, there was a lot I liked about this arc. In spite of a few minor plot issues, the story overall I really enjoyed, and the pacing and mission design were, in general, quite good. The writing was pretty solid, and the custom Rikti struck me as well done - they really did look to me like some sort of derivative of the Rikti.

Cons: For this arc, I had two (and a half) suggestions that I thought would improve the arc (although, clearly, I already thought it was a very well done arc). First, the Vanguard are such an overwhelmingly powerful faction that just about any battle between them and the Rikti results in a sound Vanguard victory before I can get there. I'd recommend at the very least just making sure that every battle between those two factions has the Rikti set to as hard as possible and the Vanguard set to as easy as possible. That, coupled with judicious use of Rikti patrols in missions with Vanguard battles *might* make the results of missions that highlight engagements between the two factions far less one-sided. Nowhere was this more obvious than the mission where I helped repel a Rikti attack on the Vanguard base: trying to weight the battles between the Vanguard and the Rikti very heavily in favor of the Rikti might very well be the only thing between the mission feeling like a desperate battle to repel a Rikti assault and the player heading to the outskirts of the map to capture a 'flagged' mob because the Vanguard are too preoccupied with rolling on the floor laughing at how utterly they just mopped the floor with a so-called Rikti invasion force. Second - and understand that this is really more a nitpick - perhaps placing emphasis on the Meta-Rikti program really being an attempt to unlock and restore to the Rikti the abilities that the mutagenic process that makes a human into a Rikti must (apparently) lock away. The Rikti *are* mutated humans (as the arc points out), so it seems odd that the program is trying to splice Rikti and human DNA, since Rikti DNA is just modified human DNA. It just makes more sense to me that somehow the Riktification process tends to 'lock away' most powers seen in meta-humans, and that by attempting to partially block the Riktification process, the Rikti have found a way to 'unlock' these abilities while still retaining a semblance of the abilities the Riktification process grants in the first place. Wow, I hope that made sense. And finally (and most minor overall) - I did sort of think that if more interaction with Kenneth Rhodes could be worked into the arc, it would increase the impact in the last mission of having to choose between letting him complete his plan, and arresting him. As it stands, the fact that I meet him once, and then he just sort of 'gets there first' and acts in the background did kind of make it not that hard to choose to put a stop to his plan.

Again, the suggestions are just things I thought might further improve the arc - frankly this many are pretty rare in an arc I liked enough to give five stars, so feel free to take them with a grain of salt.

By "rubber banding all the time" do you really mean "once per minute the game appears to lag out, and I rubber band backwards by about 1 second"? If so, read on - I think I know what your problem is.

You are probably using a wireless signal to connect to the internet. The issue is that Vista is programmed to "update" its wireless connection once per minute (I don't know technically if that's exactly what it's doing - but basically it's something along the lines of once per minute it checks to see if it is connected to the best wireless it can connect to, and, if not, will try to connect to the best one) - and every time it does, you get hit by a lag spike, which rubber bands you.

The two fixes are: connect to the internet through a land line (cable, etc.) - that'll solve the problem. OR, if that's not practical, there's a program called Vista Anti Lag. Just do a google search for it - you should be able to download and install it for free. Once you turn it on, it'll shut of Vista's incessent 'search for a new wireless' every minute B.S., and you should be fine. But you'll need to remember to re-activate it every time your computer is rebooted, or every time you come back from idle.

Hopefully that's what it is, so hopefully this'll help you.

Joe,

You may want to consider re-submitting this when I'm open again for submissions - I will attempt to compile a list of people that have suggested arcs while I'm 'closed' (and catching up on the current list of reviews), but some are sure to get missed (I'm far from perfect) and the rest will probably be at the end of whatever my next queue is: I don't want to be unfair to whomever (if anyone) is holding off making suggestions specifically because I'm not open.

(At the moment, based on the number of reviews I seem to be able to do per week, it looks like I'll have all the reviews posted in about 3 to 4 weeks, and will be again open for suggestions.)

I've tested this both inside (of MA) and out.

At the moment, double rewards are without a doubt turned on for "official" content.

They are not on for anything in Mission Architect. (I've tested to see if it was unique to custom mobs, but it isn't. Even developer mobs do not have doubled rewards if you are doing a MA mission.)

I know the 'official' start time for double XP weekend is 10:59 am Central Time, but unless it somehow gets turned on incrementally, I'd say there will be no double rewards in M.A.

Okay, and now for a short Pro Payne update.

Pro Payne is still closed for submissions, and will probably remain so for a few more weeks, until I've completed the reviews on my list. In the interest of progress, I can play through 4-6 arcs a week, but I typically only have time to post 2-3 reviews, so every so often I'm going to need to put submissions on hold long enough to "catch back up."

As always, whatever rating I've given the arc here, it is given one extra star in game. And now on to today's review.

The Superadine Revolution (ID#262739, 5 stars)
Pro Payne was contacted by a Family informant he knew called "Tommy the Snitch." Tommy had been told by his bosses in the Family to keep an eye out for unusual activity and, in addition to letting his bosses know, had also slipped the information to me: there was an awful lot of Skull activity in a particular warehouse that might be worth investigating. So Pro Payne checked it out, and found that a family boss named Sal "Wiseguy" Blundetto was hooking the Skulls up with the 'pure' version of superadine (the kind the Family normally keeps for its own use, versus the 'impure' stuff it often gives to the Skulls to sell to the Trolls). What, at first, appeared to be an isolated case of a member of the Family trying to pad his ill-gotten profits began to show evidence of a larger conspiracy at work: other Family bosses were brokering deals with the Skulls to funnel them pure superadine, and there was even evidence that some of these Family bosses were seeking induction into the Skulls gang: literally seeing the chance for more power and a greatly improved cash flow if the Skulls were able to take over the superadine trade. The Skulls, for their part, were getting far more powerful by taking the pure doses of superadine - powerful enough to be a real threat to the Family loyalists.

It came as no surprise to Pro Payne that the Petrovic brothers themselves - "Marrow Snap" and "Marrow Drinker" were the driving forces behind the takeover attempt, and they had set their sights quite high. Not only were they going to ensure the Skulls were at the top of the superadine drug trade, rather than the middlemen, they were also going to do their best to strike a fatal blow against the Family itself. Whatever new opportunities for criminal enterprise taking out the Family would have afforded the Skulls, Pro Payne was not about to let it happen. As the Skulls made their takeover bid, Pro Payne hit the very same warehouses they were hitting - arresting both the Skulls and their Family collaborators. After facing and defeating Marrow Snap himself, Pro Payne quickly learned that Marrow Drinker was making his final move against the Don himself in Striga Island. When Pro Payne arrived at the Don's offices, the Family loyalists were no happier to see him than the Skulls - Pro Payne had to battle his way through both Family and Skulls, and face and defeat Marrow Drinker to put a final end to the Skulls' threat.

There was no doubt that without Pro Payne's help the Skulls would have been in a much more powerful position then before - but it was also very clear that they were nowhere near as close to shutting down the Family as they may have thought. The Don was already long gone, having taken just about every important record with him that could have been used to build a criminal case against the Family (not really Pro Payne's goal, but it would have been a useful bonus). Of course, with their plot defeated, and their leaders once again in prison, the Skulls, far from being the new masters of the superadine trade, were beaten back to their former status as little more than a common street gang trolling the streets of King's Row.

Pros: The most obvious is the story - it is a very well done story that kept me interested the whole time: I was always eager to see what was going to happen next. The author did a very good job of creating higher level versions of the Skulls, and giving a solid "in game" reason for them to be more powerful than they were back when you were fighting them in the streets of King's Row. Furthermore, I don't claim to be an expert in spotting subtle plot holes or discrepancies, and so when I run across a story where I don't see anything glaring, and I'm not finding myself thinking "hey, this part could have been done better," that's a success in my book. Finally, I think the author did a very good job of tying an original story in with the game canon, which also gets high marks from me.

Cons: There were only two things, and both count as 'nitpicks.' One (and the larger of the two) - right after the first mission, Tommy seems to be hinting that he's going to attempt to blackmail me if I don't continue to help investigate what's going on with the skulls. It just struck me as very out of place for two reasons: first, I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to be pinned to starting a turf war - at least I think that's what he was suggesting. Granted, I'm not saying that, if this were real life, and I popped into a warehouse, and proceeded to beat the tar out of all of the criminals within (who happened to belong to different gangs) that it wouldn't probably start a war between the gangs, and get me in a lot of trouble for engaging in vigilante justice - but in the fictional world of CoH, my heroes do that kind of thing all the time, and law enforcement doesn't seem to care (presumably because then *they'd* have to fight all the super powered criminals), so why this time would be different didn't make much sense to me. But also, Tommy was clearly using this as 'motivation' to get me to keep helping him, yet I needed no just motivation - I had no trouble thinking if my hero stumbled across what appeared to be shady deals between the Family and the Skulls that might possibly be leading to a turf war, that he'd do everything in his power to get to the bottom of it, and put a stop to it. But neither observation really led to a break in immersion - it just make me think Tommy was kind of clueless. The second 'nit' is a true 'nit' indeed: I *believe* the Gunners and the Buckshots were using the same gun (or their guns were very similar), which, given the overall similarities of their powers (since they're both effectively AR custom mobs), seemed to basically make them the same mob with different names (although I did recognize that the Buckshots did seem to have the buckshot power, and the Gunners didn't) - but I did find myself thinking, what if the Gunners had been given a supply of Tommy Guns as per their dealings with the Family? If it's possible to do that, it might do a good job of making the two mobs a bit more distinct.

Great arc!

On Friday, I'll post the next update, along with reviews for The Rikti Accession and (unless I just run out of time) the Glory of Moment.

Still on the list of reviews for later weeks: Clive_Dark_5's arcs, Freaks, Geeks, and Men In Black, The Sleeping Star, and the arcs of the Galactic Protectorate series.