DocPhoton

[ QUOTE ]
We can direct them away from cliches that will hinder their writing, but if they want to use them, more power to them. Maybe they'll pull it off and impress us all.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed. As long as we're bringing in TVTropes, two ways to use a cliche to great effect:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenreSavvy
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...SubvertedTrope

[ QUOTE ]
From what I've figured so far, it means that using your own, your friends or more obscurly, anyone's avatar/player in your arc, as either a contact or a npc (friend or foe) is a tactic of writting known as Mary sue. I had a couple of arcs that I had venture review (I had no idea who he was at the time! O_O in retrospect it's kinda like asking robert ebert to look at your student film :P) and he was unhappy at alot of usage of my characters, most if not all was in the negative light. He started the review revolution, and Positron even believes him to be doing a good job. Based on both of those and other supporting facts, including that no one really dislikes venture or expresses his stances are incorrect, lead me to believe that he very well might be our sliderule in the community on whats right and wrong in a MA.


[/ QUOTE ]

"Mary Sues" are just unrealistically great/amazing/powerful/beautiful/likable characters with no discernible flaws. It doesn't have to be the author's own character, though that happens a lot.

The practice of self-insert predates the MA by a long time and is a (bad) fanfiction convention in general. It doesn't mean one of the author's characters so much as it means a character that represents the author or embodies their personality and beliefs.

In the MA there's nothing inherently wrong with using one of your premade characters. Just ask yourself these questions:

1) Is my character there to color the story, or is he there to kick [censored], impress the player and generally make the player a passive participant?

2) Is the story about the player and how they saved the day, or is it just dragging the player on rails through a story about my character?

You can use your own characters. Just don't make them hijack the story or be show-stealing badasses that outshine the player.

In my arc Time and Time Again, I use a character I made and one a friend made, because the way we developed their back story, about time traveling WW2 scientists, made them fit nicely in the plot. To make sure I didn't take agency away from the player, I made them optional rescues and made them boss difficulty only. (I'd have gone down to lieutenant if the map didn't have two pretty difficult enemy encounters.) You can beat the mission without ever saving either of them, and while they're tied to your story, it's only in that your interests and theirs intersect. After that encounter, you won't see them again, and the big finale mission is for YOU, the player, to savor.

[ QUOTE ]
guy's review of my arc

[/ QUOTE ]

Good points. I tell people the same things with their arcs. "Who is this guy? Why should I care?" But it's hard to see those flaws in your own stuff. Fortunately, I know exactly how to wrap those problems up. I'll probably have something up within the day.

Thanks again.

EDIT: Heavy edits of dialogue to flesh out the character a little more. Trash-80 reduced to Boss (but a challenging one!)

I debated the change of Trash-80, but after playing it a few more times, I think you're right. EB was appropriate when it was a higher level arc, but throttled down to 30-34, a strong boss is more appropriate.

I've got two critiques out but only one in return so far. This one's been getting a pretty good response so I thought I'd throw it up.
THESE MACHINES KILL FASCISTS
Arc ID: 118731

Factions: The 5th Column, Rebelling 5th Column robots, and someone else. You'll figure it out soon enough.

Creator Global: @Doc Photon

Difficulty: Level range is 30-34. There's two custom enemies you might find a bit more difficult and one EB, but most of this arc should be about as difficult as a typical 5th Column arc at those levels.

Length: Just three missions. The second one often ends very quickly. Good for when you want a fast one to blow through.

Synopsis: The 5th Column is in trouble -- their robots have gone berzerk and turned against their masters. The prevailing opinion is the new Autonomous Command droids are on the blink and have hijacked the rest of them. Maybe. But what's with the strange things the robots are shouting now, as they tear their fleshy meatbag masters apart?

This was published once before but I took it down and changed some things pretty heavily to rebalance it. I much prefer it now, and player response has been even more positive than I expected. Here's hoping you like it.

[ QUOTE ]
80824 The Starfare Chronicles: First Contact
Factions: Custom, Rikti. CoT, Arachnos
Difficulty: Medium to Difficult depending on build ( Recommend bringing plenty of inspirations if soloing ). Designed for level 50. Has an EB/AV at the end.
Length: 5 chapters
Synopsis:
The League of Starfaring Races ( or Starfare for short ) normally doesn't contact backwater worlds such as ours. That is about to change, as their unrelenting enemy, the Zrak 'Tah, have shown an unusual interest in Earth. Starfare has sent a Special Ops force to investigate the matter....

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe it's a bad metaphor, but I feel like you buried the lede on this. What's the coolest thing about this arc? To me, it's what happens to the ship. I think there's so much potential for a cool, immersive mission, but instead of focusing on the ship, you return to the Zraks, after a brief (and kind of unnecessary) jaunt underground.

Maybe you don't want to make it an arc about the ship. But in that case, I'd suggest you flesh out the origin of these Zrak guys. Even if they're your all-purpose world-conquering space marauders, give them some kind of personality so I know what I'm up against and why I should care. (In the CoH universe, after all, Earth faces an existential threat about every 20 minutes. Why is it important that I be the one to pick this one up?)

One way to do that? Bios. None of them seemed to have bios, even the EB.

I'd avoid much more dialogue as you go pretty heavy on it already and it's sometimes hard to catch it all in time.

But questions I'd ask to help flesh out the Zraks: Are they an impossibly vast cosmic empire built on militarism and autocracy? Or are they a barely cohesive warrior race without much of a political system? Are they expansive colonists? Or are they small enough that they mostly jump from star system to star system, annihilate everything and go on on their way? Do they have a warrior tradition? A religion? A sense of honor? A driving ethic or philosophy that explains their conquering ways? If you touched on any of these things, it didn't really shine through to me, and I guarantee I pay more attention than the average player will.

For gameplay, very few issues. I do take issue to any defeat-all that isn't in an exceptionally small map, though. And like with the last arc I covered, I don't like cramming a mission full of objectives if it has a climactic fight. After I took down the boss, I had to go zooming around the base to find the last hostage. Kind of annoying.

The big fight. Hell of a battle. I get the impression you went out of your way to make a really challenging enemy, and that's fine. I enjoyed it. Just know that if he's one-shotting my stalker, he's going to absolutely annihilate a casual player. If you're fine with that, so am I. There are a lot of Elites that I can solo more easily than it was to fight your boss with EB help.

I covered the typos in tells I sent to you, so that ought to be it. Use up as much of that extra arc space as you can to embellish the story, because it leaves the player hanging right now. Consider some optional objectives that shed light on the story maybe.

Another critique down. If I could, I'd like to put my earlier arc back in for consideration. I've addressed a lot of the things that came up in the previous review.
------------------------
Poster: http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/9391/timeo.jpg
TIME AND TIME AGAIN
Arc ID: 40267

Factions: The Council (with some customizations,) The 5th Column (again, customized), Axis America, various allies

Creator Global: @Doc Photon

Difficulty: Players under 40 will likely have a lot of trouble. Players 40 and up could find it easily solable or require help, depending on how well they work with AI allies and how they fight AV/EBs.

Synopsis: There's a mutiny going on in the Council. Word is that the Center has called off the alliance with the Nictus and are purging Nictus influence from the ranks.

But what's the real story? And why is a mysterious Council lieutenant leading a faction into Axis America?

[ QUOTE ]
Overall, one of the best arcs I've played to date. I greatly enjoyed it.

Edit: I've been thinking about which arc I'd like critiqued and decided on:

80824 The Starfare Chronicles: First Contact
Factions: Custom, Rikti. CoT, Arachnos
Difficulty: Medium to Difficult depending on build ( Recommend bringing plenty of inspirations if soloing ). Designed for level 50. Has an EB/AV at the end.
Length: 5 chapters
Synopsis:
The League of Starfaring Races ( or Starfare for short ) normally doesn't contact backwater worlds such as ours. That is about to change, as their unrelenting enemy, the Zrak 'Tah, have shown an unusual interest in Earth. Starfare has sent a Special Ops force to investigate the matter....


[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks again for the kind words and useful suggestions. I've added a lot of them last night, patched up the plot holes (you wouldn't believe how many come up the second you introduce time travel,) and cleaned some stuff up.

I'll definitely give yours a go. Can you send me a tell in-game with the Arc ID? Global is @Doc Photon.

I'm working a long day, so that'll help me remember to check it out when I log on.

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I'll give it a go.

* I've seen this in a number of arcs, including in-game missions. The contact doesn't introduce him/herself, which leaves me with the questions: Who are you, and why should I do anything for you? Agent Six mentions the CIA a couple of times, which leads me to believe me she is a secret agent for the CIA. But she never comes out and says it. And with her outfit, she could be an Agent for Arachnos as far as I know. So .... "Hello, I am Agent Six on assignment from the CIA, we just intercepted a big shipment... Statesman highly recommends you...."

Chapter 1
* Assisst ( spelling ) the Council Purge (both in the mission link and title )
* The CIA .... is repeated twice in the mission briefing, maybe reword a bit.
* I'm guessing you've tested this a number of times to ensure the first operative is always to the left, but you'll probably have to retest after every patch to ensure the "Pssst, I'm to the left" text is still valid.
* The manifesto bears Requiem's signature, but he's opposing the insurrection. That left me scratching my head a bit.
* Agent Six's deal with the Council for them to "Stay off their back" for a while, just seemed odd to me. The CIA is a law enforcement agency, the only way for this to happen is for the Council to go on vacation.

Chapter 2
* The popup implies the Council was going to stay off "my" back, not the CIA's.
* It seemed odd to me there were no Portal Corp employees held captive inside. I saw one group of "PPD Awakened", whatever those are.
* On of the mobs says, "You're late, $name....". Might want to take that out, until they support $name in all fields.
* Beautiful touch, having that last group staring up at the Portal. I have no clue how you did that, but that was just awesome.

Chapter 3
* "The 5th Column, and then the Council, has a difficult history." Awkward wording. Maybe,
"In their incarnations as the 5th Column and Council, they've had a difficult history."

Chapter 4
* Very nice custom Axis America mobs. I loved the uniforms. This chapter prompted me to move it down to Heroic from Rugged. These guys were ripping me to shreds... which is good.

Chapter 5
* "Have Portal Corp transport you to Jun 6, 1944..."
Just two comments on this. I didnt know Portal Corp could transport through time as well as through dimensions.
In the prior chapter, the two heroes were searching for some way to return to the past. Just seems a bit incongruous, if Portal Corp already had the means.

* Reinforcements are always nice when fighting an EB/AV, however 4 Lts. did absolutely nothing against Vandal. I'd rather have 1 good boss level assist than 4 lower levels. One of them died aggroing another group, while I freed one of his buddies.

* A bit of a disappointment fighting a Lt. Level Ubelmann after dieing twice against Vandal. He should be at least boss level.

* I would have liked to have seen more of the custom mobs on the final map.

Overall, one of the best arcs I've played to date. I greatly enjoyed it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you very much for this. I need time to look at some of it and fix a few things. (And a few others I did fix before, but apparently it didn't take --, like $name.)

Only thing I have in response other than that this is super useful and I'm going to take a great deal of it into consideration is that Agent Six is a pre-existing contact. She's a CIA op and the natural enhancement store in Founders:
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Agent_Six

But maybe I can find a way to reiterate that since she must not be as well known as I thought.

edit: Also, as to the last mission, I've had a hell of a time balancing that one to satisfaction. My stalker steamrolls Vandal with those allies, which makes me think a lot of players will find it too easy if I tack on any more help. But I'm sure other ATs and builds could still have considerable trouble. Maybe I'll try to edit Agent Six's dialogue to give a little more of a warning about what's coming.

second edit: OH I GET IT. Once you scaled down, the boss-level reinforcements scaled down to Lts and Ubelmann, a boss, scaled down, too.

With that critique out of the way, here's mine for someone else to critique.
Poster: http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/9391/timeo.jpg
TIME AND TIME AGAIN
Arc ID: 40267

Factions: The Council (with some customizations,) The 5th Column (again, customized), Axis America, various allies

Creator Global: @Doc Photon

Difficulty: Players under 40 will likely have a lot of trouble. Players 40 and up could find it easily solable or require help, depending on how well they work with AI allies and how they fight AV/EBs.

Synopsis: There's a mutiny going on in the Council. Word is that the Center has called off the alliance with the Nictus and are purging Nictus influence from the ranks.

But what's the real story? And why is a mysterious Council lieutenant leading a faction into Axis America?

This arc ends with a big climactic battle. I've fixed and tweaked this about a zillion times since Beta. And I'll probably keep tweaking it unless it somehow ends up Dev Choice. I can't let it be.

[ QUOTE ]
Arc Name: "The Once and Future King Sac"
Arc ID: 99394

[/ QUOTE ]

I only have one beef with gameplay, so I'll get that out of the way first. In the last mission, it's generally not a great idea to have players have to hunt down lots of glowies or destructibles, because it's very easy for them to miss them. Then, after they've had their climactic battle at the end, they have to go back and hunt for what they missed, burning off any excitement they worked up in the fight. Also, Kid Sac is listed as being in The Entropy, even though he's probably not supposed to be.

Other than that, gameplay was fine. I felt like most things were adequately challenging and balanced and mission objectives weren't getting in the way of the fun.

So let's focus on storytelling here.

You're telling a story about jealousy, time travel, framing the innocent, etc. That has plenty of potential to be dramatic. But you're not making the most of it because you're not giving the player much of anything to connect to the characters with.

Players aren't going to know who King Sac is or why it's important to help him. The story contact, the Avatar of King Sac, doesn't clue them in about what kind of story they can expect – he's almost entirely blank. Your contact choice is important! It's a story telling tool and a signal to players about what direction things are heading. Think it over a bit and see if you can make this guy, both in his appearance and his speech, reflect that.

You need to really dress up the personalities of these characters. The player doesn't get a lot of chance to understand who they are in 5 missions, so you need to make use of every opportunity to let me know who they are. Who is King Sac? What kind of personality does he have, and how would he reflect that in his speech?

Who are the Entropy? It's never explained, and that really disappointed me. I wanted to find out what on earth these guys were all about, but there was never anything to explain all that much. I don't know who they are, where they're from, why they look the way they do, why they have such strange names, what they have against King Sac. Try to develop these things. They're what will differentiate Entropy from Generic Henchmen Variety 35406.

One way you can add some of that personality is in picking where they are and what props they use. Right now, the Entropy's personality is confusing to me because one minute they're in a hospital using Rikti computers, the next they're in a Rikti base using hospital lab equipment and then they're in a Crey tech lab. Up until the last mission, I hoped that maybe the Rikti computers and Rikti map meant they were some bizarre offshoot of the Rikti, but no luck.

I'm not pointing all this out to be a jerk, but because I imagine you genuinely want to know what you can improve.