GahLakTus

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Technical: The custom mob is tough, especially the lieutenants with rage. As a squishy, they really hurt me once they popped rage and got that 80% damage buff. The boss, Copy Cat, was the same way. I might be wrong, but I think you gave it build up. That's a real pain. Other than those two, the custom mob was good though. Maybe just consider adding another lieutenant so the spawning is more diverse.

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Thanks for the nice review.

None of the Lts. have rage and Copy Cat does not have build up.

WN

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Really? Wow. I feel like an idiot, um. In my defense, I played the arc late at night. Other than that, I'm sorry. I really don't know why I thought that.

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I will submit:

Name: Trademark Infringement
Arc ID: 2220

Name: Death to Disco!
Arc ID: 84420

Thanks,

WN

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I reviewed trademark infringement on my ice/kin corrupter. Because of the nature of the mission (humor) I'm foregoing a plot summary and simply doing a review. I rated the arc four stars.

Story: Funny. All of the custom mobs were well named, I laughed more than once at the dialogue, and the concept itself was entertaining.

Technical: The custom mob is tough, especially the lieutenants with rage. As a squishy, they really hurt me once they popped rage and got that 80% damage buff. The boss, Copy Cat, was the same way. I might be wrong, but I think you gave it build up. That's a real pain. Other than those two, the custom mob was good though. Maybe just consider adding another lieutenant so the spawning is more diverse.

Spelling/Grammar: No problems.

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[The Thorn Tree] is the objective of Operation Weedkiller, which a clue you can get from a Gunslinger's notebook and informs you of, revealing both the name as well as that villains always foiled it in the past.

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But why? Saying something is the objective of a mission doesn’t answer the question of why. How does having the Thorn Tree advance the Malta Group’s goal of putting superhumans under government control? That’s the question I think you need to answer.

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You say the Dark Dragon tried to kill you - which his message states concretely to the contrary with "Pardon the pirates, but I needed to know Scirocco wouldn't overwhelm you. They and Malta had orders not to kill. He doesn't."

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Exactly. The Dark Dragon sets you up to fight one of the most powerful villains in the world knowing full well you might die. He thinks you might survive, but you also might not.


Thanks for answering my question about Crimson, I just missed that. I’m sorry. I still don’t think the Warburg map is the best place, it’s an overt Malta presence and probably wouldn’t be where they’d store something covert. The idea about Crimson being in on the plot is a great twist though. Wish I’d thought of that.

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Hm. Looks like I need to make the plot elements more obvious still. All but 2 of your questions were answered in the clues and briefings. Ah well. Thanks for the review.

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Where? I'm genuinely curious because I didn't see them and I read all the clues. Do you mind posting the answers and the clue text that reveals them?

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Always good to get some fresh opinions. Feel free to have at "the Revenge of Hro'Dohz" (1356) and "Hunting the Dark Dragon" (2922).

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I reviewed this on my Ice/EM Tanker. Special thanks to Articca, an Ice/Rad controller for helping me out.

Lazy Man’s Review: 2.5 stars, bunch of plot holes, poor use of canon faction, good custom mob, Bronze Age of Comics style plot.





The babbling techie seated next to me in the Longbow debriefing room keeps rambling on about my armor’s cryogenic shielding performance readout, gyroscopic stabilization problems, and sensor suite vulnerabilities to magical attacks. I consider shooting myself, but instead I just think back about the training simulation that I had run this morning. It had been created by the nerds in the tech division because of a M.A.G.I. report about the Circle of Thorns looking into to summoning some dragon monsters from another dimension. Along with Articca, another superagent, I ran through the simulation. Once we was done with the simulation, I realized two things. The Circle of Thorns better not summon dragons, and the men in the tech division need to stop using so many psychotropic drugs.

In the start of the simulation, Peter Stemitz asks for your help in preventing the Circle of Thorns from summoning dragons. Apparently, the mystical spirit in his head told him a Circle mage named Rollister may have already summoned one. Naturally, Articca and I are deployed into a Circle hideaway to investigate and terminate the Circle’s nefarious plan. After blasting our way through a few guards, we stumble upon Rynn. She’s got the face of a dragon, but is about as tall as a large human, and walks on two legs. She’s talking about a rock concert and getting hit with a tornado that transported her here to Earth. She offers to help us fight the Circle and rescue the three other dragons they abducted. Once Articca and I get over our surprise about dragon’s going to a rock concert, we gladly take Rynn up on her offer.

With Rynn by our side, we dispatch another horde of minions, and rescue a duo of dragons. One of them is a dragon rocker named Player, while the other is named Pik, who was the drummer in the draconic rock band. Player wants to help you defeat Rollister, while Pik runs outside to get a cell phone signal. Dragons? Cell phones? At this point I already feel like this is some techies acid trip. This feeling only increases when we rescue Officer Blake, a dragon police officer who was working security at the concert that the dragons got mystically summoned from.

The battle against Rollister is no joke however, as he uses his powers over the psyche to cripple Articca and our draconic allies. Luckily, my armor has psychic baffling, and I’m practically immune to his powers. A well-placed haymaker sends Rollister flailing into the air, and I throw another punch when he hit’s the ground. This one puts Rollister into a surrendering mood and he tries to tell me about how they needed to summon the dragons to fight fire with fire. Apparently, the Circle of Thorns summoned a Dark Dragon who was now trying to kill them.

Stemiz next explains that if the Circle of Thorns was going to summon something as powerful as this Dark Dragon must be, they’d have done it on Thorn Isle. Apparently, the Thorn Tree’s presence can prevent mystics from sensing the kind of disturbance that would have occurred from summoning something so powerful.

When Articca and I arrive at Thorn Isle, we find a conspicuous absence of Circle of Thorns and instead, the area is swarming with the deadly agents of the Malta Group. We fight our way into the bowels of Thorn Isle, and along the way we free a surviving Circle of Thorns cultist. He explains how the Dark Dragon couldn’t be controlled by the Circle of Thorns, and he slaughtered most of them before somehow allying himself with the Malta Group. By the time Articca and I confront the Malta squad commander, Fiction Green Epsilon, she’s bloody and bruised and my armor is blaring warnings left and right about a damage overload. We both have the power of flight, and we go vertical above the Malta leader. He tries to bring his pistols to bear on me, but Articca’s control over ice locks down him and his men in a frozen prison. After that, it’s easy to beat them down into submission.

For a hardened assassin, Fiction Green Epsilon breaks easily and tells me everything. The Dark Dragon was from a world familiar with technology and offered the Thorn Tree to Malta in exchange for their services. Malta is currently working for him to fulfill their part of the bargain. Due to the Malta’s involvement, Steintz brings in counterintelligence expert Crimson. Crimson knows that Malta could be sheltering the Dark Dragon at their Warburg robotics plant. A stolen Arachnos flyer allows us to get near the base without raising suspicion, and Articca and I make short work of the door guards, and enter the facility. Inside, we’re treated to a brutal fight against Sister Hecate. Her knives draw blood against Articca, and a vicious cut into Articca’s stomach leaves her dead. Good thing this is only a simulation, and she’s uploaded right back, good as new. Hecate’s a nimble enemy, but we pin her down in a corner and Articca sends a razor sharp icicle through Hecate’s chest.

Rounding the corner in search of the Dark Dragon, we instead find an ambush of Space Pirates. Yes I said Space Pirates, complete with gibberish and powerful force fields. The Space Pirates are guarding a safe with a blueprint for an Arachnos submarine base in Paragon City. When we get back to see Steintz, he’s as baffled as we are by the involvement of Space Pirates. We understand that the Dark Dragon wants to conquer this submarine base, and we need to get the base and finally confront him. Malta and the Space Pirates get to the base before us, and we have to fight through a horde of them before making our way to the submarine launch station. Along the way, we rescued the Arachnos Base Commander. The submarine dock is swarming with Malta, but after killing them we can’t find the Dark Dragon anywhere. What we can find is a taunting message from him telling us that we are going to be used to kill Sirocco, who’s en route to the base. Apparently, the Dark Dragon had used shape shifting to take on the form of the base commander. Even in a simulation, Sirocco is a tough fight, and in the real world he probably would have wiped the floor with Articca and me. Thankfully, we’ve got some advantages in the form of letting him get shot up by the remaining Malta before we finish him off. Once he’s weakened, we get the drop on him and take down the Middle-Eastern menace.

Now all that’s left is the showdown, and conventional Longbow forces have tracked the Dark Dragon down. He’s in Faultline, and Longbow has him surrounded. He’s promised to leave if we don’t go after him. We know he’s a bad guy though, and Articca and I prepare to take him down. Longbow elements support us as we fight into the building, dispatching Malta and Space Pirates left and right. Once we get to the Dark Dragon, he pleads with us to let him go because he’s only harmed Earth’s villains. Except for, you know, trying to kill me by setting me up to fight Scirocco. His pleas fall on deaf ears, and my fists soon fall on his skull, killing him and ending the simulation.

The techie still hasn’t finished babbling, but I’m snapped out of my reverie by Articca’s sudden entrance. After some good natured ribbing about how she “died” more times than me, I agree to buy her a drink at the Officer’s Club.



Story: A good concept ruined by poor execution. Done right, this could have been an enjoyable adventure in the vein of bronze age comic books. Instead, it’s a mish-mash of disparate story elements, and has some severe plot holes. The dragons are wacky, but I didn’t have a problem with that. What I did have a problem with is them having a way to return home automatically. Why didn’t they just use it right when they got captured? The Malta Group is very poorly characterized. They’re not mercenaries for hire, they’re a powerful paramilitary group devoted to keeping super humans under control. The Sky Raiders are mercenaries, so are the KoA. Both of these groups would have been a better choice. How did the Dark Dragon know how to contact the Malta Group, a highly covert paramilitary organization? What does the Malta Group even want with the Thorn Tree? How did the Dark Dragon hire the Space Pirates? He’s from another dimension, not outer space. I do like that the aliens speak their own language rather than English however. The third mission doesn’t have a clear reason for existing. We only go to the base because Crimson suggests it, and he doesn’t even have a clear reason why he’s suggesting it, and all we find there is plans for the next base we attack. What’s Malta doing with plans for an Arachnos base in their Warburg robotics plant?


Technical: The pirates were well designed in my opinion. Their force fields were frustrating, but not overpowering. I really like how you made the outside of the fifth mission all Longbow forces, that clearly represents a lot of effort.

Grammar/Spelling: No problems.

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Always good to have more reviewers with different points of view.

Take your pick, or try them both:

#3369: Matchstick Women
level range: 25-50 (recommended)
Missions: 3
Morality: Heroic
Synopsis: A mysterious flame sends you on a trail of a cult of women arsonists. Follow the clues to their crazed leader to stop them once and for all. (1 EB)

#137561: Ctrl + Alt + Reset
Level range: 15-30
Missions: 4
Morality: Neutral
Synopsis: Foreshadow sends you to investigate a temporal artifact confiscated by Wyvern. He thinks it's more dangerous than anyone realizes and you find out he's absolutely right! But now you're stuck in a time loop and have to figure your way out.

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Lazy Man's Review: 3 stars. Plot holes damage a good story. Well-balanced custom. Tough but fun EB fight at the end.

Trying a new format after reading an in-character review over on the EU boards. I reviewed Matchstick Women with my Ice/EM tanker and rated three stars. I wrote the plot summary in character this time, which I'm going to try to continue when I can. This let me practice my writing and any feedback would be nice.




The name’s Baldwin, Sean Baldwin and I’m an agent of Longbow. I won’t bore everyone with the details of my life, but I’ve got this battlesuit that channels my control over energy into ice armor and energy punches, and a few other tricks. As I sit in the Officer’s Club bar drinking a vodka and tonic, I think back on what happened today and how weird the whole damn thing was.

It all started when I was making the rounds about King’s Row, testing out some improvements to the battlesuit stability systems. I came around the corner running at sixty miles an hour, my sensor array warned of a massive temperature spike. What it didn’t tell me was where it was coming from. I lower my array and engage my visual scanning, and see a flame just floating in the air ahead of me. Damn was that fire beautiful, the flames licking around the air, just suspended against gravity. I look closer and I see shapes begin to form, a young girl being horribly burnt, and then a horde of women forming from her body. Then I see a burning building filled with Council, and I hear an alarm clarion blaring. Looking around, I realize that’s not a picture in the fire, but what’s around me. Somehow I’d been transported right into the middle of a Council base, and it was on fire.

A quick glance at my GPS system shows me I’m still in Paragon, just in an underground facility in Boomtown. Probably was a superhero base before the Rikti leveled the whole neighborhood. Well, the Council sure as hell are surprised to see me, and I quickly dispatch a small squad of Council agents who are trying to fight the fire. Rounding a corner, looking for the exit, I see a small team of Council goons shooting at three women. The women all are wearing matching orange and black costumes, and their sending bursts of fire towards the Council soldiers. One of the women is screaming some gibberish about “cleansing the world.” Whatever they are, they can’t be good, so I move up and engage them in combat. There fire bursts pack a nasty wallop, especially when your armor is made of cryogenically suspended ice. They’re still not able to withstand my energy-backed fists, but my armor is blaring a warning about “cryogenic armor failure impendent.”

Thankfully, there was only one more group of crazy fire women, and after stopping them, I open the sprinkler values in the Council base and make a quick exit. As soon as I exit I see that suspended flame again, as beautiful as before. Looking into it, I see a neighborhood in panic, where teenagers are being tortured with flames by the same mysterious women who were trying to burn down the Council base. Just as before, I am somehow immediately taken to the neighborhood in question just by looking into the flame. Once there, I witness a young girl surrounded by a cage of fire, moaning in pain and terror. She’s surrounded by three of the costumed arsonists, who are calling themselves the “Matchstick Women.” I catch them by surprise and floor them with energy charged blows. The girl is safe, although traumatized, and I quickly whip around the block and find two more trapped women. The element of surprise isn’t on my side this time, and the Matchstick Women give as good as they get, in a fight that leaves them unconscious or worse, and my armor badly damaged.

One of the now freed prisoners isn’t afraid or upset, rather she’s talking about how the fire changed her and that she’d like to fight alongside me and payback the leader of her captors. I can use the help, and we find the leader of this perverse “recruitment drive.” My new ally gives her a taste of her own burning medicine, and together we put her down for the count. One of the women, seemingly another leader, offers to help us. I don’t trust her, but she tells me that the group’s leader, Emily, has gone completely insane and now wants to burn everyone to “cleanse” them. Sounds like a real sick cult to me, the members even get their faces scared to keep them from leaving.

I call Longbow and have them send a support team to secure the area and round up the cultists. No sooner do I end the conversation, as that floating flame appears on my sensors again. Looking into it, I see a burning building that I somehow know is the Matchstick Women’s headquarters. This time, I’m prepared for transportation and ready all my armor’s defenses in case I’m emerging right into a trap.

Now in the burning building itself, I look around and see members of the Matchstick Women resigned to a death by burning. Most of them even seem happy. They’re not happy to see me though, and they come at me with fire blazing. I’m ready for the attack, and manage to take them down with minimal damage to my armor. The only part of the building that isn’t consumed by flame is a bookshelf carrying “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and a journal, I grab both the books and store them in my armor’s internal carrying system. After this detour I head deeper into the inferno, hoping to find either Emily or an exit. I find both.

I find the exit when I see a doorway leading to outside, and I find Emily when I feel myself toppling over. A warning pops up on my sensor array telling me that heat damage has destroyed automatic gyros and I needed to switch to fully manual movement. I do so, and I get up just in time for Emily to send a lance of fire into my shoulder. The ice armor completely melts away where she it, and she screams something about “cleansing me from my sin.” I run at her, absorbing another fire blast as I do so, and smash an energy-assisted uppercut across her jaw. As she goes airborne, I follow up by grabbing her and planning tossing her against the nearest wall.

As soon I grab on to her I realize I made a mistake, as my hands completely shut down and another computer warning tells me the hands have sustained “calamitous temperature shift” and I need to shift power from the armor cooling system to fix it. I grit my teeth and do so, and the heat hits me like a wave. Now that the armor’s air conditioning has been rerouted, I feel the burning building and sweat starts to just pour off me. That’s gets put out of my mind when Emily blasts the ceiling with fire and tries to drop a steel beam on my head. This is her big mistake because the beam I can catch. Having caught her metallic missile, I swing it as an erstwhile club towards her. The first blow knocks her down, the second one turns her head into the consistency of chunky salsa. Putting the steel beam down I head outside, the building’s heat now starting to burn through my armor. I simply let myself fall out of the fourth story of what I now know is an abandoned King’s Row apartment and hit the ground cushioned by the armor.

At the bar, I’m drawn away from my thoughts by finishing my drink and needing to order another one. This was one of those days that left me with more questions than answers. What the hell was that mysterious flame? Why were the Matchstick Women targeting a Council base? How did they imbue superpowers into people by burning them? With Emily dead and the cult imprisoned, dead, or hiding, I’ll probably never know.


Story: Good basic plot, evil arsonist cult trying to burn everything and themselves. There were a lot of plot holes however. The contact was probably the biggest one, I just don’t get what this mysterious flame is and how it’s transporting me to all these sites. It was kind of implied that it was the “good side” of Emily, but that was fairly oblique and a lot of people may not have picked up on that. In the first mission, I’m not sure why I don’t just leave the Council base and let it burn. I’d suggest setting it underground (like I did in my narrative above) and saying the exit is on the other side of the base. In the second mission, I understand what the Matchstick Women are doing (recruiting) but I don’t understand how torturing women with fire makes them want to join the cult, or how it gives them superpowers. The third mission is very good and very well written. I also feel like the first mission is superfluous and vague, why are the Matchstick Women targeting a Council base? Aren’t there less well defended places to burn? How do they even know where it is?

Technical: The green matchstick women were annoying because of their heals, but that only added an enjoyable challenge to the custom group, which was well balanced. I found Emily to be a real challenge, and I had to pop a lot of inspirations to beat her. It felt like an epic, end of the arc fight. Very good technically, my only suggestion would be making the ally hostage rescue in mission 2 more obvious so someone doesn’t rescue her last accidentally.

Spelling/Grammar: No problems.

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Hey, why the heck not. Try my arc Power Play. I could use more feedback on it.

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I reviewed this arc on my Ice/EM tanker.

Lazy Man’s Review: 4 Stars. Great story, first person narrative, treats your character like a real villain, tough custom mob.

Mad scientists enjoy a lot of things, evil laughter, techno babble, conducting dangerous experiments with human tests subjects, and a whole host of other pleasures. Mad scientists don’t enjoy competition however, so when Dr. Thaddeus Aeon finds out that Dr. Creed is working on an advanced android project, he wants you to break into Creed’s lab, steal the information on the project, and capture Dr. Creed.

You have other plans, and after wreaking havoc on Creed’s laboratory, defeating his powerful VAL (villainous artificial life-forms) minions, you realize the treacherous Dr. Aeon is not to be trusted. Therefore, you offer to ally with Mercy’s mad genius against Aeon, but plan to betray both Aeon and Creed before they betray you. Once the two scientists have exhausted each other’s resources, you will take control of the VAL project and have an army of robotic flunkies. When you return to Cap Au Diable and meet with Dr. Aeon, you tell him only that you have Creed’s schematics, and Aeon sends you into a covert Longbow base to upload the plans for HAL (heroic artificial life-form,) the android hero that Creed was basing the VAL off of.

You tip off Doctor Creed about your attack, and he dispatches a VAL to assist you. With the insidious android as backup, you make short work of the Longbow defenders (along with intimidating a computer technician with a hate-on for Dell into giving you access codes,) and confront HAL X-34 himself. The heroic automaton puts up a valiant fight, but is defeated and you download the schematics from the computer grid.

Despite your smashing success, Doctor Aeon treats you like nothing more than another faceless Arachnos goon. He even has the gall to send you all the way to Paragon City on a meaningless Clockwork hunting mission while he’s busy analyzing the HAL schematics. He lets slip that the Goldbrickers, in their capacity as covert operatives for Dr. Aeon, captured Creed and are holding and interrogating him. Rather than taking a meaningless trip to go, hunt, and kill Clockwork, you rescue Dr. Creed and kill the Goldbrickers, leaving Aeon in the dark about your treachery.

Blaming obstructionist bureaucrats for your inability to hunt Clockwork, you listen with glee as Aeon tells you how Creed somehow freed himself from the Goldbrickers. Since Aeon cannot involve Arachnos with this operation (he was planning on taking personal control of the VAL rather than giving it to Lord Recluse,) he sends you to find and recapture Creed.

This plays into your strategy perfectly, as you actually get the location of Aeon’s secret laboratory from Creed and then attack it. Using a computer virus given to you by Dr. Creed, you turn Aeon’s VAL soldiers rouge, and they slaughter the Arachnos guards in short order. You then proceed to destroy the evil automations and beat Doctor Aeon to a bloody pulp before he teleports away. With Aeon removed, you plan to take control of the VAL system and enjoy your new robotic army.

Alas, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. In typical mad scientist fashion, Dr. Aeon did a poor job programming the leader of the VAL, VAL-X3. She refuses to obey anyone, and instructs the other VAL to kill you. Forced to destroy the very automations you hoped to control and lead, the VAL-X3 is reduced a pile of smoldering rubble, Creed is back on Mercy Isle safe from Aeon’s retribution, and Aeon agrees not to pursue vengeance against you in exchange for your continued silence about his unauthorized experiments.

Story: Excellent. No discernable plot holes that I can see. The plot was complex enough to keep me engrossed, but I always understood what was happening. The only thing I have any confusion over is the Clockwork reference, I really don’t get why Aeon needed them. I assumed he just wanted them for another experiment, and sent you to get them because he treated you like a lackey. The first person narrative was a refreshing change, so was your character being the betrayer rather than the fool who gets betrayed.

Technical: The custom mob was a bit overpowered in my opinion. I had to drop down a few difficulty settings because I got slaughtered in the first mission by the VALs. They enjoy a brutal synergy created by the buffs/debuffs of kinetics, and the endurance sapping powers of their attacks. As a tanker, I had my toggles collapse more than a few times, and found myself defenseless and quickly mezzed once that happened. I think you’d be well off adding one or two more VAL types, perhaps easy melee ones for variety and to make the mob more balanced.

Grammar/Spelling: No problems I could see.

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Alright. My arcs are #1152 and #114284. Have fun!

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I reviewed arc number 114284 on my Ice/EM tanker.

Lazy Man’s Review: 4 starts, well-written, a few plot issues, good use of custom foes.

Detailed Review: The Rogue Isles are not a good place to try and be a hero. From a tyrannical government, state-sponsored super villains, and a host of other dangerous factions, heroes in the Rogue Isles find themselves in deep trouble very quickly. This arc starts when Desmonda the Glint comes to you with a typical broker mission, a bank heist of diamonds, her favorite thing in the whole wide world.

The heist goes smoothly, with security noticeably absent due to a called-in bomb threat. Guarding the bank vault however, is a group of Outcasts talking about how they’re the newest heroes in town. After you brutally beat them down and crush their hopes of heroism, you find out that they’ve already moved the diamonds out of the bank to their base. Before you can find out anymore information, a clue tells you a small army of police and Arachnos forces are coming to take you down, so you leave quickly.

Confused about the mutant gang turning into wannabe heroes and distraught over losing a big score of diamonds, Desmonda hatches a plan with you to stage a kidnapping and tip of the Outcasts. Once they try and stop the kidnapping, you’ll beat the tar out of them and interrogate them for information. Being an egocentric diva, Desmonda plans for you to kidnap Cap Au Diable’s biggest celebrity, Desmonda the Glint! When you get to her opulent penthouse in Cap Au Diable, she’s guarded by a detachment of Longbow who you make short work of. The Outcasts show up right on cue, led by the Human Torch poser, Firestone. After the obligatory beat down, Firestone tells you the diamonds were taken out of the bank and are being kept in the Outcasts lair in Bloody Bay. But, he’s quick to explain that this isn’t stealing because the diamonds are being used to help the poor and downtrodden.

Desmonda has used her contacts in Arachnos to secure a Flyer to take you to Bloody Bay. When you hit the ground, you find yourself caught in the middle of a fight between the Circle of Thorns and the Outcasts. After beating up some Outcasts, you come upon the leader of the Thorn contingent, the evil mage Taramex explains to you that the diamonds were actually mystical totems being used by the Circle. He’s willing to trade you real diamonds for the mystical ones.

Jumping to accept Taramex’s lucrative deal, you head into the Outcasts underground lair. Aided by a few Spectral Demons sent by the Circle of Thorns, you leave a path of destruction throughout the base. The faux diamonds are kept in a crate, but it’s locked and you don’t want to break it for fear of damaging the mystical totems. So you soldier on deeper into the base and defeat a Shivan named Jiggles, who seems to be under the control of the Outcasts. After you defeat the Shivan, you can fish the key to the crate out of his ectoplasmic remains.

All that’s left now is to make the trade with Taramex, mystical stones for real diamonds. You head to the meeting point expecting a double-cross, but are pleasantly surprised by a last ditch attack by the Outcasts. Fighting them off alongside Taramex’s minions, you confront their leader, Tunguska. Tunguska combines mutant powers with additional mutations given from the Bloody Bay meteors. He’s a tough customer, especially backed to the hilt by controlled Shivans and loyal Outcast flunkies. He goes down however, and you make the tradeoff with Teramax and head back to a very happy Desmonda the Glint.


Story: Very solid plot. Most things make a lot of sense. I especially enjoyed the use of the Circle of Thorns which reflected their canonical interest in the Bloody Bay meteors. There a few things I didn’t understand, the biggest issue was why the Outcasts were becoming heroes and why they were doing it in the Rogue Isles. They’re a Paragon City street gang, and I think you should explain why they’re heroes and what they’re doing in Cap Au Diable. I understand that they’re protecting the Bloody Bay citizens, but I just think it could be explained better.

My other issue was in the second mission. It doesn’t make sense for Longbow to be guarding Desmonda the Glint. Longbow is a semi-governmental militia group that’s trying to undermine Lord Recluse’s regime and is occupying part of the Nerva Archipelago. Other than covert operations, they have no presence in Cap Au Diable, and even they did, they’d be trying to arrest/kill a criminal broker rather than protect her. I’d suggest replacing with the Rogue Isles Police. They’d be more than willing to protect a wealthy celebrity with ties to Arachnos.

Technical: The custom adversaries were balanced extremely well, and they felt just like fighting another member of the Outcasts. The Cthonic is in the “all custom characters” faction by accident, I’d suggest fixing that. Also, the unannounced defeat all in mission 4 is very, very annoying. It frustrated me a great deal, and should be changed or at least announced by the contact in the mission briefing.

Grammar/Spelling: No problems that my grammar-retarded mind could perceive.

Are you tired of the withering criticism poured onto your arcs by reviewers like Venture, LaserJesus, and other so-called "elites" who've never left their ivory tower filled with "tropes" and "themes?"

(What the hell are tropes anyways? I sure as hell never heard of them here in the real world.)

Well, if you're sick of these self-anointed critics tearing apart arcs for no good reason, I have a solution for you. Let me be the Mir-Hossein Mousavi to their Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They want to wipe your arc off the map because it has no right to exist, I just want to conquer and pillage it a little bit.

Joking aside, this is my arc review thread. I'll do my best to keep current on it and provide constructive criticism along with a fair assessment. I'm probably a gentler reviewer than Venture, but don't expect five starts just for creating a custom group, I am looking for a good story.

I'll offer a brief plot summary with my review, and then breakdown three characteristics: storyline, mechanics, grammar/spelling (I'm not good at this either, but I'll point out glaring errors.) After this breakdown I'll give a star rating.

Submissions are first come first serve, if something is too hard I won't complete it and won't review it, merely just post that I couldn't finish it.

I think I'm actually going to bow out of this. Sorry, but I don't think I can make the commitment that a team like this requires. I don't want to start and then bail out halfway through.

Best of luck.

Well, I've made William Bradford, a mercenary/pain domination mastermind. He's specced out with the costume and is ready for an invite.

What can we use to contact you in game? Is there a global channel yet for Magnolia?

I'm probably roll the mastermind, don't have any in the high levels.

I'd love to do this, and would be open to all ideas besides the VEAT one since I have no level 50 villains.

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/signed

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This.

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The Oblivion Lens 91897
Rating 4 Stars

I ran this arc with a lvl 50 Thugs/Poi MM on diff 3.

Overall this is a very good arc. It has a well written story and good custom critters. Contact dialogue is good and there are a variety of enemies to kill. Missions flow together well. Custom critters were tough and fun to kill but not ridiculous. Final EB is very tough, but there is a strong disclaimer before hand, so its all good there.

Mission 1 kill CoT, rescue guy, kill Boss. Fine typical CoX mish.
Mission 2 Custom critters look good. Hilfe looks great. I didn't like Kampher; that head looked weird on that body. Dark powers are tough, but fit the story and look of the critters.
Mission 3 Council, rescue Tophat, again another fine mish.
Mission 4 contact says ". . . as much as might kill . . ." needs the word "it" in that sentence. Good mish. Damn that tar.
Mission 5 has a great battle against a tough EB.

Overall fun and interesting to play. Storyline is good. Custom critters are good. Thanks for the gift at the end, that was cool.

Why not five stars? Feels very much like a stock CoX arc. There are no super cool moments that make you go 'all right!'.

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Can I ask what specifically you liked about the story arc? I only ask because the other review thread gave it 2 starts because of the "plot hole filled" story arc. You might have played it after I fixed the more egregious plot holes though.

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Arc #91897: The Oblivion Lens
Rating: 2 stars
The short of it: Custom faction with annoying powers, plot issues

Plot Overview

Azuria tells you that a recent raid by the Legacy Chain on a Circle of Thorns stronghold went badly, and that they need to be rescued. Upon entering, apparently only one Legacy Chain member, Arcanist Sullivan, survived. After you rescue him from his captors, you both continue on to defeat the head mage, who is carrying a dark lens of an unknown purpose. Upon your return to Azuria, she says that MAGI will take a look at it. A few days later (apparently) she talks to you again, saying that everyone at MAGI collectively shrugged in regards to the lens. The only thing they could find were references to it in a tome by an ancient German sorceror, which explained that it was something called the Oblivion Lens, and it opens portals to an alternate dimension called the Nachtwelt. Since nobody at MAGI (including Azuria, who's supposedly one of the most skilled sorcerors in the world) could figure anything about it, they charter a boat to send it to Europe so a scholar there can look at it, instead of saving time and money by flying the scholar to Paragon City. Big surprise, the boat is now dead in the water and not responding to radio transmissions. You are teleported (wait, what? Why didn't they just teleport the scholar there and save a ton of time?) to the ship to find that it is overrun by shadow monsters who look like the pictures from the tome. (though I don't really ever recall being shown the tome) After killing the creatures, you can't find the lens.

After you return to Azuria with the bad news, she tells you that the creatures are called Nachtkrieger. She says that she may know some people in the Midnight Club who might know something that can help. Unfortunately, she was wrong. The midnight club, though they have mastered time travel, can't figure out anything about this mysterious lens. Apparently the only person in the world who can figure it out is a man who calls himself Tophat. Tophat is a wizard for hire who has apparently worked for every villain group on the planet. He was too greedy with the Council, however, and they are now going to break his kneecaps. The Legacy Chain wants to pay you back for helping with the Circle of Thorns, so they come along with you. When you're teleported into the base, the teleport screws up and the Legacy Chain are scattered across the base. You find them battling the Council, and eventually rescue Tophat and bring him out with you. Tophat is able to divine the location of the lens, which has somehow ended up in the Rogue Isles. Lord Recluse won't let heroes into the isles, but apparently is willing to let you in to retrieve the lens. You do, and Arachnos soldiers clean up the remaining Nachtkreiger.

Tophat has also provided MAGI with the rituals required to deactivate the lens, and they perform it at an FBSA stronghold. Nobody thought to guard the mystics, however, as the lens summons more Nachtkreiger which begin slaughtering them. Azuria tells you that only the altar needs to survive for the ritual to finish, and you head off to stop the Nachtkreiger once and for all. The leader of the monsters, named Nachtkreiger Herr is there, and after battling him and protecting the altar, the lens is deactivated and the threat of Nachtkreiger invasion has passed.

Mechanics

I ran through this mission with my level 50 Kat/SR Scrapper and my level 38 AR/EM Blaster. The SR scrapper had absolutely zero problems dealing with any of the enemies. My blaster however, did not fare so well. The main problem with the custom faction is the fact that both minions and LTs have dark miasma. Actually, even if it was just the minions I'd still have a problem. Dark Pit is like caltrops from hell, and when you have 2 or more on you, and don't have some sort of slow resistance or good defense, that -res will tear you apart. I would take out the dark miasma minions for sure, and while I'm not sure what you have for a boss, maybe the dark miasma would be best saved for a boss instead of LTs to make sure that ridiculous stacking only happens on large teams, which would be better equipped to handle it. Aside from that, the map for the 5th Column mission seems a bit big for what it does.

Story

The problem with missions where "A simple thing becomes something huge" is that you have to ask yourself if you really need the simple thing in the first place. Here, the Circle of Thorns mission seems completely extraneous. It's never described why the Circle even has the Lens in the first place, or what their plans were with it. In fact, the Circle never even shows up again after the first mission. The arc would be pretty much exactly the same if the first mission was the tanker mission. The 5th Column arc also seems pretty unnecessary, if you consider the multiple plotholes. I'm sorry, but I cannot be expected to believe that the entirety of MAGI and the Midnight Club can't figure out anything about this lens, but some random guy who learned his powers from Arachnos' Mu troopers could. Like I mentioned earlier, Azuria's said to be one of the most highly skilled mystics in the world, and the Midnight Club has mastered time travel. And if they did need to bring in an expert from Germany, they could use their fancy teleportation instead of shipping the dangerous artifact on a boat. And finally, Arachnos would never let a hero come in and grab such a powerful artifact. He'd take it for himself and try to get Scirocco and Ghost Widow to figure out how it works. Not saying that he'd succeed, but he'd at least try. And how did the lens end up in the Rogue Isles anyhow? Too many dangling plot points and not enough explanation.

As a side note, $name is used too much in some of the contact dialogue. Towards the end of the arc I felt like Azuria had tourette's syndrome and her tick was to say my name.

Final Thoughts

The premise isn't terrible, just poorly executed. With some rewrites to fix the plotholes and cut out the fluff, it could turn into something good. However, right now it feels like nothing in the arc had any real purpose at all. The Dark Miasma critters need to be fixed, but otherwise the custom group isn't bad.

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Thanks for the critique. I actually laughed when I read your part about "why didn't MAGI just teleport the gem." I honestly didn't even think about that.

The plot holes are glaring, and annoying. To only defend one of them, Tophat is a specialist in darkness based black magic. The Midnighters and MAGI are not specialized in black magic (such as summoning conquering armies from another dimension) nor darkness based magic. Tophat is, and that is why he's being consulted.

The other plotholes are pretty inexcusable, and I'm going to try to rework them based on your feedback, and that of others. I might switch the cargo ship to a warehouse where the lens is being stored.

Other feedback has been actually complimentary of the Arachnos and Council missions. The initial mission against the Circle of Thorns might get changed, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what to change it to. Do you have any suggestions?

The mission in my signature has way less than 100 plays, 3 at last count. Any feedback you could give would be wonderful, especially when it comes to the custom group.

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I wouldn't mind hosting a story arc of yours if you need some more room. Although you could ask to get pohsyb to Dev Choice your arcs since he likes them so much.

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Only 1 dev choice per account now.

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To me, this represents a simply bizarre policy because it hurts the best writers among us. I really enjoy playing the dev choice arcs because they're the best the mission architect has to offer, those are the people who should be encouraged to make more and more arcs.

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It's possible that I had started the arc prior to you making the changes... I don't believe any changes made after someone starts an arc affect any players already playing it.

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Unfortunately (for me) it isn't that, I just went on the mission editor and remade changes I thought I already did. I don't know what I did wrong, but knowing me I probably just hit the wrong button, or maybe I only changed the local version.

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Not trying to be a [censored], but my arc is next in line to be reviewed. And with zero plays currently, it could certainly use it.


Arc Name: The Oblivion Lens
Arc ID: 91897
Faction: Heroic
Time: 45 minutes.
Synopsis: What starts out as a battle against the Circle of Thorns turns into something far more dire when a mysterious artifact is recovered. (Does contain an arch villain in the last mission.)

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I played this arc between last night and this evening... first of all, I would say your time estimate is significantly off... over all I think it took a bit over two hours to complete solo on my level 50 defender.

Mission 1 played fine, my only complaint was that the arcanist ally tended to be overly aggressive, frequently aggroing adjacent mobs. You need to be a little more careful with comma usage in your text, but that's a little thing.

Mission 2... Okay this was the one I struggled with, for a few reasons: Defeat alls in those damned cargo ships are lousy at the best of times... but some of your custom villains have shadow fall... a stealth power that made finding the ones I missed a royal pain.

Unlike the other commenter, I did not find the custom mobs balanced... one of the minions, I swear, was tank based and way more trouble than any minion should have been, and the other... well, tar patch gets old when you've got four stacked on you. The problem is that with only a few types of mobs at each level, you end up with way too many who stack the same debuff or buff... I've found that adding one more purely combat oriented mob to the mob level with the debuffs/buffs dilutes this enough to make it more playable - something you might consider. That said, the lieutenants seemed fairly reasonable in terms of difficulty level, it was only the minions that felt overly strong.

Mission 3 seemed fine to me and I didn't struggle with it at all, though you continue to have a number of frustrating spelling and grammar errors. This is unfair of me... my degree is in language and literature, so they may just jump out at me more, but there are definitely a goodly number of them in there.

Mission 4 brought the spelling and grammar errors home for me, even though the mission itself was easy and largely stealthable. Throughout this mission (and possibly earlier, this is just where it jumped out) you spelled "Rogue Isles" as "Rouge Isles" - I can't claim to be free of such errors myself... I just found I had misspelled villain in several places in my arc... but no one is truly good at proofing their own text... find someone who can actually go through the text file of your arc and find some of the spelling and grammar issues for you, because you're likely to miss them yourself just because you're too close to the text.

Mission 5 clearly indicates the need for allies... which is great, because I think most builds will need the help. I was able to solo the EB, though it was a close battle.

Overall, I think the arc was decent, though I'd definitely recommend giving the power sets and difficulty of the custom mob minions another look. Also there are a number of spelling and grammar errors that really need fixing. I'd also recommend going in and making the titles of each mission intro an alternate color... I believe the devs use the "sky blue" for this... just as a sort of finishing touch.

The custom mobs killed this one for me... while I survived, being stuck in multiple stacked debuff zones created by the all too plentiful minions made the missions painful. That the mission introducing those custom mobs was a kill all, and that they had a stealth power just made it worse. I think this arc could be good with some changes, so I didn't curse you with a bad rating ... send me a tell if you make the changes and I'll try it again.

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My arc for review:
The Gorgon Maneuver
Arc Id # 71797
Faction: Villian
Creator Global/Forum Name: Koldoon
Difficulty Level: somewhat difficult (EB in 3rd mission, AV in 5th mission - also custom enemies make the first and fifth missions more difficult)
Synopsis: When the Snakes find themselves between Arachnos and a strange new menace, they seek out the most capable of villians to resolve the problem. Beset by Ophidians, a strange race of serpents that walk as men, the immortal Euryale summons the Destined Ones into a strikeforce - suitable for all levels.
Estimated Time to Play: soloed in two and half hours, two teams of 6-7 players playing it this past weekend finished in 3 hours and 4 hours respectively

I tried to make this arc really feel like a strikeforce, even subtitling it in the mission intros as "The Gorgon Maneuver, Euryale's Strikeforce"

I'm promoting it with this poster, which I hope doesn't break any rules (posting as link only):
Link to Image of poster for The Gorgon Maneuver

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Thanks for the feedback. To address the typos and grammar problems, they were picked up on in another review and I really thought I fixed them. Particularly the Rogue Isles vs. Rouge Isles issue. I am sorry this isn't the case, I don't know if it's a problem with the autosave that I use or I just failed to find all of the typos. Historically, I have always been horrible with grammar/spelling, and any more specific examples of glaring errors that you could give me would be very much appreciated.

The best feedback by far though is that which you have given me on the custom enemy group. I had some friends test it when it was still in its infancy (they actually found a few REALLY bad grammar mistakes that I did correct,) and one of their complaints was that the mobs played to similar to one another. If I can fit in the file space though, I will put in another melee combat mob. The stealth mob was another thing I thought I fixed along with the Rouge Isle problem, I guess I didn't and will remedy that posthaste.

Thanks a lot for the feedback, I really appreciate it and your overly-generous star ranking.

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I've decided that I'm going to start reviewing people's arcs, and I'm going to do it in this thread instead of starting another one. (We've got like what, 7? 8 review threads?) I'm not going to look back through the thread and try to figure out who's been reviewed yet, who's on people's queues, and all that. If you'd like me to review an arc, post it or PM it to me or what have you.

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The Oblivion Lens can always use some feedback, as right now it has been played by a total of one person.


Arc Name: The Oblivion Lens
Arc ID: 91897
Faction: Heroic
Synopsis: What starts out as a battle against the Circle of Thorns turns into something far more dire when a mysterious artifact is recovered. ((Contains an AV/EB in the last mission.))

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Arc Name: The Oblivion Lens
Arc ID: 91897
Faction: Heroic
Time: 45 minutes.
Synopsis: What starts out as a battle against the Circle of Thorns turns into something far more dire when a mysterious artifact is recovered. (Does contain an arch villain in the last mission.)

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I played this last night with my level 31 plant/storm controller. The arc was solo friendly except for the EB at the end (which you are warned about). I had to use a warwolf and a snowman but defeated him.

The custom group is interesting and well thought out. They are defeatable and seemed balanced.

The biggest issues are minor typos and spelling errors. Overall this is a fun arc that's playable in one sitting.
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I have two arcs published. This one may be the more interesting:

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Arc Name: Creepy Crawlers
Arc ID: 82553

Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: Gromar
Difficulty Level: Moderate (one encounter can be rough for squishies).
Level: 41 - 52.
Solo or team?: Solo friendly. Due to the map used large teams aren't recommended.
Synopsis: "This episode of Paragon Theater is a horror story. Watch it ALONE or with a few friends. (The emphasis is on story and atmosphere.)"
Keywords: story, ghost story, horror
Number of missions: 1
Estimated Time to Play: 1 hour at most.

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Thanks a lot for the feedback, I tried to proofread the arc for typos, but it's clear that I didn't do a good enough job. Were their any specific examples of typos or grammar errors that stood out at you?

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I think mine got skipped...

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The Great Diamond Heist (ArcID: 96169)

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I just ran this arc, and I have to say I really enjoyed the writing before and after the missions. Well thought out, and well written. No standout gramatical or spelling errors. I liked the concept, liked the npc's involved etc. I got to the last mission and I was a little dissappointed, I enjoyed it, but the creativity slowed down. I was surprised by the names of the guards, guard 1, guard 2 etc. I thought you could have been more original there.

I also had an issue with the Super Brutes at the end, it says to avoid them, which when I first saw them I did not. I paid for it, I was on a 50 brute on vicious and still they hit me for 75% of my hp with one hit. Was crazy. I just didn't think they fit the rest of the story. I rated you 4 stars and sent you a comment based on that.

My Arc is #25911
"So you want to join the Agency?" if anyone wants to give it a go

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Not trying to be a [censored], but my arc is next in line to be reviewed. And with zero plays currently, it could certainly use it.


Arc Name: The Oblivion Lens
Arc ID: 91897
Faction: Heroic
Time: 45 minutes.
Synopsis: What starts out as a battle against the Circle of Thorns turns into something far more dire when a mysterious artifact is recovered. (Does contain an arch villain in the last mission.)

/signed, this is a great idea.