GlaziusF

If it helps any, it doesn't sit well with me either?

But it's been almost a year. At this point it's just easier to work around.

Well, there are two important factors about demons. First, they all like to close to melee, which makes it easier to only handle one spawn of them at a time. Second, they don't fly.

The very last thing I took down on this map was a Moirae archer with about 3/4 health who was just returning from her flight to Who Knows Where, TN.

Apparently there's a bug with the Midnight Club map where you can occasionally spawn in under the level or something. I haven't seen it myself, but I imagine it's a bit of a dealbreaker.

Well, with the "ladder cave" setup you have going on the map, it's entirely possible for a patrol to elude your line of sight if they take the right (or, I guess, wrong) route, and then pace themselves right into a blind corner and stick there. It's entirely possible because it actually happened.

Well, there is this portal right in sight of the entrance to the map you used. Like I said, you could probably just hear her being dragged through it.

That is why I am here!

Well, it's not that.

There are two bits to battle dialogue, "starting" dialogue for both sides, and "battle joined" dialogue for both sides. But they both play at the same time -- or at least they do right now. Having either side of the battle say in their "battle joined" dialogue that a new hero/villain has shown up to help doesn't make sense, given that the battle can be around three corners from where I am at the moment.

By all means, leave the battles in, just be aware that on certain common difficulties they'll leave behind a boss (and position them accordingly) and don't write the dialogue assuming that one side of the battle catches sight of the player before it starts.

Several villain-side missions involve beating down or capturing heroes. A lot of times when you do this, Blue Steel shows up and springs them before you even get back to your contact.

Most notably, Westin Phipps' other long arc, the Gunnm homage about Longbow agent Gally Ido and her childhood friend, the rebellious Bane Spider Hugo Figures, ends with, and I quote, "Blue Steel in a clever disguise" breaking everyone out of Arachnos custody.

This has led to the running forum joke that Blue Steel is basically the CoX equivalent of Chuck Norris.

Ha, tell me about it. I've kept in most of mine, just scaled the count back to more reasonable limits.

Review as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a low-40s ice/axe tanker, +0 x2 with bosses on.

---

So this is a Three Strikes And You're Drakule contingency? Diabolical. I suppose I'll have to do something about it before I have to chop my own head off.

And the only way to do it is to take it from the people who are trying to kill me. ...I wonder why they're not just using this? Does the ancient brotherhood of Drakule hunters only validate your parking if you actually kill Drakule?

Also I should probably get an opening clue for whatever spell Heksung puts on me.

...Ninja dudebro. Is the spell an ancient relic of the lost kingdom of Coldonesdry?

Anyway, he's illusion/DBlast, the huntress I have to off is Kat/EBlast, including a nova in desperation mode. Nice touch.

Of course, the system text when she falls seems to hint that she's going to be a future antagonist. Have to keep that franchise ticking!

The order seems somewhat subdued and conventional, though. Maybe toss in a couple of patrols or something -- I really like von Heksung's overblown style, but it doesn't really come out.

No clue for the ritual scroll seems a little odd, though.

---

In order to kill Drakule, I must first kill Drakule. Very Zen.

Another rampage through a club. Well, one does what one must. The EB at the end is a psy/dark dual blaster, but his fatal flaw is mistaking passive aggression for the actual sort.

At the end, I now prosess Drakule's heart. I hope it doesn't attack.

---

Oh. System text from the first mission came back to bite me a little. Though it seems odd. You'd think the hunters wouldn't use so many bladed weapons if blood was so dangerous to them.

The busy message is a laugh, though.

Anyway, my spawn serve as a workable distraction up to the point where I round on their leader. Kat/DBlast, with Blackstar on low health. I wonder if they have all the desperation moves working now.

---

And now to purge my mind of the Drakule that lurks within. It's an Oranbega map, but it looks to be a pretty small one. Clearly Drakule has already begun to corrupt me.

My fear seems to be a normal death mage, with an escort of trembling CoT.

He acts as the gatekeeper for more mental aspects, all of whom pop in once his entire enemy group is subdued. (maybe it should just be him?)

Sorrow and Doubt are Ghosts and Hydra - again, especially for Sorrow (whose escorts can just run off into a corner and get stuck) they should probably be boss-only.

Rage is a Cimeroran, and Frustration... aw snap. I have dudebro on my mind.

The Drakule Within is a psy assault/DArmor EB. He summons an ambush haflway through which just means more defense for me.

When I drop him, he pops Soul Transfer to get back up, which unfortunately autostuns me and I get conked by his minions, meaning I wake up outside the MA with the mission completed but Drakule still in my mind. You should probably just turn that power off.

---

Storyline - ***. I think I might rate this higher if I'd never played the Drakule arcs. Heksung keeps up the over-the-top cheesiness I've come to expect form him, but the story is very serious, even dark at points. Killing off one of my fellow victims... that's just cold, man. All the other missions are played fairly straight, too. (You could probably just have the third mission be to drop one of the past brides who just completely overslept.)

Design - ****. Aside from the whole "if getting blood on you is a bad thing, why are these hunters using bladed weapons?" angle, the customs were pretty reasonable. The missions were pretty empty, aside from some cliche battles and the required boss fights. The last mission was the busiest in that regard, which was fitting, but missions 2 and 3 were completely optional save for the boss fight. I might have liked to have a ranged ally in the last mission representing my own willpower or something -- it's nice to find your whole mind isn't against you.

Gameplay - ****. Even with the occasional novas the bosses were a good challenge. The only off move was the end boss's immediate revenge, which could lead to the scenario I described.

Well, that and the psychological spawns needing the entire entourage, which had me tracking around in search of what turned out to be one of the ghosts that had run away down a long corridor.

Detail - ***. The first mission would have been a bit better with some comedic reason why the Drakule hunters wouldn't just perform this ritual on me. The missions overall would have been a little more enjoyable with some incidental humorous setpieces, like the spawn trying out a recipe for soy-based hemoblood in the club or similar nonsense. More clues than just some dude's still beating heart would also have helped to lighten the mood a bit.

I don't know how you are on space, but it'd also be nice to see the figments of my imagination with their own enemy groups and names. Ninja dudebro could probably be "Despair", as he seems to be an incarnation of a lack of hope, and "Doubt" might actually be better as "Pride" or similar, seeing turning into a world-conquering monster as a positive development.

Overall - ***. This would probably be a star higher if I rated it on its own merits. But as an installment in the more light-hearted Drakule series it's a capable work but not very light-hearted.

Review done as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project, pulled from the on-site randomizer.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a high 20s mind/kin controller, +0 x1 with bosses on.

---

The contact laments what the kids these days call magic and sends me back in the day.

(She calls me a Magic hero, and then goes on to lament magic practitioners. I know about $origin, but is the rest of it conditional? I'm curious about that.)

What does it mean to be a hero?

No, seriously, it's up there in the title bar but with all this infighting I can't see anything that might apply. Looks like the proto-Midnight Squad fighting the Inquisition and the Cabal.

Ah, okay. Looks like they've found someone who weighs the same as a duck. I turn them into newt-brains. They don't get better.

And there's the aspect of the pillar my contact sent. Looks like the Inquisition noticed it, and they and the incoming ambush attempt to shatter it. Fortunately my middle name is "lockdown".

---

Damn. I can fix all this infighting in the space of one mission?

Oh. Okay. Negotiations.

"High priestess"? Odd title for somebody in the Cabal. You could go with "respected elder", or "leader", which is what Katie calls Mary MacComber.

Anyway, one quick sweep later in the root cave, we've got somebody for the moot.

---

Peachy. The Legacy Chain have gone all puritan. Again. Well, might as well storm in and rearrange some heads from the inside.

My contact's on the first floor. She says there's some kind of attack in progress, but I don't see anything new on the navbar.

Also she's just a witness. Pity. I love passin' out speed boost to allies. They just zip all over the place.

Oh. There's the attack. A silent ambush, which pancakes me while I'm alt-tabbed. That's one of the reasons ambushes have dialogue: to let you know not to do that.

Looks like the Inquisition have either survived to the modern day or all got taken over by Oranbega. I'm not willing to rule out either one yet.

I suppose a Herald Man would just be redundant, wouldn't it?

Anyway, I'm expecting my Legacy buddy to chip in, but nope. He's noncombat too.

...a bump on the head, description? Really? It'd make sense if these Heralds could somehow seal somebody's ability to do magic.

Anyway, the Earth Legacy's out now.

---

Aw hell. A 30-minute timed mission with three escorts in Oranbe-

No? Everything went fine?

Except now the Midnighter Club is under siege. Naturally.

The leader talks about finding their quarry, but I have no clue what he means.

Also I actually have no clues thus far, and this is mission 4.

So the Heralds have found the source of druidic magic and now they're going deer-hunting.

---

I'm not quite as optimistic about things as my contact is. We'll see how people behave when there isn't a giant obvious threat to huck spells at.

Regardless, allies are fun to have. Let's mission!

Huh. An abandoned lab? Was this some sort of safehouse, or has he gone to ground?

One problem with allies: as a mind controller pretty much nothing attacks so the ally AI doesn't kick in either.

"The Horned God" is not actually a Tuatha as I was expecting, but... a Midnighter with a stock description. His dialogue does, however, confirm my suspicions about my contact.

Who all of a sudden confesses a love spanning generations? That's... out of nowhere, and not in the good way.

You know what I was curious about? How you can be the foundations of an entire religious tradition and at the same time basically be made of tissue paper.

---

Storyline - ****. The only big problem I have with the story is actually the last mission's tie back to the first mission. On the face of it, it provides some nice symmetry, but here's the problem: the thing that unites the Triskelion at the end is the threat from the Heralds to one of the pillars of their magical tradition. But in the first mission, among all the internecine fighting, are the Heralds, threatening one of the pillars of their magical tradition! Did I just cause this whole mess in the first place by getting her free before anybody realized what was going on? (Also you'd think the Heralds might have picked a slightly earlier time when the Midnight Squad was all fusion-bombed to come out of hiding.)

Also, the secret love out of nowhere thing feels... uh, like it comes out of nowhere.

Design - ***. This isn't based on the enemy design, which is pretty distinctive and only really a bit of a head fake in that all the modern Heralds have flaming green eyes, which is a prominent feature of the Circle of Thorns. The power sets are pretty reasonable, too - really, it just felt like fighting Council, to a certain extent.

Not based on the map selection either. People have reported problems with the Midnight Squad map, spawning under the world and such, but I haven't had problems yet. Knock on wood. The maps are pretty reasonable for what they're supposed to be.

The problem is that this arc paints itself into a corner with objectives. Mission 3 involves escorting a Legacy Chain boss through the length of a map, with some bosses popping up to make the trip interesting. He can't be targeted -- I can see why, because he's basically the pillar on which the Legacy Chain's goodwill rests -- but it also means he can't help against a boss gauntlet. I would like the mission better if it had a premise that would let this guy help me fight.

And Mission 5 involves the two crucial and fragile pillars of the Triskelion's magical traditions. One fights as a minion, the other not at all, and there aren't even any boss spawns. The Cabal and Legacy Chain bosses help fight, but against a completely trivial resistance. I can see why this would happen, too, why there wouldn't be some end elite boss or whatever -- it wouldn't make much narrative sense for the pillars to bite it as a result of casual area-effect damage or whatever. But because of those mechanical consequences of the premise, the last mission seems like a bit of an anticlimax, more of an extended cutscene than an important fight.

Gameplay - ****. The third mission has the potential to throw more bosses in your way than the rest of the missions put together, and it gives you two people to lead around who can't help you at all.

Also, the patrols and fights in the last mission and the fights in the first mission have a way of ranging over into you. It's generally not too bad, but given that this can bring the multiple bosses in the first mission down on you, maybe you could tone them down to a bunch of lieutenants and a single boss.

Detail - ***. No clues to speak of. (No description on the Horned God, either, but that's minor.) This story handles most of its exposition in the contact briefings, and while it is pretty simple I'd like to find the occasional thing like the Midnight Squad roster the Heralds were searching for, or any information tying the Heralds to the Inquisition, even if it's just like notable pieces of iconography.

I did like the fake-out in the fourth mission, but I disliked the lack of clues even more.

Overall - ***. An arc with a fairly solid story and some simple but functional enemy designs, which could stand to toss a clue or two my way, and perhaps needs to be rethought a bit so that the plot can have less mundane mechanical consequences.

Perhaps you should have decided to want different things, then. It doesn't much help any impression you might have wanted to leave that Abigail was important that she doesn't even merit any screen time.

You've never heard of plot cancer? It's a terrible and tragic illness that affects as many as 1% of fictional characters in any given year. Symptoms are generally mild, but always include a sense of imminent and inevitable death.

Notable recent sufferers include Peter Parker's Aunt May in the One More Day special.

And that's the sense I got from the busy message for the first mission: that my contact was going to die at the end of this arc and that I wouldn't be able to stop it.

The green text in general, and particularly the parts where it says I don't say anything. That's rather taken for granted any time I talk to a contact and he or she moves on to the next paragraph. Why bother calling it out? It seems excessive.

The Anathema behaved like normal captives, but some time after I rescued them they called out plaintively in the distance. That's not something you can do with normal captives, and I haven't seen it before. I was wondering if you did it with a pacifist ally set to move to the nearest door, and used their "ally stranded" text.

No, I don't think so. Reason being, I can't find a definition for it. (Except insofar as it's a last name.)

I also don't think the Lost are a subdivision of a larger religious group. They're their own little thing, based on the utopian literature distributed to them by their Rikti overlords.

Regular people who matter-of-factly accept that certain members of their family will be chopped up to be spare parts for their Rikti overlords?

It looks like a mistake if you get the same clue from both sources.

Oh, that was completely avoidable. "The contents are grisly" is nearly identical to "you are horrified", but the former one doesn't assume an active reaction.

Because of bad writing? It's an amazingly universal explanation.

And you can be psychic without necessarily throwing out psychic blasts or even having mind control. An ice blast/empathy custom could easily have -- narratively, at least -- psychic talent.

"Mental Wave Manipulation", "The Broadcaster's Handbook", "The Sociology of Urban Riots".

...for what, to explain the presence of identical bosses with identical dialogue?

You know what gets me in a bad mood? Just having to find a glowie in a room after the pattern of that one with the hole in the floor.

When the glowie is small, blends in with the background, is intermittently invisible, and I need to find it on a timer? That is the express train to Frustration City, my friend.

First hostages in the caves, second hostages back in the tunnels and the office. "Middle" is a very generous location, and the back-to-front order of the objectives very seldom has anything to do with the order they appear in the objective list.

Well, yes, they appeared on the map, and did a nice job seeming innocuous. But they didn't show up in the navbar -- neither, for that matter, did the Grimm Fairy.

Mission Fail on a timed mission also means "you didn't complete the required objectives in time". It's entirely possible, especially in a modestly-sized team, to get bogged down fighting the Lost and not actually rescue the hostages, in which case the Mission Fail dialogue is completely wrong.

I've seen Mission Fail on timed missions refer to not actually undertaking the mission in question; this is how it's used in the villain arcs where you can fail at the end to get a different souvenir.

Well, it can hardly be because she re-evaluated him as a person. She found and read his journal over the course of mission 2, after all. What's happened since the start of mission 3 is that he's tried to trap us in an exploding building along with his followers. That doesn't seem like the sort of thing that improves someone's opinion.

Atlas Park has Atlas Plaza, Galaxy City has Freedom Court, Kings Row has the beerslam, Freedom Plaza. I didn't bother to step outside and refresh my memory, and I mixed up at least the last two.

Also, it doesn't matter what my hero knows. If I don't know it, I'm still going to be lost.

Confession time: when the decoys showed up and popped Aim, I ate my entire supply of insps and hard-focused on Ishmael, figuring I'd get him down at least before my horrible death. It wasn't until after he and his entourage were down that I realized the decoys were actually decoys and didn't actually have any powers to speak of.

If you want people in a contemplative mood, having a bunch of customs showing up and popping Aim is not the way to get them there.

Also, the final mission had a double-digit number of clues, which showed up in an essentially arbitrary order, half of which needed to be put together at the end to make a coherent speech. By the time I reached the final boss, my motivation for actually opening up the clue window and scanning it to see where the new clue showed up and if it was actually immediately relevant? Quite possibly negative.

The word "arrest" also figures in two of the plaques. (Perez and Galaxy).

In context? Yes.

Yes, the city put up plaques to commemorate the location where someone understood someone else, and not where a grave threat to the entire city was brought into legal custody.

"What if Spider-Man was an intellectual comic?" is not intended as a serious proposal for the direction of the book.

Yeah, it was a professional production by an established playwright. The known elements of CoH history are often squirreled away in obscure places, and I have to say I've seen a lot more MA arcs that get things wrong accidentally than deliberately and baldfacedly present contrary information in the service of a deliberate point.

So when I see something that doesn't match up, with no statement by the author one way or another? Odds are it was a mistake.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that somebody would want to play a minor footnote to history.

I did that in a handly little thing I call "the next paragraph". Let's go to the tape!

"For all my contact talked up the ancillary contact -- Isaac's sister Abigail -- she was a preface to the first mission and then never seen again. Aside from the single hole in the floor, the fourth mission looks in even better shape than the third, mostly because of the different color palette. (I was expecting something abandoned, but admittedly I've got no idea if there are abandoned maps over anything that isn't Rikti caves.) I can't speak to how the "alternate objective" might work, as its apparent mechanism (rescue Grimm Fairy, click some glowies) wasn't acknowledged on the navbar and the mission completed in the original manner before I finished it. And the decoys certainly confused me -- into unnecessarily chasing them all down when the fight to complete the mission was actually one floor back and around some corners."

So, as far as I was concerned, the ancillary contact, the third-into-fourth attempted transition, the alternate completion, and the decoys were all good ideas but couldn't be implemented very well in the limited toolset we currently have to work with in the Architect, and that'll probably continue through to the proposed expansions in Going Rogue.

And you can tell how much of an impression the subsequent appearances made on me. Abigail never even shows up "on stage" in the first place, and afterwards she's only mentioned by proxy.

The navbar is for all kinds of objectives. Even if something's optional for mission completion it can still show up in the navbar, as long as the entries for singular and plural text are both filled out. I've seen it used many times to call attention to things in the mission that bear investigation but aren't actually mandatory for mission completion.

It's not about the game, you just need to play the game in order to get to the next bits? There's something a bit unworkable in there.

Yes, and it's always a huge pain.

The first four solid bomb glowies all showed up in the first room. It's quite a small room (I believe the spots are green on the preview map for what "front" will get you) and if you overflow the front through chained objectives the game will just give up and put them somewhere essentially random.

I don't know what you think "piecemeal" means, but what it actually means is "in pieces or fragments; one piece at a time". I'm not sure how that isn't an accurate description, as they're eight fragments which I get one at a time.

What, the poor fool who's been fed utopian pipe dreams by the Rikti, so as to make a living pile of spare parts sound like a step up, regurgitating the party line? Nice trick if you can pull it, wrecking a fellow's way of life and cutting open his safety net, then getting him to turn round and blame it all on the people you hate.

The overall "replace the bombs, or let the timer run out except you're actually completing the mission in another way" structure is a bit too complicated to contain, just on the face of it, as it's entirely possible that the timer could run out for reasons other than someone collecting, reading, and obeying the clues.

No, I'm pretty sure it was. The green text didn't just write itself.

No, I'm pretty sure the nature of games like Heavy Rain (and we're bundling in, what, Indigo Prophecy here and that's it?) is interactive shower scenes and/or zombies havin' babies.

David Cage is a creepy man with a creepy muse and I'd rather not be voyeur to it, thank you.

Yes, and this is a problem: trying to replicate the idea of Heavy Rain in the City of Heroes mission engine. It's a bit like trying to play Rachmaninoff on a children's xylophone: it doesn't come out entertaining. It hardly even comes out recognizable.

The only verdict I can deliver on Ishmael is death. "Would you kindly" complete the mission, and all that. The story isn't over until he's knocked down for the last time, and I don't even get the satisfaction of twisting the knife, were I so inclined. His fate is out of my hands.

What's the alternative here? Walk away? Then the story just stops until I come back. If I come back. And if I don't, well, then it just never goes anywhere.

And all for the sake of freedom of opinion? That's a laugh. There's only one way for this story to end. I can have whatever opinion I like, and in every case the arc doesn't care.

You're honestly going to say that you didn't write this whole thing intending for people to feel a certain way about the characters and situations involved?

Well, whyever not? You're the one with absolute control here. Even in the case of Heavy Rain, the game's built the track for me. I may flip the switches for the train to run a certain way, but I can't jump the rails.

The Mission Architect has many, many fewer switches, and most of them just wind up looping back into the main track anyway. Why not run the track along a scenic vista, instead of just giving me a canvas and expecting me to make up my own?

Eh, but I've put enough time into this and we've got the mechanical hiccups sorted out. Last arc I ripped into this heavily went on to win HeroCon's first annual Top Architect Arc competition, and that largely unedited, so it's entirely possible that further conversation is going to wind up detrimental.

You mean thermal radiation? Putting two control sets on a lieutenant would just be making it worse. As long as you stay away from Heat Exhaustion and Melt Armor it shouldn't be too bad.

By itself that's no problem. But a mission in intense surroundings with bosses around every corner is a level of heart-pounding luck-popping blue-sucking excitement that doesn't really keep up through the next couple missions.

Yes, I think finding a "why we are burning Nutri-Paste warehouses today" leaflet on the Luddites would be an appropriate way of conveying their sudden focused interest in the foodstuff, rather than a general campaign of destruction.

It's kind of hard to not mess with it when it shows up in a corridor and I don't have any stealth.

I've got a slightly different theory on who King M is, but yes, Aeon works with the Goldbrickers, at least notionally. It would be nice to hear something interesting coming out from the Bricker/Luddite battles, all the same.

Or give the desctructibles more of a guard so they don't depend on finding one guy to aggro.

Yeah, outdoor maps are a bit of a pain in that regard. Seven things, you are bound to run into something after a little while, so it's not just the giant uninteresting slog, but as you increase the number of things on the map you also increase the odds that one of them's going to spawn in some cockamamie out of the way place.

The PTS substation is pretty problematic in this regard. I do criticize the use of canon maps that are a bit on the crap side; I'd light into somebody who used that dang layer cake room for instance.

I'd like to see a reason for this sudden organized push at a specific Aeon Corp product. Ordinarily the Luddites are happy to smash the first thing that comes into view.

Like I said, four bosses in quick succession in a stressful environment is a bit of a rush, but getting that rush in the middle of an arc that ends with a leisurely flight around the PTS substation looking for that last damn objective is a bit of a problem in pacing.

That is why I am here.

They do, yeah. The problem is that you can't be sure they're optional. I'd like the option to turn off ambushes on optional destructibles, but that's probably just a pipe dream.

The first VEAT arc was actually the one I had the most concerns about. This one works fine if you're an Arachnos operative who also happens to be on the Project Destiny list, as it lets you get a little more involved with Arachnos than the rank and file.

Review as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.

@GlaziusF

Playing this as a necro/dark MM. +0 x2 with bosses on.

---

So Arachnos wants a Megamek, and I'm going to have to save it.

I'm not really sure what's so important about it, given that Arachnos has their own giant robot. Or do they cannibalize it for the Jade Spider?

Actually seems to be the MegaMek room. Keen. I find a file and save a scientist (Dr. Stewart), but he doesn't seem to complete the "protect the science team" objective as I might expect.

Deeper in I find another scientist. Science team still not protected.

Weirdly enough, taking out a sky skiff actually completes the objective. I guess as the guy leading the attack dropping him would protect the science team, but the navbar objective should probably be phrased a little differently.

Aw, it's just one of the council caves with a view. Curse you, Reveal! There's a scientist to save in the control room, but the actual boss was in a side passage a little way back. No big deal, really.

The unfortunate thing about mercenaries is they'll defect at the drop of a pocketbook. Fortunately Arachnos has deep pockets so it probably won't be an issue.

---

And now I try to go assert the Council's continued power by proxy. Wonder who's chilling in the tavern?

Family, Warriors, and one of the Mayhem heroes, filling in for a member of the Hess Task Force.

Also a nice Pocket D joke.

(If you want that Mayhem hero to have an escort you need to specify it explicitly; using the default "same as boss" option doesn't work for Paragon Heroes as there aren't any normal enemies in that group.)

Hey, some hero should be carrying this old wedding ring around! Or am I going to find a Warrior boss to plant it on and perpetuate the vicious cycle?

---

So now that there's a power vacuum everybody's going to be angling for a piece of Striga.

I like the way the negotiations are set up here, boss fights with differing escorts. Breaking them all up isn't enough to complete the mission, though; we have to invite the zombies in and then there's a zombie leader to defeat?

Hess's pitch made it sound a little more optional than that. The reaction makes it pretty clear that the zombies start off the old circular firing squad, so maybe you should have him mention that it's going to throw a wrench into everything.

Backtracking to the entrance doesn't find the boss, but I spot some ritual going on at the end of the river and go to investigate.

Oh. Stephanie Peebles. Or a Baen Sidhe, that works too. I guess a storm sorceress would let more people on to her being a Cabal recolor.

There must have been some magic in this old witch hat I found, for when I placed it on my head, I could boss the dead around.

And with everyone thoroughly chastened, it's time to go back to the base for tea and commendations.

Or new harder missions, that's fine too.

---

In the name of asserting Arachnos control, we're going to go stomp Arakhn. I guess another hook in the Council never hurts.

Hess informs me there may be other infiltrators on-site. Keen enough.

I encounter a dark dwarf named Event Horizon. Can't help remember "Astoria in D Minor", though to be fair there are only so many interesting names for cosmological phenomena.

Add another line to the extensive list of things Jenkins has messed up. Lambert and Stone are less familiar names, though.

Arakhn's deep purple clue text doesn't show up well in the clue window against the dark environment, but the fight's pretty interesting. Nice little wrinkle with the Nictus taking over one of my allies -- more of a threat since I didn't realize my heal would still work on him.

---

And now it's all over but the trip home. Looking forward to a last mission of clicking inspection glowies with Rodriguez pacing after me.

Oh. Or Wyvern with a bunch of Paragon Heroes along.

Ms. Shock had buildup as a stock hero? Dang. Brutal.

Nobody else has much of a bag of tricks. The crew conversations are interesting, but one of the problems with the ship is that it can stick a special spawn right next to a normal enemy group, and being a melee mastermind against a bunch of ranged enemies often doesn't work too well.

The heroes do have little Wyvern escorts, but after Ms. Shock they're all pretty tame. Tactics does mean that the Sky Raider grunts sometimes eat a bit of a boss aggro and die horribly, but that's the way it goes.

---

Storyline - *****. Solid, engaging, provides for a varied opposition and makes you feel like you've accomplished something at the end.

Design - ****. Little weirdness in the first and third missions about accomplishing objectives -- it was a little counterintuitive what had to be done in the first mission and smashing the altars sounded more optional than it really was.

Gameplay - ****. The cargo ship started out pretty nightmarish, between the hostage guards, Ms, Shock's buildup, and the two or three normal enemy groups stationed there. Maybe you could push her a bit to the back.

Detail - *****. Interesting text from the contact, fitting descriptions on everything, and lightly humorous dialogue inside the missions. Nothing to complain about here.

Overall - *****. Most solid of the VEAT arcs I've played so far, with an interesting canon tie and a secondary "maintain the dysfunctional status quo" focus that's pretty typical of stock Arachnos missions but not something I've seen in a lot of villain arcs.

Phalanx/cover are a little too much since you've got entirely melee minions helping out the champion, so he gets and gives a decent amount of defense.

If the rune maidens just had Earth Control that'd be alright, but Rad Infection is autohit, and AFAIK enemies get click versions of debuffs, so stunning her after the fact isn't going to shut it off.

Not that I even have anything but a bit of knockdown to do crowd control with.

Overall they're a bit too unfriendly to melee types. You're probably choked for space, though, so a ranged minion for the dwarves might be a little too tall an order.

Also, last night's arc: Fear and Loathing on Striga Isle (350522). Verdict - *****. Review on MA Forums thread.