GlaziusF

@GlaziusF

Running on a high 30s ice/axe tanker, diff 2 so bosses is bosses.

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A bank job. It's never as simple as a bank job. TIMER ON.

Oh man, self-aware robots? Didn't they try to purge the impure biologics from the ranks and follow the will of the Master Runtime last time?

Well, no wonder this guy took a dive, they were trying to run him off a flash drive.

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Man, I know I shouldn't think this way, but what the color highlights really make me think is that Citadel's playing Mad Libs in his head.

Also, prevention never works. It heads off the plot, and we can't have that.

Standard Battle Advisory: Battles can start without a hero anywhere nearby. Battle dialogue should take this into account.

Also, way too many duplicate battles. Just put one noisy one at the start, one noisy one maybe in the middle, and fill in the rest with quiet battles.

Hmm, duplicate network admins. Both of mine were triggered by battles ranging too close to them.

...I come up an elevator to see Crey fighting Crey? Are they around patrolling the place listed as Rogue faction or something?

This mission works fine with a Crey base enemy group and the occasional battle featuring Fifth Column.

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Oh, hi new enemy group. You're interestingly named.

Hi, my contact. ...wait, what?

Hi, long unnecessary road out of the mission that isn't much fun to take because I emptied it searching for glowies on the way in!

Uh, clue text, should you be assuming that I know who the real Citadel is?

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....wait, what? Does Nemesis know these guys are stealing his schtick?

...well, one of his many schticks, anyway.

Wondering why fake (?) Citadel was tipping us off to those places.

Hmm. You'd probably be better off with a generic President, put in to prevent the arc from becoming dated.

...aw man, another escort through an empty map?

And Statesman tries to kill the President. Well, that explains how they managed to "capture him", at least.

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Alright now. TO THE MOON, Alice.

Oh sweet Christmas, three special boss fights in three consecutive intersections? All of whom use exactly the same canned patter as the first boss from the bank job?

Man, they're showing up all over the place. SO BORING. NOTHING CHANGES.

Also if you pick a random civilian hostage I think it'll pick from a small pool that includes Tsoo artists. I was running into them left and right.

And the boss just seems to be a slightly upgraded version of the same boss I just fought like 20 of.

He doesn't even seem that concerned about being beaten down.

...why do I feel like Real Actual Citadel and Master Runtime v2.0 are still out there somewhere?

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Storyline - ***. Feels like a half-hearted combination of Rogue Robots + Automatic Villainy. And there's one development that's particularly suspect - Fake Citadel sending me in to rescue Real Citadel. You'd think this thing's left coprocessor would know what its right coprocessor was doing.

Design - ***. Good maps, acceptably powered customs, but they all looked exactly alike, which is a pain when picking out a priority target, and having half a dozen spawns on a map that dump the exact same thing (or the three exact same things) into your NPC dialog bar is, at the very least, overkill.

Gameplay - ***. Escorting dudes back to the door over a giant stretch of empty mission is just a timewaster, and fighting like 10 copies of the exact same boss with the exact same dialogue in the final mission bored me to tears.

Detail - ****. Solid job technically, but I would have liked to see non-stock descriptions for the stock bosses/special objectives, like the Wolfpack robot leading the assault in the first mission. Obviously it's not acting like a normal model.

Overall - ***. A modestly large plot hole, frustrating sections of the gameplay, and 15 lines of dialog spam on entering some missions all dragged this one down together.

Man, I'm starting to run out of submitted arcs.

Tonight's leadoff and only arc: Is it live, or is it Memory-X? (70210). Verdict - ***. Review below in this thread.

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I just discovered the many advantages of Bronze rolls and salvage rolls. But the salvage rolls leave me confused.

They have three levels of drops for both magic and tech common salvage. I looked in Wiki and it just lists common salvage but not by level availability.

Does anyone know what's available in each of the categories?

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If the recipe's level 10-25 it uses 10-25 salvage, if it's 26-40 it uses 26-40 common salvage, if it's 41-50 it uses 41-50 common salvage.

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I've been advocating a thumbs up/down system for a while. This works for me and it sounds like a good way to handle HoF too.

I'm wondering if there should be both - stars & thumbs with stars relagated to just being a search function or possibly part of the HoF calculation (80% yes's and a rating of at least 3.5 or something).

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Heck, you wouldn't even need separate stars and thumbs, just get the word out that every vote of 4 or 5 is a thumbs up and 3 abstains or something.

Make 'em two red stars, one yellow star, two green stars. Easy visuals.

@GlaziusF

Playing this thing on a high 30s ice/axe tanker. Diff 2 so I get some boss fights.

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Oh boy. Fighting Longbow.

Nah, it's not your fault, we really need another hero-type group that shows up at all levels, is all.

Nice custom dude. Nice attempt at distractoglowies, but the comps I was looking for showed up in the first two rooms. I clicked anyway and had a laugh.

...okay. That's kind of interesting. Wonder how the contact's going to react to this.

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I'm not surprised he's suspicious. Alright, then. PRISON BREAK!

I did love this map the first time through, and it's not bad on the replays either.

Hmm. So I'm expendable, eh? Alright, I think I know what the final boss is going to be, here.

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Crey. I'm getting a bad feeling about this. A genetic duplicate-y kind of feeling.

Ooh, chaos coming in the door. For some reason the Crey seem to be handing the customs their [censored].

Oog. Yeah. I am not relishing this debriefing. It's going to be ugly.

Nice work with the agent blocking the path back to the door, but check his alignment - some of his Longbow were firing at the wandering patrols that silently spawned.

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Well, that's certainly not an ominous setup.

Is this gonna be the damn asylum?

Oh. Oh, no. This is gonna be awesome!

Let's trip the psyche fantastic!

Ah, the stages of grief, or whatever the technical name is.

And they actually show up in order! Either the mission is being considerate or there was a lot of time spent tricking the placement.

...oh dear. Yes, that's a reasonable response from the last phase there.

So I wonder what all that did. Ah well, Onyx was mindblasting right there with me and if there was a problem she would have said something.

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Well, things seem to have been handled alright... but while I was gone from the land of the living apparently things have gone far, far south.

Might as well try to help this guy. He needs to have a face-to-face with his daughter at least.

Wow. And I almost don't make it on time. I jump through the map, my ally radar pinging on some captive operatives and battles going on, free him at the back...

Targeting Drone boosts perception, which means it boosts aggro radius, and he didn't want to break off a fight to come follow me. It's due mostly to runners moving in fortunate directions that I was able to get him to the exit with seconds to spare. If he'd aggroed one or two more groups it wouldn't have been possible.

Can you boost the requirement just a little bit? 15 minutes isn't unreasonable and will probably prevent this mission from failing because of bad luck.

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Storyline - ***. Feels rather severely truncated, honestly. This guy spends all the time building a private army, it gets to fight one skirmish in the lobby of a Crey building, and then suddenly it's in shambles and the Freedom Corps are raiding his HQ? Also, what happened to the other two colors? What was this unit that got lost during the first Rikti War?

Design - *****. Great custom work pretty much all around. The customs are pretty well done, what little I saw of them. Maps make good sense, and you didn't fall into that old asylum trap.

Gameplay - ****. I spent most of that last mission dreading that my ally might run into a knot of mans and chain aggro himself beyond any hope of exfiltration.

Detail - *****. Nicely proofed text, bonus descriptions on everything, even some enjoyable extra bits scattered through the missions.

Overall - ****. An arc that does a lot of good things, but that tries to cram ideas too close together. Is this maybe a 7 or 8 mission arc that got pared down to 5?

@GlaziusF

Running on a high 30s ice/axe tank, diff 2 so bosses is bosses and everything else comes out normal.

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Man, Death is just Dracula's best brosef for life. They hang out in his crazy chaos dimension and trade tips for turning into crazy abominations with obvious weak points.

But you know, okay. Let's see what this temple looks like.

These are disturbingly conventional ruins. I suspect shenanigans.

Well, at least all the altars are close to each other. Dethe heard of feng shui but thought it was some kind of crazy dance.

He's very upfront in his dealings. I like that in a personification of the inevitable destruction of the universe.

The fight gets a bit rough after I accidentally mow down some of his minions, giving EA less to draw on, but it's a good fight. And I get some information.

So there's an Elukard. I can see why he's so angry. It sounds like he's made of clay.

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...I was only joking, next mission's accept text. But it was an obvious joke.

Man, does Ashton's new look give him Aim or something? Maybe it's just bad luck that he hits through my ice.

Anyway.

He may be a cyborg vampire, but is he a SPACE NAZI cyborg vampire? I guess that's something for installment 3.

Ah, so that's how Junior did it. Cybernetics! Go go modern technology! Try and crash a computer with a holy relic, can't be done.

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Whoa. So this is the arachnoid labs. Excellent choice, sir.

So. Burst damage from like Total Focus does terrible things when it gets lucky. But I manage. The ambush helps with end refill/defense boost.

But... there's something weird here. It feels a little empty. Drakule's even less terrifying than he was the first time.

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Storyline - ****. In the second mission of the arc I kill the mastermind. In the third mission I kill his hardwired robot creation. It's like, the actual thinking person behind this is gone. This is the mess he left behind. I AM A JANITOR. That doesn't work for me. Why not swap the two?

Design - *****. Can't fault this. First use of the arachnoid labs I've seen in MA and it's pretty great.

Gameplay - *****. While I died a couple times to the bosses they were fair deaths and I made it through what remained just fine.

Detail - ****. Needs more cheesy killer cyborg movie references.

Overall - ****. A sequel which follows possibly a classic pattern. It branches out a bit from its original plot, but with the novelty gone the old scenery just seems empty.

Tonight's arcs!

The leadoff: Return of the Revenge of the Son of Drakule Part 2: First Blood (84543). Verdict - ****. Review below in this thread.
The random: Dirk's Ravens (43104). Verdict - ****. Review below in this thread.

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The AV could have been a required ally or escort, with the guards set to "ally" and "single?" In order for something not to fight back, it would have to be an ally or escort, I think, and if the guards are allied then the guy they're guarding is hostile. There is usually a bit of a delay between failing a mission and getting kicked out, time enough to grab a blinky.

Or clicking the blinky triggered an escort of an unguarded Rikti monkey in a room full of snipers?

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Missions that fail on death don't fail until the body's faded away, for whatever reason.

When you have three slots to offer and there are 6 digits of arc numbers out there (who knows how many active missions though, but I'm betting it's north of 5 digits) there is practically no way to NOT get lost in the crowd. Even if all the zero rates get clobbered, as they will with I15, all that'll happen is a big block of 5-stars will rise to the top like a pumice stone in the bathtub. The block may be smaller than the current mor4ss, but it'll still be a giant solid block with your mission trapped somewhere inside. There isn't even any single "Leonard Maltin" type person around who's played through and reviewed a sizable fraction of all extant missions, let alone multiple such people to provide differing perspectives, and given that many times missions change to take the reviews into account...

In the "stories and lore" forum there's a listing of ways to promote your arcs. I think an individual server's "mission architect" channel may also see some use there, once I15 hits. I'm doing my best to put up reviews at this one site I kinda like but it's looking pretty lonely right now.

But even then. There's going to be a lot of people you never reach, and a lot of people using the same channels as you. Just take it slow, take everyone's feedback as seriously as you can, keep working, keep promoting, and always look for new ways to get the word out.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a high 30s ice/axe tanker, diff 2 so bosses is bosses.

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...I gotta say. Stealing stuff from a senile old lady is not much far up from the whole baby - candy scenario.

Prying valuables out of the jaws of mad Arachnoids is really more my bag.

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Hmm. And now this looks like some kind of command center. Not surprised Arachnos boosted the technology. And doesn't every villain want their own ancient doomsday device, to have and hold and extort ransoms with a lot of zeroes in them?

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So here I go! Though I'm probably going to be working from a position of weakness figuring this all out...

Oh. DNA-keyed explosives. Yyyyyeah, that might be a passable death weapon.

Also the Longbow ambush on the boss should probably be enemy faction - mine came from a place where there were still Arachnos spawns and the spiders graciously took them down for me.

Hooboy. Giant flier hanger. Very atmospheric. Not good for finding glowies. For Arachnos bases it's important to pick a map.

Marchand's DNA. I wonder.

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Heh. Yep. Time to get some blood.

...though why is Black Scorption expecting Manticore? Is Arachnos bugging retirement homes now?

Wait. It's Arachnos. Of course they are.

Anyway, I dodge around him easily enough.

Heh, and Longbow's hanging on the same grapevine. This is amusing.

I like the map filling up with ambushes on your way back, makes it interesting.

Hmm. It's a little wishy-washy to just say I did one thing or another. Maybe just say I'm going to decide after I get the superweapon? Getting rid of this guy too soon would tip my hand.

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And now it's a final showdown -- oh, hi there red guy with bow. Your innate bow accuracy isn't much match for my defense.

And the Arachnos guy in charge is... just a Bane Spider? Kinda anticlimactic, given that he's in the "boss room" and Manti is frontloaded.

Aw. Foiled again by decay. Damn you, entropy!

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Storyline - ****. The final map goes out with a bit of a whimper all told. I don't even see why I need to defeat either of the guys there, if there isn't an actual connection through Project Ragnarok. Maybe they're both operating jamming devices and the mission exits with a clue about how once the jamming went down there was still no signal, and you found half a severed conduit in the cave walls or something? And the storyline doesn't need to be definite about the fate of Philip Wallace, either. Maybe telling Elspeth that "you don't know" is what pushes her to realize you're you.

Design - *****. Plenty of incidental detail to liven things up. Nice use of a rarely seen map type, at least blueside and the first four-fifths of redside. Customs for the civilians in the arc looked the part.

Gameplay - ****. The usual run-of-the-mill frustrations. Some of that was just me fumbling around the dark caves trying to figure out what was a passageway, some of it was me fumbling around a giant open room in the Arachnos base.

Detail - ****. Everything fit together well, but I expected more than stock descriptions for the stock bosses who popped up filling plot-important roles. Not so much for the signature characters.

Overall - ****. The fight with Manticore doesn't seem necessary and the handling of the kidnapping tried to pretend something definite had happened when it could just as well have gone without.

@GlaziusF

Playing on a high 30s ice/axe tanker, diff 2 for that crunchy boss fight experience.

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Hmm. This is positing that MA is actually doing some "in-world" stuff, and the bunnygirls have a physical presence.

Well, whatever downs your watership.

Hmm. Are the gunner lieuts wearing white maid tiaras, or is that just my fanboy eye.

...oh god that casting animation. IMPROPER CONTEXT. IMPROPER CONTEXT!

Yeah, good luck photoshopping somebody who's COVERED IN ICE WITH A PLASMA AXE. Still, if that photog can pull this off it'll be a sight.

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Ah, cornball science. Is there no corn so corny that you won't ball it?

Classic fake-german warning sign on the machine.

Hey, it's that guy from that corrupted arc!

And once again, the tabloids are at fault.

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Cheesy tabloid bosses.

Cheesy B-movie scientist!

Cheesy use of deceive on a lieutenant or above to permaconfuse but if it's a photographer they have to have Flash! (you can fix this in I15 right?)

...but even if this is a comedy arc, why not start smashing up presses? At least toss off some notional explanation as to why you can't.

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Storyarc - ****. Why not smash the presses? That's about it, really, it's an amusing light comedy.

Design - *****. Good use of maps, good flow of objectives, great design on the customs, especially the fur coat on the fashion plate.

Gameplay - *****. I stock break frees. So the illusion boss wasn't too too frustrating.

Detail - *****. Top shelf here. Great humorous descriptions and nice detail on all the little incidentals.

Overall - ****. Yeah, it might seem a little unfair to round down, but I'm a little bummed about not being able to grossly abridge freedom of the press. I guess doing that might need way more arc space than you have, but hey, I invaded a supposedly law-abiding print company, why can't I take the next step?

Busy, busy weekend. But I'm back on track!

Tonight's leadoff: Too Many Bunnygirls! (101165) Verdict - ****. Review below in this thread.
Tonight's random arc: Through Rose-Tinted Glasses (101681) Verdict - ****. Review belower in this thread.

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Taraklis, currently level 8 Archery/Devices Blaster.
Looking for: Sci-fi or Tech-themed arcs. Any alignment. Lowbie friendly for now, obviously.


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"Bricked Electronics" (2180) and "Dream Paper" (1874) are both intended for lowbies. Dream Paper as soon as you feel comfortable around the Tsoo, Bricked should be good for anything up to 20 as I've played it on a lowbie shield scrapper who I think are supposed to suck?

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Cobalt Red, currently level 32 Claws/Ninjitsu Stalker.
Looking for: Profit. She's a mercenary, she'll do anything as long as it pays. Again, I prefer arcs designed for mid-levels. I actually kill stuff rather than sneaking past everything, so details like escorts don't bother me, but to-hit buffs on custom enemies do. Can handle easy AVs/EBs.

Commander Kira, currently level 40 Fire/Storm Corruptor.
Looking for: Self-serving villainy, or mystery/investigation arcs of any alignment. Minimum level 39 or higher; I'm willing to exemp her but I've grown rather attached to that little cloud in the short time I've had it. No AVs or knockback-resistant EBs please, I'm squishy. Also enemies with high fire resistance take too long to kill, fire armor EBs are right out.


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The first two missions of "The Bravuran Jobs" (5073) auto-ex to 30. Wyvern and Legacy Chain just don't get any higher. The rest are open-ended. I'd be interested in difficulty feedback -- all the customs are standard/standard but it's still proving to be a challenge for some people.

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It makes me wonder why they play the game, though. After all, since the argument seems to be that Venture's work is *too* similar to stuff we see created by Devs, it stands to reason that they don't like the Dev's work. That being the case, why play the game?

[/ QUOTE ]Without addressing the rest of your post (because I have no beef with Venture, his arcs or reviews), the easiest answer for me is this: Can't it be both?

If I want content that feels like professionally created, canon-pure developer content, I have an entire game's worth of it right outside the AE walls. If I'm in the mood for comedy, horror stories, historical reimaginings, "What if?" games with the canon, etc then I can find them in the AE.

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And if I want content that feels like etc. etc. that I haven't PLAYED three times already, MA is still the only option.

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Dang, that sounds bizarre. I do wonder though, how did he make it so the only way to complete mission 5 was to fail it? Sounds like a fun little trick.

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No, you can actually complete mission 5. It takes much less time than failing it.

His mission 5 text and the wording of the souvenir just makes not completing it a valid outcome.

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Now, this may be because I tend to play late at night and missed something, but now that I think back, I'm a little confused as to what all was going on with the clockwork. There were points where the custom clockwork and clockwork were fighting each other, but there's also mention that some of the minions were made from clockwork parts. If they're all one group, why are they fighting each other (and a bug is always a possibility with MA), and if it's clockwork vs. custom group, what were the clockwork doing there?


[/ QUOTE ]

They wanted their parts back. "Return our fallen brethren!" and all that.

Anyway, kinda sucks to have a diff spike dropped on you at the end like that. Though there are setups for that map that do put a whole spawn hiding in the corners that you might be able to pull off.

Tonight's only arc: The Horseman Chronicles I (195149) Verdict - *. Commentary on MA Forums Thread.

@GlaziusF

Running on an ice/axe tank, diff 2. I may regret that.

Did you know there's like half a dozen missions titled "the four horsemen"?

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You know, just to get this out of the way, I don't get this story. Tyrant's trying to invade our dimension! There's an EB in every mission! LEVELS 10-14!

10-14 are when you start taking down the bosses of minor gangs and investigating some of the groups you'll fight the leaders of at 20. Not when you save this entire dimension from evil mirror Statesman.

Ah, the Vazhilok pollutant plot.

...but exactly how am I supposed to know that a corpse used to have a water department ID badge? There are LOTS of corpses that don't have water department ID badges on them.

So, I have to find the right body, backtrack to fight a boss, then go back to the boss room to fight another boss.

Ah, the first of five Five Parts Of Arbitrary.

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A... a village in Oranbega? Oranbega is a giant sprawling subterranean city! That's like saying "a village in Manhattan", there's no place for it to be.

You can call it "a small section of the Oranbega caves" or something.

It could have been something light in that display case, yes. Or it could have been something heavily that was magically levitating, as magic things tend to do!

So this guy can teleport out and he's already got the thing I was trying to stop him from getting.

...why am I fighting him, again? Honest question, here. It doesn't seem to even slow him down any.

Also, you don't need multiple patrols saying the same thing.

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Multiple patrols saying the same thing here, too. On entrance, even. (also street punks don't really say "fellow")

...and can I get a little variety on the decoy chest messages, too?

Okay! Now I have what this guy was trying to find!

...why am I not just bailing? If he can't get it his portal won't be complete.

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Okay, okay, wait a second. This guy is trying to open a portal from Praetorian Earth to this one that is going to lead to the entire planet being slaughtered and/or enslaved. (I don't know if Alpha has told me this yet but it's in Omega's description every dang time I fight him.)

And an office building is more important than this?

...yes. Apparently it is. So much so that I just GIVE UP THE THING THAT CAN SAVE THE PLANET.

...how do I know Sam Wincott keeps a badge of honor in his locker? And that he took it to work today?

Ah, I see. But I found the glowie before I sprung him.

You know, the same boss fight over and over again just gets kinda boring after I've seen him maybe twice.

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Clockwork at Portal Corp. The guys who study Rularuu for a living. Um. One of the guys broadcasting for a farm team could probably knock them over with his pinky, but okay...

Okay! I have the last artifact! Now this guy can't open a portal over to this side!

Why am I even bothering to do anything else in this lab?

...why are the Clockwork building portal machines? How do the Clockwork even know how to build portal machines? Wouldn't they have done this already so Clocky can get a pep talk from his world-conquering other self?

...having scooped up all but one of the crates, the HUD text tells me I have to find the etched clockwork piece. But... I already have it.

...okay, they're not building portal machines. They're tricking me into destroying them to make their job easier.

And picking my damn pocket.

So let's see, thus far I've put the entire world in mortal danger THREE TIMES, and I had no choice in any of them.

...and apparently this last time IT TOOK. The one thing I wasn't supposed to do under any circumstances JUST FREAKING HAPPENED.

Gee, exit text, do you think I've forgotten about the bit of fingerpointing you did after the first mission? Eesh.

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Storyline - *. I want to go negative here. I understand this is a setup for a larger arc, but I just oopsed my way into DOOMING THE ENTIRE WORLD. THREE TIMES. Most people can only manage once and they have to TRY even then!

Design - ***. The custom is nice. But a lot of times I passed Cavatina's position on the map by the time I dug up the glowie that was supposed to spawn him and I had to backtrack. For the first four missions can't he just start out on the map?

Gameplay - ***. Fighting the same two bosses mission after mission after mission just gets boring.

Detail - *. Omega has what I assume is his default description in the first mission. Reading it there ruined the rest of the story.

Overall - *. Not an average, since I would really rate story and detail lower than 1 if I could. Detail because I ruined the plot of the arc for myself in the first mission just by checking somebody's description. Story because I have to be dumb enough to doom the world multiple times for it to work.

[ QUOTE ]
Hahaha. I just thought it'd be interesting if heroes were suddenly refusing to register their powers, regardless of medi-port capabilities. It just occurred to me that States and the founding heroes never suggested this might be a BAD thing...

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If you don't register you can't get in on the Citizen Crime Fighting Act, which means that the cops can't accept your evidence, act on your information, or even hold anybody you bring in.

So if you're not actually interested in using your powers to uphold the law, what does that make you?

@GlaziusF

Playing on a high-30s ice/axe tanker, diff 2 so bosses is bosses. The endless cycle of earning Mission Engineer and switching to an alt begins anew.

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Hrmmm. "I have something I could use your help with, a pair of Midnighters have not reported back for several hours now. Would you mind checking it out?" The "it" is kind of missing an antecedent. Maybe just "a pair of Midnighters went out to explore a cave, but haven't reported back for several hours now". That gives the "it" something that isn't a person to latch onto.

Hmm. Looking over the mission complete clue, the game calls the Tuatha "Dannan", not "Dannon". "Dannon" is a brand of yogurt.

...I think I may call them the "yogurt deer" from now on.

After all that the obelisk is probably just part of an ancient bathroom wall or something. "Akarist the Grey makes the girls sigh."

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Ah, Oranbega.

...not much to say, really, other than spectral lords still show up at this level and annoy the living daylights out of me.

You'd think that after how many years of paranoia the Circle wouldn't want to bargain with suspicious people, but I guess Darrin Wade's name carries some weight, even with them.

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It's rather convenient that the obelisk just happened to be talking about the one important artifact in the Midnight Squad.

...man, they make 'em scrawny, don't they. Poor captive guy looks like he needs a sammich.

The Living Armor, not so much.

In fact he just kind of rips the boss up while I'm trying to get rid of a spectral. Maybe I should have left him in place. Que sera sera.

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"Have you found the him yet?" Percy's bug text needs fixing.

...ah, interesting. A shop full of pumpkins. (maybe it should be CoV abandoned office? I recall those were more orangey, fits Croatoa better)

Oh, now that's an interesting way of going about it. I thought this seemed a bit empty.

Hmm. Clues need a bit reordered: minion, lieutenant, Midnighter, Circle guy. I think the only way to do that, though, is to reorder objectives, which you may not want.

Also the way you made distinct names bugged the NPC text for one of 'em. I realize it's a bit much to ask, but if you invent some way to name them (would a pattern like "Eight Grasping Shadows" work?) then you don't need to worry about making the same name show up three different ways.

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...okay, ancient soul-devouring horrors do not go "nom nom nom".

...okay, so if all these allies are part of me, why do I not get any XP for stuff they kill on their own? Aren't they me? I DEMAND A SPECIAL EXCEPTION. Also there is no Avatar of Sarcasm who non-combat follows you around making pithy remarks whenever you lose track of him.

Could you maybe make Initiative /therm? I don't think Thaw boosts perception (and therefore ally aggro range) the way Clear Mind does.

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Storyline - ****. There's no reason for that obelisk to describe the amulet of J'gara, unless this is one of those shonen goon powers that only work if you tell the other guy how it works first. Maybe have 'em find out about it because Mindskewer mentions going after a recent acquisition and that's the most notable one?

Design - *****. It irks me a little that the bosses are the teensiest out of all the customs. But that's really the only problem I have with the design. Everything else works very well in the service of the story.

Gameplay - *****. The optional allies did take care of a lot of the worst fights near the end, but most of that was my own bumbling around not engaging.

Detail - ****. Seriously. Ancient soul-devouring horrors do not go "nom nom nom". Also a little stilted grammar in some mission intros.

Overall - *****. It was pretty solid on test, and it's only improved.

Tonight's leadoff arc: Escalation (6143). Verdict - ****. Review on MA Forums Thread.
Tonight's random CoHMR arc The Amulet of J'Gara (1709). Verdict - *****. Review on MA Forums Thread.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a high-30s ice/axe tank, on diff 2 so bosses is bosses. I really wish Mission Engineer was global.

---

Hmm. I guess she sticks a cyanide capsule in the mouth or something so she doesn't get juked into a caged body with no way out.

There's a nice amount of incidental detail on this map (the destructible especially) but eventually I tire of punching robots and start jumping around in search of the boss.

And again...

And again...

And again...

There really is a lot of ground to cover in this map.

...you know, I have to wonder what feeling the pain of death but not dying does to somebody.

I also wonder how the doc knew she had this power. It's not the sort of thing that you try out, you know?

Hmm. It's not that the robots aren't interesting to fight, but you might want to make them a little more battle drone-y. Huge model, tiny stature, just so the walk matches?

---

Wow, yeah. She'd make a great suicide bomber. Except for the part where she'd feel a bomb go off strapped to her ribcage, anyway.

Seems like she's something of a household word for underperformance, even the bank staff are ribbing her.

Size isn't exactly an obstacle to using technology, but then again you can only miniatiurize so far down.

---

Ooh, yeah, that's something else she can do. Destroy a body with performance-enhancing drugs.

...of course she fails to take into account that the Family also lose to heroes all the dang time.

And I thought she was running low on cash after the first excursion. Where's the money coming from?

---

Well, it certainly was an interesting way to introduce a new enemy group.

...wow. Psychic fragmentation?

Hmm. "It isn't even top of the line" (from the talking mark 3) doesn't make much sense. "Top of the line" is the best you can get.

...I'm drawing conclusions from a serial number? Maybe a faceplate with the designate "tube 00105" or something but serial numbers are just facerolls on keypads for all they mean about how many things there are.

Oh, so she actually does have an income stream now. Okay, makes sense.

Awful lot of things to click in one tiny, tiny boss room. Probably a random lab map, I imagine in a proper room they'd be all spread out.

They do a good job of showing just how far she's going with this whole thing, and a gradual descent into self-obsession.

---

Man, with all the stuff I grabbed from the last lab, wouldn't DATA or SERAPH have something to work on already?

Ah well.

Man, the cop is the only one worried about the threat level. Everybody else is all "where does she work out"? If she's mishmashing a crapton of different technologies together to create awesome, shouldn't she be getting more and more monstrous?

Final boss succumbs to the old tricks. Trigger rage, run and wait, trigger unstoppable, trigger rage, run and wait, and then it's over, with a little assist from my squishy pal who's rad to be with.

---

Storyline - ****. Needs a little, at least, speculation early on about how the villain who's scraping up pennies in the first mission gets the funding to embark on a massive program of self improvement. As it was that was nagging at me until after I beat the boss of mission 4. Also the ending's a little unsatisfying. It makes it seem like I dodged a bullet, that it just so happened she wasn't able to bail. (If nothing else you'd think she'd get rather uncomfortable in the Zig and eventually jump ship.) I can see two opposite ways for it to go:

- Dr. Lashion's psychojump power is fueled in part by her revulsion at her current body and its current predicament. The final showdown is the fight, and the body, she's always wanted to have, or at least near enough as makes no nevermind. So she can't leave, but on some level she doesn't really want to. While she's writing you hate letters from the Zig, most of the rancor is gone. Like most people in what the cops are calling "the $name wing", she hates you because you kicked her [censored] in her moment of triumph, not because you represent everything the world has ever dumped on her.

- Dr. Lashion's new bodies are less and less psychically capable. She realizes this is a design flaw but goes into the final form knowing it's almost certainly going to be a one-way trip, because it's her best work and surely it can take you down. But her best just isn't good enough. The hate letters are increasingly irrational and paranoid.

Design - *****. The customs are nice visuals, one and all, and the last map is a pretty nice restatement of the first.

Gameplay - ****. Mostly for having to boing back and forth across the first map so many dang times trying to figure out where she'd gotten off to this time.

Detail - *****. Despite the little quibbles I had above the detail is fairly solid and does a nice job of fleshing out the central story.

Overall - ****. The ending strikes a bit of a sour note, and while the boss for Mission 4 was a pretty good fight, the end boss was basically that same fight with two intervals where I jumped away and stared at a wall for a few minutes. It needs a little more of a wrinkle than that.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm bummed that you saw everything coming; other feedback I've gotten was from people who were surprised. Or perhaps they were just humoring me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Something had to be up. The Family aren't the type to just be jerks to people. There's no percentage in running medical supplies, and if there WAS you wouldn't hit a dang hospital for 'em. Not actually getting a clear description in the third mission is what finally threw up the flag for me, though.

[ QUOTE ]

As for the asylum, yeah it's annoying to move around in, but the atmosphere is so great. I've always had a love/hate relationship with that map for that reason. And hey, it doesn't have Malaise camping the door, so it can't be that bad, right? I think a lot of people hate that map because of who usually inhabits it.


[/ QUOTE ]

I hate that map because it's a) visually distinctive but b) has only one layout. So when someone's thinking up MA missions, they tend to go "oh, the asylum was cool, I'll use that!" and if you run upwards of 100 arcs like I have you get to know that place off by heart. That and the Ruladak caves. So I end up running a map where I know exactly where I have to go but where getting there is frustrating, in both cases.

[ QUOTE ]

Oh, and yeah, the contact does look evil, which is totally unintended. I hate that the MA contacts are uplit; I think that glowing pedestal obscures and/or ruins pretty much every costume I've seen standing on it. Not really sure how to get around that, unfortunately.


[/ QUOTE ]

It was actually more the scowl on her face that did it for me.

Arranged in alphabetical order for fairness and ease of use:
<ul type="square">[*]Altoholic_Monkey -- Indies (1 mission) | Sequels (2-3 missions) | Epics (4-5 missions)[*]Bayani[*]Beach_Lifeguard[*]Bubbawheat | (In Character) [*]Burning_Brawler (QPQ)[*]DeviousMe (QPQ)[*]Dominemisis (QPQ)[*]Dragonslay[*]Frozen_Northman (QPQ)[*]Glazius (read first post for conditions)[*]HolyEvilAoD[*]Jophiel[*]Lazarus (QPQ)[*]LaserJesus[*]Misho (QPQ) | Non QPQ[*]Peacemoon (QPQ)[*]Policewoman (QPQ)[*]Rapulis[*]ridiculous_girl (QPQ)[*]SteelSky[*]Sooner (QPQ)[*]Stomphoof (QPQ)[*]Talen_Lee[*]theHedoren (QPQ)[*]Venture[*]Wrong Number (Humor Arcs, QPQ)[/list]
EU reviewers
<ul type="square">[*]Col.Blitzkrieger[*]Leese[*]Master_Zaprobo (In character)[/list]
Review sites
<ul type="square">[*]City of Guides - Mission Architect[*]CoH Mission Review[*]Mission Architect Advanced Search Site[/list]
Note: QPQ = quid pro quo: Play and rate/give feedback to the reviewer first in order to get a review on your arc, some are more lenient on this than others. Also, tends to have a shorter queue.

Also, some non-QPQ have more than one reviewer with some not accepting new submissions, check the most recent page for up-to-date information.

[/ QUOTE ]

@GlaziusF

Running a low-40s DB/Fire brute, on diff 2 so bosses is bosses, and this is the arc that gives me Mission Engineer.

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...lookin' kinda evil there, miz nurse lady.

Aw man, it's the asylum?

Back in the day when lowbies actually fought Vahzilok, one of the missions was supposed to be set in a hospital and it was a blue-carpeted office and, y'know, that seemed okay!

It doesn't have to be the asylum.

Hmm. If the clear all in this mission is really "clear the last room", then you need to change it to be that. Maybe call it the administrative offices, and mention in the popup they're on the top floor?

Hoo boy. If I'm gonna be seeing this guy again can he please get a different color scheme than dark red and powder blue?

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Hmm. Okay, standard pump a guy for info. Rather bare warehouse overall, just him and the captive.

But I get what I need (though maybe you should change that boss objective to "boss only", Lenny spawned in one of those little corner rooms with the catwalk and half his boss spawn was half the guys on top the catwalk, who never even noticed me beating him down.

---

And now for a rush on the cargo ship! The blaster buddy spawns right up front with no escort - not sure if you wanted that. Why does he tell me to go left? That only works in text adventures!

3 supply crates to look for here... and... a WHOLE bunch of red herrings among them. ...identical red herrings. At least mix 'em up a little?

Hmm. It's a bit ominous that these supplies are never described. Makes me wonder if somebody decided to buy the kind of medicine with side effects including green skin and monosyllabic speech.

I meet up with Lenny about halfway through the ship and he pretty much confirms my suspicions.

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Wow, mission 3, you are exactly what I was planning on doing when I got those supplies off the cargo ship.

...also your accept text breaks the frame like a Troll trying to hang a picture.

(in general I advise very objectively written accept text so that any humor or other information you want to put in there can be read by everybody on the team running the arc.)

Somehow the mission setup reminds me of a certain map...

Ding ding ding! Hi, invention tutorial.

With Focus Chi and an escort of healers and buffers the boss is pretty brutal but nothing I can't take.

I'm a little more concerned about somehow not recognizing superadine when I'm taking it off a Family cargo ship but being able to pick it out when I'm at the clinic.

Maybe it was somehow camouflaged and the nurses have been stripping the packaging away to check that vials didn't get broken in transit or whatever?

So what am I looking at here? A splinter faction within the Family? Did I walk into a power grab in the first few missions there?

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...yeah, I'm sure Auric won't have gone round the bend from one too many doses of Supes.

I'm not sure the contact really has the grounds to be speculating "oh there has to be some method of control" or whatever. Besides, this is a functionary whose boss has just been exposed as a double-dealing traitor to Paragon City and the Hippocratic Oath. Show some emotion!

...then again maybe I'm working for a third party in the power struggle. Time will, I suppose, tell.

Well, Auric seems to be completely intact. Pleasant surprise. The mission's pretty empty up until the last room, and then the fun starts. Mind Control is actually not so bad if you pack a couple break frees like I tend to for running MA missions, and it ONLY being on the boss is a huge help.

Unfortunately the "ally ambush" that spawns on Bambi's defeat runs right into the same geometry that confounded her backup squads and gets torn apart. infighting is so ugly...

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Storyline - ***. Modestly interesting storyline with a minimum of people acting like idiots. But, uh, problem here. Serious problem here. There is no known cure for Superadine addiction. Every hero in Paragon City who's ever hit the hospital is going to be jonesing hard and pretty ineffective in the field. That's the elephant in the room at the end of the arc. I dunno, maybe make the third mission clues like a crate, a lab, and a desk or something, put 'em together and get Bambi's blueprints for "cooking" superadine into a mild power-booster that also makes people more susceptible to mind control?

Design - ****. Aside from that dang Asylum, good use of maps overall. The customs actually have variant models, which is an appreciated touch. But missions 2, 3, and 5 are all pretty sparse. 3 needs some variation in the padding crate descriptions, 2 and 5 need some more active spawns, kinda like the ones that showed up in the first mission.

Gameplay - *****. Pretty solid here. Some difficulty spikes with the two boss fights, but that's what boss fights are for. Just pack some break frees to the final countdown.

Detail - ****. Fitting, but sparse after the first mission. About the only optional objective I could find that meant anything was a second run-in with Lenny on the cargo ship.

Overall - ****. An arc that starts strong in incidentals and detail but fades a bit as it goes on, with an underlying plot that doesn't exactly jibe with the canon.

Gameplay -