Hercules

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think people are missing the point of posting a critic of a mission arc, THEN posting an arc to be reviewed. Not just jump in and dump an arc.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, and it also tends to result in people who follow the rules being skipped, or at least it does for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess we're talking into the wind. Several arcs posted since this message without prior reviews being done. I believe I'm done with this thread.

Indexing on a few hundred thousand rows is nothing for a modern dbms (like Oracle or MSSQL). Unless they are using some homegrown db ( sincerely hope not), that should not be an issue.
I've worked on systems with millions of rows, and data retrieval is fairly fast, assuming you have the correct columns indexed.

1) Separate the optional vs required objectives in the mission bar. Some people have started to color code them, but there is no standard.
2) Put a field analyst in the MA terminal room.
3) Put a list of the last 5 ratings for your arc, along with dates, not just the average.
4) Allow the publisher of an arc to remove one low rating every two weeks - not an optimal solution, but should help with the ratings snipers.
5) Add a "report farm" button.

[ QUOTE ]
As of last I checked, Cause of How Some Silly Stealed My Wings #1481 has only had a few playthroughs in live. I've just finished some additional revamps based on Live feedback, so I'm quite interested in more!

It's got wingless fairies, presumptuous red caps, mad Hellion cultists and Ice Caps - beautiful fae who will take your breath away, literally! It's campy, goofy and about a half-hour or less unless you want to spend more time. Based on comments, you won't want to miss the Ice Caps.

My other arc, #3586 Project: Perilous - Into the Chthonian Pit has been more popular and is longer. I've been told it's worth it just to see the arch villain at the end, but I don't want to spoil it... Just try to keep your allies alive to back you up against that one and it should be 'easy enough'! (I had no trouble with my Mastermind, but needed backup with my Dominator.)

[/ QUOTE ]

I just tried 1481. Pretty amusing arc, I enjoyed it.
A few quibbles/suggestions:
1) I didnt like the constant jumping up and down of levels.
2) Mission 1: She alternates between losing her marbles and losing just 1 marble.
3) I didnt understand why the Cabal in the cave were friendly.
4) Some of the text from the "rock": "....infant it infinity...". Looks like a typo, maybe.
5) The next to last mission - the contact started to convert to more "normal" speech patterns.
6) The ending didnt really explain why Japo originally stole the items. Some more background on the Icecaps would be nice. Also, outdoor maps just don't seem to lend themselves to final boss confrontations - I'd suggest a Cimerora Cave, or maybe even Orenbega. Carnival maps are cool, but still, they're too closely associated with Carnies - every time I see someone using them for some custom group - it just doesnt feel right.

I loved all the poetry in the mission, you must have spent quite a bit of time on that.

[ QUOTE ]
Arc Name: Crasher & the Tech Web
Arc ID: 92952
Morality: Heroic
Faction: Custom Enemy Group, others
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Nightseed
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Mission Levels: 1-54, but developed with a mid-20s tanker
Synopsis: The Tech Web is making a name for itself on the streets of Paragon City. Help Meg Mason investigate this mysterious new gang.
Estimated Time to Play: Less than an hour


[/ QUOTE ]

I ran through this mission last night, and completed this morning. I have just a few comments:

1) Overall, no obvious typos - except on the closing text where it says "is going with her", I believe it should be "are".

2) Since Meg Mason is the contact, I would use one of the existing lowbie gangs instead of a custom group. Decent enough "street tough" group, but nothing that really differentiated them from the existing canon gangs. You could use the space to fill out your main villain group.

3) Your contact hologram says... "Contact Hologram". Not sure if that's intentional, since you have the "Aha! I fooled you" premise, but I'd prefer it to say Meg Mason.

4) Having to go back and hunt down the "Crazed Police" in mission 1 was annoying. I'd use an ambush.

5) Mission 1: My suspicion that the device would impact civilians - why would I suspect that? I know nothing about the device.

6) Mission 2: The master plan is to turn people into psychopaths.... To what end?

7) The overall premise that I'm talking to a "fake" Meg Mason just doesnt flow. Starting with the "I'm pulling my hair out", followed by a liberal dose of "Dear" and "Darling", then the "Chop! Chop! Be quick about it!" (paraphrased). I was fooled? The contact just oozed with contempt and sounded nothing like the canon Meg Mason.

Then, after I'm framed, the contact suddenly switches to the real Meg Mason. Where did she come from?

My suggestion: Have the real Meg Mason as the contact throughout the arc. Have the villains frame me for something in the course of doing the second or third mission.

8) Nice custom group and good costume designs.

9) Final mission. I'm not opposed, in general, to having outdoor map searches, although a number of people on the forums have made it clear that they are. If you are going to do one, have it on a one level map, not on one of these multi level factory yard maps. Someone without flight is going to quit at this point and probably give you a low rating.

10) Crasher spawns as a Lt. on heroic. If this arc is intended for lowbies, that's fine. If you intend for it to be played by all levels, I'd bump her up a notch.

11) In all the time I've played on blue side, I've never run into the "PPD Awakened". If this is something encountered only on red side, I'd avoid using on a blue side mission.

Edit:
I made a major change to chapter 4 of my arc and unpublished/republished, if someone could critique, I'd appreciate it:

[ QUOTE ]

131430 The Starfare Chronicles: First Contact
Factions: Custom, Rikti
Difficulty: Medium to Difficult depending on build ( Recommend [/b]bringing plenty of inspirations if soloing ). Designed for level 50. Has an EB/AV at the end.
Length: 5 chapters
Synopsis:
The League of Starfaring Races ( or Starfare for short ) normally doesn't contact backwater worlds such as ours. That is about to change, as their unrelenting enemy, the Zrak 'Tah, have shown an unusual interest in Earth. Starfare has sent a Special Ops force to investigate the matter....


[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you for the feedback. I'm sitting close to 100% on this arc, what to cut, what to cut...

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

[/ QUOTE ]
I added the jaunt underground for a couple reasons, one of which was to explain what happened to the crew. I had 3 choices: 1. They all died, 2. they all got off the ship and are ok, 3. they got off the ship but need help. I chose option 3. Plus, I thought it would be a nice break from combat against just my custom faction. I'll certainly think about this, option 1 is a possibility, although after what happened to Tari, it would become a very dark arc.

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

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

[/ QUOTE ]
I tried to do that with some of their dialog. I originally started out with a "Borg" concept, which gradually morphed into a Predator/Klingon/Independence Day hybrid. I'll need to figure some way to clear some space for bios however.
This arc was meant to be totally about the Zrak, however, it gradually became more and more about the contact as I fleshed it out. I have full intent to return to the ship with the second arc in the series - assuming I ever get a Devs choice.


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

[/ QUOTE ]
Good points. I'll make the other objectives optional. The player should run into a number of them on the way, regardless.

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

[/ QUOTE ]
That is one that is going to be hard to balance. I originally had her as an EB. The last group I ran through (on Invinc) had seven members - she spawned as a normal boss, not EB. Go figure. I bumped her up to AV due to their feedback - she was way too easy for a group of seven.

[ QUOTE ]
Consider some optional objectives that shed light on the story maybe.

[/ QUOTE ]
As soon as they bump the limit to 200k, I'll definitely do that. Thanks again for the feedback, I'll have to do some tweaking this evening...

[ QUOTE ]
It's hard to keep track of who's next in here. A lot seem to be getting skipped. I went back and hit a few that looked like they got missed. There was one in particular I liked.

[/ QUOTE ]
Don't know if the OP wants to take the time to do this, but a short post with a list of unreviewed arcs would help. Then all subsequent posts could just copy and paste the list, removing the one you reviewed and tacking yours on the end.
Maybe the following minimal info:
Arc # - Arc Title - Posted Date - Forum Id

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
No clue about her actual powers, I made her a gravity controller.

[/ QUOTE ]Serafina's Legacy Chain Profile

She's Psy Blast/Storm Summoning

[/ QUOTE ]

I changed her, but her controller powers seemed to fit her Geni concept so much better.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm thinking about putting the hero Serafina into one of my arcs, but I can't seem to find her anywhere. So, a couple quick questions:

Is she available anywhere in the MA as a non-contact NPC and, if so, where?
If she's not available, how might I best approximate her powers as a custom character? I remember fighting her in Scirocco's arc, and I believe she was Psi Blast/Storm, but I can't quite recall. ParagonWiki doesn't seem to be any help either. Does anyone know exactly what powers she has?

[/ QUOTE ]

I couldnt find her anywhere either, so I made a custom npc. (You can check her out in my Treasure Quest arc - see Sig ).
No clue about her actual powers, I made her a gravity controller.

[ QUOTE ]
Two questions, and thanks in advance!

1) Is there a way to preview a mission set for a large team? I find it difficult to get people (let alone a full team) to test something, so I never really know what it's like with a full team.

2) Can you test a specific mission in your arc, or do you have to play through from #1?

[/ QUOTE ]

1. Not that I'm aware of. Closest you can get is to set it to level 4 ( 1 below invinc ). I've also noticed that if you add allies, the difficulty seems to go up.

2. In test mode, you can click and drag a mission to the number 1 slot. Then when you're done, you can drag it back to the proper position.

[ QUOTE ]

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

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

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


[/ QUOTE ]

Probably just me. I only have one natural hero, whom I've never leveled past level 12.

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

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

Creator Global: @Doc Photon

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

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

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

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

[/ QUOTE ]


Ok, I'll give it a go.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- More maps
- Customizable maps/tilesets
- Precision control of mob locations OR more control over what is "front/back/middle"
- Increased arc size
- Allow more than 3 arcs
- Allow selection of "mood music" and location of that mood music on the map.
- Allow creation of "bank" missions
- Creation of a MA "PDA" device, like a radio, so you can treat these missions like regular radio missions and not have to be chained to the MA building.
- Random MA Picker, so everyone's arcs can have an equal chance to be played
- Some anti-griefing code added to MA - there have been a million suggestions, many of which would help alleviate the problem.
- Searchable category added to the arc details, so you can describe your arc as "story", "farm", "comedy", etc.

Just checked my arc to ensure I mentioned that little detail. Which I had.
Also just added to the mission description just to make sure no one is surprised by the time they get to the final mission...

[ QUOTE ]

Well you know what? Then either grow thicker skin and a new pair, or make arcs that are good enough to SURVIVE the jerks and still keep going. If what I just quoted above is the whole of your argument, then just mark /unsigned and step out of the thread, because that's all you have to say, and I get it.


[/ QUOTE ]
For those of us not in a SG, there just isn't enough plays on our arc to survive the jerks. Sorry, /unsigned. People will retaliate.

What I've suggested to the devs is some way to alias the responses, so you can get the feedback, but not have a way to know who that person's global handle is. The simplest way is to just send responses through mail with a generic "From:Arc Feedback" instead of the current tell system. If you want the person to know your global handle, you have the option of including it in the mail message.

Good idea, I'd also like for them to drop the bottom 10% and top 10% of the votes when calculating the average, as is currently done in some sporting events.

This should cut down on the impact of ratings snipers, as well as the guildies pumping up people's scores.

Currently, you have three settings for patrols - enemy, rogue, and ally. I'm working on an arc right now, where I'd like to have patrols that are there for atmosphere only. I dont want them to fight me or the other mobs on the map.

So my suggestion is to add a fourth option for a neutral patrol. They just wander through the map affecting nothing.

Just to let you know what I'm doing. I'm trying to add the redcap will'o wisps to my map, so I can get the Croatoa spooky atmosphere. It kind of spoils the effect when my wisps (set to ally) are DOTing my mobs.

[ QUOTE ]
They will never allow images ingame as the ability to abuse them is too great.

[/ QUOTE ]

I specifically said they'd use in-game (pre-made) images, not externals.. you're correct, allowing external links would invite abuse.

Just a few ideas:

1. The current mission description is way too short ( 200 characters? ) I'd bump this to 500.

2. The mission description needs a few html type additions so we can give proper advertising:

[body bgcolor=<color>] Allows you to set the background of the mission description area.

[table] [tr] [td] - allows you to create html tables for proper layout.

[img src=[contactfull|contactportrait|splashscr#|ingamenamed]

This would allow you to insert in-game images such as your contact's portrait, contact body, any of the splash screen images you see at the beginning of missions, and images of named toons such as Statesman. Note: The devs would have to scale these images to an appropriate size, we cant have mission descriptions that you have to scroll through when browsing the MA list.

3. Popup Splash once you begin the mission. It would be close to 100% of your screen height and perhaps 75% of the width. It would allow all of the markup as specified above and have up to 1000 characters allowed.

[ QUOTE ]
I've had it. Every pirate mission I've found on AE keeps using the SAME cargo ship interior! Even my own pirate rum run uses it! We're stuck, game devs! We need BETTER PIRATE MAPS!

Give us a few open zones with classic style pirate ships, an open zone with a pirate cove complete with docked ships, and we'll be able to create more thematically pleasing pirate battles. Please?

Oh, and this is request number 14,872,982 for Pirate Masterminds.

[/ QUOTE ]

/signed

My Pirate themed arc remains unpublished until I get some better maps.

I think a better solution would be to have 3 ratings listed:
1. Completion Rating
2. Raw Rating
3. Weighted Rating

Number 1 would be the average rating given by everyone who actually completed your arc. This would be the rating that the MA search list would sort by (primary sort followed by weighted rating).

Number 2 is the current raw rating given by the system.

Number 3 includes all ratings, but is weighted. If you have 5 chapters, and someone quit in the first mission, that person's vote would have 1/5 the weight of someone who completed the arc. (this would be the secondary sort in the MA list)

Are these available anywhere to be added? I need them for atmosphere in one of my missions - simply as Ally patrols.

Just wondering if the devs took them out due to "farming" concerns.

So, is this the end of new free costume items? A number of these pieces have been on the request queue for a long time.

I really hope they fix this soon. If its not fixable, how about bumping the max size to 105k? I've trimmed everything that I can from my arcs.

Same problem here. Grew from about 99% to 102%. I can't publish on live, so not much point in giving the id.