JohnnyCourageous

Even though I've been here for nearly 4 years, and there's quite a bit of story content I haven't delved into yet (primarily a soloist, so have barely tackled the task forces and trials), I would really like to see some new story material, especially at the lower levels. Those of us with Alt-itis have long since gone through all the introductory material on COV and most of it on COH, at least through the first 20ish levels. Thankfully, Going Rogue will help my fix there - but I'd still like to run a new Villain some day and do something different.

Also - some of the best unique maps are at first few levels, then never seen again (modified versions of standard maps - the rave, the Infected, Frostfire - I'd like to see some of those occasionally. And then have them available on AE...

I found it very interesting how nervous and anxious I was all week now that it was my arc next in the queue...guess that speaks well for your reviewing capabilities.

Typos - that's why you always get someone else to review your work. I went over all that text so many times, and I still missed all those. Fixed 'em all, thank you.

[At mission completion, I get the "RavenThorn talks" clue; but I actually completed the mission by defeating the last Family guy. Maybe you should award the "RavenThorn talks" clue when you defeat Raventhorn instead?]

I've noticed lately that clues given upon defeat of an enemy don't pop up until the enemy "fades", and same for some mission completions. I don't recall it being like that at first in AE. Or am I overlooking something in one of the settings? Anyone else experiencing this?

I'll have to pay more attention to naming my enemy groups. I didn't realize the group names could be viewed while examining the enemy's description in game. I was just using simple names for organizational purposes. I'll start changing that.

[...and while the first three missions had pretty reasonable initial goals, I thought the plan for the fourth mission was a little too obviously self-destructive (I mean, it seems pretty obvious to me that undoing Recluse's origin also undoes Statesman's?). I'd suggest tweaking the writing a bit to make it seem a more plausible action.]

Yeah, that one was a tough one for me. I needed to eliminate Recluse, but not bring back Statesman, in order to get to the mission 5 conditions. I added another line of text, "Thus, Arachnos should be kept well in check by the world's heroes, even without Statesman". I'll try to think of more ways to smooth that transition out without launching into a complex ramble about the paradox of meeting and stopping yourself while time travelling. Not that paradox doesn't abound already!

Thank you again for your thorough review and your clean-up notes. I believe I have them all incorporated now. I have another arc I'd like to submit soon, but I still need to do some tweaks (and try to catch more typos up front!).

OK, I'm gonna seem like a total suck up, but I am so overwhelmingly impressed by the level of professionalism and detail in your mission reviews. Thank you for doing this service, I can't even imagine the amount of time it takes to make such detailed notes as you play each arc. I still find typos and wording issues in my own arcs after all this time. And the way you word your opinions in such a professional way, even when certain qualities of some arcs may seem greatly sub-par, is a great lesson in being a true professional.

I'd venture to say that if a red-name ever got to see your level of work, you could be doing editing work for the them some day. I salute your abilities and accomplishments and look forward to your future reviews, and playing said arcs after your reviews and suggestions are given.

You rock!

I loved the Paris arc - so nice to play a real story on AE. Imaginative and creative, well done! In my feedback post, I mentioned you had a boss on the last mission that says "It's $name!" - literally. But when I sent the feedback, it filled the "$name" with my toon's name, Irradium Lad. May have confused you a bit!

My arc is listed below. I imagine you may be swamped with arcs to try, but thank you for providing this service, I expect many other posters on this thread will have good stories as well. Nice to find that.

Ah - I just noticed you're the author of "Teen Phalanx Forever" - no wonder the story telling on this was good. That one was brilliant, well done again.

Global - @Johnny Courageous
Arc ID: 131158
Length: Very Long
Morality: Heroic
Level Range: 40 (just happened to work out to a 1 level overlap!)

Description: You've been given the opportunity to test out a device that the obsessed scientist Dr. Sigler claims could end a great deal of pain, suffering and misfortune in the world. It just needs a little test run.

Missions 1 and 2 contain custom bosses with partial extreme settings. Mission 4 is particularly long and grueling with 3 Circle Mage bosses - get your mez protection ready up front, you won't get a chance to go back to the hospital for more. Mission 5 is much easier than the others, a change of pace after the ramp up of the previous 4 missions. No EBs or AVs.

I've been playing since I7, and I still find the Rikti events exciting and fun (when I choose to participate), even with the lag I usually have to deal with. This time, I have a Mac that runs faster than my PC (?!!), so I'm looking forward to giving it a shot and seeing the results.

And if I'm not up to Rikti bashing, I'll find something else to do in another zone on my own. There's plenty of material out there to keep me occupied if I choose - so let the newcomers and others that want to participate have all their fun. For the rest of us, we'll find something new and exciting soon enough.

Best part about all this - we all have 30 top notch missions to play without wading through thousands of poor quality missions first.

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I hope you'll consider playing and reviewing my arc:

Name: Attack of the Toymenator
Arc ID: 207874
Length: Medium


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First - my arc for peer review, #131158 - Dr. Sigler and the ChronoJumper. A story about the consequences of messing with forces you don't understand. No EB/AV, but challenging - mission 4 is the longest and most involved one. Mission 5 is shorter and easier to make up for it and wrap the story up a bit quicker. Now, on to the review.

Not bad, some nice creativity. I could tell from the introduction that this was going to be a mission with lots of custom toons, so I also knew it was going to be tougher. I'm glad you didn't put an EB at the end - I greatly dislike those if there's no pre-warning (I'm a solo player).

The toys were a nice touch. At first I was a bit disappointed that there were only 2 basic types in the first mission, then I saw that you were saving most of them for the second mission, so that was fun to explore.

I'm glad you didn't feel the need to expand this to 5 missions - you got your point across in just 2. It took me a while, since some of your mobs consist of lieutenants only, no minions - that's really tough on some solo archtypes. Still, a good strategist can work around that.

I like the descriptions you gave for each toy. Two toys had a slight visual glitch - Galahad had bare hands (no gauntlets/gloves), and Bridal Kelly's train was red on the inside (though white on the outside).

It's solid - I gave it 4 stars, good job. I reserve 5 stars for a few exceptionally written stories. Since you're going for a comic route, I would have given 5 if the dialog and expository were really sharp and witty, maybe making fun of the usual cliches. But that may turn off other people, so I understand. Tough, but fun.

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Another idea to help people decide if an Arc might be worth playing is if they have a context window over the ratings that breaks down how people rated it. Like:

3 five star
4 four star
1 three star
1 one star
1 zero star

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I think that's not bad, actually. Seeing the whole range can help get a better idea of true merit. If I see a large number of 4/5's, a smattering of 2/3's and a whole bunch of 1/0's, I'll know what the real ranking is.

I know it's not the only possible solution to a difficult situation, but it's one of the best I've heard yet.

I wouldn't mind seeing an optional setting for story rating and challenge/play rating, but that won't be easy to do either.

Wow - I know I'm new to the forums and only an occasional player, but I had no idea I'd get this many responses from my original post.

I see a lot of valid points through all this, some of which I didn't know or understand at first. I've got no answers for "fixing" the system. Like many new technologies, there's an awkward period of figuring out how to make it work in the real world that we're all going to have to suffer through (think VCR/Betamax, Napster/filesharing, internet gambling, etc).

I got some decent feedback on my arc - my introduction text is a little clearer now on what to expect. Thank you to those who gave it. I also plan to go through all the arcs mentioned here and give them feedback (starting next week after I get back from my vacation). I have a feeling most of these will be good story quality arcs, which is what I like. That and the fact that I'm a solo player with very few friends to team with out there.

By the way - I had fun with the Red Shift arc. The key mission discussed earlier was a fun diversion, like watching a horde of ninjas following me around. It made the story different and entertaining - and I still had to face Aeon one on one at the final mission anyways. A nice story of unsung sacrifice, so it was high marks from me.

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So getting friends to artificially rate you 5 stars so that your arc gets played by others is ok?

How do you know you were griefed? Honestly your arc could be really bad but you think it's good since you are the creator.

I'll play it right now and see if you truly got griefed or deserved the rating you got.

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That's a fair response. I figured if I had one friend rate it, at least it would have a chance at getting noticed. I had one legitimate rating right after that too, so I feel alright. I didn't have 20 friends give it an artificial rating though - he played it and struggled with mission 4 (as I designed it to be).

I appreciate the point of view, didn't think about it from that perspective. I look forward to the feedback. I'm all about the story, not the difficulty (if there's an EB/AV, let me know up front!) or the farming.

You've spent hours playing AE mishes to unlock the good content. You spent days or weeks slowly building a good story with twists and turns. You repeatedly go back to each customizeable critter and tweak it over and over until its perfect.

You put it all together, test it, then publish it for the world to see. You get a few friends to rate it so it's on the radar. You're very proud of your carefully tailored creation. You wait for others to play it and await the praise and feedback which is your only payoff for all your hard work.

And then....somebody chooses your mission and zero rates it, dropping you instantly into the masses of 2 and 3 star stories that nobody will want to play. No comment, no feedback - just a grief rating. And now nobody even knows to look for your story.

Sound familiar? If so, welcome to my world. I'd like to set up this post so those who have been unfairly ratings griefed shortly after publication can have a chance to let other players give them a fair shake. I'll look for arcs on here, play them, and give a good, honest ratings feedback. If I don't like it, I'll let you know, but I won't give you a grief rating if you've put a lot of work and effort into making a real story.

So here's my arc - #131158, Dr. Sigler and the ChronoJumper.

Post your grief story here, and lets help the other grief victims out there to give their stories a fair shake.

Very impressive taking on such a massive undertaking and testing all those with various toons - and having to evaluate them as well. Hats off to you, it's more of a task than I would take on!

PM sent - good luck to all, I look forward to trying out some of the arcs posted here. Here's mine -

Arc 131158
Dr. Sigler and the ChronoJumper

A long, story driven arc concerning what happens when you tamper with forces not fully understood. A look at the consequences of even the most minor actions, and the hard decisions a hero must face when the fate of the world is in his hands.

For upper level solo characters, some missions will be harder than others, but no EB or AV involved, so should be accessible to most. My first story, I have so much more respect for the story developers now....

Is there some way to insert a pause in a custom critter/boss's dialog? You've seen it . something like:

That....

Really...

Hurt...........

I'm suspecting it's not possible yet, but it would help make a series of sentences more readable, or for dramatic effect upon death of the boss.

Well, here I was about to make an in character comment about being outraged that I, Johnny Courageous, lost "Best Hero" to a cat (a CAT?!?!?), I'm through with all these idiots in Paragon City who have no taste, I'll go to the Rogue Isles, get some real superpowers and show the world how fabulous I really am as Johnny Fabulous...but that would seem a little distasteful after the previous diatribe.

So in seriousness - wow. Yeah, they all deserved to win because of the degree of attention to detail and their cleverness in capturing the emotes. I'm honored I was even selected with such a simple outfit as mine. But I'm still going to hit the Rogue Islands and start a terror spree as Johnny Fabulous anyways...

Thanks Lighthouse! I'm very curious to see who got picked for "Best Hero" - I mean c'mon, can there possibly any more heroic name and outfit than JohnnyCourageous?

Hmmm...now that I've given up on the fickle riffraff of Paragon City for the freedom of the Rogue Isles and taken up my new life as JohnnyFabulous, I may need to pay this so called winner a "social call"... >

I'm one of the "Honorable Mentions", and I haven't received any email notice at all. I'm hoping it will be taken care of before Christmas so I can give my game card as a gift to someone (referal!!).

Last place by one vote....well if Paragon City is going to reject me like that, maybe I should go to the Rogue Isles where I'll be truly appreciated for the fabulous superbeing I am... (evil laugh...)