Kevin_Schultz

THE GOOD

<ul type="square">[*] Once again - good attention to technical detail. The mission itself was focused and well-created. No real complaints on that regard.[/list]

THE NEUTRAL

<ul type="square">[*]The way to collect the Sword troops felt a bit odd - they're all kneeling in various different locations. While I understand the likely limitations, it just kinda felt weird.[*] Another time in which it really probably would have worked better in a larger team. As it was, the General was just kinda chilling by himself down in a sewer - as a consequence it didn't feel like I was invading a camp headquarters. (with the Sword, it did feel like I was going on a surgical strike, though.)[/list]
THE NOT-SO-GOOD

<ul type="square">[*] The conclusion from Lady Grey is odd. "On the other hand, We have sufficient rumor concerning 'Nemesis plots', and cannot rule out he would have his own creation claim victory over his person. " This sounds like she has been told that the General claimed victory over Nemesis at some point. When did THIS happen? I scanned back over the Lady Grey TF, and didn't see any mention there. Is this in reference to the Dark Watcher's story arc? In looking over the final debriefing for that, there's no mention of the General making any sort of declaration like that. Did I miss a quote in your arc somewhere?

OK - now that I've gone over and re-read both of those story arcs, this plot makes slightly more sense; (I've played through both, but it's been over a year.) With that in mind - you really, really, REALLY need to put in a bit more backstory for those of us that have played through those missions, but don't recall the exact plot. This would also allow you to re-enforce the idea that it's a good idea to mention all major players in the first 1/4 of a story, even if it's not obvious that you're doing so. Something like "To distract his troops from 'Lord' Nemesis' role in their first invasion, Hro'Dtohz has been pushing our forces back on every front." or something like that. Just this one remark will serve to foreshadow Nemesis showing up later in the story. (And really, this single line would be enough to bump my star rating from 3.5 to four.) [*] Once again, the name is flat - and it's also confusing, as it's the second time you've used a chess reference. As a consequence, that implies a chess theme, but you really don't have that going on. Recommendation - either make chess a recurring element, or else only use chess imagery once. (A good example of consistent naming terminology is actually the Lady Grey Task Force: all of the mission names in there both describe the mission AND are biblical references to the book of Revelations - which goes to the overall theme of that TF, which is about the destruction of the Earth.) [*] And I'll put it here, even though it's been an issue throughout your arc - your acceptance links all have periods in them. This breaks with convention (no offical mission links have periods like that), and clashes with the "Tell me about something else" link that is right beneath it. [/list]

THE GOOD
<ul type="square">[*] This mission really brings home the feel of "this is war" - lots of explosions going off, enemies and allies everywhere, all that good stuff. It's interestingly chaotic.[*] Once again, lots of attention to detail. The dialog was once more tight[/list]

THE NEUTRAL
<ul type="square">[*] Once the initial slaughter was over, the various groups just kind of stood around. However, that's part of the engine, so I know you really can't control that very well. [*] One time when I played through, Dune Fort and one of the riders spawned RIGHT ON TOP of each other - I had to search around for the final minion that was holding him "hostage" - even though he wasn't really doing anything (just standing there).
[/list]

THE NOT-SO-GOOD
<ul type="square">[*] Nemesis? What the heck?!? Where did THESE yahoos come from? While Lady Grey mentions them in her closing mission dialog, she doesn't really say anything more about it other than "Oh, that idiot was there? Ah, well." (Unfortunately, I forgot to cut/paste that text, so I can't go and review it.) I don't see any follow-up to it in the next mission, even though it seems pretty obvious that the General wanted to silence Non'Khom for some reason - and that reason probably was that Non'Khom new either his location or else his connection to Nemesis. But most commanders probably know his location, and trying to cover up a Nemesis connection by calling in a Nemesis groundstrike is... an unorthodox tactic, at best. [*] Rider: Famine is functionally impossible to beat as a melee without seriously jacking your Lucks - Both times I beat him, I did so by either jacking myself with inspirations, or else taunting him and then dragging him over the remaining turrets. Unfortunately, the allies are completely useless on it - they'll insist on closing to melee range, and then get feared/drained. [*] I think the compass text was off - I still had "Find Curthak (optional), even though he was with me. The person I didn't have was Whisky-Tumbleweed.[*]Kul'bere is a fun character (ie, a Rikti that has a better communicator than most), but she comes completely out of the blue; I know you mentioned her earlier, but she's added in essentially at the last minute. I can't figure out why she's there except to act as an additional ally against the Riders.[*] Even though I enjoyed the mission, it feels like a contrived Superfiends episode, with all the NPC's coincidentally being there to help.[*] Once again, I found the Mission title flat - it tells us what's going on in the mission, and little more. [/list]

THE GOOD

<ul type="square">[*] Another mission with good attention to technical detail.[*] The whole "two bosses to fight, and then fight their leader" does sound like an interesting thing to have happen.[/list]
THE NEUTRAL

<ul type="square">[*] Nice attempt to characterize the war zone with the clicky body bags and piles of dust, but it didn't work for me. It just felt sterile. I really think it would have worked better if you had somehow been able to get the Rikti actually killing civilians (ie, custom patrols of really weak NPC's that really sucked and would consistently get cut down by any Rikti they find.)[*] The main drive behind Naun'Kom's actions are interesting (he believed that the General would fail, and so went off by himself), but we're left hanging: what exactly did Naun'Kom know, and why is he acting on it? Did he know that the general was an automaton, or was he just savvy enough to recognize a losing gambit? Without that knowledge, this just plays into the general theme of "random crap happens in war, and you can't make sense of it, so don't bother". Which I don't think you were trying to go for.[/list]
THE NOT-SO-GOOD

<ul type="square">[*] Mission title - decent enough, but it's one that SOUNDS like it should be having more to do with the theme than it actually does. Thus, it's a bit misleading and as a result, confusing. [*] This one was a grind, pure and simple. I stealthed it all three times I played, and even then it was my least favorite of all the missions.[*] Typo in the resolution dialog: "We have alrady ordered" should probably be "already". [*] Oh, this one is true for all of the missions, but I'll put it here - I'm noticing inconsistencies in the royal We that Lady Grey uses. I'm not sure of the actual technical rules for its use (I thought it was used when the Queen is explicitly choosing making a statement in her role as head of state), but very often I saw uncapitalized "we"'s and "us"es and "ours" scattered amongst the text in places I thought would use it. [*] These missions kind of feel disconnected from each other. Part of it is that, so far, they kinda are: they're connected only because they're things that Lady Grey wants done, and in her role as commander she is asking you to do them. But other than that it's really just kind of random crap that occurs.
I think part of it is that I'm really not reading the text of Lady Grey all that closely - while you've successfully characterized her dialog, you've successfully characterized her as verbose and slightly pretentious. As such, I don't really WANT to read her dialog.[/list]

THE GOOD

<ul type="square">[*]Ah - busted base map - appropriate for the scene.[*]Cute use of the TNT emote for Whisky Tumbleweed. [*] Here even more than before, I noticed a good attention to NPC ally detail. I particularly noticed their hostage/rescue dialog, About text, and their lost/found dialog. All excellent ways of showing characterization. [*] Interesting use of reinforcement for the EB - they actually come to help YOU defeat him, rather than the other way' round. [/list]
THE NEUTRAL

<ul type="square">[*]Dune Fort is a killstealer, even more so than the previous groups.[*]Dra'gon tended to use his "taunt" dialog a lot. I think he was regening, then getting knocked back down.[/list]
THE NOT-SO-GOOD

<ul type="square">[*]The first and second time I played through this, Whisky Tumbleweed spawned right near the exit, so he was pretty much pointless for the mission. The third time, though, he spawned a level above his commander, so either I got lucky, or you moved the spawn points.[*]Didn't see any success text for freeing Serpent Drummer.[*]Issue - Due to the AI, I had Serpent Drummer die twice on me - he, like the other two NPC's, insists on standing in the AoE of the Dra'gon. Occasionally he'd run off (which kept him alive long enough to have himdie right before I defeated the general), but the other time I had no real way to keep him alive.[*] Another flat mission title. It succicintly tells me what this mission will be about, but doesn't do anything else. [*] And here's the start of my 2nd main complaint with this arc: too many fleshed-out NPC's. While this might not seem to be a problem, and I found their interaction funny and strongly characterized, they felt like they ought to be central characters in their own stories. Basically, for a story this size, they overpower the rest of the story with their presence. Whisky Tumbleweed and Kul'bere, in particular, were so against type (the "calm professional Malta agent" and "the barely intelligible alien") that they felt like a PC group - ie, a collection of highly-capable dysfunctional misfits that hang together solely because they're PC's. Dune Fort and Cher'tak, on the other hand, seemed to be strongly characterized but not in such a way as to make them stand out. (The leader of the Vanguard Sword as well, actually.)

I know it's a weird complaint to say that your characters were too interesting, but it does have precedence - this was one of the warnings I recall from my writing class about avoiding unnecessary detail in minor plot elements (such as minor characters). And for a story this size, you really can't have four additional characters running around without their presence warping things. [/list]

THE GOOD
<ul type="square">[*]Nice to have the boss ally right in front.[*]Pretty straightforward mission. Nice that it's a fairly small map.[*]The EB at the end went down pretty darned quick - I pretty much just tanked, and the NPC's did the rest.[*]I'm noticing that you're paying lots of attention to the dialogs and success text, but you don't do much with the About text on the stock critters. I'd like to see more information in there, like their names or what they're doing there to begin with. However, I'm guessing this is because you're running pretty close to the limit on space. [*] This was the first place I think I saw the 'unconcious' emote used for hostages. It worked very well, IMO.[*]Other thoughts - this is where I start seeing your attention to technical detail: all possible uses of success text are used, but it's not too wordy. Your dialog is short and punchy, and easily readable. Your Rikti-speak is also quite good. So much so that I really don't have much to say in terms of technical feedback on the dialog, clues, NPC chatter, beginning or ending dialogs, Lady Grey intro and conclusion, or that sort of thing.[/list]
THE NEUTRAL
<ul type="square">[*]Not sure what the foreshadowing of Warmaster's Cher'Tak is. I see this throughout, and still don't know what to do with it. Also, the phrase "with a strange, unseen smirk" - a smirk is a visual cue. I don't know how I can tell he's smirking if I can't see it. [*]There are Vanguard patrols, but because I'm going so slowly through this (and cut/pasting text, mainly), by the time I get to them they are either just standing around, or else dead.[*]I'm guessing this would feel more like a war zone if I was in a group, and not soloing it. As it is, it feels more like "just another Rikti mission", rather than a battle raging around me. However, it's kinda hard to get those kind of numbers in the mission without a team.[*]I noticed that you managed to introduce Warmaster Kul'bere here, without actually having her on-stage. Nice bit of foreshadowing to justify having her show up later. That being said - it wasn't enough. When she shows up later, it still feels like she's dropping in out of the blue. [/list]
THE NOT-SO GOOD
<ul type="square">[*]I noticed only one typo, and that may have been due to a cut/paste error. In the closing dialog, Lady Grey says " We would be fools to ingore such an ally," - I'm guessing that's supposed to be "ignore".
[*] The title is flat - that is, it does only one thing. That thing is that it does nicely sum up the plot of the mission, but that's the ONLY thing it does - it doesn't seem to support any sort of theme, or foreshadow, or characterize the narrator, or anything else. It's also a bit cliche, but because it's so short it's not too noticable.
[*]This is only a not-so-good in retrospect: the mission itself was fine, with solid technique and a good plot. However, as the beginning of a five-part story arc, I'm not seeing a strong theme here. In fact, even after playing through it three times and scouring over the text I've cut/pasted into Word, I'm still not sure what you're going for.

My initial thought was that your theme was going to be something like "the moral compromises we make in times of war to avoid a horrific fate"; that seems to be the theme of whole Stranger/Lady Grey story arcs, in a sort of "Superhero Black Ops" sort of way.

And that, at times, does seem to be the theme of this piece - especially in the climax, where Lady Grey asks you to assassinate the general. Even more telling is that the line she speaks ("This is war") to justify the request is the title of the arc. But the rest of the story doesn't really seem to support that theme: except for that one choice, every other possible moral quandary (teaming up with questionable Rikti, teaming up with the Malta) isn't a hard choice - we never see any sort of negative consequence of doing so. The malta don't take the time to further their own anti-super agenda, the Rikti don't...I dunno, attempt to convert a bunch of humans, or whatever. And the big reveal at the end ("it was all a Nemesis robot") just cheapens the moral sacrifice the character makes - I chose to assassinate the general, but the power of that sacrifice (in a moral and dramatic sense) was invalidated by the fact that it was just an automaton.

So based on that, my other thought was that the theme could somehow be "the odd stuff that happens when you're fighting a war" - strange bedfellows, odd alliances, completely random events determining the fate of battles, etc. So when Lady Grey tells me "This is war" - what she' s really saying is "completely random crap happens in a battle - deal with it." But this feels like I'm trying to shoehorn a theme in where it doesn't really fit.

And another question I'm having when playing through this is this: whose story is this? Who is actually the protagonist? One of the ways to determine this is to determine who has a dramatic realization that changes their life in some way, and then proceeds to act on that realization. (In fact, this is pretty much the literary definition of climax.) This goes back to my original though on theme - that it's about the moral compromises people make in times of war. But if THAT'S the case then, the PC is the main character, and the climax is their decision to assassinate the General. But if that's really the theme, then it once more goes back to being unsupported by the rest of the story and minimized by the reveal at the end. [/list]

PLOT SUMMARY

The contact is Lady Grey, who tells you that as a consequence of your previous mission (ie, the Lady Grey Task Force), the defeated General Hro'Dtozh is pushing even harder in revenge. So, she sends you off to relieve a group of beleagured Vanguard. In doing so, you meet Warmaster Cher'tak, a Vanguard ally who was leading the attack. After freeing him and his soldiers, you recover some battle plans that confirm that Hro'Dtozh is on the move.

Lady Grey then sends you out to rescue Serpent Drummer, whose team was overrun while investigating a Rikti base. You are promised reinforcements, but are cautioned that they may take some time in arriving. While in the base you end up saving a pair of Malta Agents, who were also investigating the ruins. You agree to team up temporarily, as even the Malta realize that a Rikti invasion would ultimately kill everyone on the planet, and not just supers. While rescuing Serpent Drummer you are confronted by the Rikti magus who captured him. You are able to defeat him with the assistence of Warmaster Cher'tak's Vanguard troops, who finally arrive during the climactic fight to assist you.

Lady Grey's third mission takes you to King's Row, where the Rikti seem to be trying to hold the neighborhood for themselves. You discover that a leader named Naun'Kom was using a pair of commanders to coordinate the effort, but after defeating them both he came to take charge of things personally. You were then able to defeat him, and bring him back for questioning. Under interrogation, it is revealed that Naun'Kom was attempting to seize ground for himself, on the assumption that Hro'Dtozh would inevitably be defeated at some later point.

However, Hro'Dtozh quickly realizes that Naun'Kom has been captured, and sends his most feared forces (from the task force - the Four Riders) to prevent Vanguard from retrieving any information from him. Lady Grey asks that you protect the vanguard base, and so drops you off in the middle of a war zone. Surprisingly, both the Malta from the previous mission, Warmaster Cer'tak, as well as an additional Warmaster are there to assist you in taking down the Riders in the midst of a clash between Vanguard, Malta, Rikti, and of all things Nemesis.

In the aftermath of this battle, things are still grim, and Lady Grey asks you to potentially sacrifice your ideals, and assassinate Hro'Dtozh. She sends a Vanguard Sword squad with you, to assist in your killings. Finding Hro'Dtozh is relatively easy with the information you've gathered, but in the end it turns out to be a Nemesis robot clone.

INTRODUCTION

"This is War, Part I - the Revenge of Hro'Dtozh" is a five-part story arc written by DeviousMe. Based on the request of the author, I am posting my review/edit of the arc here. As stated in previous threads, my goal here is to perform both a line edit, (which focuses on grammar and syntax and consistent style issues) as well as a developmental edit (which focuses on theme and mood and flow and characterization.)

The character I played through the arc was Lion Argent, a 50 WP/DM Tanker. He's got a good assortment of mid-range IO's, and is optimized for defense and Smash/Lethal resistances; in that pocket, He can reasonably tank 8 +1 boss spawns solo. Outside of that specialization, he's merely an OK tank. I played through three times on Unyielding/4, first at lvl 32 or so, and then at 40, and finally at lvl 50.

METHODOLOGY

As I played through, I copy/pasted every piece of text I could see into a Word doc, and gave it a pretty thorough edit pass - and at that point, I realized that this story arc didn't actually need a line edit; the author has actually done a very nice job on that part. So, I guess this critique is going to focus on the OTHER side of an edit pass.

GENERAL REACTION

Thematically, this piece seemed to want to center on the consequences and compromises one makes in order to win against the threat of total annihilation. The strengths of the piece were the technical ability and thoroughness of the creator, a consistent attention to detail, and a sharp eye for dialog. The piece was lessened, unfortunately, by an unintigrated plot/theme, too many named NPC's diluting the focus of the piece, and a head banger of a deus ex machina ending that doesn't seem to do anything but conveniently finish off the story and lessen the impact of the ultimate choice.

As a whole, I give this story 3.5 stars - the technical attention to detail, dialog, and characterization all really were quite good. But ultimately each episode, while well-crafted, didn't hold together in any real way other than "Lady Grey wants you to do stuff against this general guy", the ending is frustrating, and all of the major NPC's feel like they've been dropped in from other story arcs.
So - it's a bit late now, but over the next few days I'll be doing a fairly in-depth critique of this story arc on a mission-by-mission basis. It'll be a work in progress, so I plan on saving the next five postings for each mission, and fill them in as I collect my thoughts.

[ QUOTE ]
It was a baroque spelling of the language they learned at home, and when they read it they pronounced it with contemporary values. As such, it is pretty much the exact mirror of English spelling, which preserves a fifteenth century phonology that nobody speaks any more, which is why English is so notoriously irregular and hard to spell.


[/ QUOTE ]

Heh - I've heard that there actually IS a group of folks that still use what ammounts to early 1600's English prononciation - in America.

It's basically a variation of country folk in the Appalachians having odd accents - there was a group of colonists that went to New England, went out to an island, and (linguistically) ended up cutting themselves off for 350 years. As a consequence, their decendendents speak a closer derivative of "the Queen's English" more than the British do, if we define "the queen" as Queen Elizabeth I.

[ QUOTE ]
Four hundred years ago there were "grammar elitists".
They were the few that could read Latin. With that ability they ruled the western world.


[/ QUOTE ]

Four hundred years ago was the early 1600's. Shakespeare wrote his plays in 1596. And while it was true that Queen Elizabeth could read Latin, she could also read English, French, Italian, and Greek. However, based on what I know of her reign, I serioulsly doubt her primary governing tool was her ability to quote Virgil.

Similarly - Shakespeare was a fantastic playwright, but he was only moderately educated - but he understood Latin, Greek, and French (as well as a bit of Hebrew, I think). Pretty much anyone in middle class England at the time who could afford to send their children to school would do so - and in those schools, they learned Latin. So claiming that 400 years ago that Latin was the monopoly and primary governing tool of the politcially powerful is something of a misnomer, to put it mildly.

Most rulers at the time, and even in the centuries prior, used a combination of force, intimidation, tradition, political savay, and rule of law to govern. The ability to speak latin was certianly known by scholars and priests - who tended to be the younger brothers of kings, rather than kings themselves. So while it is true that latin was part of a well-rounded mideval and Rennisance education, it was part of EVERYONE'S well-rounded mideval and Rennisance education.

Basically, everyone in Europe spoke Latin - or at least, enough to get by in Mass. And with that base, it's fairly easy to get basic fluency in a language - basic schooling wasn't uncommon, depending on where you were and at what time periods. There were quite a few mideval colleges and Universities - and even local churches had schooling for townsfolk.

The Middle Ages were many things - lacking locations to learn Latin was not one of them. Now, I"m not claiming that everyone in the Middle Ages went to college, or even a majority did - but enough townsfolk sent their children to the local church or grammar school that a significant portion of the population did, in fact, speak that language. Yes, some places worked their peasents for 18 hours a day - Eastern Poland was like that at times, I belive. But other places, including some palces in England or SouthernFrance, had what ammounted to 6-hour work days. So folks had, in times and places, LOTS of free time. And one of the things to do in the Middle Ages was to learn additional languages - most folks in England during the Middle Ages, for example, spoke their local dialect, a bit of Latin, and were moderately fulent in Old French.

Further, having a common language was one of the things that allowed people living in Europe at the time to communicate with each other, despite having a varity of languages to deal with. It's what we do now, with English - and most people consider having a common language that people can speak to be a good thing.

[ QUOTE ]

It was through the efforts of many notable people that texts began to be translated so people could understand, and the treasures of western literature were brought to the average person. Out of these efforts came the Renaissance, and with that, modern science.


[/ QUOTE ]

Um...no. Most of the scientific works and discoveries were made by folks translating ancient greek and arabic texts...into Latin. And then they started doing their own experiments, which they wrote down..in Latin. And published to their comrades in colleges and universities...in Latin.

And of course there were all those nifty engineering marvels that were laying around Europe, that were designed by the Romans...who wrote everything down in Latin.

And up until fairly late in (ie, th 1800's), the language of science was latin: scholarly treaties were published in Latin, and in general scientists spoke in Latin. But again - nowadays, they use English.

And modern science traces its roots back to a variety of places, including ancient greek philosophers who, oddly enough, spoke and wrote in ancient Greek...and LATIN. It can also be pulled back to monastic tradition, whereby monks felt that they could understand the Mind of God by meditating on His creation. It can also be traced back to the humanism of the Rennisance, which was in turn partially fueled by massive wealth transfers that occured as a consequence of various Bubonic Plagues. Which, incidentally, was also one of the big reasons for the increase in books - people were writing things down so that information wouldn't be lost due to everyone suddenly dying of disease. Yes, the printing press was a factor in this. So were other things.

[ QUOTE ]

For a millennium, those elitists had kept themselves in power by ensuring that the common person could not write. We call that period the "Dark Ages". That is the fundamental reason why little progress was made during that time.

[/ QUOTE ]

No. We call it the Dark Ages because historians in the late Rennisance wanted to feel good about themselves, and thus proclaimed their own era to be an Age of Light to contrast to what they felt was the barbarism of three hundred years prior.

This was, in turn, an arrogant and faulty attitude on their part. The more neutral term for the Dark Ages is the Middle Ages. In fact, lots of interesting academic and proto-scientific stuff was going on during that times. But 1600's historians didn't want to acknowlege that they were standing on the shoulders of their ancestors, and so snidely called them "The Dark Ages".

And no, rulers by and large didn't actively try to keep their populations ignorant by keeping Latin from them. That would imply that they didn't want towns or cities on their lands, which tended to have better-educated individuals. On the contrary, most rulers LOVED having dense population centers, simply due to their increased tax revenues.

Or to throw it back at you: please cite your accredited historical source that claims that there was an active and consistent attempt by a majority of rulers in Europe over the span of 1000 years to keep their populations in ignorance by prohibiting them from learning Latin, please. Because that claim smacks of Illuminati and conspiracy theory.

That being said - I do agree that publishing in a local language does help with assisting the local culture - but it doesn't particularly assist the spread of science or other scholarly pursuits. Mainly because if you're a scientist, you likely already have an education - nowadays that education includes the ability to speak English. Previously it included Latin. Different language, but the same idea.

Just finished playing through Astoria in D Minor:

In general, I gave it a four star - interesting plot, good use of maps and custom critters, and made a reasonable attempt to push the boundaries of what AE could do. Lots of minor typos - but what mainly marked it down from a five to a four is that it felt like you fell prey to the Pathetic Fallacy - the belief that portraying a sense of confusion is synonomous with confusing the audience. It's not. While the fourth mission was nicely confusing, its main consequence was simply to make me tense - not in an emotionally frightened way, but rather in a headache and eyestrain sort of way. (I really dislike that map.)

Also - as a general writing style - you tend to filter: that is, very often you write "you feel as though someone is watching you" or "you think Irene will be OK" or stuff like that. This calls attention to the fact that the audience is being fed information by the author with the "you feel" or "you think" - if you're successful in writing, you'll already get your audience to feel and think that. Usually it's better just to say "Irene will be OK - she has to be" or "Something's watching. Waiting. Hungering."

In particular:

MISSION 1

"Find Irene." - this is the title of a mission, like the title of a book. As such, you don't need a period in it.

Acceptence links - you don't need to put them in quotes. Convention has us assuming that the text in the main part of the dialog is directly spoken by the contact, and the link text is indirectly spoken by the character. Thus, neither of them are in quotes.

Also, acceptance links don't traditionally have periods - it looks inconsistant with the "Ask about other stuff" link right beneath it.

Council Commander - huh? Why are these guys here? Might want to hang a lantern on this in their About box.

"Trapped Council" - how did I know that they were trapped? Also, the minion with him is not similarly labeled; makes it seem like only the boss is trapped, and not the guy standing right next to him.

The Trapped Council was just standing in the main lobby - I had to walk up to him to get him to talk so he could attack me and tell me stuff. This felt odd - I wanted it to be more dynamic - ie an ambush.

End of mission dialog - "Event Horizon thanks me and puts me in contact with Schism" - he just told me that he'd do this, right at the end of the mission. Thus, this dialog is redundant with what was told me ten seconds earlier.

MISSION 2

Contact intro text - "She shudders" - we're talking over a radio. There's no way I can see her shudder. I could be hearing her shudder, but if that's the case then you can just write out "brrrr", or whatever a shudder sounds like.

Accept link - again: no need for quotes or a period.

Clue - "I saw a little girl!" - no context is given for this clue in the clue itself. Unless I had just seen the "Clue Found" message, I wouldn't have known that this was a clue from a rescued hostage.

Interaction text - "Investigating Body..." "Body" doesn't need to be capitalized.

Civilians rescue text - is all the same. As a consequence, it looks odd. I THINK you can make it different.

Mission complete contact dialog - doesn't feel like the denumont - written like it should be the intro to the next mission, instead.

MISSION 3

Interaction text - "trying not to vomit" - needs ellipses there at the end (...)

Clue text - You already tell us who is at fault - both from strong hints on the body, and on the fact that the compass text has his name in bright red. No need to explicitly state it in the clue.

MISSION 4

In general, while I understand what you're trying to do here, it only worked intermidantly for me. I find that map simply gives me a headache and makes me tense.

Nice use of clowns and dialog - I'm assuming that was Schism and the mom, right?

Good use of the phone.

Another place where the About text was getting in the way, though - while the experience was surreal, the About text for the stock critters was very bland and straightforward.

Final clue - This just seems out of place, and not in a good way: that is, I simply couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Rather than fit with the theme, it simply looked like you had made a mistake with the text and accidentally written something you didn't mean to, or else had forgotten to edit out.

MISSION 5

Intro text - the whole "all will be revealed" thing comes across as pretensious and flat, and doesn't fit with the rest of the piece (ie, this feels like the authorial voice is coming down and talking to me directly.)

[ QUOTE ]
Overall:
I felt like I was awash in a sea of Italian names - after a while I just lost track and the mission briefings became a bit confusiing.

I was about to add "Hercules Cardinal Mission Rule #10: The Good Guys Always Win." to the review ... before I read the souvenir clue... Venture has a bit of a cruel streak.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll ++ both of these issues; while the plot itself was fine, I kept on getting confused as to who was what and on whose side and what all was going on. (When I go see a shakespeare play, I have to sit down and partially-memorize the character list, just so I won't get confused.) Everyone having one of two last names didn't help much here.

I also felt that the denumont kind of came out of left field. However, Venture has commented that he's added more clues for it, so I may need to go back and check it out.

As a guess? having a couple of these would be fine Even having 2-3 instances of various items would be fine - (ie, a buffable ally, an exploding box, and a level setter.) It when you have multiple versions of EACH on a map that it's pretty obvious that it's fallen into farming.

As a safe bet? Give yourself a PLing "score" - one point for each instance of the things you mention. If you get above 3, you're probably hitting PLing territory. If you're over 10? yeah, you're well into the farm.

(Interestingly enough, even using this definition, some dev story arcs would count - I think there are a couple that have multiple exploding items.)

[ QUOTE ]

1. Make note that, as I have stated previously, I am not arguing against the recent "nerfs". As far as I am concerned, they are well within the realm of balance. I'm not arguing against a slight rebalancing of farming, but against the elitist viewpoint of "BAN ALL FARMING!"


[/ QUOTE ]

Fair enough.

[ QUOTE ]

2. Your extreme example is just that: extreme. Nonetheless, I agree with you that "free" stuff just isn't as valuable in the opinion of the holder as "earned" stuff. That being said, farming is not free stuff. I am still earning my experience, influence and tickets in a way consistent with the mechanics of the game. If I choose to do so in a slightly different (and more rewarding, in my own opinion) manner than you, I fail to see the problem.


[/ QUOTE ]

Once again - back to the theoretical "average player" - my claim is that they will burn out faster, not because of difficulty, but because of a percieved "this is too easy and thus not worth my time" attitude.

[ QUOTE ]


3A. If the player is more attracted to farming than experiencing the game "as it was meant to be experienced" (according to certain people), then (s)he was unlikely to show a great deal of interest in the storytelling depth of the game to begin with.


[/ QUOTE ]

Because people are inherantly selfish, greedy, and short-sighted - if there's a way they percieve as being so much better at achieving their goals, they'll take it even if it's not innately enjoyable for them, and even if this behavior is destructive to them in the long term.

When the descrepency between playstyles becomes large enough, more people will PL, even if playing the game "normally" will give them greater returns in the long run for their enjoyment.

And as an aside - it's specifically about PLing - if farming didn't give a significantly higher ROI than doing something else, I don't think the devs would have a problem with people playing the same mission over and over again.

But really, my claim here is based on the assumption that I know the real desires of the playerbase better than they do. Which, based on 34 years of real life experience and 10,000 years of human history, my observation is that people will shoot themselves in the foot if they think it will serve their short-term interest, at the expense of long-term viability.

[ QUOTE ]

And on an unrelated note, let's not dress the game up as more than it is. As much "story" as the game has, it's still just a few paragraphs before you trudge to the same door to kill the same mobs on the same maps. I postulate that "your" playstyle also constitutes farming, just in a more text-filled manner.


[/ QUOTE ]

Death of a thousand qualifications - you just defined 'farming' as 'playing the game'. If that's the case, then there is no way for the word to have any meaning.

[ QUOTE ]

3B. If a player who reaches level 50 gets burnt out very shortly thereafter, that is not the fault of the player nor of the farming. It is the fault of a lack of endgame content.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well, if by "fault"you mean "they put the effort into making the journey more interesting than the destination". It was explicitly stated that they wanted to avoid percieved mistakes in EverQuest, where, from what I understand, the game didn't "really" start until you hit the endgame - which made for a whole series of problems in terms of game design.

So it seems like what you're saying is that some players want to skip the content of the game...and then they complain about having no content to play. Well, yeah - the game was originally desigined to keep people from feeling obligated to do that. Did they succeed in doing so? I think so, at least intermitedently.

[ QUOTE ]

Now mind you, this problem has been dealt a significant blow with the advent of custom arcs, but there is still a lack of what many players assume to be "mandatory" content such as raiding. While City of X is a great game and a perfect fit for some people, it's certainly not a catch-all.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. Some gamers like raiding. CoX was not specifically designed for it - although bases were added for a sort-of high-level "Team Fortress" effect, that didn't really take off very well.

[ QUOTE ]

On a contradictory note, I theorize that I can show you as many former players who unsubscribed due to the "tedium" of leveling early on as you can show me due to "burnt out 50s".


[/ QUOTE ]

Both are pathos, or arguments of intuition (ie, we're both saying "it seems like" or "I would imagine that"). However, pathos is trumped by ethos, or arguments of authority. The developers have explicitly stated that they don't care for farming (as your original claim reminds us), which means that the folks who have the data in hand are agreeing more with me than with you. Thus, ethos seems to be on my side.

But really? This is me retro-fitting a theoretical reason as to why the developers would act this way. And my theory? Money. Which is usually a pretty good guess. Your claim is that it would make more economic sense to do it a different way. OK, but mine fits the actions of the developers more closely than yours does.

Now, a potential modification to your claim is that the developers are stupid and/or acting out of jealousy or anger of people playing the game in a way that they don't want them to. Well, that's certianly possible - they've made what seem to be mistakes in the past that have hurt their membership (such as the changes to PvP.) However, ultimately this game is still here - which means they seem to know SOMETHING about keeping customers.

[ QUOTE ]

4. While guarantees would indeed be nice, nothing can be guaranteed in any direction. Such is the consequence of life's spontaneity. What I can say, however, is that I see no direct harm to your playstyle (and the life of the game in general) due to farming. As I have stated previously, farming helps the economy, helps new players reach experienced mentors faster, and gives players access to higher-level content they otherwise might not have had. Also, while you state that after acquiring a "farmed" 50 players will be less interested in the game, I feel that the opposite is true. After I acquired my first 50, my immediate reaction was "That was fun! Now I can start considering what kind of character I want to try next."


[/ QUOTE ]

Then I'll reiterate - average gamers will take to farming for the short-term benefit and then burn themselves out faster than by playing through the content the way the developers intended to, and so the developers are taking steps to reduce that burnout.

This is supposition on both our parts, but my supposition is supported by the actions of the developers, and requires only that they want to make money. What does your model require of them? I would say Occam's Razor supports mine more than yours.

The short answer: yes, they do.

Slightly longer answer: slowing down leveling will get enough people to play for a month or two longer than they would have with extremely quick leveling. Some people will quit immediately in disgust - but the monthly fees for those who play longer will cover those who quit immediately.

for example: let's say you've got 10 people: 1 person would have stayed for 3 months before getting bored and quitting,while the remaining 9 people would have stayed for 4 months before qitting. That's a total of 39 months of subscription time.

Now, with the change: that first person quits in disgust, but the other four stick it out for an extra month. The total is now 45 months of subscription. In terms of money, it is therefore in the game's best interest to find that sweet spoot that is JUST rewarding enough to maintain the interest of a majority of the playerbase, and keep them from quitting. But not TOO rewarding, because if you reward too much the playerbase will get all the rewards you have available, and leave.

Now, do I have hard numbers to back this up? No - I'm not the developers of this game. But I do know that people who get something for nothing rarely value it, and therefore rarely stick to whatever it is they're doing - and that's what fast PLing is.

To quote a business axiom: "Always leave them wanting more" - if you give someone what they actually want, they won't come back for more. Many folks who are PLing want the end result - once they get it, they won't come back. Maybe you're one of the folks who likes the process of PLing, rather than the end. In that case: the dev's aren't nerfing your fun, at least not intentionally - they're nerfing the fun of those other people, so that they'll play the game a month or two longer.

to throw it back to you with an extreme example: how long do you think the average user would play this game if there as an 'I WIN' button in it that would automatically level any character to fifty, grant all badges and accolades, and give them all the IO's they wanted? Because this is the extreme example of PL'ing. I'm thinking that the answer is "not very long". Therefore, we can conclude that it is not in the developer's best interest to allow people to level too fast. How fast is "not too fast"?

Well, that's a question for folks with their MBA's and lots of experience in the gaming industry to figure out with statistical analysis and the like.

[ QUOTE ]

Again I ask...why can't we all just get along? Why can't I farm in peace, while you run your arcs in peace? There is no answer to be given that cannot be seen as selfish by the players demanding more fillers for their arcs. Honestly, at least farmers have the good manners to politely request fillers rather than ask that your playstyle be banned so that you'll fill.

[/ QUOTE ]

Try this one on for size: developers nerf farming because people vote with their dollars, and if farming is too easy then a majority of people who do it will leave soon after mastering it. Therefore, developers need to make farming only slightly more effective (and yet less story-oriented) than doing regular content, in order to keep individuals playing the game longer.

As an extreme example, this is the same reason why there's no "I WIN" button in the game that auto-levels you to lvl 50, automatically granting you every possible badge available, and making you invunerable to every possible attack and giving you infinite influence. if there was (or something like that), then most people would walk into the game, hit it, play for a few hours, and then cancel their subscriptions.

In contrast, there IS the opposite extreme, where you can choose to not level at all and instead go for nothing but story. However, even there you still have to play out the content, thereby 'forcing' the pure story-oriented player to draw out their time, thereby extending their accounts.

That being said, there are some people who play this game ONLY for figuring out the most effective way to level. And there are others who are here ONLY for the story elements. Most folks are somewhere in between - wanting to see reasonable advancement through moderately interesting story content. So its the developer's job to find the point of diminishing returns: that point on the curve whereby they keep the game JUUUUSSSTTT interesting enough to keep people from quitting.

In other words: I want to nerf your playstyle because the average user will find your playstyle (pure xp) attractive in the short-term, but will get bored of it more quickly and leave, then they will of my playstyle (story+xp). This, in turn, affects the overall long-term popularity of the game.

If you can guarentee me that the farming, as it stands now, is creating sustainable player base? then I will support you and your position wholeheartadly. Pesonally though, I'm going to rely on human nature, and assume that most people will find that anything gotten for free will soon be discarded as worthless.

Now, are there people who, in the face of not being able to farm their way, will quit and thus reduce the health of the game by their absence? Yes. But it's my claim that in terms of person-months, enough accounts will be extended to make up for the loss of however many months those who left prematurely would have paid.

For example - you're still here, which means the change wasn't enough to get you to quit. Which means that, at least with you as a target, the developers are right: they're reduced your ability to play, but as a consequence you're likely to play longer because of it. Or at leat that's what they're betting on.

Probably going to reiterate things that have already been said, but oh well. Anyway, I played around with my BS/Regen and EM/EA brute. My observations are as follows:

1. For my brute, I noticed a substantial difference when fighting +2's: it really seemed like they were only hitting me 2/3 as much as they normally did. I didn't notice nearly as much a change on +3's, though. While there might have been some reduction, it wasn't particularly noticible. Which, in looking at the math, is probably what SHOULD have happened. Bosses were also noticibly easier.

In contrast, Epic Bosses seemed to have gotten much harder - I solo'ed a couple of these folks previous to I7, and it wasn't THAT hard. Now, it took me 5 deaths to kill a Balista EB. Which, again, looking at the math, it probably what SHOULD be the case.

2. On the other hand, my BS/Regen scrapper is now neigh-unstoppable, with the use of parry. Assuming I mix parry into my attack chain, my health didn't drop below 80% at any given time. In particular, I noticed a SUBSTANTIAL change against +2's, and a modest change against +3's. Whenever I had parry double-stacked against a +3, it was extremely noticible.

3. Lucks are now really overpowered now - I learned this when soloing a +3 Balistta Epic Boss (which, admitadly, took me 5 attempts), and it was essentially "always keep 2 lucks running and ignore my toggle defenses". This is probably an unbalanced thing.

In general, I found that this change was nice, but didn't really help out my Brute or Scrapper all that much - I've been soloing on +2/+3 ever since the late teens, and this just made it easier. Bosses are a bit easier, but anything more than that got tougher. However, I'm guessing that I can probably team with either of them now with less chance of face-planting, so that's a plus. I probably should test that out as well...

[ QUOTE ]
Since the power didn't change itself someone changed it. And then that someone (could be a group of someones) also didn't post the change in patch notes so the players could know. Thus at some point it was a choice to not tell the players this had happened and thus it was deliberately deceptive on some level.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're assuming organizational competence on the part of Cryptic Studios. That level of ability is pretty much unheard of - if you've got a dev or PM that can maintain that level of understanding over all aspects of their code, latch onto them, bear their children, and never EVER let them leave your group - they're mythical creatures, rare and wiley and soon-to-be either promoted or burnt out due to exhaustion.

More likely, someone could have simply forgot that they had changed it, or it got pushed down in priority, or the e-mail thread the devs put together was mis-read, or they didn't get the notes up in time for the realease, or any other mydrid of reasons. The phrase "do not attribute to malice what can just as easily be contributed to just about any other emotional state" is a phrase to live by, especially when you're documenting code. (Which is what I do for a living). Things like this happen in every single release, be it beta, RTM, post-rtm doc refresh, point updates, and so on, that I've worked on or heard about someone working on.

That being said, yeah - many devs think that it's ok to not document features, or don't really give it much thought. That's why you don't want to have devs be in charge of documentation or otherwise being the 'face' of your company - things like this happen on a regular basis. They find it very difficult to think of things from the perspective of the end user. On some larger teams I've been on, there has actually been a single person whose sole job it is to tell the devs that certian ideas are dumb, because end users don't think about the product the same way that the developers do. They're called User Advocates, at least here'bouts.

EDIT - oh, also, from a doc standpoint, the choice not to document something rarely comes from a viewpoint of deception - it tends to come from a system of priorities based around the priorities of Quality, Time, and Resources. (aka "Good, Fast, Cheap - choose any two").

<ul type="square">
Quality - how easy something is to read, and how legible it is.
Time - the amount of time the writers have to actually research and put together the docset.
Resources - how many writers you have on the project, and how much access they have to the developers and builds in order to gain the information necessary to doc the product.[/list]
Quite simply, the decision to nodoc usually comes when you're under a deadline and have to start chopping features out of your docset - you simply don't have time to (say) research all of the changes done to the entire product, so you prioritize on the features based on coverage and impact. And by implication, features that don't impact many users tend not to get doc'ed. And yes, undocumented features can stay undocumented for several product cycles, especially if those writing the docs are not intimately involved with using the product and reading the boards. It's a communication issue that's endemic to the entire computing industry, and it's an issue that ought to be addressed - but it's not something specific to Cryptic.

EDIT II - Your argument is also based on the assumption that the doc people have made a promise to document all changes to a feature. They don't, for the above reasons: there's no realisitic way to actually do that, due to time, resource, and quality issues. The attempt that doc people make is to hit all the main features so that the average user has a good understanding of how to use your product. Complete feature coverage is rarely achieved. It's called the "80/20 rule" - you should focus 80% of your energy on the 20% of the features that most users use the most often. The remaining 20% covers the less-used 80% of the product. Although realisically you do spend more than 20% of your time documenting the rest, ratios like that are discussed on a fairly regular basis. This is also known as "hitting the top 10".

This was in the original CoV beta release notes - it wasn't tacked on at the last minute to appease the CoH players.

[ QUOTE ]
Someone please answer this:

WHY CHANGE AT ALL?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because they're attempting to draw back the people who quit betwen I1-I3 because they felt the game was too easy. You, by virtue of someone who has not quit, are not part of that target audience they are trying to lure back.

1. Along the "know your powers" theme - If you change your build for whatever reason (different slotting, new power, respec), be sure to practice your combos.

For the longest time I didn't think I could take on two bosses at once, until I realized the power inherant in Total Focus. However, taking on two at a time does take a bit of effort, so you really do need to practice such tactics (in this case, Whack one with BU+AIM+PU+Total Focus, then wack the other with Bonesmasher and Energy Punch and everything else you have. By the time the mez wears off the first, you should be able to reapply TF again.) However, to get this down well, I had to practice more than a couple of times against the paired bosses in the Portal Corp parking lot.

2. In the "know you enemy" theme - know what explodes when it dies. And back the Furk up before it does.

3. Know your self and your relation to the powerset - personally, I've found that I don't play my blaster (or defender) very well after lvl 41. Why? Because I have too many powers. In constrast, I can play my Tanker just fine. Why? Because enough of his powers are inherant that don't forget that I have (say) Stone Mallet, or something.

Here are my ideas - both which have already been suggested - in that case, consider it another vote:

<ul type="square">[*]Vault - I would suggest that people in SG's get a (slight) bonus to their influence when they recieve it via normal channels, but that bonus goes to the SG vault. The more people in a team doing a mission that are in the same SG, the greater the bonus is for each individual. Then, people within the SG can withdraw from the influence vault whenever they want to. To me, this better represents the influence that a supergroup has AS A GROUP. While I understand the desire to have a vault that you can put influence in, it seems a bit too much like money and to little like influence for me. (Not that I would MIND having that ability - I just prefer this method).
[*] Team moves - SG teammates can learn special moves when they're together. They're earned like mentoring badges - you simply learn "the slowball special" (or whatever) by being with your teammates. I would imagine that you could learn moves with non-teammates as well, but it would simply take longer. I can see some moves being like Specials for scrappers, in that they simply automatically occur - others could be toggles that you have to have running simultaneously - the really powerful ones could simply be click powers that have to be activated within a certian timeframe of each other to work properly.[/list]

Here are my ideas - both which have already been suggested - in that case, consider it another vote:

<ul type="square">[*]Vault - I would suggest that people in SG's get a (slight) bonus to their influence when they recieve it via normal channels, but that bonus goes to the SG vault. The more people in a team doing a mission that are in the same SG, the greater the bonus is for each individual. Then, people within the SG can withdraw from the influence vault whenever they want to. To me, this better represents the influence that a supergroup has AS A GROUP. While I understand the desire to have a vault that you can put influence in, it seems a bit too much like money and to little like influence for me. (Not that I would MIND having that ability - I just prefer this method).
[*] Team moves - SG teammates can learn special moves when they're together. They're earned like mentoring badges - you simply learn "the slowball special" (or whatever) by being with your teammates. I would imagine that you could learn moves with non-teammates as well, but it would simply take longer. I can see some moves being like Specials for scrappers, in that they simply automatically occur - others could be toggles that you have to have running simultaneously - the really powerful ones could simply be click powers that have to be activated within a certian timeframe of each other to work properly.[/list]

The respec hit the test servers yesterday, I believe.

Also note that Power Boost, in the Energy Secondary, increases the base defensive bonus of all abilities by 100%, for 15 seconds, with a 60 second base recharge time. It boosts other abilities as well, but that's the only boost germane to the discussion. Note that it does NOT affect resistance or, to my knowledge, Accuracy debuffs.

In my current buld, I've got perma-hasten and 4-slotted Power Boost - the down time is something like 5 seconds. Interestingly enough, I use it mainly as a speed boost to my travel powers and a Disorient enhancer to Total Focus and Bonesmasher - however, it DOES provide me with an additional 17.5% defense buff by boosting hasten, CJ, and Stealth.

I belive it can be 6-slotted for permanance, but that ends up mussing with Hasten. Ah, well. Decisions, decisions...

Oh -and Acrobatics increases your resistance to Holds by preventing one hold from occuring, at the expense of knocking down all of your toggles. That is, instead of being held, you get all of your toggles knocked down instead. (This includes, of course, Acrobatics). I've found this to be fairly useful in the solo game when facing a single Rikti mentalist, as it gives me enough time to arrest them into oblivion before their Hold power can recharge. However, others characters, such as certian scrapper builds that live and die by their toggles, tend to find it really irritating.

Also note that it's not useful against two or more enemies that have a Hold power, as the first successful Hold from one will knock down your Acrobatics, leaving you wide open for a Hold attack from the second.

Total Focus allows you to stun a boss for 10 seconds. Build up increases that stun by another 10 seconds. With auto-hasten, the recharge of Total focus is something like 11 or 12 seconds. Thus, without Build-up, you can't quite chain-stun your target without devoting some of your slots to recharge or stun. This is important (in my experience) when dealing with Master Illusionists, who automatically phase every couple of seconds and thus can't be targeted half the time.

But other than that, yeah - personally, I really don't want to imcrease the distance of my knockback, as most people I team with find it irritating. However, I'm considering traveling the respec route as well, and going with Munitions - I can easily see the benefit of increased Armor, Hold, and Sleep effects. (LRM? Not so much.)