LaserJesus

If only I could vote twice. Really rough time choosing between my top two.

2nd: Fear and Loathing on Striga #350552

The little details pushed this one over the edge. I'll admit that I'm a sucker for "Wow" factor, and the Council allies that had roar dialogue as they died and turned into war wolves that were still allied was something that I had never seen or even thought about doing. It's also very solidly written.

I really should mention Breaking the Barrier (and Putting it Back Together Again) #347029, though. Great arc if you like arcs that are challenging and involve general craziness.

It's funny, I've been working on an arc for quite some time that fits the criteria of this contest. Except for the level range.

Somehow I don't think low level characters and Malta are going to go well together.

Played Fear and Loathing on Striga, and it was easily a 5 star arc. Dense with little details, has a good villainous feel to it, and ends with a showdown with superheroes in what is quite possibly the least contrived boat mission I've ever seen in an MA arc.

Since I'm playing the January player's choice nominees straight down the list, this has set a pretty high bar for the other ones. Except for my own, of course. My overwhelming ego puts my own arcs over all others.

Just finished Troy Hickman's arc.

Overall, the story was alright. Sometimes it seemed a bit heavy-handed on the dramatic tone, and then the pun-filled enemy names seemed a bit out of character with the tone of the story. Other than that, nothing too bad.

Some of the custom enemies though, I've got a laundry list of things to point out. The Greco-Robot lieutenants don't give any XP. What was taken away? I can't really think of a mace or shield power on standard that is too much. Was it the throwing knives?

Some of the custom enemy factions were giving out heavily reduced XP for not having a full group. The last mission's enemy group in particular only had one kind of minion, and a particular nasty minion to have an entire group built out of. All ninjitsu? Any character without perception is going to see absolutely no enemies besides Nachtmusik's group, and the enemies seem to have the full compliment of dual blades powers.

Cabar-rage is going to infuriate any character that uses fire powers. 90% fire resist, healing, and the self rez. I personally don't have a problem with self rezzing enemies, but if a fire user finally whittles down her health, and she gets right back up that's going to be a hair tearing out power. Fiery Aura on bosses is just plain mean. The build up doesn't really help things either.

I'd personally suggest removing Nachtmusik's psychic wail. The custom critters' AI just treats it like it would any other PBAoE power and uses it whenever it wants, instead of at a set time like any other enemy in the game. (Including custom enemies with nova, blackstar, and thunderous blast. Any other nova-style tier 9s will be used whenever by a custom enemy. It's weird like that.) I don't have a problem with novas on custom enemies, but the unpredictability of it makes it annoying. At least if it always fired at like 25%, you'd know that if you're fighting a tough enemy with a blast that something may happen at 25%, instead of suddenly getting slammed with a huge attack out of nowhere.

Despite that laundry list of gameplay issues, it wasn't an unenjoyable playthrough. I definitely enjoyed the puns even though they seemed to not really fit in (Bloody Holly was pretty damn clever), and shameless self promotion is always something that gets a bit of a chuckle from me.

Hmm. I guess I would have enjoyed it more if it were straight comedy instead.

I think what's likely the best way to approach your story is in an episodic format. Make 2 or 3 arcs or whatever, have them share an overarching story, but have them all completely self contained. For instance, say your first arc is about you tracking down and bringing one of the top leaders of Malta to justice, and the arc ends with him in your custody and you turning him over to Crimson. That story is a complete story, with a solid resolution.

Then, your next one could start with that Malta leader escaping, with Crimson thinking there's a mole in his group. And the story arc of that one could be about you trying to find the mole, or even trying to find out if there is in fact a mole or not, or if Crimson's been in the spy game so long that he sees enemies in every shadow. Include a "Previously on" clue at the very beginning of the arc to bring the player up to speed if they've forgotten things about the earlier arcs, or if they haven't played them. (I've done that, and it really does make a difference.)

As for multi-part arcs, I think the main problem is with how MA missions are presented by the game. You have a maximum of 5 missions and limited filesize. (That one's been hitting me hard lately. When you're having to edit down a 3 mission arc due to filesize constraints, that's when you realize that you might be a bit longwinded. Also, custom enemies.) In addition, when a player starts an MA arc, that character's locked into it until they complete the arc, or quit it completely, losing all of their progress. There's a sort of unspoken promise the last mission of an arc will give the player closure because of that, since just by loading up a long MA arc, they're putting in a commitment to see it to the end. If they get to the end to see a "To be continued" they get upset, because they will likely have to play another 5 or more missions to get that closure.

This is made even worse when you've put up the first part, and the second part isn't done yet. Making an arc of high quality, especially one that's heavily story focused, is going to take some time. Now they have no feeling of closure, and not only are they going to have to play another presumably long arc, they have to wait for it to come out. And now the impetus is much greater for you to really deliver a quality arc, because they'll have to want to seek out/wait for your next story, and they're going to feel less impressed simply because of the lack of closure.

Speaking of delivering quality, and this is just something to keep in mind, but the higher you're shooting for in regards to things like scope, drama, and really complex stories, the harder it will be to deliver, and the more negative the reception will be if you fail. People will expect more out of the story, and who can blame them? You're trying to give them more. So when you don't, they feel let down.

Note: This is not me saying don't try. I wholly encourage any writer to try to write the best story they possibly can. Just be aware that you have a difficult task ahead of you.

And finally, for your question, I'd have to say that length, at least for me, has no point where in and of itself makes me begin to get annoyed, as long as what's filling that length is interesting. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of people feel the same. If anything, length would just make it so people wouldn't want to start the arc to begin with because they're not able to invest the time. Which is fine.

Yeesh, that's a long post. Damn my tendency to pontificate.

EDIT: Clave_Dark_5: It's 4, and I have no plans for it to lead up to any kind of "Final Battle". I pretty much just make another one when I have a good idea for it. Hell, if anything I'd do a "gritty reboot" of the series to keep in line with the bad movie aesthetic before having any kind of definitive end.

Glad you enjoyed it!

The whole vampires and werewolves hating each other thing is mainly another satire on the whole vampire "genre". Seriously, the vampire versus werewolves thing is practically ubiquitous at this point. The World of Darkness games, Underworld, Twilight; it's freakin' everywhere and it doesn't make sense. So in the contact dialogue when told by Von Heksung that vampires and werewolves hate each other he doesn't give a reason. Instead, he just says "Of course they hate each other. Don't be silly." Just another bit of satire.

Part of the comedy style in Drakule is absurd humor, and that's another example of it. It doesn't make sense, you know it, Von Heksung should know that as a veteran monster hunter, but he apparently doesn't realize it. He's pretty nuts, anyhow. Psychopathic, really. Your character is taking orders from what by all rights is a psycho serial killer who just happens to only kill monsters.

In short: I am aware of the plot hole, and it's intentional. It's part satire, part absurd, and like all humor, it's entirely subjective.

And yes, the Abberance is a total parody of Nightcra- I mean, the Abomination from Underworld. WHY WAS HE BLUE? Makes no sense.

The main thing that you bring up that seems like an important issue to me is that you thought that Ashton told you where Grendel's lair is. What he's really supposed to be saying is that Grendel learned where the Clan of Drakule's lair is, and is heading there to take their hemoblood by force. The werewolves were drinking the blood of the Drakule spawn they kidnapped, but since he can't make hemoblood as a spawn, they were just drinking blood.

It's entirely possible that you didn't find all the random side objectives in the second mission that I threw in as set dressing. It's pretty hard to miss the kidnapped vampire, since he shows up pretty much right at the front, but off the top of my head there should also be a car being worked on by non-werewolf members of the gang (they haven't earned their claws yet) and a group of vampire infiltrators trying to rescue the kidnapped vampire, plus one or two other random objectives.

I bring up the car specifically because destroying it gives you a clue that's not essential to the plot, but is another joke. An obscure and self-referential joke, but a joke nonetheless.

And yes, the dance clubs are gratuitous. Blame Blade and World of Darkness for making me associate vampires and dance clubs.

This was pretty much the entire reason I made my arc, Fighting Freedom. The main enemy group is called the Freedom Militia, a group of young mutants who took inspiration from the Freedom Phalanx and decided to band together to fight Arachnos and other criminal groups.

It pretty much fits every criteria you stated except that what would normally be elite bosses are bosses, and the "hero class" leader is an elite boss to be more friendly to characters who aren't solo powerhouses. Of course, The arc only takes place in the 30-35 range with not nearly as many enemies as I would like due to space limitations, but given enough space and arc slots I could easily make all sorts of stories with them from 25-50. Lower than that would be pretty mean to the players, since low level custom enemies are incredibly hard to balance.

I've got a couple for you. Rise of the Drakule (#51357) and it's sequel, Return of the Revenge of the Son of Drakule Part 2: First Blood (#51357) are both 3 missions or less and pretty focused on parody and absurd comedy and combat over any kind of really deep story, so they're good for some quick fun.

The second one may be a bit out of your characters' range, as the minimum had to be bumped up to prevent weird spawning with the custom group that's used in one of the missions, so enter at your own risk. The first one though has been beaten by characters all throughout it's 25-50 level range.

I just wanted to chime in that it's not the rating system that's broken, it's the MA search window. Aside from 5 stars being higher on the list than 4 stars and so on, I can't make any damn sense of how that thing sorts out arcs. Add to that the fact that invalid arcs aren't automatically removed from the search, and you've got the 4 star section (where pretty much any arc with any kind of decent amount of plays almost always ends up) filled with old farming missions.

Frankly, that's probably the biggest problem with the system as it works right now. It functions like a giant heap of things that you have to dig through to find what you want, instead of a store where you browse through products that are on display. Every arc that hasn't been taken down is up there forever, regardless of whether anyone has played it in months, or if it can even BE played. Implementing a system where arcs become "inactive" and no longer show up on the search window after say, a month without anyone playing, editing, or perhaps the author hitting a "refresh my arcs" button in the published stories tab would clear up the system immensely.

If no one is playing the arc, and the author doesn't care enough to hit a button every month to update their active status, then as far as I'm concerned no one will really miss the arc, and it should be cleared out of the search window so arcs that people are playing and arcs with authors with an interest in getting plays can be showcased properly.

Thanks for the review. Just a few notes.

The main goal of the narrative for me is to not keep the player, or necessarily even the character in the dark. Figuring out some of what's going on near the second or third mission is exactly how I had intended, considering the end of the third mission lays it all out on the line for you. That's the main reason for the number and detail of the clues.

Second, as for replacing them with recolored Praetorians, that's not a possibility. The enemies you fight are actually the boss-rank allies instead of the AVs, since this is designed for a high level solo character.

The custom group can use some tweaking, and the initial encounter is incredibly hard to balance after I16's new difficulty settings. I'm curious as to what difficulty you played this arc at. On lower difficulty settings, in the range of x1-3, it's practically all minions that show up in the fight, who are some pretty weaksauce AR/Regen minions set to standard by design specifically for that reason.

The mastermind LTs are the only ones with web grenade, so to get spammed with so many seems like you were playing on a high difficulty. If I could remove web grenade and keep the later devices powers I would do it in a heartbeat, but that would drop their XP to nothing.

Again, thanks for the review, and if you want to PM me what you typed up about the story I'd be happy to read it.

Thanks for the kind words regarding Drakule! I agree, the second one is much better than the first. In fact, I think they get progressively better as the sequels pile on. I think it mainly has to do with the voice and tone of the humor being refined as time goes on.

And for my last second nomination (go procrastination!) I am submitting the Freedom Militia from my arc Fighting Freedom. (ID# 177930, appear in Missions 1, 2, 4, and 5)

Keywords: Balanced, Varied

The Freedom Militia are sort of like the antithesis to the Outcasts in Paragon City. They are a group of young (teenagers and young adults mostly) mutants who have grouped together to try and fight the rampant crime and the oppressive rule of Arachnos. Most of them aren't heroes in their own right, just low powered mutants who are attempting to do some good.

Minions from left to right: Rebel Firebrand, Rebel Brawler, and Rebel Slugger


Lieutenants from left to right: Anarchist Blaster and Anarchist Ripper


Bosses from left to right: Insurgent Slasher and Insurgent Battery


Night Viper


Ice Queen

Leaving Crey
Arc ID: 301947
Author: @Justice Blues
Rating: 4 stars

Short Version
An arc with a decent plot with some nice little touches to put it in line with the point in time that it occurs, but could use some polish and some more mission dressing.

Plot Synopsis
During the first Rikti Invasion, a Crey employee finds evidence that Crey is illegally reverse engineering Rikti technology and asks for your help in bringing it to light.

Story
The plot works, so there's not anything that I would fundamentally change. However, the contact dialogue can seem a bit flat at times, a bit more expositional than conversational. Standard advice, try reading it out loud and seeing if it feels natural to say. The first mission's accept text said "you" instead of "I", as well. Some other areas probably have more typos that I can't remember. Unfortunately I never really take notes on spelling and grammar errors, I just remember the ones that really stick out.

Mechanics
For the most part, I like the custom group. It makes a lot of sense for the arc, considering that it occurs during the Rikti War, and thus Crey doesn't have armies of Paragon Protectors and such yet.

However, I do have a few bits of advice. Lose the devices on the minions. Web Grenade has a 4 second recharge, and when paired with another ranged set, they'll use it every time it comes up, which is an easy perma-immobilize and a hefty speed debuff in addition to -fly and -jump. Not a good thing to have on a minion. Especially with the lieutenants with electric manipulation. Those are less of an issue, as you won't see them as often, and they'll stop if they're in melee. In fact, setting the electric lieutenants to melee AI would help stop them from spamming it.

I also generally suggest against willpower on bosses that appear more than once. They not only get a hefty amount of smashing and lethal resistance, but they get resistance to everything else AND a pretty big increase in hit points. The level 45 bosses had an extra 22% HP or so, which just makes them a bit more tedious. Invulnerability gives practically the same resistances, but without the added HP.

On an aesthetic note, the electric using lieutenants were much taller than any of the other customs. While standard enemies have random height, when one custom is standing much taller than the rest of them, it looks strange, especially when another custom is kind of short. Speaking of which, was it intended for the contact and Justice Blues to be so small? They barely reached my waist.

I would consider switching from the default weapons to something else. For the assault rifles you could use the normal looking assault rifle or the 5th Column/Council one, and the Katana could be the Impervium one to fit better with the Crey aesthetic.

The second mission and last missions had glowies that didn't serve any purpose. Instead of just having them say "Nothing important here" or similar, you could put some clues in there, like evidence of Crey's other activities. The third mission also seemed like it could use a lot more sprucing up. I like the Rikti who speak in random symbols, but aside from them and a patrol, it's just mowing down badguys to get to the escort and back. A boat is already a pretty big map, and an escort just makes it seem longer. The escort doesn't even say anything when you find it, lose it, or get it to the door. It yelling at you incomprehensibly would be a nice touch.

Final Thoughts
Its a relatively new mission (my vote was the fourth) so it's expected for it to not be perfect. It definitely needs more polish and revisions, but most, if not all, of the problems are due to that fact, so this one gets a 4 instead of a 3.

Nominees list: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=196272