LaserJesus

The Drakule arcs are designed specifically with teams in mind, and the first one's a great place to start, generally. At least, I find starting things at the beginning to be a good practice.

Rise of the Drakule (#51357)

I try to put some humor everywhere I can, so if you're not the team leader, make sure to click the ! in the nav window to read the mission briefings, if you guys don't already do that. The still busy text usually has a joke or two as well. Unfortunately there's not much to do about the rest of the team not seeing the debriefing text, however.

Excellent. Noon is probably going to be too early for me most days but I should be able to make it to the 8pm Saturday team.

The Echo
Arc ID: 1688
Author: @MrCaptainMan
Rating: 1 stars

Short Version
The arc begins with comedic tones, with jokes that didn't do much for me, and takes a sharp turn off of an angst cliff in a final mission that was tedious and involved a plot point that left a sour taste in my mouth.

Plot Synopsis
A kidnapping by the Freakshow seems to involve an old hero called The Monitor, and is only the beginning of something bigger.

Story

Spoilers ahead, if you care.



So I'll just start with my biggest issue. I killed The Monitor? Why? There was no good reason for me to. What, because he had plans and components for a doomsday device? Big deal. Him and every other supervillain on the planet. They get their face kicked and thrown into jail, not murdered. The evil messages written in ALLCAPS and sent as text messages with LOL in them which are "obvious evidence" that he's "gone nuts"? When I saw those I knew that they were either lame attempts at humor or that I was being strung along, and my suspicions to the latter were strengthened by the multiple assurances that he was a "dangerous madman" written out in the clues and contact dialogue.

Most superheroes don't kill. City of Heroes assumes that most heroes are closer to Superman than the Punisher. Besides, The Monitor is singled out completely in the arc as to who gets killed. In earlier missions Freakshow bosses are decidedly alive after I defeat them in order for me to interrogate them. But for some reason I decide to run the ex-hero through with my sword? And I don't want to hear "But you thought he would have a medical teleporter on him, so normally you could deal him a lethal blow and he'd be fine." I was never led in the story to believe that. He's been presumed dead for years, he probably isn't even registered in the teleporter network anymore. At least, I would hope that the city inactivates a hero's registration when they die, including their medicom. I'd hate to think that a villain could just get their hands on a dead hero's medicom and have it still work.

It's also not if I hauled in a police drone, which as far as I can tell is still the only way for a villain to be instantly transported to jail. Any criminal I beat up still has to be processed the old fashioned way, by police. And even if he would be instantly transported to a hospital, I doubt there'd be a 100% chance that they'd save him from lethal wounds. A non-lethal takedown would always be the best option.

To make matters worse, the exit mission pop-up pretty much calls me a dick for killing him. Way to give a big middle finger to the player, by using authorial power to force their character to kill someone and then saying "How's it feel, hero?"

If the guy was still a hero at heart like the souvenir claims, he wouldn't have forced another person to commit murder, and instead would have put a gun in his mouth.

Moving on to the rest of the arc, the humor didn't do much for me. Humor is more subjective than pretty much anything else, so your mileage may vary. It went for complete wackiness, but didn't really jibe with the serious nature of the arc. I mean the first mission involves a woman who's husband beats her. Why The Monitor paid the Freakshow to kidnap her is a mystery, presumably just so a hero would rescue her and learn that he's involved, and start investigating. Still, spousal abuse is serious business, and not like the internet is serious business. It's explicitly stated by the police that she's been beaten by her husband. That doesn't mesh well at all with the wacky humor presented in other areas in the arc.

The Crey live fire exercise is completely unnecessary. The level range is 40-54, any hero by this point will know that Crey are a bunch of dicks and villains who will not "understand if you ask nicely" and in fact will shoot all intruding superheroes on sight, whether they're there to investigate or there to stop other villains from raiding their lab.

More of a side note, does this take place in an alternate Paragon City in Britain? Or are all the Freakshow just European? I guess British hooligans are a perfect fit for the Freakshow, but it just seemed out of place for the setting of Rhode Island. Not a big deal, just a little strange.

Mechanics
Oh god, the final mission. I understand the chained objectives were so the author could put the villain's monologue as clues, but my lord, 15 Freakshow bosses on the large boat map that spawn one at a time? That's just tedious.

After I finally got to The Monitor, he seemed to be electric blast/electric armor on high settings. In other words, goodbye endurance. It was a frustrating cap to 15 boss spawns that all needed to be cleared completely before the next one would appear. (So if any of them rezzed before you killed them all, you'd have to go back and kill that one. And if the boss rezzed while you were killing THAT one, then you begin swearing.) I'm frankly amazed that none of them failed to spawn on the map. I was all geared up for having to reset the mission and everything.

In the Crey library mission, the first enemy I ran into was Head Librarian Ray, a boss in a tweed jacket and a power helmet, no bio. Later I found out that the final boss for the mission is also this character, with a bio. I can only assume that Ray was at the beginning by total accident. Either the author made a mistake and added a boss spawn with him in the front and didn't realize it, or forgot to flag him as Do Not Autospawn in the custom group editor.

Other than that, the interact time for the glowies could really stand to be turned down. Especially since you have 4 or 5 in some missions.

Final Thoughts
This arc really did absolutely nothing for me. I went from not finding the comedy funny to being frustrated at utter tedium to being outraged at the ending that requires your character to do something completely stupid. Based on my own personal tastes I can not recommend it.

When was the next time that the MA super team is going to run some arcs? I made a character on Triumph for this but never got around to actually joining you guys.

Battles use rescue or "any" locations. Not boss locations. Just an FYI.

It just seems to me that including arcs that win a forum contest in a similar category as dev's choice and hall of fame arcs is a surefire way of starting ridiculous amounts of drama.

Simply being in the Best Twist category kind of ruins the twist, don't you think?

Also, considering how much drama was started over the "official" contest, can you imagine the kind of **** storm that would start if the player's choice winners got put in as a special search option?

My nomination for best character, my personal favorite literary punching bag, Ashton: The dudebro ninja who doesn't know when to quit, even in the face of untimely demise.

Seen in (deep breath)

Rise of the Drakule (51357)
Missions #1 and #2

Return of the Revenge of the Son of Drakule Part 2: First Blood (84543)
Mission #2

Drakule Armageddon 5: This Time, It's Personal! (257242)
Missions #1 and #4

Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers From Hell (340316)
Mission #2


Ideally, that would have been an F-bomb, but alas, T rating.


NOW YOU WITNESS MY FINAL FORM!


Or, uh... hm. I guess he's a cyborg now? So much for his final form then.

I've decided to cut off requests at this point so I can get through the last of these arcs and do those re-reviews I said I would do, uh... how many months ago? In any case, yeah. Queue is closed until further notice. If you have updated an arc since I've reviewed it and would like me to take a second crack at it, let me know.

I have to say I like PW's suggestion the best, though the term "new author" is a worse term the more I think about it. It has implications that are impossible to define in a way that is satisfactory (this small group of posters has thrown out quite a few definitions already, all of them different) and I don't think the implications of the word new really serve any valuable purpose.

Lesser known is probably a better term overall. If the purpose of the category is to attempt to highlight arcs that haven't gotten much recognition on the forum, then that term is perfectly acceptable as long as A) that definition is explicitly stated and B) the terms of the category are similar to what PW has suggested.

Honestly, I think that's probably the best way to go with it. People who fall into PW's categories (except for perhaps the last one) are visible enough so that they don't really need to "break out", as it were.

The Coldest of Wars
Arc ID: 299972
Author: @Celestial Nemesis
Rating: 4 stars

Short Version
A fun arc that could use a bit of polish, but otherwise is not a bad way to spend an hour or so.

Plot Synopsis
An undercover investigation into Crey's shady business practices by the FBSA reveals an enemy from the past who has come back to wreak havoc on Paragon City.

Story
Ridiculous Soviet super-soldiers? Check. Even more ridiculous plot to destroy the city? Check. Campy, over the top Soviet dialogue? Check. The plot is a classic superhero half-serious, half-what the eff affair, and I like it. I wouldn't change a thing about it.

However, at times it feels like the contact is simply spouting exposition to anyone in earshot instead of informing the player, particularly in the first mission. The author states that this was their first mission, and that's a pretty easy mistake to have. There's not much I can specifically suggest that wouldn't involve me rewriting the contact's dialogue completely, but in general it's best to avoid the contact spouting facts while the player character is presumably standing there nodding politely. What I do is try and read dialogue back to myself either out loud or in my head as if someone was saying it, and ask myself if it sounds natural or not.

If you can't find a way to make it sound natural, you can always fall back on using the mission begin clue to deliver the exposition in the form of a dossier or something that the contact hands to you, with the contact saying something in the form of "This is a briefing I've written up detailing all the things you need to know about the assignment."

There was also an instance of the contact saying nearly the same sentence word for word in both the debriefing for mission 3 and the briefing for mission 4. A simple oversight, easily corrected by just deleting one of the two instances.

Mechanics
Good idea on capping the arc level range at 45, to avoid the annoying all-tank Crey spawns. However, they still appeared at level 45 occasionally. Perhaps capping it at 44 would avoid them entirely?

A little sprucing up of some of the objectives that require you to click multiple computers and destroy the 6 devices couldn't hurt. In the first mission, I noticed some of the computers had the same flavor text when you finished clicking them. Making them multiple objectives that all have the same plural navigation text, but different flavor text, would help add a little variety. The same goes for the ice cream machines in the third mission. The lab scanner seems a bit out of place for an ice cream machine anyway, no matter how heavily modified. It'd be neat if at least one of them was a release captive objective who was a normal civilian doing the emote where they're standing by a vending cart, surrounded by snow monsters.

Final Thoughts
It's pretty standard for someone's first arc to be rough around the edges as the author learns how to use the system and what works and what doesn't work. With some polish over time, this arc can only get better.

A Show of Hands
Arc ID: 296884
Author: @Lazarus
Rating: 5 stars

Short Version
A challenging and fun arc with tons of interesting minutia in the missions.

Plot Synopsis
Your fence is selling a valuable item you've stolen, and you're heading out to the deal to get your share of the cash. What can go wrong? (Hint: Everything)

Story
The plot is really standard, but it's executed pretty well. The story says that you have 2 hours to find the item, and I was expecting a lot of timed missions, but the author instead decided to instead go for a perceived time limit instead by giving you clues at the beginning of the mission that say how long you have to go. Gives the plot a sense of urgency without abusing time limited missions.

Speaking of clues, if you're like me and like to read, this arc is great. Tons of random optional objectives that more often than not give you a clue. Setting up bombs in the Council base was especially a nice touch. Being proactive in AE missions is always nice.

I was hoping that the "valuable item" would turn out to be something completely stupid at the end, but it's never defined. Oh well. I'll just pretend that it was a prize winning Pomeranian, because people murdering each others over a small annoying dog greatly amuses me.

Mechanics
Again, the use of optional objectives is great. Though I was a little disappointed that even though the pet window appeared when I rescued the Battle Drone, I couldn't command it. Not the author's fault, I know, but still a bummer to be lied to like that.

The Nagans from The Portal Bandits make a return, so their brand of challenge is back. That is, hard, but not to the point of anger over cheap ********. I got killed by them once, and that's because the terrible spawn point placement on lab maps reared its ugly head again and dropped a boss group on top of a rescue group. Then again, it's partially my fault for playing on x3.

The author is not kidding about it being ambush heavy. There was a very intense moment where I was determined not to let the Freakshow destroy a single wooden crate, and despite the fact that I had an ally with me, the crate nearly died due to a nearby boss group and the fact that every nearly every single freakshow decided to rez. So again, the arc is a challenge. Thankfully, I like a good challenge.

Final Thoughts
The arc isn't a great work of literature, nor does it try to be. It's fun, well constructed, and a blast if you like challenges.

Lesser known authors is a gigantic pool. Plus, just because someone posts here a lot and thus has a name recognized by the community doesn't mean that their arcs are well known. Recent months aside (damn Dragon Age being so awesome) I've been a regular poster here, yet I'll guess that most people here haven't played any of my arcs, or have maybe played one or two. Not a complaint, just an observation. So while I could be classified as a well known author, my arcs are very much less known.

New is a different beast. Do you classify new by timeframe, or do you classify new as in not very well known? (See above for problems with that.) New author is especially mindboggling. I'd venture a guess that it'd be impossible to define new author in a satisfactory way. New arc is more managable. Simply defining it as "Published within the last month" is a reasonable definition.

Long story short, if you were to do a category like this, it's probably best to make the category "Best arc published in the last month".

Strife in Turmoil
Arc ID: 65180
Author: @Imoba Strife
Rating: 3 stars

Short Version
An arc that's mostly a non-frustrating experience with an okay story that has a few issues that need to be worked on.

Plot Synopsis
Imoba Strife's brother has gone back in time to prevent them from gaining eternal life from a 5th Column experiment, and he has asked for your help in stopping him.

Story
First things first, the spelling and formatting need work. It's not unreadable by any means, but needs quite a bit of cleaning up. Unfortunately I don't take notes on this kind of thing so I'm not going to be of much help in editing. Again though, everything can be read and understood. I only rate something poorly for stuff like grammar unless it's a complete mess.

My main issue with the plot is the fact that Imoba can't go back in time to stop his brother since he has to remain in an Ouroboros magic ward to prevent changes to the timeline from affecting him. This wouldn't be a problem if his brother didn't get his immortality from the same occurrence. The brother is perfectly capable of gallivanting around time without instantly becoming an 80 year old man, so Imoba should be able to as well. This would make more sense if Jacen (the brother) was only sending his henchman back in time and remaining in the present himself, perhaps in a temporal stasis field of Dr. Aeon's design.

If you change the story in that way, then the final mission could be to go to Jacen's hideout and defeat him and destroy his time machine, preventing him from just trying again. (Well, unless he steals another time machine.) I want to point out that I'm not trying to tell you how to write your story, just throwing out ideas on how to fix a plot hole.

Also, the reasoning for why Imoba has to be in the ward is kind of vague at the beginning. He simply states that if he leaves the circle he'll become old, not why. At first I was thinking that was just a condition of his immortality and was wondering how he got any crime fighting done, but later it's said in plainer terms it's to prevent changes in the past from affecting him. Just a small bit about that being the reason in the first mission's text would clear it up immediately.

The story does have some potential. Jacen's motivations are believable, even if it is hard to feel sorry for him since he made his own bed. But then, when are villains ever completely rational? Never, that's when.

Mechanics
While the custom enemies being made up to look like Thugs henchman was pretty cool, just having 2 minions, one lieutenant and one boss to fight for almost the entire arc started to get a bit repetitive. The 5th Column changes things up a bit, but not enough since you see them a lot in the AE. Not bashing the Column, but if they're not the most used enemy group in AE arcs I'll die of shock. No reason you can't mix it up a bit and throw in some completely made up henchmen that aren't based specifically on the MM set. I'm sure you've got the space for it, what with there only being 8 custom characters in total and 4 missions.

The second mission where you have to beat up the past versions of the two brothers to ensure that they're captured by the 5th Column has them spawn as bosses with 5th Column surrounding them. The problem with this is that they say things like "It's $name! You guys are in for a beating!" and then promptly start shooting you with machine gun fire.

Getting into writing your arc for you territory, but there's a way you can do this mission without these problems. Set the enemy group to empty. This is necessary for a later step to avoid confusion. Have the brothers spawn as allies. Have one of the two be the first one that's rescued, with the second one spawning after the first one is rescued. You can have the dialogue be something like "My brother and I got separated." Then have the alarm set to not be completable until the second one is rescued. Set both allies to betray you when the alarm is completed, and also have the alarm spawn a 5th Column ambush set to rogue. This way, the 5th Column should attack both you and the brothers. This will make it so the brothers don't attack you until you give them a reason to think you're working with the enemy.

I failed the third mission before I even saw one of the objects I needed to defend. I'm pretty sure this is because a battle between the thugs and the 5th column aggroed the thugs that were standing around one of the objects, putting them into attack mode before I could do anything. Battles spawn in rescue locations instead of boss fight locations for reasons I can't fathom, and on lab maps they like to spawn right on top of boss fight locations for reasons I also can't fathom. The easiest way to avoid this problem is to make sure that the battles and defend object objectives don't spawn in the same area, like putting all the battles in the middle and putting all the defend objects in the back.

Final Thoughts
I'm sorry if I seem to be taking too much liberty with my suggestions, but half of the reason I do this thread is to try and help people create better arcs in addition to pointing out the arcs I think are great for others to play. If you don't like my suggestions, feel free to ignore them completely.

And I apologize for the complete lack of activity on this thread from me. Dragon Age is a ******* time vampire.

Should have posted the arcs that you're in range for much, much, sooner, but here they are.

Arc #257226: 'Tis Nobler in the Mind

This is actually the first arc I wrote back in beta. I took it down because I wanted to do new things and it was the one with the least ratings at the time. However, that's not really important.

I imagine the story will be one of those things that you will either love or hate, and some of the missions could be really difficult for some characters, but a scrapper should do just fine. The worst you'll face is an elite boss, and there are allies in that mission anyhow.

If you want to post spoilers about the story, I guess I really can't stop you.

Arc #340316: Drakule vs. The Werewolf Bikers From Hell

I really can't stop making these. This is probably my most mechanically complex arc yet. Like the other Drakule arcs, it's designed with a team in mind, but can be soloed by characters who are built to be able to solo. The first mission in particular is enhanced by a team (or being set to have 4 or more teammates by a analyst/fateweaver). But don't set it that high if you don't feel like you can handle it, of course.

Congrats on the Dev's choice.

At this rate, the Dev's choice arcs are going to take up two whole pages before long. Not that that's a bad thing, mind.