Leese

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As for reconsiliation between my 2 chief characters, I couldn't agree more, but I was lumbered with a limit of text I could use, and had to cut back on the story some.

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A good reason to move the exposition about Jacen's prison time into an earlier part of the arc. You'd then have more space in the final debriefing for reconciliation.

Review: Strife in Turmoil (Arc ID: 65180, Heroic, 25-54)
By @Imoba Strife

Summary: An origin arc that mostly avoids the usual pitfalls of Author Insertion, Strife in Turmoil has a inspired and balanced enemy group and an engaging story, but loses a lot of points on presentation.

Should I play it?: Give it a shot. Balance was fine for a squishy blaster, and IMO you'll probably like it. However this arc does ask you to take some actions that are a little morally dubious.

Rating: 4 stars

I played this arc on Tenacious as Jacintha, my lv42 Archery/Elec/Elec blaster.


Report: I'm trying to slim down the report section, so here's a different format.

Our contact is Imoba Strife, a hero and apparently the author's own character. Since The Sleeping Star is all about my own characters, I'm not in any position to get judgemental here.

Imoba's brother Jacen has apparently gone back in time, and undone the event that caused the two of them to gain eternal youth. Imoba is stuck in a magic circle he can't leave, so he needs to ask you to head back in time and stop Jacen's plan.

Overall the author manages the Author Insertion well, apart from a few problems...
<ul type="square">[*]The author assumes we know who Imoba and Jacen are. When I began I had the notion that both Imoba and Jacen were heroes, or at least Jacen was an anti-hero. When I encountered Notorious Inc, I did not realise Jacen was a MM and they were his Thugs/ until the end of the mission, and the author waits until the end of the arc to clarify Imoba and Jacen's relationship and outright state that Jacen is a villain.
Imoba and Jacen need to be better explained to the player, preferably earlier than they currently are.[*]Imoba is well done though. Since he's stuck in his magic circle, he never directly aids the player in battle and thus never steals any thunder from the player - his fate is entirely in your hands. And he's a pretty likeable guy.[/list]
MISSION 1
<ul type="square">[*]Jacen's thugs have kidnapped Imoba and Jacen's past selves so that they will miss the event that gave them eternal youth, and you have to go rescue them.[*]Enemy group is a custom group called "Notorious Inc." It took me a while to realise it, but this is actually a nice recreation of the Thugs MM primary. The Punks have been split up into Punk Slicers (DB/WP) and Punk Fighters (MA/WP) and while they're a little bit more difficult to kill than normal minions, WP is not set so high that they have mez protection. I also encountered Enforcers (Thugs/Dev) but no Arsonists. Maybe they're a boss. A fun group to fight, with a decent challenge level, and as the icing on the cake all of these critters had two different costumes which is a touch I always appreciate.[*]Two hostages, guess who. One of them gives you a cute clue, and there is some nice dialogue.[*]A boss, Jacen's bruiser, Axel. Drops a funny clue when defeated. (this was the point that I realised Jacen was a MM)[/list]
MISSION 2
<ul type="square">[*]With his past self rescued, Imoba starts to fill us in on his back-story. Apparently he and Jacen were captured by the 5th Column and experimented on - the result was their eternal youth. The next step is ensuring that Jacen and Imoba are actually captured by the 5th.[*]Since Jacen has stopped the patrol that caught them in the past, we have to actually go beat up Jacen and Imoba and raise the alarm in a 5th base. A little bit of slightly more dubious work, but for the greater good and with Imoba's permission. I quite enjoyed the twisted nature of this mission.[*]Generic spawns were 5th Column, but apparently a custom faction that only consisted of soldiers. I think I remember reading about this before, and it is appropriate that Darkwolfs, Vampires and Robots aren't showing up in the 1940s.[*]Jacen and Imoba spawn as bosses, and put up a decent fight.[*]Raising the alarm is a simple matter of clicking a glowie. My one problem with this mission was that when I did, the ambush spawned right on top of me, but at this point the mission was over and I could click Exit.[/list]
MISSION 3
<ul type="square">[*]With Imoba and Jacen captured, now we need to ensure they are experimented on, but Future Jacen has sent his thugs to stop the experiment. We need to protect the 5th Column scientists and their equipment![*]Another morally dubious mission, but it's presented well as The Right Thing To Do.[*]Fairly straightforward.[/list]
MISSION 4
<ul type="square">[*]With Jacen's plans thwarted, all that remains is to catch him, so that he can't go around again for another try.[*]Map is another warehouse full of Notorious Inc. It's a bit on the large size, really - a large map for only one objective. There are a few patrols IIRC.[*]There is a very strange encounter halfway through. While fighting in one room, a 5th Column boss called "IGNORE ME" came rushing past me, running for the exit. I ignored his request and defeated him, but it didn't seem to have any affect on anything. I later encountered a spawn of Punks using the Unconscious emote, who I assume were his guards, but it didn't seem to have any relevance to anything.[*]Final boss was Jacen, a Thugs/Dev Elite Boss. A tough fight, as in addition to spawning with an Enforcer LT who could summon, and summoning his own pets, he called in an ambush too! Something of a pain but purple insps and AOE work wonders. It turns out Jacen is just sick of having eternal youth, and wants to change the past so that he has a normal life. Understandable really.[/list]
In the debriefing, Imoba talks about how he pities his brother, and finally gives us the back-story over how one brother became a hero and the other a villain. TBH, I'd have loved to see some kind of reconciliation between the brothers in the end - Jacen says that the things he's done mean he'll never be accepted by anyone outside the RI, but I'm not so certain that's true. At the very least, his brother still seems to like him.

The souvenir is cute and funny.


The story of this arc drew me in, in spite of its small flaws, and I enjoyed it greatly, but it has to be said that you definitely need to do a very thorough spelling and grammar check. There are a lot of typos that Word could have easily caught - grammar was better than spelling but could still be improved. The careless mistakes, such as the exposition, text errors and Mr IGNORE ME detract from what could be a 5-star arc, and almost made this a 3-star. But after some deliberation, I decided I liked the central story and the overall playability enough to give this arc 4 stars.

Incredible vid, beautifully done. I'm awed by the amount of work that must have gone into it.

OK that weirds me out.

You know me as Leese, and now you know that I'm sticking around. CoH is still one of the best MMORPGs I've played, I'm engrossed in its current state and excited about its future!

I don't know if Master Zaprobo would do the things that are done in my arc - it's a little bit Westin Phippsy, but he might enjoy it.

"Through Rose-Tinted Glasses"
ID: 101681
5 missions, 2 AVs/EBs, lv40-50
"Elspeth Wallace is a senile old lady. Elspeth Wallace knows many secrets. Elspeth Wallace thinks you're Manticore... wait, what? This could be weird... but profitable. (2 Signature AV/EBs)"

Tickets drop when you would have got salvage, recipes or enhancements. The amount of tickets you get corresponds to the value of the item you would have got.

So ticket drops are just as random as salvage, enhancement and recipe drops.

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You mean the ones in PD that he just blanked after a bit?

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That will be the one's FFM.

I don't know how any company can just dismiss customers the way he did. That was really bad public relations from the top boss.

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this what utterly disgusting. Tbh this is now really making me consider when CO comes out to go play that.... and im not CO greatest fan

I mean head dev of a game and he dismisses a very valid part of the game. its the castle/lighthouse facade all over again .... where in many ppls eyes the wrong person was sacked

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He didn't dismiss PvP. He dismissed a line of questioning that had already been answered and dealt with, but kept getting asked.

What did you expect him to do, drop all the other topics and questions and spend the entire session in a lengthy debate about the merits of the various PVP systems? His time here was limited. You made your point. He gave his answer.

Completely agreed. Players WANT to love zones like DA and Boomtown, and there's some excellent content you could wring out of them.

I was joking with my Dom buffs question, and I don't think Posi was replying to me.

(he had just said that he coulsn't solo AVs with his Dom)

Review: Love Spurned (Arc ID 1934, Heroic, 40-44)
by @Gunbunny

Summary: A fun and humorous arc, Love Spurned suffers from a few enemy spawning bugs, an inconsistent level range, an inconsistent plot and some flawed grammar.

Should I play it?: The sweet spot for playing this arc is level 40. Any lower and you may encounter enemy spawning bugs. Any higher and you won't get XP in missions 1 and 2. It is a good arc but needs serious polish.

Rating: Three stars.

I played this arc on Razorslash, a lv35 Katana/Regen Scrapper.


Report: I love the central idea of this arc. Who hasn't seen the Desperate Guy in Pocket D and wondered what would happen if he went after the Carnies or KoA?

Probably lots of people... but I digress...

Our contact is the Desperate Guy, who's worried about his new "girlfriend." Apparently when he walked her home he saw her going to meet some Family at a warehouse, and he's worried about her, so he asks us to go check she's OK.

First map is a warehouse filled with Family. Most were level 35, the same as me, but a few were level 40. Fortunately none of the 40s were Lts or bosses, and Inspiration use was enough to get me through the lv40 spawns.

Eventually we find a hostage: The One True Love, who happens to be a Carnie Ring Mistress. She thanks me for helping her and escapes, asking us to tell the Desperate Guy to stop pursuing her, and apparently stealing some Superadine on the way. The Family boss has some angry words for me about helping a thief.

The Desperate Guy takes her turndown badly, but decides she's just trying to protect him and starts following her around. Just as he mentions that he saw her going into a bank, we get a phone call from a detective about a bank robbery.

Inside the next map, we find the Tsoo. High level Tsoo. In other words, a map where every spawn except the boss is a Blue Ink Man - an excellent opportunity to be debuffed down to the Recharge and Speed floors. Nice if you like that sort of thing. I don't.

One of the nice things about the MA is Custom Factions allow you to add variety to canon factions that lack it. For example, in Total Domination PRAF made a new Crey faction to replace the immensely boring 45-50 Crey faction.

I suggest you do so in this mission. Make a new faction, include the Blue Ink Men in it, but add some custom Ninjas, Sorcerers, Ancestors and so on as well. Your players will thank you for it.

Anyway, after a while we find The One True Love, being guarded by Tsoo, and free her. It seems she came here alone before the Tsoo attacked and was as surprised as anyone else when the Tsoo attacked.

The final mission begins with the Desperate Guy finally getting "lucky" - by the time we go to talk to him, The One True Love has dragged him off somewhere.

At some point in this briefing we think about when we told the One True Love about Desperate Guy being a stalker the first time we met her, even though when I read back he'd not actually done any stalkerish things at that point.

It turns out she's taken him to a lawyer's office. These officers have a few regular Carnie spawns, but it's mostly a custom faction of Family and Tsoo that have been given masks and enslaved by the Carnies - and also been forced into some really garish costumes. The Desperate Guy turns up as a horribly dressed WM boss that defies description. These bad costumes are of course deliberate.

There's a strange clue about blackmail that is very obscure. It took me a while to figure out the "he" who was blackmailing her was the lawyer - at first I thought it was the Guy. This was probably because I hadn't rescued the lawyer by this point.

The One True Love's goal is quite simple - get revenge on everyone who's annoyed her at once. The Family, the Tsoo and the Desperate Guy are all her brainwashed slaves, the blackmailing lawyer is captured and she's set bombs full of "fecal matter" all over his office, and now you're here to be defeated.

She spawns as a standard Ring Mistress, and thus isn't impossible to beat. With her captured and everyone rescued, you return to Pocket D with the Desperate Guy. Just as it looks like he might be entering a state of self-examination and gaining a lick of common sense... a KoA walks through the door.

Your hero makes their excuses and leaves.


This was a fun and mostly-playable arc, with some funny humour, but it has too many problems to give it a firm recommendation. Spelling and Grammar errors are frequent, there are bugs with enemy spawning that the creator needs to find creative ways to work around, and there's plot inconsistencies that give the arc an unfinished and unpolished feeling.

Overall, 3 stars.

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Too much whitespace is nearly enough.

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Aye - Really wish they'd make the &lt;br&gt; double the horizontal break it currently uses - I never use a single one unless it's the difference between publishable size and unpublishable size.

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Simple solution: offer a &lt;P&gt; tag, which puts in the equivalent of &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

Fantastic post. 5-stars, 25 tickets.

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P.S. Did you see Amanda Vines in the middle floor of 2nd mish? (It's really an insignificant cameo, mish works withot her, but if she's affected by spawn bug, I want to know it.)

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Yes, I did, but I'm trying to cut down on how much I'm writing in the report, and her cameo was nice but irrelevant in the long run, so I didn't note it.

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CoH2 coming....

May not be called that, but CoH2 coming....

Soon.....

Probably....



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I'm not so sure now.

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maybe called CHAOS as the page says "all CHAOS will be let loose"

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City of Heroes And Offshore Sociopaths?

Review: "Goldbricked!" (Arc ID 83859, heroic lv10-20)
By @3dent

Summary: A low level arc that sees the Goldbrickers finally show up heroside, "Goldbricked!" is an enjoyable and well-paced arc that unfortunately needs much more polish (especially regarding spelling and grammar) and a bit more inspiration.

Should I play it?: It's an arc that is well-balanced for its level range, it has an interesting plot, and heroes may find its villain group a nice change from the usual.

Overall I gave it 3 stars, but it was so close to a 4...

I played this arc on Heroic as The Mighty Millionaire, a level 16 MA/Inv scrapper.


(arc spoilers follow)

The contact is Captain Cooper of the PPD. He's got a lead on a museum break-in that he'd like us to investigate. Apparently he had some of his men on stakeout, waiting for the thieves, but they've not radioed in recently so we have a few goals - stop the robbery and rescue the cops.

The museum is full of Goldbrickers and it's fairly straightforward. In a nice touch there are lots of completely optional painting glowies scattered around the walls, which your character can Appreciate, but they are all the same - a good way to make the arc more entertaining would be to work some parodies of famous paintings into the text.

Our three officers are standard Rescue objectives, and the boss is a normal Goldbrickers spawn called "Jason" who drops a Clue telling us where he was to meet his client - in the WSPDR building in Cap au Diable.

Since the PPD has no jurisdiction in the RI, the Captain sends us to Cap au Diable to apprehend the client. I'm not sure how legal that is, but OK. The client is a fairly generic Family boss, whose only purpose is to supply us with the phone number used to contact Jason. It also appears someone inside the PPD has sold us out, tipping off Arachnos that we would be here.

My favourite part of this mission was the final spawn, consisting of two Wolf Spiders hoping to get a promotion by bringing me in. It didn't work out for them, but their dialogue was good and rang true.

The phone number is in Paragon, and belongs to a small time crook called Jimmy the Fence, who seems to have struck it big recently. We go to his office to check things out - naturally it's guarded by Goldbrickers. Along the way we uncover Blackmail tapes implying one of the cops in the first mission is a superadine addict - sure enough, they show up after that with a troll, looking for their 'fix.' That explains who's been selling out the PPD.

This is a good idea, but you need to work on the writing here a little bit. The Captain's debriefing text is a bit too overwrought and over-dramatic IMO. I also think this entire subplot could do with expanding. Adding a mission where you had to go arrest the cop could be a good idea, as it would break up the Goldbricker missions with a troll one, for a change of pace.

Anyway, we catch Jimmy who reveals the location of the Goldbricker's next robbery to us. One quick bank mission later and we fight the next boss, who drops a GPS cell phone.

The cops are able to look though the GPS logs and determine where the Goldbricker's base is, and the final mission is shutting it down. The Captain joins us for what is really a pretty straightforward defeat-all.


I enjoyed this arc, but I get the feeling it kinda ran out of steam in the latter half, which simply isn't as interesting as what came before. It's also rife with spelling and grammar issues, and really needs a thorough read-through and correction. But it's perfectly playable, mainly thanks to using standard mobs, a wise choice IMO given how difficult balancing custom critters for the lowbie game can be.

It took a long time to decide between 3 or 4 stars, but in the end I had to give it 3, but just barely.

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The Cruise Missiles worked last time I tried!

Kohol scaled to an EB too I soloed it with my tanker - hardly an AV killer.

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Sorry PRAF, but she was definitely an AV when I ran the arc on difficulty 2. And I've talked to someone else who's said she was an AV when he duoed her on difficulty 1.

Review: "Total Domination" (Arc ID 22433, villainous, lv50)

This arc carries a warning that it is difficult and not intended for solo players. While I did solo most of it, I've kept that in mind regarding the difficulty. Nothing wrong with a hard arc that carries a warning.

Summary: A highly challenging arc, "Total Domination" presents the player with a wide variety of challenging but balanced encounters. It's not fantastic for story lovers, but the narrative is good enough to hold it together, and high-level villains who are fed up of being lackeys of their contacts will enjoy it.

Should I play it?: If you plan on soloing this, be sure you can kill a lv52 AV solo - it won't scale down to an EB! Otherwise, this arc presents an excellent challenge suitable for a high level group.

4 stars.

I played this arc on Tenacious as Leese, my lv50 MA/SR scrapper. I'm not the type of person who can be bothered fully IOing a character - despite being my main she doesn't have a single Purple, but she is partially soft-capped and has significant recharge, damage, endred, regen and accuracy boosts.


(spoilers for the arc, and also Kelly Uqua's missions, follow!)


Report
The contact is Kelly Uqua - or a hologram of her, that is. (nice touch there) We're planning on kidnapping her - as a Rikti spy, she has the knowledge we need to finally put our plan for conquering the world into action.

Kelly's in a Crey Lab map, defended by a custom Crey faction. This was extremely appreciated, as I find lv45-50 Crey to be among the most boring enemies in the game, so it was nice to see some custom agents and scientists in among the standard Tanks. There are even custom Paragon Protectors, who seemed to be missing a Tier 9 but rez when defeated.

The main downside to the custom Crey were the agents, who had /Nin. I know this is intended to be a challenging arc, but making use of a bug to do it seems like the wrong way to me. If my Ranged Defence hadn't been soft-capped, I'm sure these guys could have been an extreme threat. A similar complaint can be aimed at the LT Paragon Protector Quantums that were a common spawn. Kheldians may find this mission highly frustrating.

Kelly is a psychic AV/EB when I get to her, and not too awful a threat. She does call in three ambushes though - two Crey, one Rikti, which makes the fight much more tricky.

Once subdued, Kelly agrees to help with my plan so long as I don't let slip about her true origins. She tells me I can get a Rikti Organelle - a psychic computer of sorts - from Area 51, which turns out to be a warehouse guarded by Vanguard.

First spawn as we enter has a Vanguard HVAS, a tough fight, especially since it raises the alarm and brings a vanguard ambush down on me. The rest of the mission is easier - check crates to find the organelle, one of which calls another ambush.

When we find it, we get to one of my favourite sections - defeating the Security Chief. I was expecting a guy in black SWAT armour. Instead I got a stolen Rikti Heavy piloted and guarded by the US Military! Very nice encounter. The Commando Officers and Commando Colonels that spawn with him are all Soldiers/Dev bosses, and at 50% he brings in an ambush of more of them.

I really enjoyed this fight, though I suspect more squishy characters would just die over and over. For a soft-capped /SR though, it was epic and fun. The Security Chief's dialogue was also some of the best in the arc, as he struggled to figure out how to fly this thing.

Anyway, we got out, organelle in hand, and Kelly realises what I plan to do with this thing - reverse engineer it so that I can mind control the entire planet! But to do that, we'd need a powerful broadcasting tower - like, say, The Web? To use it though, you'd need to capture the designer of the web - Dr Aeon.

The next level is somewhat chaotic. The very first spawn upon entering is two groups of "Aeon clones" - the ones from the STF - battling each other. They're all EBs that only con as yellow for some reason, and thankfully completely optional. I died for the first time to one of these battles - there are multiple.

There are also Aeon robots, designed to look like him, which make up the standard spawns on the map. These guys are fun, apart from the Sapper LTs, who have Elec Armour and love to use Short Circuit. While fairly easy to defeat by themselves, they present a serious challenge if they have any backup - your toggles WILL drop.

Aeon himself is the usual AV/EB, supported by his EB clones. Once again, it's the ambushes, not the boss, that is the player killer here - one ambush of more EB clones, one of his robots, one of Arachnos. I was doing fine until a sapper turned up in ambush 2 - his appearance led to my second death.

This mission was OK, but felt a little like padding.

With Aeon captured, we can install our device in The Web. This mission was a little strange. There aren't any regular spawns in it. Instead when we click a glowie, groups of Arachnos Cruise Missiles appear.

Now, I've actually never encountered these things before, but their AI was pretty odd. They just hovered up to me and sat there, not exploding. I couldn't target them, so I AOEd them to death and still didn't suffer any repercussions. A group of 4 did explode once - three of them missed me, one took off half my HP. I suppose I got lucky.

The boss is Regent Korol - a lv52 AV who does not scale down to EB. This scrapper is pretty good, but she's not a AV killer, and definitely doesn't stand a chance against psychic AVs with powers that completely ignore positional defence. (death 3) So I got some allies - special thanks to King of Toys, Gunbunny and Thorny Devil for the help! Korol went down easily with their assistance.

With the Web under my control, and my mind control machine warming up, all that remains is to stop those pesky heroes from destroying it. The final mission consists of not much more than a series of battles against Heroes and AVs - Malaise, Sister Psyche, Manticore, Kalinda and Ghost Widow to be precise. Fortunately these spawns did scale down to EB, meaning that the main challenge in this mission was actually getting though Longbow - for some reason, probably due to inviting those helpers in the previous mission, the Longbow spawns were very large with several wardens even though there were only two of us left. Both of my deaths in this mission were due to warden aggro, not EBs, but since I suspect this was a bug I can't hold it against PRAF.

The ending was brief but satisfying - Kelly Uqua merely asking "What is your command, master?" when I talk to her. It worked!
It's refreshing to play a villainous arc that is an unqualified success, though it obviously nixes any chance of considering this arc even slightly canon. There is no souvenir.


Overall I definitely enjoyed this arc - it was extremely tough going at times, but was never advertised as anything else, and the challenges were extremely satisfying. Mission 3 however felt somewhat irrelevant to the arc as a whole, and mission 4 seemed buggy and poorly balanced, as it presented a significant difficulty spike. I dread to think what kind of debt-fest it would be if the cruise missiles actually worked. The dialogue was well-written but the plot was quite bare-bones, and there were a few grammatical issues that occasionally annoyed me. Recommended for teams or solo-optimised characters.

Overall 4 stars.

REVIEW: Cancelled in Three (Arc ID: 35608) (neutral, lv40-50)
By @JamieB

Summary: "Cancelled in Three" is a short comedic arc intended for both heroes and villains (though it really suits heroes better) The story is entertaining, with many jokes about the nature of fans, the comics business, and a particularly entertaining parody of a popular comics writer, but it severely misjudges the difficulty of many of its custom mobs, and the ending is... unsurprising.

Should I play it: If you have an armour set, you should get a lot of enjoyment out of this arc. It is probably far more challenging for squishies. If you are a controller or Dominator, consider staying away. Many of the most dangerous minions and LTs are immune to control effects - or hold and stun at least.

Overall, I gave it 3 stars.

I played this arc on difficulty 4 as Jacintha, a level 42 Archery/Elec/Elec blaster. A significant part of her survival comes from the ability to stun/hold dangerous enemies, and the ability to hover out of melee range.


Report:
The contact is a man in a suit called Walt Kurtzberg - it's never exaplained who he is, but he seems to know us. Apparently we have our own comic book, and it's about to be cancelled, so Walt sends us to a convention to speak to its creators and find out why... and also buy some "ephemeral tat" as is traditional.

The convention is in a warehouse full of psychopathic comic fanboys - there's the Pest, the Cosplayer, the Goth, the Messageboarder... it's a fun custom group, with some funny bios. About halfway through we encounter Kirby Eisner, a comic creator, who is being pressurised by "editorial staff" to give up his copyrights. The clue he gives me once I rescue him is a genuine LOL moment. The tat we bought was also quite funny.

One strange thing - Kirby Eisner's skin was a strange shade of red, I think. At first I thought he was wearing boxing gloves.

Eisner's clue suggests that we check out Paragon Comics's offices, which are full of more of the faction that was menacing Eisner in the last mission. They've recently bought the comics company and are relentlessly squeezing it in search of improving the bottom line, so we need to go in and beat up The Publisher.

If only it were that easy.

These mobs were difficult. I died, twice, on the very first spawn. Probably half of them have armour sets and often mez protection, cutting down my damage and making it impossible for me to hold the dangerous ones - Sub-Editors in particular were especially frustrating. SS/EA - good damage, good defence and mez protection, these guys were tough and I met them extremely, hair-pullingly frequently. To make matters worse, the low ceilings of an office map frequently gave me nowhere to hover out of melee range. The Publisher himself was a Thugs/DA, but in a large room so at least I could hover. He was still a real challenge, but he was a EB so that's OK.

After defeating the Publisher, we find some chemicals that seem to be a mind-control agent mixed with ink. Someone is trying to mind control Paragon's comic fans! We hit the printers to find out who it is, and as we round the first corner we see a "Support Automaton..."

That sound you just heard is me smacking my forehead against the desk.

Yeah, it's a Nemesis plot. The final mission is another warehouse, where we need to destroy a few machines and confront the new owner of Paragon Comics. Nemesis is his usual AV/EB version, though his writing is a little off - he comes across as a senile old man, rather than an evil genius. I'm sure it was done for comedic effect, but it wasn't as funny for me as the rest of the arc was - maybe I wasn't in the mood any more after mission 2, or maybe I'm tired of Nemesis.

This arc would have easily been a 4, maybe a 5, if not for mission 2 which was an exercise in sheer frustration. Yes, I know I was playing on a high difficulty, yes I know Blasters should expect to die, but... lets look at HOW often I died.

Mission 1: No deaths.
Mission 3: One death (to EB Nemesis)
...
Mission 2: Twelve deaths. Nine times to normal minions/lts. Three to the EB.

You have a definite difficulty spike there that, in my experience, kills your arc and needs to be addressed. The arc definitely required further testing.

So, three stars overall.

My main aim with the IC comments was to use them to support the points I was making and to make what could be a pretty dry technical review more interesting to read. I probably didn't succeed all the time but hey...

I'll probably shorten the Report section of the review in the future, condensing it down to a few notable bulletpoints rather than describing everything.

REVIEW: Tidebringer (Arc ID: 12290) (villainous, lv40-50)
By @Col. Blitzkrieger

You know, I know it was just fairly random timing, but it doesn't seem very fair to me that I have to review the other reviewer's arc first! There's a lot to measure up to here. Oh well... lets see what we have.


Summary: "Tidebringer" is a high-level arc intended for villains, with several tough AV/EBs, optional boss allies to help you, and a well-designed custom group. The story is decent but while it's well written and fun to play, it unfortunately suffers from two of the most common complaints levelled at villain content - the player is merely a lackey of Arachnos throughout, and it ends with the player taking actions that would be more suited to a hero.

Should you play it?: Yes you should, especially if your villain is a mercenary-type or noble villain.

Overall, 4 stars.

I played this arc on Victik, my lv50 Necromancy/Dark/Soul MM. Difficulty was Vicious.


(spoilers from here on)

Report:
Our contact is Brick Johnson, a VEAT contact who's already known for not playing fair with the player. Port Oakes is having problems with its ghosts, and they need an exterminator. Calling a thousand-year-old necromancer seems to be a good move!

Victik: Brick Johnson irritates me greatly. I have defeated all who dared defy me on these miserable isles, yet he treats me like I only recently arrived from Mercy Island.

Brick's dialogue did initially annoy me. While his disparaging attitude toward the player might be suitable for the lv10 game, this is a 40-50 arc and it's galling to see this Bane Spider calling my god-killing character a "schmuck" and telling me to my face that I wasn't the best choice for this job.

Mission 1 is fairly straightforward, as you investigate an Arachnos base and get rid of the ghosts. This is a defeat-all, but it's a small linear map and entirely reasonable. The ghosts are a well-done higher-level recreation of the Spectral Pirates faction, which my zombies totally rolled over thanks to my many fears and holds. Interacting with a computer reveals that the worst case scenario has come true - the ghosts have learned to use the Internet.

Victik: These ghosts are weak-willed spirits, but I do envy their grasp of this modern "technology."

They've been searching for information on something called ""Tidebringer," which turns out to be an artifact owned by Captain Mako. Presumably they've been taught to use computers by their new leader, a man they only refer to as "The Admiral."


Brick is worried by this so - reasoning that the Admiral is probably a hero - he sends us to a Longbow base to find some info. Soon the base commander is covered in zombie bile and happy to oblige. It turns out Admiral Darkwater is a descendant of Blackbeard, and wants to remove the curse from the Spectral Pirates and free them. Well, we can't have that. Time to go make an example of this guy.


Darkwater is holed up in his lair, an abandoned cargo ship. A fairly straightforward level, the sole complications are a useful ally - a Boss level pirate who disagrees with what Darkwater's doing - and the man himself, a BS/Regen EB.

Victik: Darkwater was a fierce warrior, but his sword was no match for those of my knights, Artura and Lancell.

Yeah, He was fairly easy, and mostly thanks to just having Standard Regen. Darkwater is dragged away by Arachnos, and Brick is ecstatic... until he immediately escapes.

Darkwater immediately attacks Mako's museum, trying to steal Tidebringer, and I'm sent to stop him. Apparently Tidebringer is a sword infused with the rage of the sea and every sailor who ever died in it, which is some pretty mighty juju, and it can lift the curse, but to so so it needs to spill some powerful magical blood. Brick points out that if your villain is of magic origin, they might suffice...

Victik: He's welcome to try to take some of my blood. I'm eager to take his.

As soon as we enter the museum, we find... Operative Jenkins, who has somehow managed to get promoted as far as Bane Spider Executioner. Who keeps promoting this guy?

Halfway through the mission we find an empty Tidebringer display case. Looks like we're too late. A new objective appears - defeat the leader of the ghosts, who turns out to be an EB called Red Terror. He actually came as quite a shock, as I initially mistook him for a Lt, but he went down without too many problems.

Brick freaks out when I return, and immediately plays the trick of blaming me for Arachnos' failings. It seems the "magical blood" Darkwater intends to spill isn't that of a villain, but of... the Leviathan. While he would free the ghosts in doing this, he'd also wake the beast, and it would probably destroy the Rogue Isles. It's time for some amateur Heroics - we need to get down there and stop Darkwater, who's apparently been given godlike powers by the Tidebringer.

The final mission is set in the Leviathan caves, and a little bit of exploration gets us a few allies - Brick Johnson himself, and Veluta Lunata, who Brick has been consulting with about the ghosts. Getting to Darkwater is pretty easy. He's now a BS/Storm with Flight - flight was actually the most useful of his powers, as he moved around quite a lot. Since he didn't have an armour set his HP dropped quickly, but on the way he spawned three ambushes - some allied Arachnos, some Rogue Longbow and some Enemy Pirates. These ambushes were actually more dangerous to me than Darkwater probably was.

Victik: I must give them credit, Longbow and the Spectral Pirates knew to come directly for me and ignore my minions. Between their attacks and stuns, they very nearly destroyed the corpse I am currently wearing. This was a highly chaotic battle.

Overall he died quite quickly though, (no armour set) and Tidebringer was broken. It is somewhat gratifying to see that Brick has changed his opinion of my by now (promises to put in a good word for me, presumably with the man who I showed his own severed head.)


Overall I definitely enjoyed this arc - It's well written, perfectly playable, the custom enemies are well designed and the story is interesting, but it's let down by a few small grammar errors, an irritating misjudging of the contact's tone and IMO a real lack of actual villainous content. I give it 4 stars.


(gosh, reviewing is hard work. I may cut down on the detail in the future. If you have any comments on how I'm reviewing, I'd like to hear them)

Well, I requested that people asking for arc reviews supply a link to CoG as well, because I believe that site should be used a lot more as well. But I think threads like these have their place too.

I've decided to try Total Domination, PRAF. I'd rather not review an arc I've already had any input at all on, which means Captain Jefferies is out. Soul-Journ's "Cards" arc won't be reviewed either. (I look forward to reviewing his next arc though)

I can say though, as a casual comment, that I did enjoy both of those arcs when I played them.

I'm only accepting one arc request per person ATM, so my list won't get completely enormous. (it still will, but hey...) Please edit your post to pick one arc.

Now that I have three arcs published, I need something else to do, so here's the review thread I've been meaning to start up for the last week.

If you'd like to have your arc reviewed, please provide the following details. Please only submit one arc at a time, you can add another after I review your first.

Title:
ID:
Suggested Level Range:
Description:
Link to City of Guides entry:

(or anywhere else you have the arc posted. If I have an account at that place, I will add a review there too)

Please provide warning if your arc has AVs/EBs or any extreme challenges - I need to know what character to bring. I'll usually try to bring characters who can gain levels, but I have a few 50s I can bring for more challenging arcs. I'll usually solo but may choose to get a team sometimes.

I will criticise and probably spoil your arc in my review. If you don't like that, please don't ask for a review. If an arc is very bad, I will send you the review by PM unless you request for it be posted.

Some things I like:
+ Story focused arcs
+ Consistency with canon
+ Good spelling and grammar
+ Reasonable challenge level
+ Comedy arcs

Some things I dislike:
- glowie or boss hunts on enormous outdoor maps, ESPECIALLY ones that don't have minimaps
- defeat-alls used to excess. (especially on outdoor maps)
- extreme difficulty without suitable warnings

But I'm open to the idea that nearly any concept can work, provided it's executed well. I hope you can prove me right.