Mind Forever Burning

I can see how getting a 2-star review from Venture is pretty depressing, but two things about your response bugged me.

First, many of your responses seemed to be to Venture's generic synopsis of the missions. Although he didn't like your arc, a lot of the stuff you quoted didn't seem to be specific criticism, so my eyes started to glaze over at the responses.

Second, I don't think "Even Evil Has Standards" counts as a theme. It's a character (or faction) personality trait - you'd have to build on that to make a theme. It's especially weakened by the fact that Venture didn't really seem to see the evil in the arc - "people motivated by self-interest have standards" doesn't really count.

Keep in mind I haven't played your arc, these responses are just a reaction from a disinterested observer.

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Nit: the passcode, "Sister Psyche", generates a bit of powerposed-dismissal in the player's voice saying "Real subtle Manticore" - huh? When did Manticore get involved?

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Manticore is more or less the head of Wyvern.

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Sure, but why would he be setting the password on this file? It's the only time in the arc he's mentioned. If he were personally involved in this project I'd expect him to show up.

I'm curious what you think of the idea of tying the plot together via the scientist who built these devices. He's never mentioned after the intro, but his personality and backstory could go a long way toward unifying the story.

137561 "Ctrl + Alt + Reset"
tl;dr: 3 stars
Pros: Decent gameplay, interesting ideas, humor value
Cons: Timey Wimey Ball, Just A Bunch Of Stuff That Happens

Reviewed: 6/27/2009
Level range: 5-30
Character used: lvl 22 necro/pain MM

Before I start I should point out how incredibly similar this story is to "A Tangle in Time". I almost think the two authors should collaborate and put all the good ideas from both stories into one arc.

Foreshadow contacts you, asking to investigate a temporal anomaly he's sensed. The anomaly was centered on a science lab that Wyvern has already cleared out - the problem is Wyvern isn't taking his warnings seriously and is holding the goods for its own use. Hm. You're sent in to extract the scientist's computer.

When you locate the computer, you find nothing interesting, so you proceed through the map to the Wyvern leader, Marx, encountering another Wyvern boss on the way. Defeating Marx gives you a baseball-sized item called with a button on it, already pressed. Uh oh.

Returning to Foreshadow, he speaks as if you're just now responding to his original request - exactly the same setup as "A Tangle in Time". (Deja vu, all over again.) So you go in again, this time paying more attention to the computer you skipped before. You find a locked file, and proceed once more to defeat Marx to retrieve the passcode in addition to the now-grapefruit-sized item. (It also sports more buttons.) Nit: the passcode, "Sister Psyche", generates a bit of powerposed-dismissal in the player's voice saying "Real subtle Manticore" - huh? When did Manticore get involved? Anyway, with passcode in hand you proceed to the computer, which is now a destructible object with a guard; defeating the guards ends the mission, but you can right-click the computer for info before leaving, and discover that there are actually two items of interest.

Before you can investigate further you're back at Foreshadow, who agrees that you should try to find both items on this run. Strangely, this time the map is larger, and filled with random junk, none of which turns out to be important to the plot - mostly it seems to be there to provide joke material (the inevitable reference to RHPS, the only Rickroll I've encountered in the MA, some other stuff). Marx again has the object, even larger now, and he tells you the other one is in the possession of someone named "Steve". As you exit, you realize that "Steve" must be the other Wyvern boss on the map - nice bit of plot development there as I figured that out at just about exactly the same time my character did.

The final mission is again larger than the previous. This time you find Steve and get the other artifact, push its button (er...) and hear noises, which lead you to an enemy called the "Time Shifter". This is a custom boss with an accompanying faction made of Hydra, Slag Golems, and Husks, who are apparently the life-drained Wyvern who've been trapped on the map... as it turns out this "Time Shifter" is the MacGuffin itself, somehow sentient and at the root of all the shenanigans. You fight it multiple times in escalating forms, and its final defeat seems to have something to do with the "Time Splitter" object you got from Steve, though the connection is far from obvious to me. Then you're free.

In a lot of ways I like this arc better than "A Tangle in Time", but it suffers from many of the same problems. There's no coherent reason that I could see for the "Time Shifter" object to have become sentient, and the device of leeching Wyverns to become more powerful is so hand-wavey you have to look at it from two miles with an extreme squint to give it a pass. The whole plot is just a confusing mess, in retrospect, and the frustrating thing is that there's an unused loose end that could be used to unify everything - which is the scientist who designed the thing in the first place.

On the plus side, the arc doesn't throw the Idiot Ball (unless you count pushing the button on the unknown 2nd artifact without thinking... ok, that probably *does* count, but it can be overlooked) and the arc progression seems natural for what develops. You react in a reasonable manner each iteration given the information you have at your disposal. My only complaint in this regard is the throwaway comment at the end that you were trapped for three months; it's completely unnecessary, and undermines the pacing of the story you just experienced.

In short, the gameplay and mechanics are interesting and the missions are reasonably fun to play, but I don't think the author has succeeded in hanging them off a coherent story. A rewrite would probably be needed to elevate this higher than 3 stars.

On some maps, like the outdoor Dark Astoria one in the TV arc, leading allies to the exit is difficult. On some, like the one listed above and the fountain roadway in St. Martial, it's literally impossible.

But don't tell the devs this, because they'll just remove the map and ruin any stories using it properly (i.e. without escorts). Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Current queue:

137561 "Ctrl + Alt + Reset"
181165 "The Case of the Late Richard Faraday"
209473 "Standing Within the Mists"

I'm going to finish these reviews and then close the project. Mostly this is due to the fact that I have so little time to play these days, with a 2nd child just born and other RL factors. In fact, I may have to take a hiatus from the game sometime soon. Hopefully the authors I've reviewed have found my feedback helpful.

I believe i15 will start to label EBs and AVs in story arcs, though it unfortunately doesn't distinguish between allies and foes.

Any hints as to what the arc is like...?

WN, how is it that your threads keep popping to the top of the forum without any new posts? And why does it keep highlighting the thread as if I haven't read it, when I have?

Well, once Smuphy lets go of his name there's no way to control who else takes it. First person to switch their handle to Smurphy after it's free gets it. So really there's nothing for this Smurphy to be selling, in that regard.

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They did a study and asked people whether they'd rather make $80,000 a year (if everyone else made $100K) or $60,000 a year (if everyone else made $50K). Assume that prices do not change.

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Prices wouldn't change regardless of whether the entire population earned $80k vs. $50k? I call shenanigans.

So I gave Statesman-53 a shot last night on my purpled fire/psi dom. Not a chance. Even with capped defense his 10% random hits killed me before I could hold him. His KO Blow does something like 2500 damage, and even his minor attacks would one-shot me if I had anything less than full health.

I probably should have crafted a MK III Analyzer, but I'm pretty sure States has a toggle that adds mez protection on top of the PToD. I don't think a solo dom is going to be able to perma-hold him outside of the duration of the mez-boost accolade.

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Has anyone at least seen an explanation of why are these animations removed?!

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The only one I can think of is that people are using them for farms, and, since Tech Scan had a fairly lengthy animation time, people could kill them before the animation ended. Or something.

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These animations aren't interruptible? *boggles*

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By far the most viable I have seen and heard of has been a Bots/Traps with all pets at the soft cap.

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Erm, maybe for even-con AVs, but for a +3 AV the pets are going to be so far into the purple patch they're not going to be doing much damage. And even at the soft cap, an AV is going to have something like a 25% chance to hit a -5, so the little guys aren't going to last long when AoEs go off.

You can create custom groups and put whatever critters you want in them - either custom critters or critters from existing factions.

So, you basically need to re-create the faction as a custom group, and just not include whatever critters you're trying to avoid.

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I didn't think of in game for out of game. This transaction is likely against the rules. My only thoughts were "this might be funny, I wonder how much someone would pay and what kind of silly names might come up."

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Ironically, you could sell your forum handle for real money and be fine.

Note that in i15 you'll be able to see exactly where all the spawn points are in the editor's mini-map display. There are two symbols - one for bosses/ambushes/etc and one for captives/allies/etc - and three colors to tell you what location they correspond to.

It's pretty informative - some of the maps have pretty bizarre notions of "front" and "back".

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So far today:

*Put up LFT tag* - no response
*Broadcast in two separate zones LFT* - no response
Team invite one (blind) - level 54 boss farm. *quit*
Team two - stands around for 30minutes and doesn't actually do a mission. *quit*
I broadcast for people to join my team - stating story rather than farm. No response.
Team invite three - leader quits on the first mission
Team four - I'm now the leader of team three. Try to recruit a few more. One guy quits because I'm not running a farm.
I give up and go and play something else.


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Ironically enough, that's exactly what I remember happening when I first started playing the game in the fall of '04, with the sole exception that instead of farming level 54 bosses people were farming Proteans in Perez Park.

Apparently so, it disappeared from one of my missions as well.

*grumble*

Now Beggar's avatar is making my head spin with irony...

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You can completely floor the Regen of an even con AV using Drain Psyche...

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That doesn't seem right. The purple triangles offer -regen resistance. Did you take that into account?

I wonder now whether Statesman's Unstoppable has psi resistance. If not, /psi becomes the clear winner for doms.

Easy enough to test in the MA.

Come to think of it, I should try soloing the 53 Statesman with my perma-dom fire/psi before i14 hits. Maybe I can do that tonight.

Actually, I'm thinking of changing my forum handle (again) to be consistent with my in-game global (which I finally changed to get a better author ID).

So I'll pay you 250M inf to change your forum handle to KeepDistance.

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I just dont see more damage being a reason to not want Permadom.

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I'm not claiming perma-dom is no longer desirable, just that the 2nd best option is a lot more competitive than it used to be. Some people may therefore opt for the 2nd best option based on cost.

Made half a billion how?

Oh, btw, your post may have inspired some activity - a bunch of my outstanding bids for Gaussian's end/rech filled a few days ago after sitting idle for weeks.

At one point in the i13 time frame I did the opposite: depleted all outstanding bids for Luck Charms. That was red side though, so no great feat.