MrCaptainMan

Terrors of Old, Arc ID 124746, by @Dark Aspect. Heroic morality, Long. 4 Missions (3 medium, 1 small map).

The description briefly describes a simple CoT investigation turning into something darker. It warns that I might need to bring along some friends, but the level range is 1-54, so I decide to take a fairly new toon in.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Robin Copperfield, my lvl 13 TA/A defender. Here’s her bio:

"Gadzooks, thou knave! Verily, I sayeth this - by my troth, I shall...ah, hahaha...ah...heh…Sorry, can't keep a straight face. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. Bow, check. Green outfit, check. 'Robin'? Yep. You got me; I'm from the middle ages. No, really. Didn't take me too long to learn the language here, though - I don’t want to sound like a yokel. No, I never met 'the Hood'. I bumped into Merlin, one time, though. [censored] tried to kill me. The blokes at M.A.G.I tell me if I wasn't a magic-user myself, the spell would have fried me. Instead, BAM - I'm 600 years later. Lucky me, eh? Heh, I didn't even know I had 'the gift', or whatever it's called. The M.A.G.I people say it probably runs in the family. I don't know about that - none of my ancestors ever walked through walls or flew or made statues disappear or what have you. Buuut - you know what does run in the family? We CAN hold a grudge. I tell you, if I meet that spell-popper again, he's going to have a face like a hedgehogs backside!"

Investigating the CoT should be right up Robin’s alley.

In I go. Take it away, Robin.

So, this guy Cameron Baldurant says he’s the leader of a citywide task force that monitors CoT. Some missing persons have been found – which is great! – but they’ve been found dead – not so great. Luckily, the rozzers have a lead to where there may be other missing people, hopefully still alive, and that’s what Mr Boulderdash here wants me to go check out.

[you might want to make the ‘accept’ line sth more than the default ‘accept’, unless you’re trying to avoid speaking for the Player – some folks don’t take too kindly to having words put in their mouths, I know ]

Mission 1: Find the Missing Citizens

I enter the building. I’m looking for three people, according to Baldersgate. I edge up to the first corner and peek round to see a bloody great big bloke in a huge suit of red and black armour! He looks well tasty. I’ll have to be careful.

[lvl 14 orange conning lieut, I’m guessing dark something…]

Let’s see how he likes a coupla arrows in his jacksie.

…Ok, he wasn’t too dangerous after all. I kept him down with ice, net and glue arrows, and with some patience he went down. Not a problem. Next.

I get a bit too close to the next one, and he whips out a coupla blades and tries to slice me up, so I glue him and back off again.

[that’ll be DB then ]

Round the corner, I see a few more of this crowd. There’s a woman who’s got her face tattooed black and a bloke with steel plates grafted onto his fizzog. What a bunch of nutters. I think I’ll try to avoid them as much as possible.

I see a huge hole in the floor leading into some caverns under the building. I have a quick dekko round for any likely looking rescuees, but there’s only this guy in a suit of armor who throws some fireballs at me. I lock him down and stick him.

I’ll check out the hole…

I find another armoured man down here. There seem to be quite a variety of these [Hell Hounds is the mob group name – I assume they’re a variant of the CoT – they also have standard archer mobs in the custom group. The bios are detailed and well-written] geezers.

In singles, they’re ok. I might have a problem if I meet more of them at the same time, however…

[I’m aware that I’m at a very low level. Let’s see how this pans out lol]

Uh-oh. I round a corner, and spy some body bags in the distance. There are two guards near; I attack.

The bodies inside were tortured before they were killed, it seems. Not good, that. I hunt around a bit in the caves and find a third body too.

[Then I get a Magical Infodump telling me to defeat someone, just one patrol with a line of dialogue ‘The Overseer is blah blah’ or sth would sort that out]

I decide to have a gander a little deeper in the caves before I leave.

Good job I did too; in a large cavern there’s this big bossman type bloke [lieut called Hell Hound Overseer]. He’s got a fiery shield and a great big buggering sword. He’s also got a coupla mates too, so I scratch me head a bit before I have a go.

He’s annoyingly [to Robin, not to me ] resistant to ice arrows, but he sticks in the glue easy enough. I deal with his minions first. It seems as long as I keep these boys at range, I’m alright. [The fights are careful affairs, and actually quite fun so far; I wouldn’t like a Clear All, though, it would take ages]

After his mates take a dive, I’m feeling a bit groggy from all the fire and voodoo head-games they’re throwing at me [psi blast, some of them have], so I retreat and rest a little. Then I go back for the Big Man.

On his own, he’s not exactly a pushover, but over I push him, nonetheless. I search him and find a note from someone called Hellbent. This crowd have been using the people they’ve been kidnapping as slave labour. They’re looking for some ‘artifacts’.

I leave and head back to Cameron. Those weren’t any CoT I’ve met before.

Cameron tells me that the red and black armoured guys I met were the Hell Hounds, a group of mystics from a while back. They’re not very nice blokes.

I go home to restock on arrows, and when I get back, Cameron’s got some bad news. A team has gone into those caves to have a deeper scout, and hasn’t been seen in 30 hours. He’s asking me if I can go in and look for them. Yeah, I think I can do that. Not a problem.

Mission 2: Find the missing Investigators.

[I don’t think you need a period at the end of that]

I end up deep underground, in a much bigger cave complex.

[hm..its an oranbega map. Not sure how big yet, but I’m not a fan of these tbh}

I venture in. it’s difficult for me to avoid them in these narrow corridors, so I’m forced to fight them as I go. On their own it’s not so hard, but I meet a group of three and they nearly take me down.

[kind of not liking this so much now.]

I know I’ve got a big job ahead of me [map looks bit big after enough of it’s uncovered], so I grit my teeth, shoulder my bow and run full-pelt into the complex, straight past a few groups of Hell Hounds. I manage to lose most of them, though I’m taking my life in my hands with this tactic, cos’ I keep running from one group into another. I take a breather after spotting a funny looking stone altar tablet thing. It looks important, and the two blokes near it seem keen on guarding it, so I decide to blow it up. I’ll freeze it and then fire it, that should do the trick.

[Magical Infodump of the Nav ‘4 ancient tablets to destroy’ here – another foreshadowing would be nice]

After doing that, I get attacked by a load of the bloody sods [ambush?], so I just leg it. I find another tablet and with some trouble I sort that one out too.

Then I move on, and end up in a huge room with water in the center. There are a few groups of Hell Hounds surrounding some prisoners, who are being forced to dig, it looks like. The Hell Hounds guarding them are in a right state, jumping up and down and generally being a bit mental.

[animations are nice, but one group unfortunately spawned on the roof of one of the interior ‘buildings’, so if he is supposed to be digging, he’s going to just drop down into the totally visible room below him]

I whip out my bow and stick the bad guys. The prisoners are well happy with that.

I search on, finding another tablet [last one, phew]. This place seems huge. I’m running out of arrows, too.

Finally I find another room. Water drips from the ceiling and there are more prisoners digging. Into the fray!

It’s a hard slog, this last fight. There are two groups of guards quite close together, so when I attack one group, they both get interested. Back and forth, ice, net, glue, it’s a long haul.

Finally, [f I n a l l y . . .], I defeat the last one, and the prisoner tells me that he’s the last [he doesn’t, actually, the nav does, but…]. I take a fragment of tablet with me and also…a tablet rubbing…[?! lol the image of my hero kneeling down with charcoal and paper is quite amusing]

And then I sneak out with a sigh of relief.

[An hour on that mission. I have to say that on my 50 Blaster, I’d probably be steaming through this, so please don’t think I’m blaming you or your arc for this unduly, but that was a long effort]


Cameron’s got some more news for me when I check back in with him after a shower. The rubbings tell the tale of…well, it’s your basic Portal to Somewhere Nasty, and it’s that that the Hell Hounds are looking for. It can be opened by using some magical obelisks, and it’s those that Cameron wants me to destroy. Not a problem, although if my last foray into those caves was anything to go by, my tan’ll be fading by the time I see sunlight again.

In I go.

Mission 3: Stop the Hell Hounds!

[Nav instruction kindly points out that the obelisks will be glowing )

The ground starts to quake as I push deep into the cave system. It looks like something’s stirring under the earth…

After a bit of exploration [enough to realize that the maps going to be quite large], I decide that a speedy surprise strategy would be best. In and out! I shoulder my bow and peg it.

I soon find a room with a glowing obelisk guarded by two [yellow-conning] Hell Hounds. I make shortish work of them and the obelisk.

Another frantic sprint past a few groups of startled Hell Hounds leads me into a huge room with giant hand statues around it. The room has a few Hell Hounds dotted around [and is apparently pointless; none of the objectives are there]. I have a quick recce and leave, trying another direction.

I find a room with a nice little water feature, and the last obelisk [according to my Nav – maybe you could add the number of obelisks need to open the Portal in the briefing, “…must be powered up by a set of four mystical obelisks before…”?] . After I destroy it, I decide to have one final check around [enabling me to ‘Defeat Hellbent’, which has just appeared in my Nav as a particularly jarring Magical Infodump]. Maybe I missed something in that big room back there…[lol, what are the odds?]

I head back to the huge room, and sure enough, Hellbent has obviously arrived whilst I was elsewhere. My instincts never let me down!

[I really hate things like this. How about after the last obelisk drops, you give a clue that lets the Player know that Hellbent is here? I can see that his spawning room can be the last room, but if a player misses the ‘first’ obelisk, the one in the little room close to the start that’s, well, not unmissable, then they’ll have been to the last room, as I did, before backtracking to the first.]

I don’t like the looks of the numbers in this room, so I take a careful approach, hanging back and [pulling singles] picking them off one by one with long shots.

Once Hellbent [lvl 13 orange-conning Boss] and his two closest guards are alone, I head in to medium range.

Ow. [Held, 2-shotted].

Once I’ve come round at the hosp, I grab a couple dozen extra sharp n spiky arrows and some really fiery fire arrows [I stock up on reds]. With these babies, and a little luck [and Lucks], Hellbent might be…hellbent.

I run back to the room, and with my new ammo and a bit of luck, I bring him down. As he falls, he tells me that I haven’t won…yet.

[I also now see that I have a carved stone disc in my clue list, I’m sorry, but I have no idead where I got it or what it’s supposed to be connected to]

I leave to report to Cameron.

He thanks me, and tells me that now we’ve destroyed the obelisks, we can concentrate on making sure the Portal is never opened again…

[I thought the only way to open it was with the obelisks?]

The stone carving I found on Hellbent [ah.] is a key to a door, it seems. And also, we know that the Portal is still not safe! It’s on the verge of being opened. An altar needs to be destroyed to stop the Evil Plot.

[I’m having difficulty suspending my wossname here, I’m afraid. I just did a mission to stop the Portal from being opened, and now I’ve got to do it again. Which is standard, I guess, but there’s this ‘the researchers have found out another thing!’ stuff too. How do they know its an altar if its been locked in a secret room that Hellbent had the only key to?]

In I go.

Mission 4: Destroy the Portal of Souls!

It’s another maze of caverns [sick of oranbega now], so I do my hit n run strategy again. I encounter a [defeat boss objective from mission 1], so I gird my loins [eat all my inspires] and attack.

After he goes down, I get a sneaky feeling that things aren’t going to get any easier [and another defeat boss appears in the nav].

I run on doggedly [horrible map horrible map horrible map] and run into another big armoured guy[orange boss]. I wake up in the hospital shortly afterwards.

[pff..From here on, I’m just filling my insp tray, running to the boss, eating everything and defeating, running to the next one and dying, then repeating. I can’t sneak around or pull because they’re in corridors and there are other groups, and wild horses wouldn’t get me to Clear All on the way with this horrible map.]

I run back and defeat the bossman [prompting another defeat boss nav instruction, this one with the unfortunate name of Hell Bender – ‘bender’ was slang for ‘gentlemen who dress to the left’ in my youth, so at least it raises a smile], and [die and restock] keep on into the depths. I eventually find Hell Bender [small typo in bio ‘veins of what. almost’] in a big room with lots of pillars. I brace myself [with a full tray] and lay on!

He takes a while, ranting at me all the time [missing comma in ‘Flee while you may fool!’], but goes down eventually, and then I spot the Portal of Souls [disguised as…a group of barrels? You need to check your Destructible Object Choice. It’s three barrels in a group]. I attack the guards, and the Portal speaks! [describing stuff, is it?].

I defeat the guards, and destroy the Portal, and I’ve done it! Er…

[Mission complete, so Portal Destroyed, yay! – But there’s an ambush of Darksoul Harvesters shouting ‘free! We shall harvest this world!”, which would suggest the Potral got opened after all.]

[typo in mission exit popup ‘enterance’ should be ‘entrance’]

I leave, the roof collapses, sealing in the remains of the Portal and the few creatures that got through forever…I hope.

[end]

OK, so overall, I was pleasantly surprised that my lowly TA/Arch Defender could actually finish it, but it did get a bit trying at times due to the difficulty I had with avoiding the mobs. Plotwise, I started off interested, but Oranbega got old quick, and towards the end I was definitely veering towards ‘meh’. The last mission especially was a let down, I thought, being essentially the same mission as the one previous.

I’ve got no complaints about your customs, really. They all looked the part, and their bios were nicely detailed, I noticed. I note the system messages etc were also fleshed out, which is always nice to see.

However, I’m afraid that Terrors of Old (good title, btw) didn’t really light me up, and so I dropped 3-stars on it come the finish.

Eco.

Right, I'm ready with a few more runs.

I had a sort of Road to Damascus style revelation during an AE mission the other day. It hit me that I play this game to have fun, and that what I miss most about that first ten levels on MCM way back when he was my only toon was the innocence of the way i looked at the game, the plots, the powers, everything. I remember back then I thought that there were completely different arc-paths for each AT, and that once I'd reached 50 on MCM (oh, back at lvl 6 I couldn't concieve of putting him on hold to play another alt!) Icould start again with, say a Defender, and play a whole new game!

lol. Of course, playing the saem stuff with a different powerset combo is in many ways like playing a new game, but you get what i mean?

Anyway, whjat I'm trying to say is that I don't want to be a grumpy old veteran know-it-all (not that I know it all), I want to be a fresh-eyed noob again. When I was a noob, i was willing to forgive the game almost anything, I was so chuffed to be a Superhero.

The Hollows was awesome because it's where I fought my first real Supervillain with his own individual base. Now, I hear 'the best thing about being a vet is knowing you never have to go to the Hollows' and I know what's meant, but a part of me wishes i didn't.

So what's that got to do with the AE?

Fun. The AE isn't srs bsns, it's meant to be fun. I'm sitting here looking at Statesman, a guy who's portrayed as real srs, and yet he's a guy who wears a mask on under his helmet!

I want to smile more, not frown.

So I'm going to make a conscious effiort to appreciate the fun in the arcs I run here, and I'm going to do my best to not be overly bothered with typos, or Sloppy mechanics. In short, I'm going to lighten up.

I'll still be honest about whether or not I enjoyed the arcs, and point out any typos I see, and if an arc is absolutely appallingly designed, I'll say so, and occasionally I'll still ramble off on a sidetrack, but in general I'm not going to be particularly harsh, so bear that in mind; if you want a mauling, go see Venture.

And talking of Venture, I'd like to apologise to him for my earlier highly critical 'review'. I still think his arc is dull and not particularly well-made either, but there was no need for me to be as abrasive as I was. He's had a lot of good feedback, apparently, which shows that every arc can be loved by someone.

I'm also going to take a variety of my toons into the arcs, I think sticking to MCM was jading me.

OK, so on with the next run!

Eco.

QR - 4 and a half year vet here. I'm fine with the level of challenge the game has ATM.

Eco.

Infatum,

Thanks v much for playing the Echo, and I'm really pleased that you liked the last mission. Often, I find that feedback is like this: 'The first four misisons were great! real funny! But that downer of an ending, gah!'.

Your two main dislikes were the treatment of Crey, and the (now spoiled, I guess) ending. I'll bow to the claim that Crey is a legitimate organisation etc, as I'm afraid I'm not totally ofay with the canon Crey stories. I do know that every single Crey mob i've ever met ingame has attacked me (unlike, say. the Rikti), at least that's my memory of it. Also, I'm fairly sure I've done a fair bit of breaking into Crey facilities in canon arcs too.

That said, its entirely possible that the canon Crey arcs contain valid introduction missions to justify the breaking and entering of Crey facilities, in a way that The Echo as you say merely pays lip service to.

In any event, I'm a bit guilty of camping up my villain groups, and I've obviously done it again here.

The first 4 missions of The Echo have a light dusting of humor to them. The Crey Librarians are I thought an obvious parodic mob group. It is indeed ridiculous to give Crey superpowered Janitors in blue dungarees weilding pipe wrenches and Kung-Fu using Archivists in V-neck sleeveless sweaters with bow ties and combovers. What can I say? I put them in to raise a laugh. Humor's a funny thing - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

As for the end, i had a look at the dialogue for the Monitor and the debriefing, and I agree with you that it's not quite right. I think I tried to explain too much, in order to avoid any 'ah, but my toon never kills, so he isn't really dead' squirming from a Player. The suit line isn't necessary, in fact. I've removed it and slightly altered the debriefing to make it more ambiguous as to where he's been ported, whilst leaving in the equivalent of a 'he's dead' line.

Thanks for the very useful feedback.

Eco.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Thesaurus.

Dictionary.

Foreign Dictionary.

Imagination.

Multiple Words.

Hyphens.

Roman Numerals.

Imagination.

Random Generators.

Added Space In The Middle.

Just A Dot.

Imagination.

Shall I go on?


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I just checked and those were all taken!

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Foreign Dictionary is one of mine.

Eco.

[ QUOTE ]
i shall probably be playing on liberty, and getting right in...and waving at freedom players.[ QUOTE ]
Qr - I'm going to the seaside for that weekend. I've just decided. Double XP weekends suck the pustulant hairy oozing scabs from the bottom of Satan whilst simultaneously blowing huge chunks of toxic vomitous excrescense on all that is good and wholesome IMO

Eco

[/ QUOTE ]and you should write greeting cards.

[/ QUOTE ]

If I did, I'd use a spellcheck for 'pustulent' and the other one I misspelled there.

Eco

Qr - I'm going to the seaside for that weekend. I've just decided. Double XP weekends suck the pustulant hairy oozing scabs from the bottom of Satan whilst simultaneously blowing huge chunks of toxic vomitous excrescense on all that is good and wholesome IMO

Eco

[ QUOTE ]
*fixes title*

This Eco phenomenon oughta clear up the clutter a bit.

*j/k, Eco!*

[/ QUOTE ]

lmao that made me thunk of those war films where some guy gets blinded by a land mine: 'leave me, guys...I'm just slowin' you down...just gimme a coupla grenades...'

Eco

When i15 went live I only lost about 30 badges, because I stopped actively looking for more after seeing the badge-farm arcs that were being made. However, I thought that once i15 went live, I'd start to badge-hunt again.

Seeing my total badgecount drop by 30-odd in one swoop made me realise that badging can never be about the destination, because that elusive number of 'all' badges will never be fixed. Aiming to 'get em all' is utterly meaningless. The most anyone cam day is they've got em all so far, and knowing that yesterdays So Far can even be more than today's - and we've seen some serious negative badge progress with I15 - makes badging beyond the normal rate of progress even more risky

It's such a relief.

Eco

I met an odd thing whilst editing a mission after i15 went live. A boss spawns in a room where there ate NO spawn points at all according to the map. No Xs, no Os, no collection triangles, nothing. It's quote annoying.

The map is Unique Maps->Banks->First National Bamk 02

Eco

Hi,

Im back at home now, so i can answer some more of your specific points and questions in more detail.

[ QUOTE ]
So I ran this last night, and didn't post comments on here at first partly because I wasn't sure I had anything constructive to say. Hopefully that's changed after some contemplation...

To start off, I am generally a fan of all things funny. It doesn't generally take much to make me chuckle, or at least crack a smile, but this arc really fell flat for me and I think that had more to do with the non-humor related issues sucking the funny out of the rest of it.

So I'll try to take a stab at it...

Synapse
First off, he's not sounding all that in character, but that's forgivable and not really the point in this arc. The real issue I took with him was the fact we get talked down to enough in the canon by the Freedom Phalanx, making him consistently berate my character for failure and forcing my character to not explain what actually happened (at which point any sane hero would start to investigate what's going wrong with the teleporter) is sort of a one-two punch of suck here. If he was *just* belligerent, that would be annoying, but it's the mission forcing my character to not explain himself which really makes it sting.



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After the second time it happens, it's fairly obvious that every mission the teleporters going to take you somewhere other than where Synapse says you are (In fact, his briefing for misison 2 tells you you're going to Sirens Call to battle the Jade Spider! ). The player has to, I'm afraid, accept that that's going to happen. I did try as much as possible to not put any words at all in the player's mouth, aware as i am that lots of players dont like assumptions to be made about their characters.

[ QUOTE ]


Having the player fail every mission by design, isn't great, but it doesn't kill an arc in itself. Having the contact rub it in after every mission with your character not even defending himself is really a buzz kill no matter how you cut it.

Mission 1
So I was honestly a little excited going into this, I don't know why. I'm not a real fan of the FP, but it was a cute concept. So when I hit the first mission I actually started to get interested. If this wasn't a comedy, that first mission could have been a great springboard for a more serious plot, but instead the strange female clones and their dreamworld of sorts never gets fully explained and feels more like it just gets swept under the rug like the player is supposed to feel it was some dirty secret.



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They aren't clones, per se. Destiny is a hive mind with a million bodies, as the unfortunate Arachnos scientist who was her previous accidental companion explains. There are multiple moons in the sky; you are on a distant planet. I intend to come back to Destiny in a later arc. Discovering more about her in The Audition misison she features in wasn't the point. You just want to get back to Earth. [ QUOTE ]


That said, there wasn't much funny in that mission, and since the arc doesn't go on to explain it further or even mention it. It really contributes nothing to the greater plot, or funny or whatever you might have been aiming for. I have to ask, what purpose this mission serves aside from being a failure for Synapse to berate you about.


[/ QUOTE ]
It allows you to Succeed In The Face Of Overwhelming Odds, which is what Synapse has asked you to do. It also introduces the running gag about the teleporter not working properly.

The mission also ends in a slightly more poignant way than I intended it to, but it came out that way in the writing. I don't think drama and comedy should be always separate. Some of the best comedy includes quite serious drama. The Office, for example, is both hilarious and touching. The Audition isn't meant to be Pineapple Express. The arc has both humor and drama. Some missions are more funny than others. The humor in mission 1 comes in the briefing and debriefing. [ QUOTE ]


Mission 2
This one is alright from a humor perspective, partly because it was a canon mob acting in a non-canon way. If you had started with something like this it might have set the stage better, but instead we go from "quasi-serious arc about hive mind clone women" to "emo recluse". Viewed in its own light this mission would be alright, possibly even pretty funny albeit brief, but as part of the greater whole it just hasn't been set up for and falls flat.



[/ QUOTE ]

I think you were maybe expecting a more traditional arc where the missions were against the same villain group or what have you. The six missions in The Audition are each very different from each other. They feature different villain groups, different locations and sometimes different customs. The linking theme is the Six Heroic Tasks. Mission 2 you are asked to Inspire Another To Greatness - the someone in question is supposed to be Statesman, but you actually inspire Lord Recluse instead. That comes back in mission 6, where you have to Save the World from a recently mysteriously regalvanized LR [ QUOTE ]


Mission 3
So first off we have the giant difficulty warning, and having done the mission I'm honestly confused. The mooks in the mission could have easily been less dangerous powersets (I didn't have any problem with them on unyielding, but I'm sure others might)



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I intended this arc to be played at difficulty level one. With all due respect, if you want to play at a level other than the one i balanced the arc for, that's of course your perogative, but I can't really act on any comments you might have then on difficulty or balance.

[ QUOTE ]
, in fact it would actually make more sense for them. All of the Praetorian minions got their powers from their masters, so why go with something way out there like dark and rad, instead of something simple and generic like AR or MA? Praetorians themselves are considered solo content in canon, so if you toned down the customs I don't think you'd need the ginormous warning, just a standard note about EBs/AVs. This didn't detract from my personal experience mind you, it just seemed strange and unnecessary.

That said, this mission started off on the wrong foot by making an assumption about my character which was incorrect. Infatum doesn't have a Praetorian double, and he's 100% certain of that. That *is* a bit out of left field for me though, and although I don't personally think authors should make such assumptions. This is a largely forgivable one.

I can't say how much of the fun was sucked out by that piece, but I know it wasn't the lion's share. That dubious honor came back to Synapse and more importantly my own player who continued to take the berating on the chin because he's apparently too scared to plant his boot in Synapse's electrically charged [censored], or at the very least explain what happened like a sensible adult. By this point I was no longer having fun, and knowing I'd take yet another tongue lashing because I had the audacity to take down the entire Praetorian Phalanx instead of going to Fite Club, just made things worse, and made this long objective stuffed mission a boring unfun chore spent being called an ugly hideous monster (Infatum is pretty normal looking, so this felt more forced than anything). The clones were creative, but weren't even enough to make me crack a smile by the time I reached them.



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That's a real shame, because I think this mission has the most humor in it. It was also the most mechanically complicated, and I'm quite proud of it tbh. The Heroic Task for this one is Defeat Your Evil Twin - an apparently impossible task for an AE misison to accomplish considering every player is going to be different. By the end of the mission, you've defeated 'approximately twenty-seven evil twins', including your own. I think perhaps you took your own character a little too seriously for this arc, and certainly for this mission (I really don't mean that to sound insulting or antagonistic, btw). [ QUOTE ]



Humor in my opinion is all about setting up the audience for the joke. The arc feels very piecemeal currently,



[/ QUOTE ]

You did only play half of it.

[ QUOTE ]
and Synapse does his best to humiliate you in between missions and suck any fun you might have gotten out of each of them.



[/ QUOTE ]

He's an idiot, in this arc.
[ QUOTE ]
So a couple suggestions:

Mission 1
Could this be accomplished with canon mobs instead? Simply making it a bunch of Carnival or Nemesis or something else entirely would turn it back towards funnier waters in my opinion. Instead it feels rather serious, who are these strange clone ladies? Where have they trapped me? Who was this poor soul who died here before me? These questions end up half answered, which is fine for comedy, but it doesn't feel like comedy as is. Having canon mobs act humorously non-canon can lampoon a situation like this. Warwolves, hydra, basically anything else. It wouldn't be shooting for the proverbial comedy stars, but it would be comedy.



[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you for the suggestion, but I'm very fond of Destiny, and as i said, i'm happy with drama and comedy being bedfellows. I've got some great feedback on mission 1 too. [ QUOTE ]


Synapse
Is there a reason we can't investigate what is going on instead of forcing the player to act like an idiot? If you want Synapse to be a jerk off that's fine, but don't drag the player along with him. Either have Synapse and the player work together to figure out what's going on



[/ QUOTE ]

Figuring out what's going wrong with the teleport is irrelevant to the arc, Im sorry, and would be a bit akin to Sam figuring out how to get back home in episode 2 of Quantum leap. The teleport-messup is just a device to get the player to the wrong, yet accidentally right place every misson.

[ QUOTE ]
, or have the player try only to be rebuffed by Synapse time and time again, perhaps building up to where we *do* get the chance to beat the stuffing out of him.



[/ QUOTE ]

You do actually attempt to tell him what's going on in mission 4, but he scoffs at your 'unbelievable' story. beating him up wouldn't be very heroic, would it, even if he is being an idiot.

[ QUOTE ]
It's fine for him to be an idiot, it's not fine for the player to be forced to be one.

Praetorians
This mission is alright on its own taken entirely separate from the rest of the arc, but given the difficulty issues you seem to be getting as feedback, I'd highly suggest changing the custom mobs to some easier power choices. There's nothing thematically requiring mooks that put all other Praetorian mooks to shame is there?



[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't got any feedback from anyone playing it at challenge level 1 that complains about the powersets or difficulty of the My Evil Empire mobs in mission 3. At challenge level 1, you should be encountering 15 protoclones in separate groups of 3. Apart from one ambush of 3, all spawn separate from each other. they are set as med/med bosses. They are sometimes challenging, but nowhere like as challenging as Tyrant, who the player fights first. I have toned them down from their original setting.

the reason mission 3 is such a challenge is because of the belief that some players have that each arc should stand up on its own. I beefed up the difficulty of mission 4 slightly to give players a Big Fight at the end of Part 1. Perhaps i was mistaken, but you could have been saying 'the last mission didnt feel climactic enough, so i didnt bother playing the second part'.



[ QUOTE ]



I gave this 2 stars, a rating that doesn't sit entirely well with me given the quality of the writing, but accurately represents the amount of fun I had as well as what I believe is the quality of the overall design. If you dramatically change the mission briefings and perhaps the first mission I'd be willing to give this another play through and rerate, but as is I was having so little fun by the end that I couldn't even bring myself to try the second part.

[/ QUOTE ]

2 stars is better than 1

Thanks again, dude, not every arc is to everyone's tastes. Perhaps you might like to try my other arc, which is a much more traditional arc, with a single theme, story and resulution. It's also funny in places but has a tonal shift at the end, i warn you.

Eco.

Qr - I'm an English teacher too, and 'alright' is alright by me.

Eco

The minions in the praetorian mission are your evil doubles minions, and since $heshe's called Dark $Name, they have Dark powers. The 'agh! -it's a monster!' responses you find are part of a central point of that mission-that you are mistaken for your praetorian twin. It's not canon, so if you say you don't have a praetorian twin that's fine-the arc should be looked at in the same vein as Marvels Special Silly What Ifs.

I remind you that the mission features a clone of Citadel - that hopefully illustrates the level of seriousness I wished the arc to be played with.

Once again, thank you very much for the time you took to play the first half of The Audition, and also for taking the tome to post your feedback here.

Eco

Your point about maybe synapse helping you find out what's going wrong is a good idea, but doing that would negate a main element if the arc, which is precisely the fact that he is unaware that you're doing something else (saving the world, foiling supervillains, generally being a paragon of superheroism) when he thinks you're off skulking or avoiding your respnsibilities. The exasperation you felt at each 'fail!' from synapse is funny...to some people. Not all, of course, but that's life

Eco

Thank you sincerely for playing the first part of my arc and for the feedback. I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy the half that you played.

It's possibly a pity that you didn't play the slightly shorter 5-mission version that existed before the filesize jump - at least then you'd gave got a fuller sense if what the arc is supposed to be.

Something which didn't seem to cone across is the fact that you don't in fact fail the tasks you are set - the first task for example is to Succeed In The Face Of Overwhelming Odds. Synapse sends you up against 'ONE HUNDRED Frownobots!' to attempt this, but in fact you defeat a hive-mind with a million bodies. Likewise, in every task, synapse berated you for 'failing' when in fact you have succeeded, often beyond the requirements. My iPhones battery is quite low, so I'll continue in another post in case it dies before I can submit lol.

Eco

Qr - since I enjoyed Atomicides recent outing so much, I've decided to use level-appropriate toons for future runs. I can't ne sure which AT and powerset I'll be using yet, but if Nyones got any preferences or recommendations for their arcs, please let me know.

Eco

[ QUOTE ]
I really wish they'd take AE out of Atlas (& Galaxy) and make Kings Row the first spot. No one wants to be in King's Row!

[/ QUOTE ]

Why anyone with sentience wants to be in the cesspool of AoE spam and farming that is Atlas AE is utterly beyond me.

Eco.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
NO!

It's where I go to create my arcs. Nice, quite and usually lag free. Let's keep it that way for the architect in us all!

[/ QUOTE ]



A possibility is the Kings Row AE, it is virtually (no pun intended) empty and it is levels 1-54, so you can enjoy peace and quiet there. Also if you don't want to deal with lowbie whining (from experience there is almost none there; even on freedom) you can hide your chat box. This way it is a win-win-win situation.

[/ QUOTE ]

it's not a winning solution afaic lol. I use KR cos it's relatively empty; I don't relish it being full of annoying AoEs like Atlas etc is.

Ironically, I find thT the PI AE building is often empty too.
Eco

Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend, very Long (3 uniques, 1 sm, 1 lg), Villanous. Arc ID 114284

Taking an alternative approach to this one. I see that it’s for lvls 15-20 so I’ve decided to take Atomicide, my lvl 18 Dark/Dark brute in.

The descr speaks of ‘love, death and betrayal’ in a ‘moral and emotional rollercoaster ride!’ – That sounds like fun!

Lets see, shall we?

The contact is Desdemona the Glint, and she’s offering me a bank job with the added bonus of diamonds. My Brute likes the shiny shinies, so I’m well up for that.

Mission 1: Business As Usual.

I enter the bank, and it appears to be empty. Just the way Atomicide likes it. He’s basically interested in money-making crimes. He spends all the cash he makes on tracking down the Dirty Promise, she’s the cause of his demise and subsequent reanimation.

So – an empty bank? Lovey jubbly! My Nav instruction is ‘get the Ice’.

But wait – what’s this? A coupla Outcasts waiting in the vault, wanting to be heroes?

Laughing, I dive into the fight. Its good. The leader, Ice Age, puts up a fair show of it, but Atomicide’s hands rather ludicrously focus a really small nuclear (and magic) explosion into every punch. Nobody likes a nuke in the face. Ice Age goes down. Plucky little wannabe hero tells me he’s stashed the diamonds in his base, however, so I’m leaving with my hands empty.

Desdemona is surprised at the Outcasts behaviour, but has a plan to lure them into the open so we can find out the location of their base. I’m going to kidnap her! Nice plan.

So then,

Mission 2: Lure Heroes Out of Woodwork.

“Kidnap” Desdemona the Glint, is the plan. In her apartment building, however, there are Longbow in the halls. Hmmm…I’m not sure why they’re here, to be honest, but they’ll do for some punchbag practice. I paper the walls with longbow guts and hunt down Desdemona. She’s being guarded by some patsies in red and white. When I’ve finished, there’s more red than white. She takes off as we hear the Outcasts coming to ‘rescue’ her. Heh. Another bunch of muties taken down. Firezone, their leader, spills big time when I bounce his head off the walls a few. They’re in BB, trying to be heroes, he says. Pshaw! What a pansy!

Desdemona gets wind that there’s something big going down in Bloody Bay. Could be our boys. Seems like the word is out that the diamonds – my diamonds – are there. There might be a lot of goons after the ice – Unlucky for them that I outnumber them, eh?

Mission 3: Visit Scenic Bloody Bay.

When I arrive in Bloody Bay, the radiation plays tricks on me, scrambling my eyes or maybe my mind a bit. Seeing things never stopped me from hitting things, though, so I attempt to Find A Clue. After trashing some CoT heads in I find some rock-loving mage dude called Teremex – Ha, he thinks my diamonds belong to him! I show him the category error he has assumed by utilising the twin philosophical debating methods of Punch to the Throat and Stomp on Face Whilst Opponent is Choking His Last on the Ground. He concedes that I argue a strong point, and offers me a deal. If I go and defeat the ‘guardian of the base’, he may have a deal for me. I think he’s just BSing cos he squirted all his magic out of his bottom during the sound thrashing I just gave him, but I’m starting to calm down and that’s never a good sign, so I decide to come back later after I’ve done some more pounding.

My cunning plan to flush the Guardian out works as follows. I head for the nearest outcast and punch him in the face repeatedly until he falls over, then I do the same to his friends. In this manner, eventually I find that the next Outcast in Line for a twatting is the Guardian in question. He’s a big man but he most definitely is outta shape. Down he goes like a sack of spuds on a Victorian basement floor. He must have had some doodad on him, cos as he croaks I see a previously hidden tunnel into the ground. Secret Base? Don’t mind if I do, thanks.

I head back to the Mage, and he does have an offer, He tells me that my diamonds are in fact useless crystals, and if I get them for him he’ll swap them for an equal amount of real diamonds. Interesting. So I don’t have to bother with the diamonds in the base then, I can just batter them out of him right here. Then it strikes me that two sets of diamonds are better than one, so I pretend to agree.

Desdemona is starting to get on my nerves a bit, with her “Desdemona like shiny diamonds, no? What you wait for? Me so sexy!” faux-russian schtick, but she’s hot and I’ve got glowing green skin and bolts in my neck, so beggars can’t be choosers. I meet up with Teremex again, and he tells me he’s sent some of his goons in ahead to help me. Pfff, like I need any help!

Mission 4: Descend into the Outcast Lair.

I enter the lair and almost immediately I find a bouquet of rage-inducing outcasts. How thoughtful. After dealing with them, I move like a veritable whirlwind of destruction through the caverns, cutting a swathe here, demolishing a roomful there. It’s most therapeutic. I do find a number of ghosties and ghoulies, but I ignore them cos I’m hard as nails, me. I find a chest guarded by some fist-fodder, but it’s locked. In case its trapped or the ‘diamonds are fragile, I endeavour to find the key. It’ll probably be held by a practice dummy nearby.

The practice dummy turns out to be a pet Shivan called Jiggles. His master takes a dive like a welterweight owned by the mob, but jiggles fancies himself as a bit of a Kisser. We dance for a while before he cops it. The slimy key round his neck lets me into the chest, and there are the stones all this troubles been about.

Diamonds? Nah, these little twinklies are evil magical voodoo rocks, its as clear as day. I’d better get rid of em, quick.

Teremex wants us to make the exchange at a cemetery at midnight. Suits me fine, I get a great ‘ghastly tint’ to my complexion in graveyards in moonlight. Desdemona even seems worried about me. Things are looking up for this Brute!

Mission 5: The Cemetery at night.

At the cemetery, I see that the Outcasts have arrived in force. They want to boogie. That’s ok with me; I’m sure the dead can shuftie over and make some space for some more. The leader shouts from somewhere in the cemetery at me, calling me a coward.

I don’t like that, much.

That makes me a tad angry, that.

How angry?

Angry enough to Clear All, that’s how angry.

I waste every damn outcast in the cemetery, working my way round the top to finish at where Teremex is being held prisoner by some Outcasts, then when Ive dealt with them we drop down into the bowl and clear that too, finishing with the Big Bad Outcast leader, Tunguska. He’s all irradiated up and has a couple of girlfriends with him – Shivan girlfriends, that is.

“Bubble Me,” I say to the mage, and I’m in with a grin.

What can I say? It was the perfect end to a magical evening. You can keep your doorstep kisses and smiles through lidded eyes. A lover’s whispered ‘yes’? Not interested. A shooting star flashing over Caribbean waters? Talk to the hand. Just gimme the dull wet thud of my fist in the face of someone who’s gotten me really worked up and I can sleep the sleep of the just.

It couldn’t have been a better fight if someone had paid Tunguska off to perform like it. Not too long, not too short, no namby-pamby running away, just the unadulterated Elegant Simplicity of pure blunt trauma.

Violence is Golden, as they say.

I swapped the rocks with the diamonds, and Teremex pegged it away on his toes, no doubt unnerved by the twitch in my cheek and the bloody red glow where my eyes should have been.

I was now the proud owner of a Big Bag of Diamonds. Bonzer.

Back at Desdemonas pad, she took one look at my sack and was ready to party. Rock on.




[End]


Well, you can no doubt see from my liquid prose how much I enjoyed that. Golden. 5-stars.

Eco.

This Is War: Part I - the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz 1356

This arc has been loitering about my awareness event horizon since I14 went live. It’s one of the ‘most mentioned’ arcs that I somehow hadn’t got around to playing yet. Probably a combination of the dreaded multi-slot arc syndrome (even I’m not immune, it seems ) combined with the anticipation of an EB plus my general neutrality when it comes to Rikti stories.

How about a short Aside?

My favourite faction heroside is the Vahzilok. Dr V is exactly the kind of supervillain I love. I also like the Freakshow and the Carnies.

Anything militaristic has to have some kind of larger than life AV or a suitably campy ‘lazer death ray on the moon’ type plot to appeal to me. This is why I don’t like Malta, but like Marshall Brass and his rogue Arachnos a lot.

The Rikti arcs in the RWZ are military arcs that I do enjoy, because they are well-written and have interesting mechanics. Plus there’s that Diplomat’s party mission. All my characters have a formal wear costume slot just for that mission lol. BUT: The Rikti are a faction I dislike fighting, because a. The drones see through steatlh and Hide, and the Mentalists are a PitA.

So I’m in two minds about what to expect with this arc. The MA can do some incredible things. If the mechanics of this are standout, it’ll be a winner. If it’s a sequence of Rescue [someone], Defeat [someone else], Collect [something], then it could be middling depending on the story. We shall see.

The description rather ominously says ‘multiple Avs’ I did say I’d be soloing this on a blaster, right?

Hmm…it’s marked as neutral, so I can take my stalker in if I want. I think I will; It’s also Very Long (3 unique maps, 1 med, 1 large), so Hide will help with the speed.

Logging back in with The Dirty promise, 50 NB/Nin Stalker…

It’s at 95 plays, 4 stars. I’m in.

The contact is the Lady Grey; she tells me that things are getting a bit dicey. The Rikti are attacking paragon en masse, and that nearby a squad of metahumans needs assistance.

There’s an OOC message in purple telling me that this arc takes place after The Horror of War and the LGTF, and that I should play these first. I’ve done ThoW but haven’t finished a LGTF yet.

Mission 1: Rescue The Trapped Squad

Once inside this cave map, I encounter a trapped Rikti being menaced by some more Rikti. One of the other reasons I don’t love the Rikti is the good Rikti/Bad Rikti faction war thing. Politics bores me.

Warmaster Cher’Tak (Just remembered another thing I don’t like about the Rikti: their difficult to remember names, and their way of speaking. It looks cool, but it’s difficult to understand) says something I don’t really understand about another Rikti but I don’t know if he’s referring to an enemy or not.

He’s an Ally, and so he follows me and my Sneaky Sneaky turns into a Clear All as he aggros everything I’d normally just pass. I leave him to it as the Nav Instructions tell me I’ve only got to rescue 2 soldiers.

I find one of them (nice pose) and rescue him, and then the Nav instructions tell em I’ve got to Defeat the Raid Leader too now.

…sigh.

I’m sighing because of what just happened. The Raid Leader, an EB, spawned in the same room as the rescuee, immediately attacked me, bringing a comm. Officer with him too. There’s no way I can take on an EB without preparation, so I’m forced to flee before he kills me. Leaving the rescuee to deal with him on his own. It isn’t Fun.

I go looking for…See, I just had to look up above to check what his damn name is. Cher’tak.

I find him, laboriously lead him back to the Raid Leader (big hovering floaty thing) and we attack. It’s annoying as hell, because there’s loads of portalled Conscripts, so Cher’tak doesn’t attack the Raid Leader until we’ve dealt with those.

Finally he goes down and we set off back into the map to look for the final soldier, who we find and release easily. The exit popup has the Rikti smirking, which would be a sight to see for sure.

LGs debriefing contains a typo ‘We wdould’.

The briefing for Mission 2 tells me I need to rescue Serpent Drummer. It contains an odd line ‘He stood in the process of…’ – I’m not sure why the word ‘stood’ is being used there. What concerns me more, however, is the news that on this next mission, I might very well meet Malta forces, including a sniper. Brilliant. All we need now are some Knives.

So , Mission 2: Rescue Serpent Drummer.

Inside the Dirty tech base map, I traverse the apparently pointless first floor and use the lift. I’m beginning to think this may be aimed at an audience who likes lots of fighting.

I find Serpent Drummer in a room at the end of a 5 minute bunny-hop through the map. He’s in a room with 5 comm officers, 3 mentalists and a number of infantry, plus about 10 rikti moneys.

I jump in, and slug it out until SD is free and he can give me a hand. As we’re finishing off the last of them, I notice the Nav has altered again. There’s now an optional AV to defeat (no thanks) and I have to lead SD out. So that’s Defeat All you should put on the descr, then.

I’ve also still got to find the Malta leader. If this Malta subplot doesn’t flesh out, I’m going to point the Unnecessary Malta finger.

…I just left SD alone for a sec and had a look back over the map. I’m sorry, but forcing me to Clear All that is totally unacceptable to me. It’s a HUGE map. I’m going to try to get SD killed, and hopefully the mission will fail.
Ah crap, he won’t die. Jesus, this is awful.

…I’ve just done 2 corridors. It took me 5 minutes. He’s a nightmare. He aggros everything, runs off mid-fight to aggro something else, leaving me to deal with hordes of conscripts, and his end is constantly at a sliver so he’s not even any use really. And his health won’t drop. There’s a huge room next full of Rikti.

Right now, I hate this arc.

…and now I’m dead in a room FULL of orange-conning conscripts because while I was carefully trying to edge my way round the room, Serpent [censored] ran into the center and aggrod everything.

After going to the hospital, I re-enter the map and have a look down a passage I neglected on the way thru and find the Malta operative (the first floor wasn’t pointless after all). Thank god he’s a rescuee not a bloody EB. I rescue him, he calls a truce and give me the (optional) task of locating a gunslinger. No thanks.

I leave him to hopefully die horribly a short while later as he too is an aggro magnet.

I plod on thru wave after wave of irritation and wholly unnecessary combat, and come across the gunslinger. I might as well rescue him I guess. After I do, his clue says ‘Seeing you arrive with his CO, the Gunslinger told you…’ a bit incongruously, since I’m alone. I’ll be leaving him alone too shortly, no doubt.

I lead him on, and I die in the next fight under a sea of orange-conning conscripts. I’m beginning to wish I’d brought my Blaster along instead.

Back in, and I make my way back to the Gunslinger and soldier on. We eventually reach SD and are forced to clear the room. I have chest pains by now. We make our way towards the exit, with SD aggroing
Every
Single
Freaking
Thing
on the way.

He even chases down [censored] rikti monkeys.

I make it to the Exit without ragequitting, but if I didn’t like you so much, Devious, and I wasn’t doing this for this thread, I’d have ragequit at about 10 different points during this mission. It took me over an hour and a half. It was horrible.

LGs debriefing and intro to the next mission tells me that the War is escalating and spreading throughout the City. The writing is good in the briefings etc, I am happy to say. Kings Row is where I’m headed next, to capture a Rikti Leader.

The Nav instructions in the KR outdoor map (lots of fighting going on, very atmospheric) say ‘2 Field Commanders to defeat’. I SJ around till I spot an EB, prep up and attack. It’s a nice fight and he goes down. I kill the rest of his spawn…and there’s still 2 Field Commanders to defeat.

A little way away I find another EB. I defeat him too, and the Nav remains unchanged. Then I spy a third EB, and next to him is a normal Boss with the name ‘Field Commander’. Luckily the EB doesn’t aggro on me while Im fighting the Boss, who is quite difficult considering he’s a Boss.

Next I spend a painful time trawling the map for the other Field Commander. The first one had one line of dialogue, no special animations to mark him out, and it was just luck I found him, especially since I was fooled by the EB status of the big Mobile Suit things into thinking that they were the Big Bads for this mission. I really think this arc is aimed at steamroller teams.

I find a few insta-glowies that add some nice flavor about the raging war.

I find the Field Commander, and since the last one was a bit tasty, I eat all my inspires etc. This is the last objective, after all.

Except it isn’t. As I defeat him, another objective pops up. Defeat a named Boss.

OMG THIS IS AWFUL!

I don’t mean your arc, specifically. If I liked fighting, I’d probably be loving it. I want story, and what I’m getting is slog. I can’t find the Big Bad. Put some glowy green gas around him or something, or use a different map, or put a warning in your descr that its combat-heavy.

When I throw my hands in the air and bemoan to my living room ceiling that ‘This is AWFUL!’, what I really mean is ‘this is yellow – but I like red!’, which is the way that ‘reviews’ go, IMO. If I go to a fancy restaurant and the chef is Gordon Ramsey, and he serves me up the best Olive n Anchovy Salad he’s ever made, I’m going to think it blows – because I loathe olives and anchovies.

…

I just had to have a half hour break, as my mouse needed to recharge, so I’ve just come back. I feel much less stressed out now (which isn’t much comfort probably).

Another 5 minutes of searching and I find him. He’s just a boss, thankfully. He’s still a chore to fight, accompanied by his comm. Officer and mentalist. When he goes down, he drops a clue. Here I notice that the field commander earlier must have given a clue pointing out that after the 2 field commanders there’d be another boss appearing, so my bad for that.

I exit the mission and report back to the Lady grey. She tells me that the Leader I just defeated is in Vanguard custody and that he’s bein grilled for info. However, Hro’Dtohz wants him shut up or back, so he’s dispatching the 4 Riders to attack the base he’s in. I’m somewhat sceptical about my chances of winning against these guys from the LGTF, but I’ve got 4 Allies waiting for me apparently. Lets just hope they’re not scattered to the compass points of a Huge Map.

In I go:

Mission 4: Defend the Vanguard Base

I enter the outdoor vanguard base map to find mayhem, and not in a good way. There are battles going on, rikti on rikti, rikti on nemesis, there’s Malta hanging around too. I immediately spot a Rider, Famine, who is aggrod by a Hercules titan as I watch, The Titan gets it down to about half health before it dies. I go to collect my band of allies. There’s 2 Malta and a Rikti, all the guys I’ve met before.
I lead them against Famine and in short order I’m dead. I hosp, eat a load of inspires, and back into the fray. The two Malta allies drop like flies during the fight. Marvellous. That leaves 3 Riders. There should be another Ally around here somewhere I guess.

As we’re looking for it, Warmaster Idiot aggros a battalion of Rikti, who beat him to a pulp. I’m on my own again.

I find the remaining Ally, a Boss Rikti called Kul’bere. I lead him over to the next Rider.

We defeat him, Warmaster kul’Bere ending up at a sliver of health by the time we finish. The Rider runs awry at the first hit into a huge group of bloody comms officers, which of course makes the fight about 4 times as long and 400 times more annoying.

Then I go into the /chickendance emote for 10 minutes waiting for Kul’Bere to recharge his health.

So I’ve got 10 minutes to ramble on about stuff.

This arc really has made me realise that I need to be running arcs for this thread that I am likely to enjoy. This sort of ‘review’ isn’t doing anyone any good is it? I’m not enjoying it, Devious isn’t likely to be happy with my reaction, and I’m not sure if its informative and/or entertaining, in any case?

Still, I’ve started so I’ll finish.

But this is the last Rikti Arc I’ll run I think.

So my Ally has recharged, so it’s onto the next Rikti (the Nav now includes an optional ‘Find the surprise’ instruction, but I doubt it’s a surprise ‘I Win’ button, so I’ll ignore it). We locate the next Rider and storm in.

This fight is HORRIBLE.

Ambushes too, maybe? Great.

I die. Hosp, back in. Eat a load of inspires, and he eventually goes down.

…if theres’ a ‘surprise’ required objective after this last Rider, Im not going to be happy.

Ah crap, I have to wait for my Ally to rest again.

This cannot be aimed at soloers, surely? I think if I was on an 8-man team, it’d make a pretty good farming arc. My ticket haul will probably be quite good. If I was in it for the tickets that’d be something.

When he’s ready I lead him to the last rider – through unavoidable groups of Rikti. I now fervently wish the Devs would remove ALL comms officers from the MA, not for farming reasons but because I’m hating my own life at this point. I die again.

I’ve been at this arc for 4 hours by now.

The last Rider is War, so I get to say to my GF “Honey, look at this – This is War”, but that’s a momentary bit of cheer in an otherwise depressing afternoon. Ironically enough, War is pretty easy to beat.

Mission complete. Phew.

…What were the Nemesis doing there? Maybe that was the ‘surprise’?

Holy God, my last mission is to assassinate [someone pretty uber]. Maybe if I’m lucky it’ll be timed and I can just let it go.

Nah, that wouldn’t be ‘professional’ lol.

This arc is fair groaning under the weight of ‘Epic’ – What can you possibly have held back for parts 2 and beyond?

Mission 5: Assassinate [someone].

The Big Bad killing is the only Nav instruction, so I am really hoping there’ll be some Allies near him.

I set off.

Gah. There’s an Ally just inside the front door.

I’d love to know how long you took to do this arc in Test.

I ignore the ally and speed through the map. There are a few more allies dotted around. The idea is I guess to link up with them all and then lead them as a strike force to the final room. I am not going to baby-sit multiple allies back and forth through a load of rikti, so I leave them there and go find the Big Bad. He’s an orange EB. I deal with him on my own with the help of a trayful and my Widow. Thank god, there aren’t any more objectives to do.

The clue he drops has a Reveal which makes me drop my head to my desk and just rest it there for a moment, breathing hard.

I exit the mission for a final debriefing from the Lady Grey, and with a sigh of relief rate and finish.

I’m truly sorry, Devious, I like you a lot, and I’m gutted that I didn’t enjoy your arc. It was well-written, the plot wasn’t bad, mechanically it wasn’t bad, but everything in it was too long, there were too many bloody comm officers, and I just felt like I was struggling against a tide rather than being carried along on a wave of fun. I had difficulty finding some objectives, as you saw, and the allies were a royal PitA most of the time. Also, That Escort mission was hideous. It gives me palpitaions even thinking about doing that kind of thing again. I think it really doesn’t need to be that long at all. Less is more etc. At least there were no forehead-wrinkling moments, although the apparently (at first) random appearance of Jaegers in Mission 4 was a contender.

My antipathy towards the Rikti coupled with the inordinate length and that Escort Mission From hell drops This Is War Part 1 to a rating of 3-stars from me.

I would play an arc from you that was of a different faction (and maybe shorter lol) without worrying about quailty, though. I’ve no problem with the quality of your stuff, only the difficulty and length.

Eco.

QR

here's my current queue:

This Is War: Part I - the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz 1356
Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend 114284
Terrors of Old 124746
A Close Encounter 233720
Entrusted with the Other Secret 120462
The Invasion of the Space Ape Armada 81043
A.E.'s Premium Quality Mission: "guaranteed qualityyyyLOADING ERROR 0.000459" 148476
Red Typhoon 4912

At some stage I will also be running the following:

The Galactic Protectorate Parts 2 and 3
A Bad Hand from a Worse Dechs 19502
The Tubbius Trilogy starting with 18775
Every Rose 17702
A random arc with the word Banjo in the title.

Eco.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The atmosphere outside here doesn’t seem as dynamic as in Celebrity Kidnapping. The two villains feel a bit tacked on. I’m not sure right now whether or not they are anything to do with the Evil Plot or just random Zig villains who’ve taken the opportunity to escape.

[/ QUOTE ]

Strange that you didn't think it wasn't very dynamic, considering how the Longbow and PPD in the map are having an all-out brawl with the Rogue Arachnos and Knives.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, I'm afraid as I experienced it, I didn't see many fights going on at all. I did noticve the different factions, but they mostly seemed to just be wandering about on their own without coming into contact. Perhaps I was just unlucky this time with the spawn placements and the patrol paths.

[ QUOTE ]
Anyway, regarding the mission, they're just random Zig villains. I would have used the generic Rogue Isles Villains from Safeguards if I could but since they weren't available when I made it, I made my own. They're little more than small amusing fights.

[ QUOTE ]
This mission was a bit weak IMO. All three objectives spawned outside, so there wasn’t any point to me going inside at all. The entry popup warning leads me to believe that the objectives placement may be set to ‘any’ for this mission.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not necessarily that the objective placement is set to any. Instead, it's more like the bosses refuse to be placed where I want them to be. I wanted the Knife boss to be indoors but she keeps spawning outdoors even when I set her to spawn in the back. It seems like only Rescues spawn in the correct place (Battles spawn in the jail cells, hence why I didn't have any and opted for patrols instead). This, sadly, is an Architect problem...



[/ QUOTE ]

I see, I wasn't aware of that. That's a shame, isn't it?

[ QUOTE ]


[ QUOTE ]
It’s Malta, I conclude. I just can’t find any enthusiasm for the group or for plots dealing with them. I lean towards the hammy ‘MWAHAHAHA!’ type of villain group I’m afraid, Malta’s ‘dark n gritty’ conspiracy plots just make me /shrug.

You’re a good writer and you’re mechanically adept. If this were an arc featuring a different mob group, and a slightly more campy plot, I’d be 4-starring it I think. But I’m going to give it 3 because I didn’t have as much Fun as I like to, purely because of the faction.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm more than somewhat saddened that my choice of villain group is what ultimately made you grade it one star lower than you initially considered, but I guess that's what I should have expected when I chose a group like Malta. It was made pretty clear in the previous arc that we have different tastes and it's made even more clear here. I personally don't like writing camp because I want to be able to take my villains seriously but it looks like you're the opposite in that regard. For people who like camp, I imagine Malta just isn't appealing as a villain group because they're generally a very serious group (With a few exceptions, such as the loonies who were trying to clone Roger Vrabel, but even that involved traumatizing an innocent family). I guess I just like fighting enemies that actually make you want to stop them rather than simply being amused by them. Not that I mind people like Aeon, though.

I guess, in the end, I should have remembered that we have different tastes and not subjected you to the arc. That said, I do appreciate how you caught a number of errors that have somehow lasted through about a dozen revisions of the arc.

Thanks for your time!

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd say the word 'subjected' is a bit harsh, lol. It wasn't a terrible experience by any stretch. Hopefully, anyone reading who does like the Malta faction will take note of my positive comments about your arc and also bear in mind the fact that its my personal likes that affected my experience a lot.

Eco.

PS Isotope's mask was fantastic, too.

Blitzkrieg by @Mekkanos, Arc ID 3416

Very Long (5 maps), Heroic, against Rogue Arachnos and Malta.

Things MCM Doesn’t Like #1: Malta



I played Mekkanos’ Soldiers of Fortune arc (ID 4431) quite a while back, and didn’t fall in love with it, but this is not that arc, and I promise to enter it with an open mind. My most recent encounter with Malta was Ventures arc Blowback (Arc ID 4643), and although I thought the arc blew in a lot of ways, the actual Malta encounters in it didn’t seem to bother me as much as the canon stuff has in the past. In order to perhaps avoid getting distracted from the story and mechanics by concentrating on the mobs, I am going to take this one slowly. I shall try to clear as I go rather than stealth. Depending on how big the maps are, of course, I might change this tactic lol.

So, the description. It warns me there’ll be a few AVs/EBs, but that I’ll have help if they’re required. Fair enough. The plotline touched upon in the description probably wouldn’t hook me personally into it if I hit upon it as a flyby, but that’s mostly cos I hate Malta. At least there’s no KoA in there too lol.

I accept, and turn to the contact.

It’s Crimson. He’s very tall, isn’t he?

The briefing is simple enough. Malta has been ‘too quiet’ lately, and Crimson wants to know if that’s anything to worry about. I’m to investigate a base.

In I go.

Mission 1: Investigate Malta Base.

I have 2 tasks to perform; Look for clues and interrogate the base leader. The Nav is clear and is using verbs! Yay!

The entry popup is atmospheric and doesn’t contradict what I can see or hear.

I turn the first corner and find a lieutenant with some dialogue. I attack him, and he goes down fairly easily, and then the Gah starts as an ambush with a sapper arrives. I’m sapped, I’m held, I’m sighing with resignation at the thought of 5 missions of this to come. Throwing a sapper at someone who hates Malta largely because of the bloody sappers within 2 minutes of the first mission starting…well, its not your fault I hate Malta I guess, is it?

Aside, AIMW: Rise of the Phoenix is one of my favourite powers. Having it actually makes me leave myself to die sometimes, especially when my end is low or at nothing. For anyone who doesn’t know what it does, it rezzes you at roughly half health and half end, does AoE damage and KB to any nearby foes, and leaves you invulnerable for a short period of time.

Since the sapper made it impossible for me to fight, I let them kill me and RotP. I waste the goons, and then…

Then I leave the mission, visit the inspiration seller, and ditch all my reds and lucks and buy a trayfull of blues, which is what I should have done in the first place.

Some comments on the Boss and Ambush dialogue before I move on. The bosses dialogue in the fight was good, but his dialogue when he notices me says “take ‘em down!” and there’s only one of me. The ambush dialogue talks about “a confirmed MHI” being on the base. I assume that’s me, but the acronym is unknown to me. I googled it, but I don’t think that the Malta think I’m a Manufactured Housing Institute, a Master of Healthcare Innovation or an employee of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Corporation. I’m guessing its [something, Mobile, maybe?] Hostile Intruder, or similar?

Anyway, onward.

I hate Malta. How anyone enjoys encounters with them is utterly beyond me. The stuns are horrendous.

I have a few fights that go like this:

1 I snipe the engineer or sapper
2 I get 2 hits in on the operations officer
3 Operations officer stuns me
4 I’m a blaster, so I finish him off whilst still stunned.
5 I WAIT FOR THE STUN TO WEAR OFF.

It’s point 5 that gets on my nerves.

I find a desk computer with some files, but they’re encrypted. The Base Leader should have the cipher for them.

I find the Base Leader, and its an easy fight. He does have the key to the files, and also warns me that there’s something coming soon that won’t be good for superhumans.

The base is apparently in the process of being decommissioned, btw.

I leave and report back to Crimson. The debriefing has a grammar error, “a few days ago.” should be “a few days earlier.”, and the second paragraph suffers from a bit too much ‘that means [something], which means [something else], and that indicates that [something else is happening], which suggests[something else], but otherwise its fine. Basically Something Is Up, and the files may tell us more.

They tell us to go investigate another base.

Mission 2: Investigate “supplier”

I’ll say here that I’m not a huge fan of the speech marks you use in this mission. I paragonwiki’d Crimson to check his dialogue for uses of “friends”, and all I found were multiple places where Indigo uses ‘friends’. The one in the Nav Bar looks the worst IMO, but it’s a really minor quibble.

The second base is an Arachnos base! Interesting. The Nav instructions are again clear.

Around the first corner is a titan lol. He’s a big man; let’s see if he’s out of shape.

Jesus.

I didn’t die, but I didn’t enjoy that at all. I don’t like using half my inspiration load on a seemingly unimportant encounter. The titan had a sapper with him, and when I attacked another sapper arrived with an ambush. Two sappers, a titan, plus the tactical operatives and the cocking auto-turret. Awful.

I soldier on.

I stop clearing now, I can’t be dealing with this. I switch to stealth mode and carefully avoid the mobs. There are patrols of Rogue Arachnos as well as the Malta in here.

I find some hazardous materials and dispose of them. The system messages are extremely detailed, lol.

I find the boss, who talks about the Main Hawaiian Islands or the Medicare Health Insurance again, and wade in. I defeat him without any problems, and then grit my teeth through the stuns and finish off his guards. He gives up the cipher, and snarls out another ‘you will soon be sorry’ type thing as he drops.

I discover 2 more glowies, and then I spend about 5 minutes searching the map again for the final glowie. It’s hidden in a little crevice, which is why I missed it on my first pass. 5 seconds before I find it, I come to the conclusion that I’m not really enjoying myself as much as I should be.

The mission complete clue is a letter from [someone] explaining why the Rogue Arachnos are here.

Crimsons debriefing and briefing for the next missions explains what the Evil Plot is. The now decipherable secret files outline Malta’s plan to [do something] and blame the heroes of Paragon, lowering the public’s trust in heroes in general. Malta can then engineer [something].

Mission3: Visit the Zig.

For their Evil Plot, Malta needs a villain. One matching the requirements is currently in the Zig, I have to go to the Zig and convince the authorities there to relocate said villain.

I wonder why Crimson can’t just phone them up? He’s a government agent, isn’t he?

When I arrive at the Zig, it is in alert mode. There’s already a raid on, presumably Malta are coming for the villain. The entry popup warns players they might have to enter the grate at the far end of the yard, , which is good. It has only 1 typo - ‘system on the far end of the’ should be ‘system at the far end of the’.

So earlier in the thread, I described a perfect Zig Breakout mission. This mission also uses the Zig map, but here the objectives are to defeat the raid leader and arrest 2 escaped villains.

The yard has patrols of rogue Arachnos, who are here to ‘distract the guards’ according to some flavor text, and…Knives of Artemis.

Things MCM Doesn’t Like #2: KoA

Lol but hopefully I can avoid them. I find a named villain very quickly, he’s got ice powers. More holds, then.

The second villain is DB/Fire and I two-shot him before he can even get a hit in.

The atmosphere outside here doesn’t seem as dynamic as in Celebrity Kidnapping. The two villains feel a bit tacked on. I’m not sure right now whether or not they are anything to do with the Evil Plot or just random Zig villains who’ve taken the opportunity to escape.

I enter the grate and go into the Zig proper.
…and there’s nothing there. There are a few rogue Arachnos, which I dispatch with aplomb, but apart from that the interior is empty, prompting a FWM.

I head back outside and locate the Raid Leader, who’s a KoA lieut. She and her spawn con yellow to me, so they’re no threat at all. She drops a coded message upon defeat (when the mission completes) that I can’t read.

This mission was a bit weak IMO. All three objectives spawned outside, so there wasn’t any point to me going inside at all. The entry popup warning leads me to believe that the objectives placement may be set to ‘any’ for this mission.

The mission was over quite quickly, too.

The exit popup tells me that the villain Malta and I want had escaped before I arrived. I think this would be better delivered in some form inside the mission, rather than after the fact.

The debriefing has a clever explanation connected with the Rogue Arachnos used.
The Briefing for Mission 4 tells me that Indigo has found the location where [someone important to Malta’s Evil Plot] is being kept. It’s a Warburg facility. There’s also some [stuff vital for the Evil Plot] to destroy, and some [more stuff] to sabotage.

I stock up on break frees and blues, and head into

Mission 4: Attack the Malta base

The instructions from Crimson are very well written, and what I have to do is spelled out clearly, using orange text to highlight the main points. Apparently there’s going to be a villain in there that Crimson would like arrested, but the mission takes priority so if I don’t want to(or can’t) handle her, that’s fine.

Inside, the Nav instructions are clear. This is a warburg outdoor map with an indoor warehouse section.

There are a number of [things] to destroy, and the flavor text for their guards is identical. The optional EB is on the roof of the warehouse; I ignore her.

Inside the warehouse, I quickly locate and destroy [a doodad], the guard has flavor text which fits. I run about destroying [wossnames] and then I find [someone]. He’s an easy fight, and the mission ends.

Now that I’ve managed to blow up all the [stuff] and save [someone], there’s the mopup to do. Something found in the last mission leads to the location of the Big Bad and some people in need of rescuing. It’s very reasonably described.

Mission 5: Stop Operation Blitzkrieg

This is a timed mission, and I’m told I’ll have help from Indigo ijn it, which will be useful for the undoubted EB

I head in, and meet Indigo shortly afterwards. On the second floor, we find Isotope, the villain, who looks awesome and has some nice dialogue. The fight with him is annoying as hell, however, because he’s spawned right at the exact same place as one of the hostages, AND a patrol happens along during the fight, so I have to deal with 3 bloody sappers while Indigo does her own thing. RotP FTW. He goes down and we carry on.

We rescue the last hostage, and head on to fight the Big Bad.

I HATE MALTA I HATE MALTA I HATE MALTA I HATE MALTA I HATE MALTA I HATE MALTA I HATE MALTA I HATE MALTA I HATE MALTA

Sorry about that. Indigo aggros everything on the way of course, and everything is conning Orange now. I’d like to shove an auto-turret up the backside of the Dev whom invented them.

We find the Big Bad, and he is an EB, but the fight isn’t too bad, despite him having Grav powers that root me for a moment. His clue contains a typo – ['hero.'] should be ['hero'].

The clue explains the rationale behind the Evil plot, and its ok as an explanation.

I exit, and Crimson thanks me for saving the day.

And that’s the end.

So, what was my overall reaction? I’m sitting here now and I’m relieved its all over, and not wanting to play it again at all, but I’m also thinking about all the stuff that was done right. The plot made sense, the mechanics were for the most part well-oiled, the presentation was consistent and clear, and the instructions were excellent. The plot had a clear start, middle, end, with no missions feeling like filler or padding. Sometimes I got the impression that you’d taken the easy road (identical dialogue for the destructables in mission 4 for example), but that’s pretty minor. With all this good stuff, then, why do I feel so ‘meh’ about it?

It’s Malta, I conclude. I just can’t find any enthusiasm for the group or for plots dealing with them. I lean towards the hammy ‘MWAHAHAHA!’ type of villain group I’m afraid, Malta’s ‘dark n gritty’ conspiracy plots just make me /shrug.

You’re a good writer and you’re mechanically adept. If this were an arc featuring a different mob group, and a slightly more campy plot, I’d be 4-starring it I think. But I’m going to give it 3 because I didn’t have as much Fun as I like to, purely because of the faction.

That said, I would play an arc written by you featuring a different faction without reservation.

Eco.

A Perfect Arc.

I know, this isn’t in my queue. But I haven’t got time to get though Blitzkrieg right now, I do have time for a shortish arc that I know, and I’d like to spotlight this arc because in my view its perfect, and MAuthors can learn a lot from it. It’ll be a fairly quick run-through.

Celebrity Kidnapping, Arc ID 1388, Medium length, Villainous Morality, so Dirty’s up again.

The description explains the setup simply and clearly; here’s the contact, here’s the job, sorted.

In I go.

Willy Wheeler suggests a plan to make “MILLIONS!” by breaking a superpowered celebrity out of the Zig and then ransoming her to her rich family. She’s set up not as a supervillain but as a celebrity who revealed she has powers on a reality TV show, so already we’re forming a picture of a ‘bimbo’. She isn’t even in the Zig for any sort of great crime.

We’re going to be using the Zig Breakout map, and Willy tells us to use the sewer grate at the far end to get in (that’s PW thinking of players who haven’t seen this map yet).

Mission 1: Break Paris Out of Jail

Once on the map, the entry popup reads ‘Sirens wail and shotguns boom; you see prisoners and guards duking it out in the yard.’ – and I actually can! The map is full of patrols, prisoners and longbow. Since they’re patrols, as I stealth through the yard towards the grate, they come into contact with each other and attack. The dialogue fits the scene and of course the spotlights etc are spot on.

The Nav instruction reads ‘Sneak through sewer grate to break Paris out of her cell’, no mistaking that at all.

In the grate, I move up into the jail. Inside, the fighting continues with Longbow, Prisoners, Family all fighting. It’s excellent, really. Upstairs, the Celeb is cowering in a cell guarded by three prisoners who are about to ‘get friendly’ with her. I attack, there’s an attempt by longbow to stop me (ambush), but I polish them off too (half way through attracting the interest of another group of longbow running past), and when she’s freed we start to make our escape. Some paparazzi rush in to take some photos of her and me escaping together!

We fight our way out (the Nav has changed to ‘Lead Paris to getaway vehicle’) into the yard. Once in the yard, we simply make our way back to the getaway copterm fighting or avoiding as required. Paris (the celeb) is wearing a Zig jumpsuit, by the way, and her bio and dialogue and powersets are flawless. She’s got thermal support for me and fire attacks for our opponents. I never feel overshadowed by her, and yet she definitely helps.

The whole thing doesn’t take very long, but it feels totally slick and fluid. It’s a textbook ‘break sb out from Zig’ mission. If I were teaching MA in college, this would be the Zig Breakout example.

Outside, Paris is whisked away to a safehouse, and Willy tells me that the first half of the ransom has been dropped at an abandoned office for me to collect. We’ll get the second half after releasing Paris. So then, on to

Mission 2: Get Ransom Money

This mission is a gem. It’s almost unnecessary. It’s on the abandoned office map that features in Outbreak sometimes. It’s tiny, really. It has some bums and hobos, all standard mobs, in various despondent animations, bemoaning their lot in life, and a cardboard box containing the loot. The Bum I have to defeat (only because he’s too close to the box – on other plays of this, the box was in a side room and I just left the sad homeless guys alone) has some smile-raising lines from On The Waterfront.

I grab the cash from the box after dealing with the tramps, and mission complete.

Other authors might have made this mission a big trawl through an office complex or a warehouse map, maybe put in a Boss or some other objectives. It’s a three-mission arc, after all, so it’s already shortish, right? Doing that might have indeed been fine, depending on it’s quality needed.This minimalist central mission provides a great little balance between the front and the end of the arc and is a lesson in restraint.

Outside, Willy tells me that to get the other half of the ransom, we need to hand Paris over, so I’ve got to go pick her up from where our Family partners are hiding her in a warehouse. It strikes him that with the Family out of the way, there’ll be more money for us, too. Sounds good…

Mission 3: Get Paris from Family

Inside, this smallish warehouse map is empty as I run through it to the area at the far side. The area I head for is at the end of a long straight, and waiting there are some Family including a Boss, and Paris, guarded by some goons in an appropriate pose. Everything about the scene is Just So. It’s great.

The map has been empty, of course, because there’s going to be some spawns triggered by the rescue. As I attack the first few Family (who’ve delivered some nice flavor text already as I approach), there’s a commotion behind me – the paparazzi have got wind of what’s happening and are here to snap me and Paris again!

I wade in to the guards, and free Paris. Uh-oh! Suddenly, the warehouse is invaded by the PPD, and the route back to the exit is now a gauntlet.

We fight our way back towards the exit. This map is faultless for this. Its mostly linear, so Paris doesn’t run off and annoy me by disappearing beyond my control. Sometimes, Allies set to Follow end up Leading because of an accident of multiple aggros. This doesn’t happen here.

On the way out we encounter [someone], who provides some excellent comedy and another little fight, and we continue. [Someone]’s set to NOT follow, which allows some more flavor text from the ‘ally lost’ dialogue.

And then, just before the exit, we meet another Police Boss and [two people]. The first time I played this arc, these two amused me, but I really got the total gag on my second play of it. It’s top banana.

Then we’re at the exit, and I swap Paris for the ransom and have a final ‘chat’ with Willy. The debriefing is a perfect /facepalm moment for Willy, and the arc ends.

I have just two niggles about this arc, and both of them are negligible.

1 In the Paparazzi bio, I think that changing ‘restaurant or even swimming’ to ‘restaurant, even while swimming’ would be better grammatically.

2 I think that the info given in the mission complete clue for Mission 3 would be better placed in the Exit popup (which even repeats the info), so it comes after you exit. Mission Complete Clues are a nice little reward for finishing a mission, however, so if you were to move it, maybe stick a gag about Paris in here

This arc is in my opinion a paragon of Elegant Simplicity. It’s mechanically reliable, consistent over multiple plays, the challenge level is spot on, the story is easy to follow and makes sense and it engages the Player as the center of the action. Paris is an Ally in two of the missions, but there’s no impression that she or the contact are stealing the Player’s thunder. It’s easily canon-worthy IMO and I think that every MAuthor should play this to see how a great arc can be crafted.

5 stars

Eco.

Frank Sinatra escaped from hell and has kidnapped TV star Kelly Ripa! Arc ID 45878 by @redjoe.

What a title. I found this whilst searching for Celebrity Kidnapping, which I’ll do in another post. I had to check it, out, after all, it’s called ‘Frank Sinatra escaped from hell and has kidnapped TV star Kelly Ripa!’

It’s a one-mission arc, Villainous, which is odd since the description has you rescuing Kelly, with the help of Regis, from Ol’ Blue eyes, who has escaped from Hell and wants her to be his undead bride.

Still, Villainous is what it’s labeled, so I’ll use the Dirty Promise (50 NB/Nin Stalker).

This arc offers me the chance to ramble on about an aspect of the MA system and ratings etc that’s pertinent but maybe overlooked. Regis Philbin, according to Wikipedia, “holds the Guinness World Record for the most time spent in front of a television camera.”, which suggests he should be recognisable, but I’m British and I’ve never heard of him

There’s a gag in one of my arcs which cracks me up, but no-one has ever got it because it is stupidly obscure. I sometimes get comments informing me of the ‘typo’.

I’m not criticising anything with this observation, it’s merely an idle thought, and in this specific case I’m sure that the HUGE majority of the intended audience will know exactly who Kelly and Regis are, them being well-known US TV personalities, but sometimes people aren’t going to get some or all references in an arc. A 1 or 2 star rating doesn’t always mean that the arc has mechanical or story errors, sometimes it can mean that the point was missed by the player. Such is life.

So after a brief heads up on wiki for Kelly and Regis, I Start.

The contact, Regis Philbin, looks like a sort of wood-satyr, with the paper Crown on his head. His briefing IS ALL IN CAPS AND HAS ONE MISSING COMMA! APART FROM THAT IT’S OK EVEN IF LUDICROUSLY BRIEF.

The acceptance speech (it is rather long!) needs a comma between ‘viewers’ and ‘don’t’.

I accept and Regis shouts at me some more. A comment in his sendoff dialogue suggests that perhaps he is known for shouting in his show? If so, there’s a great example of what I meant earlier about missing the point.

Mission1: Defeat Frank Sinatra with Kelly Ripa!

Slightly odd instruction, there, and once I’m inside the Nav instructions are ’Frank Sinatra’, ‘Kelly Regis’. No verbs to tell me if I’m supposed to rescue, defeat, escort, destroy, or what.

The Entry popup is funny. I’m expecting sb else from the Rat Pack now.
I stealth my way through the Too Big map, and I encounter some disappointing customs. They are Joan Rivers, Joey Bishop, Elton John, Shelley Winters, Sammy Davis Jnr and Rich Little. The Brat Packers are here, obviously, but I’m a bit perplexed at Elton John? The faction is Las Vegas, so perhaps they’re all supposed to be Vegas regulars…they have totally standard bios, unfortunately, and their costumes are nothing special. It’s a shame we don’t have /em whiskey tumbler animation

I find Kelly being guarded by a few of the customs, and free her. The mobs have ice, MA, and there’s some plant control in there too, which causes a quite annoying sequence very near the elevator when 8 carrion creepers manifest after the plant dom mob has been defeated. They con orange and are tedious to deal with.

Im very happy to say that Kelly must have some good +per, as she keeps up with me even though I’m Hidden no problem.

I find Frank, who’s an EB, fire something, and activate my ninja-skillz for the fight. Kelly is Spines/something. With her and my Widow, we should be ok.

Right, Frank isn’t too bad, actually. There’s a few of his minions around, but Kelly takes them on whilst my Widow and I deal with Frank. Halfway through his health, he shouts out for Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, so I know an ambush is on its way. Then he hits a quarter health and his other powerset is revealed. It’s /run away. Not Run To Exit, just Run Around Like An Annoying ****. Kelly and I chase him down and finish him off just as Dean and Jerry arrive.

The mission complete popup has arrived by now, and the ‘exit’ button is there, but My Way is to finish off any ambushes etc and exit from a clean empty silent room whenever I can, so I want to finish off Dean and Jerry. Unfortunately, either Dean or Jerry is a thugs/storm MM, or Gah/Ragequit to give it its other name. Im getting blown all over the damn shop. I persevere, however, and finish off the last one, and then I turn and am confronted by a rezzed Frank, fresh from murdering his ‘beloved’.

On my own and with my supply of inspires gone, it’s just moments before I’m sleeping with the fishes.

There’s a typo in the exit popup, ‘interviews that rots’ should be ‘interviews that rot’.

So, regrets? I noted a few. The title definitely sucked me in, so that should get this arc a few plays, lol. But inside it fell off the stage I’m afraid. What you want here is a one-shot comedy mission that has amusing text and dialogue relating to the Brat Pack (and Vegas loungecore if you like) wrapped around a basic ‘rescue hostage, defeat boss’ mechanic. Starting from a ‘what the hell, 5-stars for the title!’, the arc loses one for the standard bios, undistinguished costumes and minor typos etc, another for Frank’s rezzing and the annoying MM ambush, and a third for the general ‘meh’ness of the mission once I’d got inside it expecting some laughs.

So that’d be a 2-star rating, wouldn’t it?

However, nobody likes a lowball rating, do they? And what am I, Solomon? It’s no disaster-arc, that’s for sure. 3-stars.

Eco.