MrCaptainMan

So then. Death to Disco! (5-stars already for having an exclamation mark in your title) by @Wrong Number, Arc ID 84420 . Neutral morality. 2 maps. Ah, Death to Disco! (Must remember that exclamation mark!) There’s nothing like repeating old, loved content, eh? Lol I must have played this a few times by now. I see by the rating that I gave it 4 stars originally. I do know that I haven’t played it on my Stalker, so as it’s neutral, I’ll log out and back in and take the Dirty Promise for a bop!

So, I login to ‘BADGE EARNED!’ – Excellent! How about that? I haven’t even started DtD yet and I’m getting rewards already! (Up to 6-stars now!). ooh, and it’s Writer! Yay for me!.

Over to Nerva MA building and I quickly start up Death to Disco!

And then I quit. That was ‘Death to Disco’ by @Lich-King I just entered by mistake – I said I needed to remember the exclamation mark.

OK, the description could be slightly clearer by adding a ‘now’ to the star-spangled banner reference, I think. I initially thought that ‘booggie-oggie’ was a mistake; when I was a child in the late seventies, my mother would often use the term ‘boogie-woogie’, but I never saw it written down, and so its probably she was indeed saying ‘boogie-oggie’, since ‘boogie-woogie’ seems to refer to 30s and 40s piano blues and 50s dance music!

…Im learning a lot from this arc and I haven’t even started it yet! (Have another star!)

In I go.

The contact is a big beefy bloke in a leather jacket and shades. I have to jaunt back to ’77 to check out jimmy Carter.

The AE array in the MA buildings is of course, canonically, a device where the players molecules are transmogrified into data in some way and inserted into the simulations that the MA produces (someone correct me if I’m wrong). Often, MAuthors tell us it’s something else or use it in a different way (or just ignore it altogether, therer’s no need necessarily to refer to it at all). Here, the AE room is described as the ‘Hall of Rock’ and in reference to the array, the contact (Diety of Rock) says ‘touch the mists of Rock and Roll behind me…’

An aside, here: this produces a momentary internal pause as I cross-check ‘mists of rock and roll’ with what I can see (and already know) in the AE array. Does it fit the story? Yep, and it made me smile. Importantly for immersion, does the array look like it could be the ‘mists of rock and roll’? Plenty close enough, I’d say. This is an example of a) experimentation with something outside the boundaries of what might be considered the ‘default’ limits of the MA (canon says the non-canon stuff starts after entering the array, not before), and b) getting away with it. The moral is: if you’re going to think outside the box, remember that there is a box. If WN had said ‘ascend the Stairway of Rock behind me’ she’d have engendered a Forehead-Wrinkle Moment

I don’t need any more lines on my forehead at my age, so now you’re up to 9 stars!
Mission 1: Locate President Carter.

Inside, the Nav tells me to find Carter. The verbs are there, but I also have to ‘defeat brainwasher’ apparently. Gimme one of those stars back for a Magical Infodump. I’d have preferred a more generic ‘confront whoever is responsible’, or even ‘investigate further’.

It’s a nice map, and there are Crey everywhere. I’m a sneaky-sneaky though, so don’t mind me, boys.

I find Carter, who has a simple amusing bio, and a well-chosen Face. He is caught in an energy field and his guards mention brainwashing whilst doing the star-trek medicorder thing animation. I assume this is the brainwashing in action. Nicely done, with minimal effort. This is borderline Elegant Simplicity at work. It’s a shame that the ‘brainwasher’ himself isn’t in the same room though, tbh. It would take away the ‘borderline’ imo. If your guards have a reaction dialogue line free, you could perhaps put a ’KCCH- [whoever the brainwasher is] – [achtung]’ warning to their boss in it.

Carter warns me about something called ‘the Disco Demolition’, which enrages the Big Bad, Dr Disco Fever (a shout-out to this I believe.

Up a floor, and I find a Crey scientist who’s showing brain. He’s a fan of Lawrence Welk lol.

Lol This is what the MA is for. Here I am, a pretty standard ‘sexy ninja mercenary’ type, sent back in time by the God of Rock, fighting a mad scientist with an exposed brain who’s brainwashing president Carter to love Disco music.

I love this game sometimes. Have another star because one of my students just cancelled a lesson too late, so I don’t have to go to work but I still get paid.


The Exit popup is a ra-ra to my overall mission, but I think it could be enlarged somehow.


The debriefing is brief, and ‘Nice save Dirty Promise!’ needs a comma after ‘save’

The Briefing for mission 2 – ‘lovin’ needs an apostrophe instead of that dropped ‘g’, and again in the after-acceptance ‘go get em’ text.

Lose twenty thousand stars for Pedant-Baiting

So onto Mission 2: Destroy Disco Music.

This takes place at the Disco Demolition.

It’s a shame we don’t have a football stadium map, but the outdoor park map does a fine job as a replacement. The Nav instruction is suffering from Dude, Where’s My Verb syndrome, however – lose a zillion stars or add ‘to destroy’ to the instruction.

I’m not massively bothered about the Nav, tbh, because I can see customs here, and their names, ‘Disco DJ’, ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Disco granny’ etc, are piquing my interest. This is also what the MA is all about. I’ve fought most canon groups now, which is a big part of why I stealth a lot. Every time I meet a new custom group in the MA, however, its like being lvl 0 again and warily approaching my very first Infected. Wicked.

The customs costumes are serviceable enough, especially Kung Fun Fightin (bag of apostrophes for your birthday, WN) – but Disco DJ needs flared trousers if you can manage it. Dancing Queen’s outfit is spot on, love the shoes especially lol.

Their bios are also good, but one little niggle is that the bio for the Divas is in the past tense whereas the others all describe them now, using either the present simple or present perfect. Dancing Queen’s bio needs a tiny tweak too.

Kung Fu Fightin’s bio is brilliant, and after reading it I immediately decide to have a fight with him.

OW! Lol 1 of each of those, all conning white, at the same time, and they did me in about 40 seconds! What a combo! I’ll be more careful after I get back from the hospital.

So the Disco nation mobs are a mix of DB, Sonic, Elec, Psychic, maybe, and MA. They’re a nasty combo in a group, for sure. I have a go at a few groups of varying sizes, and conclude that they’re pretty well pitched in difficulty/challenge for me. If I’m careful, I’m ok. If I wade in and treat them like canon mobs, I get into trouble. The Prince of Disco is also groovy.

Wooh! Another badge! Have some more stars…um, go on, make it a googolplex.

I hear a battle going on deep in the woods, and rush over (good job I’m stealthed) to witness some ‘Rock and Roll Nation' mobs finishing off a spawn of Disco Nation dudes.

I destroy a few crates of disco records etc, and the map fills with more rockers as I do. When there’s one crate left, a new objective appears. Its time to fight the Big Bad.

But first, that last crate. Which gives me another badge! An Infinity of stars for choo!

Dr Disco Fever is an elec something, I can see before I fight him. His costume is great. His bio contains a minor language error – ourobouros needs ‘an’ in front of it, not ‘a’. Also, here’s another Magical Infodump issue. Dr Disco’s bio contains the info which produces an ‘ah ha…’ moment where I now know what the cause of the situation (and origin of Dr Disco) is. The bio itself is great and the info is definitely necessary for the story, but it makes me think about one aspect of IC/OOC info delivery in the MA; the bios.

I shall digress here, As Is My Wont.

Glowie:Computer. Clue: ‘your hacking of the computer reveals this message;hahaha, my plan is to turn world leaders heads into pumpkins tih my Pumpkin-head-O-Meter!’
is easy enough to absorb as a literal thing which gives your character info. Bios, on the other hand? Mobs don’t have signs they hold up telling your character about them. These are (unless used in some clever manner) directly for the player, and usually just give some interesting additional information about said mobs. Wether or not they can be treated in the same way as clues in terms of information delivery systems for narrative progression is an interesting meta-wossname question. In this specific example, it might be easier to ask ‘how else can WN impart this info to the player?’ – it would either need another objective of some kind, maybe a collectible, or perhaps it could fit into the boss defeat clue in some way. I’ll return to this after the Boss Fight. Gimme a sec.

I activate all my thingamajigs and attack!
Lol his dialogue is great during the fight. He isn’t hugely difficult. Nice final nod to KC and the Sunshine band, and I really liked the silk shirt line –$150 is probably an astronomical amount in 1979!

He doesn’t drop any Boss Defeat clue, which would leave space for that reveal to be in there instead of his bio – this would have the added benefit of saving the reveal till after the boss fight. That said, however, I’ve just had a very enjoyable fight with him knowing all the stuff about his past already, so hiding that from the player till after he’s defeated might lessen his appeal as a fleshed-out character. We care about (either like or love, or dislike or hate) people that we know stuff about, so in this case it may be better to let the fun outweigh the mechanistic integrity of the mission. So in conclusion, have 500 stars for the Fun, and lose 500 stars for the Magical Infodump


Exit Popup – comma please after ‘on’, but plus eleventy stars for the three exclamation marks.

The debriefing has a comma where it shouldn’t lol (after ‘everything’), and is very brief, but performs it’s ‘well done, thanks’ function just fine, and finishes with FIVE exclamation marks, which pleases me no end.

To sum up, this arc is a lesson in Elegant Simplicity in my opinion. The first mission is short and nicely crafted, with no fat in terms of mechanics, featuring minimal text which delivers all neccessary information.. The second mission is the payoff to the first’s feedline. The destructables in the second mission are a good example of how mission pace can be directed by the MAuthor. They slow the action down enough to make the mission grander than the first, and there aren’t too many of them so the Player isn’t groaning under the weight of tasks. People may not notice this, which is a shame, but there’s a simple yet very useful mechanic at work here. The boss is held off until near the end (and is a textbook example of a basic Final Act Boss Appearance), and the addition of the rockers gives a sense of other stuff happening whilst the missions progresses.

MOST importantly, it’s patently been made by someone sporting a big cheesy grin – it’s FUN

It’s not Tolstoy, of course, but it doesn’t purport to be. It could do with a little polishing, but even as it stands it’s great. You don’t have to take my word for it – check it out in the MA search. 302 plays and 4-stars says 'quality arc'

4-stars and an unreserved recommendation for anyone with a sense of humor.

Eco.

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I think I understand what you're trying to get across. If I'm not mistaken, you think it's okay to split a story arc into multiple MA slot segments.

That's fine.

Other people believe that each MA arc should be an arc.



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Yes! this is exactly what I mean...er, but you managed to say it far better than my clumsy efforts have so far. /sheepish grin.

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This is also fine.

As I see it, the problem is you don't think this is fine. You've implied it's 'arbitrary', 'unreasonable', and 'closed-minded' to look at it that way.

It's not. It's simply a different perspective. And your continued efforts to invalidate it don't exactly indicate an open mind to me, y'know?

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Ah. yes. I see what you mean. I thought I was being inclusive of others opinions (in that within my definition of an 'acceptible arc' lie the single-arc 'normal' MA creations, but I guess i should also expand my allowances to include the preferences that people have for whatever reason for sticking to the 1-slot limit. Oops.

It's probably far easier for me to simply change my terminology.

I'll stop waffling on now, I'll only make it worse lol. But you're totally spot on about me viewing arcs and slots as not neccessarily the same thing. Thank you for that.

Eco.

QR - I just noticed that Devious requested a review before Fredriks. Sorry about that, I don't know why i missed it. I haven't played The Revenge of Hro'Dtohz yet, and it's one of the 'oft-mentioned' so i should. I've added it to my queue, which is now:

Death to Disco! 84420
The Galactic Protectorate - 01 47143
Kiss Hello Goodbye 156389 (ooh, I'd forgotten about this! BAD MCM! Cool)
Blitzkrieg 3416
This Is War Part I - the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz 1356
Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend 114284

No more requests please, until I've finished this lot.

Eco.

QR - This arc is really enjoyable.

Eco.

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I avoid arcs that are explicitly labeled as parts of a trilogy. Very rarely can someone really keep a single story running for 15 missions (and more often than not those trilogies are 15 missions long). In most cases where I did play the first part it became apparent that the same story could have been told in only 3 missions.

I don't mind connected arcs where a dangling plot thread is resolved in another. Sequel hooks are ok, but I hate cliff-hangers.

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how would you feel if both parts were published at te same time, so the waiting for the resoluion took only as long as it took you to activate the next arc?

Eco

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You really need to learn to read.



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Ouch. That's a bit harsh.

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Nowhere did I say that the issue was with waiting for a new installment. Even if all three parts are up at once I am not likely to even begin it. I'm talking about playing 5 missions only to be told that I have to play 5 more just to get any answers, and since it is a trilogy the 10th mission will most likely tell me that I need to play another 5 missions to get the answers.



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Ah, there I agree with you to some extent. I'm beginning to think I should have titled this thread differently. I wasn't really focussing on stories with 15 missions, but storiues with much smaller total mission sizes primarily, say 8 max, but everyone who's in this thread with a 'Mutli-arc story=bad!' opinion is just talking about massive stories of 10 or 15 or more missions.
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I'm reviewing one for a friend right now who got in before I added my "no multi-arc stories" rule. Since it was submitted under the old rules I'm playing it but I did part 1 over a week ago and have yet to find time to do part 2. By then I'll probably have forgotten what part 1 was about and have little clue what is going on in part 2 if it assumes that I played part 1 recently and remember all the details.

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I also didn't mean to refer to arcs which are supposed to be individual chapters of a series, but that's what people have hit on. i think the break point for me is how people can be so inflexible about what constitutes a story

I'm going to go on, but now I'm talking in general, not just to you, Laz.

Here's a thought experiment. I have three slots to publish arcs in. I publish a story in one of those slots. It's one arc, 4 missions long. Narrative-wise, it has a beginning, a middle and an end.

I then also publish exactly the same story, exactly the same missions, except I split it into two arcs of 2 missions each. I make it clear in the descriptions that its meant to be one story, NOT chapters of a series. Part 1 of this 2-arc story would have a beginning, some of the middle, but no ending. Part 2 would have no beginning, some of the middle, and an end. I could use the statement "Today I played a story that was 4 missions long' to describe my experience with both of them.

What reason is there to downrate the second 'iteration' of the story when the first is identical other than the fact that it doesn't have an extra window popup midway through?

This is I admit an extreme case, and there would be no point to making the 2-arc version if the 1-arc one would fit into 100kb. Which raises the issue of memory as a limiter too.

We have a number of ways to look at the 'limits' we have for story-creation in the MA.

We could say a story has to be equal to or less than

1 arc and
5 missions and
100kb

The amount of stuff we can produce with the MA is limited by those parameters, if we consider those to be the limits for an acceptable story.

I could create a 4-mission arc that hits 99kb, and one extra mission thats 20kb long and put that as an arc labelled Part Two and there'd be criticism (criticism based purely on the fact that it wasn't contained within one arc, I mean. Its quality as a story is moot to this point). The story would be 5 missions or less, but it would be more than 1 arc and over 100kb. I'd be criticised because I was making more 'stuff' than allowed by the limits of the MA, which is what some people have decided is the limits for acceptable storytelling. But the limits of the MA are not set in stone, they have already changed since it went live. The optimisation of memory coming in I15 may mean that my first part is no longer 99kb but 86kb, and my second part is no longer 20kb but 12kb. I could then put them both into one arc and all would be well, despite there being no difference at all in the story between both versions?

I think people should be more open minded when it comes to the MA.

It's also totally possible that I'm just not being clear enough about what i'm trying to get across. I agree that often (in most cases, even), huge sprawling multi-chapter epic stories of X+[too many] missions can be tedious to play and exhausting to go through, and i'm also a die-hard believer in editing, editing, editing. I just think that flatly stating 'any story which goes over 1 arc is bad, period' is going too far.

Eco.

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I don't "star" forum threads.

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Um...I never said it was you.

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At least he admitted he does have a beef with me

Eco.

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Just to go over a few of the less petty objections....

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…and then you pick the more petty ones.


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The other one (Eva) is the same, except in purple. I guess from their identical costumes they’re maybe part of some bigger group or something.

Actually it's because they're twins.

Incidentally, if I played this as Venture has said he does in the past, blasting through it and reading all the clues at the end

When did I say that?

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Just had a brief look, couldn’t find it. My apologies, I must have mistaken you for someone else.

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Anyway, she can’t stay to help me ‘defeat the kidnapper’, which is what the Nav now tells me to do.

There are no triggered objectives. I don't like them, they make the player run all over the place so I try not to use them.


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This type of blanket, intractable statement shows how much of an amateur MAuthor you are. You should be using a modal. Triggered objectives can make the player needlessly run around a map (the last mission in The Echo is unfortunately a good example of this; after a great deal of testing I had to settle for it and accept any resulting downrates for the sake of the narrative), but they don’t have to. With some amount of careful testing on multiple maps, you can produce an objective chain that consistently spawns in a linear manner for the player and that doesn’t require backtracking. It IS possible.

But my point above wasn’t referring to triggered objectives anyway. You’re focussing on the word ‘now’ too much. I meant that at that point, I looked again at the Nav and saw only ‘defeat the kidnapper’.

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He did shout out for aid whilst he crumbled to the floor on my second shot, but alas it wasn’t an ambush.

He says "Ermeeth, protect your humble servant!" Ermeeth is one of the gods venerated by the Circle. I'm not sure why anyone familiar with the canon would think that was a literal cry for help.

He drops a book, which apparently is a family tree encyclopedia, only Magic.

The Blood Tome is introduced in one of the level 30-35 Circle compound tasks hero side, and referenced in Mu'Drakhan's arc redside.



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There’s a difference between hand-holding and ‘if you don’t know this stuff, THRRRPPP! to you’.


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says the Azuria Robot in a dull monotone in my debriefing.

I tried to match the character's established voice as well as I could. If you feel I didn't do so that's one thing. If you're complaining that I wrote Azuria as Azuria, that's another.


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Well, if you see Azuria as Dullard Queen of the Tedium People and think that her canon voice reads like a 1,200 mg a day Thorazine addict who’s lost the will to live, then you were bang on with that voice.

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Blood Redeemer Esiliaaargh is the Boss Fight this time. Another very nice costume, but a bit monochrome. Nice tattoo he’s got though

...and a bit later...

I find Blood Redeemer Beliastios, who’s got the exact same costume as the other Boss Fight blokes, except it’s blue whereas the first one was gray and the second one was yellow. Or possibly green. I’m noticing a trend here. Venture might be color-blind, perhaps (This isn’t an insult, I’m serious – if so, fair enough and nice way of avoiding any color-clashes)?

Circle magi are pretty uniform in their robes; I don't see why that wouldn't carry over to the Redeemers' coven. The color choices match the branches of the Circle of Thorns magi each Redeemer came from. Orange for Agony, Green for Madness, Blue for Ruin, and Black for Death. The only reason these mobs exist in the first place is because the Arch-Magi models were tedious and unfun to fight.


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This isn’t petty?

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Ah, here he is. Rescue captive, examine final body (which means that that initial ‘there are bodies everywhere’ entry popup was referring to…eight bodies. Maybe venture’s had more experience with quantifying corpses, but I wouldn’t use ‘everywhere’ until we’re talking 20 or 30).

Would the player actually enjoy having 20 or 30 glowies to click on, none of which actually did anything?



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God, no. Change the ‘there are bodies everywhere!’ sentence, that’s all. Make it a strike force of Legacy Chain or sth. You have this ‘My writing SAYS something is so, to hell with the actual stuff the player encounters!’ attitude.

You aren’t very flexible, Venture.

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Or should there just be a few bodies to set the mood and take it as read? Moot point, they were removed weeks ago in the Test version, now that I can put Legacy Chain models into the arc without borking the level range.


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Awesome. You actually disagree with a point I’ve made EVEN THOUGH you have changed that anyway. What a piece of work. And it's rich to include a 'moot point' in a list of things you consider less petty, too, lol.


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Belastios’ notes ‘elaborate on what you already from the Chain's papers.’ – come on Venture, this is schoolboy error stuff. 57 plays and no-ones pointed that out? How many you got in your SG, 56?

Two.

There’s a lovely animation on the release of the Arch-Tellus (Legacy Chain geezer who’s mission is ‘the same as yours’ – what, to find the Arch-Tellus?), but his costume isn’t up to the usual standard. The helmets a bit big, he looks like he’s borrowed his big brothers helmet for the day.

His costume is based on the Legacy Chain's standard garb. Much of their costume is available in the editor but some key parts aren't, particularly the unified shoulder and chestpieces. I did the best that I could and I've gotten many compliments on the similarity, actually. The version on Test uses a different helmet design, though, a half-helmet with faceplates so you can actually see the character's face. Unfortunately, the animation you liked isn't currently playing on Test.


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The helmet thing was totally minor. I think you’re a good costume creator.

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You can’t just push info at Players without giving them some explanation of why their character knows it. And it’s not brain surgery, this:

‘The office building seems quiet, but the distant sounds of [fighting/earthmoving/Titans servomotors/Freak Techno music] tell you that the [bad guys] are already breaking through into [the guy you’ve come to help]’s underground base.’

would solve the problem of me knowing there’s bad guys up ahead even though I can’t see anything upon entry.


It's not brain surgery to the point that the average player doesn't need this spelled out for him.


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I thought you were into RP, and yet you seem to have no regard for the difference between IC knowledge and OOC. The average player doesn’t even need that entry popup spelled out for him at all – the Nav instruction would do. The character, however, has just entered what looks like an empty modern office building, and there is absolutely no sign that anything is amiss. No noise, no fights, nothing. If the entry popup read ‘Hm. Strange. Azuria said this place was being invaded, but there’s no sign of a struggle’, nobody would bat an eye, because that’s what the player can see, even though that information is in complete contrast to what you’ve chosen to impart.

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Oh, I'm sorry, that was one of the more petty complaints. I'll move on....


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That was actually one of the things I thought was most important. I’m not a total tool when it comes to you, Venture. There is some actual good advice in what I say. A good writer listens to constructive criticism, etc…

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…hm, the book glowies are on random placement, perhaps, because I encounter them out of order. This might not bother some players, but as far as I am concerned ™ , things like this detract from a sense that the arc has been made with care.

They are placed front, middle and back on a map that honors those locations. That's the best I could do at the time since collections couldn't be triggered. i15 does allow triggered collections but there are issues with that, and as I said above I don't like the idea of potentially forcing the player to run back to an already-cleared part of the map to pick up a new objective.


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With enough testing, Player Runaraound can be minimised if not avoided altogether. In addition, as it stands, since one of the books spawns in a small office at the top of the first part of the map (which is unused for any other objective), you will undoubtedly find players who find themselves running back to the start at the end anyway, as I did. So you’re already failing to protect the player from that.

And triggering objectives aren’t the only ways to deliver objectives and clues to the player in a consistent, intended, logical order, either, stop obsessing on the triggered objectives and play around with spawn maximums and placement more and you can learn a lot.

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Into a big cave, and The Elder Cinnamon is waiting. Oh, yes. He’s got medieval leather togs, groovy shoulder studs and a great helmet, and his EYES ARE SHINING! He looks awesome. I hope he’s got a big mallet, that would be perfect.

Again, Cinoval's costume is a modified version of the Legacy Chain uniform.


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He looked brilliant and I was honestly sorry to leave him behind.

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I believe that clues should appear in the clue list as much as possible in the order that the player encounters them in the mission.

Clues are placed in the list in the order in which their associated details are created. Since the order in which you create details affects their spawn, it is not always possible to neatly align both the order of placement and the order clues will appear in the list.


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Rubbish. Study the MA more.
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Fortunately, the vast majority of players couldn't care less so it's never mandatory to do so.

Woohoo! No mallet from Cinovar – He’s en/en, just like MCM! haha, awesome. Just call us the Knockback twins!

Energy Blast/Dark Armor, actually. There are some bugs with allies and toggles, particularly on Test. I'm not sure if I'm going to change his secondary if this isn't fixed by the time i15 goes live.

I doubt you can do that exact thing here, cos it’s all Magic, but you should be thinking about as many variables as possible. Every single forehead-wrinkle you can anticipate and prevent will pay you back in ratings.

No one cares. No one but you in any review of my arcs or anyone else's arcs that I've read has gotten their panties in a bunch over the order in which clues are given or whether or not something is in a mission-end clue instead of inside the mission. It seems the vast majority of players understand that for a variety of reasons Architects don't have a lot of control over this and are willing to fill in the gaps on their own without needing to be hand-held.


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Yeah, cos nothing says ‘Quality arc!’ like a 3-star rating after 58 plays. But the point you’re referencing here wasn’t about clue order, it was about the mission complete clue that’s supposed to be Cinovars speech arriving when Cinovar was nowhere near me. If Cinovar hasd been defeated before that clue drop, it would have been even more incongruous. Your reaction has made me think that perhaps we have different ideas of when the information contained in a clue is supposed to be conveyed to the character. I think I’ll start another thread for wider discussion of this aspect of the MA.

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So the Redeemer’s are back again. Didn’t I defeat them earlier?

Circle of Thorns mages are disembodied spirits that abandon their bodies on defeat and move to new ones. This is Circle 101. I don't think it's appropriate for a level 41+ arc to brief the player on basic mob knowledge.


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Not everyone will have your encyclopaedic knowledge of canon lore. You should also consider that some players, depending on personal preference, might actively avoid certain mob groups, and thus be unaware of some info, and the CoT with their oft-hated layer cake rooms of doom, are a good example of this. Of course, such players are less likely to play a CoT arc too, so I concede that there’s no reason to be too much a babysitter in this particular case.

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and there’s mention of the Mu, who I see from paragonwiki are a CoV faction (So YAY for those players who know the stuff you’re obviously supposed to know before you play this).

The Mu are first introduced in the hero level 35-40 arc "The Envoy of Shadow", which has been in the game since issue 0. They are expanded upon in CoV. The Mu, BTW, are mentioned in "Chains of Blood" all the way back in act I and a few times thereafter. Again, this is basic canon information.

The challenge level was unfortunate in that as everything was so incredibly easy to defeat (apart from the EB which was half a challenge), there was no excitement to be had from the combat either.

I don't design arcs intended to kill anyone who didn't blow over a billion inf on his build.


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I have a few set bonuses, but my toons are 80% generic Ios. I’m in no way at all any kind of combat specialist. In fact, I’m rubbish at fighting. My tactic for Ebs is; eat a trayful of inspires (until last week I didn’t know that lucks had a cap at 4 – I used to eat 8 of them in one go), BU, Aim, the damage one, then cycle my energy melee attacks until I die, rush to hosp, buy full try, rush back to EB and repeat. This arc was very easy, even by my standards. There’s nothing wrong with that, however. As I pointed out lol.

[ QUOTE ]

Dialogue like ‘The other leaders bade me hold my tongue’ makes me groan out loud because it’s produced completely deadpan.

The Legacy Chain characters are scripted to match the way other Legacy Chain characters in the canon speak. If you feel I did not do so adequately then that should be the substance of your complaint. If I did, then you are complaining that the characters are written correctly.


[/ QUOTE ]

Don’t blame the Legacy Chain for your po-faced lifeless prose.

[ QUOTE ]

Kudos for resisting the urge to put your own characters in the last mission, although there really wasn’t any special need for them in the first one either as far as I can see – the rescuees could have easily have been characters created originally for this arc.

I included them to show what I considered to be an innocent usage of one's own characters in an MA project, and because the plot illustrated a small detail of their background. Their appearance has drawn no complaints and very few comments at all.

Also they were completely ignored after the debriefing of mission 2.

They are mentioned in the acceptance text for act III, actually. Their part in the story is over by then. It might be fair to observe that you can't both complain they are Mary Sues and unimportant.


[/ QUOTE ]

It would be fair, and the one ‘mary-sue’ comment I made was early in the arc when I (mistakenly I admit) assumed that they’d be making a comeback. In terms of Mary-Sueism, I think you succeeded in your aim to ‘show what I considered to be an innocent usage of one's own characters in an MA project’. They weren’t intrusive and didn’t steal the players thunder at all.

Glad I was able to finish on a positive note.

Eco.

[ QUOTE ]


I really think story arcs should focus more on the player, making her feel an important part of the story. Of course the player is doing things for the contact, but it's important for the player to feel like the protagonist.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd just like to briefly comment on this point. I agree with it in respect to most 'normal' arcs. The Player should feel like the agent of change or progress in the arc he or she is playing - that's what we pay our subs for, after all, lol, to feel like we are making a difference.

However, I also think that some degree of experimentation should be encouraged in use of the MA as a storytelling tool, and as long as the writer makes it clear what he or she is trying to achieve at the outset (or even during the arc if he or she is good enough to produce a positive reaction from a reveal that happens then and not before), then a story where the Player is in some way an observer could be interesting to play. If, of course, the arc is well-made. I think such an aim would have to be pretty clearly sign-posted by the writer from the start to be safe, though.

This is purely an observation on the MA in general, sparked by your sentence. It isnt intended to counter or belittle your opinion, and I wasn't referencing the arc under discussion here either.

Eco.

Im a slow player, so I'm going to run with a small queue of 5 arcs.

Some info about my playstyle:

My MA toon for heroic content is MrCaptainMan, my 50 en/en/fire Blaster. Villainous content will be run on the Dirty Promise, my 50 NB/Nin Stalker.

I run all arcs at difficulty level 1. As far as I am concerned™, that is the default difficulty setting.

I believe that for best enjoyment and/or aprreciation of what the author is tryong to achieve with his or her arc, it should be played as they best recommend. If any authors have any special preference for difficulty or AT choice, please let me know and I'll see what I can do.

There is no requirement at all for you to play my arcs in return, although if you wish to, feel free. The Echo was my first arc, and it was in fact written long before the MA went to Test. As such it is a bit rough mechanically, specifically in the last mission. The Audition was awesome fun to write, and I learned a great deal whilst writing it. That's all I'll say on my arcs for this thread; they both have feedback threads if anyone wishes to discuss them.

Current Queue:

Death to Disco! 84420
The Galactic Protectorate - 01 47143
Kiss Hello Goodbye 156389 (ooh, I'd forgotten about this! BAD MCM! Cool)
Blitzkrieg 3416
One of Fredriks arcs (I'll have a look at them both when I'm ingame next to choose)

Mekkanos, You might know that I loathe Malta, but in the last Malta arc I tried (Venture's arc Blowback, arc ID4643) the Malta mobs I encountered were far less annoying than the ones I've met in canon arcs. I have no freaking idea why this was so, but I hope it holds true for yours too, and I promise i'll give your arc a good shot.

Eco.

Ewa, I consider those deliveries and hunts to be missions. You're also conveniently ignoring any of my points apart from the narrow area that you want to disagree with.

Howver, as I look at your datya i do see that the arc length of canon stuff introduced in recent issues does seem to be smaller than it would seem.

There's one other difference between canon arcs and MA arcs that I think could be applied (you may disagree of course): travel time. There is of course travel time between canon arc mission. The first few missions require a journey back to the contact, and even after the cellphone numbers obtained, there's travel time between missiion door.s In the MA there's no travel time required, compariticely. I don't think it's unreasonable to equate the enitre amount of 'extra work' spent in canon travel during an arc to, say, one more MA mission. For the purpose of comparing on a 'one sitting' basis.

It's interesting how something so arbitrary can spawn such debate, tbh. Agent G's arc is great, in my opinion, and yet under Venture's blanket rules, it'd be damned lol. I guess its indicative of the way the Internet allows free reign Man In Pub debates.

Eco.

Hi,

Inspired by the many other reviewers on this wonderful forum, I've decided to have a go myself.

My particular USP is that I'll be writing the reviews as I play through, giving an 'as it happens' and 'as it seems' experience of the arc in questiojn. I won't be editing it much afterwards, so it might come across as a bit stream-of-consciousness.

My MA play toons are MrCaptainMan, my 50 e/en/fire Blaster for heroic content, and the Dirty Promise, my NB/Nin Stalker for Villainous. My preferred playstyle is to stealth as much as possible, although if I meet any customs that grab my attention I'll be happy to do some blamage. I read as much as I can, I love a good story and I'm also partial to some slight-to-medium challenge. If i can't defeat an EB, it's a downer, but a worse crime is spelling mistakes or bad writing.

Right then, lets kick off with an arc from our very own Venture, shall we?

Chains of Blood. Arc ID 4829, Heroic, Very Long.

I played it solo on my 50 en/en Blaster

57 Plays, 3 stars when I started it.

Tl;dr: Rescue [sb], collect [sth], defeat [sb else] x4 + EB – 3 stars

Mission 1: Rescue the Knight Twins. One of them’s called Evan "Venture" Knight. Oh dear.

After an average briefing from Azuria, I head off to Oranbega.

The first body bag – ‘Inpsecting’ reads the popup as I examine it (that's a spelling mistake, it should be 'inspecting). ‘This is the body of a Legacy Chain member. You have no idea what he was doing here’. Thanks for telling me that, otherwise I might have jumped to wild conclusions.

I find the two trapped Venture toons and things improve. Venture himself has a very cool costume, the helmet goes really nicely with the roman chestplate, and the capes a good choice.

The other one (Eva) is the same, except in purple. I guess from their identical costumes they’re maybe part of some bigger group or something.

There’s another body bag to ‘inpsect’ here too.

So they both run off without helping. Venture tells me his systems are offline, so that’s understandable. Eva says “the die is cast” in Latin (wouldn’t be a Venture arc without some Latin, would it?) and then runs off. The clue she drops (Incidentally, if I played this as Venture has said he does in the past, blasting through it and reading all the clues at the end, I wouldn’t now know why Ewa ran off without helping, which would come over as a bit rude) says ‘You remember reading that her fusion is unstable.’ – No I don’t, because I haven’t. Until this arc, I didn’t know Ewa “Starfall” Knight from Adam. Maybe Venture should put a link to his Character page in the description with advice to read all about his toons before the Player plays it.

Anyway, she can’t stay to help me ‘defeat the kidnapper’, which is what the Nav now tells me to do. As I’ve just resuced them both without any great difficulty, and Azuria sent me here to ‘Rescue the Knight Twins’, I wonder why I’m now being told by some mysterious inner voice to go beat sb up, tbh. Or I would if I wasn’t painfully aware that this is a game, I’ve rescued the hostages, so Boss Fight has to be next. It’s a tradition, or an old Charter, or something. Venture (the author I mean, not the toon I just rescued) wants me to go have a Boss Fight, so in lieu of any character-driven reason for doing so, that’ll have to be my motivation.

Only pausing to ‘inpsect’ another Legacy chain body, I look for ‘the kidnapper’ – maybe he’ll be wearing an ‘I kidnapped some Mary-Sues and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt’ T-Shirt…

Aha! ‘Blood Redeemer Thaloquin’ looks like a suitable candidate for ‘the kidnapper’!

One thing I’ll say for Venture – he can clearly be excellent at costume creation. This Tahloquin dude looks fantastic. I tend to be hit and miss with my costumes, so I try to be quite minimal usually. I’m wary of trying stuff with hoods AND masks and shoulder stuff. This guy has a hood and a skull mask and shoulder spikes and a cape and shoulder pads of some kind and a cool jacket, and it all fits very well.

His powersets are No Freaking Idea/Died Immediately. He did shout out for aid whilst he crumbled to the floor on my second shot, but alas it wasn’t an ambush. I used to hate them, but I quite like them now at the end of an easy Boss fight. They’re like an After Eight mint to follow a nice dinner.

He drops a book, which apparently is a family tree encyclopedia, only Magic.

‘Thank the Entities you were successful. The involvement of the Legacy Chain was not foreseen, and this tome you have recovered bears closer examination....’ says the Azuria Robot in a dull monotone in my debriefing. That’s me suddenly wondering if this will all be revealed as a Nemesis plot at the end.

In briefing for mission 2, Azuria tells me that the Legacy Chain tried to save the Knights. I don’t know how she knows this. She hasn’t mentioned learning it from Venture or Ewa (in fact she didn’t mention them at all apart from that one sentence) and all I found were dead bodies. There was no conveyed connection between the legacy chain bodies and the knights at all in Mission 1. Perhaps there were battles I missed?

Nope, just checked. Weird.

Oh, of course. Azuria knows because she’s Magic. That’s it.

So, into Mission 2: Defend the Legacy Chain Base

-eh? Uh, the family tree encyclopedia has run out of Magic (possibly until it’s needed later in the arc?) and a Legacy Chain base is being invaded by the CoT, Azuria has ‘just learned’! When? How?

Magically, because she’s Magic.

Thankfully, the Olsen Twins have been told to stay away (for perfectly acceptable and believable narrative reasons).

‘There are bodies everywhere.’ screams the entry popup. Or it would, if Venture didn’t suffer from an allergy to exclamation marks. It’s like wading through liquid valium sometimes, this prose.

I find one of the aforementioned millions of bodies. It has been ‘killed by Circle magics’. Pluralizing an uncountable noun is a cardinal sin in my book.

I find a ‘few scattered pages’ on a bookshelf with twenty books-sorry, TOMES on it (there are no books in this arc, only Tomes). I don’t know exactly what the ‘scattered pages’ are from. The infodump the clue delivers is clear enough, but Venture doesn’t know how to wrap that info in a simple delivery. I’m wrinkling my forehead at the ‘scattered pages’ loose concept rather than just absorbing the info. They’re scattered, but I got them from a smallish bookshelf. Venture may have a more nebulous idea of what the glowies signify, but as far as I am concerned ™, if a glowie is a bookshelf, then I’ve just got a clue from something I’d find on a bookshelf. ‘a pile of scattered pages’ would be slightly better, but why not just get rid of the ‘scattered’ altogether? It has no added value and it muddles things.

Blood Redeemer Esiliaaargh is the Boss Fight this time. Another very nice costume, but a bit monochrome. Nice tattoo he’s got though. His powerset is psychic something, but he goes down really easy too.

Just a captive to find and that’s the Legacy Base defended!

Ah, here he is. Rescue captive, examine final body (which means that that initial ‘there are bodies everywhere’ entry popup was referring to…eight bodies. Maybe venture’s had more experience with quantifying corpses, but I wouldn’t use ‘everywhere’ until we’re talking 20 or 30).

The captive’s clue is either a self-referential piece of shining wit-no, it’s not. It’s rubbish. The captive doesn’t tell you anything, basically.

Incidentally, I find it quite amusing that I was told to ‘defend’ the base, but actually I ignored all the invading CoT apart from the 2 guarding the archivist and the boss and his aides. Maybe the LG can hot-desk with the CoT I left inside.

At the debriefing I stare into Azurias dead eyes as she intones dully that ‘now the Chain want [the Knight Twins]’. She’s gleaned this because of a single vague clue from mission 2, listing the twins as ‘undeclared members’ of the Legacy Chain. What does this mean? They’re members but they want to hide it? They’re members but they don’t know it? Their membership fees have lapsed?

Azuria’s Magic, though, so I’ll take her word for it.

So, a brief recap at the end of Mission two. What have I discovered? According to Azuria, who’s much better at divining the meaning of Venture’s clues than me, The Circle of thorns and The Legacy Chain want Ventures two main characters.

OK.

Mission 3: Retrieve the stolen records. Er, Azuria did tell me in the debriefing for Mission 2 who stole the records and what records she’s on about, but I forgot while I was mopping up the drool escaping from her slack mouth as she delivered her lines.

Right, so I’ve got 2 objectives in this bit of Oranbega. Defeat the Boss, Bellyachius, and find the ‘Arch-Tellus’, whatever that is. I’m sure it’ll stand out.

[10 minutes later]

…this map blows huge chunks.

I find Blood Redeemer Beliastios, who’s got the exact same costume as the other Boss Fight blokes, except it’s blue whereas the first one was gray and the second one was yellow. Or possibly green. I’m noticing a trend here. Venture might be color-blind, perhaps (This isn’t an insult, I’m serious – if so, fair enough and nice way of avoiding any color-clashes)?


Belastios is Fire/Something; he drops like a stone, and what a stroke of luck - I find some of his notes nearby too…lol.

Belastios’ notes ‘elaborate on what you already from the Chain's papers.’ – come on Venture, this is schoolboy error stuff. 57 plays and no-ones pointed that out? How many you got in your SG, 56?

There’s a lovely animation on the release of the Arch-Tellus (Legacy Chain geezer who’s mission is ‘the same as yours’ – what, to find the Arch-Tellus?), but his costume isn’t up to the usual standard. The helmets a bit big, he looks like he’s borrowed his big brothers helmet for the day.

But enough of that! I’ve got two more clue drops! One is some blather from this Tellus, about how the papers we are to recover will make everything clear (and not a moment too soon!), and then at exactly the same time the other clue tells me I’ve found the papers! How lucky was that, they must have been right here with Tellus…or on the floor near..or maybe one of the guards dropped them…I don’t know, but I’ve got them now.

They reveal the AMAZING SECRET which I won’t spoil for you in case Venture pays you to play his arc, but my reaction was ‘pfffmeh’.

LMAO the exit popup then tells me that a thorough search of the area turns up the missing papers.

OK, so I’ll try to offer some constructive criticism here, instead of just being sarky. The final clue that drops INSIDE the mission tells me what’s in the papers, so before I exit, I am told I’ve found them, and I know what’s in them. The exit popup appears AFTER this, yet is in the present tense ‘A thorough search turns up the missing papers…’, which seems to say that the search happens now, after I exit the mission.– To avoid a coffee-spurting laughter reaction, the exit popup could be worded thus: ‘a thorough search of the cavern revealed the missing papers, which made interesting reading…’, although I’d just simplify it by putting the ‘thorough search’ reference into the clue inside and changing the exit to some flavor text linking back to Azuria.

I have no hopes that Venture'll heed that advice, of course, because he doesn't like me.

So onto the next mission.

Mission 4: Meet Elder Cinoval (he’s the Big Good Guy I think).

The mission starts in an office map, with a nice clean corridor stretching away silent and empty in front of me, but the entry popup tells me that the Circle is inside the Elders underground sanctuary and also that ‘it seems the Elder has sent his aides away and is holding the line himself.’ – How do I know this stuff? It makes no sense.

You can’t just push info at Players without giving them some explanation of why their character knows it. And it’s not brain surgery, this:

‘The office building seems quiet, but the distant sounds of [fighting/earthmoving/Titans servomotors/Freak Techno music] tell you that the [bad guys] are already breaking through into [the guy you’ve come to help]’s underground base.’

would solve the problem of me knowing there’s bad guys up ahead even though I can’t see anything upon entry.

Onward I go.

One of the nav instructions is ‘4 Cinoval's Tomes’, so not only a missing verb but also a dropped preposition. ‘4 of Cinoval’s tomes to [verb]’ wouldn’t leave you open to this bit of finger-wagging from me.

I also have to ‘defeat Xanos’, apparently, according to the nav. We’ve had one mention of Xanos before…one of the Redeemers moaned out his name as he swooned like a girl, I believe, but apart from that I have no freaking idea who Xanos is. Well, obviously Eco knows he’s the Boss Fight, but MrCaptainMan doesn’t know. Just like when earlier, MCM didn’t know who ‘the kidnapper’ was, but there you didn’t magically thrust the info into his head. When’s your birthday, Venture, I’ll send you a bouquet of Consistency.

Oh look, a big hole in the ground. Quelle Surprise.


OK, a short stealth later and I find Xanos (Another Redeemer, gray again) and a pile o’ books glowie. “We will not fall with victory within our grasp!’ shouts Xanos as I two shot him. The pile o’ books gives me some mumbo-jumbo containing the word ‘magicks’ – /sad headshake. Is it ‘magics’ or ‘magicks’, venture? You wouldn’t have this problem if you just called it ‘magic’ like normal people.

Into a big cave, and The Elder Cinnamon is waiting. Oh, yes. He’s got medieval leather togs, groovy shoulder studs and a great helmet, and his EYES ARE SHINING! He looks awesome. I hope he’s got a big mallet, that would be perfect.

But first ill get another glowie.

…hm, the book glowies are on random placement, perhaps, because I encounter them out of order. This might not bother some players, but as far as I am concerned ™ , things like this detract from a sense that the arc has been made with care. One of the clues here has an introduction explaining that the text that all 4 glowies gives is one ‘statement’ by one of the LG. Unfortunately, I got that bit of info after reading two apparently random quotes. Again this might be a side-effect of playing with a brutes playstyle in mind – If I ignore the clues window until Ive finished the mission, then of course all the clues will seem to be in the right order.

But I’m not a Brute.

Cinovars clue drops in the middle of the clue list. I can tell which one it is because I’ve been reading them all as I go, but there’s no way to tell otherwise that it is his.

I believe that clues should appear in the clue list as much as possible in the order that the player encounters them in the mission. It often possible to tell what elements of a mission have been added at the end because of the way the clue list runs. It’s not vital for a mission or an arc to be clean in this way for it to be a good arc. A virtuoso violinist is still a maestro in a mechanic’s dirty overalls, but the paying audience in the concert hall is better able to concentrate on his music if he wears a nice suit.
Woohoo! No mallet from Cinovar – He’s en/en, just like MCM! haha, awesome. Just call us the Knockback twins!

Haha, that was hilarious! I played CoT tennis with Cinovar. Brilliant.

After a bit of fun, though, I leave him. I still need to find the last tome o’ plenty.

Ah, its all the way back in the office building hidden in a cranny. Interestingly, it does have a little intro sentence ‘this tome contains…’, so I’ll amend my earlier complaint. Two of your tomes have this, two of them don’t. Consistency, Venture. You seem to have the space, so that’s no excuse (lol and if you don’t have the space, there’s that old gag about how ‘real writers learn to work within limits’) and as it stands, its messy.

And finally, the last clue.

Lol. Remember I left Cinoval back downstairs in the caves? The clue that drops as I find the last glowie is a speech from Cinovar. Got quite a loud voice, that dude, eh?

I hit exactly this issue when I was testing the Audition. I was lucky enough that the mob I left behind who had to deliver a final clue speech was in a tech base, and wired up to the intercom, so all I had to add was ‘..says X over the base intercom..’ to the final clue, and bingo, no ‘wtf? Lol dude, that guys like on another floor’. I doubt you can do that exact thing here, cos it’s all Magic, but you should be thinking about as many variables as possible. Every single forehead-wrinkle you can anticipate and prevent will pay you back in ratings.

Cinovars clue gives the first genuinely interesting read in the whole arc, and it’s well-written too, but then at the end he says ‘MrCaptainMan...you and your fellow heroes should be proud.’ – my fellow heroes? I’m soloing. This is either amateurism combined with the arrogance that your arc will ALWAYS be played in teams, or it’s a clumsy way of referring generally to the actions of the heroes of Paragon, and unnecessary.

Outside I go, for the debriefing and to rate.

-Eh? It’s not over? There’s a mission left…

So I’ve rescued The Knight twins, I’ve beaten up the bad guys, I’ve rescued the Good Dude, what else is there for me to do?

And Azurias not making it any less confusing. She tells me that ‘the arc has had 4 nearly identical ‘rescue [someone], defeat [someone], collect [something] missions so far. We need a Big Finale where you rescue [someone you’ve already met] and defeat [an EB] on a Unique Map. Possibly you’ll get help from [Someone you’ve already met as well]’

Ok, no she doesn’t. She tells me I have to

Mission 5: Face the Redeemers. I have to go to Nerva (Unique map, check). She also tells me in red to ‘gather’ my allies, suggesting that this might be a hard fight! It’s been a long lie-down in the park after glugging some Nytol so far, so a challenge would be nice. She also tells me ‘Entities grant that I am wrong and Cinoval yet lives.’ – Not THE Entities this time, just any old Entities. Her diction isn’t any less monotonous, though. Her dialogue reminds me of the ‘anyone…anyone…’ guy in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. At least this time we don’t have to worry about magics, or magicks. I’d half hoped for a ‘magycks’ this time, but Venture’s settled down with some ‘magical energies’ so all’s well.

Great map, this. And the verbs are back in the Nav instructions. Looks like 4 boss fights, an EB (check), and a destructable. I was sure those Knight Twins would show up again. Respect to Venture for not shoe-horning them in.

So the Redeemer’s are back again. Didn’t I defeat them earlier? Why are they here? Apart from the fact that they’re in the custom group for this arc already so Venture can get another few fights out of them without stretching his memory, I mean.


I find the destructable, an altar with standard description. I fly above it, two-shot it, nothing attacks me.

The Redeemers go down in two shots again too. Redeemer Xanos’ bio has changed to reflect the situation, which is one good note amongst this morass of mediocrity. His death clue contains 4 instances of the word ‘blood’.

Which leaves the Big Bad, an orange conning EB. I was going to compliment Venture on another sterling costume, but upon wiki-ing it I discovered it’s a standard. Good looking EB, anyway.

I eat a trayful of various inspirations and drop into the fight. She loses. The mission complete clue gives me some more hands-on-hips stuff from Cinovar, which tells me how he saved the world or something. He refers to a ritual which I can’t remember being told about, and there’s mention of the Mu, who I see from paragonwiki are a CoV faction (So YAY for those players who know the stuff you’re obviously supposed to know before you play this). There might be another reveal too, but it’s all very tacked-on. If the arc had ended with mission 4 I wouldn’t have wondered where the end had gone.

Then, after exiting, there’s a lusterless debriefing from ‘I do not use contractions when Venture is writing me’ Azuria, who tells you that in the last mission to rescue the Good Guy, you actually had no chance and she knew this before you started it. You know, when even your own contact thinks that your last mission in an arc is pointless, that should tell you something.

And that’s it. I rated 3 stars; It would have got 5 if it was fun, thought-provoking, funny, either cleverly complex or elegantly simple, clear, mechanically admirable, emotionally engaging or well-written. It wasn’t any of these.

It lost 1 star because it wasn’t clean enough. Schoolboy spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes are bad enough, but it is also messy mechanically. The Nav instructions aren’t consistent and the information delivery systems are slapdash and I have to assume badly tested for sequencing and logic.

The challenge level was unfortunate in that as everything was so incredibly easy to defeat (apart from the EB which was half a challenge), there was no excitement to be had from the combat either. But I didn’t downrate because of that, as I’m primarily an SFMA-centric player.

It lost another star because the story itself is dull, unclear, and tediously told. It’s not appalling, however, just banal; you write like a precocious, wordy 15yr old D&D GM except without the redemption of any added fart jokes. There’s just no pizzazz, no OOMPH to it, it’s joyless. Dialogue like ‘The other leaders bade me hold my tongue’ makes me groan out loud because it’s produced completely deadpan. Your writing gives the impression you have no sense of humor.

Kudos for resisting the urge to put your own characters in the last mission, although there really wasn’t any special need for them in the first one either as far as I can see – the rescuees could have easily have been characters created originally for this arc. Also they were completely ignored after the debriefing of mission 2. You must be aware that a fair percentage of players of the arc will know that they are you (and even if they aren’t forum-readers, they may recognize Venture as your global), and so as far as I am concerned™, this qualifies as a Trivial Pursuit

So there you go.

Watch this space for more stream of consciousness reviews, and if anyone would like me to play their arc and give my opinion on it, please feel free to suggest it.

Eco.

Lol Here we go.

[ QUOTE ]

a) As far as I am concerned, every arc is required to stand on its own. Handing me an arc to review that isn't a self-contained story is fast-tracking yourself to a one-star review.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your position is clear, at least, even if you cannot (or simply don’t want to) justify it with a reasoned argument to support your opinion.

[ QUOTE ]

b) Before setting out on a ten or 15 (never mind 40) act epic saga, Architects should first prove they can produce a five-act arc actually worth playing.

[/ QUOTE ]

I heartily agree with you, which is why if there’s any natural justice in this life, we will never see a 15-mission Venture story.

[ QUOTE ]

Most of the people I see trying to write these Bataan Death March arc series can't.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hyperbole doesn’t make your point any more valid. You throw criticism at huge sprawling epic self-indulgent overblown arcs and it sounds fair enough, but conveniently ignore the fact that not all stories of over 100kb will be the Heaven’s Gates that you try to cast them as.

[ QUOTE ]

c) The devs did not pull the five-act limit out of their nether regions. You may notice that all of the recent TFs have been five acts. This is about the one-sitting limit for most players.

[/ QUOTE ]

True. Katie, the Ouro TFs, The LGTF, STF, the upcoming I15 TFs and (I think) the ITF are all 5 missions or shorter. However, I think you’re comparing apples to oranges here. The MA isn’t a TF-simulator. Something akin to the ITF or the STF may not fit in 100kb. You’re picking out the recent TFs because they happen to support your stance, is all. There are more TFs in the game with more than 5 missions, and even disregarding those, the normal arcs (which I would say mirror what we make in the MA more) are predominantly over 5. Even taking the same timeframe as your TF examples, of arcs introduced since, say, Croatoa, the predominant arc-length is over 5.

[ QUOTE ]

d) Real writers work within limits. They hear editors say things like "your story was cut from four column inches to three, tighten it up, we're on deadline" or "the focus groups thought it was too long at 500 pages, cut it to 350" all the time. Having a hissy fit because your character's magnum-opus origin story doesn't fit into five acts or 100KB is just demonstrating you should be kept away from the system in the first place.

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Your snide use of ‘real’ here belies how small-minded you are, Venture. You don’t even have the grace to grant those who you think don’t live up to your narrow pretentious ideals the title of even bad writers; to you, they’re not writers at all, are they? And then you trot out the frankly hackneyed ‘hissy fit’ line, which smacks of an adult saying ‘stop showing off’ to a child knowing the humiliation it will cause. But I’m not a child, venture, and you’re not an adult. Come on, Venture, you can do better than just resorting to trying to hurt my feelings, can’t you?

In response to what feeble points you contain in your insult, neither of my arcs contain any of my player characters, one of my arcs fits fine in the 5-mission limit of one arc, and I laugh in the face of anyone who tries to claim that The Audition is a Magnum Opus. I can finish all 6 (count em)missions in about 45 mins, and all players who’ve responded have finished the whole story in one sitting.

As far as I am concerned™, the quality of a story, not its length, should be what demonstrates whether or not an author should be kept away from the system. Which brings us to:

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e) Occasionally there are exceptions to general principles. You, however, are not one of them.

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Absolutely charming, as ever, Venture. Have you played my arcs, or is this just your default unpleasant state coming through again?

Eco.

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I avoid arcs that are explicitly labeled as parts of a trilogy. Very rarely can someone really keep a single story running for 15 missions (and more often than not those trilogies are 15 missions long). In most cases where I did play the first part it became apparent that the same story could have been told in only 3 missions.

I don't mind connected arcs where a dangling plot thread is resolved in another. Sequel hooks are ok, but I hate cliff-hangers.

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how would you feel if both parts were published at te same time, so the waiting for the resoluion took only as long as it took you to activate the next arc?

Eco

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I don't think I'll ever, ever play one unless I personally know the author. Ever.

Most of the stories are paper-thin to begin with, so when they stretch them out over 15 missions? No thanks.

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did you read anything except the op? I'm not talking about 15-mission epics.

Eco

/Signed if you can go back in time and malke the devs announce this from the very start. Doing it now will get the 'MA WILL BECOME A GHOST TIOWN!' whining from farmers etc.

Eco.

'a pimped out brute'...when i see this i can't help thinking he means a brute that is being pimped out...you know, like by a pimp.

Eco.

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I have yet to encounter an arc where *not* using a defeat all would have at all hurt the suspense of disbelief.

I don't rate down an arc specifically for defeat alls (Although if they end up making the arc less enjoyable its rating may suffer for that), but I really see no reason authors should be using them, they've added nothing to the gameplay experience or the story in all the times I've encountered them both in MA and in Dev content.

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Try Mission 4 of The Audition. Not using a defeat all in that mission would definitely hurt the suspension of disbelief.

Eco.

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I expect an arc to have a beginning, a middle and an end. There can be a next chapter ... but unless I got satisfied with the first arc, no way I'll hang around for your multi-epic.

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Could you give me your definition of 'arc'?

Edit: 2 things-I love your sig LOL, and not all multi-arc stories as I see them have to be 'epic'.

Eco

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I think my definition of an "arc" is pretty much the same as a lot of people here, based on their responses. For me, its a complete story.



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In that case, we are actually thinking about the same thing, I think.

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Like Star Wars. (the original) It can stand alone (not like the sequel, which made me wait a year for the fate of Hans Solo.)

On the other hand, you've made some good arguments as that 100 limit gets eaten up quickly by customs, which are the only types of mobs I enjoy facing in MArcs.

In a perfect world ... and with a story that actually deserved it ... I guess I could see myself going from arc to arc to get one complete story. But I don't hold out much hope ... as I fear that most authors would just be self-indulgent and create the equivelent of a 4 or 5 hour movie that should have been edited down to make a tight, well paced 2 hour movie.



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I'll shamelessly stick another plug for my arc The Audition in here - originally it was 5-missions long, and first I created it, and then I tweaked it and edited the hell out of it to bring it down to within 100kb. I got there, and it fit, it was a little leaner than i'd have hoped for given the choice, about 20kb more would have been great, but I was happy enough with the arc, and I got some great feedback. Then, for no subsequently explained reason (I petitioned and Support had no answer) it mysteriously jumped to 107kb. I was gutted, and there really was nothing left for me to trim. instead, I chose to add an extra mission, expand the extant missions a little and publish it in two 3-mission arcs. I published them at the same time. it's just ONE story as far as I'm concerned, whioch happens to be spread over 2 arcs. I could have gone bloat-crazy, and added another 4 missions, but it doesn't need them. the mission I added was based on an idea I cut from the original because of space.

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So while I can generalize my dislike for this, I can't say that you yourself couldn't create a good multi-arc story.

What I know I wouldn't want is a continuing story that I'd have to wait for, like a monthly comic book. I'd want it all released at once so I could continue through to completion.



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Totally agree with you. I don't mind waiting a bit for episodes, but I don't weant to wait for the next 'page' of the same story, as it were.

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And in the best of all possible worlds - in my opinion -- every arc in the story would be exactly one mission long, with all the space being used up by more custom mobs, more patrols and other dialogue opportunities to advance the story's plot and theme forward, not more chapters.



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Not having to worry so much about memory on the two parts of The Audition was really freeing. i was able to go to town on system messages etc.

Eco.

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If you look at an arc as one book in a series of books, involving the same characters (i.e. Lord of the Rings), then you have to see that each of them really should be able to stand on their own as one complete part of an ongoing tale. You would not want to bother reading it if each book ended by telling you that you needed to read another book, or 3 or 4 more books, to get to any real conclusion, even to that first part of the story. It leaves the reader (player) frustrated that he wasted all that time reading it just to get to the 'to be continued' tag-line at the end. There's no satisfaction for the reader if there is no climax or conclusion to the first part of the story.

It seems a little too much like a cheap trick that the author is playing on the reader just to get them to buy another book. I certainly wouldn't bother getting sucked into buying the next book, especially if I knew it could be a never-ending story that just keeps dangling a carrot in front of my nose at the end to get me to shell out more money/time for the next 'chapter'.

If the first story can solidly stand on it's own, and was interesting enough to make me consider reading the next story in that sequence, then the author did his job well and his stories are worth my investing more time/money into continuing to read the rest of the series. Otherwise, I'd just shrug the whole thing off as not being worth my time or my frustration level because I'll never really be able to get to a completely satisfying ending to any of it.

The other thing to consider in making arcs as a series that can't stand on their own as individual arcs, what happens if the Devs decide that they like the series, or at least part of it? Would they be forced to make all of the parts Dev's Choice, or would they just end up having to ignore it? If they wanted to award one DC, it's less likely that they'd hand out 3 awards to the same author for the price of one. If an arc can't stand on it's own, I doubt you'd ever get a DC on any of the parts. That might not matter to you, but if it does and you're hoping to get the DC bonanza of a 3fer, I think you could be waiting for a very long time.

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I totally agree with you about the books, but a big difference between books and the arcs we can make in the MA is that whereas a book might take anything up to a week to read, an arc is generally completable in one sitting, and the next arc is free and incredibly easy to access.

I feel that insisting that we have to tell a complete story with a beginning, middle and end within 5 missions ignores the issue of whether or not the story in question has any creative merit.

Try this thought experiment; Imagine that I14 had launched with a new MA system in which we could make our own story arcs for other players to play end enjoy. We could create and publish up to three arcs, each of which could be a maximum of six missions long or 120kb in size.

In that alternative universe, we're possibly having a discussion of how I think a 7-mission story spread over 2 arcs should still be treated as one story if that's what the author intended, and I'm being countered by people who say 'Nope, each arc's gotta stand on its own two feet.'

My point is that the number FIVE we have as the mooted maximum mission length for a story is not given to us through any natural storytelling law or Rule of Narrative - it's just an accident of the way the MA works. And even if you're some kind of puritan about the 5 mission limit, a multi-arc story could easily be less than 5 missions long. Also, nowhere have the devs said that one arc is the limit for one story.

I have no problems with the notion that a story or a chapter or an episode of a series should stand up as somewhat standalone, but as far as i'm concerned, the gap between arcs can be treated the same as the gap between missions if the Author intends those missions or arcs to be parts of one story. I have not encountered a convincing argument for why all stories irrespective of their individual merits need to be contained within one arc, or for why it's wrong or bad writing to tell one story over more than one arc withiout each one working alone, considering the ease with which the subsequent arcs can be accessed.

Eco.

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This would be my prereq. If I play the first mission and it doesn't tell a story on it's own that's obviously part of a bigger whole, then I probably won't bother with part 2.

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I'm assuming you mean arc not mission!

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heh... yeah. Thanks for clearing that up. I think it is important that each arc stand on its own while still being part of the bigger whole. Dangling plot lines are fine. Having the feeling that I still don't know what the heck is going on, is not.

Hopefully I got it right that time.

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I think I need to make a distinction between multi-arc stories that are divided into delineated Chapters, such as the aforementioned 'This Is War' series, the first of which is 'Part I - the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz' (1356 to stick another plug in ), and the type of thing I'm more referring to, which is a single story that just happens to have one or more of its component missions in different arcs.

I can use Star Wars again as an example. I've got the six Star Wars films on my iPhone. I watched them in half hour chunks on the Metro on my way to work (my Metro ride lasts exactly 32 minutes). So Episode IV was experienced by me in three separate parts, three different 'arcs' by my way of looking at this particular type of story progression. I didn't need each half hour segment to have a discrete beginning, middle and resolution tying up all most of the internal plot threads, because I understood that each segment was part of a contiguous whole. Viewing a multi-arc story like this can maybe open the Player up to some good stuff he or she might otherwise miss due to the arbitrary 'Talk to the hand! It's over 5 missions! Too Long;Didnt Play!' reaction.

It takes about 20 secojnds to click 'finished' on the complete screen of an MA arc, search the MA for an Arc Number, and start a new arc. I personally have no problems holding onto a story that's half way done for that long, before it picks up again in the first mission of the 'next' arc. I can easily see that gap as a literally momentary gap in the mission sequence.

If the arc sucks because the story sucks or the mobs are unbalanced, its irrelevant how many missions long the arc is, of course.

Someone's bound to bring up the old faithful about how 'a good writer can learn to be concise' before long, so I'll say here that i agree with that. But just because skilful editing and working tom limits often brings a leanness and elegant simplicity to a well-crafted story, it doesn't follow that ALL long stories are bad. Those of us who ratre Stephen King, for example, may look to The Stand as a mighty good book. I do, and i don't think it would be better if it were edited down to 100 pages. People who like to read but think King sucks will no doubt have equivalent long favourites by other authors.

Eco.

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I expect an arc to have a beginning, a middle and an end. There can be a next chapter ... but unless I got satisfied with the first arc, no way I'll hang around for your multi-epic.

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Could you give me your definition of 'arc'?

Edit: 2 things-I love your sig LOL, and not all multi-arc stories as I see them have to be 'epic'.

Eco

Theres another reason I can think of for splitting one story into more than one arc - memory.

Not all multi-arc stories are in multiples of 5. The Audition as a whole, a 6 missions, is just one mission more than the limit for a normal MA arc.

The 100kb memory limit could prevent sb from making an arc that fit into 5 missions, if for example they had lots if different customs. It's possible that a 3-mission story using lots of customs could be split into 3 different 1-mission arcs, the whole coming in at between 200 and 300kb. 3missions is fairly average length for an arc. Downrating it because it's not in one arc (and for that reason alone) seems unjust to me.

Eco



Eco

Yeah, I have. They are called The Audition Part 1 and The Audition Part 2, and the desc for part one makes it clear it's part one of two. The desc for part two instructs to play part one first.

Eco

Qr I will play your arc, and while I'm here, I recommend the 'tubbius trilogy'. The customs gave me a big cheesy grin.

Eco

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I prefer it if each part of a multi-arc tells its own, semi-closed story (as in has a beginning, middle, and resolution). My "Revenge of Hro'Dtohz" arc, for instance, is part of my larger "This Is War" cycle, but it also tells a stand-alone story. IMO, that should be the standard format for multi-arcs.

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This would be my prereq. If I play the first mission and it doesn't tell a story on it's own that's obviously part of a bigger whole, then I probably won't bother with part 2.

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I'm assuming you mean arc not mission!

If the MA had launched with 8 missions as the standard for max arc length, people would be saying the same, only using 8 as the limit within the 'standalone story' had to apply. Yet a story now told in two arcs of four missions each gets some kind of black mark? I don't understand this kind of arbitrary qualification.

Eco