Olantern

Kat's outfit looks just right.

Police Woman's looks good too, in that it's pastel and has that skirt with the slit sides, but I think the color of the shirt looks a bit too much like a regular police shirt. Knowing what the regual Police Woman looks like, I can appreciate the change, but it might not be as apparent to someone unfamiliar with the character.

Shoulder pads and larger hair, I say!

I just noticed just how short the queue for reviews is. You've already seen two of my arcs, and the others are currently bugged. One spawns grey enemies and often fails to spawn objectives, while the other is in desperate need of a difficulty adjustment that I can't make without some time spent digging into the guts of some of the custom enemy files.

Instead, I'd appreciate it if you could wait until I finish one of the two arcs I'm drafting at the moment. If you reach me in the queue and I haven't published one yet, just move me to the bottom of the queue again. Thanks.

Talos Vice Review (and special reply to PW's previous post, too)

First, the reply about arc feedback: The reason this is the only review thread I frequent, and PW is the only reviewer to whom I'll formally submit an arc, is that I find her reviews complete, thorough, and remarkably untainted by whether she likes or dislikes the arc. This is the only thread where I feel like I can share my views on arc design without being shouted down, and that counts for a lot with me. So, thank you, PW, and I, at least, think you're doing quite a good job.

Second, the "Talos Vice" review itself (yay, I get to write the first review again):

Background on how and why I played this arc:

I recently dusted off my dark/dark scrapper, Joe Fedora (level 47) after a respec and a much-needed infusion of +recovery bonuses and IO's. This character is supposed to be a ghost from the 1930's, so I like to do either ghost-themed or detective/noir arcs with him. I happened to notice "Talos Vice" while searching for something else, and I figured it might be worth my time. As you read the review below, keep in mind that I was running it with a scrapper exemplared down to 20, with most of his attacks and his basic defenses, a couple of high-cost IO's, and few of his exotic tricks (e.g., no Cloak of Fear) available. A character playing this arc at "native" level might have had more trouble.

As with most AE players these days, I soloed the arc. I was set as a team of 3, facing bosses but not AV's.

General arc structure and my comments thereon:

This arc may not make much sense to you unless you are, like me, a child of the '80's. Put simply, it's a sort of parody of the TV show, Miami Vice. The arc nicely captures the feel of the show, from the "look" (of which more later) to the campy dialogue to the type of storyline.

For example, each and every contact interaction dialogue box includes the words "Talos Vice" in blaring, pastel colors at the top, much like the title card screen you might see before and after commercials on an '80's cop show. It's this sort of little detail that makes this arc stand out, rather than anything particular about the missions themselves.

The presentation of the dialogue is unusual for the AE or CoX in general. Text boxes are presented in TV script form, listing dialogue not only of the contact (Detective Croquette, naturally), but of the player character and any secondary characters. Yes, the dialogue WILL put words in your character's mouth. This will be an "instant fail" for people who don't like having anything dictated about their characters, but I found it to be a benefit. Because of this structure, the arc can describe settings and the actions of characters other than the PC and the contact, enabling it to create a much deeper sense of setting. How else would I know that my character is riding in a speedboat, or what the soundtrack of the arc sounds like? I loved these atmospheric details.

Structurally, I found the arc to be very sound. All the missions are set to the same level, 20, and all the enemies seem fairly reasonable for that level range. (Most are stock foes, some recolored.)

Mission-by-mission breakdown (based on notes I took while playing several days ago, so I apologize for omissions):

Mission 1: After the appropriately atmospheric arc tag text, which provides our opening credits, Det. Croquette asks me to investigate a mess involving a Superadine ring. The text seems to assume I'm either a member of the PPD or working directly for them. Fine with me, though others might chafe at this. My only criticism here, and throughout the dialogue with Croquette, is that he gets all the good lines. My character's are pretty much limited to "yeses" and "nos" and such. It's a difficult line to walk, here, between dictating too much about the player's character (what if it's a robot that can't talk?) and not dictating enough. I suspect my reaction here is colored by the fact that I was playing with a character who probably would have pithy dialogue if this were an actual cop show.

I fight my way through a warehouse, seizing some drugs and locating some officers previously sent in to investigate things. The clues are nicely atmospheric. Like the contact dialogue, they contain stage and lighting directions, as well as character speeches and direct information about the plot. Halfway through, I run into Police Woman, in an amusing cameo, captured by some Trolls. I rescue her, and she provides me with a clue, then leaves. Since she's making a special cameo here and doesn't fight, you might want to give her a special "tropical" outfit. I'm not sure what that would be . . . something with big shoulder pads, probably, given the setting of the arc.

In the final room, I find Det. Croquette in a very short-range firefight with some Trolls. I rescue him, then he immediately engages the final boss, a Caliban recolored to have a neon-pink shirt. Great touch! I would suggest changing Croquette's spawn point, if possible, to avoid this immediate engagement. It wasn't an issue for me, playing an IO'd-out scrapper, but it could've been a problem for, say, a solo defender at the arc's native level.

We also meet an iffy cop, who, appropriately, has a aloha shirt. I was worried that this detail, essential to the whole "Miami Vice" vibe, wouldn't show up, but now I'm satisfied.

I'm given a great denoument on exiting the mission, again given in script-style format, like all the clues and dialogue. As I mentioned, this really helps build atmosphere.

Mission 2:

More investigation, this time at a club frequented by villains. With one tiny exception, there is nothing I don't love about this mission.

First, the villain group. It contains a mixture of pretty much every gang-type enemy that spawns at level 20, which makes for some fun variety. That's not the best part, though. Those of you who remember Miami Vice will recall that every darn thing on that show was either day-glo or pastel. So is the villain group here! Let me tell you, a hero has not truly lived until he has battled a Warrior Crusher with a hot pink gang emblem and acid-washed jeans. Their dialogue is entertaining, too.

Aside from that, this is the kind of PG-13-rated club that routinely appeared in pre-'90's cop shows. And, being in the Paragon City universe, it's a superhero-themed club. We meet Libby and Kat, two dancers employed at the club. Their costumes and bios are great. My only criticism here is that Kat's is a bit too much like the original Mynx's. Libby's, on the other hand, I can actually imagine appearing in a seedy dive in the CoX universe.

After a couple of rescues and more well-drafted clues, I run into Detective Croquette again. This time, he's in a close-range firefight with Warriors. This doesn't make much sense, given that the Warriors put away their guns to shoot at me with bows. On the other hand, it hardly seems worth creating a special enemy group here just to threaten Croquette.

I figure the mission will end when I retrieve him, but I still have an objective to "find out why the Family is here." I make my way back out toward the entrance, figuring there's a triggered objective, and I'm right. Croquette (who's a Thugs MM without the thugs, meaning he uses Dual Pistols) and I beat own a spawn of Family and capture the guy with the aloha shirt. (The bad cop always has an aloha shirt, doesn't he? Another great nod to the genre.)

One minor point, here: one of the clues refers to "margueritas." I believe the drink is a "magarita."

My only significant criticism for this mission is that it takes place on the Freakshow Warehouse map. That's fine, but it seems that the "Dance Rave" map would really fit a lot better. I know some posters have argued that MA authors shouldn't use maps that appear frequently, and that one certainly does, but in this case, I think you're well-justified in using it. (Of course, it may not have enough spawn points, in which case, ignore this suggestion.)

Mission 3:

Time for the final beatdown on the Superadine smugglers. The mission text tells me I'm riding to the final battle in a speedboat with Croquette, and when I zone into the mission, I'm on the "Mercy dock and ferry" map. Excellent use of an underused map! Unfortunately, the entry text tells me it's night, and it's day as I step onto the dock. Oh, well.

This is a good mission marred by the inability to place objectives precisely on outdoor maps. The goals here are to recover Croquette, defeat a (unique) boss, and destroy some drugs. I run up the ramp and am immediately attacked by two spawns, one of them containing the unique boss. There really isn't any way to avoid this. It's just the nature of the map. Being set on a lower difficulty might've decreased the inadvertent challenge here; I'm not sure.

The boss is a custom character resembling a Family Underboss. He's Thugs/Superstrength and seemed about the right level of challenge for my character. I took him and his friends down with judicious use of my powers and a couple of inspirations.

Anticlimactically, I then locate Croquette and easily rescue him, defeat the last couple of Family thugs, and destroy the Superadine, which is in a refinement station that's just sitting there outdoors for some reason. This objective might work better as a crate.

This mission, unlike the others, didn't have any clues, which I found somewhat disappointing. Yes, there's no additional information that needs to be revealed to the player, but the clues in this arc are present for atmosphere as much as for plot advancement.

The arc concludes with a nice exchange of dialogue. My character finally gets to say a great line, as I noted in my notes, although, since I failed to write it down, I've forgotten what it was.

Overall comments:

The arc is exactly the right length and difficulty for its level. The plot is nothing to write home about, but setting and atmosphere, not plot, are the draws here, so I don't view that as a negative. The arc perfectly captures the feel of its source material.

As much as I enjoyed it, this is very much a "niche appeal" arc. Its humor depends on the player's being old enough to remember Miami Vice. Players not familiar with the show may not understand either the over-the-top allusions or the reason the interaction boxes are all written as script direction. Even without that, it's a fine "crime" arc, but I wonder if players might be put off by the way the arc dictates their characters' dialogue. As I mentioned above, I didn't mind this, but some people might.

Overall, I found this to be a well-written arc that uses factions and especially dialogue in interesting, new ways. As I mentioned, the challenge level seems just about right. I gave this one five stars.

I hope you find this helpful.

Yes, the CCC is still active. Sin_Stalker is sort of the group organizer/cheerleader, so you might PM him if you're interested in getting involved.

All of the CCC members, so far as I know, use either Comic Life (mentioned above) or Comic Book Creator. There was a contest some years back now sponsored in part by Comic Book Creator, which means that a lot of CoX comic makers use it. I'm not sure if the program is still supported or not, honestly. As you can see by the link in my signature, their site has been passed from hand to hand so many times that it's no longer even in the hands of a comic book-focused organization. (Also, you can see from the comic linked there that resizing fonts can become a problem on publication in that program, so it's not without its flaws.)

The last time statistics were released on this, back around the time of the first anniversary, Mutation was the most popular choice by a significant amount I can't remember, followed by Magic, Tech, and Natural at all about the same frequency, then Science coming in slightly below the others. However, those data included the era of CoH release, the Age of Clones, when there were probably a disproportionate number of characters who were attempts to duplicate the X-Men or other famous mutants from other sources.

These days, the only origin I don't see that often is Science. I think it's partly that Science is more of a Silver Age-y type origin (bitten by a radioactive wombat) rather than the more Modern Age Comics or Manga-influenced stories people tend to make up more often. Additionally, for those who care only about mechanics, low-level Science content for heroes features the challenging Vahzilok, and SO's for most of the other origins are somewhat easier to come by.

Personally, I seem to use Magic about 50% of the time, Natural and Tech each about 20%, and the others the remaining 10%.

tl;dr version: 1) I think "gun-fu" is dumb. 2) It's way too early to complain about this stuff, and I don't see anything to complain about, anyway.

Long version:

No, you're not the only one, but I'm not really sure what there is to complain about at this point.

I've never understood the obsession with "gun-fu" or whatever it's called (I refer to it as "hopping around in slow motion shooting stuff"). I don't like John Woo movies, couldn't sit through all of that Equilibrium thing, and generally don't care much for anime including the ones with guys using a pistol in each hand, let alone all the lower-quality knockoffs inspired by those things.

However, I realize I'm in a decided minority on these boards and probably among the game population. If the devs have a choice between creating a set to satisfy all the people crying for hopping-around-and-shooting-stuff and creating one to satisfy just me, they should probably go with the former.

Also, after having seen those animations, they seem to fit fine with my current Dual Pistols idea (a supernatural, 18th century type), so I'm satisfied. Yeah, the animations are flashy, but, contrary to what the video might lead you to believe, the powerset doesn't cause doves to appear spontaneously from nowhere, doesn't cause the character to move in slow motion, and doesn't require the character to wear sunglasses and a black trenchcoat. It seems to me like it'd work for a fair variety of concepts. Even if it doesn't, it's no different from ignoring the sparks from Superspeed, wishing mastermind henchmen could be customized, or any number of other things. Sure, it'd be nice to have something different, but it's not a deal-breaker, at least, not for me.

And, of course, it's just plain too early to complain. There could possibly be alternative animations in the works for Dual Pistols (though that'd be a first for weapon sets). There are also likely to be plenty of as-yet-unannounced features that at least some of the people complaining right now will enjoy. It's at least six months until Going Rogue releases; have some patience.

I ran into someone once at a professional networking event who had played a little, but she and her husband primarily played WoW. In fact, that was the day WoW released its last expansion, and her husband had taken the day off to play it. At least she understood what I meant when I said that I'd considered writing a law review article about online game communities.

That was, as I figured, incredibly obvious once it was pointed out. I had just been clicking the wrong thing. Thanks!

How do I add to or reduce someone's reputation on the boards (assuming they have it enabled)? I can't seem to find this information anywhere.

My most-played arc, "The Love Talker: a City of Heroes Faerie Tale," #30242, was originally written as a Halloween story.

Is there any background for the banner portion of the Halloween event? Or the Zombie Apocalypse, for that matter? The old Paragon Times article indicates that the Malleus Mundi incident started the original "two weeks of night" thing, but why are banners that represent negative aspects of humanity showing up all of a sudden?

A longtime SG-mate got tired of hearing people say "void" or "Q" when playing Kheldians and started saying "bob" instead. Therefore, "bob" is a Void Hunter or Quantum gunner. I've sometimes caught myself saying "bob boss."

I often refer to Red Caps as "dopeys."

Like a lot of people, I usually call Lady Jane "Lady Suicide" and Fusionette "Dumbette." In a sort of extension of this that's more a habit than a term, every time I run the Serpent Drummer mission with the Vanguard party on a team, I make it a point to note that "Dumbette is dressed like a tart." This was really more fun when her skirt was on sideways.

For a portrayal of Jump Bots closer to what I think they're intended to be in lore terms, check out the Faultline mission in which you confront the Code Breaker Bot . . . and even that one doesn't get to jump.

On the jumping, it's just sad. First, as already pointed out, Jump Bots are never required to, well, jump. Second, all enemies seem to have an inherent ability to jump so precisely as to negate the need for Super Jump (replacing it with a need for monstrous suspension of disbelief on the part of the player). Thus, Jump Bots aren't even that unique. I never really understood why they didn't just make them Flight Bots to begin with, which would have made a lot more sense for a group called the "Sky Raiders."