PoliceWoman

Mercytown review
Arc ID: 6017
Keywords: Comedy, Horror
Morality: Villainous
Level range: 1-10
Warnings: custom power selections

The premise is to help a mad scientist battle some kind of underwater cult. It claims it is suitable for level 1s. I played a level 3 rad/storm corruptor (powers with no synergy but I thought they looked good visually for a water-themed character) on default difficulty. I avoided using the veteran attack powers.

I've actually played this arc before (for an earlier Player's Choice contest) but not for review. The contact is Dmitri Krylov.

[5.0] points initially.

Mission 1
Briefing: the contact has heard that I've escaped the Zig and wants to secure my services. He speaks in broken English, but this is clearly deliberate. In the send-off message he reveals that he wants me to capture a Coralax for his research.

[+0.1] Fun initial briefing: between the "A Fish Called Coralax" title, the references to sea monkeys, and Krylov's mannerisms in general.

The map is full of Coralax. Initially I thought, why can't I just get any Coralax as a research specimen? But the "Specimen Spec" clue explains why I need a specific one. Using Neutrino Bolt (great at low levels) and Gale (bleh..they MADE me take this), I battle the Coralax and capture "A Fine Specimen". This gets me to level 4. Leading it back to the exit, I get "Something About A Book" as a clue.

[5.1] at end of mission 1.

(Between missions I train up to 4, picking up Snow Storm.)

Mission 2
Briefing: the contact digs some info up on the Book of the Deep, but he doesn't really seem interested in it, so "I" end up deciding to steal it on my own.

Searching the office, I find a Desk that gives me the "Veidt's Desk" clue.

[-0.01] Grammar: "his desk have already been raided, and no signs of the book" -> "his desk has already been raided, and no sign of the book" (in Veidt's Desk)

Found and defeated Raid Leader. She says:


Attack my sisters!

[-0.01] Punctuation: "Attack my sisters!" -> "Attack, my sisters!" (meaning is slightly different)

Then I found and rescued Vivi, who gave me the "My Hero!" clue (which seems to want me to find Henry Veidt) and finished the mission. Vivi's guards had some dialog hinting that they were going to give her "the Gift" (presumably converting her into a Coralax).

[5.08] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: the contact explains the tarot card found in Veidt's Desk is a calling card of "Duke" Mordrogar. The clues gained so far make the contact more interested in recovering the Book of the Deep. So I'm sent after Mordrogar, who is presumed to have stolen it.

[+0.1] Mission entry popup is very funny.

In the mission I find various dancing Hellions.


Dancing Squealer

[-0.01] Formatting: for some reason "Dancing Squealer" doesn't have its name centered in the Target box or over its head; I can only guess that it has several trailing spaces in its name. Adding a space or two at the end of the name (to allow multiple instances) is normally not noticable, but this one has enough that it's very obvious.



[+0.1] Good dialog: I love how the squealers are eager to give up all sorts of information (even though it's not the specific info I'm looking for). I thought that was a nice touch.

(Note: not sure why Dancing Squealer's name ended up appearing in her dialog balloon in this screen shot. The other squealers did not have this problem.)

Finally found "Dealing Squealer" who says:

[NPC] Dealing Squealer: Okay! Okay I'll tell you everything!

[-0.01] The "Dancing Squealer" and "Chilling Squealer" also said "I'll tell you everything!" but also said a little more about the info they were giving. Dealing Squealer maybe should say "I'll tell you everything! I know where Duke's hideout is!" or something, to parallel this.

After defeating Dealing Squealer's group, I got the "Duke's Location" clue. You might consider making this objective "Only Boss required", so that you get the clue as soon as you defeat Dealing Squealer.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "and also Henry Veidt as well!" is a bit redundant, should be just "and Henry Veidt as well!" (in Duke's Location)

[-0.01] Doesn't make sense: "Krylov can probably point you in the right direction for his address" in mission exit popup - but the Duke's Location clue already has told me this info? So why would I need Krylov's help with this?

[5.24] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: Krylov now wants me to go recover Veidt.

[-0.01] Punctuation: "Mr Veidt" -> "Mr. Veidt", "Mr Duke" -> "Mr. Duke" (though maybe the latter should be "Mr. Mordrogar"?)

Mission title: Should "The Yellow Duke" perhaps be "The Duke in Yellow"? (Assuming this is a Lovecraft reference.)

Entering the map, I wish my character actually did have water based powers, that could put out the fires.


[-0.01] Mission objectives: "6 research notes" should be "6 research notes to recover" or something similar.

[-0.01] Typo: "Mordrogor" -> "Mordrogar" (in mission objectives)

Found Journal #2 (glowy) which gave me "Henry Veidt's Journal #2" (clue).

Found and rescued Henry Veidt. I like that this objective becomes "Drag the hysterical Veidt away from the burning building". I led him to the door, where he said:

[NPC] Henry Veidt: You should have let me to die in the fire!

[-0.01] Typo: "let me to die" -> "left me to die" (Henry Veidt's dialog)

I also got the "It's Hopeless!" clue at some point, either from rescuing Veidt or leading him out.

Found Journal #1 (glowy) which gave me "Henry Veidt's Journal #1" (clue).

Found Journal #25 (glowy) which gave me "Henry Veidt's Journal #25" (clue).

[-0.01] Don't understand: why journal #25 when there are only 6 research notes to find? If you want to give the sense that a lot of time is passing between the journal entries, perhaps using dates rather than numbers would make more sense.

[-0.01] Punctuation: "agitated -no, *mad*" -> "agitated--no, mad" or "agitated - no, mad" (right now the dash is weirdly asymmetric; suggest you use some kind of hypertext markup instead of asterisks for emphasis, too)

Found Journal #22 (glowy) which gave me "Henry Veidt's Journal #22" (clue).

Found Journal #18 (glowy) which gave me "Henry Veidt's Journal #18" (clue).

Found and fought Duke Mordrogar, who spawned as a lieutenant for me.


Fire and water

[+0.1] Sense of ambience: Mordrogar's dialog and the writing in Veidt's journals gave this mission a really creepy, Cthulhu mythos-like feel.

[-0.01] Typo: "ambitions drive" -> "ambitious drive" (in Duke Mordrogar's description)

Found Journal #16 (glowy) which gave me "Henry Veidt's Journal #16" (clue) and completed the mission.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "I must admit in feeling the same things" -> "I must admit to feeling the same things" (in Henry Veidt's Journal #16)

I also got "The Book of the Deep" clue, either from defeating Mordrogar or completing the mission, not quite sure which.

Mission exit popup: despite just having rescued Henry Veidt, I get a note saying that he (and Vivi) have been kidnapped by someone else.

[5.26] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
Briefing: the contact wants to storm the fish lair, beat up their boss and destroy the book.

It seems odd that we would want to destroy the book when it's obviously so valuable (and we're money grubbing villains and all) but Krylov does explain his reasoning, which is somewhat plausible.

[-0.01] Doesn't make sense: Krylov compliments me on my penmanship after reading the notes, but actually, I found the research notes (at least according to the text in mission 4), and they're part of Veidt's journal, so were not written by me.

[-0.01] Punctuation: the briefing has a double quote " at the start and a " at the end, then has several nested " quotations inside it, e.g., "Merulina" and "Book of the Deep". Should either get rid of the outer quote marks, or else make the inner quote marks use single quotes. (This also occurs in the send-off message.) (Admittedly nitpicky.)

[-0.01] Typo: "seperated" -> "separated" (in send-off message)

Got a "To Do List" from Krylov as a mission start clue.

[-0.1] Inconsistent: "To Do List" lists 4 tasks to stop the colony. Mission objectives says "7 tasks to stop the colony". Does not compute.

I think I actually prefer breaking down the tasks into "Defeat boss, 4 charges to place, Destroy Book, etc." rather than accumulating 7 very different actions into one generic "7 tasks to stop the colony (check 'To Do' clue for details)"; it gives more clarity on what objectives are left. But this is more personal taste. Having to add "(check 'To Do' clue for details)" negates most of the space savings you gained in the nav tool for combining the objectives together.

[-0.01] Mission objectives: "2 Veidt to find" should be "2 Veidts to find"

I soon found Dmitri Krylov and rescued him; he becomes a combat ally. Leveled to 5 at this point (didn't bother training; the level increased helped a lot though).

Then I found a "Barrel of Acid"; clicking this gives me the "Destroyed the Tome" clue and decrements "7 tasks" to "6 tasks".

[-0.1] Don't understand: why is it necessary to bring the book and the barrel of acid to the Coralax lair, only to destroy it? I could have simply dropped the book in the barrel of acid back at Krylov's lab. "To Do List" tries to explain this as needing the book as a "bargaining chip", but I don't buy this explanation.


Final battle against the Coralax

Found and fought the Coralax High Priestess, which decremented "6 tasks" to "5 tasks"; also fought off an ambush she spawned.

Found the Ritual Altar and destroyed it; it made some odd noises as I was destroying it:

[NPC] Ritual Altar: OooGwwww!
[NPC] Ritual Altar: KYEEEEEEEEEE

It's kind of strange for an inanimate object to make sounds like that, but I figure it's meant to be creepy. Destroying it decreased my counter to "4 tasks".

I ran into "A Fine Specimen" again and battled her. I liked her reappearance and her dialog. She didn't seem required but was a lot of fun.

4 Bombs were present in that room which each completed one of the 4 remaining tasks, and ended the mission.

After the mission completed I went ahead and rescued Henry Veidt and defeated the mutated Vivi for the sake of completeness.

Nice text in the mission exit popup.

Debriefing: nice wrap-up to the story. I like that he actually does pay you off with a big grubby roll of bank notes. The ferry ticket is a neat idea for a souvenir. Like the "Chinatown" reference.

[5.02] at end of mission 5.

Overall
This was a fun low level adventure with good characterization, lots of fun throwaway bits and references, and was well balanced for lowbies. I might suggest adjusting the objectives in the final mission a bit; it didn't make sense to bring the book to their lair only to destroy it, and the game mechanics of the "To Do" list didn't quite work for me. Thought the story was quite good overall though.

[+0.1] Good characterization: Krylov's dialog and mannerisms were really well done. I also liked how Henry Veidt, Vivi Veidt and even a Fine Specimen were used.

Rounding off 5.12, I gave this arc 5 stars.

----

My queue is now:

The Hound - The Alien Tyrant #357388 (H45-54)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 03 #174352 (N40-54)
Dsarvess Rientel - Serpent's Scheme #363206 (H5-25)
Lazarus - Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together) #347029 (re-review) (H45-54)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 04 #269714 (N40-54)
Gruntle - A Demon's Vengeance #47949 (V5-54)
Tubbius - Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City #351727 (H30-54)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290 (N40-54)
StyrofoamKing - one of Save the Villain #364597 (N1-54), Shadow of the Red Death #367071 (H5-40), Betrayal in Rome #369445 (N35-54)
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290 (N40-54)

Villainous, no allies, no AVs:

Papers and Paychecks (arc id 298290)
JOB OPENING: Entry-level position available in Fortune 500 company. Seeking motivated individuals willing to think outside the box. Excellent salary, opportunities for promotion. Applicants contact Crey Industries HR.

Attack of the 50 Foot Villain (arc id 363366)
Grow to giant size and attack Tokyo!


Villainous, one ally (not very powerful - a thermal corr), no AVs:

Celebrity Kidnapping (arc id 1388)
A rich celebutante has been sentenced to jail for drunk driving. The plan is to break her out of the Zig, then hold her for ransom for immense profit! What could go wrong?


Heroic, one ally (not very powerful - a petless MM), no AVs:

Talos Vice (arc id 338380)
An 80s instrumental blares as the camera pans over scenes of Talos Island: windsurfers on the water, the Talos statue, bikini babes, sports cars racing, a speedboat bouncing on the waves. A title card appears over the waters: TALOS VICE



Please feel free to rate them with whatever rating you feel is fair.

The Galactic Protectorate - 02 review
Arc ID: 117281
Keywords: Challenging, Custom Characters, Save the World
Morality: Neutral
Level range: 40-54
Warnings: AVs, EBs, custom power selections.

The premise is to help an alternate dimension version of Manticore against alien invaders known as the Galactic Protectorate. I played a 50 MA/SR scrapper with soft capped positional defense on default difficulty. The contact is Manticore (albeit with a different background story).

[5.0] points initially.

Mission 1
Briefing: well-written, quickly catches the player up on "the story thus far" without requiring too much text. The contact apparently wants me to target one of the Galactic Protectorate generals. He knows of 3 possible locations.

[-0.01] Capitalization: "possibilities: An office" -> "possibilities: an office"

[-0.01] Phrasing: "you can handle that by yourself, right?" won't make sense if the player is on a team.

Send-off message: fortunately, I don't have to check all 3. I like that the contact gives some details on what is needed during the mission, but I am puzzled that

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: why doesn't he mention the general we're trying to assassinate, among the objectives for the mission? After all, this is one of the 3 locations she's suspected of being at.

Inside the mission, the map is full of "GP - Division 12" mobs. They seem to be loosely fantasy themed (with knights, clerics, archers, etc.), which seems a little odd for space aliens.

Found Computer B, then Computer A, then Computer C each of which gave some info about the origin story of the Galactic Protectorate.

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: considering the Galactic Protectorate was formed with "sole purpose the prevention of future interplanetary conflicts", it seems inconsistent that they have invaded and occupied the Earth.

I overheard some GPs saying:

[NPC] Blackstar Berserker: From everything I'd heard about the 12th Division, I thoughtt the general would be a scarier person.

[-0.01] Typo: thoughtt -> thought

I find and fight the Base Commander.


The Base Commander is ... a WoW refugee?

While fighting him, he says:

[NPC] Base Commander: My noble sword is of the same design as our leader, General Guinevere! Feel her wrath through me!

[-0.01] Phrasing: his sword is shaped like General Guinevere? Pretty sure that's not what you meant to say.

Found the "Mainframe" I'm supposed to destroy.

[-0.01] Inconsistency: Manticore says to "destroy their communications network" and "get information off their computers"; "Destroy Mainframe" does not seem to match either of those at first glance. This is a little confusing. When I get closer, it becomes clearer that the Mainframe is meant to be the comm network; for clarity, I'd suggest either making the objective "Destroy Communications Net" or having the contact tell you that the communications network is controlled by a mainframe.

Searched the rest of the map and eventually found a Confidential Computer that awarded "Top-Secret Orders" indicating General Guinevere's location.

Debriefing: the contact seems baffled that the General wasn't in any of the locations we checked, but the "secret orders" I found give us a new lead on her location.

[4.75] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: the contact doesn't know where this "Theta" location is, but spies report some invaders from "the same division as the general we're tracking" were seen leaving a warehouse. This seems like a pretty thin lead to me (after all, all the guys in the last mission were also from "the same division as the general") but Synapse was apparently checking it out and is now missing. So I'm being asked to save him.

Mission entry popup: how convenient of the GP to put up a big sign labeling their top secret location as "Rendezvous Point Theta"! LOL.

[-0.01] Don't understand: Mission objectives contain "Defeat Col. Grandal" and "Defeat Col. Armalad" but neither of these names have been mentioned before, so I don't know why I need to defeat them. Perhaps "2 Division 12 Commanders to defeat" (or something similar) would be a better objective. (Somewhat nitpicky.)

Found Synapse being held captive by some Division 12 guys.



Synapse says:

[NPC] Synapse: You know, Manticore tells me that alot, but where's HIS degree in nuclear physics?

This is a funny line but

[-0.01] Typo: alot -> a lot (in Synapse's dialog)

[-0.1] Continuity error: Synapse (aka Steven Berry) is an accountant. Raymond Keyes (aka Positron) is the physicist.

His guards then say:

[NPC] Cosmic Crusader: Enough of this foolishness! We have a secruity breach!

[-0.01] Typo: secruity -> security

After Synapse joins me, I end up needing to clear most enemies in order to progress. He looks like a Hero, but he doesn't seem too powerful (poor AI maybe); maybe he's one of the Siren's Call pets or something.

Found and defeated Col. Armalad. Then I found a computer which gave me the "Prisoner Transfer Report", detailing that Sister Psyche apparently has been captured and transported to a nearby forested area. Then I defeated Col. Grandal, which completed the mission.

Debriefing: Manticore is understandably excited that we've discovered where the GP is holding Sister Psyche.

[-0.01] Don't understand: why was this mission called "Pride Over Life"? I didn't see any connection with the mission's events.

[4.61] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: pretty nice briefing explaining the breakout plan, and communicating what Synapse and Manticore are going to be doing while this is all happening.

Inside the mission, I search the outdoor map until I find Sister Psyche.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "but has only now been successful" is awkwardly phrased; I suggest "but has not been successful until now" (in Sister Psyche's description)

I pretty quickly find Gen. Guinevere and battle her with Sister Psyche's help. I like that the General comments on the fact that the humans have broken the "agreement" between Lord Cosmic and Statesman; hopefully this will become relevant later.


You and your primitive weapons have no chance! I'm going to show you the error of your ways by...uhh...kicking you really hard. In the face.

Defeating the general ends the mission.

Debriefing: good summary of what was accomplished. I thought it was a bit over-the-top to rename the Human Resistance after my character when there's multiple Freedom Phalanx members in it already, but it's a nice gesture, so I didn't mark off any points for it.

[-0.01] Don't understand: why was this mission called "Comfort in Identity"? Didn't see any connection with the mission's events.

[4.59] at end of mission 3.

Overall
This felt like a middle installment in a serial, which it is; as such, the story didn't really grab me that strongly. The arc did have a logical start and finish, though, so it didn't seem justified to mark off points for this. I'm not quite sure what to suggest on making the story more involving; it might just be me. The gameplay of the arc seemed fine, and each mission has a decent amount of stuff to do. The arc as a whole has a plot of its own, in addition to moving the overarching "Galactic Protectorate" plot forward a little bit.

I liked that the big bad guy of the arc (Gen. Guinevere) had lots of foreshadowing and build-up from the various other NPCs you encounter. The GP - Division 12 group seemed reasonably balanced for a high-end mission group; I thought it was a bit weird that they were using mostly high fantasy equipment, but the lore in this arc spins this as being Division 12's "schtick", so I can accept that.

Rounding 4.59 up, I gave this arc 5 stars.

----

My queue is now:

@Frija - Mercytown #6017 (V1-10)
The Hound - The Alien Tyrant #357388 (H45-54)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 03 #174352 (N40-54)
Dsarvess Rientel - Serpent's Scheme #363206 (H5-25)
Lazarus - Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together) #347029 (re-review) (H45-54)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 04 #269714 (N40-54)
Gruntle - A Demon's Vengeance #47949 (V5-54)
Tubbius - Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City #351727 (H30-54)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290 (N40-54)
StyrofoamKing - one of Save the Villain #364597 (N1-54), Shadow of the Red Death #367071 (H5-40), Betrayal in Rome #369445 (N35-54)
<placeholder>
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290 (N40-54)

Another arc if you have room still it's a relatively short one.

Attack of the 50 Foot Villain (arc id 363366)

[Note: Purely opinion]

I agree that it feels redundant to have two hospital missions (I think you had two hospital missions? It's been awhile since I played this arc). So I like the initial idea of getting rid of one of them and maybe replacing it with something else.

Rather than inserting a different mission, have you considered simply cutting the target mission and merging the best elements to the other hospital mission? It might make the story a bit tighter and give you more arc space to play with for the remaining missions.

Another alternate suggestion I'd offer: a downtime mission where you spend some quality time with some of the heroes, building up some personal connections, before everyone gets thrown into the meat grinder in the final act. Perhaps a small celebration of a minor victory, or carousing in the Vanguard cantina that gets rowdy, or something like that; then move some of the character moments (like Empathy showing her family photos) to there. Just a thought.

Focusing on the specific change that you're proposing, I have the following concerns:

* Involving magic is a little dissonant with the science fiction theme of the Rikti invasion. Granted, Omega team was all about magic -- nevertheless, I still think it is awkward to mix wizards with aliens. In my opinion, having the player wander Oranbega fighting CoT will be disruptive to the gritty space war ambience that you are trying to convey in this arc.

* If the hospital is surrounded so that you have to infiltrate the hospital by magical means, just how are you supposed to evacuate the casualties that are currently in the hospital? It's still surrounded, isn't it? I guess you could drag them through Oranbega? Not sure I'd buy that.

Anyway, hope that helps!

(Note: wrote this idea just as a lark. Totally non-serious. I'm not volunteering to herd cats for this project.)


A beloved hero has been killed in Pocket D. With too many suspects and not enough leads, War Witch has turned to you for help.

How did someone overcome the safeguards that make Pocket D normally safe for all?
What nefarious organization is Joe Young's Monkey Fight Club really a front for?
What sinister secret is Turndown Girl concealing?
Just where was the bass player for Mac and the Zombies at the time of the murder?
Follow leads from the dance floor, to the Tiki Room and the PvP Lounge.
Fight your final battle with the murderer on the snowy slopes of the Ski Chalet!


All this and more in:
Murder in Pocket D - The War Witch TF

[Warning: Personal opinion!]

A story should be as long as it needs to be, and no longer than that.
* Figure out what the plot of your story is in advance, BEFORE creating your missions.
* Make sure you have enough missions to tell your story. (How many are needed varies depending on the story.)
* DON'T make your story arc 5 missions long just because that's the max allowed.
* DON'T include missions that don't advance the main plot. (You're on a quest to get the Crown of Yaz, but first, a random Rikti attack unconnected to your quest.)
* DON'T include missions that are a near duplicate of another mission in the same arc. (Search Council base for Crown of Yaz...oh, it wasn't there. Okay, search Council base 2 for Crown of Yaz. Not there? Aha, you find it searching Council base 3.) (Search Council base 1 for left half of Crown of Yaz. Search Council base 2 for right half of Crown of Yaz. Search Council base 3 for top part of Crown of Yaz.)

A story should not be too long.
* Starting a story arc is a time commitment. A 5-mission arc is potentially a big time commitment. You may lose some of your audience before you even get started if your arc is dauntingly long.
* If your arc has to be really long, try to make each of the missions a little shorter (use a smaller map) and make sure your "hook" to get players interested (i.e., the arc description, the story arc's concept) is really good.
* If you're determined to make a multi-arc epic length story 8 or more missions long...good luck. IMHO, those are difficult to pull off effectively, and difficult to get players willing to play the whole thing. I don't recommend doing these.
* If you must write a story this long, make sure each story arc within your epic story is somewhat self-contained, with a natural beginning and ending, like a chapter of a book.

A story should not be too short.
* Story-oriented players may be turned off by "very short" arcs that are only 1 or 2 missions long, reasoning that there can't be much story in that much time.
* If your arc has to be really short, make sure there is a LOT of detail in your 1 or 2 missions, so that you can get your story across in the space you have.



All of the above is opinion and are not hard-and-fast rules. Personally, I feel the "sweet spot" for arc length is 3 or 4 missions, with a decent amount of detail in each. However, I do have two 5-mission long arcs and one 1-mission long arc. I've avoided writing multi-arc stories so far.

Hope that helps.

I have two WW2 story arcs, one heroic and one villainous:

Axis and Allies (arc 1379)
Travel back in time to take over the 5th Column, and lead the Axis powers to win WW2 and conquer the World!
(villainous, level 40-44)

The Destroyer of Worlds (arc 352820)
In the closing days of WW2, the War Department asks mystery men to recover secret weapons stolen by the 5th Column from a captured U-boat, to be delivered to a top secret research facility.
(heroic, level 15-25)

Have fun.

Ignition of the Machine review
Arc ID: 318983
Keywords: Challenging, Origin Story, Drama
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 25-32
Warnings: AVs, EBs

The premise is to help a scientist test out a new android. The arc description warns that it is hard. The contact is a scientist in a white lab coat by the name of Dr. Shelley. The name makes me instantly think of Dr. Shelly Percey, but it's not the same person at all. Perhaps his name is meant to be suggestive of Mary Shelley. I played a 32 kin/sonic defender on default difficulty.

[5.0] initial points.

Mission 1
Briefing: I like the way Dr. Shelley introduces himself, it's quite amusing. I also like the Philip K Dick reference in the mission title; particularly topical for a story about androids. The contact seems to want me to protect him in case his new creation goes berserk.

[+0.1] Fun initial briefing.
[-0.01] Capitalization: "portal corp" -> "Portal Corp"

Inside the mission I find Dr. Shelley, guarded by a couple Council soldiers.


Dr. Shelley and uninvited guests

They seem confused as to why they are present. I'm not quite sure why they're there either. I guess they are there for mechanical reasons (to prevent Dr Shelley from instantly being freed upon entering the mission) but they still seem out of place.

[-0.1] Don't understand: Why are Council here guarding Dr. Shelley?

Searching the mission I find an Activation Console; clicking it ends the mission. I think it spawned "Shell" and an objective of "Find Shell" flashed across the navigation dialog, then instantly completed as Shell spawned right next to me. Shell utters a few lines and gives me the "Shell" clue.

[-0.01] Grammar: "She seems to regard both you and the doctor as a curiosity" -> "She seems to regard both you and the doctor as curiosities" (in "Shell" clue)

[-0.01] Typo: "peculuarities" -> "peculiarities" (in debriefing)
[-0.01] Capitalization: "portal corp" -> "Portal Corp" (in debriefing, two instances), also "(After myself" -> "(after myself".

I had wondered if "Shell" was intentionally named similarly to "Dr. Shelley", and liked that it was confirmed by the debriefing. I also thought perhaps Shell should have a seashell as chest logo (instead of the tech hole symbol) but it's not a big deal. Since Shell is a female robot, perhaps she should be named "Shelly"? (Maybe too similar to Dr. Shelley though.)

[4.96] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: the contact wants me to escort Shell around town, to gather data for her expert systems or something.

[-0.01] Typo: "ordinance" -> "ordnance" (in briefing; not the same thing at all)

Found myself on the Steel Canyon outdoor map and having to look for Shell. The map is full of Council robots for some reason.


The robot philosopher

Upon rescuing Shell she says

[NPC] Shell: I step over the bones of my brothers to greet you.

...which is a rather creepy thing to say. Doesn't quite match the very mechanical way she was talking in mission 1, but considering she's a learning machine, this probably makes sense. Shell joins me as an ally and now I have 4 Hostages to Rescue and an Invasion Leader to defeat.

Shell is an EB ally; initially I thought this was too strong, until I ran into Archon Burkholder (an EB enemy at my difficulty). Fortunately SBing and Fulcrum Shifting my ally allowed me to beat him easily. Defeating him and his group completed "Defeat Invasion Leader" and gave me the "Burkholder's Invasion" clue.

Searching for hostages on a large outdoor map with Shell in tow rapidly becomes tedious; I basically have to clear everything while she's with me, and the mission doesn't appear to have any items of interest other than Burkholder and the hostages (who all have identical dialog). After rescuing 2 hostages this way, I end up ditching Shell and running around looking for the last two hostages on my own. This is contrary to the spirit of the mission (since I'm supposed to be sidekicking Shell for exp) but it does complete the mission.

[-0.1] Gameplay: finding 4 hostages on large outdoor map seems tedious. Suggest remedying with fewer hostages, smaller map, and/or adding more items of interest to the mission.

[-0.1] Don't understand: just what were Burkholder and the Council Robots trying to accomplish in Steel Canyon? I don't buy that they were after Shell (they were capturing human hostages, and no one really knew we were going there except Dr. Shelley). What were they up to? Maybe they need some kind of crime in progress that Shell and the player interrupt.

Debriefing: can someone actually be described as "quiet and existential"? Hard to imagine.

[-0.01] Typo: quizically -> quizzically (in debriefing)

Would've been nice to have some sort of human interaction with Shell during this mission (since one of the goals was to give Shell some human experience) rather than just rescuing her and fighting robots. Not quite sure how best to pull that off, though.

[4.74] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: suddenly Council are attacking Dr. Shelley's lab! The briefing and send-off message are on the short side, but this sort of makes sense based on the way they're presented.

[-0.01] Mission Title: "Save Dr. Shelley's Lab" ... shouldn't the main goal actually be to save Dr. Shelley himself? Saving a person should be more important than saving the place he works.

I kind of wonder why Shell didn't stop this attack, since she's quite powerful. Hopefully we'll find out.

The mission map for the lab in this mission is different than the map used in mission 1, but this is explained away in the mission entry popup as due to "renovation".

The map is larger than before, and full of Council. I sneak past them; there don't seem to be any items of interest other than Dr. Shelley as a hostage, who I find in the very back.

After rescuing him, he tells me that I need to find Shell. Since I'm at the very end of the mission, this requires me to backtrack.

[-0.1] Gameplay: extensive backtracking required to find mission objectives.

While backtracking I find a computer with the "Strange Console" clue. Not sure if it was there before I found Dr. Shelley; I might have overlooked it.

Backtracking to the start of the mission, I still haven't found Shell. I do notice "The Big One", a Council robot EB (probably Bulwark).


Darla vs the Big One

Using a couple purple inspirations, I manage to beat The Big One, who gives me the "Robot Memory Core" clue and completes the mission.

[-0.01] Continuity: story jumps from "I think they're after Shell! You have to find her!" (Shelley's dialog) to "you were able to extract the location of the Council base where Shell was taken" (in Robot Memory Core). I think you need a clue or line of dialog somewhere in between, that actually says that Shell has been captured. You can infer this from these two lines, so I only marked off -0.01; but I think it would be more effective to discover Shell's empty rack (or something), so you know she's missing, then finding out where she was taken.

[-0.01] Don't understand: why is this mission called "Vengeance and Curiosity"? None of the characters seem to demand vengeance or act curious. Is this the name of a book, like some of the other mission titles? I'm not familiar with this phrase.

[4.61] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: the contact wants me to rescue Shell from the Council base.

[-0.01] Characterization: the contact is very serious here talking about important stuff, and yet, for the first time, he does not use his catch phrase "That's not important. What is important is...." (Minor, so only marked off -0.01)

[-0.1] Characterization: the contact says "You know she can be so much more than that" when talking about Shell, and the briefing is trying to motivate the player to care about Shell due to the player's interactions with Shell so far. But so far Shell has very minimal characterization -- just a couple lines in missions 1 and 2, none of which are very humanizing -- IMHO, not enough for the player to really care about her. If you're going for "Shell is a person that the player should care about" here, she needs more build-up as a person.

Inside the Council base there are some battles between Council and Council Robots. I wonder if maybe the latter would be more correctly labeled "Rogue Robots" (the existing enemy group).

Found a computer that gave me the "Computer Terminal" clue. I'm guessing these are pleas for help from Shell.

[-0.01] Formatting: the clue has lots of formatting in it but is not very suggestive of a computer readout. For instance, "He-h-hee-lh-e-lp", while a reasonable thing to say aloud when confused, is not what a garbled computer message should look like. I'd suggest inserting random decimal or hexadecimal digits, using ALL CAPS, and/or BREA KING UPWO RDSI NTOB LOCK SFOU RCHA CTER SLON G. For example, "0011 56HE LP9M E12S 0C0L DAND DARK". You don't have to do exactly that; I just don't think the dashes and the different colors work for this purpose.

Found Shell and rescued her from some Council guards that were tormenting her. She's now a minion instead of an EB, and has lots of pieces missing due to the Council partially disassembling her.


Is it my imagination, or do all of this author's arcs have a creepy flayed model in them?

She says upon rescue:

[NPC] Shell: *It stares at you wordlessly, each step it takes it seems like it will fall apart*

[-0.01] Phrasing: This sentence is awkwardly phrased. Suggest you rephrase to something like "with each step it takes, it seems about to fall apart". I notice you now refer to Shell as "it" instead of "she" -- unsure if this was deliberate.

My objective switched to getting Shell out in one piece. I deliberately let the Council kill Shell, since I figured that was probably less tested and I was curious to see if I could break something. This caused the mission to fail and ended the story arc.

Debriefing: a decent conclusion for the "fail" path.

Souvenir: pretty interesting bit of extra story. Reminds me a bit of The Adolescence of P-1, another book where the AI appears to die at the end.

[+0.1] Neat (though surreal) souvenir with some extra story in it.

[-0.1] Don't understand: what was the point of the Council disassembling and torturing Shell? Clearly it was important for them to capture Shell; what did they gain by flaying and tormenting her?

[-0.1] Dangling plot thread: I thought maybe Shell was controlling the Council robots that attacked the other Council, but never found anything further to support this idea.

[4.38] at end of mission 4.

Overall
An interesting story about the creation of an artificially intelligent android. I would've liked a bit more characterization and humanization of Shell, before she gets beat up in the final mission; I think the idea of your story is that Shell becomes alive and the player should be sad that the Council hurts her, and glad that she transcends her "Shell". Shell needs a little more build-up as a person to make the player care more strongly about when she gets mistreated. (This does make me curious as to the "success" branch of mission 4... I'd guess that even if you lead Shell out, her personality is too damaged to recover, hence why Shell becomes an "it" after torture.)

I also felt that the Council needed more motivation for their actions; I could totally believe that Burkholder and/or Vandal were trying to steal the Shell android to cannibalize for their own robots, but there's not many clues that really explain what they're up to. As presented, it seems like the Council is there purely as bad guys, without a lot of purpose beyond that.

I gave this arc 4 stars, but it was pretty close to the line; it wouldn't take much to improve my opinion of the arc overall.

----

My queue is now:

Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 02 #117281
@Frija - Mercytown #6017 (moved up to replace A Penny for your Thoughts, which I suspect no longer needs feedback)
The Hound - The Alien Tyrant #357388
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 03 #174352
Dsarvess Rientel - Serpent's Scheme #363206
Lazarus - Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together) #347029 (re-review)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 04 #269714
Gruntle - A Demon's Vengeance #47949
<placeholder>
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290
<placeholder>
<placeholder>
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290

One vote for Frost.

Arcs by genre. This thread differs to the CoHmatoes thread as it links to authors' information (sometimes posters!) instead of reviews. A

Note: I cleaned up some of the formatting and deleted any obviously broken URL tags for the sake of readability. I could not figure out how to fix the bullet color-coding.

Bullets colored for heroic/neutral/villainous. Non-existent arcs removed. Lists alphabetized. Arc IDs updated.

AE System

• 15+ Min TUTORIAL = Knowledge is Power: Architect Entertainment & YOU! (I15) #28470
  
• 5th Anniversary Flashback Smackdown #126896
  
• 'Captain Dynamic, the Great, Faces the Great Face' - Tryouts #190069
  
• Death for Dollars #1050
  
• Signal to Noise #67277
  
• Welcome to Architect Entertainment #1004

Character/Supergroup Origins

• A Hero is made, Not Born #20863
  
• A Mother's Nightmare #6955
  
• A Rose's Thorns #113224
  
• Birth of a Fossil #18632
  
• Jumping in Feet First #1345
  
• Midnight Bells Toll #?
  
• New Flame Rising #161066
  
• Noah Reborn #2370
  
• Of Futures Past #254599
  
• Polar Emergence Neutral Government User Interface Network (PENGUIN) #29205
  
• Secret Origins(Tech) The Snake Women of Epsilon V #42221
  
• The Amazing Rat Race #1144

Classic Super-Hero/Super-Villain

• A Crusher Crimewave #1 : Crisis at The Citadel #179354
  
• A Crusher Crimewave #2 : Escape from The Zig! #83458
  
• A Crusher Crimewave #3 : The Fall of Mocker #123613
  
• A Show to Die For! #30645
  
• Check... and Mate #15095
  
• Daybreak Patrol Needs Help # 321834
  
• In The Shadow of Statesman #1160
  
• Marketing Opportunity #83747
  
• Paradox Paradox #69221
  
• Sidekicks Can Be A Pain In The Cape #28430
  
• Teen Phalanx Forever! #67335
  
• This Life Immortal #5756
  
• 'Tis Nobler in the Mind #257226
  
• To Save A Single World #83744

Comedy

• A Show of Hands #296884
  
• A Translator is the Wind or the Thunder in Turns #2936
  
• Celebrity Kidnapping #1388
  
• City of Norms #132944
  
• Daytime Divas #94504
  
• Death to Disco! #84420
  
• Doctor Nadir and the Hellion Heist #49661
  
• Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662
  
• Gnomish Madness #30204
  
• Hail to the King #34640
  
• Invasion on Earth BX1132! 98943
  
• Jerk Hackers! #162482
  
• Laugh? I Thought I'd DIE! #68429
  
• MacGuffin Delivery Service 1567
  
• Martian Chimpanzees and the Cyborg Cheerleaders of DOOM! #69947
  
• Mean People. #16690
  
• None More Black, Dude! #86312
  
• Papers and Paychecks #298290
  
• ParaCon #1684
  
• Rise of the Drakule #51357
  
• Return of the Revenge of the Son of Drakule Part 2: First Blood #84543
  
• Shirley You Jest #25474
  
• Shortbow #143566
  
• Teen Phalanx Forever! #67335
  
• The Extadine Lab #2595
  
• The Fire Bunnies #10377
  
• The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076
  
• The Invasion of the Bikini Clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space! #61013
  
• The Minimech Cometh #119664
  
• The new and improved Lord Recluse Strike Force #7901
  
• The P.U.G. Strike force #35585
  
• The string thief. #15726
  
• Too Many Bunnygirls! #101165
  
• Trademark Infringement #2220
  
• Walk On the Wild Side #3580
  
• You Say It's Your Birthday! 3630

Comedy/Drama

• Cause of How Some Silly Stealed My Wings #1481
  
• Death by Snoo-Snoo! #247372
  
• Fashion Apocalypse #14840
  
• Females for Hire #110723
  
• Fishing for Fame with Red Herring #66861
  
• Freaks, Geeks and Men in Black #161629
  
• Have a Blap, Blap, Blappy Day Kids! #2019
  
• How to Survive a Robot Uprising #12669
  
• It's a Nice Day for a White Wedding #9059[
  
• Kidnapping an Idol #136188
  
• Papers and Paychecks #298290
  
• Putting Out Fires: A Corporate Satire #20100
  
• Rum Runners of Bloody Bay #3691
  
• Teen Phalanx Forever! #67335
  
• The Cat's in the Cradle #8776
  
• The Running of the Bulls #29973
  
• TURG FICTION: Ghost in the Machine, Act I #1013
  
• The Toypcalypse! #49280

Crime/Gangs

• A Little RnR #17523
  
• Battlin' Tom's Murder Extravaganza! #99803
  
• Bricked Electronics #2180
  
• Celebrity Kidnapping #1388
  
• Fatale Attraction - Part 1 of 3 #181264
  
• Fatale Deception - Part 2 of 3 #227466
  
• Fatale Corruption - Part 3 of 3 #232783
  
• Females for Hire #110723
  
• Mechanical Mayhem #76721
  
• Meet the Demon Spawn #151099
  
• Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons #100045
  
• Plastic Pistol Peril #1135
  
• Talos Vice #338380
  
• The Bravuran Jobs #16809
  
• The Internet is for Crime #53385
  
• The Superadine Revolution #262739
  
• Whitehawks #113811
  
• [ZQ] Power Play #187269

Drama

• 7662 - The Fan Club #5898
  
• A Flame the Burns Bright #112548
  
• A Warrior's Journey: The Flower Knight Task Force #260284
  
• Clonus, Parts 1 & 2 #21499 & # 21290
  
• Digital Love #3571
  
• Matchstick Women #3369
  
• Of Mentors and Legacy #1589
  
• Talos Vice #338380
  
• The Conciliators: Simone #4010

Global Domination / Destruction

• Axis and Allies #1379
  
• The Twilight of this Blue Orb #98529

Heist

• Celebrity Kidnapping #1388
  
• Easy Money #31490
  
• The Great Diamond Heist #96169

Historical (Realistic)

• A Wrinkle in Time #266880
  
• Destroyer of Worlds #352820

Historical (CoH Lore)

• The Consequences of War #227331 and 241496
  
• The War on Superadine #151088
  
• [ZQ] The Once and Future King #71601

Holiday

• Battle of 15 April #72140
  
• City of Ho Ho Ho, or A Claus in Paragon #18775
  
• Hectic Holidays #36999
  
• Santa's Missing List #34961
  
• Santa's Workshop of Misfit Toys #134140

Horror

• All Consuming #261148
  
• Astoria in D Minor #41565
  
• Creepy Crawlers #82553
  
• Dark Dreams #3615
  
• Die Count Daddy Macula Die! #10619
  
• Don't Play With The Dead #260107
  
• Duality #84105
  
• Hunting the Hunters #93362
  
• I Will Dance On Your Grave #92630
  
• Lights, Camera, Scream! #177826
  
• Project: Perilous - Into the Chthonian Pit #3586
  
• Small Fears #12285
  
• Something Comes to Yarmouth #58812
  
• The Amulet of J'gara #1709
  
• The Children of Astoria 217499
  
• The Zombie Apocalypse Task Force: Something wicked this way comes #91456

Kaiju

• Attack of the 50 Foot Villain #363366

Large-Scale Crisis

• Akhdar Blood #247198
  
• Alpha and Omega #60015
  
• Bleed the Freak #6919
  
• Breaking The Barrier (And Putting It Back Together) #347029
  
• Flight of the Valkyries - Precursor #20272
  
• Is it Live or is it Memory-X #70210
  
• The All-Seeing Eye #57352
  
• The Clockwork War #18672
  
• This Is War, Part I - the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz -- Neutral 1356
  
• War of the Worlds - The Anakim Invasion - Part 1 #15006
  
• War of the Worlds - The Anakim Invasion - Part 2, The Terran Revolt #46711
  
• Win the Past, Own the Future #1429
  

Magic

• A Deal with Destiny #61748
  
• A Dream of Awakenings #132616
  
• Chains of Blood #4829
  
• Croatoa's Great War: The Parfait Family Reunion #71880
  
• Deal with The Devil's Pawn #207266
  
• I Will Dance On Your Grave #92630
  
• Rex is Missing! #51702
  
• The Magical Miss Fitz #5079
  
• The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks - A Moth Cemetery Tale #124319
  
• The Tannhäuser Gate 96322

Military

• Axis and Allies #1379
  
• Red Typhoon #4912
  
• Redoubt Operations #1: Fires over Kalago #1297
  
• Redoubt Operations #2: Wrath of the Imperium #269283
  
• Whitehawks #113811

Misc. Adventure

• Impossible Kung Fu Mission #111367
  
• A Glitch in the Wyre #73197
  
• The Council Cargo #36951
  
• Hero Therapy! (TM) #119228
  
• The Second Coming of the Mega Mech #122274

Mutant

• The Legion of Mutants vs. the Iron Agents #200364

Mystery

• Blowback #4643
  
• Dream Paper #1874
  
• Females for Hire #110723
  
• Hunter of Beasts: It begins with a riot... #110465
  
• The Fireside Poet #189439
  
• What Rough Beast #255143

Mythology

• Atlantis Attacks! #30898
  
• A Warrior's Journey: The Flower Knight Task Force #260284
  
• Madness And The Minotaur #90124
  
• Rites of the Maenads #61159
  
• Tales of Cimerora, volume 1 : Of feathers and fur #12647
  
• The Aegis Affair #16376
  
• The Four Treasures of the Tuatha De Danaan #164100
  
• The Parable of the Fruit Salad #65369
  
• The Seeds of Yggdrasil #48907
  
• 7662: The Seelie War #2462
  
• 7662: The Unseelie War #2453
  
• Ecloga Prima (Haec excursio in lingua Latina) #309162

Nemesis Plots

• Brass Reaver: Part 1 #244755
  
• Rise and Fall of the Iron General #142200
  
• The Handbag Plot #36414

Player-Chosen Outcome

• Hunting the Dark Dragon -- Heroic #2922
  
• Papers and Paychecks #298290
  
• Playing Gods #51106
  
• Time's Maelstrom #182874

Public Domain Characters/Literature

• The Praetorian Invasion of the Land of Oz #168841

Puzzles/Riddles

• Grim Riddles #1396

Samurai

• A Warrior's Journey: The Flower Knight Task Force #260284

Sci-Fi

• Above Mars - Part 1: The Wellington #159769
  
• Adventures of the Space Marines #2133
  
• Adventures of the Space Marines 2 #2171
  
• Assault on Aru Prime #174856
  
• City of the Apes #171184
  
• Spaced Invaders #77971
  
• That Mysterious Buzzing Sound #12774
  
• The Adventures of the United Earth Rangers #29549
  
• The Balance of Power #26931
  
• The Continuing Adventures of the United Earth Rangers #70237
  
• The Fracturing of Time #171031
  
• The Knights of Rularuu #75386
  
• The Nemesis Theory - #171203
  
• The Portal Bandits #3326
  
• Welcome to Donut World! #1233

I tried to do something of the sort in Papers and Paychecks (arc 298290). It's mostly office comedy, but the player is given a choice near the end, a choice that I hope helps define what sort of character the protagonist is. I originally wrote it because I wanted to try to make an effective story with two alternate endings; the end of the story is pretty different depending on which path you take.

Note that the way I do re-reviews has changed, so bear with me; I'm now focusing mainly on seeing if my previous comments have been addressed. I will occasionally make new comments, but will try to limit myself on those. I hope this new format works. We'll see.



In Pursuit of Liberty re-re-review
Arc ID: 344916 (formerly 221702)
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Custom Characters, Canon Related (changed?)
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 45-54
Warnings: EBs, Extreme EBs, Extreme Bosses, Extreme Lieutenants, Enemies with custom powers

First I'm going to try and convert my previous re-review into numeric values. Note: all these comments are from the previous review, on the previous arc - not the current version of the arc.

[5.0] to start.

Mission 1
[-0.01] Out of character: Ms Liberty rambles, doesn't make sense for her.
[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: Ms Liberty warns "there's not much time!" when we're about to travel back in time.
[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: Why doesn't Ms Liberty save the girl, since she's a hero?
[-0.1] Confusing: too many people named "Liberty" in the story.
[-0.01] Rephrase: Vito's description needs work.
[-0.1] Don't understand: why does the Family have "Family Tree" in their safe when "Note to Vito" has MAL saying that Vito doesn't need to know why the child is important?
[-0.1] Debriefing too short; also a little immersion breaking for contact to remind you to read your clues.

[4.48] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
[-0.01] Mission title: "Find the Treasure" seems an unheroic objective, primary motivation should be to save the girl.
[-0.1] Mission needs more details.
[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: how would stealing someone's costume would prevent them from being a hero?

[4.27] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
[-0.01] Mission title: "Find the Book" is an odd choice; main goal should be to save the girl.
[-0.1] Don't understand: briefing implies book isn't important, but mission title and objectives make it required.
[-0.01] Glowy's graphic: display case is an odd choice for a book (should be a bookcase?)
[-0.1] Don't understand: why would Miss Liberty's diary have a prophecy about Liberty Rose? Miss Liberty doesn't have precognition or prophetic powers.
[+0.1] Neat mix of enemies in "Evil Garden Dwellers" custom group.

[4.15] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
[-0.1] Don't understand: Liberty Rose is grown up now and becoming a hero, why doesn't she get her own swords?
[-0.1] Gameplay: Rogue Fortunata spawning at 42 instead of 50
[-0.01] Glowy's graphic: why a coffin to represent swords?
[-0.01] Dialog: Statesman's dialog (telling me where the swords are) doesn't make sense if I find the swords first.
[-0.1] Out of character: Statesman does not seem worried that all of Paragon City has been destroyed around him and occupied by evil villains.

[3.83] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
[-0.1] Game balance: big bad guy was only a boss, but ally was an EB, so final fight seemed too easy.

[3.73] at end of mission 5.

Overall
[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: why would Ms Liberty, Miss Liberty and Statesman all forget about Liberty Rose and not rescue her for 7 years, until I go back in time to help?
[-0.1] Plot problem: if Liberty Rose is destined to defeat MAL, why is it that the player ends up finding all of her stuff, rescuing her, and then ultimately defeating MAL? Seems to undermine the prophecy that Liberty Rose will do these things.
[-0.01] Plot problem: MAL clearly is trying to stop Liberty Rose's origin story; but what IS her origin story (pre-MAL messing it up)?
[+0.1] Nice custom group: Anti-Liberty League.

[3.62] at end of arc. (New system, old review.)

-------

On to the re-review. Ran through the arc on a 32 elec/elec brute (an alt that was not the right level or morality, but needed exp and tickets ). Going to check to see which of these were addressed in the current version of the arc.

[5.0] to start. I will mark new comments with "NEW" but will try to mostly focus on old comments.

The contact was formerly Ms Liberty, now replaced by a custom character, Mender Wells of Ouroboros.

[+0.1] NEW: Like the H. G. Wells reference.
[-0.01] NEW: Typo: Mendor -> Mender (in Mender Wells' description, two instances)

Mission 1
[FIXED] Out of character: Ms Liberty rambles, doesn't make sense for her. (replaced by Mender Wells)
[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: Ms Liberty warns "there's not much time!" when we're about to travel back in time. [Still present, albeit rephrased to "I am wasting valuable time".]
[FIXED] Doesn't make sense: Why doesn't Ms Liberty save the girl, since she's a hero? (replaced by Mender Wells)
[-0.1] Confusing: too many people named "Liberty" in the story. (The story did get rid of Ms. Liberty, but still has Agent Liberty, Liberty Storm and Liberty Rose)
[-0.01] NEW: Typo: "Investigate the the Anti" -> "Investigate the Anti" (in Agent Liberty's Top Secret Mission Briefing)
[FIXED] Rephrase: Vito's description needs work. (Seems fine now.)
[FIXED] Don't understand: why does the Family have "Family Tree" in their safe when "Note to Vito" has MAL saying that Vito doesn't need to know why the child is important? (Makes more sense the way the clues are written now)
[FIXED] Debriefing too short; also a little immersion breaking for contact to remind you to read your clues. (Debriefing much improved)

[4.88] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
[-0.01] Mission title: "Find the Treasure" seems an unheroic objective, primary motivation should be to save the girl.
[-0.1] Mission needs more details. (Could use a patrol or an optional boss with some dialog, to make mission seem more lively.)
[FIXED] Doesn't make sense: how would stealing someone's costume would prevent them from being a hero? (Seems better explained now.)

[4.77] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
[-0.01] Mission title: "Find the Book" is an odd choice; main goal should be to save the girl.
[FIXED] Don't understand: briefing implies book isn't important, but mission title and objectives make it required. (Briefing explains this better now.)
[FIXED] Glowy's graphic: display case is an odd choice for a book (should be a bookcase?) [glowy now describes opening a case to get the book, which seems fine]
[FIXED] Don't understand: why would Miss Liberty's diary have a prophecy about Liberty Rose? Miss Liberty doesn't have precognition or prophetic powers. (Clue was rewritten to make a lot more sense)
[+0.1] Neat mix of enemies in "Evil Garden Dwellers" custom group.

[4.86] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
[-0.1] Don't understand: Liberty Rose is grown up now and becoming a hero, why doesn't she get her own swords?
[FIXED] Gameplay: Rogue Fortunata spawning at 42 instead of 50 (didn't happen on my run)
[-0.01] Glowy's graphic: why a coffin to represent swords? (still a coffin, not sure why)
[-0.01] Dialog: Statesman's dialog (telling me where the swords are) doesn't make sense if I find the swords first.
[-0.1] Out of character: Statesman does not seem worried that all of Paragon City has been destroyed around him and occupied by evil villains.

NEW: I think this mission could use more stuff to do on it, it's a very big map with only two items of interest. (Did not mark off points as I didn't mention this in previous reviews.)

[4.64] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
[-0.1] Game balance: big bad guy was only a boss, but ally was an EB, so final fight seemed too easy. (Still spawned like this.)


Mille Volt and Liberty Rose versus MAL

NEW: I like the way Liberty Rose's flower-like symbol chest detail is colored to make it look like a small, inverted star - neat costuming trick.

[4.54] at end of mission 5.

Overall
[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: why would Ms Liberty, Miss Liberty and Statesman all forget about Liberty Rose and not rescue her for 7 years, until I go back in time to help? (Even though the contact is different now, Liberty Rose is STILL related to all these other superheroes, one of which surely would've saved her even if I didn't.)
[FIXED] Plot problem: if Liberty Rose is destined to defeat MAL, why is it that the player ends up finding all of her stuff, rescuing her, and then ultimately defeating MAL? Seems to undermine the prophecy that Liberty Rose will do these things. (Prophecy story element appears to have been replaced by a sort of Mender predestination thing...for some reason I found this more believable.)
[FIXED] Plot problem: MAL clearly is trying to stop Liberty Rose's origin story; but what IS her origin story (pre-MAL messing it up)? (Seems better explained now.)
[+0.1] Nice custom group: Anti-Liberty League.

[4.54] at end of arc. Rounded this up, I gave the arc 5 stars.

----

My queue is now:

The_Cheshire_Cat - Ignition of the Machine #318983
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 02 #11728
Tangler - A Penny For Your Thoughts #348691
The Hound - The Alient Tyrant #357388
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 03 #174352
Dsarvess Rientel - Serpent's Scheme #363206
Lazarus - Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together) #347029 (re-review)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 04 #269714
@Frija - Mercytown #6014 (assuming Tangler/@Frija plays one of my arcs)
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290
<placeholder>
<placeholder>
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290

I played Against the Wickerwork Khan for fun (not for review) on a 6-player pickup team and had a good time. The custom wickerworks were very cool looking and well-conceived.

My only gripe is that I thought the last mission was a little weakly motivated. [SPOILER]I'm not sure we had any reason to take down Princess YinYin; she wasn't shown as being especially evil overall. The only reason seemed to be the fact that she said, "Muhaha, I've tricked you into taking out the Wickerwork Khan! Now I will rule Panda Earth with an iron paw!"...if she had instead said, "Thank you, brave heroes, for taking out the Wickerwork Khan! Now I will rule Panda Earth with peace and wisdom" I would've totally bought it, and there would've been no need for a third mission. (Possibly I missed some extra info that explained why YinYin couldn't be left in power due to not being team leader.) Also thought it was kind of weird for the final boss of Against the Wickerwork Khan to be something other than, well, the Wickerwork Khan.[/SPOILER]

Anyway, the Pandas and Wickerworks were silly but fun. Enjoyed it.

1/19/2010

Last Monday I played Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) on a Lady Grey TF (21m 26s). For mission 3 I got assigned to team TP people to the helicopter for mission 4, and a teammate told me how to TP people directly into the mission loading screen, and I managed to get it to work; the key seems to be to click the helicopter pilot in the last half of the team TP casting animation.

Went on to do a Statesman TF, also with Star Amethyst. In the final fight the tank assigned to Lord Recluse instantly died to LR's alpha strike or something; I managed to Vengeance/Howling Twilight to get our tank back up. HT drew enough aggro to me that LR killed me next, but getting the tank up got us back in business and we were able to beat the encounter (though the red tower did rez once so had to be killed twice), finishing the STF in 45m 11s. I got a Centriole.


Tuesday, I played Yuki-Onna (50 ice/cold corr) on a LGTF. The team was a bit tanker-heavy, but we still finished in 26m 58s. After that I did some IO crafting and slotted 6 Lockdowns into Yuki-Onna's Spirit Sharks, a power I never use, but at least this got me +2.5% AoE DEF and +3.75% ranged DEF.

After that I played Darla Doppler (27 kin/sonic defender), joining an 8-player team in RWZ. This team already had a kin controller, but it seemed like I was SB'ing and he wasn't, and this irked me enough that I volunteered to switch to my katana scrapper "since we already had a kin". This didn't actually make the other kin start SB'ing; oh well.

Once that team broke up I was shopping at Wentworth's as Olivia Q (50 MA/SR scrapper) when I got invited to a 3-player team doing AE story arcs. The team leader wanted to test his story arc, The Better Part of Valor (helping a cop with a robbery investigation leads into foiling a big plot by a mad scientist), which I had actually already played (and rated 4 stars), but didn't mind doing again. Then I dragged the team through my own story arc, Talos Vice (helping Detective Croquette fight drug dealers), and Galactic Protectorate - 01 (where you help an alternate dimension Freedom Phalanx battle alien amazons who have conquered the Earth; I gave it 4 stars).

Finished the night playing Mega (50 SS/will brute) on a speed ITF; we had a space open so I invited the person who had invited me do AE story arcs to join. I wasn't sure if he had done speed ITFs before, so I warned him that it would be dangerous and that the team was laying bets on how long he'd survive; but he brought a willpower tanker who was pretty survivable and outlived most other team members, so was fine. I did have a moment of coolness fighting the Phalanx computer in mission 3 where everyone else on the team died except me and a scrapper, but we managed to finish the computer off and keep going. Finished the ITF in 29m 50s.


Wednesday night started off with April Fool meeting Niviene (a community rep) and the PERC rep in Pocket D to receive the "Ms Rogue Isles 2009" yellow title, which was pretty cool. None of the other Liberty winners showed up, sadly; I asked around on LB to see if anyone knew if they were around, and I did find out that Ms Paragon City had to work late. They also nagged me into emailing in requests for costume codes (which was part of the contest prize); I ended up asking for the two Carnies costumes and the Knives of Artemis costume. I almost asked for the PPD hardsuit costume, but I'm pretty sure the PPD hardsuit is a male character, so wouldn't look right for Police Woman. I spent the rest of the night wandering around admiring my own yellow title (ah, vanity!) and doing some crafting. I've started buying up every type of level 50 Thunderstrike recipe at the Black Market, with the idea that I'll gradually use them to soft-cap DEF on every red side alt. While doing this, I noticed the recipes were dirt cheap (throwing some money at the broker, I quickly had like 50 or 60 of them), but the crafted IOs sell for like 5-6M infamy; thinking this is a possible moneymaking opportunity on red side.


On Thursday night I bought a Ragnarok (DMG/RCHG/ACC) on blue side for 255.6M; this is more pricy than the other Ragnaroks I've picked up so far, probably because enhancing 3 things is so nice.

My rampant altoholism caused me to roll up a newbie grav/sonic controller. I had been meaning to start a new grav controller or dominator for awhile, just to use Propel to throw stuff at things, and settled on sonic as a secondary, figuring that a controller with RES and mez protection from Sonic Dispersion, RES from an epic pool, and high range DEF from IO sets, would be pretty awesome. I got my newbie controller to level 5, soloing some of the newbie missions and The Hero of King's Row, a lowbie story arc about high school kids, racism and the Council; I liked the arc up to the last mission, which felt unfinished to me. I gave it 3 stars. After getting to level 5, I went to the Controller forum to see if I could find a grav/sonic guide, but searching the forum I only got stuff like:

"What an abjectly sucky combo, on the back of two abjectly sucky powersets."
"Singularity with Disruption Field would look incredibly cool, and yet be incredibly useless."
"Pairing Sonic Resonance with Gravity is just self-inflicted pain, pure masochism"

LOL! I may have to level this alt up further, out of sheer contrariness, just to see if I can exceed expectations.


On Saturday I played Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) on a LGTF. This was a kill all LGTF (the team leader explicitly forbade failing mission 3 or pulling the AVs in mission 5) but had a veteran crew with a good team mix (dark defender, rad corruptor, 2 controllers, blaster, fort, tanker, peacebringer) and we had no problems at all. Finished in 1hr 7mins.

I'm gradually trying to get high defense on more of my squishy toons, and consequently I used one of Indigo Ifrit's earned respecs to respec to this build:

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Indigo Ifrit respec: Level 50 Magic Corruptor
Primary Power Set: Fire Blast
Secondary Power Set: Radiation Emission
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Teleportation
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Leviathan Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Fire Blast

• (A) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage
• (3) Thunderstrike - Damage/Endurance
• (3) Thunderstrike - Damage/Recharge
• (5) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• (5) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
• (7) Thunderstrike - Damage/Endurance/Recharge

Level 1: Radiant Aura

• (A) Numina's Convalescence - Heal/Endurance
• (7) Numina's Convalescence - Endurance/Recharge
• (9) Numina's Convalescence - Heal/Recharge
• (9) Numina's Convalescence - Heal/Endurance/Recharge
• (11) Numina's Convalescence - Heal
• (11) Numina's Convalescence - +Regeneration/+Recovery

Level 2: Radiation Infection

• (A) HamiO:Enzyme Exposure
• (13) HamiO:Enzyme Exposure
• (13) HamiO:Enzyme Exposure

Level 4: Accelerate Metabolism

• (A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Knockback Reduction (4 points)
• (15) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range/Endurance
• (15) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range
• (23) Recharge Reduction IO
• (27) Recharge Reduction IO
• (34) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Recharge

Level 6: Fire Ball

• (A) Positron's Blast - Accuracy/Damage
• (17) Positron's Blast - Damage/Endurance
• (17) Positron's Blast - Damage/Recharge
• (19) Positron's Blast - Damage/Range
• (19) Positron's Blast - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
• (21) Recharge Reduction IO

Level 8: Swift

• (A) Flight Speed IO

Level 10: Hover

• (A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range
• (21) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range/Endurance
• (23) Blessing of the Zephyr - Knockback Reduction (4 points)
• (25) Flight Speed IO
• (37) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed

Level 12: Teleport

• (A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range
• (25) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range/Endurance
• (48) Blessing of the Zephyr - Knockback Reduction (4 points)
• (48) Time & Space Manipulation - +Stealth

Level 14: Health

• (A) Healing IO

Level 16: Enervating Field

• (A) Endurance Reduction IO

Level 18: Blaze

• (A) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage
• (27) Thunderstrike - Damage/Endurance
• (29) Thunderstrike - Damage/Recharge
• (29) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• (31) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
• (31) Thunderstrike - Damage/Endurance/Recharge

Level 20: Stamina

• (A) Performance Shifter - EndMod
• (31) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Accuracy/Recharge
• (50) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Accuracy
• (50) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End

Level 22: Lingering Radiation

• (A) Accuracy IO
• (33) Recharge Reduction IO

Level 24: Recall Friend

• (A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range
• (36) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range/Endurance

Level 26: Fire Breath

• (A) Positron's Blast - Accuracy/Damage
• (37) Positron's Blast - Damage/Endurance
• (37) Positron's Blast - Damage/Recharge
• (39) Positron's Blast - Damage/Range
• (39) Positron's Blast - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
• (39) Recharge Reduction IO

Level 28: Maneuvers

• (A) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance
• (33) Red Fortune - Defense/Recharge
• (33) Red Fortune - Endurance/Recharge
• (40) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance/Recharge
• (40) Red Fortune - Defense
• (40) Red Fortune - Endurance

Level 30: Tactics

• (A) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff
• (34) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge
• (34) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge/Endurance
• (42) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Recharge/Endurance
• (42) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Endurance
• (42) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Chance for Build Up

Level 32: Teleport Foe

• (A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range
• (36) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range/Endurance

Level 35: Fallout

• (A) Positron's Blast - Accuracy/Damage
• (36) Positron's Blast - Damage/Endurance
• (43) Positron's Blast - Damage/Recharge
• (43) Positron's Blast - Damage/Range
• (43) Positron's Blast - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance

Level 38: Mutation

• (A) Recharge Reduction IO

Level 41: Shark Skin

• (A) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3%
• (45) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance
• (45) Titanium Coating - Resistance
• (48) Titanium Coating - Endurance

Level 44: EM Pulse

• (A) Lockdown - Accuracy/Hold
• (45) Lockdown - Accuracy/Recharge
• (46) Lockdown - Recharge/Hold
• (46) Lockdown - Endurance/Recharge/Hold
• (46) Lockdown - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge/Hold
• (50) Lockdown - Chance for +2 Mag Hold

Level 47: Assault

• (A) Endurance Reduction IO

Level 49: Vengeance

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed

------------
Level 1: Brawl

• (A) Empty

Level 1: Sprint

• (A) Empty

Level 2: Rest

• (A) Empty

Level 1: Scourge

When complete it should soft cap her range DEF; I'm still missing a few IOs, but even with what I've got, she's up to 39% range DEF.

After finishing my respec I played Kyrie Eleison (32 fire/regen scrapper) on an 8-player Sisterhood fire theme team, knocking out a few missions in Croatoa to get Kyrie to level 33. At that point I spent Kyrie's 340 reward merits on recipe rolls:

1 Impervium Armor (RES) Wentw=10M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) Wentw=15M
1 Impervium Armor (+psi RES) Wentw=4M
1 Positron's Blast (chance for energy) Wentw=2M
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) Wentw=100K
1 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=300K
2 Lockdown (ACC/END/RCHG/HOLD) Wentw=500K
1 Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=100K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) worthless
1 Ghost Widow's Embrace (ACC/HOLD/RCHG) Wentw=120K
1 Ghost Widow's Embrace (chance for psi) Wentw=12K
1 Mako's Bite (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1M
1 Mako's Bite (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=1.1M
1 Stupefy (ACC/STUN/RCHG) Wentw=1M
1 Call of the Sandman (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) Wentw=50K
1 Force Feedback (RCHG/END) Wentw=1K

Didn't get any of the big ticket recipes, so this was a little disappointing. The total yield of 35.783M gave 210K/merit, which is slightly under average.


On Sunday, Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) helped a peacebringer and defender with a Defeat All Carnies outdoor mission; they basically had defeated a Carnie AV with a team, then a bunch of team members left and they still had to clean up the whole map, but their DPS was too low to really do that on their own.

After that, I played Darla Doppler (27 kin/sonic defender) on a 3 player Liberty Force team in Croatoa, getting her to 28; then joined a 6 player pickup AE team, which did some kind of story involving high level undead Hellion girlfriends (I joined this story arc late so had no clue what that was all about...didn't catch the name), then Against the Wickerwork Khan, a story where you travel to "Panda Earth" to battle the Panda-ized versions of the Clockwork King and Penelope Yin. This was totally silly but fun; I gave it 5 stars, which was probably too generous, but oh well. Started on A Good Turn: Lost and Found, which seemed to be about some kind of evil gang of street racers, but by then it was late at night and I had to log off without finishing it.


Monday was a holiday and I played Quick Katie (38 plant/kin controller) on an ITF that cleared most. We had only a cold and myself as kin for support, but this gave us massive +dmg and -res. The team christened itself "team max damage/debt cap" and beat up/got beat up by lots of Romans. It was quite fun and we finished in 42min 32sec, getting Quick Katie to level 39.

I did some crafting, slotting 2 Blessing of the Zephyr in Katie's Hover (+3.13% range DEF), 6 Thunderstrike in her Entangle and Strangler (2x +2.5 range DEF), and 6 Malaise's Illusions in her Seeds of Confusion (+3.13 range DEF, +6.25 rchg, +2.5 dmg). This gets her range DEF up to 26.86%.

I was playing Lady Arachne (50 wolf spider) when I got invited to a 5 player pickup team that wanted to do a level 50 Nemesis mission on an outdoor map at +4 difficulty. I thought this was pretty crazy (level 54 Nemesis hopped up on Vengeance?!), but after some initial trouble we were able to actually do this. It was pretty slow going, though, and after clearing about half of the map, I got kinda bored and excused myself.

Later on, Indigo Ifrit did an LB channel ITF in 43min 29sec, then Darla Doppler did a Moonfire TF (as sole support; 3 tanks, 4 blasters, 1 kin defender) in 1hr 5min, getting to level 30.

Lady Arachne joined an LB channel ITF, and originally the team leader wanted to do a "speed" ITF, but the team (mostly blasters and kins) was really too squishy to survive this, getting through mission 1 only after many deaths, then having a team wipe in mission 2. After that we regrouped and tried to stay together, which helped. We still had 2 team wipes against the computer in mission 3, though part of this was because after people started dying we would come back from the hospital one at a time and attack the computer (which was at very low life) piecemeal, 1 or 2 at a time, while the Phalanx robots were happy to gang-bang each person who attacked. Eventually we beat mission 3 and zerged Romulus in mission 4. Had a semi-team-wipe (but managed to recover as people returned from hospital while the rest of the team kept fighting), then the team leader went linkdead while we were clearing the last few Romans and we waited for him to come back before finishing. Final time was 1hr 17mins. This team made me wish I had kept the medicine pool Resurrect in my build; with no one who could rez on the team, people were constantly having to hospital and run back.

After that Darla Doppler joined an LB channel Manticore TF, with a team of 4 scrappers, 2 tankers, 1 cold controller, 1 kinetic defender. I'm liking the synergy of having a cold and a kin on the same team. Got a costume compliment and a compliment on how Darla's red sonic blasts look (I do think the red circles look cooler than the standard sonic blast). Finished in 53min 32sec and got Darla to level 31.

Mega (50 ss/will brute) did a quick ITF in 25m 51s and a quick LGTF in 29m 22s.

Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) joined an 8-player AV team in Peregrine Island, but this team only did one mission (defeating Diabolique) before breaking up.

Using server transfer tricks I renamed my 31 elec/elec brute to "Millie Volt" (the name I was previously using for an elec/inv brute) and joined a Cap au Diable SF, with a team of 1 night widow, 3 corruptors (dark, sonic, thermal), 1 brute, 1 stalker, 1 MM (dark). This went pretty well; we did a mix of stealthing and fighting and finished in 54m 5sec. After that I spent some time soloing Millie Volt through the red side story arc that unlocks the Midnight Clulb, getting 9 merits and level 32, where I took Lightning Rod. Spent some time at the tailor playing with power colorization; I'm somewhat torn between using pale yellow/white or pale purple/pale blue for her lightning effects.

I also finally sold the Ragnarok (RCHG/ACC) IO that I mentioned I put up for sale in my last update, for 300M influence. I had bought the recipe for 160M infl and probably spent around 4M infl crafting it and 30M infl on the Wentworth's sales tax, so my net profit was 106M infl. This sounds like a lot, but it took 10 days to sell, clogging up one of my auction slots for a really long time. Not sure I'll keep speculating in purple recipes; I kind of prefer trading stuff that has quicker turnover time. Or maybe I can put slow moving stuff on an alt to sell in the future.

Getting 300M infl from selling this puts me close to the 2B infl cap again; I'll need to find some more stuff to buy. IO sets for more alts, or something.

A few more tweaks to mission 4 as a result of feedback.

* Added a second minion to the US Army group. The new minion is a recolored Operations Engineer, so now only half of them will throw web grenades

* Replaced the custom General model (also American Colonel) with a recolored Axis America Oberst. This gets rid of another source of web grenade and gives me space for another custom mob.

* Added a custom SS/invuln Statesman AV as a required objective, so now there are two heroes to fight again (Statesman and Maiden Justice). It does make sense to fight Statesman at some point during the war. I used a custom mob instead of the standard Statesman AV, because the real Statesman is much too hard to solo. Possibly some players will feel cheated by facing a nerfed version of Statesman; I figure that's better than getting beat up repeatedly by the real version of Statesman. I rationalize the slight differences in costume with "Well, he had a different costume in WW2 anyway".

Some nerfs to difficulty as a result of feedback:

* Maiden Justice no longer has Unyielding. (Was too difficult for controller/dominators. May now be too easy for people with lots of knockback, but prefer to err on the easy side.)

* Russian Generals and Polkovniks no longer use Cold Domination (Infrigidate/Ice Shield/Arctic Fog/Benumb/Sleet). Instead they now have Storm Summoning (Gale/O2 Boost/Snow Storm/Freezing Rain). Hopefully this still preserves the "Russian Winter" idea, but gets rid of their stealth aura (annoying for low perception characters) and the Ice Shield buffs (too powerful/looks weird). Switching the Cold debuffs for the Storm debuffs plus O2 Boost is probably a push.

I'm hoping this will make missions 3 and 4 a little easier without making them a total pushover.

The Galactic Protectorate - 01 review
Arc ID: 47143
Keywords: Challenging, Custom Characters, Save the World
Morality: Neutral
Level range: 40-54

The premise is to help an alternate version of Synapse with ... something. Not sure what. I ran through with a 3 player team, made up of:

50 MA/SR scrapper (heavily IO'd)
42 fire/fire blaster
25 plant/emp controller

Being on a team, my notes are a little more sketchy than usual. Hopefully having 3 people play the arc will make up for that.

[5.0] at start.

[-0.01] Typo: threatnens -> threatens (in arc description)

Mission 1
Briefing: We need to help Synapse with some unspecified task.

Send-off message: Synapse clarifies that we need to rescue some people.

[-0.1] Objectives list a lot of names of people we have to save; but none of these names were mentioned by Synapse, and I don't know anyone on this dimension, so how do I know these names? Maybe could address this by accumulating these objectives into "4 people to rescue" or something.

The mission is full of GP - Division 0 mobs.

[-0.5] Game balance: GP - Division 0 has way too many support minions. I think I saw minions that had: empathy, storm, rad emission, kinetics, sonic dispersion, force fields, thermal and pain dom. Pretty much every minion had some kind of buff/debuff set, which made this enemy group too powerful, especially against a team. As a scrapper with soft capped defense, I was mostly ok against these; but any time any of them even looked at one of my squishy teammates, they would get vaporized. I'd recommend having fewer support mobs; no more than half of the possible models, if that.

My blaster teammate noted that all the GP - Division 0 models were female models, and got utterly fixated on this.

We rescued Mayor Bruckenmeier; he didn't give us a clue, which I thought was rather surprising.

[-0.01] Continuity: Celestial Guardsman's description says that he is in the 12th Division, but she's in the "Division 0" enemy group, so this is inconsistent. (Some of the other mobs clearly state they were transferred from another division; this one wasn't.)

[-0.01] Punctuation: Terrestrial Tech. has an extra . in its name



We found and rescued Nurse Perkins; the model for her did not look very much like a nurse (see above - lady hostage in dark business suit). (Didn't mark off points as this is pretty nitpicky.)

[-0.1] Needs clue: No captives stopped to tell us about the Resistance? Shouldn't these hostages tell us a little about the situation in this strange dimension? I don't think I ever saw an explanation of the Galactic Protectorate or what it is in this mission.

We got a "Discarded Newspaper" clue. The picture shows the whole Freedom Phalanx [i]except[i] for Positron; I'm not sure if this was an accidental or deliberate omission.

[4.27] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: we're sent to infiltrate a GP base.

[+0.1] Some useful progress report "clues" about the invasion help alleviate my earlier complaint about not learning anything about the GP in the previous mission.

[-0.01] Doesn't make sense: Why would aliens use the names of Greek gods as month names?

[-0.01] Phrasing: "capable repelling" -> "capable of repelling" (in Celestial Guardsman description)

[-0.01] Typos: "it's inner workings" -> "its inner workings", "transfered" -> "transferred" (in Solar Singer description)



We get the "Progress Report: Diplomacy" clue.
[-0.01] Phrasing: "representative of the forces" seems ambiguous, should perhaps be "representative of the Earth's forces" (in Progress Report: Diplomacy)

This clue also makes me wonder if Synapse and the Resistance are actually acting against Statesman, since Statesman appears to have given his word that Earth forces would cease hostilities?

[-0.01] Typo: agression -> aggression (in Progress Report: Aftermath)

(Our empath had to quit at this point)

We found the "Base Classified Orders" clue.
[-0.1] Don't understand: why would orders for another base be in THIS base? Also how do I know it's orders for another base, when it's apparently in code?

Debriefing: Synapse seems disappointed in our results so far. I wonder why he didn't talk about Statesman's diplomatic mission? That seems like an important plot point.

[4.22] at end of mission 2

Mission 3
Briefing: we're sent to rescue Manticore from being executed by the Galactic Protectorate.

[-0.01] Typo: Mantiore -> Manticore (in send off message)

[-0.01] Typo: provide -> provides (in Equator Engineer's description). Also, it's rather odd to use "miles" in an alien being's description, to describe a location on an alien's homeworld.

When we get close to Manticore, the following dialog goes off:

[NPC] Mind Medic: I know what our orders are, but doesn't this violate our agreement with the planetary resistance?
[NPC] Manticore: Heh... is this what you people call "honoring your word"?
[NPC] Mind Medic: Darn it, there's no time for this! We have an intruder!
[NPC] Manticore: Who are you? A member of the Human Resistance?

[-0.01] Doesn't make sense: actually, the clues so far suggest the GP are justified in executing Manticore, since the Resistance previously promised to cease hostilities. (I only marked off -0.01 for this because of course humans are always right and aliens are always wrong. )



We end up saving Manticore without too much trouble.

We got the "Record of the Last Battle of Arachnos" clue which was rather interesting.

[-0.01] Typo: Stephan -> Stephen (in Record of the Last Battle of Arachnos)

Aha a reference to Positron!

[-0.1] Dangling plot thread: the Fall of Arachnos is mentioned several times and seems to be significant to the story, but this plot thread doesn't end up going anywhere (at least in this installment of the Galactic Protectorate).

[+0.1] On the other hand, the "Fall of Arachnos" subplot actually intrigues me enough to want to know what happens next.

Nice debriefing with decent, definite ending (especially for a part 1).

Decent souvenir.

[-0.01] Typo: begain -> began (in Souvenir)

[4.17] at end of mission 3

Overall
I thought this was a neat start to a story of alien invasion; the alternate history presented for this other dimension was very intriguing as well. Despite being a "part 1", it did have a logical beginning and end, which was nice. I would've liked to learn a little more about the situation in mission 1 (where you rescue the resistance fighters), but a lot of that was cleared up in mission 2. The actual custom group was neat, but the power selection made them too difficult due to the synergy between all their buffs/debuffs.

I gave this arc 4 stars.

----

My queue is now:

@Gypsy Rose - In Pursuit of Liberty #344916 (re-review)
The_Cheshire_Cat - Ignition of the Machine #318983
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 02 #11728
Tangler - A Penny For Your Thoughts #348691
The Hound - The Alient Tyrant #357388
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 03 #174352
Dsarvess Rientel - Serpent's Scheme #363206
Lazarus - Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together) #347029 (re-review)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 04 #269714
@Frija - Mercytown #6014 (assuming Tangler/@Frija plays one of my arcs)
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290

The Hero of Kings Row review
Arc ID: 230187
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Canon Related, Drama
Morality: Heroic
Level Range: 1-14
Warnings: extreme bosses

The premise is a missing persons investigation, looking for some high school students. I played a newly created level 3 grav/sonic controller on the default +0 x0 difficulty. The contact is a custom character, a student at the high school.

[5.0] points to start.

Mission 1
Briefing: the contact wants me to look for some of his fellow students, who he thinks are in an abandoned office.

Inside the mission, I quickly find an ally named "The Emancipator" (apparently a newbie hero) who I rescue from some Hellions, giving me "M.1: The Emancipator, Pt. 1" as a clue. The Emancipator also seems to be looking for the missing students.

[-0.01] Game balance: The Emancipator spawned as a level 3 minion for me; this seems too weak to me (a minion ally will die very easily).

Found "Secretary", the secretary of the Student Council, guarded by Hellions. I think you should give him a personal name (like "Bob" or something) instead of a title; it would be unusual to call a high school student "Secretary". (Nitpicky)



The Secretary has some dialog that hints that he's up to something, and gives me the "M.1: Student Council Secretary" clue, which also suggests that something is going on.

Next I found "Treasurer" who seemed to be paying off the Hellions, and gave me the "M.1: Student Council Treasurer" clue.

The "Vice-President" also seemed to be involved in a deal with the Hellions, but also pretended that the Hellions were mugging her. She gave me the "M.1: Student Council Vice-President" clue.

Finally found the "President" who also was in on the Hellion conspiracy. He gave me the "M.1: Student Council President" clue and completed the mission.

Mission exit popup and debriefing do a nice job of restating that the player should now doubt whether the Student Council were really being held hostage.

[4.99] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: the contact now wants me to rescue his girlfriend from Hellions.

[-0.1] Plot: what happened to following up with the plotline with the corrupt student council? I suppose it is possible that this is connected, but it seems like I am ignoring the leads I already have.

After I accept the mission, I find that it has a 30 minute time limit. The send-off message does mention "there's no time to spare", but this is after I've already accepted it.

[-0.1] No warning of a timed mission with relatively short timer.

The map is already on fire when I get there. I like the objectives; some people to rescue, and "Find Out Who's Responsible".

Some Hellions and police immediately exchange dialog as I enter; probably unintentional (I haven't gotten in line of sight of them yet), but they have decent lines. The police warn that the firefighters can't get in here while Hellions are blocking them.

I quickly run into Miss Rosa Marshall and rescue her from some Hellions. She gives me the "M.2: Miss Rosa" clue, with an interesting hint about the perpetrators.

The Emancipator is here again, this time as a level 3 lieutenant. I rescue him from the Hellions and he gives me "M.2: The Emancipator Pt. 2", mostly flavor text from the Emancipator.

(leveled to 4 at this point while fighting Hellions; I didn't bother training as I planned to get an ally buffing power.)

Rescued Samuel Washington, Octavio Brown, Selma Montgomery, some more hostages. They each give me a clue with a little flavor text; not sure if these clues are needed, as they don't seem relevant to the plot or especially fun, but they don't hurt.



At the end of the map I find the President, who turns out to be the one responsible. He spews some pretty good hate dialog about racial purity (interesting! I didn't get a good look at all the hostages but they may very well have all been people of color) and a Council ambush shows up to help him. When the President goes down, he gives me the "M.2: Student Council President" clue, and also "The Student Council President's notebook." (mission end clue?), and also spawns some police who yell:

[NPC] PPD Cop: Thesia cleared the way for us! Let's get in there and rescue these people!

[+0.1] Nice touch, really gave me the feeling that I cleared the way for emergency workers.

[-0.01] Formatting: the name of this clue is too long to fit in the standard width of the clue journal.

[4.88] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: the contact asks questions like "why was the President of our Student Council there?", but this seemed pretty clearly explained in the President's dialog in mission 2, which I heard, even if the contact didn't. Since the contact mentions the President's notebook, clearly he should know that I had to fight the President.

[-0.01] Continuity problem: we already know the President is a bad guy and he revealed some of his motivation in dialog; Doug's dialog doesn't quite make sense in this context. (Kind of a minor quibble though, so I only marked off -0.01.)

The contact wants me to check out the coordinates in the President's notebook.

Send off message: the contact says that I figured out that he's the Emancipator. I confess I hadn't actually figured that out until he blurted it out, though after the President spouted his hate speech I did look the Emancipator over very closely to see if I could tell what color his skin was, in case it was relevant (but I couldn't, it's all covered).

[-0.1] Needs foreshadowing: need a clue or two that foreshadows this reveal. Perhaps "Emancipator Pt 2" could have him unusually concerned about Selma, or "Selma Montgomery" clue might have her eyes widen a little in recognition of the Emancipator.

[-0.01] Typo: "I'llp" -> "I'll" in send-off message.

Inside the mission, there's some nice dialog from a Council patrol.

I quickly locate the "Secretary" who has some incriminating dialog which also appears in the "M.3: Student Council Secretary" clue. Based on this clue I wonder if maybe I should have a triggered objective to find these "records" that the Secretary mentioned?

[+0.1] Symbolism: I'm suddenly struck by the parallel between the name of the "Student Council" and the "Council" enemy group.... not sure if that is intentional or not, but it's cool.



Found the Emancipator again, who is a boss this time and not wearing the hood he had before (just a domino mask now). His dialog and his "M.3: The Emancipator, Pt. 3" clue warn me that the Council is recruiting high school students.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "he's revealed himself to you to be Doug" is awkwardly phased, suggest you reword this. (In Emancipator's description)

Defeated the Treasurer and got the "M.3: Student Council Treasurer" clue.

[-0.01] Phrasing: for this and all the other clues you get for defeating people/rescuing people, I think it would be a little more involving if you wrote them like dialog. For example, instead of "She said the Student Council paid the Hellions, on behalf of the Council" you could write the actual words she says, like "Yeah, we paid off the Hellions. It was part of the agreement to get us into the Council". (This is more of a stylistic nitpick so only marked off -0.01, but I think it would help make the story more immersive.)

Defeated the Vice-President and got the "M.3: Student Council Vice-President" clue.

[-0.01] Continuity problem: "burning the Kings Row Community Center to the ground was their initiation" in the "M.3: Student Council Vice-President" clue, but the Secretary and the Treasurer both ask "Is our initiation tonight?" in their dialog. I think maybe this is just phrased wrong and you mean to say burning the community center was required before they could be initiated.

Beat up the President and got "M.3: Student Council President" as a clue.

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: "You find the name 'Von Brunn' and more GPS coordinates Row written in his notebook" ... but I already had his notebook from mission 2? Or did he drop ANOTHER notebook? (I don't think he should drop two notebooks, each with GPS coordinates to the next mission...that seems awfully coincidental.) Also "coordinates Row" probably should be "coordinates in Kings Row".

Nice debriefing. I like the contact's dismay at the Student Council's betrayal.

[4.73] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: so, we're following up to the next set of GPS coordinates. Seems awfully convenient that they leave GPS coordinates of their bases lying around as clues.

[-0.1] Missing text: send-off message is much too short (barely half a line).

[-0.01] Phrasing: "I'm going in, $name" should probably be "I'm going in with you, $name" or something similar (in send-off message).

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: mission is now "Find the Emancipator", but I was just with him starting the mission; how did we get separated so much that rescuing him is now the primary mission? I think this could work, but it needs some writing to better explain that the Emancipator went on ahead without you, if that was your intent. Either that or the mission could be "Investigate Council base" and one of the objectives could happen to be "Find the Emancipator".

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: mission entry popup says "Statesman steps up to the podium" ... huh? There is no Statesman here. This might make sense if this mission was a high school graduation ceremony with Statesman as the keynote speaker, but I'm in a Council base and Statesman is nowhere to be seen.

I immediately find "Paragon City High Student Council President".

[-0.01] Inconsistent: why is he named "Paragon City High Student Council President" here, but named "President" in all previous missions? It's clearly the same guy. Pick a name and use it consistently. I'd suggest something in between, like "Student Council President". Just "President" sounds like it should be the national president, while "Paragon City High Student Council President" is just way too long.

[-0.1] Missing text: Paragon City High Student Council President has no dialog.



The Student Council minions wearing T-shirts with the Council logo are kind of fun. Despite being custom mobs, they seem pretty doable at level 4. Their DPS is maybe a little too high for low level; giving them both assault rifle and martial arts (I think) gives them a lot of possible attacks to cycle through, more than most level 4 mobs will have.

I soon find a body bag labeled "The Emancipator".

[-0.1] Missing text: no text on progress bar for "The Emancipator" glowy.

Looking in my clue journal, I see that I have "M.4: The Emancipator's Eulogy Pt. 1" through "Pt. 3" at this point. With this as context, the mission entry popup mentioning Statesman makes a little more sense, but I still think it's in the wrong place. I suggest you move the bit about Statesman to the beginning of "Eulogy Pt. 1"; that'll make the text flow a bit better.

I normally would've expected to find a clue referring to the Emancipator's body, maybe with some info about what happened to him; but it looks like this mission is structured to give various parts of the Eulogy as individual clues attached to various objectives. Each individual part of the Eulogy doesn't make sense as a clue, it's just a sentence or two of the Eulogy. I also got a few of them out of order; for example, I got Pt 6 before Pt 4. As a result, I'm not quite sure this works for me.

I soon find out why the first Council President had such a long name, as I run into the Steel Canyon High Student Council President, who also looks just like the earlier Student Council President. Still think this name is a bit too long.

[-0.1] Missing text: Steel Canyon High Student Council President has no dialog.

Found and defeated Archon von Brunn, who was a level 4 lieutenant for me. He could perhaps use a custom description.

[-0.1] Missing text: Archon von Brunn has no dialog, despite having some foreshadowing in earlier missions as being an important boss.

[-0.1] Missing text: the Student Council ambush he spawns has no dialog. This means the ambush shows up completely by surprise.



I defeated Archon von Brunn, but didn't get credit for "Defeat the Council Mastermind", because I didn't defeat all his minions. His ambush defeated me before I could. You might consider making him "Only boss required".

I hit the hospital and run back, and defeat von Brunn and his minions. This doesn't actually "Defeat the Council Mastermind", which was a bit unexpected to me; I actually thought von Brunn was the big bad guy? Now I'm not sure who I'm looking for.

Found and fought the Galaxy City High Student Council President. He counted as completing "Defeat the Council Mastermind" and I get "Eulogy Pt 7" and "mission complete". Huh?

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: Why is the Galaxy City Student Council President the Council Mastermind and not Archon von Brunn?

[-0.1] Missing text: Galaxy City Student Council President has no dialog.

[-0.1] Incomplete clues: the mission completes with me only having Eulogy Pt 1, 2, 3, 6, 7. Apparently Eulogy Pt 4 and 5 are either missing or not required objectives. This leaves me with an incomplete eulogy.

Looking at the MA tool after the mission, it actually says mission 4 is a "Defeat All Enemies" which makes me even more puzzled as to why I am missing Eulogy parts 4 and 5 if I defeated everything.

Debriefing: a sad ending for the Emancipator as a funeral is described. But I'm left with a lot of questions.

[-0.1] Lack of closure: what happened to Archon Brunn and all the Student Council after they got defeated?

[-0.1] Don't understand: why did the Emancipator run on ahead without me, when I clearly was present to help, and get himself killed? Why did the Student Council decide to kill him? (Presumably due to his race, but it would be nice to see them say something about it, or to have the clues hint at how or why he met his end.)

[-0.1] Player is marginalized: In the earlier missions, the player is helping Doug Frederick against the Hellions and Council, but in this final mission, the story is all about the Emancipator and the player is completely sidelined.

[-0.01] Continuity: I don't think Statesman has Hero 1's cape, so he wouldn't be able to drape it over the Emancipator's coffin. Statesman used his own cape to commemorate the loss of Hero 1.

[3.31] at end of mission 4.

Overall
I liked the earlier missions and the struggle against the Hellions and the Council. I liked the parallel between the "Student Council" and the actual "Council", and the revelation of the corruption of the Student Council.

The final mission didn't work for me, though; the custom enemy group was fun, but none of the (many) special bosses had any dialog, the mission objectives didn't seem to quite make sense, and Emancipator got himself killed (unnecessarily, in my opinion - don't see why he would run ahead when I was right there to help him) and caused the story to suddenly completely focus on him.

I liked the plot of the Student Council trying to stir up a race war in the missions leading up to the last one; but I'd recommend working on the last mission a bit. Just adding dialog to the bosses and straightening out the mission objectives a bit would improve it a lot without too much effort. I think your story needs the Emancipator to die, but the way it's presented it seems like he just ran off to this mission without me (which seems not very smart); if you could spin his death slightly differently (perhaps they kidnap him and mission 4's briefing has Selma ask you to find Doug, or some other method where the Council kills him but it's not because he simply rushed in blindly), I think it would work a lot better.

Rounding 3.31 off, I gave this arc 3 stars. Hope you think that is fair!

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My queue is now:

Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 01 #47143 (played, need to write up notes)
@Gypsy Rose - In Pursuit of Liberty #344916 (re-review)
The_Cheshire_Cat - Ignition of the Machine #318983
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 02 #11728
Tangler - A Penny For Your Thoughts #348691
The Hound - The Alient Tyrant #357388
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 03 #174352
Dsarvess Rientel - Serpent's Scheme #363206
Lazarus - Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together) #347029 (re-review)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 04 #269714
@Frija - Mercytown #6014 (assuming Tangler/@Frija plays one of my arcs)
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290
<placeholder>
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290