PoliceWoman

For Best New Arc:

The Tangled Weave
Arc ID: 338575
@FredrikSvanberg

A fun starting story for a newbie villain, well-balanced for lowbies, had good tie-ins with the official continuity, and had a lot of fun elements.



I realize that @FredrikSvanberg has another arc nominated already, but the category is "Best New Arc", so ought to be author-neutral. And (in my opinion) The Tangled Weave is better than Fear and Loathing on Striga, anyhow.

Honorable mention to The Christmas We Get.

A Taste for Evil review
Arc ID: 349034
Keywords: Canon Related, Sci-Fi, Drama
Morality: Villainous
Level range: 10-20
Warnings: EBs, higher level villains appearing at low levels

The premise is that the player has been "volunteered" to test out a new, experimental flavor of "NutriPaste" (some kind of synthetic food?), in order to discover any "unexpected side effects". This immediately makes me think of Paranoia (the game) and Soylent Green (the movie).

The author notes indicate this is "designed for VEAT play". Both of my VEAT characters are level 50 and heavily IO'd out, so didn't seem a good match for a level 10-20 arc. I played a 19 mace/shield brute (on +1 x0 difficulty) instead. The contact is Marshal Brass.

[5.0] points at start.

Mission 1
Briefing: the contact gives a briefing like a drill sergeant, telling me to report to Doctor Aeon for my "mandatory duty" to perform "voluntary field testing".

Clearly "mandatory duty" cannot be "voluntary", but I figure this is stated in this way for the irony.

Also, the canonical Marshal Brass contact doesn't speak like this. But considering the arc assumes the player is an Arachnos soldier, this can probably be justified, so going to let that slide.

[-0.1] Map selection: the burning abandoned building? This seems a very odd place to find Dr. Aeon in.

I quickly locate Dr. Aeon, who is being held captive by some Snakes. They say:


[NPC] Viper Blade: What have you monssster done with our eggsss?

Huh, I have a bad feeling about what NutriPaste is made of. Well, I suppose that's no worse than Soylent Green, at least.

[-0.01] Typo: "monssster" -> "monsssters"; or perhaps "Monssster! What have you done..."

When I arrive on the scene, Dr. Aeon says:

[NPC] Dr. Aeon: Oh that's right - I requested some volountary subjects from Brass earlier. You are just in time!

[-0.01] Typo: volountary -> voluntary

After I free him, my objective changes to "Clear the way to the NutriPaste" (I like the little trademark symbols) and Dr. Aeon says:

[NPC] Dr. Aeon: I'm afraid the lab is in a bit of disarray today. Clear the way and I'll give you your samples.

Maybe a tech lab would be a better map for this? (The burning tech lab if you really want the place to be in ruins - though it might be a little big.)

Finding my way to the top floor, I locate a refrigerator containing NutriPaste, which gives me the "NutriPaste Sample Tube" clue, triggers Dr. Aeon to say some dialog (nice!) and ends the mission. I also see some Snakes guarding Giant Eggs, but they don't seem to be required.

Debriefing: this sounds a lot more like the Marshal Brass I'm used to. He again refers to the mission as having been in a "laboratory".

[4.88] at end of mission 1.

(At this point a friend dragged me off to a team. by the time I got back, I was level 21. Rushed through mission 1 to catch up to where I was.)

Mission 2
Briefing: I like the food-oriented theme in the "Part 1" and "Part 2" sub-captions to the mission briefings so far. The contact wants me to pick up some kind of academic study on the effects of NutriPaste.

Map selection: I'm a bit surprised at the office map; based on the briefing, I thought this would be the university. The office isn't unreasonable, though, so didn't mark off points.

The mission has Vahzilok in it; I'm not quite sure why, maybe this will be explained later. The map connects to caves, and the caves connect to the sewers, where I find a Student held captive by the Vahzilok, along with a named Eidolon called Esophagus.

Esophagus has some interesting things to say about the test data; the "get the data" objective isn't fulfilled until I defeat Esophagus and some of the Vahzilok near him, at which point the objective is completed, I get the "Soiled Data" clue, and the mission ends. (Some other nearby Vahz, part of the Student's guards, weren't needed.) You might consider making him "only boss required".

I also freed the Student.

[-0.01] Missing text: Student needs some dialog for when you free her.

[-0.1] Don't understand: What were the Vahzilok doing here anyway? Needs some motivation. (Esophagus does say what she wants to do now that she's found the data, but what she was doing there in the first place wasn't clear.)

[-0.01] Missing reference: the mission was titled "Beef" but beef was never mentioned in the mission (unlike "chicken" in mission 1). Maybe give one of the Vahz a line like "I'll carve you like a side of beef!" or similar.

Also, what happened to observing me for side effects? I'm surprised the contact didn't ask me if I had noticed any side effects from the NutriPaste.

[4.77] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: the contact assigns me to guard a local warehouse full of NutriPaste. Seems simple enough; What Could Go Wrong?

[-0.01] Default "Accept" text is a little dull, may want to make it more interesting.

Send-off message: aha, the contact does remember to ask me to watch for side effects.

Map selection: I was initially surprised at the choice of an Arachnos base (thought it would be a warehouse based on the briefing) but it made more sense when I got to the last room, which was on fire, matching the story. That last room looks quite good actually.

Apparently the warehouse got lit on fire before I ever got there, so I never get a chance to "guard" it.

The mission is full of Luddites for some reason; unclear why, at least initially. A bit deeper in the mission I find a Raid Leader who gives me the "Luddite Crusade" clue.

[-0.01] Typo: "NutriPaste" is missing TM symbol (second time it appears in Luddite Crusade)

If they set all the NutriPaste on fire, I'd kind of expect there to be some sort of horrible smell throughout the map. Perhaps worth mentioning something like that in the mission entry popup, or as part of the dialog.

There's also an extra space at the start of Raid Leader's line that goes "Your precious NutriPaste..". (nitpicky)

I also rescue Operative Jenkins, who has some funny lines.



Having defeated the Raid Leader and gotten a clue from him and freed Jenkins, I still haven't satisfied the mission objective "Find some answers". I would've thought getting the clue from the Raid Leader would do it. I end up searching the rest of the complex.

I noticed some Luddites were spawning on the ceiling on this map; not sure you can do much about it. But I can't find anything else in the mission except for the guys stuck in the ceiling.



I manage to knock one of them free and kill him, but the other one is stuck and can't be killed. Exiting the mission, I look at the arc's description in the AE tool, and it does say mission 3 is a "Defeat All" mission. I definitely did not get the idea it was a "Defeat All" from a "Find some answers" objective, though; that text makes me think I should find clues.

[-0.1] Mission objective text doesn't match actual objective. (You might want to either make it more clearly "Defeat all raiders" or else make the mission complete after finding the raid leader's clue.)

I really can't complete the mission at this point. I decide to try and reset the mission to see if I can get them to spawn better. Second try I manage to defeat all and complete the mission. I've noticed these Arachnos bases sometimes have problems with mobs falling out of the accessible geometry; you might try testing this mission some to see if this happens a lot. If it does, you probably won't want it to be a Defeat All. Did not deduct points for this as I believe this is a problem with the map, not the story arc, and the map isn't that large, so a defeat all isn't unreasonable.

Debriefing: less than 2 lines and doesn't say a lot; I'm in trouble? For what? I assume the warehouse getting torched (though, this wasn't on my watch, since it happened before I arrived).

[-0.1] Missing text: debriefing is too short; needs more writing.

[-0.01] Missing reference: The mission is titled "Kippers" but no reference to kippers was found during the mission.

[4.54] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: the Luddite uprising continues, and the contact wants me to go protect a hydroponics plant, since it produces ingredients for NutriPaste.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Havoc At the Aeon Hydroponics" should be either "Havoc at Aeon Hydroponics" or "Havoc at the Aeon Hydroponics Plant" (in mission title)

The mission is full of Luddites again. This time there are a number of "Body" glowies. There's a lot of them, but they don't seem to do anything.

[-0.1] "Body" glowies should do something (produce a clue, be an objective...something) or else there should be fewer of them (at least 7 that I saw, none of which do anything except produce a brief message in the spammy general chat box).

I rescued some NutriPaste ingredients, each of which draws a Luddite ambush onto me (one of which actually defeats me, due to me running out of END and having my defense toggles drop).

Found some NutriPaste samples, which gave some fun clues. I liked the Willy Wonka reference. Is Vegemite indeed the "Taste of Evil"?

[+0.1] Fun optional clues.

Deep in the mission, I find Luddite Crusader (presumably the leader). He delivers a terrific monologue:

[NPC] Luddite Crusader: Our brothers are already gathering at the accursed NutriPaste factory, preparing to strike against the source of the corruption. No longer will the citizens of the Rogue Isles be forced to eat themselves, or worse! There will be hunger. There will be starvation. There will be riots and chaos, it's true! But out of the ruins of an old evil empire, a new order will rise, pure and strong. Our order, brothers. Our order.

[+0.1] Great monologue.

Defeating him gives me "The Luddite Leader Rants" clue and completes the mission.

[4.63] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
Briefing: so now I need to save the NutriPaste factory. I need to destroy the Luddites' caches of explosives?

[-0.1] Out of character: Luddites are so anti-technology that they won't even use guns; I have a hard time believing they'd use explosives.

I quickly locate and, uhh, disarm some explosives.


Why do they always send the girl with the big hammer to disarm bombs?

After that I find and rescue Dr. Aeon, who becomes an EB level ally that I'm supposed to lead out.



Dr. Aeon fights Luddites that get near. I ended up leading him to the door so he would stop following me, but I could've kept him around to smash all the Luddites if I had wanted to.

[-0.1] Play balance: EB ally seems much too powerful for the opposition in this mission (nothing bigger than a boss).

Found a "Luddite Arsonist" with some dialog. Thought he might count as a saboteur, but wasn't sure; after fighting and defeating him, it didn't decrement the "3 Luddite saboteurs" objective, at least until I killed some other nearby Luddites.

Likewise I found a "Luddite Sapeur" who I defeated on a catwalk above the factory. Being on a catwalk, the rest of his spawn was quite a distance away.

[-0.1] Confusing objectives: the combination of the arsonist and sapeur not being named "saboteur" and requiring the whole group to be defeated is confusing and may result in player frustration (especially if they are scouting out the map, which is large and outdoors, for saboteurs). I'd suggest that you either use the same word for the objective name and the mob name, and/or make the objectives "only boss required".

I also thought using the French spelling of "sapper" was rather odd considering all the other Luddites use normal English names, but with the Luddite leader being French, I decided to let that go.

Eventually found the third saboteur, who actually IS named "saboteur", adding to the confusion. The rest of his spawn was separated from him by a wall.

Ran across a few random Goldbrickers that had no lines, but looked wounded; maybe leftovers from a battle. Hit level 22 wandering around the NutriPaste factory (I ducked out of the mission long enough to get Stamina, but didn't slot SOs yet).

Found the second explosives cache pretty quickly, but had to search for quite awhile to find the last one. After about 15 minutes of searching I eventually find it in a back alley. Destroying the last cache ends the mission.

There was never a big, climactic moment to the final mission; possibly because there is no "big bad guy" (instead we fight 3 lesser bosses) that we end up fighting. Instead I spent most of the last mission flying around searching for objectives, which was not as dramatic and exciting as I'd like the end of a story arc to be.

[-0.1] Ending feels anticlimactic.

Considering this is a NutriTaste factory, I think it should have some optional objectives related to NutriTaste. Maybe something like body bags, toxic waste barrels and/or snake eggs, all labeled "Ingredients"; or a series of cauldrons each containing a different flavor of NutriTaste. Maybe some factory workers as hostages, with some dialog, would make it seem more like a live factory.

[-0.01] Typo: Marshall -> Marshal (in mission exit popup)

[-0.01] Missing reference: Mission is "bacon" but bacon is never referenced.

Debriefing: contact criticises me for saving Dr. Aeon? Seems odd, since he told me to save him.

I'm glad to get some closure to the "testing new flavor of NutriPaste" plotline, though the execution and resolution were a little underwhelming; it didn't feel like this subplot really went anywhere. Would've liked some clues or dialog hinting that the player does observe side effects (or perhaps imagines them), or perhaps some follow up from the university study.

[-0.1] Plot: "testing experimental new flavor" subplot seemed underdeveloped, particularly considering it was the initial hook for starting the story.

[-0.01] Typo: volounteer -> volunteer (in souvenir)

[-0.01] Capitalization: snakes -> Snakes (in souvenir)

[-0.01] Inconsistency: "flavour" (in souvenir) but everywhere else in the story it's spelled "flavor"

[4.08] at end of mission 5.

Overall

[+0.1] Fun concept: NutriPaste was a fun theme to center the arc around.

Fun concept overall; felt very cynical to be protecting the future of this foodlike substance. Enjoyed the "flavor text" details about NutriPaste in mission 4, would've liked a few in mission 5. Mission 5 could use some work to make it a more dramatic finale. I would've liked more development of the "taste test" subplot as well.

[4.18] final score; I gave this arc 4 stars.

----

My queue is now:

Circuit_Boy - The Hero of Kings Row #230187.
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
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290

Mobs with Unstoppable always seem to be a huge headache for me, whether playing or authoring.

It seems like giving custom mobs any kind of mez protection makes controllers and dominators instantly enraged, too.

I agree with build up/aim as problem powers. Especially when paired with ninjitsu.

1/11/2009

I've been on holiday for a couple weeks (well, did some work in there somewhere, then got snowed in) so this is a longish update that will gloss over some stuff in the interests of space.

Playing Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) I helped a 5 player team with Jack-in-Irons. Police Woman also did an Imperious TF (36min 17sec). I also was asked to help make a fourth for a 2v2 arena fight. The arena fight was a fire blaster and me versus a fire blaster and a psy blaster; I was the only one without a PvP build (for example, all three of the others had Hibernate and I did not) and consequently the results were pretty gruesome for my team. The psy blaster was especially deadly with mez effects messing me up. I did get one kill in, but mostly people would run away/hibernate whenever close to death. After our first match it seemed like they still wanted to PvP, but no one wanted to be teamed with me, and no one wanted to switch to a non-PvP build. This didn't seem very fun, so I left.

Later during the weekend I played Police Woman on a Sisterhood/LEGION Master of the Statesman TF team. I didn't really have high hopes for this (it's a hard badge to get; I set my personal goal as being "don't be the one who dies to ruin the MoSTF") but wanted to help out a friend who was dying for the badge. We took everything very slowly and carefully, much slower than I'm used to, but probably smart for a MoSTF attempt. Of note: during the 3rd mission (where most MoSTF attempts I've been on have failed), all squishies were ordered to stay on the northern quadrant of the room, to avoid Thorn Tree aggro. This worked quite well. On the 5th and last mission, we had a dark defender go linkdead and we ended up waiting about 15 minutes hoping he'd come back. Then we pulled the patron AVs in small bites (they came 1, 2, then 1), then beat up the flyer, then tackled Lord Recluse himself. The flyer respawned and aggroed on us while we were fighting LR's towers and we were initially indecisive on what to do about it; first we wanted to ignore the flyer and hope it left, but ultimately we decided to switch DPS to the flyer to take it down, then go back to the towers. This ended up working, completing the MoSTF in 2hrs 30mins, getting me a Cytoskeleton HO and the Master of the Statesman TF badge (yay!). This gave Police Woman a total of 618 badges.

Some time after New Year's, Police Woman did an LB-channel ITF (54min 7sec); cleared most, I ended up being puller for the generals.

Playing Lady Arachne (50 wolf spider) I helped a 5 player team with Ghost of Scrapyard. Lady Arachne also bought a Gaussian's Synchronized Fire Control (RCHG/END) for 25M infamy, completing a set of 6, slotted in Tactical Training: Leadership. This gave a tasty +2.5% DEF to all, which puts her ranged DEF at 49% and melee/AoE DEF at 30.5%. A set of 5 Expedient Reinforcement in her Summon Robots power gave her another +3% dmg and +6.25% rchg. Later during the holiday Lady Arachne did a LGTF (30min 30sec), an ITF (29min 51sec), and another LGTF (29min 43sec).

Frustrated with my kin controller, I re-created Darla Doppler, a kin/sonic defender; I had gotten a previous version of Darla to level 22 before deleting her before. I've generally had a lot of trouble (a) keeping my kin characters alive and (b) keeping my team alive when I'm playing a kin, but kinetics seems so powerful that I keep making kinetics characters, hoping to find one that "clicks" for me. Playing Darla a lot and running Positron TF (2h 28m), Synapse TF (beat Babbage with 1 team; got a Rectified Reticle +Per; 2h 19min), Sister Psyche TF (1h 29min), Citadel TF (1h 28min) and Moonfire TF (49min 19sec) has gotten her to level 27.

The price of Demonic Blood Samples went utterly crazy on hero side for awhile, and I ended up hopping on the bandwagon and selling them for 1 million infl each. I even spent about 500 MA tickets to get random common salvage, hoping to get Demonic Blood Samples to re-sell. I dunno exactly why there was such a run on them; my best guess is that someone was trying to corner the market on them.

I came close to the 2 billion infl cap again, so I started buying up purple recipes to use up money. After I got a Ragnarok (RCHG/ACC) for 160M ("cheap" by the standards of purple recipes) I tried to engage in some high-end speculation; crafting the recipe into a Ragnarok (RCHG/ACC) IO, I put it up on the market for re-sale at 290M infl, reasoning there was more than one 300M sale in the market history. So far, this IO hasn't sold; this kinda dampened my enthusiasm for flipping purple recipes and IOs. Despite the huge margin that a 300M sale of a 160M item would give me, I feel better with a steady stream of high volume (if lower priced) items. I also picked up a Ragnarok (DMG/RCHG) recipe for 180M and a Ragnarok (DMG/END) recipe for 160M, but I decided to just craft them and slot them for Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender). As the price of Ragnarok (RCHG/ACC) IOs dropped, I ended up buying one for 215M (undercutting my own sale, ironically) and using it instead. I still have some hope that the 290M one will sell...someday.

I also picked up 2 Steadfast Protection (RES/+3% def) recipes off of the Black Market for 17M infamy each, which felt like a good deal (at least compared to their cost in reward merits). I've been crafting those and slotting them on my red-side alts.

I played a bunch of MA story arcs. The Tangled Weave was a very cool alternate starting story arc for lowbie villains, specifically targeting VEATs. It was fun and tied in well with the in-game continuity; I gave it 5 stars. The Better Part of Valor was a neat story that started as a low level investigation and eventually leads up to a confrontation with a mad scientist; I gave it 4 stars. The Hidden Agenda was a conspiracy theory alien abduction sorta arc; had neat ideas but the writing was a bit awkward (author said he wasn't a native English speaker) and I wasn't able to finish it due to running into a giant monster guarded by EBs (the arc is meant for teams), so I left it unrated.

I also spent a lot of time reworking my Axis and Allies story arc (which doesn't seem very popular so far, but I still sorta like it), and I published a new arc, Attack of the 50 Foot Villain, which is a quick romp where the player character grows to giant monster size, then attacks Tokyo. I can't really make someone grow to giant size, so what I did is made a lot of custom characters who were the minimum height, so that they look tiny by comparison.

I played Morgan le Fay (3 elec/thermal corruptor) as a lackey on a couple teams, that got her to level 16. Not sure if she's fun enough for me to keep around long-term, but I like the name, and it feels handy to have a low level corruptor around to join in on lowbie villain teams.

I played Shield Maiden (15 mace/shield brute), duoing with a stalker. Got a costume complement from a passerby. Did a 3-player Skyway mayhem, and a 5 player Cap SF. Joined an AE team that turned out to be farming, then switched to Mercy to do Seer Marino's story arc. All this got Shield Maiden up to level 21.

Mega (50 SS/will brute) did two mother ship raids in RWZ, getting a costume compliment at each one. The first one started out well and turned into something of a zerg rush at the end with lots of deaths; the second one I joined in late and never did get a team, but managed to get a bomb all on my own, tag the AV, and generally survive (despite being solo) by hanging out with the crowd. Mega also did a speed ITF (only 6 players, 37min 0sec).

April Fool (50 thug/TA MM) did a Barracuda SF; got a costume compliment, and I got to mess around with the mastermind temp power against Reichsman at the end. I used it once at the beginning of the fight and never tried using it again; it didn't seem like Reichsman ever used his "phase" power, not sure if that was because I used my temp power, or just luck. Finished in 1hr 5mins. April also spent some time screwing around in Warburg (lost twice to a scrapper, never did quite catch him).

I also copied April over to test server for the PERC server-wide costume contest, which April Fool actually won! So April is now "Ms Rogue Isles" for a year. After winning, I told the judges that "their loved ones would now be released unharmed. Well, mostly unharmed." To celebrate, I played April on a pickup ITF. This team wasn't quite working right; the brute wanted to speed through the TF but no one else had stealth or enough defenses to survive speeding through missions, so anyone who actually followed the leader's instructions would instantly die. In the third mission the leader called for volunteers to pull the generals, and no one else seemed willing so I volunteered to pull (dismissing all my pets and pulling stuff with my uber pistols powers). I actually managed to pull all the generals and AVs successfully. Finished the ITF in 1hr 32mins and got a heal badge, mostly from Vengeance and Resurrect, I think.

Kyrie Eleison (29 fire/regen scrapper) did a Sister Psyche TF (1hr 16min) which got her to level 30. I did the cape mission, which seems to have changed recently (more than one door mission now; uses the new "time vault beneath Atlas Park" map) and the aura mission, which seems the same. Unlocking auras let me add a "nice" halo to Kyrie's costume. A bit later Kyrie joined a Manticore TF (1hr 19min) which got her to level 31 and garnered her 3 costume compliments ("very distracting" was mentioned). This team also encountered a clump of 3 Paladin giant monsters in King's Row (near the mission where you rescue the Councilman); we only had 1 sonic controller for support, which made me dubious about fighting GMs, but the team wanted to try them. We beat all 3 of them without any problem. Later on Kyrie exemped down for a quick 5-player Positron TF (1hr 46min) that got her to level 32. Sadly, one player on this team was a newbie and didn't understand stealthing. I tried talking him through it some, but he still died a lot and eventually quit in frustration.

Strong Woman (43 inv/SS tanker) did an Imperious TF (cleared most, 55min 33sec) which got her to level 44. Tinkering with IOs, I slotted two sets of 4 Kinetic Combat (+3.75% sm/leth DEF each) and one set of 4 Smashing Haymaker (+1.88% sm/leth DEF) in her various attacks. This got her lethal DEF up to 26.25%.

Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) did some badging for the Freedom Phalanx Reserve accolade (+101 hp). I also did a 7-player ITF (22min 29sec) and a Statesman TF (53min 48sec, team had some trouble because the tanker assigned to taunt the flyer didn't have taunt, got a Ribosome).

Quick Katie (36 plant/kin controller) did an ITF where we cleared most (56min 7sec), but the team got split up a lot resulting a lot of deaths. This did get her to level 38 and Fulcrum Shift, but is making me re-think slotting; I originally had her slotted for +max HP, but thinking +range DEF would be better for staying alive. Also did a Numina TF (1hr 8min).

Playing alts on Triumph server, I joined the MA Arc Finder team for three AE arcs: Thriller: Part One where you get to fight a bunch of B-movie horror themed versions of the Freedom Phalanx; this didn't do much for me, and I gave it 2 stars. And Union of the Mask, where Lord Nemesis sends you out to beat up various other villains; this was pretty decently written and I gave it 4 stars. Got partway through Fall of Rapture, an arc about surviving in a post-apocalyptic world ruled by Lord Nemesis and Lord Recluse, I think; I felt pretty indifferent about that arc and gave it 3 stars.

Played Thunder Girl (50 elec/SR scrapper) on a failed LoW event (just didn't have enough people) and a quick ITF (25min 37sec).

Another short one for your consideration.

Attack of the 50 Foot Villain (arc 363366)
An accident with portal technology has caused your villain to grow to giant size! Suddenly, you have a strange urge to attack Tokyo.... [For best results, use a max height character or change one costume slot to have your height slider maximized.]
(villainous, 1 mission, level 41-54)

Did some more revamping of this arc.

Mission 1:
* Added some text to briefing.
* Gave der Fuhrer a death message.
* Added some text to debriefing.

Mission 2:
* Added some text to mission entry popup.
* Cut down objectives to 2 British generals, 2 French generals (previously was 4 and 3).
* Defeating each general now spawns 3 to 4 friendly patrols or battles. Kinda stole this mechanic from my Destroyer of Worlds arc; eventually, the map is completely overrun by German panzers.
* Gave some dialog to General Prioux, General Brooke.

Mission 3:
* Added a "mission begin" clue.
* Rewrote "mission complete" clue.
* Added some text to debriefing. (Note: discovered "Stalin" is a bad word according to the profanity filter. But "Stalingrad" is not.)
* Renamed "troop transports" to "command posts" (thought that made them sound more important).
* Added lots of friendly patrols that spawn as you accomplish various interim goals, to give more of a visual effect that the German army is taking over the map.
* Reworded mission entry and mission exit popup messages.

Mission 4:
* Added a "mission begin" clue.
* Rewrote "mission complete" clue.
* Reworded mission entry and mission exit popup messages.
* Added some text to "send off" and "return success" dialogs.
* Several 5th Column patrols now spawn when each General is defeated and when the President is captured, to give more of a visual effect that the 5th Column is taking over the map.
* Gave more dialog to President Truman and Maiden Justice.

Talos Vice (arc 338380)
An 80s instrumental blares as the camera pans over scenes of Talos Island: windsurfers on the water, the Talos statue, shoppers in Wentworth's, bikini babes, sports cars racing down the Argo Highway, a speedboat bouncing on the waves. A title card appears over the waters racing below: TALOS VICE
(heroic, 3 missions, level 12-20)

Celebrity Kidnapping (arc 1388)
Boy, does Willy Wheeler have a deal for you! A celebrity heiress has been sentenced to jail for drunk driving. The plan is to break her out of the Zig with the help of some thugs, then hold her for ransom for immense profit! What could go wrong?
(villainous, 3 missions, level 30-40)

Thanks for the kind words!

Glad you liked the 80s-themed villain outfits, ArrowRose!

Your "bad boy biker" outfit looks great, Tubbius!

Yes, Talos Vice is all about having "the look".

I did manage to miss Circuit_Boy's request somehow. It looks like he asked right after "Taste for Evil" and before "Galactic Protectorate 01", so I inserted his name there. Sorry about that.

This makes my queue now:

FredrikSvanberg - A Taste For Evil #349034
Circuit_Boy - The Hero of Kings Row #230187.
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 01 #47143
@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
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 03 #174352
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 04 #269714
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290

The Hidden Agenda (Task Force) review
Arc ID: 356334
Keywords: Ideal for Teams, Save the World, Sci-Fi
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 45-54
Warnings: AVs, EBs, extreme AVs, extreme EBs, custom power selections

[5.0] points to start with.

The premise is to find out what "the shadow government" is doing and shut it down. I'm not quite sure what the arc description means by "the shadow government" or the "Dulce underground base"; I think the arc's description could use a little more explanation, so that players not familiar with these terms might get interested in playing the arc.

[-0.1] Arc description needs more detail.

Between "ideal for teams", "Task Force", "extreme AVs" and "extreme EBs", this sounds pretty scary. I played a 50 MA/SR scrapper with heavy IO slotting to soft cap positional defense, on +0 x0 difficulty. The contact is Agent Six; I love Agent Six! I wish she appeared more in the canonical CoH game.

Mission 1
Briefing: the contact asks me to "poke around a suspected Shadow Government operation" at an underground base. She wants me to interview an informant named Thomas Castello.

[-0.1] Don't understand: Who or what is the "Shadow Government", and why are we mad at them? The contact acts like they are some sort of villain group. Needs some explanation.

[-0.01] Typo: "data on there plans" -> "data on their plans"; also, "get there hands on him" -> "get their hands on him"

Send-off message: the contact says the Shadow Government is "on his way" to get Castello as well. She also mentions something called the "Dulce Papers" but doesn't explain them.

[-0.01] Typo: "Shadow Government is on his way" -> "Shadow Government is on its way" (unless Shadow Government is something quite different than what I think)

[-0.01] Typo: "get our hand on the Dulce Papers" -> "get our hands on the Dulce Papers"

[-0.1] Don't understand: what are the Dulce Papers and why are they important? Needs some explanation.

[-0.1] Surprise timed mission: a 30 minute timer started after I accepted the mission; the briefing before accepting should really have some sort of warning about this. Saying "Time is running out" after the player has already accepted, doesn't give the player enough warning.

Inside the mission, I find I'm in an outdoor city map. Clearly not the underground Dulce base? Hmmm, where was I supposed to meet Castello again? Maybe the briefing should've said.

[-0.01] Typo: "your not the only one" -> "you're not the only one" (in mission entry popup)

The mission is full of men-in-black types belonging to a "Shadow Government" enemy group.

[-0.01] Typo: "dominate there pain" -> "dominate their pain" (in Vigilant description)

[-0.01] Typo: assasination -> assassination (in Field Agent description; the other agents have it spelled right)

[-0.01] Inconsistency: Infiltrator description says "Infiltrators are the main investigative branch of the Shadow Government". Vigilant description says "Vigilants are the main investigative branch of the Shadow Government". Field Agent description says "Field Agents are the main investigative branch of the Shadow Government". So which is it? Or maybe they should all belong to the same group, that is the main investigative branch? Also, investigators do not normally conduct "assassination ops".

I found Thomas Castello and rescued him. He exchanges some dialog with his guards, something about Castello betraying the Shadow Government and how they won't let me take him (fairly standard stuff).



While fighting them I notice that most of the men in black are worth no influence (and probably no exp), probably because of their power selections (I think they are mostly petless masterminds so they can have handguns). Only the Eliminator gives me any infl or tickets.

[-0.5] Low risk/reward: most enemies here (Infiltrator, Vigilant and Field Agent) are worth 0 exp and 0 infl. This will be a dealbreaker for many players. May I suggest re-using Crey secret agents to be members of your custom faction instead? They'd be a good match for the men-in-black thing you've got going on, and would have appropriate powers and rewards.

[-0.1] Difficult mob: Eliminator is a ninjitsu mob with build up. This is too dangerous; it can 1-shot (or nearly so) many players, especially if they don't have enough perception to see it.

After I save him, Castello says:

[NPC] Thomas Castello: Thank you so much for saving my life. Now let's get out of here before they send reinforcement.

[-0.01] Typo: reinforcement -> reinforcements

I fight off an ambush, then lead Castello to the entrance, which is a glowy red column; had to wiggle around the extrance a bit to get Castello to the right spot (not much you can do about that, it just seems to happen on some outdoor maps), but this completes the mission, giving me the "Dulce Papers" clue.

[-0.01] Typo: "in great details" -> "in great detail" (in Dulce Papers)

This mission was on a large outdoor map with only one objective (finding the hostage); the map was full of Shadow Government operatives, but none of them say or do anything, except for Castello's guards and the ambush. I think this mission could really use some additional mission details to it, perhaps some patrols or a boss or something, with a little dialog, to liven things up; and/or, it could stand to be on a much smaller map, to avoid searching for a "needle in a haystack".

[-0.1] Gameplay: mission needs more items of interest and/or should be on smaller map.

The mission exit popup, "You saved Thomas Castello from the Shadow Goverment", states the obvious and does not add a lot; I'd suggest adding some more writing there.

[-0.01] Mission exit popup needs more detail. (Also, Goverment -> Government)

Debriefing: fairly reasonable debriefing, covering the relevant facts that happened during the mission.

[3.80] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: with the intel gathered from the Dulce Papers, we now know a secret way to get into the Dulce Base. So now the contact wants me to infiltrate the base.

[-0.1] Don't understand what I'm doing: what am I supposed to do once I get inside the base? Am I stealing something? Looking for clues? Taking down the Shadow Government? Needs explanation.

[-0.01] Typo: Aldo -> Also

Send-off message: great, our intel says Delta Force operatives are defending the base. Sounds nasty. Here the contact does say I should defeat a boss and find some "security codes", though it's still not really clear why we're doing this.

[-0.01] Typo: "so is not going" -> "so it is not going" (in Send-off message)

[-0.01] Typo: "Bipass Security" -> "Bypass Security" (in mission title)

Inside the mission, I find that not only do I need to defeat the security chief and hack the security computer, I also have to "Defeat all security personnel". The "Delta Force" operatives in the base are re-purposed Malta, which actually makes total sense.

[+0.1] Nice use of Malta to represent the Delta Force custom faction

So effectively, it's a Defeat All Malta mission. The arc info says it's just a medium map, though, so maybe it won't be too bad.

I kinda question whether it's wise to defeat a platoon of Delta Force to infiltrate the Dulce base, though? That seems rather more noisy than I'd expect an infiltration mission to be.

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: "Defeat all security personnel" objective does not seem in the spirit of the story (where you're sneaking into a base) or the mission title (which is "Bypass Security").

The map is a tech lab map, which isn't what I expected; what happened to all the stuff about sneaking through ventilation ducts and caves in the briefing?

[-0.1] Map selection: doesn't match briefing. (Can probably be fixed by adding more to the mission entry popup, describing something like "After crawling through the ventilation ducts, you find yourself inside the Dulce base.")

[-0.01] Typo: "how the...Inducer...work" -> "how the...Inducer...works" (in Sapper description)

[-0.01] Punctuation: "it certainly does so efficiently it is clear this weapon" -> "it certainly does so efficiently. It is clear that this weapon"

I end up clearing 3 levels of the tech lab of Delta Force operatives before I find a Security Computer. Hacking the Security Computer seems to take a really long time; it gives me the "Security Codes" clue, and also triggers an ambush (hey! thought I disabled security!).

[-0.01] Phrasing: "you came victorious at the end" should be something like "you were victorious in the end" or "you came through victorious in the end" (in Security Codes)

[-0.01] Typo: "Agent Six face" -> "Agent Six's face" (in Security Codes)

After fighting off the ambush, I battle the Security Chief, who spawned as a Malta EB for me. He also called an ambush of Hercules Titans on me.


Yeah, yeah. I've heard that one before.

[-0.1] Missing text: Security Chief is still using Gyrfalcon's description, but I'm sure you don't mean for him to be Gyrfalcon.

Defeating the Security Chief finished the mission.

Debriefing: basically ok, covers the main points. The contact says the security codes can be used to access the lower levels of the base.

[-0.01] Typo: thru -> through (in debriefing)

[-0.01] Typo: "you manage it well" -> "you managed it well" (in debriefing)

[+0.1] Learned something: "Dulce Base" is actually the name used by conspiracy theorists for a secret UFO experimentation base in New Mexico. I didn't know this; learning it was pretty cool.

[3.51] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: the contact wants me to break into the laboratory and stop the evil experiments.

[-0.01] Typo: "Is time to investigate" -> "It's time to investigate"

[-0.01] Typo: weir -> weird

[-0.01] Typo: "use them as test subject" -> "use them as test subjects"

[-0.01] Typo: "this sound like a horrible sci-fi plot" -> "this sounds like a horrible sci-fi plot"

[-0.01] Typo: "but is all real" -> "but it's all real"

[-0.01] Phrasing: "There's only a way to find out" -> "There's only one way to find out" (more normal way to say this) in the mission entry popup.

Mission objectives have an interesting list of things to do; 10 Civilians to save and 10 experimentation tables to destroy sounds like a lot though.



I run into some Scientists holding people hostage; they appear to be re-named Possessed Scientists, in a custom faction. They look pretty good for this purpose, but they still have their default CoT description.

[-0.01] Missing text: scientists could use a description other than the default CoT text.

I find some Experimentation Tables and destroy them. One of their guards says:

[NPC] Petro Scientist: Your not suppose to be in here!

[-0.01] Typo: "Your not suppose to be in here" -> "You're not supposed to be in here"

Deep in the lab I find Dr. Aeon, who spawns as an EB for me, with a group full of Dr. Aeon Clone EBs.

[-0.1] Missing text: the main Dr. Aeon has the default generic EB text, needs a real description.


Now serving: number 3

First try at this boss, I narrowly lose to the 3 EBs, leaving the main one at a sliver of life.

Second try, I take down the main EB, then the two other ones beat me.

Third try, I defeat the two remaining EBs. One of them pops Elude or something similar and even with Focused Accuracy, I miss him a lot, but I eventually drop him.

This multi-EB encounter feels pretty hard, but considering it's labeled "Task Force" and "Ideal for Teams", maybe it is OK. You might consider making Dr. Aeon "only boss required"; though all the guys with him are Aeon Clones, so defeating them all might make sense too.

Found a computer mainframe labeled "Research Data" which gave me the "Experimentation Data" clue.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Not only did Dr. Aeon and his staff were experimenting with humans subjects, but also are collaborating with alien beans" -> "Not only were Dr. Aeon and his staff experimenting with human subjects, but they were also collaborating with alien beings" (in "Experimentation Data")

[-0.01] Phrasing: "This alien beans, classified as Zeta Reticulans, are apparently working on a biological weapon know as 'Theta'" -> "These alien beings, classified as Zeta Reticulans, are apparently working on a biological weapon known as 'Theta'"

I end up having to search for the 10th hostage, but freeing him finishes the mission.

[-0.01] Repeated text: all 10 hostages have the same dialog, as do all 10 destroyable objects. Would be nice to have some variation, particularly because there are so many of each. Perhaps some of the hostages could mention having seen aliens, or some of the scientists guarding them or the experiments could mention them?

Debriefing:

[-0.01] Typo: "Go figures" -> "It figures"
[-0.01] Typo: "a twisted mind like him" -> "a twisted mind like his"
[-0.01] Typo: "What did you found" -> "What did you find"


[3.27] at end of mission 3

Mission 4
Briefing:

[-0.01] Typo: "this aliens" -> "these aliens"
[-0.01] Phrasing: "a formula that keep them alive, their food, and for use in the stasis tubes" ... not sure what you mean to say here but it doesn't quite scan. It sounds like this formula is medicine, food, AND a component of the stasis tubes, all at the same time, which seems a little hard to believe.

[-0.1] Don't understand: Why would Dr. Aeon and his scientists help the aliens with a project to reduce the human population? It seems like Aeon & scientists would be included in the population thatgets reduced?

Send off message:

[-0.01] Typo: "in there floor" -> "in their base"

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Make sure that Theta weapon never leave the base and find me some data on there computer" -> "Make sure the Theta weapon never leaves the base, and try to get some data from their computers"

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Also, while you there" -> "Also, while you are there"

[-0.01] Punctuation: "Foil Alien's Plan" should be "Foil Alien Plan" or "Foil Aliens' Plan" (in mission title)

Inside the mission, I find some Reticulans, who seem to be a mix of Rularuu wisps and Rikti drones and have dialog like the Rikti. I destroy a bunch of Stasis Tubes; I'm not quite clear on what nefarious thing Stasis Tubes are used for, but they seem important.

Finding an "Alien Computer", I get the "Alien Files" clue from it.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "It's seems that" -> "It seems that", "know as" -> "known as" (in Alien Files)

[-0.01] Don't understand: "These Serpents rightly consider themselves native Terrans" -- why are they rightly considered Terrans? (in Alien Files)

[-0.1] Writing: the revelation that the Zeta Reticulans are working for a race of Serpents feels very dry, it could stand to be written to be a little more immersive. Additionally, there should be other clues or foreshadowing that also support the idea that the Reticulans are a client race of these mysterious Serpents.

Deep inside the caves I find the "Theta", who appears to be a renamed Kraken giant monster guarded by two Rikti Heavy EBs.

[+0.1] Cool visual: really does look like an alien monster surrounded by giant robots.

[-0.01] Missing text: Heavy Assault Unit's description still uses the default Rikti text; should be rewritten for Zeta Reticulans.


Overconfidence: The real scrapper inherent power

I attacked the Theta and gave it a good try, but I just can't damage him faster than he heals. I don't think any of my characters can actually solo the Kraken GM, so at this point I'm afraid I can't complete the story arc.

[***] Can't complete: can't defeat Theta GM (required objective). Quite possibly this is doable on a team, but it isn't doable for me, so I have to stop here.

Overall

[+0.1] Good use of re-colored and re-named standard enemies in a way that supported the story's theme.

I liked the conspiracy theory and UFO angle of this arc, and thought it did a good job of keeping to those themes. The arc is definitely aimed at a large, task force level team; unfortunately, this prevents me from actually being able to complete it, so I felt I had to mark off score for that. There are also a lot of minor spelling/grammar/wording issues; I know the author isn't a native English speaker, so hopefully some of my notes will help with fixing those.

I was not sure what the fairest way to rate this arc would be. I could not complete it due to its difficulty, but, it is also clearly labeled as "task force" and "ideal for teams". But then, the author did ask me to review it, and I (usually) review while solo. After asking for some input in the MA Arc channel, I decided to leave this arc unrated. Hope that works for you.

--

My queue is currently:

FredrikSvanberg - A Taste For Evil #349034
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 01 #47143
@Gypsy Rose - In Pursuit of Liberty #344916 (re-review, assuming she plays an arc)
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 02 #11728
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 03 #174352
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 04 #269714
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290

Way to go, Bubbawheat!

While I was playing the arc, I was picturing Indigo disavowing $name at the end of mission 4. Then in mission 5, federal agents would surround $name's hideout, purportedly to arrest the Dystheist, but actually, they'd be happier if the Dystheist was killed while resisting arrest. This would neatly tie up all of Indigo's loose ends and would be an elegant ending, by the conventions of the spy thriller genre.

Of course, you cannot actually kill off the player character in mission architect (in fact, it would be undesirable if you could ), so this probably wouldn't work for an actual AE story arc.

Perhaps Indigo could try to assassinate the player character (under the guise of "arresting the Dystheist"), but when the player character defeats her, she agrees to fake the Dystheist's death instead; or maybe the player turns it around on Indigo somehow and plants evidence that she is the Dystheist, and then Indigo gets arrested at the end. If that happened, I think Indigo would stoically go down under the frame job, maybe even giving a false confession for the sake of saving MJ's reputation.

This would be a pretty big change to the last mission, though; I'd picture it all going down in some seedy warehouse that Indigo finally tracks $name down as hiding at, rather than in Atlas Park. Might be too big a change from your original idea. So, up to you. Use what you like, ignore what you don't.

This is getting pretty far from the original topic, but regarding stale arcs, I'd suggest dividing published arcs into: Untested, Tested and Protected.

When an arc is first published, and each time it is re-published, it becomes Untested.

When an Untested arc is successfully played through (by anyone - usually the author, but could be someone else), it becomes Tested.

When a new CoH patch is released (or maybe just patches that directly affect MA), all Tested arcs are invalidated, reverting to Untested until someone plays through them.

When an arc becomes a Dev Choice or Hall of Fame, it becomes Protected (immune to change, can't be invalidated by a patch).

The default MA search should show only Tested and Protected arcs, but under "more" there should be an option to see Untested arcs, if desired. The "my published stories" search should always show all of your own arcs (even if Untested), though maybe a graphic showing which ones need testing would be helpful.

Advantages of this approach:
- Gradually filters out stale content.
- But you can still find the stale content if you really want to.
- Encourages MA authors to perform regression testing after a patch or a re-publish (note: it's a good idea for authors to do this anyway).
- Discourages MA authors from writing arcs that are too long/too hard/too tedious, since they have to play through it regularly.
- If I have a favorite arc by an author who quit the game, I can keep it from going stale by testing it myself.

Disadvantages:
- Won't filter out farms (except for stale ones no one is playing).
- Increases overhead required by an Author to maintain each story arc.
- Requires some development effort to implement.

It's all idle speculation unless someone volunteers to code it. But here's my 2inf in case anyone is reading it.

Minor tweaks:

1. Reworded the first line of mission 1 briefing to:

[NOTE: For this story arc, you are playing a teen sidekick of your hero.]

Hopefully this is clearer than the previous text ("a teen version of your hero") in setting up expectations. May still have anomalous results when playing a teen player character, but I figure this text works better for the 90% of the player characters who are adults.

2. Added a level 11-20 Clockwork boss to the "Clockwork Adventurers" custom faction in order to improve their exp. (Testing showed this faction was awarding reduced exp; I tracked this down to the fact that I had mistakenly added a level 1-10 Clockwork boss, who couldn't spawn at level 20 and so didn't count.)

3. Changed level ranges to 15-20, 15-20, 20-25, 25-30 (was 15-20, 20-20, 20-25, 29-30), to more closely mirror the equivalent story arcs and task forces that the individual missions are modeled on.


Projectionist also sent me this update of the Teen Phalanx art he is working on:



I really like it.

Some changes I made as a result of your comments:

1. I added a clue to Detective Basinns in Talos Vice mission 1, to give him a little "screen time". He doesn't appear much in the rest of the arc, though, mostly because I want Croquette and the player to have the "buddy cop" dynamic. I admittedly sideline Basinns (who is Croquette's official partner) in order to try and increase the player's role.

2. I reworded the first line of the Teen Phalanx Forever! mission 1 briefing to be:

[NOTE: For this story arc, you are playing a teen sidekick of your hero.]

Hopefully this is clearer than the previous text ("a teen version of your hero") in setting up expectations. I confess you may still have anomalous results when playing a teen player character, but I figure this text works better for the 90% of the player characters who are adults.

3. I changed Papers and Paychecks from "Work in Progress" to "Looking for Feedback". Due to generally positive feedback recently (here and on the MA Arc superteam), this arc is now spared from possible removal, at least for awhile.

Thanks much for the feedback!

I'd like to nominate @Celestial Nemesis, author of The Coldest of Wars (arc id 299972), for "Best Unknown Author". As of this writing, s/he only has 1 arc and it has 40 plays.

For an author's first (and only) arc, I thought The Coldest of Wars was impressively detailed, with good writing, good clues, some decent characters, decent gameplay, and a fun plot.


(I'm still trying to work out who I want to nominate for "Best New Arc"; I have three possibles so far, and might stumble across more before the deadline.)

WARNING: LONG, RAMBLING, FULL OF OPINION!

I myself have received arc reviews that rated some of my story arcs 4 stars, 3 stars, even 2 stars. What you take away from such a review is, of course, up to each individual person. I think all feedback is valuable, though; especially negative feedback.

For example, Venture recently gave one of my arcs 3 stars. In my opinion, it would be useless for me to rail at him and say stuff like, "You're so mean, why didn't you give me 5 stars? No one will play my arc now!" Aside from being nonconstructive, I'm sure he's built up an immunity to this kind of flame by now. Instead, what I prefer to take away from this experience is, "What can I change in my arc to make the next person give me more than 3 stars?"

GlaziusF said, "I've said several times that one individual rating doesn't matter. If you don't have enough ratings to get your arc noticed by the general public, you need more word of mouth and promotion than one vote is able to give you. If you do, one rating isn't going to mean much." I think this is true. But, using this reasoning, GlaziusF eventually gave up and started giving everyone 5 stars for everything (in game, anyway), even for things that he rates 2 stars on the forum. I don't agree with this approach, though.

It's not GlaziusF's one vote that matters. It's the next ten, next twenty votes after that. If you end up pressuring GlaziusF (or Venture, or me) into awarding you 5 stars, there is no guarantee that any of those next ten or twenty strangers will agree that your arc is worthy of being 5 starred.

If my new arc Poodle Skirt Girl against the Invaders from Mars deserves 2 stars because of its many flaws, it's not doing me a big favor to have one or two people 5-star it despite its 2-star-worthiness. The next ten or twelve random people who play Poodle Skirt Girl against the Invaders from Mars will go, "How the heck did this get up to 5 stars?" and probably award me some punitive 1-star or 2-star ratings. The MA Arc Finder superteam even has a game that works like this, "Make or Break", which tries to determine whether 5-star arcs really deserve to have 5 stars! A game that was, as far as I know, invented by this thread's original poster.

It would be better, in my opinion, for me to take GlaziusF's suggestions to try and improve Poodle Skirt Girl to be deserving of a 5-star rating, rather than just demand he give me a 5-star rating and hope the next group of people to play the arc will see the inherent beauty of Poodle Skirt Girl and charitably give me 5 stars too.

The best and most shining example of doing this is, in my opinion, Escalation. In my original review of Escalation I gave it 4 stars. Femfury took my feedback, along with the feedback of many other forum reviewers, and used it to improve the story arc. Now I can't praise Escalation highly enough. Escalation deservingly became a Dev Choice arc in November. In my opinion, this was due to the tireless efforts of its author to make it a better story arc.

It's anecdotal, I'll admit. But I think it's an example of how I think the feedback loop should work.

The Christmas We Get review
Arc ID: 356477
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Drama
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 41-54
Warnings: AVs, EBs, custom power selections (but author note claims that AVs and EBs are not used as enemies)

The premise is to help some newbie in the Rogue Isles with an operation against Arachnos. I played a 43 katana/willpower scrapper, almost entirely using SOs (one set of 4 Smashing Haymaker, everything else SOs), on +0 x0 difficulty. The contact is a custom character in body armor.

[5.0] starting points.

Mission 1
Briefing: nice use of color and formatting. Meeting up with the contact in Port Oakes, he says very little about what his plans are, other than he's going to hit Arachnos and I won't do anything too dirty. This is borderline "not enough info" but his saying these last few words are enough to make me guardedly accept the mystery mission.

Send-off message: he reveals what the mission actually is, to hack some computers in an Arachnos base.

I also get "Agent Murano's Briefing File" as an initial clue. This has some very sketchy background information. I do like the reference to a character who appeared in Splintered Shields. I don't think this is a sequel, though.

The mission is full of Arachnos, but based on the briefing it sounds like I don't really have to fight them, so I skip past most of them. Some of the patrols have some interesting dialog about local Arachnos policies (mostly oppressive, unsurprisingly).

Found and fought an "Operative Scott", who has amusingly jaded dialog.

Clicking the first Arachnos Computer gives me the "Shipping Files" clue, which makes the info being stolen seem pretty mundane. Not much more is learned from the other 3 Arachnos Computers, but finding the last one completes the mission.

Debriefing: the contact claims the data "looks innocuous but will be very useful". Not quite seeing it yet, but maybe it will become clear later.

[-0.1] Don't know why I'm doing this. (Though, keeping me in the dark seems to be part of the story so far.)

[4.9] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: the contact wants me to clear out a Council base so he can use it for a home base.

[-0.1] Don't know why I'm doing this: why clear out a temporary base if he only needs it for "a few hours"? Not explained, seems puzzling.

[-0.01] Typo: incapcitate -> incapacitate (in briefing)

Send-off message: the contact claims that "all will become clear soon." We'll see.

Inside the mission, there are some Council types singing a German Christmas carol. I nearly flagged this as "Hey, Council are Italian now," but there's some nice dialog hinting that most of these are former 5th Columnists that were absorbed into the Council. Or wait... maybe they actually ARE 5th Column who are feigning being Council operatives; this seems possible, too. Either way, it's kinda cool.

[+0.1] Neat use of former (?) 5th Column as Council operatives.

I found Archon Murray, a named boss who was planning a Christmas party (?).

[-0.01] Typo: Raseri -> Raserei (in Murray's description)

[-0.01] Typo: comng -> coming (in Murray's description)


Telling the host that his party sucks.

Finding "An interesting-looking computer", I click it and get the "Council Computer Notes" clue, which also completes the mission. The clue actually has bullet points which confirm that the Council guys here were actually 5th Column in disguise.

[-0.01] Formatting: should separate bullet points A, B and C with line breaks to make them more legible.

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: if the 5th Column have really infiltrated this Council base, why would they incriminate themselves by putting this information in a file on the computer?

It's interesting that the notes mention Ramiel; but why are the Council interested in Ramiel? Perhaps this should be mentioned as well.

This mission was a defeat all, but it made sense as a defeat all, and the map wasn't too big, so I thought this was fine.

Debriefing: the contact now explains why he wanted me to take over this base, revealing part of his mad plan. Why didn't he say some of this in the briefing, I wonder? It would've made it clearer what I was supposed to be doing.

[4.76] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: one of the contact's supporters, a priest, is under attack by Arachnos troops, and the contact wants me to go save him. This seems kind of unrelated to the earlier plot; hopefully it will tie in somehow.

Inside the mission, I almost immediately find Agent Catherine Murano, an ally pinned down by some Arachnos.

[-0.1] Ally too powerful: an EB ally (maybe an AV on higher difficulty?) seems much too strong for the opposition in this mission. (Also it's just plain weird that she's invis while kneeling down as a captive.)


Rescuing Invisible Woman.

Agent Murano gives me the "An Unexpected Ally" clue.

A little further in we find "Father Jack Rolston", a hostage surrounded by Arachnos. We easily annihilate the Arachnos and free Father Jack.

[-0.01] Inconsistency: the briefing calls him "Jack Ralston" but the actual hostage is named "Jack Rolston" (last name is different)

Freeing Father Jack gives me "Father Jack's Story" as a clue, hinting that he's somehow connected with the "shipments" and also completes the mission, giving me "Debriefing with Murano" as a clue. We've now learned that these mysterious shipments are supposedly "Christmas party supplies". Murano is very skeptical of all this and seems convinced that the contact is up to something very shady.

Debriefing: Supposedly I can't find the contact at the rendezvous point.

[-0.1] Debriefing too short: barely one line and doesn't give much info.

[-0.01] Continuity problem: Ramiel said he was going to be preparing the Council base, shouldn't I be checking for him there, not the rendezvous point?

[4.54] at end of mission 3

Mission 4
Briefing: the story apparently anticipated my objection and now sends me to the Council base.

Inside the mission, I quickly find and rescue Ramiel, who is an EB ally. The dialog appears to confirm that Ramiel is a former Arachnos operative that has gone rogue.


o/` Hark the herald angels sing! o/`

I like the etymology and the symbolism of the Ramiel codename that is presented, though I can't confirm that Ramiel actually means what he says; Wikipedia says it means "Thunder of God" and also the name of the angel of hope (which seems fitting for the theme).

[+0.1] Nice symbolism: Ramiel's codename.

[-0.1] Ally too powerful: Ramiel spawned as an EB with purple triangles. This seems much too strong against the opposition in this mission.

Ramiel gets stuck on one of the cave walls at one point (poor pathing, probably not much you can do barring changing maps) but I manage to get him unstuck by running back and forth a bit.

We find Operative Lucci and defeat her. She has some fun dialog. After she goes down, I still haven't achieved "Defeat Operative Lucci"; I had to kill a Fortunata in the next room before I got credit. May want to make her "only boss required". This finished the mission and gave me "The Plan" as a clue.

I also see I have "Behind the Mask" as a clue at this point; not sure if I got this for defeating Lucci or rescuing Ramiel.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "whatever else hoi polloi" -> "whatever else the hoi polloi" (in "The Plan")

Ramiel's plan is to celebrate Christmas, not because he likes Christmas, but because it's subversive against the Arachnos regime, as well as annoying Lord Recluse on a personal level. It's also part of his (long-term) mad plan to eventually conquer the Rogue Isles (though that seemed rather less likely to work).

[+0.1] Interesting plot idea.

[4.63] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
Briefing: I like the Dr. Seuss reference. The contact sends me into an Arachnos base to steal Christmas supplies. It occurs to me that this sounds ludicrous on the face of it; but with the build up of the plot so far, it kinda works for me. This also neatly ties together the various seemingly unrelated missions Ramiel had me do earlier on (missions 1 through 3).

Send-off message: the contact wants me to take out a security computer and the base commander. But who actually is going to steal the Christmas supplies? No one is mentioned as undertaking that part of the plan.

[-0.1] Plot hole: how are the Christmas supplies being recovered? (I would've expected some glowies to click.) Even if this isn't a task assigned to me, I would expect some mention to be made of how this will happen.

[-0.01] Punctuation: "Take out the security computer." in the mission objectives should lose the trailing period (looks weird with a comma after it)

Map selection: initially I thought it was weird that this mission wasn't in an Arachnos style base, but after exploring a bit, the warehouse with all the crates does work well for a place where shipments would be stored.

I found and disabled the security computer, satisfying "Take out the security computer." and triggering an ambush.

Found Operative Carrey, who spawned as a lieutenant for me, and called two ambushes. Defeating him completed the mission.


Spreading Christmas cheer.

Debriefing: nicely written. The very last paragraph with "singing in the distance" and Christmas trees being put up, really grabbed me.

[+0.1] Nice ending.

[-0.01] Typo: etherial -> ethereal (in debriefing)

Souvenir: nicely dovetails with Agent Murano's earlier objection that Kobushi didn't have the necessary clearance to know the override codes that were needed for the plot to work. The souvenir is nicely written and the identity of the contact's mysterious ally makes sense based on his canonical characterization.

[+0.1] Cool souvenir that adds to the story.

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: not very smart for mysterious ally to admit to treason in writing and sign his name.

[-0.01] Typo: Nevetheless -> Nevertheless (in souvenir)

[4.6] at end of mission 5.

Overall
I thought this was a very nice holiday-themed story arc with good writing and characters. I had some issues with how little information was provided early on about what was going on, but the big reveal at the end of mission 4 cleared all that up and tied everything together quite neatly.

Throughout the arc, I felt like numerous minor characters were given just enough personality to make each one a little more "alive" than the typical named boss or named hostage.

[+0.1] Good characterization of minor supporting characters

I'm a little puzzled by the Council/5th Column interaction in mission 2; there was never any follow up on that part of the story.

[-0.01] Unresolved plot thread: why would the 5th Column infiltrate a Council base and throw a Christmas party? Especially if Lord Recluse stomps on Christmas as hard as is portrayed. (Peripheral at best to the main story, so I only rated this as a -0.01 nitpick)

[4.69] overall; rounding up, I gave this arc 5 stars.

--

My queue is currently:

Tenzen - The Hidden Agenda #356334
FredrikSvanberg - A Taste For Evil #349034
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 01 #47143
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 02 #11728
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 03 #174352
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 04 #269714
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290

Thanks for all these reviews! I'm definitely going to try and incorporate some of the suggestions you made to my various arcs. It sounds like you enjoyed several of them, which I'm glad to hear. It looks like I owe you quite a few reviews of Galactic Protectorate Parts 1 through 8572 as well.

Thanks again!

The Tangled Weave review
Arc ID: 338575
Keywords: Ideal for Teams, Complex Mechanics, Canon Related
Morality: Villainous
Level range: 5-10
Warnings: EBs, high level villains appearing at low levels

The premise is an introductory arc for VEATs. I played this on a hero on a 2-player team, though, mostly because our level range matched. I was on a level 9 kin/sonic defender; my powers were slotted with either TOs or nothing. My teammate was on a level 9 FF/archery defender. Being on a team, I was moving through the arc faster than I normally would, so my notes are a little more sketchy. Hopefully having 2 people play through the arc should make up for it.

[5.0] points at start.

Mission 1
The contact wants us to plant some false info to lure out traitors.

[-0.01] Default "Accept" message is a little dull; suggest changing it to be something the player says.

The map is suspiciously empty. We saw tons of allied Arachnos and a Base Commander, who didn't seem to have a name (but maybe a title is enough).

Finding a glowy, we click it and a bunch of wolf spiders spawn and call us traitors and attack. We now have "Investigate Network Activity" as a triggered objective.

There's a lot of intramural fighting among Arachnos now, as we look through the map for the new objective.

We found Jenkins; I liked his dialog. He seems to satisfy the "network activity" objective.


We catch Jenkins red-handed using Arachnos' internet connection for non-official use!

[+0.1] Neat dialog

[-0.1] No clues for any of this? Seems like we should've gotten something.

[+0.1] Neat mechanics for this mission

[-0.1] Player is diminished: Burch turns out to be the traitor, but he isn't exposed because of the player's efforts; the contact reveals this.

[+0.1] Continuity: having Burch be the traitor is good continuity with the official Mercy Island storyline.

[5.09] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: we need to enter a Snake temple to fight Legacy Chain.

[-0.01] Typo: artefacts -> artifacts

[-0.1] Briefing seemed much too short

[-0.01] Default "Accept" message is a little dull

We rescued some Snakes, and they joined us as an ally.


In a strange role reversal, we helped Snakes fight some humans.

Eventually we encountered and fought the Diviner of Truth (who fled from us at low life, but we got him).

Debriefing:

[-0.1] Debriefing: Syrus is mentioned in debriefing, not encountered during mission.

[+0.1] Good continuity: both of us liked the tie-in to the standard Mercy plotline.

[4.97] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3

[-0.01] Typo: unsanitary problems -> sanitary problems (in briefing)

[-0.01] Typo: more interesting specimen -> most interesting specimens (in briefing)

[-0.01] Default "Accept" message is a little dull

[-0.01] Typo: "3 advanced specimen to capture" -> "3 advanced specimens to capture" (in objectives)


[NPC] Maintenance Worker: Arachnos! I'm saved!
Now that's not something you hear every day.

Liked Dr Creed's appearance! A nice cameo.

We got the maintenance worker killed; I liked his "dying" message.

[4.93] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: now we're to punish a hero infiltrator.

[-0.01] Default "Accept" message is a little dull

Lots of Longbow inside. We found the hero; I love the "Lady Darkdoom" name, it's so..stereotypical.

[-0.01] Costume: she's wearing a Longbow uniform? Seems a bit too obvious to be a proper infiltrator?

We end up having to defeat some leftover Longbow after beating Lady Darkdoom, in order to succeed at her objective. Consider making Lady Darkdoom "only boss required".

Great mission exit popup!

[4.91] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5

[-0.01] Typo: Dr Creed -> Dr. Creed (two instances)
[-0.01] Typo: cess pools -> cesspools
[-0.01] Default "Accept" message is a little dull

[-0.1] Map selection: the green moldy office seems much too big for the number of objectives in this mission.

Infected Corpse is in the "Mad Scientist" faction, but is not actually a mad scientist. (nitpicky)

I liked the recolored Vahzilok, they look good.

Some dialog we saw:

[NPC] Infected Corpse: How did they escape their cells?
[NPC] Stricken Brawler: Hurt . . . you.
[NPC] Infected Corpse: Someone must have let them out, there's no other explanation!
[NPC] Stricken Brawler: So thirsty.

But, should corpses really be lucid enough to say these lines? (Nitpicky)

[-0.01] Typo: "Lead mr Geist to safety" -> "Lead Mr. Geist to safety"


Showdown with the big bad guy!

Creed fled at the end. We chased and dropped him, but then had to go back and mop up stragglers in order to accomplish the objective. You might consider changing him to "only boss required".

The final boss "teleports away" instead of being properly defeated; this seemed a little disappointing as an ending.

[-0.1] Disappointing: Creed is scripted to escape even if the player beats him down.
[+0.1] Continuity: admittedly, this is good continuity with the official Mercy Island storyline.

[4.77] at end of mission 5.

Overall
I thought this was a fun starting story for a newbie villain. It seemed well-balanced for lowbies, had good tie-ins with the official continuity, and had a lot of fun elements.

Rounding 4.77 up, I gave this arc 5 stars.

My teammate gave the arc 4 stars; he said he would've liked more clues.

--

My queue is currently:

Venture - The Christmas We Get #356477
Tenzen - The Hidden Agenda #356334
FredrikSvanberg - A Taste For Evil #349034
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 01 #47143
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 02 #11728
<placeholder>
<placeholder>
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 03 #174352
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<placeholder>
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 04 #269714

Real Afterlife review
Arc ID: 354483
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Canon Related, Mystery
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 39-39
Warnings: EBs, high level villains appearing at low levels, custom power selections. (Author note in arc description says the player doesn't actually fight the EBs and high level villains.)

The premise is related to a book by War Witch called "Real Life"; I assume this means the Paragon Studios person who goes by this name, and not the in-game character, but I'm not sure. Regardless, I'm not familiar with this book, so not sure what to expect. I played a 39 archery/dev blaster on +0 x0 difficulty, mostly SOs with some minor IO slotting (about 16% range DEF, no other bonuses of note). The contact is Azuria.

[5.0] points to start with.

Mission 1
Briefing: nicely formatted with good use of colors and fonts. Azuria wants me to find out why CoT have been sighted in Croatoa. She says "it's not normally a place that interests them"; but actually, Croatoa is heavily magical so it doesn't seem strange to me that CoT might be interested in Croatoa. (Granted, no CoT are normally seen there.)

[-0.01] Typo: recieved -> received, recieving -> receiving

Mission title is "Stop the excavation!" but no excavation was mentioned in the briefing or send-off message, so this is an odd thing to call it. Perhaps "Stop Circle plot in Croatoa" or something similar would fit better, or Azuria could mention the CoT were seen near an excavation, in which case it would be fine as-is.

[-0.01] Mission title doesn't match briefing.

Entering the mission, I find myself in a blue cave. With Croatoa being mentioned, I would've expected to be on a Croatoa outdoor map, or at least the type of cave that you see in Croatoa. I don't believe any of the Croatoa missions are on a blue cave map.

[-0.1] Map selection doesn't match the story.

Going a little deeper into the mission, I find several captives named "Circle Slave" with Tuatha models.


Don't tell me what I can't do!

[-0.01] Typo: Tuatha de Dannon -> Tuatha de Dannan (in Circle Slave's group name)
[-0.01] Typo: Thuatha -> Tuatha (in Circle Slave's description)

After I rescue him, he says:


[NPC] Circle Slave: Circle evil.... Arrow Girl good.... Arrow Girl Thuatha friend

[-0.01] Typo: Thuatha -> Tuatha (in Circle Slave's dialog)

All the Circle Slaves seem to have the same dialog; would be a little nicer if you could mix it up a little (if space permits).


I found a patch of debris that was named "Clues". This should probably be named something like "Debris" or "Rocks".

[-0.01] "Clues" glowy should be named after what it looks like, not what you get from it

The Clues give me the "Mysterious Rubble" clue, described as stones with magical runes on them. The clue suggests I should take them to Azuria; normally I'd prefer if a clue would directly tell me the meaning, rather than force me to take it back to the contact, but in the case of magical runes, I suppose it makes sense to take it to Azuria to decipher (for Arrow Girl, anyway; maybe a sorceress would be different).

I overhear some patrols who seem to be searching for some sort of parchment. I eventually get near a CoT boss, who says:

[NPC] Corinthas: Finally we can leave this forsaken land and return to Oranbanga

[-0.01] Typo: Oranbanga -> Oranbega (in Corinthas' dialog). Also, needs a period at the end.

Defeating Coninthas gave me the "Corinthas screeches at you" clue, along with ending the mission. I like how you have the evil laughter (in the clue) also in the dialog; I think I'd even put a little more of the clue's dialog into the mob's actual dialog. At the very least, the "FOOL! This fight doesn't matter!" bit.

[-0.01] Typo: Oranbanga -> Oranbega (in Corinthas' clue)

[-0.01] Typo: Thuatha -> Tuatha (in mission exit popup)

I liked saving the Tuatha, but at the end of the mission, I still have no idea what the CoT were up to, which makes me feel like I failed to do what Azuria asked (namely, find out what the CoT were doing in Croatoa).

[-0.1] Don't understand: mission has ended, but it doesn't seem like I've accomplished what was asked

Debriefing: Azuria seems confused by what I've found, too.

[-0.01] Continuity error: Azuria says "[the CoT's] affinity with the mystical arts tends to be more spiritual than geological" and generally suggests that the CoT should have no interest in magic rocks. This is untrue; the CoT commonly have magical crystals in Oranbega, and their whole plan in the Ice Mistral SF hinges on various mind control crystals. (This is rather nitpicky so only rated this at -0.01 though.)

[-0.01] Typo: M.A.G.I -> M.A.G.I. (or MAGI is also OK)

[4.69] at end of mission 1

Mission 2
Briefing: Azuria refers to "M.A.G.I.'s top Croatoan sages" here; for authenticity, I'd suggest giving their actual names, which may sound familiar to players (e.g., Walter Daschle, Gregori Romanov, etc.) rather than saying "top men are looking into it". The sages apparently cannot tell anything about these rune stones, however, except that they were part of a box that had something in it.

[-0.01] Typo: stiffle -> stifle

[-0.01] Typo: extra space after "brought back" and before .

[-0.01] Typo: extra period after "come for".

Send-off message: the "top sages" apparently are able to track down the Circle's "new prize".

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: if the sages can't even tell what was inside the box, how can they possibly know where the thing inside the box was taken? Need a more believable lead-in to this mission.

[-0.01] Typo: poisioning -> poisoning (in mission entry popup)

[-0.01] Typo: abonded -> abandoned (in mission entry popup)

Neat sounding objectives in the mission.

[-0.01] Punctuation: "Why was this section abandoned?" looks weird with a comma right after the question mark, may want to rephrase.

I notice that one objective is "Seek Answers" and the next is "Investigate noises"; consider capitalizing these the same way. (Very nitpicky.)

[-0.01] Typo: Mobs are in a group called "CoT excavaton". excavaton -> excavation

Found a "Pile of Books" glowy that satisfied the "Seek Answers" objective, giving me the "Mystical Books." clue (should probably be "Mystical Books" with no period, for consistency).

[-0.01] Rephrase: "if only you spoke ancient Croatoan so you could understand them" should be "if only you could read ancient Croatoan so you could understand them" (since you read books, you don't speak to them.)

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: if I can't read these books, how do I know they contain "the answers" I'm looking for?

Wouldn't it make more sense for these books to be in ancient Oranbegan, considering I find them in Oranbega? (Nitpicky.) Or if these books are meant to be in Croatoan (and imply that they were inside the aforementioned box), that should be mentioned in the clue.

Found an "unmarked coffin" glowy which satisfied the "Why was this abandoned?" objective, and gave me the "Empty Coffin" clue.

[-0.01] Typo: abondoned -> abandoned (in "Empty Coffin" clue)

[-0.01] Typo: The only clues to what was inside is a distinct outline -> The only clue to what was inside is a distinct outline(in "Empty Coffin" clue)

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: How does finding the empty coffin satisfy "Why was this abandoned?" There is no explanation in the clue for why this area was abandoned. In fact the clue just raises more questions. (Perhaps this could be fixed by rephrasing the objectives to something like "X clues to find" with the coffin being one of the clues.)

After that I found lots and lots of piles of bones labeled "Remains"; clicking on them didn't seem to do anything. There are some messages in my spam message box about finding tatters of robes among the bones.

After extensive searching I found "Mysterious Woman", who appeared to be a friendly boss in some group called "Silver Thorn Arc" being guarded by CoT.


I found her hiding in the swimming pool.

[-0.1] Missing text: Mysterious Woman has no description (uses default "Boss" text instead).

Upon rescuing her, she immediately takes off, the mission ends, and I get the "Who was that?" clue, along with "As you leave the city..." clue. You might consider naming the last one "As you leave Oranbega" (to avoid the player getting confused as to which city you're referring to).

[-0.01] Awkward phrasing: "you brush yourself off of all the dust and cobwebs. Suddenly you notice something that wasn't there before when you went in..... A series of footprints"; consider rephrasing to something like "you brush dust and cobwebs off. Suddenly, you notice something that wasn't there when you entered: a series of footprints".

[-0.1] Don't understand: the mission was to "Find the Artifact"; the mission has ended, but we haven't found the artifact. Unless the books are supposed to be the artifact? If so, that needs to be clearer.

Debriefing: A decent recap of what's just happened and what Azuria thinks of the events so far.

[-0.01] Typo: "M.A.G.I" should be either "M.A.G.I." or "MAGI".

[-0.01] Capitalization: "using them" should be "Using them" (since it is at the start of a sentence). "Good Job" should be "Good job".

[4.06] at end of mission 2

Mission 3
Briefing: nice flavor text at the beginning, but some players may not appreciate the value of coffee (e.g., if their character is a robot or space alien or something). (Nitpicky.) The book DOES turn out to be in Oranbegan. Of course! But then, why did I assume they were in ancient Croatoan in the first place? I found it in Oranbega, after all.

[-0.01] Typo: dilects -> dialects

[-0.01] Typo: languistics -> linguistics

[-0.01] Typo: dicipher -> decipher

[-0.01] Punctuation: "But I know of someone who can" needs a period at the end.

[-0.1] Hard to believe: no one in MAGI, a magical think tank, can read the language of Oranbega, the major magical underground city in City of Heroes?

Send-off message: so she sends me to see Akarist; he does seem a reasonable Oranbega expert. I'm still a little unclear on why we think these particular books are important.

[-0.01] Typo: phanlax -> phalanx

[-0.01] Typo: "isn't always our friends" should be either "isn't always our friend" or "aren't always our friends"

Inside the mission, my only mission objective is "Akarist".

[-0.01] Missing text: "Akarist" objective should be something like "Find Akarist" or "Meet with Akarist", not just his name (which is, I believe, the default text if you leave the field blank).

[-0.01] Typo: mission entry popup, "The Circle must of sent them" -> "The Circle must have sent them"

A number of Longbow troops seem to be held captive by various CoT demons. They don't look required, so I skip over them. There seems to be a LOT of them. I approach one just to see what happens. One of the CoT says:

[NPC] Nerva Spectral Daemon: ANOTHER FILTY HUMAN! KILLS IT!

[-0.01] Typo: FILTY -> FILTHY

Stealthing deep into the mission I find and rescue Akarist, which completes the mission.

[-0.1] Missing text: Akarist and his guards have no dialog at all; being the major objective of this mission, they probably should.

[-0.1] Mission too simple: rescue 1 hostage and done?

Rescuing Akarist gives me the "Akarist's was rescued!" clue, and at the same time "Arkarist's tale of the Oranbegan Mordan".

[-0.01] Typo: "Akarist's was rescued!" -> "Akarist was rescued!"

[-0.01] Typo: "Arkarist's tale" -> "Akarist's tale"

[-0.01] Inconsistency: "Akarist was rescued" says the books belong to "Morbian", but "Arkarist's tale" says they belong to "Mordan".

[-0.01] Typo: fufill -> fulfill (in Akarist's tale)

[-0.01] Typo: "it's body" -> "its body"; also "it's heart" -> "its heart" (in Akarist's tale)

[-0.01] Typo: ressurrect -> resurrect (in Akarist's tale)

Debriefing: interesting speculation about what Mordan/Morbian would do with the knowledge he discovered.

[-0.01] Typo: etherial -> ethereal

[-0.01] Typo: your not feeling -> you're not feeling

[-0.1] Hard to believe: Why is the player supposed to be so afraid of the idea that Mordan/Morbian might possess his own dead corpse? How is this worse than the zombies or liches we normally run into? I think I'd be more afraid if Mordan/Morbian ended up possessing some powerful undead being, like Numina or Nosferatu.

[3.49] at end of mission 3

Mission 4
[-0.01] Typo: "A Witches Tale" should be "A Witch's Tale" or "A Witches' Tale" (in the caption)

[-0.01] Typo: "Ritki" -> "Rikti" (in the briefing)

Briefing: Azuria gives an info dump on what she knows about Mordan, but then says she needs us to do something completely different.

Send off message: CoT are gathering in Founders Falls and Azuria wants me to go do something about it.

[-0.01] Punctuation: "Find the mysterious woman." in mission objectives should omit the trailing period (looks strange with a comma right after it)

The map is full of recolored Earth Thorn Casters named "Oranbanga Decendant" in an enemy group called "Ressurrected".

[-0.01] Typo: Oranbanga Decendant -> Oranbega Descendant
[-0.01] Typo: Ressurrected -> Resurrected

After clearing a few rooms of Oranbanga Decendants, I find War Witch captured by some (non-recolored) Earth Thorn Casters in the CoT excavaton group. Not sure if these were meant to be Ressurrected Oranbanga Decendants too, or not. Rescuing War Witch satisfies "Find the mysterious woman." objective and gives me the "War Witch needs help!" clue. She also says "Mordan is here!" in her dialog (maybe also worth mentioning this in her clue).

[-0.01] Typo: existance -> existence (in "War Witch needs help!")

[-0.01] Faction name: War Witch is in the "Silver Thorn Arc" group. I have the feeling that "Silver Thorn Arc" just means NPCs belonging to the story arc with silver thorns in it. She probably should belong to a faction more descriptive of her character, such as "Paragon Heroes".

Found a renamed ghost, called "Unbound Oranbangan", also in the "Ressurrected" faction. Unbound Oranbangan's description actually says that it was not successfully resurrected, though, so maybe "Ressurrected" is not an appropriate group for it. (Nitpicky.)

[-0.01] Typo: "Unbound Oranbangan" -> "Unbound Oranbegan".

War Witch gets stuck on geometry at one point (her leg clipping with a boulder) but I eventually manage to shake her loose by moving around her.

I finally reach the last room of this cave to discover it is the 5-layer-cake room. Arrgh.


The most horrifying moment of the arc.

I exhaustively search and clear the 5-layer-cake room, but the mission doesn't complete. I end up having to search the entire cave map again, only to find 2 CoT ghosts hiding behind a pillar in one of the previous rooms. Killing them completed the mission.

[-0.5] Frustrating gameplay: defeat all Earth Thorn Casters and CoT ghosts in an underground blue cave, with multiple rooms with multiple levels, including the 5-layer-cake room -- very frustrating and time consuming. Please consider changing the objective something that stops the CoT but isn't a Defeat All; or alternatively, make the map much smaller.

[-0.1] Lack of mission details: there were no mission details on this map except for War Witch herself (well, and Defeat All). Consider adding some more details (patrols perhaps, or CoT performing rituals or preparing to invade Croatoa) to make this mission seem more lively. And what happened to Mordan? War Witch said he was in this mission, but he wasn't.

Mission exit popup has me being very suspicious towards War Witch. I also get a "War Witch Explains Herself" clue. She explains that she isn't really War Witch ... in fact, she is a parallel universe War Witch who is currently possessed by the Primal Earth version of War Witch.

[-0.01] Typo: dimention -> dimension (in "War Witch Explains Herself")

[-0.01] Rephrase: "I just about to alert any heroes in the area" -> "I was just about to alert the heroes in the area"

[-0.01] Rephrase: "she allowed her to possess her body" should be "she allowed me to possess her body"

[-0.1] Unclear explanation: I initially thought "War Witch Explains Herself" meant that Primal Earth War Witch had actually stolen the silver thorn from Mordan, and used it to possess Pocket D War Witch, which confused me because I thought Mordan was using the silver thorn to possess, umm, Mordan. I didn't realize War Witch's real plan was to get me to take the silver thorn and use it to resurrect her until the end of mission 5. I think this clue needs to be clarified to explain this better; it makes sense in hindsight but is somewhat confusing.

Debriefing: The writing here, where War Witch describes how her condition feels, seemed very evocative to me.

[+0.1] Neat writing in debriefing.

[2.78] at the end of mission 4

Mission 5
Briefing: War Witch wants me to take down Mordan.

[-0.01] Typo: sympathic -> sympathetic

[-0.01] Continuity: War Witch says Mordan is here for "revenge" on the Cabal for some mistake long ago; she also suggests that Mordan was once a sympathetic character. Reviewing my clue journal, I don't see anything about the Cabal somehow offending Mordan, or any hints that Mordan was ever anything other than an evil wizard. Needs some foreshadowing. (Later I find the souvenir says the Cabal massacred Mordan and his acolytes, but I didn't see where this was mentioned in the story in the first place.)

[-0.01] Typo: Morden -> Mordan (in send-off message)

Mission entry popup: the popup explains the witches are hiding and letting the CoT fight the rest of Croatoa before getting involved.

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: story has established CoT has a grudge against the Cabal; the other Croatoa factions have little love for the Cabal, so I don't think they'd actually fight the CoT to help the Cabal, and I don't believe the CoT should be so ignorant of Croatoa politics that they would randomly attack other factions by mistake.

I find and rescue a Tuatha Champion from some Oranbanga Decendants. The CoT have the presence of mind to say:

[NPC] Oranbanga Decendant: This is not your fight hero!

....as they fight a Tuatha who has nothing to do with the Cabal they are after. The Tuatha joins me after I rescue him, but he's only a minion, so is pretty fragile, especially because the recolored Earth Thorn Casters like to Foot Stomp a lot. May want to make him at least a lieutenant, considering he's a "champion", unless the intent is that he should die easily. I end up using Aid Other, a lot, to heal the allies up between fights. I rescue 2 more Tuatha, then War Witch herself; they all join me. When I rescue War Witch, she says:


[NPC] War Witch: We have to hurry and help the Tuatha!

...but actually, I've rescued all the Tuatha already, so this dialog doesn't make much sense in this context.

[-0.01] Dialog: assumes you rescue War Witch before the Tuatha, but actually you can do it the other way around.

Linking up with War Witch gives me the triggered objective "Defeat Morbian".

When I find the guy, the name of the mob is "Mordan" but in his description he's called "Morbian".

[-0.01] Inconsistency: mission title is "Defeat Morden" but mission objective is "Defeat Morbian". Need to decide on one name and use it, throughout the arc.

[-0.01] Typo: Coucil -> Council (in Mordan/Morbian's description)

Mordan is only a lieutenant for me, which seems awfully easy considering I have 4 allies (granted, 3 are minions). I easily crush him but it doesn't complete the mission. It turns out one CoT ghost had phased out and fled, which kept the objective from being completed; when it returns to the scene, I kill it and the mission ends, giving me "The Silver Thorn" as a clue. Consider making him "only boss required", maybe one rank tougher as well.

"The Silver Thorn" is kind of a cool ending as you try to use it to resurrect War Witch, but it doesn't work out, and War Witch seems to accept this.

[+0.1] Cool story element ("The Silver Thorn" clue)

[-0.01] Typo: Estatic -> Ecstatic (in "The Silver Thorn")

Debriefing: Primal Earth War Witch says her farewells; pretty nice ending. I kinda think Mordan's CoT plot should get at least a cursory mention here; though perhaps that would be distracting from War Witch's monologue, so up to you.

[-0.01] Typo: "it's rightful owner" -> "its rightful owner"

Nice item for souvenir.

[-0.01] Typo: recieved -> received (in souvenir)
[-0.01] Typo: accross -> across (in souvenir)
[-0.01] Typo: maurading -> marauding (in souvenir)
[-0.01] Typo: "A Oranbega sorcerer" -> "An Oranbegan sorcerer" (in souvenir)
[-0.01] Typo: fufill -> fulfill (in souvenir)
[-0.01] Typo: ressurrect -> resurrect (in souvenir, 2 times)
[-0.01] Typo: anymore -> any more (in souvenir)
[-0.01] Typo: dimention -> dimension (in souvenir, 2 times)

[2.62] at end of mission 5

Overall
The story itself is pretty cool, but is marred by a very large number of typos, which normally would be no big deal, but there are so many that it's distracting. I actually had not realized Primal Earth War Witch and Pocket D War Witch were different people (as shown in this arc), but the game lore backs it up; I liked how War Witch was ultimately characterized. The defeat all in the cave felt unnecessarily painful. There were a few plot points that I felt were confusing or needed a bit more explanation or motivation; especially War Witch's plan, which is quite complicated.

Rounding 2.62 up, I gave this arc 3 stars.

--

My queue is currently:

FredrikSvanberg - The Tangled Weave #338575 (played already, need to write up notes)
Venture - The Christmas We Get #356477
Tenzen - The Hidden Agenda #356334
FredrikSvanberg - A Taste For Evil #349034
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 01 #47143
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 02 #11728
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 03 #174352
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 04 #269714