Shagster

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Venture reviewed Escalation

lots and lots of spoilers in the review.

Venture's Review of Escalation, Arc #6143


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My response to Venture's review, in his review thread, is here:

Shagster's thanks and response to Venture's review

Venture,

Thanks for the very well written review. You summarized everything very well and hightlighted the themes and plot points nicely.

And you definitely linked to the two TV Tropes most appropriate to the later versions of Escalation.


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Picking a nit, it might be spruced up a bit if the mobs had a little more variety. Maybe some of the factions Escalation is dealing with could have representatives around, having just delivered her supplies or maybe just wanting to see howher work is progressing for their own reasons.

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I'm mulling this over.

Could have some Trolls or Family in on the police station attack in Act III. Or Family or Crey making a delivery of supplies in Act IV. Maybe.

My two concerns would be: 1) level restrictions and 2) having all the enemies be Dr. Lashion (in one form or another) or her robots is supposed to build the feeling it's a one-on-one grudge match between Dr. Lashion and the player hero. At least in her mind. I'll consider if there's anything I can do to add variety without taking away from the theme as I see it.


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Escalation Extreme's final defeat is kind of Deus Ex Machina-ish but it's hard to see how else it could be done. Actually I can think of a way to do it but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.....

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I agree, and I've been concerned about having an abrupt Dues Ex near the end. However, I don't want to lose the build up to the final mission where Detective Becktrees is impressed by the fact that the hero is "going in" without an option to stop the villainess for good. I wanted to provide a chance for players who like that kind of thing to say their hero was on the way to face insumountable odds with grim determination but no clear path to ultimate victory.

I had also hoped that the "lesser clones" in Mission Four would lay the groundwork that Dr. Lashion was getting more and "attached" emotionally to her top-line clones. But more hints of what is to come is probably needed.

I've added two more computer collections optional goals in Misison Four, in her lab. The clues involved, combined with the dialogue of the weaker clones, should give a hint of what's to come. (at least, to somewhat clever players who click optional glowies and read clues)


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In any case, it's a great arc, recommended.

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Thank you, sir, for all your kind words, and the good commentary. And, may I use the above for a "pull quote" if I make a movie poster?

Don't want to clutter up Venture's thread, so I'll end with a link to my thread for the Escalation arc, where I'll do all my further discussion:

Arc #6143, "Escalation"

Changes list = Spoilers!

*Changes made this morning (5/23)
-Added 2 new computer glowies (optional) in the lab in Mission Four.
The clues from these, along with the dialogue from the "lesser" clones in Mission Four, should give a clever player some hints about Escalation's research, so that the ending in Mission Five can seem a little less Dues Ex Machina. (I'm agreeing that Venture had a point there).

*Changes made between Police Woman's reveiw and Venture's review
-added a destructible object in Mission One, to show what Dr. Lashion's intial plot for her "caper" is. (Optional goal)

-added some looting robot minions in Mission One, to give a sense of more happening than just playing whack-a-mole with the Not So Good Doctor. (Optional goals)

-added an additional optional glowie in Mission Three, to show the danger to the police in the station a little more. (Optional goal)

-Added 3 "boss" fights to Mission Four, to give some extra dialogue for the lab raid, hopefully for more insight into the character of Dr. Lashion / Escalation. (Optional goals)

-added lots of optional glowies to the Lashion Lab in Mission Four, to make it more "lived in", and to have some more clues to hint at things. Also, a destructible cloning tube (also optional)

-tweaked the dialogue of one optional hostage in Mission Five, directly implementing a Police Woman suggestion.

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I have to admit I was quite excited to see that the revised Escalation got such a good review. I totally will have to re-play it sometime, just for fun.

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I'm really flattered you'd like to re-play it.

Hope you enjoy the changes. Your feedback really helped me flesh things out, especially the 4th mission and the lab details. First mission also has a little more sense of what's the initial "caper" going on.

Thanks again, and good luck with the epic final fight when you do the arc again!

Venture reviewed Escalation

lots and lots of spoilers in the review.

Venture's Review of Escalation, Arc #6143

He had a few nits to pick which I'll look at if I can tweak things to improve.

overall he rated it 5 stars (that feels good)
and I guess my pull quotes are him saying:
"The arc has a good theme and the characters are well-written."
and
"In any case, it's a great arc, recommended. "

Thanks to Venture for the review. I know he's a picky reviewer who doesn't give out 5 stars to just everyone.

(and I should give thanks again to Police Woman, who's previous review found a lot of typos which I fixed well before Venture got to my arc.)

I've often wished there was an accolade like this.

Self-heal, 1 hour recharge. Number of HP healed equals your badge count total.

call it "Inspired by Past Achievements" or something

of course, then all the min-maxers would become badgers to get that power maxed out...

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I'm wondering if someone experiencing the problem has specifically conducted this experiment:

1. Take a mission arc file, call it testArc, and copy it to another computer that is known to exhibit the issue.

2. Open testArc on the initial computer in the MA, note the size, and then save it to a different file name: call it ArcA.

3. Open testArc on the second computer in the MA, note the size, and then save that arc on that system to a different file name: call it ArcB.

4. Assuming that the memory footprint is different in those two cases, copy the ArcB file back to the original computer.

5. Without opening either ArcA or ArcB again, binary diff the two files. Are they identical even after this sequence?

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I'm at work right now, but I'll email my friend with the house-of-many-computers. Since we've seen the behavior over there, he should be able to run the test.

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I would need more information to form a hypothesis there.

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I don't know if this ties into the same issue, but I have experienced a jump in files sizes on different systems. I've probably edited my arcs on a greater number of different computers than most (home computer, work computer, any of 3 different computers over at an SG-mate's home)

The memory required for my arcs was always higher on XP machines than on Vista machines, or on my old Windows 2000 machine at work. It got to the point that once I was over 90% on the Vista machines at friend's house, it was over 100% and unpublishable at home. I have to make a trip to said friend's house to edit my arcs at this point.

It was pretty consistent too. One memory reading on Win2000 or Vista. A higher number on my XP machine at home or XP machine at my friend's house.

neat idea.
I hope my arcs can help add to your character's stories.

Arc offered to which character?: Extrasensory
why? Involves deities/magic, heroic, large threat
Might also work for Phantoma Storm, as there is some impact on Croatoa (tangentially)

Arc Name: Amazon-Avatars
Arc ID: 5909
Faction: Circle of Thorns, Knives of Artemis, Malta, Custom Group
Creator Global/Forum Name: @FemFury / Shagster
Level Range: 40+
Soloable?: final fight might be tough without a team
Length: 5 missions
Difficulty Level: Above average to hard, but not extreme
Synopsis: An ancient greek artifact falls into the hands of the Knives of Artemis, and soon, goddesses of old may walk the earth.

Estimated Time to Play: about an hour

------------------------------------------------------

Arc offered to which character?: Silent Spy or Angela Star
why? Heroic arc. Good for character development, as develops a rivalry with a villain. Arc premised on being asked by PPD / authorities to help with an incident that should be "below you" but things get interesting from there.

Arc Name: Escalation
Arc ID: 6143
Faction: Custom Group
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Femfury / Shagster
Level Range: any, but may want to be 20+
Soloable?: only problem would be Elite Boss in final mission
Length: 5 missions
Difficulty Level: average except final misison, which is slightly higher.
Synopsis: it starts with an encounter with a minor supervillainess, then things escalate...

Estimated Time to Play: 30 minutes (first mission has a little bit of "hunt and find", after that, missions go quick)

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freed first hostage. looks like some chained goals. good, that's always nice for unfolding a story inside a mission.

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Actually just use of the Plural Nav Text. Sitrix is at the back of the map all the time.

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Ah. Makes sense. Although, it might be nice to have Sitrix spawn after freeing Luis. Since Luis is first mention of Sitrix's name. *shrug* Works just fine this way.

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Anyhow, your mileage will vary. I never had trouble keeping him alive even when playing a Scrapper.

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In restrospect, it might have been because I was playing on higher difficulty, and with map spawned for two people (my teammate had to afk for real life stuff for most of mission).

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I wanted to leave some things vague in this arc, but I could add more if people are going to insist on having everything spelled out for them. Really the Tuatha's motivation is irrelevant in the long run.

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True. The Tuatha aren't very central to the plot.
But, the offhand "payment" remark from Sitrix just seemed to suggest that the Tuatha were acting different than their usual behavior. To me, it was anomaly that begged explanation. You are probably right, most people won't care, and I'm just being picky.


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so, Buck, hanging out in Croatoa, finds out about the attack before the hero fresh from interrogating the enemy about their plans?

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I guess I should just assume you are traveling instantly instead.

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I wasn't suggesting there be instant travel time. I got the feeling that the Player was supposed to be "hot on the heels" of the raiding party, because, after checking in Buck, you are the first of all the Midnight Squad's allies to be able to to respond.
Events are timed differently than I was visualizing.

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why was Mindskewer able to get the Circle into the Midnight Club?

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From the information she dredged out of Jeremiah's mind, as you were told in the clue he gave upon rescue. Villains get in with even less effort in Darren Wade's arc.

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Well, I guess we visualize the level of Midnighteer security differently. Darren Wade's mystical help and insight into the inner workings of the Midnight Club are a major enabler in the Thief of Midnight arc. My interpretation, I thought the point of that arc was largely to build up Darren Wade as a huge threat to the Midnight Club, because of what he knows.

Personally, I would think the Midnight Club has dealt with telepaths before. I was thinking Mindskewer had a particular technique, or her telepathy bypasses mystic defenses.
*shrug* minor plot point.

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mission debriefing: Buck says the player hero looks shook up. might want to re-phrase. 1) makes assumption about internal reactions of hero and how they show it externally. and 2) would the character look shaken after recovering their Strength, Balance and Initative?

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Assuming they did recover them before the battle, those were optional objectives (hence the different text color). Also Buck is wholly unaware of that whole physic battle thing, as far as he knows the fight with Mindskewer took less than a minute from what was witnessed by the backup that arrived just as you fought her.

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But if Buck says "you look shaken", doesn't that assume the player *didn't* do the optional objectives?

Perhaps it's my background with GMing tabletop RPGs. It just seems bad form to me to to dictate to a Player what their Character's emotional reaction is. May just be my personal hang-up.

All in all, as I said, a very good arc which I rated highly. I only sought to give you my particular perspective on things that need clarification for *me*. Others may not have my concerns.

Based on the way you phrased these lines
"if people are going to insist on having everything spelled out for them"
and
"I guess I should just assume you are traveling instantly instead."
it gave me the impression that my comments irritated you.
If that was the case, it wasn't my intent. I did enjoy the arc, but figured I should nitpick a little in the interest of construtive critique.

Thanks for the kind words, Chesire!

The main plot and the major fights are the same as in the older version you played. The new version simply adds a few items for flavor. Some optional glowies in Misison 4 to make the mad scientist lab more of a mad scientist lab. Optional objective in Mission 1 to give more explaination of the first plot of the villainess. Optional stuff for flavor, basically. And to flesh out the depth of the missions a little.

One of the really nice things about this arc is the optional glowies with the descriptions of the chocolates retrieved.

And good job on the custom Elite Goldbrickers too, which gives the mission a higher upper level range.

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Going through the thread, refreshing my list, gunna sit down and get some of these reviews out shorlty.

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I have two story-intensive arcs I'm always looking to have people check out and give feedback on. Although story-intensive, there are some plot-justified challenging bits. Reccomended for capable soloists or teams.

Arc: Amazon-Avatars
Arc ID: 5909
Author: @FemFury
Number of Missions: 5
Description: An ancient artifact falls into the wrong hands, unleashing ancient powers.
Above average to hard difficulty (uses some tough factions, has 3 custom Bosses, 1 custom EB/AV, ambushes)
Lots of text throughout.


Arc: Escalation
Arc ID: 6143
Author: @FemFury
Number of Missions: 5
Description: Story that starts with a confrontation with a minor supervillainess. A bit of a study in developing a character.
Although 5 missions long can play pretty fast (1st mission has some running around, after that, missions can be quite quick)
Final fight has an EB/AV which may not be soloable with all ATs or powersets.

I have two story-intensive arcs I'm always looking to have people check out and give feedback on. Although story-intensive, there are some plot-justified challenging bits. Reccomended for capable soloists or teams.

Arc: Amazon-Avatars
Arc ID: 5909
Author: @FemFury
Number of Missions: 5
Description: An ancient artifact falls into the wrong hands, unleashing ancient powers.
Above average to hard difficulty (uses some tough factions, has 3 custom Bosses, 1 custom EB/AV, ambushes)
Lots of text throughout.


Arc: Escalation
Arc ID: 6143
Author: @FemFury
Number of Missions: 5
Description: Story that starts with a confrontation with a minor supervillainess. A bit of a study in developing a character.
Although 5 misisons long can play pretty fast (1st misison has some running around, after that, misisons can be quite quick)
Final fight has an EB/AV which may not be soloable with all ATs or powersets.

Playing "The Amulet of J'Gara"

and for the first time, typing thoughts as I go along.

so, likely to be spoilers galore.

initial thoughts: looks like nice consistent level ranges. like that. and good to see missions in lower ranges.

like the idea of exploring Midnighteer activity in Croatoa. Good to see them out and doing stuff in areas of mystic activity.

dialogue nitpick: in the mission sendoff for the first mission, the second paragraph needs breaking up, I think. the second sentence is "I hope the Redcaps didn't get them", the third is "Be careful out there." seems disjointed, the first two sentences in the paragraph are talking about the 2 midnighteers, then the last sentence tacked on is wishing caution on the PC. It's like a jump to new paragraph without a break.

First Mission.
Hm. Circle of Thorns in Croatoa? unusual. not really one of their centers of power, and they don't have much affinity or influence over the forces there. I'm assuming this should be our first sign something is amiss...

freed first hostage. looks like some chained goals. good, that's always nice for unfolding a story inside a mission.

bah, Luis D'Artier is just a minion? He dies at first bunch of Tuatha, even though I had aggro locked down. He dives into melee anyway and dies to AEs. Kinda worthless as an ally and I feel a little less heroic losing him, even if out of my control.

found Sitrix. the Tuatha delivered the Midnighteers to CoT for a reward? Hm. Seems a little unlikely and out of character. The Tuatha are supposed to be noble warriors cursed into bestial bodies. Mercenary work for Circle seems odd. Maybe better if they were manipulated by Circle spell guiding their bestial urges or something? Or maybe the Circle lied and claimed they could
free the Tuatha from the magics of the Red Caps.

And the mix of the fae magic of Croatoa and the demonic wizardry of Circle still seems odd to me.

mission debrief nitpick: Buck says "How curious?" I don't think you want a question mark at the end of that, just a period.

Mission two
Circle of Thorns map. thanks for picking a small one.

Mission debrief
"You knew they were on their way? I don't blame you for not being able to warn us earlier, but we have to do something about it immediately!"
so, Buck, hanging out in Croatoa, finds out about the attack before the hero fresh from interrogating the enemy about their plans? makes the trip into underground city seem a little useless. and Buck's line seems to belittle the hero's efforts.

maybe instead go with Buck saying "What? Planning an attack on the club? Let me check in with a quick divination. You're right, they are already there!"

after all, if the Club could get a message out to Buck during the attack, wouldn't the Club have lots of allies on the way to help? You'd think the Circle / Mindskewer would block outgoing messages to prevent calls for help.

Mission three
Cool! An excuse to use the Midnight Club map on heroside.

another minion ally. well, kept the empath busy, now that a teammate has joined me.

oh, and why was Mindskewer able to get the Circle into the Midnight Club? clearly, in game
canon, it's not something the Circle could do on their own. What is so special about Mindskewer that she makes this possible? What's her edge before she gets the amulet? Midnight Club is a pretty secure place, or the Circle would have raided it years ago.


Mission four
interesting twist.
in the mission briefing, I advise using a different color for the character internal thoughts, rather than itallics. would stand out better as different text from the words of Mindskewer (as Buck)

LOL. after the empath put Clear Mind on the Avatar of Initative, she ran off ahead of us! Appropriate!

mission debriefing: Buck says the player hero looks shook up. might want to re-phrase. 1) makes assumption about internal reactions of hero and how they show it externally. and 2) would the character look shaken after recovering their Strength, Balance and Initative?

Perhaps a more effective approach: have Buck comment on how shaken the Circle mage was upon being released from the link. Mention how a demon-pact-making master of dark magic was shivering like a scared child. that should get across how rough the experience is, without dictating to the player how their character would react.

When writing an MA arc, the story is under your control, leave the emotional reactions to the player or the RP choices of the character. (in my humble opinion)

overall, very good arc. Well above the average I see out there. Needs some clean-up on some plot points (Tuatha motivation, how does Mindskewer do this?), but overall is solid, and the twist for mission 4 is well executed. Enough above the general standards of what's currently out there for me to give it 5 stars.

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One of the problems I had was that there are an awful lot of Lashion robots but it didn't feel like they really did much except act as speed bumps on the way to the main event, facing off with Lashion/Escalation. You do have a few robots guarding hostages in the bank mission and the final Atlas mission; I think it would help to give them a little dialog, albeit in robot-speak. Maybe a patrol here and there with more robot-speak; in later missions they can say something that implies that Lashion has specifically programmed them to search for and beat up the player. Just something to make the various non-Lashion mobs seem a little more lively.

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I have added a few more lines to them. And more for them to do. I'm being careful about going too far. I think keeping the robots fairly generic keeps the focus on the main supervillainess.

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I very much liked the idea you had for the optional glowy poster board with defaced pictures of the player on it, to show how much Lashion really hates the protagonist. This whole arc is really about Lashion's grudge match with the player.

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That optional glowie is now in there. And yep, the whole arc is really a grudge thing.

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I kind of would've liked the player to have some hand in locking Lashion in her last body, preventing her escape; maybe having discovered a "De-Escalation" chemical or something. But having Escalation defeated by her own hubris is also very classic, so that works too.

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yeah, I considered having a mission where the Player looks for a 'secrect weapon' to cancel Escalation's advantage, but several factors convinced me otherwise.
1) would have meant mission without the focus on Player vs. Dr. Lashion / Escalation.

2) only 5 misisons to work with, and wanted 5 stages to the villainess. Steady progression from Minion to EB/AV.

3) having the hero go into the final fight in Mission 5 *without* an ace up the sleeve to stop Escalation adds to the heroism of it, which I had the contact comment on in the misison send-off. I wanted the player to have a chance to feel their hero was saying to themself "I don't know how I can stop her, but I have to try anyway."

So, that's why I went that way. I could certainly see wanting to make the hero more active in neutralizing Escalation's "trick", but just beating her final form and sticking in through to the end is pretty pro-active heroism.

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Finally, I think you need a rad/rad version of Dr. Lashion somewhere named "Nuclear Escalation". She can exposition that she got these radiation powers after a respec (err, radiation exposure) in Terra Volta.

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That's a darn neat idea. Cool name connection. Maybe I can do a sequel someday.... She gets out of the Zig and gets her respec....

re: review of "Escalation", Arc #6143

Let me thank Police Woman for an excellent review.
First, thanks for doing some good proofreading and thus catching lots of little typos that both I and my SG all missed.
Further, a lot of her comments got me thinking, and I think I've fleshed out a few new things in the arc now.

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Also, why is ArtilleryBot one word, but Minion Bot and Combat Bot are two words? They should have a similar naming scheme.

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That had happened because there wasn't quite enough space for "Lashion Artillery Bot" with the space in. All the bots now use the "non-space" scheme (MinionBot, SupportBot, etc). Thanks for pointing that one out.


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Dr. Erica Lashion: Just a minion? Seemed awfully easy. It makes sense based on the background info, but she didn't even have time to summon bots before we dropped her each time. This may be intentional, though, as the detective really plays up how easy she is.

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yep, quite intentional. and sets things up for the theme and progression to follow.



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One question I have, though, is what is Dr. Lashion doing in Atlas Park in the first place? She isn't obviously stealing anything or robbing a bank, so what is her motivation for being here?

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good point. I was leaving it at "generic supervillain plot". Since this is really a setup for the future conflict. But I can see how that can leave questions unanswered. So, I've added an optional destructible object which shows what her plan is. As well as some fixed groups of robots that are looting. Sadly, this map doesn't allow hostages.

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We noticed her models are getting taller each time. ... or was that our imagination?

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Nope, not your imagination. There's a pretty steady progression there. As well as other subtle changes in outfit each time. Was trying to show steady change, while making it look very much the same person each time.


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Both this mission and the previous one were over very very quickly, though maybe this is okay considering it's a 5-mission arc.

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Pretty purposeful. I wanted this to be a "fast" 5 mission arc.
Idea is to get to each fight with her pretty quickly. Keep it fast pace story, with a sense (hopefully) of increasing danger and tension.

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The clone army is great! I really think they should have more dialog, though, since they are all Dr. Lashion, after all. Perhaps consider adding some patrols, ambushes, or nonrequired boss spawns (all named Dr. Lashion) so they can monologue at you about how they're totally going to wreck you this time? With the premise you have, you could easily have ten times as much evil mastermind dialog than a regular evil mastermind gets, since they're all really the same person!

Since this is Dr. Lashion's lab, I kinda think there should be a lot of tech gizmos, like nutrient baths for clones or workbenches for robots, that potentially could be destroyed or confiscated.

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These were excellent suggestions.
I added in some optional boss spawns, with the 3 lesser stages of clone development. Which makes sure that the player gets to see every size so far on this map. And gives a chance for some more dialogue. Originally, I was thinking that all the clones except the prime one were non-verbal, but going the other way does give more chance to explore how Escalation is experiencing the multiple clone body thing.


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Escalation 2.0 is a decent upgrade from the last one; finally a boss this time. I actually think we could've handled the last Escalation upgrade (in Mission 3) being a boss (or EB on a bigger team) too.

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I did want to keep to a pretty steady progression.
On high enough difficulty, she'd be an Elite Boss on this mission.
With high enough Difficulty or big enough team, the 5 missions go Minion, LT, Boss, EB, AV. (which is pretty obvious in retrospect, I'm sure).


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I like Jaded Captive's dialog when you free her. She should have some jaded remark she says before you free her, too, something like "Oh no, not again. Can we hurry it up? I'm late for my hair appointment".

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I added something much like this. Thanks for the idea.
Hope you liked the other hostage dialogue too. I tried to give many reactions to the villainess, from different people and points of view, if you will.

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I love the laundry list of pseudo-scientific ingredients Escalation Extreme says she included in her current clone.

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Thanks. That was me being a bit of a canon geek. And trying to justify just how much change she'd accomplished. And how crazy far she'd gone to do this...

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Escalation Extreme says "I'm stuck!" right before she goes unstoppable, which is a little weird since her dialog suggests she's in trouble, but really she's about to become as tough as she ever gets.

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Good point.
I've tweaked the dialogue a bit. She still has moment of panic at 1/4 health, but then defiantly shouts at end "No! Must ESCALATE!". Goes pretty well with the tarzan chest-thumping of Unstoppable, and hopefully shows she's activating her big power out of fear.
Thanks again. Works much better now.



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But, the missions seemed pretty straightforward and it felt like there wasn't that much to do in each mission except for the part where you interact with Dr. Lashion/Escalation;

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Added a bit more in Missions 1 and 4. And an extra glowie in mission 3. Hopefully, didn't overdo it.


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Her robot army was a little bland, perhaps more could be done with them; maybe give them some robotic dialog or stuff to do (guarding hostages or items or something).

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I did want the robot army to be a bit secondary to the mad genius herself. I have added some dialogue for them in the aforementioned additional optional objectives in Missions One and Four.

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My teammate thought the arc could use some more clues; I think the briefings are pretty explanatory of what's going on, but perhaps a clue after the first upgraded Dr Lashion explaining the cycle of escalation would be helpful.

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Added clues after missions 2 and 4, focusing on just that. Thanks for the suggestion.


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I thought it was witty and fun though. I gave it 4 stars.


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Thanks for the good rating. And even more for the feedback, and idea-sparking thoughts.
I think it's a better arc now. And certainly many less typos.
I'm hoping it'd be a 5-star worthy arc now. We'll see what the next person to play it says.

Based largely on Police Woman's excellent feedback, I just stayed up to 5:30 in the morning editing Escalation.

after about 5 hours of writing and tweaking and testing and re-tweaking, I have now Published the newly fleshed out arc.

Added lots of little details here and there. And since I think I accomplished my goal of being *able* to tell the story the first time through without clues, I've now added clues, just for extra flavor, or for those who like the summary after some missions.

If you play it, hope you enjoy! (Warning: that final fight is still a toughie for some ATs and powersets. I did re-test and beat the EB on every AT though. Still, if you aren't an accomplished "soloist" best to get a team.)

"Escalation" got a review from Police Woman.

boy, do a I have a lot of spelling and grammar issues to fix!
PW is a great proofreader.

Police Woman gave it 4 stars!

link to review (spoilers within)

Police Woman's review of Escalation

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It's not huffiness per se, but I will say that it is like if someone tried to drag up Douglas Adams' TERRIBLY undisciplined writing schedules as an example of why they should do it too. There are some real, epic geniuses out there, but their genius forgives their bad habits, not justifies their repetition.

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Douglas Adams gave a great talk at Michigan Tech University in Houghton about a week before he died. (He stayed at the hotel where I work for that visit).

During that talk, he repeated one of his great lines about himself: "I love deadlines. I especially like the whoosing noise they make as they fly by me."

That man had an incredibly high ratio of success as a writer to work habits a writer. Poor editors. Even locking him in a hotel room for a week didn't alway work.

If you are looking for epic, longer arcs with under 100 ratings, I'm definitely willing to put my work up for your review.

both have a tough EB fight at the end, so forewarning.


Arc 5909 Amazon-Avatars. Lots of text and plot here. Last I checked, it was at 52 ratings.

Arc 6143 Escalation A bit less plot than my other arc, and a lot less text. Focuses more on the development of the villain and the hero's relationship to her. Was at 24 ratings this morning.

Well, my arc got a review in the forum.

The reviewer had some mixed feelings, but I knew it would be an uphill battle because the reviewer prefers shorter arcs.

Here's where dragonslay tells me what he finds wrong with my arc:
dragonslay review

My response is lower in his thread.
Glad to have this actually. I've had lots of great reviews from people who like long stories with lots of text. Hearing from someone with the opposite preference is a good way to get soem critical feedback. And it did highlight a few things for me.

Lots of people giving me lots of rave feedback in tells, some of which is enough to make me blush. So, if you like story focused arcs with lots of text, give it a try! Arc 5909. For those who like to read a lot during their story arcs only.
Although, I have a few tweaks to make, that will have to wait until after work tonight.

Thanks to everyone who has played, and especially to everyone who has sent feedback tells.

Boy, after reading your likes and dislikes, I'd love to hear what you think about either of my arcs (see sig)

You sound like exactly the type of player I'm trying to write for.
(and, no, you don't have to review. I just think you might like to play, as I was struck by how much your list of "likes" matched my list of "goals" when writing MA arcs.)

edit: oops. Just saw your first post in the thread. I'll make a point of running your arcs soon first.

[ QUOTE ]
Amazon Avatars 5909
Rating 3 Stars

[/ QUOTE ]

Dragonslay, thanks for taking the time to play my arc, and the time to to write up a review.
I knew I was stepping into the dragon's maw, since you said you preferred shorter arcs.
I'm still very glad to get the perspective of someone who prefers a quicker story.

[ QUOTE ]
I had a real love/hate relationship with this arc. At times I really hated it and wanted to quit at other times I was truly engulfed in it.

[/ QUOTE ]

hm. well, at least it evoked feeling.
I apologize for the frustrating moments.

[ QUOTE ]
Rescuee says "I owe you words." ???

[/ QUOTE ]

fixed that. was working on some semi-archaic dialogue for the Warrior. Didn't work out well. Restructured that line totally.

I note you didn't like the contact, and called the dialogue bad. Well, I was going for capturing the voice of Alexander of the Warriors. He does talk in the canon arcs like he thinks he's a character in a classical heroic epic. I'd guess that comes across as cheesy to some. I"ll scan over his stuff again and consider options for toning it down. I may keep it as is, but it deserves review.

[ QUOTE ]
Mission 3 is another good mish, not great. Contact gives way too long an explanation as to why KoA chose Croatoa. Is he trying to convince himself? 'KoA are in Croatoa because of its huge magical potential' period, would have been fine for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah. Well, I wanted to make it clear a couple of things.
1) that the Avatars were being fueled by mystical energy based on violence and death. The characters are based on mythological figures. If someone was tempted to say "SHE wouldn't do THAT", then the nature of the mystical energies explain the Avatars being more aggressive, power-hungry, or evil than some "fans" of the myths might expect.
2) wanted to allow for the Knives not being big players in the magic scene. Having to avoid the stomping grounds of people like the Circle or even the Pantheon.

[ QUOTE ]
This mish would be better if I was rescuing anything but Malta, malta are evil, i hate them, i say let the KoA win if it means less malta in the world.

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I can see that. Although, it's not so much you are saving the Malta, as that the Malta are in a tight enough spot that THEY have to work with you.

[ QUOTE ]
Mission 5 is good, again not great. Archery (lethal) is a very highly resisted dam type in the game making this battle underwelming after great mish 4. I know Archery matches the charac; its just an observation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, that's something I've been worried about, making the final battle significant but not too tough.
Currently, she's Archery at Extreme and Trick Arrow at Standard.
Any thoughts on how to make her a better fight for general?
I was thinking of taking Trick Arrow up to Extreme too. But might just make her more annoying, rather than more effective. Although, those -Resist debuff may help her with those who resist her lethal arrows. Another option might be to replace her Trick Arrow with a melee secondary of some sort...

[ QUOTE ]
This is an average arc IMO that has the potential to be a four or even a five star with some reworking.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hm. well, given that you prefer shorter arcs, I'll count that as a win.
I've had other comments from players that love the level of detail and enjoy immersing themselves in the story.

I find myself wishing you had played my other arc "Escalation". a lot shorter maps, no clues, less verbose contact. My fault for posting both arcs in your thread. I shall live and learn. (Not that I would want the better rating per se, but I think you would have enjoyed it more).

Again, thank you for the review. I think I learned a lot about how missions and stories are evaluated by someone who looks at them quite differently from how I do. That will be very useful as I mull over how to approach my 3rd arc, whatever it turns out to be. Maybe I can make that story appeal to a different audience than my first one.

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Author: @FemFury
Level Range: 40+ (with a brief lower level in first mission)
Subject: A mystic artifact threatens to return ancient goddesses to the world.
5909 - Amazon-Avatars

Notes: This is the one I most hope for hearing feedback on. Very story oriented. I typed a lot of text for this one, and I'd love to have more people read it.
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Author: @FemFury
Level Range: 1 to 50
Subject: An encounter with a minor discounted supervillainess brings greater danger than expected.
6143 - Escalation

Notes: My goal with this arc was to create a memorable opponent.
First mission has some running around, every other map is a small, quick one.
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