Tangler
-
Posts
673 -
Joined
-
Quote:I have to admit that my first post is essentially a subtle version of what S12 just wrote here (yes, I realise "subtle" and "internet" do not go hand in hand, but I'll keep trying dammit!).Originally Posted by Sister_Twelve
I can think of several reasons why the community writing project is not good, but I'll stick to the primary one:
It's going to be bad.
Not bad as in, say, so godawful that it would be 1-starred by everyone who chooses to play it, but bad as in 'bland,' 'vanilla,' and/or 'unimaginative.'
The reasons for this are simple.
1.) Writers in general do not work particularly well with other writers. Why? Because our ideas are the best. It doesn't matter whether whether that idea is to re-write "Sex Slaves of the Andorian Moon" from the point of view of the third guardsman from the left or whether that idea is to turn "War and Peace" into a musical. As far as we are concerned, no one can execute this idea like we can and the results are going to be groundbreaking.
When someone comes along and tells us that our idea, well, frankly... sucks, we do not react well to it, especially if that idea is just in the formative stages of development. Our first reaction when our baby gets torpedoed is to torpedo the idea of whoever torpedoed us, no matter how good their ideas are or how bad.
This happens no matter how many people are on the writing team.
2.) "But, Sister, sketch comedy shows like Saturday Night Live work... in fact don't most TV shows and movies have teams of writers?"
Yes, they do. But in one case, the various writers on the 'team' in reality are not writing as a team. They are working on their own bits in the show pretty much on their own. Their bits go to the powers-that-be, who subesequently either approve or axe them. There is actually very little collaboration that occurs during the actual writing process.
In the second case, the division of labor is clearly delineated from the start. One guy is the head honcho. The rest of the guys are shield-carriers who are responsible for whatever scene it is that the head honcho doesn't feel like fleshing out.
Why do a lot of Hollywood movies suck? Often it is because they try the 'collaborative' approach that inevitably leads to sucking.
Even novelists who team write generally do not 'collaborate' most of the time. Most of the time, what they do is alternate. One writes a chapter. Then the other writes a chapter based off what the first has done.
3.) This medium is too short for a truly collaborative effort anyway.
It might, emphasis on might, work if the 'team' was as small as the MA group. It will not work at all if the 'team' consists of everyone in the community. Why? Because there just isn't enough content to go around in a 5 mission arc. The inevitable result is that ideas will be cut, feelings will be hurt, and the final product will not be a work of collective genius, but a mish-mash of watered down, collective mediocrity.
Go with the competition. I can virtually guarantee you that the finished product of the author that wins will be much better than whatever the community as a whole collectively produces.
There is a reason that art is produced in a singular manner by individuals who all have their own individual process.
This stuff gets "bad", even in professional works where the creators are just taking turns telling one part of a story (looks at his copy of JSA 80 Page Giant of "7 Fateful Tales of the JSA by Today's Top Talent!", and shudders).
Now *that* said, I recognize not everyone using MA is out there with the intention of turning heads on players, and just want to make something to mess about and have fun with their buddies. In that respect, go knock yourselves out with this project, and I truly don't mean that in a snarky way. However if you are serious about trying to get a DC based on the arc's merits and not by harassing the devs/relying on their good will, you're probably better off going a different route. -
Quote:Right, but then you'd have to have someone(s) to actually lay out the mission design, build the arc and so on, correct?Originally Posted by BeyondReach
Well in regards to how the project would work, why do we have to divide in an ordered manner? It could just be one big forum discussion. There are an ordered list of entries we know we have to fill out to make an arc, so we could just discuss them all together and then just translate into an actual arc.
-
The anthology proposal sounds like a good idea. The potential problems I see with a collaborative approach on one big arc is in dividing the work out between the authors. Is it one guy to a mish? How will you deal with internal consistency/creative say? Etc.
-
I haven't tried this, but in theory:
Find a tiny backroom like Eva said, and place the boss there along with a free captive objective.
Set the ally under a captured animation like hands behind head.
Set it so that when he is 'activated' he will stay where he is and still uses the captured animation.
Set the objective to read something like "Get the hostage's key from big boss!"
When the boss is defeated, have the objective complete text to read "You defeated big boss and take the key off him. With this you are able to release the hostage!"
Have the hostage's speech be something like "Get me out of here $name!" if a player clicks on him. The speech should be left ambiguous if a player clicks on him early before you get the "key".
Have him set as 'single' so it looks like just the boss is guarding him. In reality, the "free captive" objective will already be complete by the time your team enters, but he'll stick around stuck in his captured animation, and defeating the boss will appear to be the means of releasing him. -
Try expanding all of the objectives, the editor doesn't seem to pick them up otherwise.
-
This calls for the Apex TF:
Mish 1: Retrieve the Heroicus Retconus from the CoT.
Mish 2: Retrieve War Witch's sword - that Apex lost in the sewers somewhere, for the resurrection ritual.
Mish 3-5: ???
Mish 6: PROFIT -
Just played it, here's my quick review:
Mission 2 was a nice idea. I noticed that you'll be adding more spawns in respsonse to S12's review, though I'm not sure if that was added in by the time I played it (I just saw a handful of Skull boss spawns). For what its worth, I liked the atmosphere of a near barren neighborhood to show how the place has become really rundown. My hero was rather distressed at how the contact's informant decided to play Riddler, and place riddles around bombs as a game for the hero and not you know, try and disarm the bomb or bring someone who can.
Luke as an EB tore through the Eidolons like tissue paper, I think he can be toned down to a boss. The final EB seems to be triggered by another objective, it'd be good if that was hinted at on the nav bar.
I think the plot can be made clearer. Right now I find it confusing to follow, especially at the beginning. It doesn't help that the contact is withholding information from my hero "just because", and consequently I'm having trouble finding what exactly is my motivation for following along for the first half of this arc. I also don't know why the contact needs me to do his jobs for him, as it's not like he can't take care of himself.
All that said, the arc wasn't that bad. The writing gets a bit too flowery for my liking, but there are some good ideas going on here, and this arc has something of a Dark Knight/The Crow motif going on (even plucking a few lines from DK). I gave it 5 stars in-game. -
Hmm, just 2 weeks to vote? Not sure if I'll be able to give them all a go by then.
-
Glory Days
ID: 15976
Morality: Heroic
Tags: Custom Characters. Canon Related, Mystery
Author: @Megajoule
There’s a new villain in town calling himself Marko the Mystic, only he may not be so new as 50 years ago there was also a villain that went by the name of Marko the Magician. To combat this (possibly) new threat, you contact Jack Strong, a retired hero and former “arch-nemesis” to Marko in the hopes of gleaning any information or aid. That’s the excuse Glory Days uses anyway. The real point of this arc is to trample around in an age long past, when “lumbering lummox” was the greatest insult a villain could muster against their arch-foe, and for that this arc does do that very well.
Insert horrible fist-to-face pun rebuttal here.
You enter Jack’s memories with the use of the Bands of Shu (I guess you can just take out powerful artefacts from the Midnighters like it was a library) and go for a memory walk in the hopes of finding any clues about Marko from Jack's past dealings, though it’s a different that the usual interpretations. Usually whenever an arc does this, your character either steps directly into the shoes of the witness such as in Sabrina’s Tale, or else witness the events unfold as a silent spectre like in Marconeville Horror. In Glory Days it’s Jack himself who is relieving his own memories, in a somewhat bizarre hybrid of both playing his “part” in the memory, but also completely aware and interacting with your character’s presence.
It’s the golden age part of the story where the arc is at its strongest, embracing all the corny and sometimes questionable trappings which perversely what made the era so fun. It is perhaps consequently so then when the arc proceeds to the finale back in the present day, things unfortunately feel a little more mundane, even rushed.
More people would probably be willing to play the 5TF more if the 5th all spoke like this.
To the technical side of the review: the arc lacks an explanation on how this “new” Marko arrived on the scene, and why he’s such a threat that my hero needs to go out and consult Jack instead of just going over there and defeating him already.
Some of the revelations could have been slid in more smoothly: making it more clear what happened to Marko in the final memory during the encounter, and a few lines added to present-day Marko’s speech to make it less abrupt.
Final Word: Like a golden age comic, this arc has its charms, if just a bit more in fleshing out some of its ideas. 4/5 Stars -
That model looks really great, kudos to her for that.
I've just made a new hero actually, so this is probably a good start to jump start his career. -
First: Relax.
Second: You want the MA: Stories and Lore boards.
Third: Low plays are to be expected right now, if you can't find anyone to help you, submit your arc to a reviewer for their opinion. -
Quote:Except, there are a few chaps who won't rate your arc 1 star to say "I'll never run this again" or "this needs work, but can be improved", and are rating you 1 star because your arc is in the way of theirs getting to the front page, or because you have 5 stars and they'll 1 star you to bring your average down to the rating they think it deserves, or they 1 star you because you accidentally sat on their cat. In that sense, the ratings are broken.Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
the rating system isnt per se broken, but everyone rates stuff on their point of view, so people who 1 star things might have the mindset of "ill never run this again" to people who think "this needs work, but can be improved (and leaves feeback on it)"
I'm all for getting more feedback from players, but playing arcs shouldn't be a chore.Quote:Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain
I think if when you 1 star something a little box popped up that said, "So this story was so bad that you couldnt understand what was going on at all? There was no text? and you feel the author put no effort into the story at all?"
Yes No
If you click Yes and your rating will be submitted.
and do something like that for each star possible, but I think a Dev should actually chose what that box says, I was just giving an example. -
It's a topic that has been discussed to death since MA has been live on Test. Not meaning to rain on your parade, but even if you did manage to somehow get everyone on the boards to agree on a single rating system, that won't mean squat to those who never read the boards.
Ratings are broken, fix nao plz, etc. -
Grats to both of you!
I'm surprised to see that Dr. Aeon can speak French though, unless he finished working on the Babel-o-tron.
-
Quote:Several of the heroes did get nerfed or buffed up in the sequel, albeit due to their decision to give almost everyone one ranged attack that costs no energy. MM and Man O' War got hit by this the hardest, with MM's Minute Missile turning into a terrible pew-pew power instead of the batarang-style stun projectile it was in the first game, and Man O' War's Stunbolt dealing significantly less damage iirc.Originally Posted by Arctic_Princess
I like Man-O-War but found him more useful in the first campaign (with all the robots) than the second. However he does get extra Sean Connery Win points.
On a slight tangent, I liked the little changes to Alche-Miss's stat sheet to reflect her character development, removing her Timid trait from the first game and gaining Levitate in its place (missed the original voice actress though). -
Hey M I Abrahms, thanks for playing my arc!
About your comment:
SPOILERS BELOW
I've had a few people bringing up the age issue, I'll just quote what I have previously said in the past:
Quote:END SPOILERSOriginally Posted by Tangler
...Penelope is probably older than most people would think. She's only slightly younger than Ann and Jimmy who are in their early twenties, and she's old enough to drive a scooter. I'm guessing that most people are thrown off and think she's younger, due to the way she speaks and how she is considered a 'little sister' by Ann and Jimmy.
CK was also described as being a young man when Blue Steel fought him, and again I think some people might have been thrown off since it's never really mentioned in-game. Together, I don't think it's too farfetched to consider that there isn't that much of an age difference between Penelope and CK, at least to make a "What if..." scenario plausible.
Hope that helps. -
So an idea has just popped into my head. When trying to add some personality into their arcs, I would think most authors (including me) would try and inject a interesting, likable, or at least relatable character in their arc, usually in the form of the contact, or perhaps a recurring ally or even antagonist that pops up in the arcs.
But what if you wanted to make the player's character interesting? How would you do it? I've seen a few arcs where they dictate the PC's voice for this, though admittedly I'm not a fan of this method. I wonder if there are other ways to say "Hey, your hero/villain has their own aspirations and quirks too!" Perhaps an arc throws out a decision that your character has to make, one that defines their personality and value systems such as "is killing criminals right or wrong?" Or maybe even something less dramatic such as "is cake superior to ice-cream?" Or perhaps you could write something that happens to the PC down the line, something that will change the player's perspective of their character forever.
Anyways I'll leave that out there as something to think about, as for me I'm off to bed. By which I mean, prolonging my sleeplessness by thinking about this while I'm in bed. -
Quote:Oh good catch, I've completely forgotten that she could phase enemies! Unlike CoX, that was actually a useful power in that game.Originally Posted by Arctic_Princess
Alche-Miss - Grav/Rad Controller - Lift, Propel, Dimension Shift, Ennervating Field - it's all there! - and with the Energy APP as Tangler said, minus Total Focus
- oh and with a 4-slotted Brawl for her 'Slap' attack! 
Hear hear for a giant insects summoning set! Also a good idea, quite left field but also fits. Pity there's no pet sets that can match him particularly well right now, maybe if you could colour pets then you can paint bots red as they kind of look like mechanized ants. Grab the Levi pool for that KO Blow too.Quote:Originally Posted by Arctic_Princess
Ant, The- I see the Ant as more of a Mastermind with /Poison as a Secondary. It's true he'd got a mean punch but the thought of an Insect MM is too appealing.
Maybe throw in Soul Mastery to double-stack the cool looking Soul Storm with Pet. Gaze too, his Possession ability was incredibly hax. Tombstone's secret origin was also my favourite.Quote:Originally Posted by Arctic_Princess
Tombstone - Dual Pistols/Dark Corruptor - ftw!
It's like the guy decided to be an Emp/Sonic Resonance Def and just 5 slotted brawl. Except 5 slotted brawl would actually be better than what he currently has. Seriously, who thought having your bread and butter attack be "pitiful chance for acid burn" be a good idea?Quote:Originally Posted by Arctic_Princess
Quetzalcoatl - Empathy Defender but then the rest of his powers were poor melee attacks. Difficult one this.
Green Genie (and okay, Zatanna too, I have a weakness for magic girls) is the reason why I really wish there was a "performance magic" style powerset in this game.Quote:Originally Posted by Arctic_Princess
Green Genie - Someone was on something illegal when they designed this character. She's more like a Warlock in WoW (has no idea but thinks that's the class that turns people into chickens) than a CoX AT. I suppose you might be able to get away with Illusion/ but again, no idea for the secondary.
Funny, I didn't really like Tricolore on my first play through too, as she just came off as a powered down Minute Man. After giving her a much fairer shake on my 2nd (and 3rdQuote:Originally Posted by Arctic_Princess
Tricolore - Katana/Super Reflexes (with NO mez protection, possibly my least favourite character in the game - silly Enrage...)) playthrough however, I have to say she's one of the best pure brawlers of the team: extremely fast, VERY powerful melee strikes and sweeps, and unlike MM she gets a passive that protects her from MELEE.
-
Gratz! I'll have to find time to check this out.
Edit: Hmm, turns out I already played this arc before. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Captain_Solaris
Whilst on my break at work, I started to arrange which powersets the Freedom Force heroes would have if they were introduced into Paragon City (in line with Going Rogue)...
Alche-Miss -
Bullet -
El Diablo - Fire Blaster / Fire Manipulation Blaster
Eve - Plant Control / Arrows Corruptor
Man-Bot - Invulnerability / Electricity Melee Tanker
Man O'War - Electricity Melee
Mentor - Mind Control / Psi Blasts Dominator
Microwave -
Minuteman - Invulnerability / Mace Brute
Reserves:
Blackbird -
Iron-Ox - Invulnerability / Super Strength Tanker
Law - Broadsword / Scrapper
Order - / Mace Tanker
Supercollider -
Youth Team:
Ant, The- Scrapper
Liberty Lad - Scrapper
Sea Urchin - Force Fields / Electric Blasts Defender
...my breaks over and as you can see it's not finished. Any comments or suggestions in assigning sets? Any FF heroes I've missed?
I have a feeling I might make a couple "homage" characters tonight!
Alche-Miss: closest I can think would be a recoloured Mental/Rad Troller, her specialty has always been screwing the enemy over. Loft can translate to Levitate in-game, and her arcane blasts can be substituted by Power Blast in the APPs (they were never that powerful anyway).
Eve: There's no Plant control Corrs. She is definitely the most tricky since her two signature powers aren't possible in CoX. Best I can think of is an Arch/Emp Defender with Psi Mastery, or a Plant/TA Troller with Psi Mastery.
Man-Bot: I'd definitely say he's more Energy Melee than Ele, with Energy Mastery thrown in there.
Man-o-War: Hmm, I'd go with Ele/Invuln Brute, that way you can hit the Sci PPP for an ele blast, and the guy is definitely one of the toughest characters anyway.
Microwave: How did you not fill this in already?!
Rad/EM Blaster all the way.
Minute-Man: As funny as it is, Mace Brute is the way to go for this guy. Not sure about Invuln though, as MM definitely trades any survivability (grrr) for increased damage. If there's an almost non-existent shield model then that would work.
Law: Probably BS/SR with Aid Other.
Order: Easily a Mace/Invuln Brute.
The Ant: MA/SR, or possibly WP, since he is rather durable despite what his "archetype" suggests. Alternatively you could go SS/SR Brute and Levi PPP for Bile Spray (not entirely accurate I know).
Liberty Lad: The quintessential MA/SR Scrapper. Throw in Exploding Shuriken from Weapons Mastery for good times.
Sea-Urchin: Hmm, I'd probably trade up Ele Blast for Sonics.
I'm way ahead of you btw, and have made my homage to Green Genie a while ago. I'd say she is definitely a Kin, though her magic tricks are a bit harder to translate. I ended up going with Plant Control as the closest semblance to her signature Flower Vase power, though you could probaby argue to go with Illusion or even Grav Control.
-
The Long Road Back
ID: 340454
Morality: Villainous
Tags: Custom Characters. Canon Related, Drama
Author: @Sister Twelve
The Long Road Back is an arc born from the announcement of Going Rogue, where for various reasons your villains may have a change of heart and are trying to go straight. This arc offers a vehicle for that transition, for those villains who in the arc's own words, have grown discontent from the constant looking over your shoulder the flophouses and the hideouts and the failures.
Your villain gets into contact with Richard Savage, a mid-level operative for the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI, though not that one it turns out), a secret branch of the CIA and someone who can help you, so long as your villain is willing to lend them a hand first. At first Savage sends you out to do some pretty standard heroics, but the deeper your villain gets into organisation, the more political and downright sinister your assignments become.
A common problem that this arc and those similar to it face is suffering from being Just A Bunch Of Stuff That Happens, though to the author's credit she has managed to avoid this reasonably well. As well as performing seemingly loosely connected missions for OSI, each mission also provides clues to the true face of the organisation, and helps to paint the grander picture. One mission for example, has you helping to break a kid out of the Outcasts. The mission appears innocent enough, until you realise the ex-gang member is displaying some pretty powerful mutant abilities like summoning fire-imps, which would explain OSIs sudden interest in some street-punk, and tiny alarms are going off when you realise hes going to be kept safe at somewhere the OSI ambiguously calls "the Garden," which is also later referred to in the arc under different circumstances.
Totally not jealous that you can summon your imps at level 20. Not. One. Bit.
If anything you can fault this arc for is for having too many plot threads going around, and not nearly enough of them being resolved by the end of the arc. Presumably they would be resolved in the sequel that is hinted at, though I do not think this is a good practice since players care little about multi-arcs and only how good the arc they're playing *now* is, so arcs should be mostly self-contained with only the most central theme crossing over to sequels.
I think a few of the objectives could have stood to be different as well. I wasnt keen on the defeat-alls, it didnt help that my client decided to crash on me as I was over half way done, and when I logged back on I had to do it again. Not a fault of the author obviously, but one of the reasons why defeat-alls can cause so much aggravation and why you should keep them on the smallest maps if you insist on having them. The last defeat all also seemed redundant since you were demolishing the site with explosives anyway, so it just seemed like a forced Shoot the Dog objective (which may have been due to this arc being entered for the Dr. Aeon Challenge now that I think about it).
I like chained objectives, especially when it comes to showing investigative moments that this arcs have several of, but there were moments in the arc where the backtracking got excessive, especially in mission 4. Ideally chained objectives should be close together, or follow a linear map that supports it well.
With all that said, overall this arc is pretty enjoyable. The story and characters are well written, and while all the little faults do add up to cause some slow spots in the arc, I would still be interested in continuing the story to see more about OSI and where my villain is heading.
Final Word: An intriguing arc on the less than idealistic road to redemption. 4/5 Stars -
Best new arc:
#365497
Simplicity
@Arctic Princess
A well written, alternate neutral path where you character begins their life as a bounty hunter. Has some interesting story twists and an over-theatrical contact. -
Overall this is a good arc, and the writing is strong. I'll list some nitpicks and then go into how the arc feels generally:
M2 debrief: concenrs -> concerns
M2: Would be better if each contraband gave different information.
M4 brief: likesthem -> likes them
M5: "Executing" Paris - I felt a bit funny on this. While bounty hunters may get the orders "wanted: dead or alive" it usually means kill if capturing alive is impossible otherwise, not an outright hit.
M5: the lines are mixed up between the PPD and the Warriors (the Warriors are telling the PPD to "stand down" while the cops are saying "we'll kill you all!)
M5: Midnight Desperado's bio is incomplete.
M5: The reasoning why you intend to bomb the cave should be placed before the actual deed, and should be triggered upon meeting Desperado and not Paris.
M5: Morality clue text is missing.
Some of the maps can feel a bit "empty" (especially mission 2), which can be improved upon by adding a few more enemy dialogue, the ambushes I think should especially have a line to announce their presence (realistically they should be sneaky obviously, though in practice it can get annoying).
The individual missions were too loosely connected I thought, maybe work in a bit more story about the Guild between missions. I think I get that what you're trying to achieve here is an alternate, "neutral" path for characters and so this arc is more in the line of "a day in the life of a bounty hunter", making it feel kind of like a serial show, though even on those they have an overarching plot that keeps the thing moving. Individually the arcs are very well done, and I especially liked the twist reveals at the end of mission 1 and the one with the Clockwork. -
Quote:I'm all for that.Originally Posted by konshu
I would add that I sent in an arc as well, and was mystified that I didn't receive an acknowledgement of my entry.
So I sent in an email asking if my arc had been received, and I got no reply.
Lastly, I expected to see an announcement of the contest winner on the main CoH page, and it never appeared.
Those are all things that should be changed.
I'm not sure what you mean here, I don't recall this arc having earned any previous award prior to this competition, unless you're talking about the author. If it's the latter I don't see the problem, the challenge isn't about (exclusively) meriting unknown authors, but giving both every author and MA player something new to play with. We shouldn't be limiting the talent pool for that.Quote:Originally Posted by konshu
One, the winning arc was already an award winner. Shouldn't arcs that have already received an honor be disallowed in competitions? I mean, I can already imagine the outcome of the next contest ... "Write an arc that makes humorous use of internet memes."
I don't know how you jump from that to a competition about internet memes either, though if Dr. Aeon wants to keep what sanity a mad scientist has left, I doubt we'll see that challenge. That is unless he wants to trawl through dozens of arcs that will interpret the challenge to mean "just throw in some internet memes in there, doesn't matter about context or comedic timing, heck "teh randomz" is a meme in itself!"
I didn't have a problem with the reasoning: Dr. Aeon was the only person who figured out what the phantoms really were, and the time-frame before "everyone dies" was portrayed to be small. That said I completely understand if the feeling of "this is not what my hero would do!" would devalue your enjoyment.Quote:Originally Posted by konshu
Two, didn't anyone else find the winning arc hugely implausible? I didn't finish it, partly due to bugs, but also because I lost interest. I thought the use of Dr. Aeon didn't work, I thought the "perpendicular dimension" concept didn't work, and I thought getting shoehorned into an "evil" act without exploring other recourses was the wrong move. -
It's good to know people are still reading it too.