TeChameleon

Uhm... may I interject, here? Talen and GB, you guys are furiously arguing two points that are only tangentially related to what the other person is actually saying.

Talen, GB is saying that he disagrees that self-insertions automatically make a bad arc; bad writing that includes self-insertions make a bad arc.

GB... uhm, never mind, Talen's point is pretty clear.

[ QUOTE ]
Stopping you from having access to your powers does slow you down - and it can be lethal in some situations.

[/ QUOTE ]
Not often enough. It's the fact that they're so low-threat that bugs me, to be honest. Council are bland enough as it is, and adding in things that make their missions take even longer through their stupid ratmaze bases? Blech.

[ QUOTE ]
I think critter types like the Council Marksmen should only be changed if EVERYONE universally has a problem with them. I'm quite sure there are plenty of powerset/AT types out there who don't even consider them a mild annoyance much less one than needs to be nerfed.

[/ QUOTE ]
See, I don't think you're catching my meaning here.

I don't think Council Marksmen are a 'problem'. They're... speedbumps. In a game that prides itself with fast-paced, kinetic combat, having a particular enemy group that can just overload you with slows (and yeah, when you've got 3-4 Marksmen in a single spawn, you're going to be crawling), but not do much else... it's just... bleah.

I'm going to try and spell this out clearly.

Council Marksmen are not dangerous; they're boring.

They bring combat to a grinding, shuddering halt and contribute nothing else, and are only even remotely dangerous if they're combined with something else. They're like enemies with cage powers; it doesn't really accomplish much, other than make it so you can't do anything for a while.

Well, note that I never compared them to Malta Sappers- no real comparison, to be honest.

I just despise them, especially at low levels (where you'll still be encountering them >.&lt when you've only got a few attacks. At high levels, yeah, they barely even qualify as a nuisance.

And on a Kheld.. ugh. The number of times I've been crab-tanking one of the HEAT missions (which start feeling like the All-Council Revue after a while) and been reduced to sitting there, watching ten or so of the aggravating sods plink at me to no real effect while my recharge starts running backwards... just... GAH!

Honestly? Signed.

And not because they're 'hard'. They're not, not even if you've got a respectable pile of them. Really, they don't do enough damage to be much of a danger even to squishies, not even in large numbers.

But they're in every... [censored]... spawn. In a single Council mission, you're going to be fighting dozens of the irritating, useless nuisances even on Heroic/Villainous. They don't even do anything, they're just "Oh look. I'm slowed to a crawl. Again. Whee."

Either make the sods dangerous, or lose the stupid slow. I hate 'em. They're boring and slow everything down to no real effect.

Flashpoint Zeo gave Isabel a quick, slighltly reproving look. "To not be so quick to be disavowing firsthand knowledge; have been active for more than twenty years, and participated in battle against Nazi nitwit."

The giant tank returned his attention to Wolfgang. "Had not yet been changed against will into this form, but was there- Reichsmann brought troops also, battled those. Primal Earth counterpart of Reichsmann, the Statesman, and the Freedom Phalanx versus Axis Amerika counterparts, the Amerika Korps. Was mildly impressive fight. Until Amerika Korps found Reichstwit to having been shortchanging Korps on training, anyhow. Korps folded like cheap suit, and Reichstwit dogpiled by dozens of supers. Did not go well for him."

The fiery titan shrugged a little. "Am sure crazed dictator over planet is having at least one mindreader on premsises, or can be having one manufactured. Is having everything else, after all." he commented, with more than a trace of sarcasm. "Truth can be being found in mind of self, if some caution is being excercised- consciousness is riding alongside larger consciousness; would be... unwise... to disturb larger consciousness, unless idea of having fiery armageddon is pleasing one- self can barely use tiny fraction of power of larger consciousness. Also, would most likely kill self, although am sure are not caring particularly about that aspect."

A pause, then an annoyed look at the guards. "As aside, exactly what have been accused of? Am fairly certain am responsible for nothing more serious than significant property damage, associating with 'criminals'..." the word 'criminals' was dripping with sarcasm- Flashpoint Zeo clearly wasn't putting a lot of stock in the justice system of the civilization as it had shown itself thus far- "Oh, and seeking impromptu audience with Dark Sovereign."

Flashpoint Zeo stared at Wolfgang for a long moment, trying to process the absolute nonsense he had just uttered. Finally, he began to sort out what they might have been thinking.

And he began to laugh.

Deep, booming laughter, the roar of an hilariously amused dragon, until the walls of the ruined detention block fairly rang with it.

Eventually, the titan straightened up, still wheezing with laughter. He gave the startled soldiers an incurious glance- now that he had been close enough to study the energies in their rifles for a time, he had begun to adapt to them, at least somewhat- they'd probably still hurt, but at least they wouldn't just strip his defenses away anymore.

Wiping his eyes carefully, he folded his arms once more. "Are truly believing was no other possible outcome than Reichsmann conquering any dimension Nazi idiot encountered?" he asked, sounding somewhere between contemptuous and amused.

------

Somwhere in China:

The drill instructor gave her a look of polite confusion, beginning to wish she'd go away. Dragon or no, she was still an outsider... and as a Western Dragon, she was on some sort of weird divide between 'large, dangerous animal' and 'lesser deity'.

He sighed and tried to explain in brief while attempting to drill his students at the same time, with mixed success.

[ QUOTE ]
I wanted to be more 'convinced' that the Skulls really would start a gang war with their biggest customers (or was it the Trolls that started it? Early on it seemed like it was the Trolls picking the fight, but then it seemed more like the Skulls were the instigators, perceiving the Trolls as easy targets).

[/ QUOTE ]
Hmm... guess I dropped the ball somewhat on this one- what I meant to be clear was that the ghosts pretty much went after the Trolls on their own, at first- both had a strong hatred of 'dyne dealers, and if they couldn't go after the Skulls, the Trolls would be their biggest targets. And the Trolls, of course, are fairly primal- if they're attacked, they need someone to vent on. So they'd do their best to go after whatever target presented itself.

Also, the Skulls are only in the 'dyne business because it causes mass quantities of death (check their info bar sometime... Skulls are creepy as all hell, far more so than some of the most dangerous enemies in the game). If they think they can butcher the Trolls wholesale, I don't see them hesitating.

[ QUOTE ]
And I also wanted to know more of the reasons why the Skulls would be so keen on binding the spirits of dead Regulators - I almost wanted there to be a much darker and more sinister reason to bring back dead Regulators than "just because they can" (which is kind of what it seemed like).

[/ QUOTE ]
Hrm... narrative failure on my part. The Regulators were a combination of 'hey, we know these guys are tough', 'they have an anger we can use', and 'let's humiliate old enemies'. That and the Skulls just aren't that bright >.>

[ QUOTE ]
I really would recommend getting rid of the troll ambushes after the EB fights (assuming I didn't just get really unlucky and have patrols run in to fight me right after defeating each EB) - I was already just barely hanging on after each fight: a troll ambush just added insult to injury.

[/ QUOTE ]
... wait, EBs? What difficulty were you running on? O.o

I may slip a recommendation in there for dialing rep down a bit on the final mission (thankfully, with Brawler's mode of speech, it's pretty easy to sneak in... something to the effect of "I know you've already got a bit of a rep, newbie, but I'd recommend you dial it down a bit this time- you're going into a war.")- I'm reluctant to lose the EBs, since they're the only thing that would even slow a team down. As bosses, they're not nearly as tough.

The ambushes (and yup, they're ambushes- I had patrols, but they triggered things too early >.&lt... yeah. If you're clearing straight through, they're going to do nasty things to you. If not, though, they get tangled up in the Skull spawns and beat them up for you

But yeh, noted.

[ QUOTE ]
Another minor 'bug': much of the patrol and rescue dialog was written as though the patrol would say the first thing when you were still far away, and then say the next thing once you got close. In reality, they pretty much spam all of their dialog the moment they spawn in - and even seem to trigger "encounter dialog" in ally or rescue objectives that happen to fall nearby. That led to a LOT of "pull me out of the story moments" where groups halfway across the map were acting like I'd just arrived on the scene to beat the tar out of them.

[/ QUOTE ]
That's not a 'bug', that's a flat-out bug; dialogue and battle triggers are iffy at best in the MA, and they'll often misfire like that. Quite frankly, it pisses me off, but there's not much I can do about it (other than skip the triggers outright, but, well...).

As to the rest, I'm going to be testing out various maps for the final mission; but that's (as far as I know, thus the testing) the only Troll map we've got access to in the Mission Architect, and makes for a rather nice epic battle (assuming the triggers work right -_-. Unfortunately, if the triggers misfire (as they do uncomfortably often), it turns it into a horrible boring slog.

Anyhow, thanks very much for the review- you've triggered a few things that I want to pursue now in terms of polishing and rewriting, so I'd say that was a good review

((that wasn't a complaint, I just wanted to be sure that you weren't waiting for me or something. Post to be coming sometime in the next 24 hours in this space. It's been a long week >.&lt)

((waiting for you, Rebel))

[ QUOTE ]
I really wish I could have gone through and played the entire thing, but the custom bosses are just far too difficult. They need to have their powers turned down so none of them have build up, and extreme difficulty should be saved for very rare cases.

[/ QUOTE ]
Just an aside to this, Laser- in some cases, that would either shut out entire powersets, or utterly cripple the bosses, since they have it even on hard difficulty, and most 'normal' bosses are, frankly, jokes (and this is speaking as a squishy, mind).

Huh... there don't seem to be a lot of 2-3 mission arcs out there.

Don't feel too pressured on this one, Monkey- I've already got an arc in your epic thread, but if you have the time, feel free to take a stab at "Small Fears" (#12669), my horror-themed arc.

Hmm... I'm not sure how 'epic' it is, but my five-mission, stuffed-to-the-breaking-point-with-story arc "How to Survive a Robot Uprising" (#12669) could probably claim to a memorable character or two, and a reasonably solid plotline.

It could also use some love, as it's got less than 30 runs >.O

Feel free to be merciless- it's done, but I'm not 100% sure it's 'finished', if you know what I mean >.<

Huh... looks like an interesting little project here, Coulomb.

I've got an arc to throw your way, with one warning: it's still in a somewhat rough stage of development; I'm still tweaking it in terms of difficulty, since my only tests so far have been on my level 50 (purple-less) blaster main, exemplared down.

With that out of the way, "Trollbane" (#106553) is written for level 10-14 characters (although, with the difficulty as it is, you may want to wait until 14... or maybe not. I'm really not certain how it plays with a 'real' lowbie :/)

I'll be interested to see your reaction- I drew quite heavily from a relatively obscure segment of CoH lore (Back Alley Brawler and his time with the Regulators), and, well... you'll see.

Erm... right.

Getting off the Farming thing, I've gotta say (and this is mostly OBJECTIVE) that the Search function is borderline useless;

You cannot exclude words.

You cannot separate your search into Architect Name, Arc Name, Description, Enemy Group, or whatever, or any combination thereof.

You cannot even search by phrase, which is frankly rather pathetic- really, putting your search terms in quotemarks should limit it to those words, in that order, only. We're talking early 1990s funcitonality here >.<

At the moment, Arc ID# is the only reliable search method, which is somewhat... less than helpful, shall we say :/

((disclaimer: this post is being smashed through a writer's block the size of Nebraska with a sledgehammer. If it sucks, sorry... just don't want to hold things up >.O))

"Have made clear what self will comply with. Also, may be addressed as Flashpoint Zeo. Refuse to be de-personned by number and dishonouriffic." the huge tanker said, raising one eyebrow slightly, but not moving otherwise. His flames were still in place, as they had been since the explosion, but other than that he was as motionless as a statue.

"Made desires known to..." it was at this point that Flashpoint realized that the Major had wandered off without anything more than a token explanation of what she was doing, and nary a word regarding the Tanker's request. "... disappeared spacey research-type." he finished, sighing. "Desires likely to be above pay grade of guards. Suggesting requesting visit by superiour?"

Flashpoint Zeo could not, of course, read the rank designations on the Kazbek armour; but his tone was largely inoffensive, if somewhat obdurate. He didn't react to Isabel's taunts to the guards; the blaster didn't figure into his current agenda, although if they started shooting at her, she would be behind him before the second shot went off.

-----

Somewhere in China-

The sorceror shook his head. "<Apologies, honoured ancient. The dragon Hotaka departed this base some time ago, bound for the seat of the foreign despot's power, in North America, in company with our forces. He did not answer the return summons; we are uncertain what has become of him. Your magic is different enough from ours to cause difficulties in our tracking spells.>" he said diplomatically.

In truth, the CPSR didn't have the faintest clue what had happened to Hotaka, and with all the furour about their failed assault on the Dark Sovereign (something that Sun Tzu was acting curiously smug about, some had noticed), the dark dragon had been virtually forgotten.

Major Dos Santos gave one of her typical abortive salutes, forgetting halfway through what it was supposed to be and waving a hand in the general direction of Flashpoint Zeo's cell.

"There was an overpowering magical buildup in that cell that, at the moment, could be safely discharged. If it had been allowed to continue on, it would have become exponentially more dangerous with every second it was prevented from venting. So I vented it." she said with a shrug. And with that, she considered the conversation over, wandering off with the vague intention of going back to her quarters for clothing, or possibly back to the lab to see if she could salvage anything of her recording crystals, or re-enchant them... or she might end up in the comissary, if she decided she was hungry halfway to wherever she was going.

Of course, if the Kazbeks didn't get out of her way, she would walk face-first into them.

In the cell, Flashpoint Zeo was outwardly as placid as always, but he recognized those rifles. Even though he had glimpsed it only briefly before, the distinctive silhouette was burned into his memory in much the same fashion as a Kheldian recalled their first encounter with a Void Hunter rifle. If there was even the slightest movement on the trigger fingers of those Kazbeks, he was going to be in motion, out of their line of fire as fast as he could move.

------

Somewhere in China:

The drill instructor turned once again to the dragon, bowing rather than saluting now that the huge reptiloid had his full attention. "<You are in China, honoured ancient, summoned here along with the one known as Ryuu Hotaka..." there was a brief grimace as the Japanese syllables crossed his lips, but the mage controlled his reaction, "and as to what is going on, this is a base belonging to the Chinese People's Sorcerous Revolution; we are drilling potential new recruits.>"

He made that explanation, then waited. Dragons had a notoriously touchy pride, and appearing to ignore one rarely had positive consequences.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Venture should probably look at DeviousMe's thread for an example of how to review something. Rather than just saying "you're doing it wrong", he says "here's what I thought was wrong and how you can fix it."

Much better than the negativity without correction that I've seen here.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's odd - I think Venture's doing a great job of pointing out exactly what he doesn't like about an arc and why.

I mean, he's harsh as hell, but I wouldn't expect anything less of him.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm kind of in the middle here- I think Venture is (uncomfortably) good at nailing flaws right on the head, but he's occasionally a bit vague as to why something is a problem- it took me three tries, I think, to pry out why he had a problem with a "Usual Suspects Ending".

... I just realized that we're critiquing Venture's reviews. This is all getting rather meta.

[ QUOTE ]
It's 4 AM here and I'm bushed after doing four reviews

[/ QUOTE ]
You're a crazy man, Venture

But a dedicated one. Those of us of a more plebiean nature appreciate your efforts

[ QUOTE ]
Right, so what would I have to do to avoid 'the Usual Suspects Ending' problem?

Don't have one.

[/ QUOTE ]
... which leaves me with a rather pedestrian retreaded robot-romp with a moderately amusing contact (and a lot of abruptly extraneous hints that something's not quite right with your contact)

I suppose I could try to make it clearer that this is a 'to be continued' situation. Neither the story of the perfect machine nor /Hide's are finished just yet. I'm going to have to delete something, though... I'm quite literally at the 100% mark- even a single letter more would put me over the limit.

[ QUOTE ]
And as to 'you can't do anything' about being played..? Uhm, what options, exactly, could I offer? Branching dialogue or missions aren't possible, and the majority of heroic characters probably wouldn't just go 'screw the global-level danger, nobody makes a fool out of me!' to ram /Hide's words down his throat and demand an explanation.

This is why.

The players are already being railroaded by the linear format. Railroading them again by sticking them into any kind of Usual Suspects, Kobayashi Maru, Catch-22 or other choiceless screwover is twisting the knife in the wound.

[/ QUOTE ]
I suppose part of the problem I'm having is that this particular 'choiceless screwover' isn't really any different than any other mission you accept in City of *. It's all 100% linear; there's an implicit agreement between the author and the player that the author will do their best to respect the player's character, and the player will, well, play, and presumably in the process allow suspension of disbelief to compensate for whatever flaws are forced by the game engine.

Yes, your character is being played; if the player is paying attention, though, there are a lot of hints that something's not quite right, although I tried to avoid anything that would make the average person throw up their hands and go 'okay, right, unless you come clean, I am SO out of here!'

I mean, you're (presumably) in this mess as a hero, contacted by DATA to do some investigative work; in theory, you should be able to compensate for a contact that's being less than honest with you. It's more 'playing along' than 'being played'. Or at least that's how I tried to imply things were going- without knowing exactly what character it is that's running it, there's only so much I can do.

Or is the onus entirely on me to lead the player by the hand through a plot that's perhaps slightly more complex than the Mission Architect can really handle? I've already tipped my hand further than I'd prefer with the blatant '/Hide is lying' clue in mission three; as I said, there's no shortage of hints that something is up with /Hide scattered throughout his dialogue.

[ QUOTE ]
The Usual Suspects Ending works for the trope namer because the movie plays fair with the audience. Unless you have a room-temperature IQ who Keyser Soze is should be clear from the opening act, which tells you what you need to know about the rest of the movie. The characters are screwed but the audience is in on the joke. Here, the two are one and the same.

[/ QUOTE ]
As you can probably tell, I'm not seeing how I'm not playing fair; all I want to ask of people that play the arc is the excercise of some reading comprehension and the same suspension of disbelief they give when playing any other arc.

I guess the big question for me here is "Is this a problem because it's a poorly done Usual Suspects Ending, or because it's a Usual Suspects Ending at all?" Because if it's the former, I want to do what I can to fix it. If it's the latter, then I can accept it as a personal preference rather than an inherent problem.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Unfortunately, I seem to be left with the choice between 'pathetic pushover' and '... okay, I'm dead in two shots', which is the difference between 'normal' and 'hard' on boss-level electric blast. *grumble*

[/ QUOTE ]

Have you tried setting both the primary and secondary to Electric Blast? You get twice the attacks, which can be a nice stepping stone in between difficulty levels.

[/ QUOTE ]
Hmm... that's a thought, Aliana. Although it does detract a bit from their supposed nature as Repair Bots :/

I'll think about it, thanks

Hmm... it might help if you were more clear on what you didn't consider 'just a bunch of stuff that happened', Venture; after all, just about anything could have that accusation levelled at it.

Thanks for the heads-up, I'll see what I can do about the misallocated HTML tags- they seem to be frustratingly inconsistent as to how they work.

Interestingly, some of the changes you noted either weren't changed (the dialogue about testing and you being the final variable is identical- I don't remember changing it at at all), or were changed in the opposite direction from what you thought- the Repair Bots actually had their difficulty turned down, from Extreme/Extreme to Hard/... I think I left Pain Dom on Extreme, but I'd have to double check.

Unfortunately, I seem to be left with the choice between 'pathetic pushover' and '... okay, I'm dead in two shots', which is the difference between 'normal' and 'hard' on boss-level electric blast. *grumble*

I'm thinking of changing the spawns slightly in the final mission- fewer pure-custom spawns. Hopefully that will drop the annoyance factor a bit. I'm assuming the 'killer GMing' now primarily refers to the final mission, since I think I caught most of the other ones you mentioned (including fixing the PPD ally spawn-points in the fourth mission)?

Thankfully, you didn't run into that aggravating bug in the final mission where the last objective doesn't spawn- after some back-and-forth with the GMs, it turned out that I had too many things slated for 'middle', which apparently borked something and made the mission uncompleteable. Here's hoping that that means it's fixed >.<

SPOILER (for my own arc...):









Right, so what would I have to do to avoid 'the Usual Suspects Ending' problem? Bearing in mind that I was planning that ending from the start, and there are hints (which are apparently too subtle) scattered throughout... from the very first mission onwards!.. that /Hide knows more than he should, and might not be fully in control of his own actions (to the point that I used the characteristic *click* of the perfect machine taking over one of its minions in /Hide's dialogue in one of the briefings).

There were at least three times that I can think of that /Hide hints that there's more he wants to share, but backs off from saying (or pulls a last-second word swap).

Don't forget, also, that it was /Hide himself that sent you off to find the clue that he was lying (which the dialogue box says flat out...)

And, of course, there's the machine's persistent reference to you as 'the variable' and testing you and all this being an experiment...

I already feel like I'm edging uncomfortably close to the line between this being a mild twist ending and me beating you over the head and screaming 'HEY LOOK! IT'S NOT WHAT YOU EXPECTED!!!!!'

And as to 'you can't do anything' about being played..? Uhm, what options, exactly, could I offer? Branching dialogue or missions aren't possible, and the majority of heroic characters probably wouldn't just go 'screw the global-level danger, nobody makes a fool out of me!' to ram /Hide's words down his throat and demand an explanation.

Really, saying that my note about there being too much at stake for your doubts about /Hide be a problem is fair and then turning around and complaining about not being able to do anything about being 'played' is kind of a mixed message; one paragraph, you're saying 'yeah, okay, that makes sense', and then the next you're telling me 'that thing I said makes sense? It sucks, and you shouldn't do it!'

Oh... and did you re-read the whole souvenir? The beginning is identical, but I rewrote some of it to make it clear that /Hide was doing his best to act in good faith, but the perfect machine's external control was often preventing him.

Ergh... sorry >.<

It's just frustrating and confusing- this is something I put a good deal of effort into rewriting, and it being dismissed with the exact same offhand phrase as previously, with you apparently not even seeing the changes I put in (which I have a hard time believing, considering how incisive your criticism is in most other areas) leaves me feeling that you're taking the re-evaluation considerably less seriously than I took the re-writing.

Anyways, your time is, as always, appreciated- thank you for re-doing it (I honestly hadn't expected you to get to it so soon); your input helped me tighten it significantly the first time around (at least, I'd like to hallucinate it did -_-, and I'm hoping that a bit of clarification on this second run will help further.

Major Renata Dos Santos brushed her hands together lightly, and then cinched her cotton robe tightly closed, nodding in a satisfied fashion to the exceptionally startled (and now stark naked) Caldoks. "As I would have explained, had we had more time, the spell that was building up in the cell was specifically tuned to be utterly harmless to living beings. However, it was destabilizing, for some reason, and would have reverted to simply being a magical explosion of immense power in fairly short order- and while the cell would have contained it for a time, it would eventually have overloaded the shields after growing at a geometric pace until its growth outpaced our ability to contain it, by which point it could potentially have cracked the planet like an eggshell." The Major didn't bother to clarify that this was probably a worst-case scenario; the spell in question was a very strange one, bizarrely powerful and none too stable- the only probable effect was that all effects would be highly improbable.

She shrugged, peering through the smoke at the fuzzy bright spot that was the huge fire tanker. He hadn't moved, or even shifted position to do more than look around. She shrugged and returned her attention to the Caldoks, noticing for the first time that they were naked. "I'm really going to have to have a word or two with Teivos about getting some cotton undergarments for you lot... I'm sure you'd be a bit less snotty if you actually had comfortable underwear... Right, you, why non-lethal?" she demanded, abruptly switching her focus to Flashpoint Zeo.

The big tanker glanced at her, nonplussed by the abrupt switch of topics and focus. "... did not wish to kill anybody?" he said after a moment.

Dos Santos gave him a fishy glare that was somewhat spoiled by the fact that her eyes were watering fiercely. "And that's it. You blow out the cell, destroy millions in equipment, and then just sit there. What is your problem?"

"Wish to speak to crazed tyrant. Have been lied to since arrival; to be desiring to hear lies of other side, now; at least can make informed judgement as to which side can lie more fluently, then."

"That's an... interesting... way of looking at it." Dos Santos commented drily. Flashpoint Zeo just jiggled his head non-committaly. "Well, I'll pass the word along. I'm sure that at least one of the small army that's going to turn up any second now will be willing to run an errand for me... you two might want to go get dressed, by the way. I have no idea what the penalty for appearing out-of-uniform while on duty is for your lot, since you've made it so clear that your rules are different, but I'd imagine it probably isn't pleasant. Might want to pick up some new weapons as well."

-----

Somewhere in China:

The dragon's English-language question and prodding was met with a puzzled glance, another (somewhat more cautious) salute, and a return of the drill instructor's attention to his students.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Wellp... eh, why not.

[/ QUOTE ]
That's the kind of attitude I want out of someone who wants me to spend time and effort on their work!

[/ QUOTE ]
Argh, sorry, Talen, that wasn't the impression I wanted to give . I was just hesitant to put my arcs out for review here, as Venture has already run through the both, (he thought that Small Fears passed muster with some caveats, and that How to Survive a Robot Uprising needed a lot of work... which I have since done, thus my desire for a renewed review).

I do honestly want to polish my arcs and get them as tightly written as possible, so I would appreciate a review if it's possible.

And sorry to hear that you've been having a rough time of it.

Arc Name: "Small Fears"
Arc ID: 12285
Morality: Heroic
Faction: Custom
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Wall of Knight
Difficulty Level: Soloable, but not easy. Bring a good inspiration loadout.
Synopsis: No matter how happy your childhood, there are always a few corners of darkness, little pockets of black fear that every child knows. And now those shadows are expanding. Something is clawing out of the lost childhood of Paragon. Are you ready to confront the fears of the nursery?
Estimated Time to Play: ... hour-ish?; Three missions, nothing huge.

Arc Name: "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
Arc ID: 12669
Morality: Heroic
Faction: Custom (mostly canon robotic enemies, a handful of custom critters)
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Wall of Knight
Difficulty Level: Again, soloable, but not easy. Bring a good inspiration loadout.
Synopsis: Something strange is happening with the AIs of Paragon City; DATA has asked you to look into it. Your natural first stop, Citadel, got nothing. Until you noticed that you had a new message on your service... from Citadel! telling you to visit a certain warehouse in Steel Canyon... (solo-UNfriendly)
Estimated Time to Play: 45 minutes-an hour and a half (not sure); five missions, some fair-to-middling sized.

Wellp... eh, why not.

Should you happen to have time, Talen (or anyone else who's offering reviews in this thread, the more the merrier, after all), feel free to take a stab at my arcs.

First off is "Small Fears" (#12285), a horror-flavoured arc. I've gotten some good feedback on it already, and consider it... reasonably polished. Still, any improvements that can be made, should be made. I want it as good as it can be, after all.

Secondly comes "How to Survive a Robot Uprising" (#12669). This one is fresh off a fairly heavy round of rewrites and tweakings. One warning- I consider AI allies to be a legitimate form of mitigating difficulty, so if you're against that sort of thing like Venture is, well... :/

Still, I (tentatively) think it's ready to go, or at least ready for another round of criticism.

Oh... hmm. One thing to keep in mind when suggesting things- both have less than a third of a percentage point of space left, so adding things in probably won't be an option without first removing things.