The_Cheshire_Cat

I've got a question; you keep using the phrase "Just a bunch of stuff that happens" to describe some of the plots, and although I can kind of pick up what you mean from the context, I'm curious what your actual definition is for it.

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A perfectly valid way of doing things! You miss out on some disturbing dialogue from the people you attack by doing it that way, but I do like that people are feeling it enough to actually WANT to avoid fighting them. It is a very dark and depressing arc, and heroic failure is a very major theme - but that doesn't mean you need to abandon your principles. You didn't like the available options and created your own; it's about as heroic as you can GET in this arc.

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The last mission tied it together very nicely. Up until then it was a "dark" arc and I assumed the final civilians were possessed or something, but reading their text pretty much forced me to flip on some stealth.

Event Horizon's text was quite cutting, but the real and genuine kicker was as I zoning out, and suddenly connected the dots between the "don't let them break the barricades" text and the custom critters in the first mission.

Very nice concept and execution.

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I actually wasn't sure how many people would pick up on that. It's very subtle since not a lot of attention is drawn to it in the first mission, and by the last most people have probably forgotten about them.

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I thought "The Resurrection" was just a play on your forum name.

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Ah! I wasn't the only one that thought that!

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Maybe...

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(If that wasn't intentional, don't worry. I made a great pun in my story arc that I didn't even realize for THREE DAYS after I'd written it).

It should still be there, I didn't unpublish or anything. You probably just have "Arcs I've already played" or "Arcs I've already rated" ticked on your search field, which will filter out arcs you've completed/rated from your search results.

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"Arc Name: Astoria in D Minor
Arc ID: 41565
Arc Length: Medium/Long (5 missions, but they can be very quick and are stealthable for the most part)
Arc Difficulty: Easy. Support ATs might have some trouble but I didn't test on any so they might be fine.
Description: A horror arc about the search for a lost daughter in Dark Astoria. Meet an alien, a disturbed hero, and find out what it really means to survive."

This is one of the best I ave played. By a long shot. There is a very solid story backed by an underused and poorly represented group (Banished Pantheon). It is not too hard to solo (i played with a BS/WP scrapper) even on rugged. The story is great and the mission maps used fit perfectly. Number 2 and number 4 are the best maps ever.

I would detail the arc but it would take a lot away from the story. Kind of like telling people Bruce Willis is dead before taking them to see Sixth Sense. Not quite as dramatic but similar concept.

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As much as I appreciate the vote of confidence, I honestly don't mind if people spoil the story for the purpose of a review. Of course it's always better to experience a story without knowing much about it ahead of time, but I find reviews helpful as a writer, too.

I thought "The Resurrection" was just a play on your forum name.

This thread is a good idea; you should see about getting it stickied, and maybe periodically update the first post with the most recent list.


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AE System
--------
Welcome to Architect Entertainment -- Neutral
Death for Dollars! -- Neutral
Bare Knuckles of Rage (9304)
*

Character/Supergroup Origins
--------
Birth of a Fossil -- Heroic
Secret Origins(Tech) The Snake Women of Epsilon V (42221) - Heroic
Noah Reborn -- Heroic (2370)
*

Classic Super-Hero/Super-Villain
--------
THE BOMBER --- Heroic --- 16607
*

Comedy
--------
The Extadine Lab -- Heroic
MacGuffin Delivery Service (1567) -- Villainous
ParaCon -- Heroic
The new and improved Lord Recluse Strike Force -- Villainous (though I wouldn't recommend against a hero )
The Fire Bunnies - Neutral, They are only bunnies after all...
You Say It's Your Birthday! (3630) - Neutral
Trademark Infringement -- Heroic (2220)
Hail to the King Neutral (34640)
Walk On the Wild Side - Neutral - 3580
Shirley You Jest (25474) -- Neutral
*

Comedy/Drama
--------
A Super Team is Born -- Heroic
Cause of How Some Silly Stealed My Wings #1481 -- Neutral
How to Survive a Robot Uprising -- Heroic (12669)
Dr. Duplicate's Dastardly Dare -- Neutral
It's a Nice Day for a White Wedding (9059) -- Neutral
TURG FICTION: Ghost in the Machine, Act I - Heroic (althoughs romantic villains could try this too )
Rum Runners of Bloody Bay (3691) - Heroic
Have a Blap, Blap, Blappy Day Kids! (2019)
The Toypocalypse! (49280) - Heroic
*

Crime/Gangs
--------
The Bravuran Jobs -- Villainous (16809)
The Monstrous Regiment of Lesbian Hellions -- Heroic (27178)
Win the 2009 Freak-Lympics (2150) - Villainous
Ninja Crimewave! (2142) - Heroic
Whitehawks (Arc 49364) -- Heroic
The Internet is for Crime (53385) - Villains
Plastic Pistol Peril (1135) - Heroic*

Drama
--------
The Conciliators: Simone -- Heroic (4010)
The Fan Club -- Heroic
*

Global Domination
--------
Axis and Allies -- Villainous (1379)
*

Heist
--------
Celebrity Kidnapping -- Villainous (1388)
Easy Money -- Villainous (31490)
*

Historical (Realistic)
--------
*

Historical (CoH Lore)
--------
The War on Superadine - The Regulators in their 1980's drug war (Heroic) (Arc 7959)
Origins - Volume 1 (57077) -- Heroic
*

Holiday
--------
*

Horror
--------
Astoria in D Minor (41565) -- Heroic
Dark Dreams (3615)
The Amulet of J'gara (1709) -- Heroic
Project: Perilous - Into the Chthonian Pit (#3586) - Neutral (Unless you happen to be a mad cultist, in which case, go nuts!)
Small Fears -- Heroic
*

Large-Scale Crisis
--------
A Hero's Halo -- Heroic
This Is War, Part I - the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz -- Neutral
Win the Past, Own the Future - Heroic
A Warrior's Friend - Heroic
The Clockwork War -- Heroic (18672)
Flight of the Valkyries - Precursor (20272) -- Neutral
*

Magic
--------
The Magical Miss Fitz (5079) -- Heroic
Chains of Blood (5492) -- Heroic
A Deal with Destiny -- Heroic
*

Military
--------
Redoubt Operations #1: Fires over Kalago -- Heroic
Red Storm Rising (Arc 4912) -- Heroic
Whitehawks (Arc 49364) -- Heroic
Axis and Allies -- Villainous (1379)

*
Misc. Adventure
--------
The Portal Bandits (3326) -- Heroic
*

Mystery
--------
Blowback (18575) -- Heroic
Dream Paper -- Heroic (13030)
Dream Paper 2: Restless Sleep -- Heroic (16797)
Dream Paper 3: Broken Dreams -- Heroic (13064)
*

Mythology
--------
Atlantis Attacks! -- Neutral (30898) -- Click for Promotional Poster
Anactoria's Descent Into the Underworld -- Villainous
The Seelie War -- Heroic
The Unseelie War -- Villainous
Tales of Cimerora, volume 1 : Of feathers and fur -- Heroic
The Aegis Affair - Heroic
Witches and Warriors (53006)- Heroic
The War of Fate(12220,46722)- Heroic
Rites of the Maenads (61159) - Heroic
*

Nemesis Plots
--------
Brass Reaver: Part 1 -- Neutral
*

Player-Chosen Outcome
--------
Hunting the Dark Dragon -- Heroic
Playing Gods -- Heroic (51106)
*

Sci-Fi
--------
Adventures of the Space Marines -- Neutral
Adventures of the Space Marines 2 -- Neutral
Above Mars - Part 1: The Wellington -- Neutral (13215)
The Final Nemesis
*

Un-themed Survival/AV/Time Challenges
--------
The Meatgrinder -- Neutral

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So far I'm enjoying the arc and I love your map selection. I had to stop, however, at the 4th (?) mission (the one with the super foggy cave) because of a bug. The text in the popup window and my name in the Nav bar showed up in a gibberish font that looked like a combination of Russian, Greek, and a weird Wingdings that I had never seen before. I tried relogging but the problem persisted. I'll try again another day, but if it isn't fixed, I'll probably just start it over. I already sent a /bug report but I'm curious if you used any special formatting, especially for the character name in the Nav bar, and if anyone else has had this problem.

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Heh, maybe I should put a warning about that (Some other people have mentioned that people might be confused by this). The gibberish font isn't a bug, it's MEANT to look like that; it's a deliberate font choice. Mission 4 is meant to be very "What the hell is going on?" (Which is pretty much summed up by the mission finish popup). Just run through it like you would a normal mission; the objectives are all pretty obvious (Two named bosses and a desctructable object, plus one optional glowy, and take a look at the clues you get from them. It won't really make any more SENSE, but you'll probably at least kind of figure out the general tone of the mission.

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One gameplay issue: in the first mission, as you escort Event Horizon out, if you get too far from him, he plays the Waiting animation. Even if you get close to him again, you have to wait for the animation to finish, or he won't move. It took me awhile to figure out what was wrong; I'd try to get him to move, but he wouldn't follow and so I was creating an endless animation loop.

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I think this is just an issue with how escort animations work in City of Heroes in general. The escort NPC, if they have an animation set for when they've lost you, won't move again until they finish a complete "cycle" of the animation. The wait animation is kind of long so it's possible to lose him again before he starts following you. All you really need to do is just make sure he's actually moving before you get too far away from him (This goes for any escort NPC in the game really).

Also, thanks Ex Libris for posting my poster!

I hate to double-post but I just had a burst of inspiration and made a fairly major change to the arc. The overall plotline is the same, but I switched out the contact for a different one (It makes sense when you play it). Given that it is going on 6 AM, odds are I probably missed some text making all the changes, but I'm fairly sure I caught all the important stuff.

Also, there was no payphone contact =(

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WARNING: DO NOT PLAY
Arc #2007, "The Green Brew"
tl;dr: 1 star. Offenses: Killer GM

Green Dwarf (author insert) needs you help in creating the perfect....

...beer.

That's probably worth at least four stars immediately from the frat members.

Your first stop is Oranbega, to retrieve some magical water from one of its springs. Guarding the place is "Sinadria", one of the Dwarf's exes, who spawned frontloaded. At first glance she looked like a Succubus EB but is actually a custom with a lookalike costume (well done), a Claws/Couldn'tTell. I ended up needing to use Elude as the fight got pushed into the next spawn down the corridor. This was a small map and the glowie spawned about in the middle.

Your next task is to retrieve some special barley from a Redcap-infested field in Croatoa. Upon entering the map the nav bar instructs you to find "Alsae", who turns out to be a Grain Nymph ally (Boss, Plant/Thorn). Rescuing her triggers the spawn of the real target, Redcap Boss Iron Heel. Unfortunately this means you have to grovel over a large outdoor map again, and even if you choose to ditch the ally your stealth is blown off. Upon completion Alsae gives you a sack of barley and "another present to remember her by", If You Know What I Mean.

The next ingredient is hops...from Praetorian Earth. The nav bar says "Find the Alpha Wolf and assert your dominance"....um....riiiiiight.... Taking him out triggers the spawn of EB "Loup-Garou", a Super Strength/Regen. Thanks to the current AI silliness the first thing he did was pop Instant Healing, meaning the first 60 seconds or so of beating on him just didn't count. After a effort roughly akin to felling the mightiest tree in the forest with a herring, he bought it.

Next up was a trip to Eden for yeast. You are warned to bring END insps and to stay out of melee range...nice thing to say to a Scrapper. I also noticed going in that this mission is level-locked to 50, which actually EXed me to 49. The objective target is, I kid you not, a gorram Blue Mitochondria. I did try to fight it but, as a Scrapper, that was just not happening. At this point I bailed out of the arc and one-starred it. If zero was an actual option I'd have used it.

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I have to disagree with you on this one - I played this arc and had a blast! I was on my Dual/Regen Scrapper - all i had to do to the Mito was stay above him (i have fly) and used my Black Wand Vet power to kill him, his ranged attacks were not very powerful and with my Instant Heal and he was dead long before its timer was up - the mission after the Mito was also great with a lot of suprise twists - i might suggest if you dont have one of the vet ranged attacks you try buying the revolver temp power - if your not in Melee he is a piece of cake! As for the loup-garou he was also easy and i am only lvl 42, his bio text was an amazing either legend or piece of fiction - whichever it was it read great!

I gave it 5 stars for creativity. wonderful flavor text (if you bothered to read it) and actually making me have to find creative solutions to the problem!

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I gave his arc 5 stars. Of course, I was a Blaster and was pleasantly surprised that what I was expecting to be a tough battle (the mito) actually took about 15 seconds without using any inspirations.

I'd say if you have ANY ranged attack (including temp/vet powers) then give this arc a try. It's really fun.

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I also gave this one 5 stars after I got the "I gave you 5 now play my arc" thing he seems to be giving everyone (I normally hate those but I actually got to talk to him since I was on when he gave it, so I thought I'd give it a go). I thought using the mito was very clever, it's a fight you can't win by using your standard tactics as a scrapper (Which I was), and the flavour text was very well written.

Honestly, you know what would resolve all this? Green Dwarf, just put right there in the arc description: "You will not be able to complete this arc if you have no ranged attacks". Problem solved. Personally, I probably should have down rated to 4 for throwing a fight like that with no warning in the description, but he did warn me verbally before I ran it so I gave him a pass on it.

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I don't care about your character. Or your friends. Or your friends' friends.

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I feel I should respond to this. While I agree with the sentiment, I should point out that these arcs are naturally going to involve characters you've never heard of, so there's nothing really wrong with using your own characters for those spots. After all, you should write what you know. As long as they don't dominate the story, I see nothing wrong with using them.

[/ QUOTE ]Ah, so here we draw me out to expand on them.

By and large, most players in role playing games don't actually make interesting characters. They make enjoyable ones. Most of the time, the characters lack the kind of engaging hooks or the depth of a proper literary character, especially since they're components of a 'game' that has success and failure mechanics. With that in mind, it's actually very possible to make a good, fun, RPG character, who is utterly unengaging in an actual story.

So, if your arc is 'Beat up guys with my character,' or 'help my character through his origin story,' or worse, 'Watch my characters' important story arc where you help out despite having never met him before,' it's going to almost certainly suck. I know I'm playing cynically here, but it's something I find infinitely more likely than stumbling upon the next work of distilled genius here. if you put your friends' characters in a story because they are your friends then they might as well not be there. An NPC in a story arc should be there to facilitate the story. If they're there to facilitate the badly-designed enemies, you probably have a problem too - it's a sign that you've probably made the arc or the enemies badly.

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I'd like to add to this and also second the sentiment but maybe not the exact wording. I don't think there's anything wrong with using your own character in an arc if A: The arc isn't entirely about that character and MY character really has no impact on the plot, B: The character is interesting enough that I don't mind them showing up a lot, and C: (And this is the big one), the arc does not assume I already know who you are. I realize Talen already said all that but I'd like to toss in my own two cents.

A lot of the time when I see people use their own characters, it seems like they have these big elaborate backstories written out in their minds, but they don't quite know how to express that to people who don't know their characters. So I end up having a bunch of names of people and groups thrown at me, and all the storyline NPCs seem to think these people and groups are a really big deal, but I have no idea who they are and no idea why I'm supposed to care.

I realize it's difficult to express all the stuff you've written with the character limits presented by the MA, but you can at least get across the important things. For instance: When you give me the name of an enemy group, maybe throw in a sentence that sums up their thing, like "This bank is under attack by the 5th column! I thought that insane neo-nazi army had disappeared for good after the war..." That's not a great example (Especially since you CAN assume the players at least know who the base groups are - describing them is the devs' job, not yours :P), but you get the idea - tells you who they are and sums up their history in one sentence. Almost anything can be summed up in one sentence, and if you can't, then the thing is either too complicated or you need to learn how to simplify better. If you want to go into more detail, you can; if the arc is meant to focus on that group/person, then you build on them as the arc goes on. You just don't have them keep showing up and the NPCs all go "Oh no, it's group/person X again! Run!"

For those of you who watch Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee said it well in his Dead Space review: "You can't just tell me how sympathetic a character is, you have to characterize them first." I think a weakness in my arc is the fact that the characters that are meant to be sympathetic don't get much characterization (Although someone posted a great suggestion in my thread which I really wish I'd thought of myself), but the arc is more about the atmosphere and the themes rather than the characters, so I let it slide. If I was writing a character driven arc (Which is what I want to try next), I absolutely would not let myself publish it until I felt like I resolved that issue.

Anyway. I've rambled on quite a bit here. I think I'm going to stop.

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It's sitting out in the streets of Dark Astoria. The phone isn't hooked up but it rings anyway. Your "contact" is across the way in a phone booth after the first mission. The walls make her feel safe.

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Again, very good idea and I wish I'd thought of it :P. It's a pretty major rework for me to put in at the moment (Still kind of riding on that "I just finished an arc!" buzz), but it's definitely an idea I'll keep in mind when I feel up to changing things.

*Edit* the more I think about this idea the more I realize how perfect I could make it for the arc. I may make the change sooner rather than later.

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Ah, different interpretations here. Also after I saw the civvies start attacking me I just turned on superspeed and slipped through to the end, stopping to drop the occasional zombie. I gave Event Horizon the first strike and kept his henchmen out of splash range. Call me an old softie.

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A perfectly valid way of doing things! You miss out on some disturbing dialogue from the people you attack by doing it that way, but I do like that people are feeling it enough to actually WANT to avoid fighting them. It is a very dark and depressing arc, and heroic failure is a very major theme - but that doesn't mean you need to abandon your principles. You didn't like the available options and created your own; it's about as heroic as you can GET in this arc.

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Okay, that was creepy as hell.

Seriously, very good job... excellent storytelling and atmosphere throughout the arc! The way you formatted the text in certain places was very effective.

Only one very minor gripe (SPOILERS!)...







I gathered that in the final mission, my character was entirely confused and thought the civilians were monsters or something. But I found that I as a player was pretty confused as well. I was saying to myself, "Wait, are these good guys? Why are they hostile to me? Wait, they're saying I'm attacking them?" (Which admittedly I was...) So, uh.... hmmm. Maybe that sort of dissonance was exactly what you were going for. I have to admit it was rather uncomfortable for me, in that I knew I was doing what I needed to do to complete the mission, but at the same time I knew it was wrong. Fortunately, by the time I got to that mission I had faith enough in the story to just let it carry me forward, rather than just saying "This makes no sense! I'm supposed to be a hero!" and quitting the arc.

So... I don't know. Maybe that's not a gripe after all. You could make it a little more straightforward that the protagonist isn't thinking straight at this point--either with something suggesting as much on the mission entry text or, if you wanted to do something a little more extreme, by making the "enemies" look like zombies (while keeping the dialogue as is).

But it seems like it'd be a tough call to make. Like I said, I was confused, but I'm not sure whether that's a bad thing or not.

Oh, and on a less equivocal note, I caught a typo in Event Horizon's dialogue in the end, where he talks about how the fog "playes" with your mind.



END SPOILERS




Once again, magnificent arc! I could definitely see myself running it again.


EDIT:
I just read the souvenir text. I'd strongly encourage anyone who runs this arc to be sure not to miss what's written there.


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I'm actually super glad you mentioned this, because as confused as it made you feel, that is EXACTLY the mood I was going for for that mission. I wasn't sure if a lot of people would be affected the way I did because not everyone gets too involved with a storyline, and beating up civilian models is basically the same thing as beating up monsters to them. I guess a little bit of backstory is in order here, but originally when I designed the arc, mission 4 did not exist, and mission 5 was meant to be the big standout of the arc - the whole theme of the arc was going to revolve around choices, or rather the lack of choices. The fact that you have to mow down a bunch of civilians to finish the arc is meant to be a disturbing experience because of the fact that the game doesn't ALLOW you not to. I mean, you can stealth past, or just run past and let their aggro reset, but odds are you're going to have to fight at least SOME of them (Especially since Event Horizon has a couple helping him at the end and you HAVE to fight him). That's what Event Horizon's dialogue is meant to evoke - You didn't have any problem doing this when it was zombies - but change a model and some dialogue and all of a sudden it's a LOT more disturbing. I ended up dropping some of those themes from the main focus, but I still wanted to have them in there as kind of a tertiary thing to think about, and they still helped push the atmosphere of desperation and hopelessness that WAS the main theme of the arc.

This mission is the main reason why the arc is "Heroic" and not "Neutral". For a villain or at least morally ambiguous character, it's no big deal to kill some people to defend yourself - you do what you need to do to survive. But for a hero, you're really meant to tear yourself up for it - your back was against the wall, but those people didn't NEED to die.

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1) Your "contact" is supposed to vanish for the last two missions. In that case why not work the whole thing through a.. well I want to say pay phone, but that's not available. Maybe one of the desks with an abandoned office phone? If you want to introduce Irene, maybe put her right inside the first mission.

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Putting her in the first mission is a brilliant idea and I wish I'd thought of it :P. Honestly, I had this same issue when designing the arc, but I had to make the concession because of the limitations of the MA system. The arc is meant to be very personal and your character is meant to be very present for the whole thing - doing it all through a payphone or computer desk just feels too detached to have the same feeling as talking to a person.

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2) Had some over-boundary issues with the default-size clue and dialog windows - the medical lab clue from the fourth mission and the closing text after the fifth mission. If you were going for that, all well and good, but I wanted to let you know.

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This isn't exactly intentional, but it isn't really UNintentional either. I was aware of the issue but didn't bother to fix it, because those clues are meant as an interface screw ANYWAY, and actually reading them won't gleam much more meaning than just seeing the huge wall of crazy staring at you.

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3) Argh, not the Mayhem asylum and Ruladak caves again! I got very sick of those in test, because they're pains to navigate and there's only one layout. The Ruladak caves especially, since they require making a blind right and opening a non-obvious passageway to get to the end. The Mayhem asylum seems like the only thing for that map, and I won't say the Ruladak caves didn't work, even seeing all-caps descriptions pop out was a bit of a jump scare. You might be able to pull off the atmosphere of twisted reality just as well with one of the large office map-transition-to-sewer layouts.

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To be honest, I know they're a pain to navigate. I ran this arc a LOT of times while testing it and the while I learned to find my way around the Ruladak caves (Hint: ALWAYS have your map open, it's much easier :P), the hospital always gave me trouble having to backtrack and find all the objectives. At the same time though, the maps were just too perfect for the atmosphere to consider switching them out for another one. The hospital just screams "Silent Hill", which is obviously a major influence on the arc, and the Ruladak caves are the absolute foggiest map you can find (Plus, the BP sigils actually look really cool when it's all you can see in the fog). I was considering using one of the transition to sewer maps, but I wanted to stay away from any really gigantic maps just because I personally find they tend to drag on, and most of these missions were meant to be reasonably short-moderate in length.

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4) Yeah, I noticed that the lights were on in the first mission and it struck me as odd then. Maybe you could set the first mission in an abandoned-office version of the same map, and then in the fifth mission the lights are on? It struck me as Event Horizon replaying the day when he snapped, when everyone seemed to be attacking him. I didn't particularly notice the civilian armament, but they'd work well with crazy weapons instead of vanilla ones - a Ruladak sword, a "bloody rust" rifle, etc.

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Again, a bit of backstory is needed here. Originally the arc was meant to have a very circular sort of feel; you start and end in the same place. In fact, the original conception (Which I threw out before even writing it because it didn't work as well for the narrative) was that the last mission actually WAS the first mission again - only this time you saw what REALLY happened. I got rid of that because I wanted to leave the ending more ambiguous rather than a slap in the face "You are the real bad guy!". It's up to the player to decide how they feel about themselves after running the last mission - were they really killing innocent civilians this whole time, or was what they saw in the last mission just a side effect of getting too close to Mot in mission 4? As for weapons, I intentionally wanted to give them the most "realistic" armament I could rather than crazy stuff. They're meant to really feel like they're just normal people trying to survive in a town that's gone insane - not meant to be insane themselves.

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5) Been playing Urban Dead, have we? The BaniPan zombies really don't follow the standard model in that they're basically half mummy half zombie. Husks, Chambers, etc. Old Civil War-era dead. The shamans, contrarily, are all actual modern-day people who've turned to the cult of the cannibal gods. Presenting them as standard Romero zombies doesn't work, but putting their ancient dead gods in their mouths is just as effective as barhah harman hambargahz. Similarly, your claws guy could be focused on cutting instead of blood and be suspiciously, clinically _clean_. And then a bloody clown in the psycho reality. (unless he's the same model then I dunno what to say)

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I honestly did not think anyone would get the Urban Dead references :P. I know the difference between BP zombies and Romero zombies, but that was another one of those things where I had to make a concession because of the limitations of the system. I didn't want to make my own custom group because Dark Astoria IS the BP zone and no Astoria arc should lack them. The "Barhah harm manz!" stuff was actually more of an in-joke to myself and possibly the 1 or 2 people who might actually get the reference. As for Schism, that's not actually meant to be blood all over him (Although it does look like it - not entirely unintentional), just a really creepy looking costume. I get what you're saying, and I think that approach could work just as well, it's just I chose to go with him this way. Plus, I'm not actually great at costumes, and it's a lot harder to convey "This guy is WAY too clean looking" than it is to convey "This guy is MESSED UP".

Anyway, I really appreciate the feedback so far and I'm really glad that people are liking the arc - I put a lot of work into it. It means a lot to me to see people react the way they are because when I wrote the arc I wasn't sure if people would really get what I was going for, or if they would feel the way I meant for them to feel, and seeing that they do really helps boost my confidence in my writing.

I look forward to any more comments anyone has!

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Arc Name: Rep-O-Matic
Arc ID: 32048
Faction: Villainous
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Leatherneck CoV
Difficulty Level: Moderate to High
Synopsis: It's tough getting noticed in the Rogue Isles. Sure, the heroes have it easy. People like them. They go around rescuing old ladies and snagging kittens from trees. Big deal. Fortunately, there's someone out there who can help. Horace Winkleheimer. Press Agent for bad-guys.

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(I'm writing these as I play it so some of them might seem dumb if something is explained later in the arc).

First off, I like the idea! Very clever, seems to fit the general tone of CoV very well.

Mission 1: Short and sweet! No meandering around, straight to the bank, beat the hero, get out. Very fitting for a bank robbery. Ms. Energetic hits HARD for someone who's allegedly taking a dive, but I didn't have any trouble with her as a scrapper - Also, unrelated note, but she's missing a description (Just has the generic "A boss is etc."). If you want to go for humour rather than challenge, it might be funnier to make her a minion or LT to represent her taking a dive so quickly.

Mission 2: "Crey is so paranoid the computer their good stuff is on isn't hooked up to their network" is a bit of an awkward sounding sentence. It could probably be rephrased to something like "Crey is so paranoid; they keep all the good stuff off their main network."

Hostile takeover is missing a description, and the glowies could use some clues attached to them to make them more interesting.

Overall this mission wasn't quite as entertaining as the first. The boss designs were nice though and I liked the map (It was a bit large for the number of objectives, though).

I have to run out now so I'll need to finish this review later, so far I'm enjoying the arc though!

*Edit* review continued:

Mission 3: Not a lot to say about this one. Map again feels a bit large for the number of objectives. Is it just me or is the content getting darker? The first mission felt kind of like a silly fun thing, now I'm freeing dictators with large counts of human rights violations (Not a complaint, just a comment :P)

Mission 4: I see we're back to silly supervillain things again! An extension on my suggestion for mission 1: Make her a minion or LT in that mission, then a boss in this one. Since now it's like "Now I'm actually TRYING, jerk."

It seems weird that Hostile Takeover has longbow assistants. It would make more sense for her to have Crey guarding her.

I like this mission, it seems to fit the same tone set by the first mission - very over the top supervillain macho stuff, and a good victory lap for the rest of the arc. My only complaint is that 10 caches of gold feels a bit excessive - I've already cleared all the bosses and still have 5 to go. Maybe make them glowies so they can be cleared faster? Unless you needed them as destructable objects to give them guards, which I understand, but it still feels like a lot.

Overall, it started strong and ended strong, but the middle lagged a bit. I think if you put more clues in past the first mission it might help liven it up a bit and make it more interesting.

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Mission 1:

Find daughter, alright I can do that. First collection was easy to find, and a clue! I like clues and this one is well written and motivates me to go deeper into the map. This map is huge! But the encounters are not so bad that it slows the pace down. Rescued Event Horizon, cool fight and logical dialogue, but I have to lead him out? Bah, what a downer.

Ambushed! The NPC says, "Stop the, the Warshade knows the way out of here!" Well, I know the way out too, odd thing to say.

Event Horizon gives me the info of a contact that can help me, so far so good. First mission was fun.


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First off, thanks for the review! The NPC dialogue from the Council mobs was kind of a last minute addition so I suppose I should have written it more clearly, but what they mean is that he knows the way out of Dark Astoria, not out of the building (Granted, you ALSO know that, but they don't know who you are other than some random hero). Also, the reason he's an escort out rather than a standard rescue was to give him dialogue and an animation at the door, plus to allow for more Council to spawn (Originally the ONLY Council in the entire arc were the ones guarding him when you find him, which seemed silly).

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Mission 2:

Off to find Schism, enter into a dingy hospital map... 7 Survivors to find?! Schism is right at the start with another good clue, cool costume too.

Found Haley! Ugh, have to lead her out. I can forgive large maps if you don't force me to run back through them after clearing them.

I rescue her and she runs off again? Spider sense tingling...


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Not much to say about this one, I'm glad you didn't have any problem with backtracking, I know some people have had to backtrack to find all the things on this map (Myself included when I was testing), mainly due to the strange layout of the map and the odd locations it picks to spawn things. I've tried to fix it by playing around with spawn locations but it never seemed to solve the problem.

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Mission 3:

Cool map, I like the patrols.

So I find Haley, but the clue leaps to a conclusion that does not make much sense. Why is it so obvious that only Schism could be responsible?

Found Schism, dude was crazy, now hes dead. This map would have been annoying if I had not had Fly.


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The patrols were also a last minute addition to liven up the map a bit (As were the digging/ritual casting bosses). Originally all that was on there was Haley and the Schism spawn, but testing it the map just felt WAY too huge with barely anything in it. I'm glad that the patrols served their purpose (Also I understand how the map is annoying if you have to clear it on foot :P I would have picked a smaller one if there was anything better suited for Dark Astoria but this seems like it's it).

The clue would have been more descriptive but I ran into the character limit (It's HARD getting everything you want into 300 characters!). The idea was supposed to be that you've seen Schism fighting other things, and the wound pattern is significantly different than what people look like after they've been chewed up by zombies.

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Mission 4:

Enter mission message is some sort of odd symbols, I don't know if this is intended or not, but it does not make sense. If you want me to hear some sort of language say something like, "As you enter the crypt you hear a bizarre language, "Enter crazy speak."

Ok, this fog sucks. I understand you want a creepy atmosphere but not being able to see two feet in front of you is annoying.

Got to the end finally, really hated this map, almost quit the arc because of it.

Get a clue from a conveniently placed pay phone, are Haley and Irene not dead?


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Well, the whole "I can't see anything!" angle was actually what I was going for when I chose that map :3. I can see how it can be annoying (I had to have my map open constantly to not get lost when I was testing it), but every time I tested it all the required objectives were along the main path so I didn't have to do any backtracking to find them. I'm sorry if they didn't spawn that way for you, I thought they'd ALWAYS be directly in your path the way they were spawning for me but I guess that's not the case.

The crazy intro text is meant as more of a meta thing than what you're hearing. The whole mission is kind of an interface screw (Check out some of the clues you get from it), the idea being that there is something WRONG in this place. The phone message isn't meant to imply that they're still alive, it's more meant to drive home the "You could have saved them" message that the mobs and clues in this message keep taunting you with.

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Mission 5:

Same office building, just ran past everything to kill the boss. So it was supposed to be me killing everything?


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A lot of people seem to be interpreting it this way, which wasn't my intention, but it's meant to be open for interpretation so I'm not going to tell them they're wrong. My original intention wasn't that "You are the real bad guy", but more of "It's a lot harder to kill monsters when they look human and beg for their lives".

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Final thoughts:

The story ended up being pretty confusing. If the fog was making me see things differently there should have been some better hints, like the monsters in the first mission speaking to me, etc.

It just felt like you pulled the rug out from under my characters feet and said, "HAHA! You done it." Also, the final contact message was a wall of text with no spaces, that is not readable.


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It's not actually meant to be readable (I mean it's actual words, so you can TRY to read it if you want, but you won't really get anything out of it). It's more of the same kind of insane babbling you hear in the foggy cave.

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Pacing began to drag, last map being the same large office building was a let down.

The arc was very easy, so I doubt anyone will have trouble soloing it.

If not for that foggy cave map I would have enjoyed it, but that thing really frustrated me. Story has potential, just needs some touching up.

Check out my arc if you get the chance # is in my signature.

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Thanks for running my arc! Sorry if some parts of it frustrated you but a lot more of it is by design than you might realize (Not that it really absolves it - I have a sort of philosophy that games can still be good when they evoke emotions other than "fun", but if fun is all you're interested in than I don't blame you for disliking the difficult parts).

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Remember the rule in the first post of this thread: You review an arc, then put one of yours up for review. That's why people have been getting skipped the last few pages.

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That's what I get for only skimming the OP ><

I will review an arc shortly to clear my name!

I just published my first arc. I realize a lot of people have been doing that lately, but I've had this idea in my head since the MA was first mentioned by Posi as "Something cool we're thinking of doing". Now of course I'm on an adrenaline high being all excited that I finally got to make my story.

Long story short, I'd like some people to actually PLAY my arc, and would love some feedback on it. To get some attention, I made a quick poster which I think turned out fairly well in a minimalist kind of way, considering I have roughly 0 artistic ability.

Click HERE to view the poster!

As the poster says, the arc is called "Astoria in D Minor", arc ID 41565.

It's a 5 mission arc, although each mission is fairly short, and can be stealthed. Non-stealthing, it'd probably take around 30 mins to an hour depending on your difficulty and how quickly you can defeat mobs. It's level 25-29 and solo friendly.

It's a horror arc meant for heroes with some pretty dark themes, and might be kind of depressing (Depending on how much you let text affect you, anyway). The story is about the search for a lost daughter in Dark Astoria, a warshade, and a disturbed hero trying to save people.

PLEASE let me know what you think! I've put a lot of work into this arc, and really would like to know how it's received. I realize that by throwing it out to the masses I could be opening myself to some harsh feedback, and while I do want negative as well as positive criticism, I only ask that you keep it constructive.

Oh hey, I can edit this post! Well, since it seems to finally want to let me do that, I also have another Astoria arc:

The Beating Heart of Astoria: A Play in Five Acts. Arc ID: 170547

I'd really like some feedback on my first arc (Or at least for some people to play it :P)

Arc ID 41565, Astoria in D Minor.
5 Missions, although the missions are all short-medium length and can be stealthed if that's your thing.
It's a horror arc in Dark Astoria. It's more of a personal story that ties into the greater plotline of the Dark Astoria zone rather than an arc about Dark Astoria itself.

This may have been posted before, it's a pretty simple one. The female bowtie option is availiable for jackets but not availiable for sleeveless jackets. That strikes me as an oversight since the lack of sleeves wouldn't cause any issues with the bowtie model.

Well, some of it has to do with colour choice. Not the colours specifically, just the brightness. Try some of the darker or less saturated colours on the left and right edges of the palette. I usually only use the middle ones when I need to make something "pop" against a darker background. If you use the brighter ones as the background it comes off as a bit garish.

Also, on both those costumes you just have a light/dark combination of the same colour. It might be more interesting to use different colours as the light and dark (depending on the colours, it could also turn out hideous :P). Adding in a third colour can also help. I've seen some really great, really simple classic costumes that use three colours total (Not counting hair).

Something that can also help is not being afraid to use sets. Sure, techbot chest with techbot legs and techbot boots might be a little uncreative, but it also looks GOOD. I usually don't mix top and bottom sets unless I can find a combo that really works.

Honestly, it's not as bad as you feel like it is. I think you should just play around with the colours a little.

*Edit* You can see some great examples of using a >2 colour scheme in This thread

When using armoured legs and a robe on a female character, the armour on the legs clips through the robe a bit. Screen

It's not too bad when standing, but it seems to be more obvious when animating.