ridiculous_girl

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GAH! WRONG THREAD! <smears text>

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

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So in theory if I play your arcs two more times I can get ALL my arcs in this que right? :P

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ummmm.... no!
actually, i was planning on playing another of yours anyways... but my hope was to get plays to my arcs. so if you would play my donut world arc and give me feedback on the combat of the custom group it would be greatly appreciated.

oh yeah... i just republished some changes. i was just made aware that one of my maps had changed. i wish they would invalidate an arc rather just replace the map. that sometimes blows the entire setting. imagine my surprise when i find out that my burning outdoors map suddenly becomes and indoor map. other changes reflect changes made to the powers of custom toons. hopefully these changes are an improvement, they based on the feedback i have gotten.

oh yeah... i just republished some changes. i was just made aware that one of my maps had changed. i wish they would invalidate an arc rather just replace the map. that sometimes blows the entire setting. imagine my surprise when i find out that my burning outdoors map suddenly becomes and indoor map. other changes reflect changes made to the powers of custom toons. hopefully these changes are an improvement, they based on the feedback i have gotten.

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Since I am planning on running Hero Therapy tonight I will toss my arc into the mix.

17006 - End Game.
The details are linked in my sig.

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sweet... i will put yours on my list...

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Just checking, I was hoping you were one of those people who say random french phrases to make themselves look cool but alas .

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i live in france, so i make it a mission to learn random french phrases that i might find useful... i love shouting "appuis sur le champignon” while driving!

i don't need to do that to look cool... i am already cool.

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That's not a good way to go about it. 5 stars just means one particular reviewer liked it best - for example, "Hearts on Fire" got 1 star from Venture, and 5 stars from Talen_Lee. It doesn't mean one of them is wrong, it's just that if your tastes are closer to Venture's, you might not like it, while if your tastes are closer to Talen's, you might like it. You should read through the reviews and see if they mention things that you like or dislike.

If you're *really* lazy, start your own "give me some arcs to play" thread, saying what kind of arc you like (story, humor, challenge, etc.) and wait for the authors to tell you about the stuff they made themselves.

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i already have a review thread... though i have gotten a few that i have enjoyed immensely, you have to wade through a lot of mediocre ones... wheat/chaff kind of thing. lots and lots of chaff... saving myself time here. thnere has to be some overlap in 5 star arcs. sort of a siskel and ebert thing... but a vehnture and laserjesus and talen_lee six thumbs up kind of thing...

what you guys need to do is put up a "best of the best of the best of the best" list... so i do not have to wade through 70 pages to find your 5 star arcs...

i am lazy, i want you to do it for me...

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Thanks for the review. This is only the third time anyone's reviewed any of my arcs. You'd think people would be lining up to seek revenge.

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it did cross my mind...

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It's a trend that is slowly gaining momentum. I decided to use it for objectives that the player really should look into, but doesn't have to for mission completion.

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well i do not like it... the problem with yours, for example, is that fighting your secondary objectives does not add anything additional. the clue is added upon completion. as they were, they were just bosses in the way and you are just highlighting them for no appearant reason

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There are two (or was it four? Now I forget) Freakshow patrols, one Tsoo and one Banished Pantheon. They're only included for color.

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forgot about the freakshow... i love freaks...

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I'm pretty sure I don't have room for more customs, and in any case I couldn't give them abilities that wouldn't make them supers. While I may (or may not) be at odds with the canon, as far as I'm concerned the only thing an ordinary person with a pistol can do if caught in a superfight in City is shoot himself to keep from being killed in a more unpleasant fashion. And I can't even just give them a pistol without them pulling out Thug henchmen.

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i just did not like him running off and letting you do all the leg work. where is the brave star crossed lover?

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Dramatically the story is pretty much the way I want it. There are technical issues. I wish I could just use stock Family mobs instead of the customs but they won't spawn correctly. Likewise I'd leave out the imps if I could spawn Diablo Navarra solo.

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and a good story it is. i read your comments about your problems. it is too bad they would not mix. thnat way you could probably reduce your customs a little and add a little more variety.


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Ah...you seem to be a bit confused. The "ending sucks" reference in the browser info is referring to the ending of another story about star-crossed lovers and feuding families....

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ah... then you might change that because i understood it as you beingb unhappy with the final result. it may be off-putting for potential players...

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c'est la vie! or as i like to say more often... et mon cul? c'est du poulet?

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A wee bit off topic but while I do admit that my French is a bit rusty, I'm not sure that means what you think it means :P.

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it is an actual french phrase. it translates literally as "and my [censored]? it is a chicken?" it is an expression of doubt...

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Feel free to review mine if you like, they're listed on my MA Page (linked in the .sig).

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Arc Name: *"Two Households Alike"
Arc ID: *126582
i chose this arc particularly because you admit that you have trouble with it. i figured i would look and see if i could give a hand with your ending.

this story is very well edited and the writing is solid. in mission one the start popup there is no space after "problem..." i also saw another in the opening brief, mission two. it says... "Notice the 'supposed to'." should the period not go inside the quotes? the 4th mission opening brief the sentence ends with "'hood'." same problem with the period outside the quotes.

i ran this mission arc with my level 30 MA/SR scrapper on heroic.

to start, i must say that i have never run an arc, beit COH or AE, that has ever held my hand so much in the beginning of this one. it started in first mission brief. "Optional objectives will appear in this color." i am sure since you do reviews for a lot of other people and you want them to do yours for feedback, that this was included for their sake. but is it really that necessary? seriously... if it is optional, does it really need to be spelled out? in normal missions if there is an optional objective, is it ever labelled? if i see a blinky i blindly go up and click on it, as i am pretty sure most players will do, whether it is optional or not, just to see what it does. after i accept the mission i think i am seeing a pattern here. your detective spells out that clearing everything out of the building is an option. unless a mission says "you must clear all" then it can be assumed that i can stealth through if i wish. to make matters worse when i am in the mission 2 underbosses are highlighted in color on the nav bar. this is in addition to the ultimate objective. why must you do this? if it says i must get objective X, and i see two bosses in the way, i will either engage them or i will not. these things are entirely unecessary. it was an inauspicious beginning for me. luckily this does not really continue...

the second mission was much better. it did auto complete later in the mission, probably because some enemy patrol or running battle. i liked the battles. i saw one, maybe two, patrols/battles of tsoo and i thought i caught a glimpse of vazh. you did mention that there might be other groups in there, but these kind of felt thrown in. they did not really add anythning because they hardly made an appearance. from this mission on the story got much better

the story gets much more interesting in the third mission. i was thinking that you could make darrin an ally. his running away just did not seem right. if you made him a weak LT and he is defeated, you could make some passing reference in the debrief that he is shaken but alright and in hiding. it is also perfectly plausible to make nicki an ally also, just in case she is found first. give her a gun. she has to know something about them. the two lovers rushing to save the other fits the story...

your red highlighted warning in the 4th mission brief works for me there, though it is distractingly bright. was a similar highlight there for the last mission? i did not notice it, though there was a warning.

on the final mission, you run into problems. you state this in your description and your MA page. truthfully i did not like the diablo. i took him down, though it took a long time. but he just felt contrived. he did not feel like he belonged in this story at all. i am not sure what to offer as a solution. i cannot put my finger down on what it was about him that bothers me. diablo just felt so out of place with the whole story. i do not know if it should be new powers sets, new henchmen, new costume... i like the set and setting, i liked the set up and the dialogue. the rest left me flat. maybe you should just scrap the whole diablo thing and put another bad [censored] goon in there... also, truthfully, i preferred the sad ending. thought the souvenir ending was acceptable, though that felt a bit contrived too.

overall, this is a pretty solid arc. it is a very good story. despite the rocky start, for me, and the rocky end, everything sandwiched in-between was very good. i think there could be some modifications in the middle, but those would be aesthetic and cosmetic. really, the beginning threw me off. you could lose those things that i mentioned and nothing would be lost. nothing is gained by having them there, except maybe my annoyance. you admit the end sucks. i agree, but i want to know what exactly you feel "sucks" about it...

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Ok, played through this and found it quite enjoyable. Played it with a Level 40 Katana/Regen scrapper. I thought the theme of the arc was pulled off quite well, the only thing missing was little blue guys chasing me and hitting me with fish. ;-)

I ran into one strange glitch, which I think had to be a MA bug of some kind. With the Therapist and Vanity in tow in mission #3, I found the Steel you Lack and attacked the cowering guys next to him. Immediately one of those (a wolf) vanished along with the Therapist and Vanity. Just plain gone. Couldn't get Steel since I couldn't defeat his group without that last guy and the Therapist and Vanity never returned. Ended up defeating Secret Shame on my own, which was a bit of a challenge.

The final fight was quite challenging indeed, wasn't sure if I would be able to pull it off until I did, the Door kept healing up and smacking me around. Ran twice to regroup and re-engage, without Secret Shame's help I don't think I could have taken him. I enjoyed the references scattered here and there and laughed a few times.

One other comment is that I never could find Steel in mission #2 and when the briefing for one mission said that I had encountered more of the little Nightmares (man, those things can be tough), I had just gone through a mission without being attacked by any of them, oddly enough. I think this is just some of the MA variability at work though, some of my tests on my own missions saw placements change randomly to out of the way locations.

Overall, highly recommended. Very imaginative and well executed, definitely more fun than just about any standard game story arc.

5 Stars.

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thank you very much for playing.

that is the first time i have heard of that bug. i have seen secret shame disappear and reappear on the outdoor map. not sure how or why. i tried to make some chahnges but i am really at a loss as to how. it is that map somehow and maybe the mobs... not sure.

the hospital map has odd spawning points. the therapist and the allies should always appear in the front. but sometimes the therapist appears in the last room and the others are scattered. vanity always appears in the right place though. i am trying to fix this some how. not sure how though.

the ambushes appear for different reasons, they have semi random triggers. you will not know what starts them off and it takes time for them to come in. you must have just missed the trigger somehow.

but thank you for playing and the feedback. i will see what i can do to fix those oddities.

well i do not know if i posted in here before, if i have please forgive me. my memory is notoriously bad. otherwise...

Do YOU have nightmares about the Vahzilok? Can't sleep because you failed to defeat that Boss over and over again? Do you let your teammates down because you run away from Malta sappers? Do clowns make you have an anxiety attack? Try HERO Therapy (TM)! Start Today! 4 EASY sessions! (1EB,1AV with ally help)

Please give this arc a try... you probably need to. Only 5(!) easy payments! You will not regret it!

*Small print* Failure to complete this arc may result in impotence, baldness, general ridicule from children, a lessening of EXP earning potential, and an overall decline of self respect. For further details contact ridiculous girl. Money will not be refunded under any condition.

Arc: Hero Therapy! (TM)
Arc ID: 119228
Author: Ridiculous Girl
Number of Missions: 4

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[Well, I wrote it as a three-parter on test, but I didn't want to publish THE MONOLITH EPIC. Anyone's guess if I'll ever get the slots for it.

As for the Lost bombs, there's a bomb, an explosive, and an Improvised Explosive Device, because they have to be different objectives with different names for the Lost guarding them to say different things.

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oops my bad, i did not notice that...

well you can always publish it as a serial... maybe leave the first one up and then post the following ones in a rotating series. or something like that...

hey G, i posted a quick review of your arc on my review page. it is my little service to you in return for your playing my arc and your commentary.

Arc Name: Dream Paper
Arc ID: 1874


this is a quid pro quo review, since GlaziusF took the time to write a long blow by blow review of my arc...

nice job and excellent story. your use of off-the-shelf mobs works really nicely. the extensive clues that you seed throughout your arc are interesting and add to the story greatly. i am glad you added that improvement of listing each clue with each mission, it was hard enough keeping track on the new clues as it was. i even liked the touch of evolving character descriptions in returning characters.

there were no typos that i saw and i looked hard. there was only one odd thing and that was in the 3rd mission. all other bombs say lost bomb, one says lost IED. not sure if that was on purpose. it looks amazingly well cleaned up and edited.

the open-ended conclusion might fall a little flat with some people. but i happen to like stuff like that. none of my arcs are open and shut cases. it leaves you hoping for more and lets your imagination run.

this is a great lowbie arc. i ran with my level 33 AR/dev blaster, which scaled down worked just as well. if i had thought about it i should have brought in one of my lowbies just because i could. i really enjoyed this, good story line, subtle humour thrown in, extensive clues to puzzle through, and a good mystery to boot. i gave this 5 star.

thank you for doing that... i cannot even remember where i posted what...

thank you venture for taking the time to play and rewiew my arc. it is greatly appreciated. doing it myself on a small scale i realize what a lot of work it is, especially for the large amount of mediocre to bad arcs out there.

while i disagree with you almost completely with your critique of the story elements and devices that i employ, your analysis of the powers of the enemies deserve a closer look.

what now? should i provide a spirited defense of my piece of work?

oh yeah... one thing... since this is hypnosis/dream therapy i chose the most dreamlike maps available. hence the overuse of unique maps. eh... c'est la vie! or as i like to say more often... et mon cul? c'est du poulet?

i want a clown MM! with a springloaded boxing glove gun and be able to drop bannana peels like caltrops....

if you are serious, go to the source; the nag hammadi library manuscripts. the complete library is recommended. then the best scholar on the gnostic gospels is elaine pagels. her books are really good. her books "the gnostic gospels" and "the origin of satan" are excellent.

oh yeah, and... you need to put EB and AV warnings in your descriptions.

i take you have read the gnostic gospels and such stories?

123675 The Lost Choir: Chapter One: The Old Testament
136959 The Lost Choir: Part Two: The New Testament
141011 The Lost Choir: Chapter Three: Apocrypha

i love this arc! this definitely gets the Ridiculous Seal of Approval! (TM). with 11 missions, and minus the problems with the map bug, i would have to say it took me about 5-6 hours. this is a huge amount of time. but it is definitely worth it. the story is superb and extremely interesting. your custom toons were really good, fun to fight and reasonably difficult. great costumes too. your choice of maps shows good command of story telling. people sometimes do not realize how crucial maps are in their story. you choices are brilliant. i can go on and on...

i do have to make a few comments. i wonder at what audience this is directed. because you use Christianity and biblical references. but in doing so you will likely aggravate two groups. one is the knee jerk reaction people that feel like you are infringing upon their rights somehow by even mentioning religion. this group will also have preconceived notions about what will be in these arcs. believe me when i say that most Christian related work is dull, clichéd and stereotypically bad. do you want to be automatically associated with this? i guess it is your decision. but you will automatically turn off a large group of people that may wish to play.

the other group you will antagonize will be the Christians themselves. they will be attracted because in the initial belief that this will be something that they can subscribe to. because of the dearth of good Christian storytelling this might be popular in a search. but once they begin they will quickly realize that you diverge from standard Christian canon. eventually the story not only leaves gnostic and apocryphal mythologies but fuses them with COH mythologies in new directions. while this is not a problem, just by using and appropriating Christian terminology and applying it to a story that diverges tremendously from acceptable canon you are setting yourself up for needless trouble.

there is a reason that the gnostics and their demiurge encountered problems with what they considered their fellow Christians. i am not sure of your background is but i have a couple recommendations...

1) remove your direct Christian references in your titles. this is a bit misleading for both groups, Christians and non-Christians. it sets them up with preconceived notions that will be, in one group, greatly disappointing and the others stop them before they begin.

2) remove the citations to your biblical quotes. leave the quotes in place, but by not showing where they are from will not lessen their impact. those that know that they are biblical will know, those who don’t will not.

these are not to diminish your story in any way. but there are some very large barriers to overcome if you let things stand the way they are. prejudices will abound. this is an excellent story and for me it sets the benchmark of what a 5 star story arc should be. but you need to decide exactly what you are trying to accomplish here. are you trying to educate? are you trying to tell a story to as many people as possible? if yes to both, unfortunately, you have created barriers to both. there are ways around this though...

otherwise... excellent work! probably the best story i have seen. an excellent combination of all your elements. maps, characters, writing, etc... even the little things are beautiful. the text after finding the radio is brilliant stage craft. you set a benchmark that i will compare all others to.

123675 The Lost Choir: Chapter One: The Old Testament
136959 The Lost Choir: Part Two: The New Testament
141011 The Lost Choir: Chapter Three: Apocrypha

i love this arc! this definitely gets the Ridiculous Seal of Approval! (TM). with 11 missions, and minus the problems with the map bug, i would have to say it took me about 5-6 hours. this is a huge amount of time. but it is definitely worth it. the story is superb and extremely interesting. your custom toons were really good, fun to fight and reasonably difficult. great costumes too. your choice of maps shows good command of story telling. people sometimes do not realize how crucial maps are in their story. you choices are brilliant. i can go on and on...

i do have to make a few comments. i wonder at what audience this is directed. because you use Christianity and biblical references. but in doing so you will likely aggravate two groups. one is the knee jerk reaction people that feel like you are infringing upon their rights somehow by even mentioning religion. this group will also have preconceived notions about what will be in these arcs. believe me when i say that most Christian related work is dull, clichéd and stereotypically bad. do you want to be automatically associated with this? i guess it is your decision. but you will automatically turn off a large group of people that may wish to play.

the other group you will antagonize will be the Christians themselves. they will be attracted because in the initial belief that this will be something that they can subscribe to. because of the dearth of good Christian storytelling this might be popular in a search. but once they begin they will quickly realize that you diverge from standard Christian canon. eventually the story not only leaves gnostic and apocryphal mythologies but fuses them with COH mythologies in new directions. while this is not a problem, just by using and appropriating Christian terminology and applying it to a story that diverges tremendously from acceptable canon you are setting yourself up for needless trouble.

there is a reason that the gnostics and their demiurge encountered problems with what they considered their fellow Christians. i am not sure of your background is but i have a couple recommendations...

1) remove your direct Christian references in your titles. this is a bit misleading for both groups, Christians and non-Christians. it sets them up with preconceived notions that will be, in one group, greatly disappointing and the others stop them before they begin.

2) remove the citations to your biblical quotes. leave the quotes in place, but by not showing where they are from will not lessen their impact. those that know that they are biblical will know, those who don’t will not.

these are not to diminish your story in any way. but there are some very large barriers to overcome if you let things stand the way they are. prejudices will abound. this is an excellent story and for me it sets the benchmark of what a 5 star story arc should be. but you need to decide exactly what you are trying to accomplish here. are you trying to educate? are you trying to tell a story to as many people as possible? if yes to both, unfortunately, you have created barriers to both. there are ways around this though...

otherwise... excellent work! probably the best story i have seen. an excellent combination of all your elements. maps, characters, writing, etc... even the little things are beautiful. the text after finding the radio is brilliant stage craft. you set a benchmark that i will compare all others to.

136959 The Lost Choir: Part Two: The New Testament
mission 4, cont.

the promise clue it says "rebuild you shattered..."

the word resurrected is misspelled in the debrief

5thn mission

in the description of the mind of X, it talks about the "will of X..." is this intentional?

in the boss defeat text it says i "defeated the will of X"

your use of maps is brilliant and inspired! they fit perfectly with your story. the plot gets more and more interesting too. i have many thoughts about this while story but i will put them down in a final debrief.

i finally finished this arc. who knew that you had to restart the entire arc to get the new edits put in? what a horrible pain in the neck that was! i ran that one mission in that map about 5-6 times, i wondered why what you said you fixed was not going through... it is too bad because some times you really cannot get exactly what you want because of limitations of the system. that was a terrible bug and there was no way around it. i did bug report it. who know whether it will ever get fixed anytime soon. but your fix works for me. i see no real change in the story, it actually may make more sense this way.
this part i gave 5 stars also.

141011The Lost Choir: Chapter Three: Apocrypha
final arc

thellos-ra says $name before she is rescued

the description of thellos the word divine is spelled wrong

the vanguard battle ethereal is spelled wrong

in the description of the eloss the word needs to be than, not then, and goddess is spelled wrong

existence is spelled wrong in the defeat boss text... and the final debrief.

of course the finale is the most difficult. i expected no less. it is a nightmare map since you cannot see you progress and cannot tell what you have covered and what you have not. luckily with all the battles pretty much all that are left are the rescues and the final boss.
the final boss is necessarily tough and with the ambushes, it would be a nightmare with a team and anything higher than heroic. i ran chapter 1 and 2 with my level 48 mace/shield tank on heroic, generally, though i was switched to challenge level 2 somehow. which was still not a problem. the allies were a bit on the low side, but if the surrounding crew were already on hard there is not much you can do about that.
i gave this section 5 stars also. while not perfect this definitely high quality.

i will post final thoughts seperately.