I'm always good for some hard critiques.
Story Description: When the Rikti attack the offices of a brilliant evil genius, you are called to help. What is the meaning of the mysterious sudden attack, and why are the Rikti involved? All these questions and more are answered in the tale known as: Quoth the Raven.
Story Arc ID: 74617
Authors Global Chat Handle: @Sroxah
Length: Very Long (4 missions)
Alignment: Villainous
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So, how do you make a story that isn't JABOSTH without taking away a player's control of their character or making assumptions that will probably be wrong at least half of the time?
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The MA allows for very little interaction with the story in the way of decisions by the player. In order to make a moral or a theme show through, you're going to have to do it by utilizing your cast of supporting characters, as in, your contact and the NPCs in your arc. You should be telling the important parts of the story using the people you can actually control anyway, because you don't want to powerpose and say that the player is murdering people or anything else that might rub someone the wrong way.
For instance, if your theme is betrayal, the theme shouldn't be expressed by, for instance, your contact betraying you. It should be expressed by someone betraying your contact, or your contact betraying someone else in the story with your help. How does the betrayed party react? Does he or she seek vengeance of their own? Do they try to reconcile? Do they simply want to know why? Why did the betrayer do it? Do they feel bad about it?
tl;dr, When making a story-heavy arc, you should be exploring themes and morals with only the things that you can control 100% in the arc, your contacts and NPCs, not the player.
In general, I agree with your post, but it can be difficult to do as you suggest without making the player feel that they are unconnected to the events of the plot.
Hopefully, you can get the player to care about the people that are about to be betrayed or whatever before the twist happens.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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In general, I agree with your post, but it can be difficult to do as you suggest without making the player feel that they are unconnected to the events of the plot.
Hopefully, you can get the player to care about the people that are about to be betrayed or whatever before the twist happens.
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The tricky part is to get the plot to revolve around the player's actions without telling the player what his character's motivations and feelings are. A theoretically infinite number of people can play your arc, each with different levels of how much they care about their characters motivations, and different ideas of how their character would react to situations and what their character's morality is.
With my serious arcs (one of which I unpublished due to the fact that I can't use prisoners anymore) I avoid making assumptions about the character, i.e. saying that you're killing people, saying how your character feels about what's going on, and other things of that nature.
I guess an easier way to put it, is that stories written with the mission architect, at least in my opinion, should be written like adventures for PnP RPGs. There's a string of events that occur, NPCs with personalities, and enemies to fight. Everything else is filled in my the player. It's not impossible to make a good story like this, it's just a different kind of story than a standard linear one.
There are ways to make a player important to the story without making any assumptions about their character. You can only control what your NPCs say, not what the player says, but you can have the NPCs talk directly to the player, whether it's the people they meet in the missions or the contact. If through either the NPC dialogue or clues, you directly address the player's character, that can help to build a level of emotional attachment and bring the player more deeply into the story.
I'm sure your pretty logged with arcs to review, but if you can get around to mine sometime in the next 8 months or so I'd appreciate it.
Arc Name: Creating a Praetorian Resistance
Arc ID:82219
Length: Very Long
Morality: Heroic
Synopsis:You are going to Praetorian Earth to free their heroes from the Praetorian AV's to create a resistance to fight for freedom. The arc is full of AV/EB's, allies, and ambushes so it's recommended to bring some friends.
Accaboom
level 50 Fire/Storm Controller
Prince of the Knights of Destiny
Victory
Accagloom
lvl 50 nerco/poison Mastermind
Overlord of the Knights of Destruction
Victory
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In general, I agree with your post, but it can be difficult to do as you suggest without making the player feel that they are unconnected to the events of the plot.
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The players are on a railroad: that's unavoidable. So its literally impossible for them to be able to actually "affect" the story in that sense, except in only minor ways. The only things you can do is tap into the fact that the players will want to actually complete missions, and making sure the decision to complete the mission is always something the story encourages, or tap into storytelling modes where players are less the trigger for major events, and more of an important witness to major events.
A player can be important because he and he alone can defeat the Big Bad, or because she and she alone exposes the truth about the Big Secret. That's a question of story telling technique.
By the way, this is what makes contact betrayal so dangerous. The one thing the player - the human behind the screen - and the game make a silent pact to honor is that the player will play the game, and the game will encourage the player to play the game. When the player *must* do mission five of an arc, but the contact does something that makes it absolutely bat-[censored] stupid to do mission five of the arc, the game violates that pact with the player, and that's what makes that so generally annoying. The game is never supposed to tell the player that the only winning move is not to play.
The player is supposed to agree to play your work, and your work is supposed to always give the player objectives they want to complete. Tampering with this contract is something that requires massive skill to pull off successfully across the vast range of possible players. Exploiting this contract is what makes it possible to hide the railroad tracks.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
Arc #2922, "Hunting the Dark Dragon"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: overuse of special maps, padded, overproduced, problematic mobs, throws the Idiot Ball, Crazy Prepared villain, "just a bunch of stuff that happened"
Peter Stemitz asks for your help in stopping the Circle of Thorns from summoning dragons. A mage named Rollister may have already summoned one; you are sent in to investigate. In fact, when you get there (Hequat's temple map, bit much for the first mission), you find there are four dragons to rescue. The first, "Rynn" (Electric Melee/Electric Armor Boss), says she was at a rock concert when she was forcibly teleported here. The next, "Player" (Super Strength/Willpower EB) was one of the band members. "Pik", the drummer, just fled when rescued. "Officer Blake" is a police dragon, who says he and the other cops working security at the concert did their best to move people away from the "tornado" but he, Rynn and half the band got caught. Rollister turns out to be an Arch-Mage of Madness (meaning this would take a while if you didn't have three allies pummeling him) and complains while you fight that the dragons have to fight for them or the Dark Dragon will destroy everyone. Following his defeat, Player gives you his guitar and tells you not to worry, the dragons have a secret way back to their own world.
Next, Stemitz asks you to check out the caves under Thorn Island, the theory being that the presence of the Thorn Tree would mask anything big and nasty the Circle might have summoned, like a Dark Dragon. He then says he can't sense the Thorn Tree any more, thus covering up for the fact that it's not going to be on the map. When you get there, the place is full of Malta (evidently, someone blew the respec trial early). A hostage tells you the Dark Dragon summoned the Malta after flipping off the magi who summoned him, and the Malta leader might know more. New objective: take out Weedkiller leader. Fiction Green Epsilon tells you (after his beatdown) that the Dark Dragon was from a world familiar with technology and offered the Thorn Tree to Malta in exchange for their services.
Now that Malta's involved, Stemitz calls upon Crimson for intel. Crimson suggests checking out the Warburg robotics factory. This is three special maps in three missions -- when everything is special, nothing is. The briefing does not mention that you can enter the central building or where the door is, so if you have't done the LRSF or seen this map in another AE arc you may be a bit stumped. In any case, Your Princess Is In Another Castle, making the use of a special map even more egregious. "Sister Hecate", a Knives Boss, tells you the Dark Dragon has already left. Oh, and there are KoA patrols...kiss your stealth goodby. We also get patrols of "Space Pirates", the Dark Dragon's boys, including a Robotics/Force Field model, a Claws/Energy Assault model and one other that didn't live long enough.
Act IV takes you to the Dark Dragon's next target, the Arachnos sub base in Overbrook...fourth special map in a row. You are to find the base commander (hostage, warns you that Mako is coming in his approach bark) and the Dark Dragon. One of the hostage's guards, a Shadow Trooper, tagged me for about 1200 points between FollowUp and Spin. Instant death. After releasing the hostage on the rebound, he ran off warning me that there were a bunch of pirates coming, thus revealing that he was actually the Dragon (of course, you're scripted to be slow enough on the uptake to not be able to do anything about it). I got a large enough spawn of that, with all the Force Fields cast by themselves and their Protector Bots, my ToHit went into single digits. Turning on Focused Accuracy helped a little. Moving on to the Big Room, I cleared the entry spawns then hit stealth and looked around. Sure enough, no sign of the Dark Dragon, but there was a computer glowie. Clicking it spawned Captain Mako and friends, Rocks Fall Everyone Dies style. Fortunately, "everyone" in this case was the numerous Malta spawns I hadn't cleared. Mako (+1 EB downgrade, PToD's up) tore into them, and just to give you an idea of how wretched Malta really is, three or four Unyielding spawns taken one after the other got him low enough to trigger Elude at which point the survivors finally snuffed it. Then, having watched all this stealthed, I finished off Mako. This makes two missions in a row on special maps with a Your Princess Is In Another Castle ending. The Clue is a mocking message from the Dragon.
For the finale, Longbow has tracked the Dragon to a building in Faultline. There is a signal coming from the building that will decay in 30 minutes so it's believed that's how long you have to stop the Dragon. You get to choose whether or not to intervene. You're warned to bring a team and that the Dragon will try to escape. My guess at this point is that he's an AV so if he runs, he'll get out. I went in alone anyway. This was another special map, of course, the Castillo map from Doc Delilah's arc. The exterior was full of friendly Longbow. The interior was full of Malta, which I stealthed past. Dark Dragon himself was on the top, of course, in the room right next to the elevators...so he only has to run for a few seconds. However, he wasn't an AV, or if he was his PToD didn't turn on in time. I was able to knock him down and kept him from running. There were two guards in the room, also mandatory kills, one of which I think was an LT I barely noticed. The other was a Ice Melee/Willpower on max that had to be killed twice. In the debriefing Stemitz tries to make it sounds like there's some moral ambiguity in here somewhere, which I'm just not seeing.
The arc has some good writing at points and has some references to the canon missions. Unfortunately it overuses special maps, which is particularly obnoxious in acts III and IV as these are really just padding. Act IV also throws the Idiot Ball, which I might have overlooked (it's not a crucial plot point) but that's on top of having a Crazy Prepared villain. It's not a bad arc but it's overproduced...sort of like Waterworld.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Some interesting opinions there. Got a couple of questions though, mostly about the maps. For 1 and 3, I could've put up large generic maps; do you feel that would make it better? Also, why do you feel that missions 3 and 4 are padding? Or are you just not a fan of 'chasing the bad guy' stories? 
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After releasing the hostage on the rebound, he ran off warning me that there were a bunch of pirates coming, thus revealing that he was actually the Dragon (of course, you're scripted to be slow enough on the uptake to not be able to do anything about it).
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Interestingly enough, a lot of people are. However, how would you suggest I alter this? Unfortunately, MA lacks the mechanics to make captives targetable and still have them run.
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, he wasn't an AV, or if he was his PToD didn't turn on in time. I was able to knock him down and kept him from running. There were two guards in the room, also mandatory kills, one of which I think was an LT I barely noticed. The other was a Ice Melee/Willpower on max that had to be killed twice. In the debriefing Stemitz tries to make it sounds like there's some moral ambiguity in here somewhere, which I'm just not seeing.
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Yep, he's just a regular boss. He even says so in his dialogue. 
I'm kind of saddened you didn't get into the story enough to get its major points, or the moral at the end, but judging from that last paragraph, I guess the other stuff had already killed your interest at the time. 
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
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...when everything is special, nothing is.
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After following this thread, I just can't watch The Incredibles the same way again.
"I seem to recall you prefer to... 'work alone'? Um, yeah."
Rise of the Copper Legion (#60280; with soundtrack)
The Fractured Dreamer (#498588; with musical theme)
"Now Leaving: Paragon City": original composition for the end of CoH
Arc #1356, "This is War, Part I - the Revenge of Hro'Dtohz"
tl;dr: 1 star. Offenses: Wall Banger, aggrivating mobs, "just a bunch of stuff that happened"
This arc takes place after Dark Watcher's RWZ arc and after the Lady Grey TF. Lady Grey tells you Hro'Dtohz is not taking these defeats lying down and has ordered a new wave of offenses against the city. One Vanguard unit in particular is cut off at a very strategic location and she needs you to go in after them. You have to rescue a few Vanguard members, one of which may be not what you expect, and then take down a Heavy Assault Suit. In the process you find some battle plans indicating Hro'Dtohz is really pulling out the stops.
The carnage continues in Act II, this time with Serpent Drummer himself pinned down in a Rikti base discovered under the ruins of an old SG base in RWZ (LGTF mission #1 map, I believe...haven't run it in ages). Just to make it worse Malta is on the scene too. As it happens when you get there, the Malta commander is a hostage. He joins up with you, his rescue triggering another hostage, a Master Gunslinger, whom I did not find unti the trip out. Serpent Drummer is another rescue and an escort, meaning if he bites it you fail the mission. Rescuing him triggers the spawn of Dra'gon, who managed to take out the Malta TacOps (what a pity). Dra'gon summons three ambush waves as his health declines...unfortunately for him, two of them are on your side. On completion Serpent Drummer tells you that his whole unit was wiped out, that the Rikti kept coming at them regardless of their own losses.
Next, the Rikti launch an assault on Kings Row, but the commander appears to be holding back. You are sent in to investigate. There are piles of ash everywhere, the remains of people blasted by the Rikti, along with patrols of Rikti, Vanguard and PPD. You've also got a few Boss spawns and at least one Heavy. The primary targets are the two Field Commanders; taking them out triggers the spawn of the main commander Naun'Kom. It seems he decided to try to take a city sector for himself rather than destroy it as Hro'Dtohz ordered. Vanguard takes Naun'Kom in for interrogation....
...and Hro'Dtohz sends the Four Riders to destroy the base he's being kept at before he breaks. You're sent in to stop them. Lady Grey says you'll have allies on the scene, some unconventional Vanguard forces and, she thinks, Malta.... Sure enough when you get there, Rikti, Vanguard, Malta and even Nemesis (which are hostile) are all fighting it out. There are four ally spawns and the four Riders, all required for completion. War, Death and Pestilence weren't a problem. Famine, of course, has the damn END drain aura. I dragged him over two Zeuses, which dented him, then managed to plink away from just outside the aura with Focus and Shockwave. Then the mission bugged when it refused to acknowledge one of the allies was freed, probably because it was freed by NPCs. I had to reset it and do it all...over...again.
Act V gives you one simple task: assassinate Hro'Dtohz. Lady Grey gives a somewhat overblown speech about how necessary this is despite any code against killing issues you may have. I'm just going to cut to the chase here and drop the Wall Banger: Hro'Dtohz turns out to be a Nemesis Automaton.
Yeah.
The debriefing does leave doubt as to whether or not he was always an automaton, or whether this whole arc was a Nemesis plot, or what. Frankly, I don't give a damn.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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Arc #1026, "To Hell and Back"
There's nothing said about Menloth having to survive, and I don't think it's even possible to have that as an objective yet, but I played along and didn't target him.
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Menloth actually has the best dialog in the mission. It's kinda too bad that you decided to be a nice guy about it.
Arc #26931, "The Balance of Power Part I"
tl;dr: 3 stars. Offenses: weak theme, overpowered ally
Theronius, Tactical Operative of the Cosmic Paladins (author insert), needs your help. This bunch of galactic guardians is spread too thin, and they've got a starship nearby that's been hijacked. The hostiles have planted bombs and taken hostages. He wants you to go in and handle it, warning you not to take the aliens for granted. The intro is kind of like handing someone a gun and telling him to walk into the next room and shoot the person inside, but we can take it as read that these Cosmic Paladins have had dealings with earth before and have some bonafides the player can check out with Longbow or the like if so inclined. The bad guys, the Granox, are vaguely Borg-like in appearance and sport a variety of powers. 3 bombs, 3 hostages (allies), one named LT to take out and an ambush when you click the last bomb...pretty straightforward. Afterwards, Theronius confesses that the Granox wiped out his civilization and he just ran away.
For Act II he asks you to take out a Granox slave base, freeing all the slaves. You have an ally already at the asteroid...who, on approach, reveals that all the slaves have been executed. It seems the Granox knew you were coming, and worse, they're planning an invasion of earth. You have to defeat another named LT, the Slave Overlord, who mocks you in the last few seconds of his life. Theronius is distraught as he took great pains to conceal the planned attack and suspects an infiltrator.
The invasion hits in Act III. Theronius takes it personally, believing the Granox are destroying earth because he asked for your help. He thinks, though, if you can defeat Goltharn, their master-at-arms, it will rout their troops. Vanguard and Longbow are on the scene when you beam down, fighting the Granox in battle spawns. You first have to rescue a hero, Black Petal (Fire Blast/Empathy EB) to trigger Goltharn's spawn (Axe/Crazy EB...OK, I just couldn't tell what his other set was). There are destroyable objects about the map but there's no benefit in protecting them. Goltharn's combat banter says his emergency teleport fails, suggesting he is Killed Off For Real. He does drop a flash dr^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hinformation key containing the location of the Granax homeworld, 3 parsecs from earth. (That's what, Barnard's Star? 3 parsecs is pretty close.)
Act IV: This Time It's Personal is a counterattack on the Granax homeworld with Theronius and your ally from Act I. You are to plant bombs and take out Xer'Tul (author insert) in one of their underground cities. This is another straightforward run. Xer'Tul (Energy Melee/Invulnerability AV) folds like a busted flush against the allies, particularly Theronius (same). Theronius thanks you in the debriefing.
The arc is pretty generic. It does have a bit of a theme but the Architect doesn't do much with it. The overpowering ally in the last mission is irritating, and Acts I and II are a bit unsatisfying without even Bosses for their Big Bads. It could use some work. As it stands I wouldn't be very interested in part II.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Three parsecs is just short of 10 light years. Fairly close, as such things go. (Tau Ceti is at 12.)
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City
Discounting "The Rise of O" because I didn't assign it a rating, and assuming I've counted correctly, I've now reviewed 50 arcs, with an arithmetic mean rating of 2.9. The average dropped a bit as I ran into a few Wall Bangers.
There are only four arcs left in my queue: 2142, 2150, 42221, 5299.
Once the queue empties I will probably take a short break from reviewing to publish another arc myself. After that I will start taking requests again but there will be some changes to how I do things. I'll say more when I'm more certain about them. I will tell you now that I'm not even looking at requests posted in this thread after I said I wasn't taking requests, so we can get the angst over that out of the way now.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Nice to see your going to be free again soon. Incidentally, I am curious about something. What are your feelings about arcs spread over two or more sub-arcs? I ask because I have started work on my third arc, but due to filesize limitations and the scope of the story, I doubt I will be able to make it work within just one arc. Do you think it would be possible for you to review both parts at once? Or do you only do one arc at a time?
I've decided that I'm going to start reviewing people's arcs, and I'm going to do it in this thread instead of starting another one. (We've got like what, 7? 8 review threads?) I'm not going to look back through the thread and try to figure out who's been reviewed yet, who's on people's queues, and all that. If you'd like me to review an arc, post it or PM it to me or what have you.
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I'd like to put mine up for review
Arc title: Heroes at War - 1944
Arc ID: 77928
Morality: Heroic
Enemy groups: 5th Column, Storm Korps (custom)
Description: Play through some of the key American led battles of WWII in the European theatre, with a twist - this alternate history includes metahumans fighting on both sides of the war. It's you against the Storm Korps!
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For you then, Laser Jesus, since Venture is apparently done. I missed the cutoff somewhere in those 50 pages :P
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I've decided that I'm going to start reviewing people's arcs, and I'm going to do it in this thread instead of starting another one. (We've got like what, 7? 8 review threads?) I'm not going to look back through the thread and try to figure out who's been reviewed yet, who's on people's queues, and all that. If you'd like me to review an arc, post it or PM it to me or what have you.
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The Oblivion Lens can always use some feedback, as right now it has been played by a total of one person.
Arc Name: The Oblivion Lens
Arc ID: 91897
Faction: Heroic
Synopsis: What starts out as a battle against the Circle of Thorns turns into something far more dire when a mysterious artifact is recovered. ((Contains an AV/EB in the last mission.))
A Tangle in Time (2622)
Eclipse Over Paragon (64609)
Both story driven, 5 missions long and recommended for soloing. Though you can try Blargrimmar Wants You! (4572) if you want something more light-hearted.
Jumping on the new bandwagon:
Arc Name: Dr. Dave and the Copper Legion
Arc ID: 60280
Morality: Heroic
Creator: @theHedoren
Length: Very Long (according to MA)
Level Ranges: All levels cap at 54; min. levels are 35-5-1-1-41.
Difficulty: Medium- final mission contains 1 AV, but with two Allies; many collections, some captives to rescue, an escort mission
Synopsis: When an ancient weapon is unearthed by forces unknown, do you have what it takes to save Paragon City from destruction?
Arc Name: The Double-Edged Sword
Arc ID: 4384
Morality: Heroic
Creator: @theHedoren
Length: Long
Level Ranges: three missions 30-54, two missions 40-54
Difficulty Level: Medium- final mission contains 1 AV, but with optional Allies; some collection, several Ally/Captive rescue, a Boss and an AV
Synopsis: At first it seemed like business as usual for Crey Industries. But when a shady experiment spirals out of control, it's up to you to stop the growing threat.
Rise of the Copper Legion (#60280; with soundtrack)
The Fractured Dreamer (#498588; with musical theme)
"Now Leaving: Paragon City": original composition for the end of CoH
Random fact: there are 11 known stars at or closer than 3 parsecs (12 if you count the sun). The only ones that *aren't* extremely faint red dwarf stars are Alpha Centauri A and B (C - "Proxima" is a red dwarf), and the two stars of the Sirius system. And the one closest to exactly 3 pc is Ross 154 (which is a red dwarf at 2.9 pc). So apparently the home star of that alien race is Ross 154 - sucks to be them.
I'll stop now.
M.A. Arcs
Intended for high level play: The Primus Trilogy (Arc #s 10931, 283821, 283825), "Freakshow U" (Arc #189073), Purification (Arc #352381, Dev's Choice!
)Intended for low level play: "Learning the Ropes" (Arc #100304), "Cracking Skulls" (Arc #115935), "The Lazarus Project" (Arc #124906)
Arc #17702, Every Rose...
Rating: 3 stars
Pros: (Mostly) well suited to low levels, interesting premise from a metagame perspective.
Cons: Ill-suited/unexplained enemy groups, plot issues, problems with level cap.
Plot Summary
You're fresh off the boat (so to speak, it's an Arachnos Flyer but whatever, it's a turn of phrase) and a woman named Polyantha Hawthorne offers you to join the Circle of Thorns. Obviously they'll need you to do something for them before handing you your robe, so to prove your worth they send you to retrieve a magical tomb from a police warehouse. Once that's done, they are willing to begin your initiation.
The initiation involves the casting of a spell of your choice which requires a fragment of magical coral, which you steal from the holds of a cargo ship which is protected by private security guards. Once this is done, the spell can be cast. The spell requires multiple CoT mages to be performing a ritual at once. Polyantha explains that only the mage leading the ritual is important, however, and that the other mages are simply there to increase the power. The ritual is to be performed at a specific location, the outside of a crypt it seems. However, Vahzilok show up on the scene and you have to prevent them from disrupting the ceremony by rescuing Polyantha from the franken-zombies. She explains that the spell was a success, though it will not take effect for a long time.
Now the Circle needs only one more thing from you before you are inducted into their ranks proper. You must kidnap 3 people who have an Atlantean bloodline for the Circle to use for their dark schemes. When you arrive, you face both Rogue Island Police and Legacy Chain members who are trying to prevent you from kidnapping the citizens, one of which is being interrogated by members of the Family. After you bring them back to your would-be masters, they invite you in to Oranbega(?) to be inducted into their ranks. Polyantha explains that you won't become a Circle Mage as you don't carry Oranbegan blood(?) and instead you will be the Circle's covert agent in the isles, serving their interests clandestinely. When you arrive, however, the Legacy Chain has infiltrated the underground city. You must collect your ceremonial thorn and robe and rescue the ritual leaders from their captors so they can conduct the final initiation ritual.
Mechanics
Even though the description says that the mission is designed for levels 2-5, I ran through it first with my level 50 Kat/SR Scrapper, and second with my level 6 Fire/Rad Corrupter. The Corruptor was the closest level character I had to the arc, and I didn't feel like making a new character just to review it.
Upon entering the first mission as my level 50 running on challenge 4, I'm greeted by a map completely filled with level 51-52 custom bosses from a group called CopShop, who were Assault Rifle/Willpower, both set to standard. At first my jaw dropped, but then I remembered that I'm supposed to be low level at this point. The bosses themselves weren't a problem at all for my level 50, but a character not built for the kind of soloing scrappers are would have a much bigger problem. The level 6 corrupter was greeted by level 4 RIP and... Crey Security Guards? If I hadn't run through mission 2 on my scrapper already, I would have been dumbfounded. I had gotten that out of my system when I went through mission 2 on my scrapper. This is where the "mostly" part of suited to low levels comes in. These Crey Security Guards, as it turns out, are in the regular security guard group. They have a little over 1/3 the HP of a normal minion, but have the furthest perception radius I have ever seen on any enemy. I'm serious, we're talking see you from halfway across the map here. I don't know where these guys came from, but I would take them out. Because when they see you, everyone they spawn with sees you. Meaning that your level 2-5 character is suddenly going to have a whole room fighting them. In addition, I don't really see a need for the custom boss. Both private security guards and RIP have bosses that could be used in the case of a big team running the mission, and with the custom boss in there it throws the level cap way off. I would just plain take that out, and the "Crey" guards, and just leave the custom group just RIP capped at whatever low level you want it to cap out at. As far as objectives in this mission go, there are non-essential destructible crates, and one essential clickable crate which spawns a small ambush of Tuatha. The crate drops two near identical clues in your clue tab, I'm assuming one from the crate and one from mission complete, one should be edited out. I'm a little concerned about the tuatha on bigger teams. Tuatha minions aren't really much of a problem, but their LTs and Bosses I can see being a big problem for low level characters.
On the second mission, it's more or less the first mission except on a tanker. The custom group is called MySecurity, and is Private Security Guards and the "Crey" guards. No problems with the level cap, though thanks to the wide open nature of the tanker map, if you get unlucky and have some of the "Crey" guys spawn up front, you'll be greeted by an immediate assault by security guards, even if you have full invisibility on. My scrapper (fighting at level 19) did not get lucky, and ate tanker floor shortly after entering. The second time around I ate practically all of my inspirations fighting the horde of enemies. My Corruptor fared better, mainly I think because instead of fighting level 20s he was fighting level 6s, which were equipped with pistols instead of assault rifles. Same as the last mission, non-required destructible crates and a required collect object, and the collect object spawns an ambush of Coralax on you. However, I don't think the Coralax ambush was very necessary, as there is a Coralax patrol mission that talks about needing to find the coral. The glowie also drops two clues, one saying that you have found some coral, another saying that now that you have the coral, you can get the spell cast, and it makes a mention of the weird coral creatures. The first clue can be taken out, it's pretty much extraneous.
The third mission is an outdoor map with Vahzilok, but the required rescue is practically right in front of your face when you enter. Both times through I finished this mission in about a minute.
The fourth mission is an office map where you have 3 escorts, two surrounded by Legacy Chain, one surrounded by family. I can't really remember who is the main enemy to face on the map, as most of the spawn locations were used up by patrols of Legacy Chain and RIP, which are enemies to each other. Each patrol also had a set of dialogue, meaning that as you go through the mission you're assaulted with text boxes. If you want to have dialogue with your patrols but keep the number, I would suggest making one seperate patrol detail for each group that says the dialogue, put those in the front, and make the rest of the patrols with no dialogue. After you rescue the 3 hostages, there is an ambush of Legacy Chain, but like the other missions, the mission is already complete so there's no real reason to stick around to fight them, except for the experience and tickets.
The fifth mission takes place inside an Oranbega map, where Legacy Chain are your enemies. Your objectives are simple, one glowie, 3 captives, and 1 ally. There are ally patrols of CoT walking the halls, which gives a nice feel of being inside of the CoT's base which is being invaded. However, again all of the CoT patrols spout the same dialogue. I would bring it down to one patrol in the front saying the dialogue. The spawn placement of Polyantha both times was in the water in the back room, in a place that's not really easily visible. I would suggest trying to make her spawn in the middle, though this placement could be because of map limitations. If that's the case, I wouldn't change the map, because it's a nice, small, non-complicated Oranbega map that works well with the spawn locations besides Polyantha.
Story
I'll start with the plot itself. I like the premise, the idea of having a third person to start with instead of Kalinda and Burke, but I don't know. The Circle of Thorns? They don't seem to me to be the type that would hire outside help. They're also uncharacteristically helpful in this arc. Considering the fact that the CoT's idea of recruitment is to kidnap people and force a thorn in their chest or trick kids who are big into the occult to do it, this just seems odd to me.
The intro dialogue for mission 2 seems to put words in the mouth of the player too much for my tase. Instead of having Polyantha say that it'll take months to get a coral fragment and the player (presumably) telling her that it's too long to wait and suggesting that they go get one, why not just have Polyantha say that she knows of a cargo ship that's carrying some in it's hold? There's also the deal with her asking what spell you want. This isn't putting words in the mouth of the player, it's the opposite, but the way it played out left a bad taste in my mouth. I realize that any promise of favors or power from a contact in the game is meaningless, and even less meaningful in MA missions, but this seemed even less meaningful than that. Like I was being promised something, but I didn't know what it was, and I knew that I'd never get it. Instead of having her ask what kind of spell the player wants, getting no answer, and saying "Oh yeah we can totally do that" (I mean, what if the spell was a spell that exploded Statesman's head or something? Nitpick, I know, but still) why not just have the CoT cast a spell of good fortune on the player instead? That way it can be tangible (story-wise) to the player as an actual (but fictional) thing, that doesn't assume anything on the part of the player or his character.
Mission 3 seemed completely extraneous to me, like it could have been described in the return dialogue of mission 2 that she performs the ritual and grants you the spell. I would either do that, or make this mission have more meat on the bones. Make multiple objectives of mages that need to be rescued. Also, Vahzilok? Seems completely out of touch for the theme of the story. Security guards and police are all fine, those are vanilla enough to go with any story, but cyborg zombies jolted me right out of the magic theme. Why not make them Legacy Chain? Legacy Chain is already in your arc, and they're the heroic counterpart to the magical villain groups. They could have arrived on the scene to stop whatever evils they thought the CoT were cooking up.
In mission 4, when I was reading Zhang Qi's (one of the hostages) bio, her bio said that she had no idea that her soul would be replaced by that of an ancient wizard. Now, personally, I wouldn't put that in there. The in game reveal that the CoT are actually millennia old ghosts who are hijacking the bodies of people doesn't happen until your 30s. Before that all you know is that they like to kidnap people with Mu blood, and people who delve deep in the occult and join the CoT go mad and seem like they become different people. I'm also confused by the presence of the family here. That wasn't explained at all in the dialogue or any clues. I also am having a hard time wrapping my head around why the RIP and the Legacy Chain are fighting each other, unless... the RIP are there to arrest my kidnapping targets?
Finally, a couple things about CoT lore. Oranbega is only in Paragon City, the underground cities you go to in the Rogue Isles, I believe, are the ruins of the Mu civilization. At least I'm fairly certain, I'm a bit rusty on my CoV lore. In any case, it's not Oranbega. Also, it doesn't say anywhere that someone has to be of Oranbegan descent in order to become a CoT mage. In fact, there are no people of Oranbegan descent, as because of the pact they made with Ermeeth to destroy the Mu continent, they all became ghosts, so Polyantha saying that you can't become a true member because you don't share their bloodline doesn't make any sense. As far as I know, anyone and their mother can become a CoT mage if a spirit thorn gets stabbed into their chest.
Final Thoughts
All in all, it's not a bad mission. Aside from the "Crey" guards that see for miles, low level characters shouldn't have any problem going through it. The plot is weak, but the weak plot didn't detract from my enjoyment. If you fix the problems with the level cap and take out the hawk-eye guards, tone up the writing, I can see this being a 4 star.
Sorry to double post here, I just wanted to say that even though I will be giving feedback on what I think you could do to make your arc better, I probably won't review it again if you make changes to it. The reason why I won't, is because I would start to feel like I'm writing people's arcs for them, and that's not my intention at all.
Thanks for your review! I keep finding holes in my CoX lore; this is a great way to find these things out, as it turns out.
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Upon entering the first mission as my level 50 running on challenge 4, I'm greeted by a map completely filled with level 51-52 custom bosses from a group called CopShop, who were Assault Rifle/Willpower, both set to standard.
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I put those guys in there as part of an attempt to make the whole mission levels 1-54. It's not working for some reason.
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These Crey Security Guards, as it turns out, are in the regular security guard group. They have a little over 1/3 the HP of a normal minion, but have the furthest perception radius I have ever seen on any enemy.
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Yes, I didn't realize these guys were such a problem. I tested the mission with Kitsune9tails, who is a Tanker with Super Speed and Stealth (to represent shapeshifting) and I thought they were just weaker guys with a slightly improved aggro radius. Must remember to test even previously tested missions with a wider range of characters...
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The crate drops two near identical clues in your clue tab, I'm assuming one from the crate and one from mission complete, one should be edited out.
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I keep fixing this, and it keeps coming back.
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However, again all of the CoT patrols spout the same dialogue.
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There are 2 diiferent sets of 3 patrols with different dialogue. I guess you just kept running into the same guys. I gave them all some dialogue to make sure some of it got seen, but I can take some out.
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Instead of having her ask what kind of spell the player wants, getting no answer, and saying "Oh yeah we can totally do that" (I mean, what if the spell was a spell that exploded Statesman's head or something?
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This was an attempt to give the player an RP moment they can put into their bio and a feeling of control. Statesman's head is theoretically going to explode, only very very slowly. 
I guess it didn't have the desired effect in your case.
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Security guards and police are all fine, those are vanilla enough to go with any story, but cyborg zombies jolted me right out of the magic theme.
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Good point. But I didn't feel that the Chain felt right on this huge map. YMMV, in this case, I guess. Also, the reason I didn't beef this mission up more is because I want it to have minimal requirements. I don't want low level villains to feel they have to clear that map of Vahz. Of course, they can if they want.
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In mission 4, when I was reading Zhang Qi's (one of the hostages) bio, her bio said that she had no idea that her soul would be replaced by that of an ancient wizard.
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Yes, I will fix this.
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I also am having a hard time wrapping my head around why the RIP and the Legacy Chain are fighting each other, unless... the RIP are there to arrest my kidnapping targets?
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Since the RIP are up to no good, and are cops, I made the assumption that they would oppose the Legacy Chain, who are good guys who wear armor and carry weapons. I have run afould oif cops a few times in RL while wearing armor and carrying weaons...but that's a story for another time. Besides, as stereotypical brutal cops, they need no excuse to bust a few heads.
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Finally, a couple things about CoT lore. Oranbega is only in Paragon City, the underground cities you go to in the Rogue Isles, I believe, are the ruins of the Mu civilization. At least I'm fairly certain, I'm a bit rusty on my CoV lore. In any case, it's not Oranbega. Also, it doesn't say anywhere that someone has to be of Oranbegan descent in order to become a CoT mage. In fact, there are no people of Oranbegan descent, as because of the pact they made with Ermeeth to destroy the Mu continent, they all became ghosts, so Polyantha saying that you can't become a true member because you don't share their bloodline doesn't make any sense. As far as I know, anyone and their mother can become a CoT mage if a spirit thorn gets stabbed into their chest.
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The implication is supposed to be that you travel to PC to enter Oranbega. But I was sure you had to have the Mu Bloodline to become a Circle mage. I could be wrong, though.
Thanks again for the review! I tried some experimental things with the player's 'voice' and I'm sorry it didn't work for you, but I'm glad you liked it overall. I'll continue to tweak.
Good job, and see you later!
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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So, how do you make a story that isn't JABOSTH without taking away a player's control of their character or making assumptions that will probably be wrong at least half of the time?
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My interpretation:
Just a bunch of stuff that happens:
Mission one: please help me get my cat out of a tree.
Mission two: what, my cat has DE crystals on it? find out why the DE want my cat.
Mission three: The DE are being ordered to experiment on cats by the Rikti? Find the Rikti leader and defeat him.
Problem: sure, there's a thread to it, as in "hanging by."
A bunch of stuff that happens for a reason, but reason uses the idiot ball:
Mission one: My research lab appears to have been broken into, but strangely the only thing stolen was not any of my research subjects, but my pet cat. This is strange, I need you to investigate.
Mission two: The trail led to a cave with the DE? That's odd. Let me see that device you recovered. This appears to be Rikti in design. My research involved the immune system of the Rikti, but how does my cat fit in? Find the Rikti responsible and learn what they are up to.
Mission three: The Rikti leader believed my research was a biological weapons lab? He apparently was going to try to plant a monitoring device on my cat.
Problem: The Rikti hired the DE to steal a cat?
A bunch of stuff that happens for a reason, tries to avoid stupidville:
Mission one: I was conducting research on the DE, while I was gone one of them apparently broke out of its cage and for some reason stole my cat. Investigate the DE, and if you can recover my cat.
Mission two: You traced the DE to a cave with Rikti? So it seems the DE didn't break out on its own: the Rikti stole it and my cat. But why? Seek out the leader of this Rikti group and find out what they are after.
Mission three: The Rikti thought my research could be used to make a biological weapon against the Rikti? And they were going to plant a monitoring device on my cat to observe me? That's really strange.
Problem: its still a stupid plot, but at least it makes some sort of logic, and doesn't involve completely ludicrous acts of insanity.
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