I'll try yours if you'll try mine
By
5th_Elemental,
Posted on: 2009-04-10 13:04 in Mission Architect
Hi PW, Could you add "Tales of Croatoa" to your list? I reviewed this arc a few days ago:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....e=0&fpart=3
Thanks.
131430 Starfare: First Contact
178774 Tales of Croatoa: A Rose By Any Other Name ( 2009 MA Best In-Canon Arc ) ( 2009 Player Awards - Best Serious Arc )
Curse of the Pharoah's Tomb (arc id 118970)
Premise is something about death and artifacts and a curse. Level range is 1-54 neutral, seems to be all custom enemies. Played on a 24 SS/will brute on Malicious (level 2) difficulty.
Mission 1
Briefing: The contact tells me that a team of archaeologists have been digging in some tunnels and have unleashed some sort of curse. She mentions they were digging under a Mastaba, which I had to look up, and is now a new word I've learned 
but it must be very obscure, so you might explain what it means. She names a couple of her colleagues and asks me to save them. Seems pretty reasonable.
Second part of briefing: The contact goes on about how bad the curse is, but is very vague on the particulars. Some explanation of the curse and how they unleashed it would be helpful.
Mission entry popup: great description, does a good job of setting the tone for the mission.
Wow, love the costumes on the mummies. "Mummified Concubine" description: "one of the palaces concubines. Poorly preserved" should be "one of the palace's concubines, poorly preserved". "mumification" should be "mummification".
Is there any reason the concubine's eyes glow but none of the other mummies have glowing eyes? Maybe they all should.
I found a body bag and clicked on it; it decremented by "2 researchers to find" to "find the last researcher"; should capitalize "Find". Also, the first body bag gave me a clue saying "You've found the bodies of two researchers" ... but really I've only found one so far. May need to change that to be more consistent (maybe make one clue for each body). Also, the "Researchers" clue needs a period at the end of the sentence.
I found a second body bag and upon searching it, I found a second clue, also called "Researchers", saying that I wasn't able to find anyone alive. The two clues are pretty similar, you should consider merging them into one clue.
Debriefing: Seems awfully short; maybe add a little more text here where the contact recaps what has happened, tells more info about the situation, mourns the dead, or something. 7 words for a debriefing just seems awfully short.
Mission 2
Briefing: Seems a very similar set up, two more archaeologists working in the tomb that I need to find. I know here you have them in the antechamber whereas before they were under the Mastaba, but it still seems awfully similar. Also, "colleages" should be "colleagues".
Another very nice entry popup.
Found a large number of glowy "small clay pots" that didn't seem required, but had interesting messages. You might consider having them generate a few clues, also; the way they are currently, only the person who clicks them will see the message, and it won't be a real conspicuous message.
Uh oh, found another body bag. No clue attached to it though. Second body bag (for Edgar) did have a Papyrus Scroll on it. I believe "heiroglyphics" should be "hieroglyphics".
Mission exit popup: "Papyrus" shouldn't be capitalized. "yeild" should be "yield".
Mission debriefing: better, but still kind of on the short side. Needs a little more text.
Mission 3
Briefing: "I can't make all of it out, I wasn't the language scholar in our team Edgar was" should probably be "I can't make all of it out; Edgar was the linguist on our team." "heiroglyphs" should be "hieroglyphs" (in two places). "Edgars books" should be "Edgar's books".
Why is the contact frightened of going to Edgar's library? His library shouldn't be inside the tomb ... or IS it?
Inside the mission: I like the map selection (looks like the university map). The mission title "Get book on heiroglyphics" is awfully similar to the objective, "Get the heiroglyphics book"; and in both cases "heiroglyphics" should be "hieroglyphics". Consider making the mission title something different, like "Research hieroglyphics" or "Search the library" or "Conduct research" or something like that, just to make it less repetitive looking.
Found the glowy and clicking it completed the mission; seemed a little simple, but maybe that's ok for a middle mission on a long arc.
Debriefing: Shouldn't the contact be able to translate the papyrus scroll now that I gave her the book? She should say more about it.
Mission 4
Briefing: Still no translation of the scroll, but now the contact says the scroll is incomplete and I need to "find the rest of it". I guess this IS kind of hinted at in the Papyrus Scroll clue, where it says it's "a scrap of a papyrus scroll"; but wouldn't Linda have noticed this earlier, without even needing to translate it? Since it is physically just a scrap?
I like the "It's got to be in here!" objective.
Clicking a glowy instantly completed the mission. Seemed a little too easy; and I can't help but notice that the first 4 missions have all been purely glowy hunts. May want to mix it up a little; maybe make mission 3's objective to rescue a scholar or professor (a hostage) who can translate the scroll, instead of finding a book.
Also, finding the second piece of the scroll should probably award a clue, just like the first piece of the scroll did.
Debriefing: again, too short. With the two pieces of the scroll and the hieroglyph book, shouldn't the contact be able to translate the scroll now? Should end in a period, also.
Mission 5
Briefing: The contact now says this is the tomb of Setihotep II; presumably this is from translating the scroll, though she doesn't say so (maybe she should explain). It seems very odd to me that an archaeologist would not have already known the name of the pharoah whose tomb she was excavating; perhaps you should have her name the Pharoah earlier on (maybe even in the first or second briefing), and have the blood pact be the thing that is learned from the scroll. Or if you prefer to keep it this way, emphasize in early missions that the tomb is that of an unknown Egyptian ruler.
"ressurected" should be "resurrected".
Suddenly Linda says her daughter at home is in danger. How does she know? Should explain.
Second part of briefing: OK, here she explains that her mother called her on the cell phone. I think this info needs to be moved to the first part of the briefing; and the explanation of the curse maybe could be moved to the debriefing for mission 4.
I like Sarah Carter's dialog as you rescue her. She is in the "Cursed Egyptians" faction, which I'm pretty sure isn't right, though. Also, the Cursed Egyptians talk in this mission! They didn't talk at all in the first four missions, so I thought maybe they couldn't. If they can actually talk, you may want to give them some dialog in previous missions (maybe create some mission details, patrols or something, purely for sake of dialog) as well.
I found a bunch of Cursed Egyptians guarding an Artifact of Darkness that were all doing the animation where you flip a bat or nightstick around repeatedly; this animation doesn't look right for the mummies.
The ambush saying "Protect the Pharoah" should have an exclamation point at the end of their dialog. The Pharoah was in an "Egyptian Horde" faction, while the Queen is in "Egyptian Royalty"; I kinda think they should both be "Egyptian Royalty".
The Queen mob is named "Queen Nerferaten" but the briefing calls her "Neferaten"; I suggest you standardize on "Neferaten". Though I think -aten may be something Egyptians stick at the end of male names, though I couldn't swear to it.
I very much like the King and Queen models; excellent costuming. The worshipful animation that the Queen's entourage uses is really good.
When you are down to the last artifact, "destroy the last artifact" should have Destroy capitalized.
I searched the final mission for over half an hour and never did find the seventh artifact. I'm not sure why because the others seemed pretty visible, with mummies guarding them doing an animation. I ended up having to quit without completing the arc, which is a shame. I am guessing maybe it failed to spawn the 7th artifact or somehow spawned it inside a cliff or other object.
Overall
I love the Pharoah's curse concept, and the custom undead Egyptians look terrific. The story is a little thin, especially because the first four missions are spent just hunting glowies to learn more about what's going on, and this is a little repetitive as you have two missions where you look for bodies, then two missions were you work on getting stuff to translate the scroll. The story could benefit from having a little more plot, mixing up the objective types for the earlier missions, and adding some more verbiage to the debriefings. But I felt the theme was very strong and as a result I gave it 4 stars.
-----
I owe a review to:
@FemFury - Amazon-Avatars 5909
Mecha GM - Operation Pitcher Plant 4370
@Mr Squid - 2 of 123675, 136959, 141011 The Lost Choir (Ch1-3)
@Sakura-Kishi - Invasion of the Land of Oz 168841
suedenim - Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War 130809
Thornster - A Little RnR 17523
@Elisenda - A Lame Joke, 22982
@Ridiculous Girl - Hero Therapy! 119228
@Cheriour - Revenge of Dr Radium 100293
Graeve_Digger - 2 of Hero Simulator Ch1 172700, Ch2 172468
Major_Paragon - Fatale Attraction 181264
@Sumerian - Power Play 187269
Darkonne - 161865 Aeon's Nemesis
@Chocolate Rage - Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue 163967
Hercules - 178774 Tales of Croatoa
in queue:
WynterPhrost
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
@OverlordIndigo - A Hero is Made, Not Born 20863
Theron - The Construct 91887
@Spry - Saving Grace 124477
@KemLi - A Father's Iron Will 198952
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
Amazon-Avatars (arc 5909)
Another player wanted to team up with me, so fair warning, I was under more time pressure to keep moving than I would be while solo. So this isn't quite as detailed as if I ran through solo. Hopefully having a second player run through the arc and leave a rating will make up for that.
Stated level range was 41-54, but I played a 24 ss/will brute (admittedly low for this arc) and was lackeyed to a 39 elec/ninj stalker. We played on Malicious (level 2) difficulty.
Mission 1
Briefing: "recieving" should be "receiving"
Alexander wants me to take a mysterious artifact back from the other Warriors, but does not explain what it is or why it's important. Would be nice to be given more info to motivate why this artifact needs to be recovered. If this artifact has been in the hands of the Warriors for awhile, it seems like he would know at least something about it.
It appears the CoT and Warriors have been manipulated to fight somehow? Not quite sure why the CoT were attacking, possibly I missed a clue on that (was in a bit of a hurry as brutes are expected to smash stuff nonstop), but I did catch that the KoA tricked them into it somehow in order to cover up a theft.
Lots of artifacts gave nicely detailed clues that eventually point towards the KoA.
Mission 2
Briefing: though our clues point towards KoA, we decide to go after the Malta? Okay, so the KoA usually serve the Malta, but this seems a little bit of a stretch.
Contact says an informant told him to send me to a particular Malta base; would be a little nicer if the player found a clue somewhere (perhaps in the first mission) that pointed to this Malta base.
Inside the mission I find that sappers are really, really bad when you're level 24. I get END drained and toggle dropped repeatedly. This is purely my fault for bringing a low level character though; if I were level 41+ as the mission is rated for, I'm sure I'd have something better I could do about END drain. We gradually work out a system of alpha striking all sappers with KO Blow/Assassin Strikes.
I like that you get a clue on the Knives of Artemis Tracking Database that clearly leads to the next mission. Though it's a little strange that there would be a KoA Tracking Database; usually these super secret paramilitary organizations are much more compartmentalized, so having a central database listing all agents and their location would be unlikely.
I like the supervisor's dialog also.
Mission 3
So we track the KoA to Croatoa and are sent to stop a ritual.
Mission objectives say to destroy Ritual Tablets, but the actual objects are called Ritual Stones. Should make those consistent, probably both Ritual Tablets. The description of the Ritual Stone has an extra period at the end of it.
[NPC] Mercenary: Protect the artifact sisters. Perhaps soon, we will drink of it's power.
should be
[NPC] Mercenary: Protect the artifact, sisters. Perhaps soon, we will drink of its power.
I like the dialog but for some reason in this mission all the dialog is repeated twice. Possibly a bug due to having 2 players? Not sure.
The optional allies we found in this mission were suppressed from being "rescued" by the KoA caltrops, until the caltrops faded. Not much you can do about that, but thought you should know.
I like the ally dialog and their motivation to bring the KoA back under Malta control. I was shocked that we had a Sapper as an ally; in the previous mission I had made a hotkey to quick target Sappers so I could kill them, so I spent most of this mission instinctively wanting to kill my Sapper ally every time he fired off his END drain attack.
Mission 4
Second part of briefing: "essesnce" should be "essence"
Found and fought Aphrodite. I think she spawned as a boss for us. Wow, she's so very pink. Shouldn't she be in a "toga" costume rather than the "bridal" costume? I guess bridal could work, too, though. While fighting her, we had a crazy number of charmed warriors ambush us. I think it must have been two or three ambushes all at once (we had high DPS so reduced Aphrodite's HP to zero very quickly). That might be a lot of ambushes for the average person to handle. Then again, Aphrodite is depicted here as mostly running things by charming others into helping her, so maybe giving her a lot of helpers makes sense.
In Aphrodite's background story, "Aprodite" should be "Aphrodite".
Aphrodite's dialog is very good! However, "Illiad" should be "Iliad".
The Entranced Warriors have a Mars symbol as their shield device; I don't think this makes sense since they don't serve Mars in any capacity. Maybe they should have a Venus symbol (though I'm not sure male characters can get that) or a Moon symbol (representing Artemis). Or a big pink heart to symbolize Aphrodite, though that would probably look too silly.
I like Hestia's dialog and motivations.
[NPC] Mercenary: These gang members make an army, when charmed and inspired by Aprhodite, then trained by Athena.
"Aprhodite" should be "Aphrodite" here.
Fought Athena, who was axe/shield. Athena traditionally wields a spear, but no way to really represent that. She has the Jupiter symbol on her shield, but Athena's shield (the Aegis) is traditionally depicted as having Medusa's head on it; there's not such a device in our costume creator, but maybe a snake motif would work.
You might consider giving all the goddess avatars a glowing nimbus or halo? To signify their (semi-)divine status?
Mission 5
Entry popup, "Artermis" should be "Artemis".
Artemis has a terrific costume! Her background story, "reverance" should be "reverence".
She also has mad ambushes when fighting her (she spawned as an EB for us). I like how you re-used a bunch of existing mobs as potential servants of Artemis. Her attack set being archery totally made sense too. I thought the map was a bit large for having just one objective on it (Defeat Artemis), but with all the patrols and ambushes, it kinda works too.
Overall
I like the mythological premise, and I think this is exactly the sort of plot the Knives of Artemis would love to enact. The dialog is very good and I particularly like how each of the goddess-avatars has their own personality and opinion of the situation. I thought the hook for why you're doing the first two missions was a little weak and could be improved, but the last three missions were all quite good.
I gave this story 5 stars.
-----
I owe a review to:
Mecha GM - Operation Pitcher Plant 4370
@Mr Squid - 2 of 123675, 136959, 141011 The Lost Choir (Ch1-3)
@Sakura-Kishi - Invasion of the Land of Oz 168841
suedenim - Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War 130809
Thornster - A Little RnR 17523
@Elisenda - A Lame Joke, 22982
@Ridiculous Girl - Hero Therapy! 119228
@Cheriour - Revenge of Dr Radium 100293
Graeve_Digger - 2 of Hero Simulator Ch1 172700, Ch2 172468
Major_Paragon - Fatale Attraction 181264
@Sumerian - Power Play 187269
Darkonne - 161865 Aeon's Nemesis
@Chocolate Rage - Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue 163967
Hercules - 178774 Tales of Croatoa
in queue:
WynterPhrost
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
@OverlordIndigo - A Hero is Made, Not Born 20863
Theron - The Construct 91887
@Spry - Saving Grace 124477
@KemLi - A Father's Iron Will 198952
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
[ QUOTE ]
Amazon-Avatars (arc 5909)
[/ QUOTE ]
PoliceWoman, thanks much for the review!
[ QUOTE ]
Another player wanted to team up with me, so fair warning, I was under more time pressure to keep moving than I would be while solo. So this isn't quite as detailed as if I ran through solo. Hopefully having a second player run through the arc and leave a rating will make up for that.
[/ QUOTE ]
Sounds like a fair deal to me!
[ QUOTE ]
Stated level range was 41-54, but I played a 24 ss/will brute (admittedly low for this arc) and was lackeyed to a 39 elec/ninj stalker. We played on Malicious (level 2) difficulty.
[/ QUOTE ]
yeah, that's a bit low for the challenge level of the arc. Still, I'm heartened that you were able to work through anyway.
Brute and Stalker on a heroic arc? Well, luckily, I left Alexander's text to be such that you can see yourself doing mercenary work for him.
[ QUOTE ]
Briefing: "recieving" should be "receiving"
[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks for all the typos, grammar, and punctuation you found throughout. Definitely a nice side benefit to any PoliceWoman review, the excellent proof-reading!
(glad this one had less of such issues than "Escalation" did for you)
[ QUOTE ]
Alexander wants me to take a mysterious artifact back from the other Warriors, but does not explain what it is or why it's important. Would be nice to be given more info to motivate why this artifact needs to be recovered. If this artifact has been in the hands of the Warriors for awhile, it seems like he would know at least something about it.
[/ QUOTE ]
Hm. I was trying to go with the idea that Odyseuss was keeping Alexander, and everyone else, in the dark about this artifact. Alexander has only vague divinations to go on. This is why the hero starts out a few steps behind the Knives of Artemis and has to play catch-up for a few missions.
Further, this arc could easily be played *after* the hero has run the Redeemer badge arc, and gotten Alexander out of the Warriors and signed him up to be an informant. Leaving him more out of the loop. I tried to write this arc such that it works either before or after Alexander's canon arc.
Maybe I can clarify. Not a lot of text space left to do that in, though...
[ QUOTE ]
It appears the CoT and Warriors have been manipulated to fight somehow? Not quite sure why the CoT were attacking, possibly I missed a clue on that (was in a bit of a hurry as brutes are expected to smash stuff nonstop), but I did catch that the KoA tricked them into it somehow in order to cover up a theft.
[/ QUOTE ]
Hm. I thought the hostage rescued explained this. The Knives dropped all the protective wards on the warehouse, to draw the CoT in to cover their mystical tracks.
[ QUOTE ]
Briefing: though our clues point towards KoA, we decide to go after the Malta? Okay, so the KoA usually serve the Malta, but this seems a little bit of a stretch.
[/ QUOTE ]
Alexander is trying pull a little from Sun Tzu and attack the enemy where it is weak. He figures the Malta less protected against mystical divination than the Knives, and less ready for trouble in this matter. Plus, like many people, he assumes whatever the Knives are doing, it's at the behest of Malta.
Again, I may need more to make this clearer.
[ QUOTE ]
Contact says an informant told him to send me to a particular Malta base; would be a little nicer if the player found a clue somewhere (perhaps in the first mission) that pointed to this Malta base.
[/ QUOTE ]
Hm. Alexander at end of Mission One mentions he's going to use some of the artifacts from the warehouse to hire a mystic diviner. Maybe I need to explain that better at the start of Misison 2.
[ QUOTE ]
I like that you get a clue on the Knives of Artemis Tracking Database that clearly leads to the next mission. Though it's a little strange that there would be a KoA Tracking Database; usually these super secret paramilitary organizations are much more compartmentalized, so having a central database listing all agents and their location would be unlikely.
[/ QUOTE ]
This particular Malta administrator is supposed to track all of the Knives *non-Malta* activities. Part of that "don't trust anyone" thing. I might alter clue text a bit.
[ QUOTE ]
The description of the Ritual Stone has an extra period at the end of it.
[/ QUOTE ]
Oddly, I was using the default dev-provided description. The extra period was their fault! fixed now.
[ QUOTE ]
I like the dialog but for some reason in this mission all the dialog is repeated twice. Possibly a bug due to having 2 players? Not sure.
[/ QUOTE ]
bug that kicks in with critters defending destructibles with some team sizes and difficulties. Happens in some other arcs I've seen too.
[ QUOTE ]
The optional allies we found in this mission were suppressed from being "rescued" by the KoA caltrops, until the caltrops faded. Not much you can do about that, but thought you should know.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah. that's quite annoying. Big part of the reason I switched those ally objectives to Optional.
[ QUOTE ]
I like the ally dialog and their motivation to bring the KoA back under Malta control. I was shocked that we had a Sapper as an ally; in the previous mission I had made a hotkey to quick target Sappers so I could kill them, so I spent most of this mission instinctively wanting to kill my Sapper ally every time he fired off his END drain attack.
[/ QUOTE ]
Heh. The Sapper ally gets some interesting reactions.
I guess you really felt the oddness of allying with such traditional enemies.
[ QUOTE ]
Found and fought Aphrodite. I think she spawned as a boss for us. Wow, she's so very pink. Shouldn't she be in a "toga" costume rather than the "bridal" costume? I guess bridal could work, too, though.
[/ QUOTE ]
I tried to give each Avatar a distinct look. Hestia gets the toga. Athena gets a "Xena" look, using roman costume parts. Artemis gets some Valkyrie parts. Aphrodite I wanted to have the most "girly" look, and also most "modern", suggesting she's *already* picking up modern fashions a bit.
[ QUOTE ]
While fighting her, we had a crazy number of charmed warriors ambush us. I think it must have been two or three ambushes all at once (we had high DPS so reduced Aphrodite's HP to zero very quickly). That might be a lot of ambushes for the average person to handle. Then again, Aphrodite is depicted here as mostly running things by charming others into helping her, so maybe giving her a lot of helpers makes sense.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, it's kinda Aphrodite's schtick.
Killing her too fast can be a tactical mistake, but I'm not sure how best to give advance warning on that, in character. Hm, maybe Alexander could warn based on knowing how devoted the warriors will be to her.
The other alternative is, I could switch Aphrodite's second power set to Willpower instead of Empathy, and make her die a little slower... a little less thematic, and might make her tougher for *other* ATs....
[ QUOTE ]
The Entranced Warriors have a Mars symbol as their shield device; I don't think this makes sense since they don't serve Mars in any capacity. Maybe they should have a Venus symbol (though I'm not sure male characters can get that) or a Moon symbol (representing Artemis). Or a big pink heart to symbolize Aphrodite, though that would probably look too silly.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, Male characters can't have Venus symbol. (what's up with that?)
I thought about heart. But too silly. Athena wouldn't go for it.
I went with Mars as the "male symbol", plus Ares was the lover of Aphrodite... yeah, a bit of a stretch.
That moon idea is a good one, maybe...
[ QUOTE ]
Fought Athena, who was axe/shield. Athena traditionally wields a spear, but no way to really represent that. She has the Jupiter symbol on her shield, but Athena's shield (the Aegis) is traditionally depicted as having Medusa's head on it; there's not such a device in our costume creator, but maybe a snake motif would work.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ah, but the Aegis is the shield of Zeus, and Athena carries it as his shield maiden and favored daughter. I thought the Jupiter symbol was appropriate due to that. I think I'll add dialogue from Athena about "carrying her father's shield into battle", see if that helps.
[ QUOTE ]
You might consider giving all the goddess avatars a glowing nimbus or halo? To signify their (semi-)divine status?
[/ QUOTE ]
Hm. I'll look into that.
Pretty happy with their costumes and look. But that could add something for sure...
[ QUOTE ]
Overall
I like the mythological premise, and I think this is exactly the sort of plot the Knives of Artemis would love to enact. The dialog is very good and I particularly like how each of the goddess-avatars has their own personality and opinion of the situation. I thought the hook for why you're doing the first two missions was a little weak and could be improved, but the last three missions were all quite good.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks much for playing and for the very detailed review.
Making some changes now. I hope I can tighten up the links in the first 2 missions.
To be blunt, I was going for a bit of an "unfolding mystery" feel. What is the artifact? What can it do? What are the Knives up to? Is this a standard Malta job, or are the KOA up to something more?
Also wanted the hero to be a few steps behind the Knives at first, giving them time to use the artifact. The Hero "catches up" in Mission Three, keeping the rituals from being fully completed in 3 out of 4 cases.
Of course, trying to get a feel of "Mystery" and "Chase" in the Mission Architect is tough, so maybe I was too ambitious...
Thanks again! Off to edit arc a bit more!
I'm a published amateur comic book author: www.ericjohnsoncomics.com
******MA Arcs****
Arc 5909: "Amazon-Avatars"
Arc 6143: "Escalation" (Nominee: Architect Awards, Nominee: Player Awards, and Dev's Choice!)
[ QUOTE ]
The Entranced Warriors have a Mars symbol as their shield device; I don't think this makes sense since they don't serve Mars in any capacity. Maybe they should have a Venus symbol (though I'm not sure male characters can get that) or a Moon symbol (representing Artemis). Or a big pink heart to symbolize Aphrodite, though that would probably look too silly.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thought about this some more.
I think I might throw in a Knives patrol with the following dialoge:
First KOA: "Why do the warriors have the Mars symbol on their shields? Asserting their masculinity?"
Second KOA: "Someone mentioned that Ares was a lover of Aphtrodite. Now they all want to be the Mars to her Venus."
I think that adds a little humor, without going too far askew from plot.....
I'm a published amateur comic book author: www.ericjohnsoncomics.com
******MA Arcs****
Arc 5909: "Amazon-Avatars"
Arc 6143: "Escalation" (Nominee: Architect Awards, Nominee: Player Awards, and Dev's Choice!)
Arc Name: Warrior's Three
Arc ID: 64885
Faction: Villain/Nuetral
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Noght
Difficulty Level: Moderate. EB in Third mish. Soloable.
Synopsis: Warriors beginning to invade Rogue Isles bring them into conflict with the Mu. Level 20-29.
**Finished Teen Freedom Phalanx. Well done...comments sent. Attention to detail was fantastic. Bravo.
Noght 50 Scrapper Broadsword/Invulnerability
Fire Umbra 50 Brute Dark Melee/Fire Aura
Impulse Cry 50 Blaster Sonic/Energy
Internist 50 Mastermind Poison/Thugs
Ice Omega 50 Corrupter Ice/Radiation
Prickly Heat 50 Dominator Plant/Fire
Champion Server
Operation Pitcher Plant review (arc id 4370)
Premise is that some group called the "League of Mayhem" is attacking Portal Corp and you have to stop them. Level range looked to be 25-54ish, heroic, warns of 2 EBs and 1 AV. I played a 25 SS/will brute on Malicious (level 2) difficulty.
Mission 1
Briefing: the contact quickly tells me that the League of Mayhem is a supervillain group and they're trying to steal a portable portal generator. Seems a basically good briefing.
Second part of briefing: She mentions a couple League of Mayhem characters by name, as if I should know them (I'm thinking they might be player characters). "techinical" should be "technical" here.
The mission seems full of a custom faction of mercenaries in powered armor. They didn't seem too bad, but they seemed to be in the role of generic mooks. If these guys aren't real dear to your heart, you might consider using Sky Raiders or Malta instead; they basically have exactly the same role (mercenary soldiers) and would save you some story arc space.
Ran into Morrigan Le Fae, a dark melee boss who had some villainous dialog sounding like she was expecting me.
Fought Cyberix, a force field boss who had fairly typical villain dialog. But she did generate a clue warning of a trap; not sure what that will mean yet.
Fought Superianna, a SS/will EB with a fairly nasty ambush - I may have been unlucky on the ambush, which spawned 3 healers for me. Lost to her in a close fight, then came back and beat her on the rematch, heavily using inspirations both times.
[NPC] Superianna: Hunh. I actually felt that. You got a bit more to you than I exepected.
"exepected" should be "expected"
Debriefing: the contact has some good dialog here expositioning about how this was apparently all just a trap for the player. She also mentions she hopes "Superianna, Cybernix and Morrigan Le Fae" stay locked up -- but only the first two are required objectives, it's possible to complete the mission without defeating Morrigan.
She also says she's glad I recovered the "portable portal generator" but I actually only found the plans for it, which isn't exactly the same thing. The first mission seems to occasionally mix up references to the portal generator itself and the plans for it.
Mission 2
Briefing: The contact tells me that the League of Mayhem is committing more crimes. Two more villains in this VG are mentioned as kidnapping a city councilman. These villains have not been introduced before, and the villains from the previous mission don't reappear.
In this briefing sometimes you capitalize it "councilman" and sometimes "Councilman", either is fine, but I suggest you choose one way to write it and stick with it for consistency.
The mission title is "Rescue Councilman Harris" but there are lots more objectives other than just rescuing the councilman (the various office worker hostages and Steel Locust); it seems possible to rescue the Councilman and yet the mission wouldn't complete because of the other objectives. You might consider giving the mission a more general title like "Stop League of Mayhem attack" or something.
Steel Locust's description: "Legaue" should be "League". I like his dialog and how he calls his allies "mammals", like it's a slight. I was initially worried about Steel Locust SBing all the mercenaries with him, but managed to get him without too much trouble (he spawned as a boss).
[NPC] Mercenary Trooper: Once Mega gets here, we put her down hard, got it? Superianna ain't paying us play around.
"paying us play around" should be "paying us to play around"
[NPC] Councilman Harris: Wait, you abducted me and my people just to lure one hero here?
...might not make sense if the player is on a team of heroes.
[NPC] Councilman Harris: Thanks for saving me, Mega. Gamma Emitter is around here somewhre, let's be careful...
"somewhre" should be "somewhere"
Found and fought Gamma Emitter, who was a rad emission EB for me, and spawned with a group of 5th Column; his dialog and clue finally reveal that the reason this villain group keeps trying to "trap" me is because the 5th Column hired them to do it.
I like the "Gamma Emitter speaks" clue. "I may was well" should be "I may as well". "Zigursky" should be "Ziggursky".
When I get the Councilman to the door, he says:
[NPC] Councilman Harris: Thanks again, Mega. I just wish we knew why the League is after you...
....but this doesn't quite make sense because Gamma Emitter has already told me.
Debriefing: I like how the contact tells me that the people I rescued are doing well. "Zigursky" should again be "Ziggursky" though.
Mission 3
Briefing: So now I'm sent after the 5th Column boss who hired the villains to attack me. "currecnt" should be "current". This briefing warns me I should take friends with me, but both previous missions already had AVs (downgraded to EBs for me) in them? So this one is even harder? Wow, that's a little scary. Guess we'll see how it goes.
Inside the mission: I like how the 5th Column talk smack about the Council; I'm a little puzzled by one of them saying "did we actually go back to our past?" Does this mean they are futuristic Nazis? Hmm.
[NPC] Oberst Richter: Mega! I knew it! Warn herr Olbrech, and we will buy the rest of the facility time to evcuate!
I think "herr" should be capitalized as "Herr" (like how Mr. is always capitalized). "evcuate" should be "evacuate".
[NPC] Nacht Ubermenschen Force: Jahwol, herr Richter! You speak and we obey!
"Jahwol, herr Richter!" should be "Jawohl, Herr Richter!" (Or maybe "Herr Oberst".)
Richter's dialog confirms that these are Nazis from the future. I'm now guessing their whole plot was to come back and get rid of me because "future me" causes them headaches.
I beat up Richter, then searched the whole complex and couldn't find Olbrech at all. I started clearing the whole map hoping that would do something; finally I killed one stray soldier that turned "Find Olbrech" into "Defeat Oberst Olbrech". I'm guessing this was a stray soldier from Richter's group, and clearing Richter's group triggers Olbrech to appear. I think you should change it so that the Richter objective (which I assume corresponds to Find Olbrech) is completed as soon as you defeat Richter (only), not his whole group.
Found Olbrech; he needs a description (he has generic boilerplate there). The ambush calls him "herr Olbrech" but should probably call him "Herr Olbrech" or "the Oberst".
Not quite sure why the last mission gives such a big warning about its difficulty when all three missions actually have AVs in them.
The USB Flash Drive clue that Olbrech gives is very interesting...though having him be from another dimension instead of from the future is pretty weird. Not sure what happened here now.
Mission exit popup: "may take all of this a bit personal in future" is awkward sounding. Maybe rephrase to "may take this all a bit personally".
Debriefing: "hellicopter" should be "helicopter". I like that the contact has people follow up on where the 5th Column was trying to escape to, but finding a portal device there seems to leave the plot dangling.
Souvenir: "Oberest" should be "Oberst". "Apparantly" should be "Apparently". "demaning" should be "demanding".
Overall
The plot left me confused. As best as I can tell, Olbrech is from an alternate dimension, and in this other dimension, a version of my character repeatedly beat him up. Consequently, he has traveled to this dimension in order to try and take revenge on me, by hiring supervillains to lure me into traps. I'm not sure this plot makes sense as presented; why take revenge on Earth-1 me, when it was Earth-2 me that did all these things to Olbrech? I think I could've bought that a future Olbrech might be angry at me because future me messes up his plans, but alternate dimension Olbrech doesn't have the same motive, IMHO. Straightening out exactly what Olbrecht's motivation is here could help improve your plot.
The missions themselves seemed fairly simple in concept - stop a robbery, rescue a hostage, with some EBs and AVs thrown in. The maps seemed a little large, but the missions worked fine.
I liked the League of Mayhem villains, but felt each one was a bit underused/underdeveloped. Each one appeared only in one scene in one mission, then didn't appear again; and none of them had much foreshadowing or introduction to build them up as credible threats. As a result, the various villains seemed more like cameo appearances than developed characters. Spending some more dialog/briefing space/clues developing each of the villains would make them seem much more 3-dimensional; possibly you might want to have some of them appear in both the early missions rather than just one, to make them more like recurring characters.
It's quite possible that these villains are characters in someone's villain group, in which case someone from that VG wouldn't need to have that much character development to know who they are. But people who don't know these characters won't have that same feeling. (I certainly enjoy the vanity arcs written about characters in my VG, but probably other people don't get it.)
Anyway, I rated this 3 stars - hope you think that is fair!
-----
I owe a review to:
@Mr Squid - 2 of 123675, 136959, 141011 The Lost Choir (Ch1-3)
@Sakura-Kishi - Invasion of the Land of Oz 168841
suedenim - Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War 130809
Thornster - A Little RnR 17523
@Elisenda - A Lame Joke, 22982
@Ridiculous Girl - Hero Therapy! 119228
@Cheriour - Revenge of Dr Radium 100293
Graeve_Digger - 2 of Hero Simulator Ch1 172700, Ch2 172468
Major_Paragon - Fatale Attraction 181264
@Sumerian - Power Play 187269
Darkonne - 161865 Aeon's Nemesis
@Chocolate Rage - Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue 163967
Hercules - 178774 Tales of Croatoa
Emansor - The Day I Tried To Live 131780
Noght - Warrior's Three 64885
in queue:
WynterPhrost
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
@OverlordIndigo - A Hero is Made, Not Born 20863
Theron - The Construct 91887
@Spry - Saving Grace 124477
@KemLi - A Father's Iron Will 198952
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
Post deleted by 12th. Forgot to place this in the proper thread.
Teen Phalanx Forever completed, comments placed.
If you please or desire, you are invited* to WIN THE INTERNET. The arc is in the sig, and here is a link to the arc thread.
*No invitation required; the house is a'rockin, don't bother knockin'
"...his madness keeps him sane.": My Profile on VirtueVerse
Can You WIN the Internet? MA Arc #85544
Inhuman Resources - At Work with IE #298132
Task Force Mutternacht #349522 <-- 1st AE Challenge
Quick response:
a) thanks for the feedback. I'm sure it will all help a lot.
b) The reason I had the warning on Olbrech, and not Superianna or Gamma Emitter is that he's the only one who is classified as an AV, the other two are designed as EBs, so no purple triangles for them and they'll be EBs when going up against a team (or when the player is on Invincible)
3) regarding the plot: Olbrech and his cronies are from an Earth-2. They *thought* they were coming back in time to have their revenge, instead the device they used sent them to an alternated dimension. I clearly need to clear this up.
I'll look into using an established merc villain group instead of the custom mercs I made. Which would probably free up enough space to tuck in another two missions to a) explain the plot a bit better and b) maybe use the League of Mayhem villains a bit more.
Again, thanks for the review. It was quite helpful.
Vila: Why don't you go?
Avon: You are expendable.
Vila: And you're not?
Avon: No, I am not. I am not expendable, I'm not stupid, and I'm not going.
Gan: I'll get the guns.
- Blake's 7, Horizon
Scuse me? PW? I have told you a few times that I played through Teen Phalanx Forever before I submitted my arc for review, and have submitted feedback on it twice. Just making sure you know I did, since you still have me down for only two of my 3 arcs in your cue.
Just checking.
[ QUOTE ]
Scuse me? PW? I have told you a few times that I played through Teen Phalanx Forever before I submitted my arc for review, and have submitted feedback on it twice. Just making sure you know I did, since you still have me down for only two of my 3 arcs in your cue.
Just checking.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ultimately the reason is because I am good about tracking whether people have run my arcs but not good at tracking how many of them they've run ... I do see you've run all 3 of mine, so I'll update accordingly.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Scuse me? PW? I have told you a few times that I played through Teen Phalanx Forever before I submitted my arc for review, and have submitted feedback on it twice. Just making sure you know I did, since you still have me down for only two of my 3 arcs in your cue.
Just checking.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ultimately the reason is because I am good about tracking whether people have run my arcs but not good at tracking how many of them they've run ... I do see you've run all 3 of mine, so I'll update accordingly.
[/ QUOTE ]
Cool! Thanks!
I hope you'll consider playing and reviewing my arc:
Name: Attack of the Toymenator
Arc ID: 207874
Length: Medium
Short description: The Toymenator has granted all the toys in the factory life, and he's bent on taking over the world one action figure at a time!
Less-than-short description:
"My name is Dr. Fletcher E. Fletcher," said the shy-looking man in the white lab coat softly, "and I'm an inventor, and I used to work for Wally World in the toy division. But the economy got bad, and they fired me. Me! I made them a fortune over the years, and this is how they repay me?
"Well, I decided to start my own toy company, but it didn't quite work out," he looked around pensively, almost as if to see if anyone was eavesdropping on his tale of woe. "See, my idea was artificial intelligent-driven action figures. But I made the AI too good. One of my toys - the Toymenator - gained sentience and took over the whole operation! Not only did he kick me out of my lab, he gave all of my toys dupicates of his AI chip and then used my enlarging ray to make them human-sized and took my assistant, Dr. SoRelle, captive!
"He wants to take over the world! He's shipping them out all over the Rogue Isles and Paragon city today, unless you can track down the cargo ship, rescue Dr. SoRelle, and stop the shipment! And fair warning - he's put his number one man, Mega Jumbo Tron, in charge of the ship!"
Additional Info:
This mission is difficult but not impossible. It's in two parts, and the second part has an elite boss. Every single character, save the scientists, are customs. And you just might recognize one or two from your childhood...
Thanks for your consideration!
My Mission Architect arcs:
Attack of the Toymenator - Arc # 207874
Attack of the Monsters of Legend - Arc # 82060
Visit Cerulean Shadow's Myspace page!
The Lost Choir: Chapter One: The Old Testament review (arc id 123675)
Premise seems to be about faith and religion. Level range seems to be 40-54 blue side; for thematic reasons, I played Kyrie Eleison, a 33 broadsword/invuln scrapper whose back story is that she's an avenging angel.
Mission 1
Briefing: the contact presents himself as a representative of a Judeo-Christian sounding church that feels it was particularly persecuted by the Rikti during the war. "patheons" should be "pantheons" here, and also reminds me, should he perhaps mention the Banished Pantheon as one of the new religions people are turning to? Or perhaps because they are "evil" they don't count.
Although perhaps it is implied, I think the briefing should end with the contact asking for help with protecting the new sanctuary.
Second part of briefing: "dont" should be "don't".
It strikes me that Croatoa, with its history of neo-pagan monsters and witches, is a particularly awkward place to build a new church. Perhaps this was intentional, though, to set up the conflict with the Tuatha.
Mission entry popup: I like the Biblical verse to help set the tone.
"Something about a choir?" clue: "wierd" should be "weird". The Tuatha guarding this Construction Worker kept saying <XHA!> or <XHAN!> (incomprehensible) but the worker says they were talking about a "Choir"; seems inconsistent. Maybe the Tuatha dialog should directly mention the choir.
All 5 workers seem to have identical dialog; only the first one gave me a clue. The mission ended after I found and freed the 5th worker. This is okay, but doesn't seem too special; you could make it a little more interesting if the different hostages had different lines, or were even different types of hostages. Also the contact asked me to make sure they didn't "disrupt construction", but there was no objective that matched this; maybe consider adding some construction materials as an object to guard.
Debriefing: the contact acknowledges that Croatoa is probably hostile towards his aims. He also says "the Tuatha obey the Redcaps", and goes on in this vein. I didn't realize this was the case; interesting. "Redcaps" should be "Red Caps" in any event.
Mission 2
Briefing: the contact wants me to follow up on this "choir", which he thinks means something in the Rikti language, so he wants me to check out a Rikti base. This seems like a huge intuitive leap, maybe too big a leap to be believable, especially since there is no obvious connection between Rikti and Tuatha.
I think to better motivate why you'd go to a Rikti base, you need more clues pointing in this direction. I like the Rikti translation idea you have, but I think it needs some supporting evidence; perhaps if you had some clue in the first mission that doesn't make any sense until the Rikti idea is mentioned, then the two things together might point this way.
[NPC] High Priest Fara'sii: Thellos. we: return. Grant: Salvation: Soaring one.
This doesn't sound like proper Rikti grammar (if there is such a thing). I suggest: "Thellos: Returns. Salvation: Grant us."
[NPC] High Priest Fara'sii: Ceremony cannot: observed. Allowing knowledge: to superiors. Doom: us
I suggest: "Ceremony: Observation: Forbidden. Superiors: Must not know. Our fate: Doomed."
Debriefing is very interesting. The Rikti gaining "faith" is an interesting idea.
Mission 3
Briefing: "Rikti War zone" should be "Rikti War Zone", "Rogue" should be "rogue" throughout (2 instances) and "restructurist" should be "Restructurist" throughout (2 instances).
"be careful Kyrie Eleison!" should be "Be careful, Kyrie Eleison!"
"Vanguard has agreed to help me as long as we are still performing activities in the Rikti War zone, and they went off and did a bit of research on their own" is very awkward sounding, I suggest rephrasing it. Perhaps "With the Rikti involvement, Vanguard has agreed to give us some limited support; no actual troops, but Vanguard R&D has given us some insight into this "Thellos" cult."
The contact asks me to save the High Priest of the Thellos cult, from getting purged by other Rikti. The motivation for this seems rather thin; "we might risk losing our only lead". But if the contact thinks this High Priest is behind the attack on his sanctuary, shouldn't he be happy that the High Priest and his cult are about to be wiped out?
We've wandered pretty far afield from the original goal of protecting the Electist construction site and I'm not quite sure why the contact wants me to do this. Possibly you can solve this by changing the nature of the contact (perhaps he could be a scholar of theology who is fascinated by both the Electist sect and the Rikti cult). Or if an Electist member somehow were kidnapped and needing to be rescued, perhaps. The plot so far is pretty interesting, but right now I just am not sure what my motivation is for being here.
Mission objectives: "Rescue the High Preist" should be "Rescue the High Priest".
[NPC] Guardian: Listen! Gods: must be returned!
.. I suggest: "You: Must listen! Gods: Must return!"
I think the Rikti dialog could be tightened up a bit throughout the arc in general, to better match how they talk in other missions. Their canonical syntax seems to be "Noun: Sentence fragment".
I came across a battle where both sides were Rikti; it was a little puzzling to tell who was who. Maybe this is intentional (since maybe all Rikti look alike to us). If not, you might consider defining the religious Rikti as a separate faction, like "Rikti Cultists", to make it more clear what is happening.
Found a Sergeant Luther, not quite sure what he was doing in here. Maybe Vanguard is offering troop support after all!
Found Sadu'sii, "Preist" should be "Priest" in his name also.
"Defeat Nii'Roh" has appeared as an objective after I freed the priest. Nii'Roh hasn't been mentioned in the story yet; the briefing does mention a Rikti general who I assume is Nii'Roh. You might want to make the objective either "Defeat Rikti general" or "Defeat General Nii'Roh".
When I got Sadu'sii to the door, he gave me "Sadu'Sii's warning". I suggest you decide whether his name is capitalized "Sadu'sii" or "Sadu'Sii" and use it consistently. This is a neat clue, though, warning of the effects of a lack of religion.
At this point Sadu'sii is safely out, but the mission doesn't end (since I still have to defeat Nii'Roh); consequently, "Extract the Rikti Priest" is no longer an accurate mission title. Suggest you name the mission something more generic that covers both rescuing the priest and defeating the general. Why IS it necessary to defeat the general, anyway? Wasn't getting the priest out the key objective?
I am a little puzzled as to why the religious Rikti are a splinter of the Restructurists; it seems like it might make more sense if they were Traditionalists, since they want to return to the "old religion". Unless Thellos is a war god or something. Will be interesting to find out.
In Nii'Roh's description, "Hro'Dtoz" should be "Hro'Dtohz". "millitary" should be "military" (in 2 places). "incence" should be "incense". I like his description though.
Managed to beat Nii'Roh, with help of the Sergeant and a couple purple inspirations.
Debriefing: Hmm, the contact talks like he is surprised that the chapel came under attack by other Rikti, but he totally told me that it would get attacked in the briefing. Seems like a continuity error.
Mission 4
Briefing: Turns out the Rikti aren't connected to the Tuatha after all? That really seems to waste the impact of the last two missions, which were otherwise rather interesting.
"who apparently feeds on sentience but can be driven off by faith, or at least "divine energy" as the Vanguard put it" sounds rather awkward, and makes it sound like some Vanguard person is interjecting during Sadu'sii's interrogation. Maybe drop the "or at least.." part.
But now the contact wants me to do something that the Rikti priest is asking for: check out someplace called "The Spirit Realm" and see if it's been infiltrated by "The Infinite Eyes", whatever that is.
This seems rather weakly motivated; what is the contact's interest in this matter? Why should I do something that this Rikti wants, a Rikti that the contact now says has nothing to do with the original attack? I guess the Rikti is warning of some vaguely foreboding thing that might attack us, but the motivation for checking this out still seems rather thin to me.
Second part of briefing: The contact admits he has no idea why we are doing this or what to expect. Hmm. Also Vanguard apparently is massively helping us here, by opening a portal and sending an expeditionary force; I'm not sure it's believable for Vanguard to devote this amount of resources to help out a Rikti, who are Vanguard's traditional enemies.
Inside the mission, suddenly I have a mess of objectives I didn't know about before: Find Redroot, 3 Dimensional Tendrils, Find the Eye of Beyond. Yet I don't know what any of these things are, so I don't have a good reason to DO these things. I suggest that you either have them mentioned in the briefing (so I know to get them) or else redefine the objectives to be something much more vague like "Learn something" "Find something interesting" or the like.
This place looks really weird with all the custom mobs in it; I'd normally suggest you put some description of this strange place in the mission entry popup, but currently you have biblical looking verse there.
Found The Eye of the Beyond; it was in the "All Custom Characters" faction, should probably be in the "Infinite Eyes" faction. In its description, "bizzare" should be "bizarre". Apparently "Find the Eye of Beyond" is completed by killing it.
"Infinite Glance" had sonic attacks against me; this doesn't seem consistent with its Eye theme. Consider changing to energy, dark or illusion? Sonic just isn't right for an "eye" monster.
"A window to the beyond" clue is an interesting vision. "bizzare" should be "bizarre".
Found a Dimensional Tendril; strangely, it had dialog, so it can talk? The thing guarding it said <Xha> a few times, then XHA! which should probably have angle brackets around it to be consistent with the other times it says <Xha> ... whatever <Xha> means.
Dimensional Tendril clue, "bizzarely" should be "bizarrely".
Destroying the last Dimensional Tendril spawned a Tuatha ambush, not quite sure why.
[NPC] Dimensional Explorer: I've seen some wierd stuff in this job, but this has GOT to be the wierdest!
"wierd" should be "weird" and "wierdest" should be "weirdest".
Found Redroot; his description is that of a default Bres. This wouldn't be a problem except that it says he bears the name Bres.
[NPC] Redroot: They...decieved us!
"decieved" should be "deceived"
"The last of the Tuatha" clue should more clearly state that it is Redroot narrating the text that follows.
Debriefing: the contact seems very puzzled by the plot so far, and I tend to agree. This mission was surreal and interesting but I still am not sure what is going on.
Mission 5
Briefing: OK, here is something that makes more sense; bad guys are attacking Atlas Park. But how is this related to the earlier story? I think the contact needs to more clearly state how that these "things" pouring out are connected to what we've done so far. Based on the text he gives here, it could very well be a Rularuu invasion with nothing to do with our current plot.
Inside the mission, suddenly there are a lot of evil fairies/angels (they have insect wings and halos) and Hebrew sounding names.... wha? They are the members of "The Lost Choir". This is quite a surprise, I was thinking the Lost Choir were actually connected to the Rikti plot earlier, former Lost or something.
Considering this is Atlas Park, I kind of think there should be some innocent bystanders here being menaced by the invaders, that you can save as optional objectives. I do like the PPD patrols battling the angels though.
Melakh Adonai's description: "Litterally" should be "Literally".
B'Nai Elohim's description: "radience" should be "radiance"
The "XHA" exclamations are finally explained as the evil fairies refer to Xhantranos as their leader, or god, or something.
My objective is "Defeat the Nephilim" which I initially thought was defeat all (thinking Nephilim might be the name of their race), but I found an EB named Nephilim and beat him. He had wings so I took to the air and fought an aerial duel under Atlas' globe just for the coolness factor. This was such a beautiful looking fight that I spent most of my time taking pretty screenshots when I should've been fighting:
Kyrie Eleison vs Nephilim 1
Kyrie Eleison vs Nephilim 2
... I eventually had to get serious when I started running low on inspirations, and beat him up. He fell to the earth in a very satisfying manner.
Debriefing: neat story description wrapping up part 1! However, I'm still quite puzzled as to what has happened so far. Would be nice if we had a clearer picture of what is going on for the sake of closure.
No souvenir, but maybe that makes sense considering it's only part 1.
Overall
I really like the ideas presented here; especially the Rikti religion and the idea of this Biblical, end-of-days level menace coming to Paragon City. The final scene with the invasion of Atlas Park was really neat and I liked the custom enemies that I encountered.
I found myself rather confused by the plot, though. I now know the Infinite Eyes mind controlled the Tuatha into attacking the Electist church, but I really have no idea why. The connection between the Infinite Eyes and Nephilim and the evil angels is not explained at all. There is foreshadowing for the Soaring One appearing on Earth and conquering Paragon City, so the final invasion is connected to the story, but does not seem closely connected to what just happened immediately before. I really do like the ideas presented here, but there are so many unanswered questions... I know this is only "part 1" but I think some explanation of what is happening would help a lot.
I was puzzled at what my motivation was for doing some of the missions, and why the contact wanted me to do them, and why Vanguard would be willing to help the Rikti religious leader. I thought the missions were pretty cool, but the framing story would benefit if there was better motivation for why you're doing them.
Despite being rather confused by the plot and motivations, I liked the ideas and enjoyed the arc. I gave it 4 stars.
Note: I'm going to rotate between the Lost Choir arcs and other story arcs to give myself a chance to reset between each run, and the author a chance to fix some stuff in later arcs based on feedback from arc 1 (if he thinks it worth doing).
-----
I owe a review to:
@Mr Squid - The Lost Choir (Ch2 and Ch3) 136959, 141011 [alternating with other arcs]
@Sakura-Kishi - Invasion of the Land of Oz 168841
suedenim - Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War 130809
Thornster - A Little RnR 17523
@Elisenda - A Lame Joke, 22982
@Ridiculous Girl - Hero Therapy! 119228
@Cheriour - Revenge of Dr Radium 100293
Graeve_Digger - 2 of Hero Simulator Ch1 172700, Ch2 172468
Major_Paragon - Fatale Attraction 181264
@Sumerian - Power Play 187269
Darkonne - 161865 Aeon's Nemesis
@Chocolate Rage - Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue 163967
Hercules - 178774 Tales of Croatoa
Emansor - The Day I Tried To Live 131780
Noght - Warrior's Three 64885
in queue:
WynterPhrost
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
@OverlordIndigo - A Hero is Made, Not Born 20863
Theron - The Construct 91887
@Spry - Saving Grace 124477
@KemLi - A Father's Iron Will 198952
Cerulian Shadow - Attack of the Toymenator 207874
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
Thanks for the review PW! I do realize the plot is a little all over the place in part one, but in all honesty even I had no idea how it was going to end while I was writing it. It tightens up in part two though. Still, I'll take a look back and see if I can't streamline it some more.
Also, those screenshots? Wicked cool.
The Praetorian Invasion of the Land of OZ (arc id 168841)
Premise is to help the magical land of Oz repel an invasion by the Praetorian AVs. Stated level range is 45-54 heroic, but I obstinately played a 26 SS/will brute anyway because I wanted exp on that character.
I like the model for Ozma of Oz.
Mission 1
Briefing: "Princess Dorothy was kidnapped taken to Paragon City" should be "Princess Dorothy was kidnapped and taken to Paragon City".
"Ojo the Unlucky as ultimately responsible" should be "Ojo the Unlucky was ultimately responsible".
"find out what there up to" should be "find out what they're up to".
The plot synopsis given in this briefing is rather confusing, introducing a lot of stuff that sounds like it happened in a previous episode. I remember I ran through Prisoners from the Land of Oz; I don't remember Ojo being in it, in fact I think Dr Vahzilok was the big bad guy. For someone just starting with this story arc, though, all the stuff about Ojo being the kidnapper, but Ojo not being the real Ojo, is rather confusing.
It also seems rather discordant for a contact from Oz to send you on a mission to Portal Corporation. I'm not sure I fully buy that Ozma would consider an attack on a place that isn't even in Oz to be this important.
Mission entry popup: This instantly tells me that Praetorians are the culprits without me even seeing an enemy yet. It might be nicer if you left this in suspense for a little bit, then the player could see the Praetorian mobs and come to her own conclusion. You could also add a clue to that effect, dropped by a boss or on mission complete.
"The Praetorian's goal" should perhaps be "The Praetorians' goal". "Jules Verne an HG Welles" should be "Jules Verne and HG Wells".
[NPC] Servant: Stop the hero.
[NPC] Dr. Franks: Go, Mega.
[NPC] Dr. Franks: You have to stop them.
...all three of those lines probably should end in a "!" instead of a "."
Special Agent Gale's description: "Opertation" should be "Operation". "Tyrants personal direction" should be "Tyrant's personal direction".
[NPC] Special Agent Gale: Domy, relax Tyrant'll be plenty pleased with both of us.
I think you need one of "!" "." or ";" between "relax" and "Tyrant'll".
Seems to me she should be named something other than Gale? Unless you intend for her to be a relative of Princess Dorothy, aka Dorothy Gale. (Will see, I guess.) Oh, she has magic silver slippers! OK, so she's a Praetorian Dorothy. She ran away faster than I could kill her, though.
[NPC] Special Agent Gale: Well, it's been fun but I got some history to rewrite, Domy-babby, take care of the rest.
"babby" should be "baby" here.
[NPC] Dominatrix: A hero? Do you think I've been a bad girl, do you want to punnish me? Sorry that's my job.
"punnish" should be "punish"
I managed to beat Dominatrix after a lengthy fight and lots of inspirations.
"You're too late" clue needs to say who is speaking this ... Dominatrix maybe?
Debriefing: "other-worldy" should be "otherworldly". "This book, is about how I became was restored to the throne of Oz" should be "This book is about how I was restored to the throne of Oz".
Mission 2
Briefing: We seem to have entered time paradox land as Ozma thinks the Praetorians are changing her past, but she can send me back in time just before she fades away. I find this a little hard to believe, but will try to get past that.
I do think there needs to be more explanation for why Ozma knows that this, particular moment that she's sending me back to, is the correct one to fix the time paradox. She could either see it in Glinda's book, or maybe have two different conflicting memories due to her timeline changing...something like that. Without some more motivation for going to this particular point in time, I think it is a little too coincidental that she would guess the right one.
Second part of briefing: "so weak" should maybe be "I feel so weak..."
Mission entry popup: "disorientated" should be "disoriented".
I like the Oz Invasion Army's costumes, but they all need descriptions; Flying Monkey, Accolyte of the West, Quadling Soldier, Munchkin Medic and Gillikin Archer all currently have the default minion/lieutenant info.
Accolyte of the West should be Acolyte of the West.
I'm surprised that Gillikin Archer doesn't seem to have archery; it used nothing but sonic blast on me.
Munchkin Medic maybe should be made shorter? Perhaps the min height?
Would be nice if these Oz Invasion Army guys had some dialog expositioning about their invasion, and/or were fighting palace guards or something, to make it seem more like a proper invasion.
[NPC] SPECTRA Series I: Target Scarecrow: Elminate
"Elminate" should be "Eliminate"
The Scarecrow is an Elite Boss plant control/illusion ally! I think this may be too powerful. He summons a lot of pets which makes fighting a little confusing too.
Tippetarius is also an Elite Boss ally, so now I have 2 EBs helping me; this is probably too much help. They beat up the mission boss, Queen Jinjur, without me needing to help. I'm on the lowest difficulty, also, so they're probably AVs on higher difficulty or with larger teams. You might consider lowering them to be Bosses instead.
[NPC] Queen Jinjur: Ah my new allies told me to expect interloppers.
"interloppers" should be "interlopers"
Mission 3
Briefing: OK, Ozma is better now and she confirms that Gale is the Praetorian Dorothy. Now Ozma wants me to go destroy the Praetorian time machine, which she has located by magic.
Inside the mission, "Defeat base leader." objective should remove the trailing period (looks weird with a comma after it).
The Time Machine is conveniently located near the entrance for me, so I destroy it. The guards on the Time Machine didn't have any dialog; I guess because they are robots, but having no dialog from the guards and nothing special happen when I destroy the Time Machine seems a little anticlimactic.
I've now destroyed the Time Machine, and the mission title is "Destroy the time machine", but the mission is still going because I haven't defeated the base leader. The mission title maybe should be rephrased to something more general so it still makes sense even after the time machine is gone.
Kind of odd that Nightstar's robots are here, but the Praetorian boss is Antimatter.
I like how Agent Gale talks to the Praetorian AVs with a lot of attitude, though.
[NPC] Antimatter: Mega, here's some payack for Dom.
"payack" should be "payback". I also think "Dom" should be "Dominatrix" or at least the more girly sounding "Domi" or "Domy".
Lost to Antimatter my first try, but ran back from hospital and beat him on the second try.
Antimatter's confession: "Gale is Tyrants envoy to our Oz" should be "Gale is Tyrant's envoy to our Oz". "it's ruler" should be "its ruler".
Mission 4
Briefing: Now I'm being sent to battle the Praetorian Oz army, which we think is going to invade our Oz. "doppleganger" should be "doppelganger".
I like the number of things to do in this mission, between linking up with allies and defeating AVs; makes for a more dramatic finish.
I kind of think the guards on Dorothy should say, "Surrender Dorothy!"
Dorothy Gale's description mentions a magic belt, but her costume does not have a belt.
Empress Dorothy Gale spawned as a boss for me, but the Dorothy Gale ally spawned as an EB for me. This seemed pretty unfair my EB allies smashed the villain quickly.
Dorothy Gale and Empress Dorothy Gale are a little too similarly named and could get easily confused? Maybe make the good one "Princess Dorothy" and the evil one "Empress Dorothy"?
Empress Dorothy Gale's description, "she can't help but loving Tip" should be "she can't help but love Emperor Tippetarius". (Since "Tip" is too much like the "good" Tip's nickname.)
Emperor Tippetarius's description, "natural forum" should be "natural form".
[NPC] Emperor Tippetarius: That woman with you what I would have looked like as a girl? Hah, I think I'll keep her as a toy.
This dialog won't make sense if I don't have Ozma with me (which I think may be possible if I don't rescue her first or if I rescue her and leave her behind). Also, "with you what" should be "with you is what".
Fought and defeated Tyrant, with the help of the two EB allies.
[NPC] Tyrant: Mega you think you can challange me? I've already crushed my world's version of you.
I like this taunt! But "challange" should be "challenge".
Debriefing is pretty short, but maybe that is OK. We never did clear up what was up with Ojo though did we?
Souvenir: "elluded" should be "eluded".
Overall
I think it's a neat concept and I especially liked the big finish in the final mission.
I did feel there were a few too many fantastical elements being used at the same time, though, which made it hard for me to fully believe in the story and get fully engaged in it. I think I could believe in a story about any one, or even any two, of (Oz, Praetorians, time travel), but using all three at the same time exceeded my suspension of disbelief. I kind of think it would be nice to simplify the story by dropping the time travel element, but this would require extensively rewriting mission 2, so that might be too much to ask.
Oz versus Praetorian Oz is the main idea in your arc, and I think it would benefit if you increased the focus on Oz-related themes. In my opinion, having missions 1 and 3 set in scientific looking labs (instead of Oz) weakened the Oz theme; I think it would be cooler if you ran into Dominatrix raiding something in "our" Oz, and attacked Antimatter at his base in "their" Oz.
It would also be great if there were more dialog, clues, or other text that is strongly Oz-related, to help increase the sense of immersion. The Oz Invasion Army looks great, but didn't have any lines or background story. You might consider inserting some (non-required) patrols or bosses just for the sake of giving them some lines of dialog to say.
Anyway, I hope that helps. I rated the story 3 stars, I hope you think that is fair!
-----
I owe a review to:
@Mr Squid - The Lost Choir (Ch2 and Ch3) 136959, 141011 [alternating with other arcs]
suedenim - Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War 130809
Thornster - A Little RnR 17523
@Elisenda - A Lame Joke, 22982
@Ridiculous Girl - Hero Therapy! 119228
@Cheriour - Revenge of Dr Radium 100293
Graeve_Digger - 2 of Hero Simulator Ch1 172700, Ch2 172468
Major_Paragon - Fatale Attraction 181264
@Sumerian - Power Play 187269
Darkonne - 161865 Aeon's Nemesis
@Chocolate Rage - Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue 163967
Hercules - 178774 Tales of Croatoa
Emansor - The Day I Tried To Live 131780
Noght - Warrior's Three 64885
in queue:
WynterPhrost
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
@OverlordIndigo - A Hero is Made, Not Born 20863
Theron - The Construct 91887
@Spry - Saving Grace 124477
@KemLi - A Father's Iron Will 198952
Cerulian Shadow - Attack of the Toymenator 207874
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
[ QUOTE ]
The plot synopsis given in this briefing is rather confusing, introducing a lot of stuff that sounds like it happened in a previous episode. I remember I ran through Prisoners from the Land of Oz; I don't remember Ojo being in it, in fact I think Dr Vahzilok was the big bad guy. For someone just starting with this story arc, though, all the stuff about Ojo being the kidnapper, but Ojo not being the real Ojo, is rather confusing.
It also seems rather discordant for a contact from Oz to send you on a mission to Portal Corporation. I'm not sure I fully buy that Ozma would consider an attack on a place that isn't even in Oz to be this important.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ojo was added to the previous arc after you played it... I remember your advice at the time was to strengthen the Oz connection.
[ QUOTE ]
I do think there needs to be more explanation for why Ozma knows that this, particular moment that she's sending me back to, is the correct one to fix the time paradox. She could either see it in Glinda's book, or maybe have two different conflicting memories due to her timeline changing...something like that. Without some more motivation for going to this particular point in time, I think it is a little too coincidental that she would guess the right one.
[/ QUOTE ]
The reason she knows is because you found the book that detailed those events. Basically The book (as described in the arc for those who arn't familiar with the series) has Jinjur take control of the Emerald City. There's two seperate points where Tip, The Scarecrow et all are trapped in the palace this could easily be either of them but those are the points when Jinjur is closest to a total victory, so that's most likely when they'd choose to support her... if they were going to time travel to the events in that book to support her.
And as for her being able to send you... the Nome King's magic belt (which is technically Dorothy's but does get often used by Ozma especially in the original six books) can pretty much grant any wish posed to it. Like Glinda's book and Ozma's magic picture it's one of many deus ex devices in the series.
[ QUOTE ]
I like the Oz Invasion Army's costumes, but they all need descriptions; Flying Monkey, Accolyte of the West, Quadling Soldier, Munchkin Medic and Gillikin Archer all currently have the default minion/lieutenant info.
Accolyte of the West should be Acolyte of the West.
I'm surprised that Gillikin Archer doesn't seem to have archery; it used nothing but sonic blast on me.
Munchkin Medic maybe should be made shorter? Perhaps the min height?
[/ QUOTE ]
The archer does have the archery powerset and has used it every time I've been through maybe I'll make it double archery... As for the Munchkin, not all Munchkins are short... the ones Dorothy meets in the first book are yes, but after that they're all described as being of normal height. The different enemies are color coded to the different countries (Munchkinland is Blue, Winkie Country is yellow, Quadling is Red and Gillikin is Purple).
There's two reasons why they don't have descriptions, one is this arc is already at 100 percent... secondly they end up being used twice here for two different groups... I did create a seperate group for Praetorian Oz and for Jinjur's Army of the Revolt but there was not enough room to use them.
There would be drastic changes to both groups if I had enough room, and full descriptions on all of them.
[ QUOTE ]
The Scarecrow is an Elite Boss plant control/illusion ally! I think this may be too powerful. He summons a lot of pets which makes fighting a little confusing too.
Tippetarius is also an Elite Boss ally, so now I have 2 EBs helping me; this is probably too much help. They beat up the mission boss, Queen Jinjur, without me needing to help. I'm on the lowest difficulty, also, so they're probably AVs on higher difficulty or with larger teams. You might consider lowering them to be Bosses instead.
[/ QUOTE ]
Okay I'll look into tweaking them... I made all special characters either EBs or AVs originally because I do have common "Land of Oz" troops who I might want to use at some point.
[ QUOTE ]
I've now destroyed the Time Machine, and the mission title is "Destroy the time machine", but the mission is still going because I haven't defeated the base leader. The mission title maybe should be rephrased to something more general so it still makes sense even after the time machine is gone.
Kind of odd that Nightstar's robots are here, but the Praetorian boss is Antimatter.
[/ QUOTE ]
Antimatter created the nightstar robots too... there's currently no anti-matter group in the Mission Architect (you might notice that Antimatter is actually positron re-named), the closest to his troops are the synapse robots (which are actually identical).
But I figured he could use the Nightstar bots if he wanted to since he created them.
[ QUOTE ]
I kind of think the guards on Dorothy should say, "Surrender Dorothy!"
Dorothy Gale's description mentions a magic belt, but her costume does not have a belt.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's cause Ozma's using it... (I'm roleplaying as Ozma on Virtue so the arcs kinda get a bit dogged down with my personal story); in the books the Silver Slippers were lost forever when Dorothy first used them to return to Kansas, and when she finally re-appeared she captured the Nome King's belt, which kind of took their place. But while it was hers, Ozma used them most often after the book in which she captured it. Anyway I might take the belt away from Ozma and give it Dorothy at some point in my roleplaying at which point I'll change their characters accordingly.
[ QUOTE ]
Debriefing is pretty short, but maybe that is OK. We never did clear up what was up with Ojo though did we?
Souvenir: "elluded" should be "eluded".
[/ QUOTE ]
Sure we did... it was just never stated directly... here's the qoute form the briefing for mission 3.
It's good to be solid. But this just proves how dangerous time travel is. Now we still don't know what connection the Praetorians have to do with the duplicate Ojo, I mentioned before... wait of course. If that's another Earth then logically there's another Oz on that Earth.
Really the whole point of adding Ojo to the Prisoners arc from before and mentioning him here serve two purposes, one to interest Ozma in the portal Corp break in... and two to help draw the conclusion that there's a Praetorian Oz... though the player should come to that conclusion from meeting the Praetorian Dorothy in her Special Agent outfit.
As for the time travel, there were a number of reasons why I chose to do this. One I liked how it allowed me to introduce Tip, in a way where there was no lengthy exposition needed for Praetorian Tip... and secondly I wanted a way to revist some of Baum's events and be able to do this in the context of the CoH universe.
But you did give me an idea of how to rework the story to make it more Ozzy but keep the general flow of the story.
Ok here, try mine out.
Of Liberty and State
Part 1 : #218636
Part 2 : #218638
Part3 : #218648
Alignment: Heroic
Meant for 45+ characters.
Each part is 5 missions long. It is a very long and story-oriented Arc. Since it is really one "Large Arc" I'll refer to them all the same way. There are AVs in it, but the difficulty scales, they'll be EBs if you solo. Most of the time you'll have an Ally with you whenever you fight them.
Enemies: Arachnos, Custom Group, Longbow, Freakshow, Arachnoids.
Mission Description: A story about Paragon City's premier Superhero family. Caught in between this feud might be the least of your worries. Arachnos is up to something large and it's up to you to unravel Recluse's dark plans. But can you all succeed with something far more precious is at stake?!
Here's my Review of Teen Phalanx Forever!
This was honestly one of the most enjoyable arcs I've played yet. The dialogue was great, the premise was original and the missions and enemy plots were downright funny. This arc is designed for solo play. You get an AV/EB for every mission play. While that might sound daunting, the premise is teamwork, so it's not hard to fight them, ((The Clamor fight is a little bit harder.))
Each mission is really it's own separate story, with the last two being a 2-Parter.
The only odd thing I can think of is it forces your character to not be your character and describes you as a younger version of yourselfm being forced into a role or describing you as something you may not be. Honestly you can just ignore that aspect and enjoy the arc, or you can just play it as a Teen superhero.
I recommend it though. 5/5
Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War review (arc id 130809)
Concept seems to be a war movie set in the 1940s. Level range was 1-54 blue; I played a 27 SS/will brute.
Custom contact has a nice costume, very "Lady Blackhawk" looking.
Mission 1
Briefing: It is Lady Blackhawk! I'm supposed to work with her, but she wants to test me, so I'm sent to "Blackhorse" Island for a training exercise.
Inside the mission, the objectives are not terribly clear - the nav tool says to Bang on Drum to end the Training session, but the briefing says to defeat each of the top officers in order to pass the test. Maybe defeating the named officer should be an objective too?
The Blackhorse costumes look great. Nice map choice too. Would be nice if they had some dialog though - maybe commenting on testing the new recruit, or whatever.
A little confusing that the contact says to defeat "top officers" and there are also "Blackhorse Officers" in the mission that don't count towards this. Only the named Blackhorse characters do, and they do not stand out very well against the background, so I ended up clearing most of the map before I found the first one.
I have no ability to proofread the French or Dutch so will trust that the French and Dutch characters are saying something reasonable.
[NPC] Blackhorse Mechanic: Hi Ho, Shadow Team, away! Let's see how the Mystery Men handle surprises!
Nitpick: I'm actually a solo female character. But "mystery man" is the period term for comic book heroes, so maybe it's okay.
I defeated all the named characters up to and including Lady Blackhorse, and cleared all the Blackhorses from the island entirely, but the mission still doesn't end despite having "passed" the test. It looks like I have to "bang on drum to end training session" but the briefing warned me that I would fail the exercise if I did this, so I'm kind of reluctant to do this.
There doesn't seem to be anything else I can do on this map though, so I clicked on the metal drum. There should be some text on the progress bar, like "Banging on drum".
Maybe defeating Lady Blackhorse should give you some sort of clue indicating you passed the training exercise.
Mission 2
Briefing: Love this briefing and the idea of a mad scientist inventing gorilla guerillas (or guerilla gorillas).
Inside the mission, I like the dialog from the Blackhorse patrols and the mix of 5th Column, Red Army and gorillas. The gorillas look pretty good, though I confess I'm confused as to why Uzbek Gorilla Fist is wearing a kilt.
Red Army Soldier has no description.
You may want to change Major Wolfgang Hochstetter's description (the default one refers to the Council takeover).
The Abwehr dialog about the gorillas turning against them is interesting.
Every gorilla except Gorilla Commando seems to be called "Uzbek Gorilla Something" ... maybe the commando should be "Uzbek Gorilla Commando" for consistency?
Instruction Files glowy should have some text on the progress bar.
I saw a Blackhorse patrol, but thought it was a little odd none of them actually would work with me.
Mission 3
Briefing: I think the contact should describe the mission a little more before saying "Our main objective"; just another sentence or part of one to give some background context.
[NPC] Raserei Ubermenschen Fist: Achtung! Ashley Porter's Blackhorse Commandos!
"Achtung" maybe should be "Alarm" here?
I like Colonel Burkhalter's dialog.
I found Ilsa Kopf, a hostage guarded by gorillas; I think she could use some dialog before she is "rescued" expressing dismay at the gorillas turning against her. She gives a nice clue though.
Debriefing: "Major Kopf" should probably be "Doctor Kopf"? She wasn't in uniform and was never referred to by rank prior to this that I can recall.
Mission 4
Briefing: I like this briefing and how it refers to one of the other named Blackhorse operatives. All these briefings have been nicely in character.
Mission title: Considering the contact tells you she doesn't know what to expect in this mission, having the title be "Defeat Lobster Man" and the objective be "Defeat Lobster Man from Mars" seems like a huge spoiler. Maybe should rename both these to something less spoilery, then have the discovery of the Lobster Man be uncovered as a clue, or be a surprise when you run into him.
In the mission, suddenly Lady Blackhorse knows about the Lobster Man. How did she find out?
Fought the Lobster Man; all his dialog appears to be in Korean, except for one word. Was a neat effect though.
Actually fighting and defeating the Lobster Man seemed awfully easy, though; I simply beat him up and then the mission ended.
Great debriefing, though, I like the reports of the flying discs over other parts of the world and the mention of how it will affect the war and stuff.
Overall
Love the overall period look & feel that this story arc has. Very much feels like a WW2 period piece with generous amounts of weird science.
Despite the plot's focus on the Blackhorse squadron, however, the actual gameplay made it feel more like I was fighting adjacent to the Blackhorse commandos, and not really working with them. The Blackhorse patrols in the middle missions had some nice dialog, but never really cooperated with me. I think you should consider adding a few Blackhorse operatives as (low powered) allies in each mission, to give more of a feeling that they're on your side. Perhaps you could re-use some of the other named Blackhorse characters from mission 1? After a promising introduction in mission 1, none of those characters reappear again except Lady Blackhorse herself, so I feel they were rather underused.
I also felt the final act against the Lobster Man from Mars was somewhat anticlimactic. After building up the mystery of who's really in control of the Gorillas in missions 2 and 3, the mystery is instantly spoiled by the nav tool text in mission 4, and the actual confrontation with the Lobster Man is over much too quickly. I'd really recommend being coy about who is controlling the gorillas for just a little longer, but let the player uncover information about who is really in charge in the final mission (via clues, maybe Martian equipment laying around, or Gorilla dialog somehow hinting at who their real controller is), leading up to the final fight with the Lobster Man.
I enjoyed the theme and the strong characterization of Lady Blackhorse, though. I gave this story arc 4 stars.
-----
I owe a review to:
@Mr Squid - The Lost Choir (Ch2 and Ch3) 136959, 141011 [alternating with other arcs]
Thornster - A Little RnR 17523
@Elisenda - A Lame Joke, 22982
@Ridiculous Girl - Hero Therapy! 119228
@Cheriour - Revenge of Dr Radium 100293
Graeve_Digger - 2 of Hero Simulator Ch1 172700, Ch2 172468
Major_Paragon - Fatale Attraction 181264
@Sumerian - Power Play 187269
Darkonne - 161865 Aeon's Nemesis
@Chocolate Rage - Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue 163967
Hercules - 178774 Tales of Croatoa
Emansor - The Day I Tried To Live 131780
Noght - Warrior's Three 64885
@Stormsurge - Of Liberty and State Pt1 218636
in queue:
WynterPhrost
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
@OverlordIndigo - A Hero is Made, Not Born 20863
Theron - The Construct 91887
@Spry - Saving Grace 124477
@KemLi - A Father's Iron Will 198952
Cerulian Shadow - Attack of the Toymenator 207874
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
I just tried out "Teen Phalanx Forever!". Very funny arc, particularly missions #2 and #3. You captured the feeling and tone of a "teen supergroup" perfectly. The dialogue was witty. I gave it a well-deserved 5 stars. If I could give it 6 stars, I would. IMO, arcs like this is why the MA was created in the first place.
Very well done.
When you get the chance, check my arc out. It has been, for the most part, well-received.
[ QUOTE ]
Omega, a mysterious figure originating from Praetoria, is collecting artifacts. Discover the secret behind Omega's actions before it's too late! (Level 10-14 arc) #195149
[/ QUOTE ]
Play my MA arcs!
Tracking Down Jack Ketch - ArcID #2701
Cat War! - ArcID #2788
My wife and I just ran Axis and Allies, so you got two five stars for the price of one. You were on when I commented, and I meant every word. Very well researched, both in actual historical context and in the universe of Paragon City. My wife is a history nut and loved it. I'm an alternate universe buff and loved it.
When time permits, if you could add "The Consequences of War," arc #212069 (and 212073 if it piques your interest), I'd be interested to see your review. In the mean time, review or not, my wife demands we run more of your arcs. I'm never one to let the missus down. 
The SOLUS Foundation - a Liberty and Pinnacle SG
"The Consequences of War" - Arcs # 227331 and 241496
The Lost Choir: Chapter Two: The New Testament review (arc id 136959)
Part 2 of a 3-arc epic, this takes place immediately after a transdimensional invasion by rogue angels. Level range seems to be around 40-54, but I played Kyrie Eleison, an avenging angel who is a 33 bs/inv scrapper, for thematic reasons.
Mission 1
Briefing: the contact is again Abbas John, but all of the briefing text is out of character information that doesn't come from John at all. So is a little incongruous; if all the mission are like this, maybe the contact should be someone or something else.
The briefing does throw me right back into the plot, trying to seek help after the destruction of Atlas Park.
Inside the mission: I like the objectives set, "Find Help" and "Find a way to call others". Admittedly this makes it hard to know what I'm looking for here, but it sounds neat.
I wonder if "Cheribum" should actually be "Cherubim"? In Cheribum's description, "bizzare" should be "bizarre".
I flew over the ruins of Atlas Park for awhile looking for whatever the objective was, but I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do, so I eventually turned to simply killing everything in sight. (That's heroic, right?) I was struck by the lack of civilians on the map, though; even after Atlas Park has been largely destroyed, I might think there'd still be a few normal civilians around and in trouble, perhaps as hostages or something threatened by the rogue angels.
None of the rogue angels seem to say anything on this map. Consider adding some spawns or patrols that have a few lines of dialog to help define the setting and exposition about what's happened during the time the protagonist was unconscious.
I think an Ophanim tried to wormhole me! Didn't succeed, but seems possibly nasty. The fact that it buffs force fields on the shield-using angels adds up to a lot of defense.
The Cheribum having build up and broadsword might make it quite dangerous to some players. Might want to scale back powers so he doesn't have build up, at least.
These two along with the empathy-using B'nai Elohim make this enemy group potentially quite hard. I've been able to do it fine while soloing so far, but some players or teams might have a lot of trouble with them. I'd suggest you keep an eye on whether these mobs are too hard, and maybe try testing them with a mid-sized team sometime if you haven't already.
I killed everything on the entire map (as far as I could tell) but the mission still didn't end. At something of a loss, I exited the mission and looked at the Mission Architect UI to find that the arc description says mission 1 should be Ambush, Collection. So I'm clearly missing some sort of glowy. I like the ruined Atlas map (I use it in one of my own story arcs) but it's quite hard to find a glowy on it, since it's outdoors, covered in broken terrain, smoke-filled and has no map. I think some players will find this frustrating.
After circling three times around Atlas Park with my volume at max to detect the sound of glowies, I found the glowy - a patch of rubble that looks almost exactly like the terrain.
The clues I get from the rubble are pretty good though. A Vanguard person shows up and is friendly and I get a briefing about what's happened recently; the lack of civilians in Atlas Park is explained; the rogue angels apparently are genociding humans and have already depopulated several continents. Wow! Maybe there should be some body bags on the map for mission 1 that aren't required, but clue you in that the angels are simply murdering everyone.
Debriefing: OK, Abbas John is talking again, which is good. I like how he's pleasantly surprised that I "survived" the invasion from part 1.
Mission 2
Briefing: Text is a little repetitive; first sentence says "I am truly sorry" then second sentence says "We are sorry". Then first sentence of third paragraph starts wtih "So the Vanguard has" and the second sentence of third paragraph also starts with "So the Vanguard have". Suggest you revise the text a little to avoid this.
It sounds like I'm being sent to infiltrate this temple which is being massively assaulted by Vanguard, while at the same time being strongly defended by the Lost Choir? This doesn't quite make sense because if "all the might" of the Lost Choir are defending this temple, it should be very hard for me to "slip inside" as the briefing suggests.
I like the map choice, the glowing blue temple seems very mystical. It seems very quiet here, though, for a temple that is supposedly being assaulted by the full force of Vanguard, and defended by the full force of the Lost Choir.
"Defeat Trisagion" is among my objectives, but I have no idea who this is, so not sure why I need to do this. Consider rewording as "Defeat Choir leader" or something similar.
I found "The Altar of Thellos" and the clue I receive includes dialog from Sadu'sii, who I think is the heretical Rikti priest from Part 1. But Sadu'sii is not here; my guess is that Sadu'sii is the "familiar ally" referred to in the mission objectives, but I have not found him yet. Consider rewording this clue to make sense regardless of whether or not Sadu'sii is with the player.
This mission seems very quiet... you might want to consider adding some fixed spawns or patrols with dialog, or other mission details of interest (perhaps religious texts, artifacts or more shrines). I'm about 3/4ths of the way through the map and haven't seen any dialog or anything of note other than the Altar of Thellos itself.
Aha! Found Sadu'sii at last, near the back of the map, and was rewarded with some dialog between Sadu'sii and his guards. Only Sadu'sii has been changed from a regular Rikti to one of the Heavy Elites, which is kind of strange. Where would he get this armor suit? The other Rikti want him dead, so wouldn't have given it to him.
Sadu'sii is now an Elite Boss ally, which seems a little overpowering, especially because I found the level boss, Trisagion, in the next room. Trisagion only spawned as a Lieutenant.
I kind of think having Sadu'sii use a translator device to talk normally is cheating; something is lost by having a Rikti character use normal grammar instead of Rikti-speak.
The "Sadu'sii speaks" clue hints that the Lost Choir is, in fact, the remnants of the angels that served the deities of the Rikti. Hmmm! Very interesting development!
Mission 3
Briefing: This briefing really doesn't say anything at all, just that I need to go meet Sadu'sii. I almost wonder if Sadu'sii would make more sense as the contact for this arc, as he knows more about what is going on, while Abbas John, as a human priest, is really out of his depth.
Second part of briefing: My trip to RWZ to find Sadu'sii is hand-waved and now in the briefing text Sadu'sii is speaking... so Sadu'sii really is the contact now.
Sadu'sii wants us to travel to the "realm of the divine" to talk to Thellos, and the only way to do that is to go through a special Rikti portal. I'm not quite sure this make sense, because the arc portrays most Rikti as not believing in gods, so it seems inconsistent that a Rikti portal would be able to go to a divine plane. I mean, if the regular Rikti can teleport to heaven and talk to god, it doesn't make sense for them to be atheistic, does it?
Mission objectives: "4 Portal calibration stations" maybe should have some explanation of what is to be done with the stations. Maybe "4 Portal devices to calibrate"?
Found a Portal Calibration System and clicked it. On the progress bar, "eminating" should be "emanating". The text message when you finish the clicky has "signiture" in it, should be "signature".
Found what I think is the survivors of some angel/Rikti battles standing around at low health; I think maybe these battles should have some more dialog for the sake of color.
When I got down to the last portal, the singular objective text is "Calibrate the portal." Should remove the period, since it looks strange with a comma after it. Maybe make it "Calibrate the last portal".
Found Sadu'sii; one of his captors has the dialog:
[NPC] B'nai Elohim: You hope to return Thellos? I cannot belive it!
..."belive" should be "believe"
Sadu'sii is back to being a lieutenant; still not sure why he was an EB last mission.
This map seems really huge; is it necessary for this mission to use such a large map?
Finally found the fourth glowy very, very deep in. I'm a little surprised that there was no clue for getting the last glowy or completing the mission, considering it's supposed to be transporting me to the divine realm.
Debriefing: aha, here there is some text about being transported to another plane. Poor Abbas John continues to be an irrelevant contact. I think some of this text needs to be moved to either a clue or a mission exit popup; if a team plays through this arc, only the leader will see the debriefing text. And since it describes being transported to the "divine resting place of Thellos", it's definitely something the whole team should be able to see.
Mission 4
Briefing: Contact is still not relevant. Whole briefing is description of what you find in Thellos's realm. This mission is to Reawaken Thellos; I think there needs to be a little more text, probably in a clue or dialog from Sadu'sii, explaining why reawakening Thellos is a good idea. I mean, she is a Rikti goddess, who might not be friendly towards humans. I can guess that reawakening Thellos might somehow cause the Lost Choir to stop supporting Xhantranos and go back to Thellos ... but how do we know Thellos might not like having her followers conquer the Earth, too? Could use some more motivation for why the player should do this.
Second part of briefing: It warns me that failing here could cause the universe to be destroyed. Was it actually stated somewhere that Xhantranos intends to destroy the universe? I may have missed that. So far he's just been genociding the human race, which I suppose is bad enough.
Inside the mission, it's quite disorienting how foggy this cave is, making it hard to see much of anything. This is actually quite annoying, but I imagine it's intentional, part of the atmosphere of this strange dimension.
I like how you've reused Black Swan's minions here for shadow creatures.
Near the very back of the mission, I found Sadu'sii.
[NPC] Sadu'sii: What sort of monster is this? Thellos, have we really been this unkind to you?
...this dialog seems to be addressed to Thellos, so I think it should maybe follow Rikti grammar, not translated human speech.
[NPC] The Sarcophagus of Thellos: ....a....wor...wor....worshiper?....
[NPC] The Sarcophagus of Thellos: I....thoug....thought...I...was....for....forgott. ..en....
I like this dialog, but Thellos clearly doesn't have a Vanguard translator, so probably should talk like a Rikti.
I found Sadu'sii and the Sarcophagus in the same room, which was convenient. Breaking the Sarcophagus appears to have spawned Thellos, who says some lines of dialog. I can't see her in the smoke, but she is supposed to be glowing like a star. I see her dialog and she's talking like she's here .... but I don't see her anywhere. I'm not sure if she actually spawned in another room or I just can't see her in the fog.
After searching the room carefully, I conclude Thellos didn't actually spawn in the same room as the sarcophagus. So I backtracked through the cave looking for her. I eventually found Thellos in a side room near the front of the cave; she had some kind of damage aura power going that was damaging her guards, who were near death when I arrived. I almost think she would've freed herself given enough time - not sure that is a desirable outcome for your story.
Debriefing: Aha, Abbas John has a few lines again, albeit ones of simple awe and wonderment. "Godess" should be "Goddess", though. Also, "I never thought we mortals could interact with gods so easily" does not seem like something a devout priest should say -- unless I'm much mistaken, priests believe they interact with gods every day, via faith and prayer.
Mission 5
Briefing: Abbas John is gone again and now the briefing explains that Thellos herself is communicating with me. Thellos' resurrection has converted some of the Rikti, but the Lost Choir remain opposed to her, so she wants me to help with this.
I like the map choice, very moody looking. I quickly found Thellos; again, her damage aura had nearly killed her guards. I must say, the damage aura gives her a really awesome looking nimbus of energy, which seems perfect for a deity, so maybe you should keep it even if it kills her guards.
Thellos is an EB ally, which is usually unbalancing because the EB can beat up everything without my help now; but considering she's a deity, making her weaker probably doesn't make story sense. I don't want to think about the theological implications resulting from potentially getting her killed, either.
Thellos and I go slaying our way through the various rogue angels; although the angels guarding her had some dialog, I think there should be more dialog from the angels we run across on the way to Xhantranos, too. Since they ARE fighting their goddess, essentially. Consider adding some patrols/ambushes/static spawns that have some dialog about how they don't believe in Thellos any more and Xhantranos knows the way now (or something like that).
Fought Mind of Xhantranos. Its dialog is wonderfully megalomaniacal.
[NPC] Mind of Xhantranos: ...and subjugated galaxies beyond comprehension!!!>
... this line is missing its opening < bracket.
The fact that it was a mind/rad EB was pretty scary, I was worried he'd manage to confuse Thellos into turning against me. Fortunately my EB was able to defeat the bad EB before I got into serious trouble.
Debriefing: "he has entered out universe wholly" should be "our universe".
Not a bad finish for this part of the story.
Overall
It's the middle arc of the trilogy, but still seemed pretty decent. The idea of awakening the Rikti goddess to oppose the nihilistic Xhantranos is very cool and the way you go about doing it feels right. Possibly Sadu'sii should explain a little more about how resurrecting Thellos is supposed to help against the Lost Choir, to help motivate why you're doing it.
I felt there were a few gameplay issues, though. Mostly searching for objectives on big maps that have obscured vision. I spent quite a lot of time searching the first mission for a glowy that basically blends in perfectly with the terrain (patch of rubble on the ruined Atlas map). Then on the third mission the map was humongous and it took quite awhile to get all 4 glowies there. The fourth mission with the thick fog everywhere made it cumbersome to get anywhere, then after I destroyed the sarcophagus and spawned Thellos, I had to search the whole map again to actually find Thellos. I understand why you made the map choices you did (they do largely support the story), but repeatedly searching large maps with bad lighting or heavy obscuration adds an element of frustration that reduces the amount of fun. I think you will find some players will be turned off by this enough that they won't want to continue.
I also felt most of the missions were too quiet, with not enough dialog. Part of this was because the maps were so big, I had to clear a lot of enemies between the special details that actually do have dialog. Consider adding more mission details with dialog to help have more items of interest on these large maps.
Finally I don't think Abbas John is an appropriate contact for the middle arc. Although he makes some sense as contact for the first arc, he has almost no connection to the story of the second arc. I actually think Sadu'sii makes more sense as contact for the middle arc; most of what you are doing in the middle arc is motivated by Sadu'sii.
I also think it would be nice to have the arc explain what happens to Sadu'sii after Thellos is awakened in mission 4. As presented, Sadu'sii kind of drops out of sight and you start talking with Thellos directly. Thellos says that the Rikti have regained faith; I think it would be a nice touch if she (or whomever you make the contact for this arc) tells you also that Sadu'sii is accepted by the other Rikti again and is now her high priest, or something. (Since his last state was wanted criminal for being a religious nut.)
I do think the story is progressing well, and I like the overall plot. With all that in mind, I gave this arc 4 stars.
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I owe a review to:
Thornster - A Little RnR 17523
@Elisenda - A Lame Joke, 22982
@Mr Squid - The Lost Choir Ch3 141011 (moved this down two places, so as to alternate with other arcs)
@Ridiculous Girl - Hero Therapy! 119228
@Cheriour - Revenge of Dr Radium 100293
Graeve_Digger - 2 of Hero Simulator Ch1 172700, Ch2 172468
Major_Paragon - Fatale Attraction 181264
@Sumerian - Power Play 187269
Darkonne - 161865 Aeon's Nemesis
@Chocolate Rage - Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue 163967
Hercules - 178774 Tales of Croatoa
Emansor - The Day I Tried To Live 131780
Noght - Warrior's Three 64885
@Stormsurge - Of Liberty and State Pt1 218636
@Citizen Razor - 195149
@Dalghryn - Consequences of War #212069
in queue:
WynterPhrost
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
@OverlordIndigo - A Hero is Made, Not Born 20863
Theron - The Construct 91887
@Spry - Saving Grace 124477
@KemLi - A Father's Iron Will 198952
Cerulian Shadow - Attack of the Toymenator 207874
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
[ QUOTE ]
[NPC] The Sarcophagus of Thellos: ....a....wor...wor....worshiper?....
[NPC] The Sarcophagus of Thellos: I....thoug....thought...I...was....for....forgott. ..en....
I like this dialog, but Thellos clearly doesn't have a Vanguard translator, so probably should talk like a Rikti.
[/ QUOTE ]
If PW doesn't mind gonna interject an alternative thought on this one part of the review (having played through the arc myself). Since the Rikti were originally humans from another dimension... I think it's fitting for their goddess to speak "normally" also... As a Goddess she can probably transcend linguistic barriers speaking directly to the heart/mind.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[NPC] The Sarcophagus of Thellos: ....a....wor...wor....worshiper?....
[NPC] The Sarcophagus of Thellos: I....thoug....thought...I...was....for....forgott. ..en....
I like this dialog, but Thellos clearly doesn't have a Vanguard translator, so probably should talk like a Rikti.
[/ QUOTE ]
If PW doesn't mind gonna interject an alternative thought on this one part of the review (having played through the arc myself). Since the Rikti were originally humans from another dimension... I think it's fitting for their goddess to speak "normally" also... As a Goddess she can probably transcend linguistic barriers speaking directly to the heart/mind.
[/ QUOTE ]
I could buy this, maybe. Later in the arc Thellos always talks
-In sentences surrounded by dashes like this-
....which I thought maybe was indicating some sort of direct mental contact rather than regular speech. Maybe the sarcophagus should do this too.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
Arc Name: Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue
Arc ID: 163967
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Chocolate Rage/Zamuel
Difficulty Level: Medium to possibly hard. Fluctuates a bit based on where certain enemies spawn and in which amounts.
Synopsis: [SFMA] Your best friend's father has been known throughout the neighborhood for the quality of his restaurant which is run inside the Lucky Six Casino. However, someone has a sinister plan to shut him down...permanently. -Originally created as a project for Simulation & Game Development @ CPCC-
Link to More Details or Feedback: Link purged
Designed as a final for one of my courses in the Simulation & Game Development curriculum, it is a character story done in a way to put the player's character in a role that would have otherwise went to the character Chocolate Rage.
Feedback gladly appreciated.
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Mission Architect Handyman