I'll try yours if you'll try mine
By
5th_Elemental,
Posted on: 2009-04-10 13:04 in Mission Architect
More on Can You Win The Internet?
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My alpha draft of the mission text actually went into detail on how she was created in the 1950s as one of Alan Turing's last experiments, making her reasonably mature. I think I was trying to avert making a "sexy AI goddess", and that if there was a conscience or guardian angel of the internet, she'd look like your Granny and not like someone from Tron. Just a stylistic choice, really.
Actually, I think her critter text that I put in the MA Creator actually mentions her origin. Not that you can see that ever in the game.
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This makes total sense; you may want to communicate this to the player somehow. I think I15 added an "About this Contact" field though? You could also play with electric or glowy auras to try and make her look more artificial, but this might be tricky to make look good with her current costume.
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This was the HARDEST part of writing the mish. How do you represent flamers in a game with content restrictions on profanity and making bigoted remarks (which are pretty much a flamer's bread & butter)? I didn't want someone to get peeved and flag the mish. I suppose I could swap things around and make generalized summaries of the posts. ("This is just a long list of derogatory slurs" or "This is a reeling post about how Positron was really born in Paraguay as 'Chinualomogo Ramirez Y Levi' and thusly is an illegal immigrant and...frankly you stop reading after the first sentence.")
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This is a valid point, including actual excerpts of flames may actually be unfun. I think I'd suggest going with the generalized summary of flame posts, but try to give a humorous or disdainful spin to each summary. "This thread seems to be nothing but badly formatted rants full of insults and racial epithets. Who knew there were so many insulting terms for Rhode Islanders? The Internet will definitely be better off after you modsmack this thread." (Something like that...)
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Betty's kinda going on a tear here. She is a literal Net Nanny.
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You might consider re-titling her to "Betty the Net Nanny AI". That would instantly explain to players why she is dressed like a conservative grandma.
@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!"
PW, you must have eleventy-thousand reviews of your three arcs by now, but you still seem to be accepting reviews in exchange for reviews. Is there anything in particular you want to hear from us that you haven't yet?
My current evil plan is to buy more story arc slots, then publish a couple new arcs and ask people to start looking at those instead.
@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!"
Just finished playing Teen Phalanx Forever! Summary: loved it.
- THE GOOD -
This is the most fun I've had playing a MA arc in a while and I attribute this to it's focus on being a series of one-shot adventures instead of one big chained epic story. Yes, I know in the end parts of everything tie together, but from mission to mission it was me and my teammates saving the day from The Weekly Bad Guy in classic action comicbook form, instead of working mission-per-mission towards one big climax. A refreshing change and very well executed.
Loved the writing, very humorous (I'm happy that I'm nerd enough to get all of the jokes) and the Teen Phalanx was an interesting cast of characters. Missions weren't too hard or easy, though my power selection bit me in the butt at points (see below), and despite it being full of EBs and AVs I could 'solo' it with help from the Teen Phalanx, which really added to the feel of being on the team as part of the story.
- THE BAD -
Little to nothing to complain about, really. Had some trouble getting Phalanx members to follow me through the tight-spaced maps, particularly Val who loves her Flight power, but it's not like authors can staple NPCs to a rail and tell them to avoid annoying corners and the like. The level variance (first couple of missions capped me at 20, the last at 30 or so?) wasn't really troubling, though it was kinda a bizarre jump (and given the final villain I was glad for the extra 10 levels of powers!)
- THE SILLY -
I decided to be a wiseguy and play through this clearly heroic arc with a lv.34 villain. Got a few giggles from being called "Kid Slaver King Drakarr" but the arc put me in my place when it puked a bunch of toxic damage on me in mission 1, where my poor villain's Electric Armour did nothing. Ouch. x_x
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If you can find the time, I'd love to get your opinion on my MA arc, "Release the Dragon" (arc#229358)
I've done a lot of revising based on feedback from previous critiques, I hope you enjoy it should you play it! 
I started by playing Axis and Allies. Everything went smooth until I was faced with Maiden Justice. I'm a dominator. Oh well, maybe this ally will help. I confuse the soldier next to her and start to whittle her down. When Maiden Justice healed herself for 1500 points of damage I was prepared to quit. Then her purple triangles dropped and I managed to mez her for a moment. As soon as they got up she almost one-shotted me. Then she started running. I followed and was killed by a shuriken.
Since this is the last mission and I've read how the story ends in other reviews, I don't bother trying to finish it. I wasn't particularly impressed with the arc, maybe because I'm not a history buff and don't know much about the people or battles mentioned. I actually enjoyed going back in time to kill Hitler and take his place, but only because the character I play has the power to drain memories and make himself look like other people - it's something he could possibly pull off.
The second and third missions were rather forgettable, and frankly unbelievable. I don't believe that the death of a few generals and some troop transports could change these events as much as your narrator casually describes. I don't believe that my villain would leave the safety of Berlin to accomplish these things, since he would have made sure that they didn't happen in the first place. He's not Hitler after all, and he's got your narrator's knowledge of the events to warn and guide him.
One problem is that there is no sense of a war going on. This is perhaps a limitation of the MA itself but then that's the problem: you have chosen to tell a story in a medium which is unsuitable for the kind of story you want.
I kept thinking that I wasn't participating in the actual events but in a play or puppet show depicting the events described to us by a narrator: "Here we see the new führer crush the soviet generals, sieg heil!" all while a bunch of puppets on strings flail about on a stage. I wouldn't have been surprised to see a kid in the background of a mission, dressed as a tree and waving at his parents in the audience.
This was probably your first arc so you probably didn't know how to use the MA to its fullest potential. A few battles in mission 2 and 3 would have helped setting the scene. I think I noticed the one-sided results of some battles in mission 3 but the map is so big that they were over long before I came anywhere near them. I think that these kinds of events, on this scale, aren't suited for the MA or even the CoH mission structure to depict. It would have been better if you had us go and do small-scale crimes which would have large-scale effects, instead of going directly for the large-scale event.
There's not a lot of writing in the arc, and what is there is rather bland. Schadenfreude sounds like a narrator and not a person. Do we even get an explanation for who she is? There is a Schadenfreude in the new 5th Column SF but he doesn't look like this, and I'm not sure if they are supposed to be the same person.
The custom soldiers are probably authentic-looking. It sort of breaks the illusion when soviet infantry starts pulling rocks out of the ground to throw at me but I suspect that's a recent change that you can't do much about, without simply changing their powersets to something less "super". I'd recommend that even if it makes all the soldiers basically the same. The same goes for the american troops throwing shuriken all over the place. Perhaps you can do something with re-colored stock units like Axis Amerika troopers.
I wanted to give this three stars because it had a lot of potential but in the end I had to settle for two.
If I dare put my own arcs up for review after this, they are #1152 and #114284. Feel free to do one or both. I'm going to play Celebrity Kidnapping now and I suspect that it will get a much better review from me.
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
Celebrity Kidnapping was much more fun. I was almost disappointed that it was over so soon, I expected some of the people introduced in the last mission to come back. On the other hand we can all use short arcs now and then.
I was almost overwhelmed by all the ambushes a few times, and the super-powered journalists both surprised and confused me. I know it's a world of supers sometimes but having super-powered journalists who are so common that they don't even get individual heroic aliases.... it doesn't seem right.
Three stars.
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
Thanks for giving these story arcs a try!
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Everything went smooth until I was faced with Maiden Justice. I'm a dominator. Oh well, maybe this ally will help. I confuse the soldier next to her and start to whittle her down. When Maiden Justice healed herself for 1500 points of damage I was prepared to quit. Then her purple triangles dropped and I managed to mez her for a moment. As soon as they got up she almost one-shotted me. Then she started running. I followed and was killed by a shuriken.
Since this is the last mission and I've read how the story ends in other reviews, I don't bother trying to finish it.
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This AV fight has actually been one of the hardest things for me to balance in this arc. I originally had Statesman and Ms Liberty (renamed to Maiden Justice) here, since, well, to conquer the world you clearly should defeat CoH's signature heroes. But Statesman was too hard to solo, so I removed him; eventually I came to the conclusion that Ms Liberty was also too hard to solo, so I replaced her with the custom AV that is present now. I've actually tested and defeated this AV as a low 20s brute and as a low 20s stalker; I admittedly have not tested with a dominator (I just can't seem to play these effectively) but I do understand they have issues with AVs. What level dominator were you playing, if I might ask? I saw you mentioned playing both a 23 and a 7 dominator in other threads, either of which might be a little low for this. There are actually four total allies on this map that can help with the AV, if you go looking for them. It sounds like you didn't find the story all that engaging, though, so I can understand why you decided to ragequit after a defeat.
Do you have any thoughts on how to make this more dominator-friendly? I'm hesitant to outright remove this encounter, as I kind of feel like there needs to be at least one hero defending the "City of Heroes" from being conquered.
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I don't believe that the death of a few generals and some troop transports could change these events as much as your narrator casually describes.
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Hmm, not quite sure how to address this issue; I did try to have the contact explain the significance of Dunkirk and Stalingrad, so that it would make sense even to a non-history buff. Did you feel this explanation was not sufficient? I think you have already criticized the contact's briefings as too much narration, though. What would you suggest changing to make this more believable?
Or perhaps you are suggesting that defeating only the generals shouldn't be sufficient to defeat a national army. This may be true from a "realism" standpoint, but I think if I made my missions "Defeat all British soldiers" "Defeat all Russian soldiers" I would certainly get a lot of complaints about the gameplay.
I actually agree that the middle missions of the arc are currently the least interesting, and I'd like to make them more involving somehow. Any suggestions you might have for how to do this would be appreciated.
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you have chosen to tell a story in a medium which is unsuitable for the kind of story you want....I think that these kinds of events, on this scale, aren't suited for the MA or even the CoH mission structure to depict. It would have been better if you had us go and do small-scale crimes which would have large-scale effects, instead of going directly for the large-scale event.
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Well, there is some truth to these criticisms. As a general principle, I've been trying to write story arcs that are "different", both from the regular game content and from each other; at times, this may be trying to fit the square peg into a round hole, though.
This arc is my attempt to let the player villain Conquer the World, something that is a common goal for comic book archvillains, but which the CoV content never allows a player villain to do. I feel that conquering the world requires large scale conflict.
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Celebrity Kidnapping was much more fun. I was almost disappointed that it was over so soon, I expected some of the people introduced in the last mission to come back. On the other hand we can all use short arcs now and then.
I was almost overwhelmed by all the ambushes a few times, and the super-powered journalists both surprised and confused me. I know it's a world of supers sometimes but having super-powered journalists who are so common that they don't even get individual heroic aliases.... it doesn't seem right.
Three stars.
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I am a little puzzled that "much more fun...disappointed it was over" equates to three stars, but hey, it's your right to rate things however you like. If I may ask, though, what would you suggest be added or changed to improve your opinion?
Regarding "super powered journalists", the intent is that the "Flash" and "Blind" powers should simulate camera photography. They aren't exactly meant to be super-powered, the flash bulbs are just supposed to be dizzying and disorienting when you get deluged by them. I'd love to give them actual cameras for these effects to emanate from, if this were possible. However, I'm afraid I can't accept "super-powered journalists so common they don't get heroic aliases.... it doesn't seem right" as a valid criticism. After all, Hellions, Skulls and Outcasts are among the first things you encounter in CoH, and are full of super-powered characters with no individuals heroic aliases.
@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!"
The scale of fun goes up quite a bit from 2 to 3 stars I mean what I said, I was disappointed that it was over. I would have liked at least a fourth mission to find out that Wheeler was the one who called the cops on me (I still don't know quite why he did that, I still had half the ransom money and he wouldn't get more by getting rid of me) and possibly to fight Police Woman again. One journalist I met swore that someone would come and kick my [censored] because I wouldn't give her an interview or something, I would like to see that happen. The celebrity could return as a hero and try to stop me in the last mission after having been released and forced to register. Lots of stuff could be done with this arc and I felt like it was finished too soon. One or two more missions of the same quality would have made this a 4-star arc to me.
I played these as a level 31 dominator.
AVs pose a particular problems for dominators (and controllers I suppose) because they depend so much on mezzing their opponents and AVs (or EBs downgraded from AVs) are more or less immune while they are protected by their "purple triangles". EBs are almost worse because they have even higher status protection than normal bosses even when their triangles aren't "up". This means that I had to rely on my less than stellar damage, and the healing lieutenant.
There were more allies on the map, that's great. If I had been more engaged in the story that would have helped. I didn't so much ragequit as meh-quit. I simply resigned to the fact that a dominator was not the right thing to use to solo the arc. I don't blame you for this and this fight had very little impact on my final score.
I don't think I can explain my reasoning about the middle missions any better. Maybe they should be more about securing certain weapons which would make Germany a super-power before the US could develop them. Stealing the secret of the atomic bomb from the US and making sure that the German bomb is finished first to use it on an American city in order to force a surrender would probably make for a better focus for these missions. It could also explain why Statesman is missing in the last mission: he was last seen trying to stop the nuke from going off. That's just a suggestion of course, and I don't imagine that you are going to change your arc this drastically.
As for the super-powered journalists I think you could have made the journalists themselves non-powered, like the ones in the last mission, and instead of photographers and cameramen blasting us with their powers the journalists would simply be followed by well-arme bodyguards to protect them from us villains. It might be that you and I just have different ideas of how common superpowers really are in this world.
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
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Regarding "super powered journalists", the intent is that the "Flash" and "Blind" powers should simulate camera photography.
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When I played the arc last night that was exactly the impression I was left with - I thought it was cute, effective, and funny; then again, as I said in my comment, I found the PL joke a bit much. Going to show you can't please everybody with every bit, I s'pose.
Plus the paparazzi ambushes set up the guest appearance by Lois Watson - what was the emote you used with her for the signal watch?
If you're still taking submissions, I'd be interested in seeing what you'd think of my "main" arc.
Speeding Through Time
Arc ID: 51728
Length: Long
Morality: Heroic
Description: A man claiming to be a former member of the Freedom Phalanx insists he needs your help to combat a menace you've never heard of. Is this just a delusional old man or are you really about to save the world from a threat that time has forgotten? Come for the story, not the XP. EB's and allies abound.
I haven't handed this out to Venture (not that he has time with that queue anyway) since he hates time travel so much, but I think you've got a eye for balancing fun and story than he does. This arc is meant to be a ton of fun and something you don't see in the official content, which I think I accomplished quite well.
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Oh, and I played Axis and Allies and really enjoyed it. I sent you feedback from my actual global (@Geekboy).
For those interested in going through an arc that is relatively new and less polished, I have a new story arc that I've published:
A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force
Arc ID: 260284
Keywords: Challenging, Save the World, Magic
Length: Very Long
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 45-50
Description: Samurai and ninja battle for honor in a faraway realm. But someone has introduced firearms to the land, tilting the balance of power towards the evil Lord Kumo and the Spider Clan. Will you journey there to restore the balance? SFMA, Asian fantasy, L5R, wuxia, dimensional travel. Warning: AVs!
The final mission is fairly challenging, including several AVs and several allies. I'd particularly like input regarding game balance of that mission. I was able to solo it on a level 40 katana/willpower scrapper (the theme of this arc is squarely aimed at katana scrappers), but it may be quite tough for squishy characters.
It's had very little critical review so far, so any feedback would be most appreciated!
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Regarding my review queue, for people I owe two or more arc reviews to, I've shifted the second arc a couple slots down in the review queue, so that I don't do them consecutively.
My motivation for this is:
- I'd like to start each of your arcs "fresh", without being too heavily influenced by my feelings on the other arc.
- Quite often I will have similar comments on both arcs (for example, if you always misspell a certain word, or share certain mobs between arcs, or have particular issues on style, gameplay or plot that are common to both), so this may give you a chance to revise the second arc in response to my comments on the first arc.
I now owe a review to:
Noght - Warrior's Three 64855 (level 20-29 neutral)
@Stormsurge - Of Liberty and State Pt1 218636
@Citizen Razor - 195149
@Dalghryn - Consequences of War #227331
MrCaptainMan - The Audition Pt1 221240
@NullGeodesic - The Superadine Withdrawal Blues 205046
@jjac - The History of Statesman 219484
MrCaptainMan - The Audition Pt2 221242
FoundBoy - Threefold Rule 197183
@Bubbawheat - Matchstick Women #3369
airhead - Captain Dynamic 190069
@anachrodragon - The Next War on Drugs 245042
@baler - A Close Encounter 233720
@Cain Lightning - 41646
ArrowRose - 221702 (In Pursuit of Liberty)
mrNebs - "Release the Dragon" (arc#229358)
FredrikSvanberg - #1152
Geek_Boy - Speeding Through Time #51728
- space open -
FredrikSvanberg - #114284
@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!"
Warrior's Three review (arc id 64855)
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Canon Related, Magic
Morality: Neutral
Level range: 20-29
The premise appears to be an invasion of the Rogue Isles by the Warriors. I played a 25 db/ninj stalker.
The contact looks like a Mu Mystic, but is named "Contact Hologram". You should give him a name.
Mission 1
The caption for this briefing should be in a slightly larger font, or perhaps be a different color or bolded, to stand out from the rest of the briefing. Also, you may want to come up with a snappier name than "Mission 1"; that's factually accurate, but giving it some kind of text name may help set the tone for your mission a little better.
Briefing: "For years the Mu Mystics have been uncovering magical artifacts throughout the Rogue Isles, we have been generally left to own devices." I think this should be separated into two sentences, and "to own" should be "to our own".
"Lord Recluse will occasionally send one of his Bosses around" ... suggest you rephrase this to "Arachnos will occasionally send an Arbiter over".
The contact goes on to say that three big named Warriors have been sent to set up a base in the Rogue Isles, and that they're after a crystal held by the Banished Pantheon. But then he says that I should "Smash the Warriors Three before they set-up their base"; the info here seems a little conflicting. Are we smashing the Warrior base or stopping them from taking the crystal? Make it a little more clear.
Mission title: "Defeat Warriors Three. Find Plans." sounds more like an objective list than the name of a mission. Perhaps "Smash the Warrior Stronghold"?
Mission objectives: "1 Warrior's Plan" should probably be "Find out the Warriors' Plan". "Arrow, Shiv, Thump" should probably be "Defeat Arrow, Defeat Shiv, Defeat Thump"; or possibly "3 Warrior bosses to defeat".
Speaking of Arrow, Shiv and Thump, every single named Warrior boss that I can think of had a name from classical Greek mythology. You might want to make your Warrior bosses follow this pattern as well, to seem more authentic to the player.
I found Arrow and he is in a group called "WarriorBoss". You might want to make him part of a custom "Warriors" group instead. (I15 now gives you the ability to disable named bosses from spawning randomly.)
[NPC] Arrow: Warriors Attack
This line seems too terse and not punctuated. I suggest maybe: "An intruder! Warriors, attack!"
I found a desk labeled "Warrior's Plan". Possibly you may want to rename this to be "Desk" and then find out it's the Warrior's Plan only after searching it. The clue revealed, "Assault plans", says that the Warriors have left for a Banished Pantheon cave. This is something the contact told me in the original briefing; so feels a little redundant now. You might consider removing this info from the original briefing, then having the player discover it here; then the contact can demand you do something about the Banished Pantheon next mission? That would help straighten out the plot some, and would address my earlier concern about the initial briefing being unclear.
Thump's description: "Thump is fearsome Hand-to-Hand Foe" should be "Thump is a fearsome Hand-to-Hand fighter".
The mission complete clue, "Plans for the Warrior Assault on the Artifact", seems redundant with the "Assault plans" clue; maybe consolidate them both into one clue. Also in this clue, "Assualt" should be "Assault".
This clue is also written like someone is talking to you...? Is it meant to be the contact? If so, you might want to move that part into the mission debriefing, or the briefing for mission 2.
Debriefing: May want to put some more text here, perhaps moving some of the text from the previous clue to here. Also, "repeling" should be "repelling".
Mission 2
Briefing: So now I'm sent to stop the assault on the Banished Pantheon coven.
Contact Hologram expounds on how the Power Crystal in the hands of the Banished Pantheon is manageable, but the Power Crystal in the hands of the Warriors would be doomsday. This doesn't quite make sense to me; the Banished Pantheon is a much more magically active group than the Warriors, so it seems like the Power Crystal should be much more dangerous in their hands? This needs additional explanation in order to be believable.
Second part of briefing: Being just half a sentence, this seems too short. Add some more writing here.
The mission title, "Defeat all the Warriors" seems more like an objective than a mission name. I suggest perhaps "Stop the Assault".
Mission entry popup needs a period at the end of the sentence.
It occurs to me, wouldn't it be simpler for me to just steal this Power Crystal myself, and let the Warriors and Banished Pantheon fight it out over nothing? As a result, I am not sure why it should be necessary to defeat all the Warriors? "Secure Power Crystal" should be enough, really.
I found the "Power Crystal", which looks more like some kind of altar. You might consider using the display case with the item inside as graphic for the power crystal, instead; or perhaps a treasure chest. Clicking on it, the progress bar is blank; add some text to it.
After successfully clicking the "Power Crystal", I get the clue "Power Crystal", which tells me I didn't find the Power Crystal. This makes the name of the glowy and name of the clue rather misleading. Maybe rename the glowy to "Treasure Chest" or "Display Case" (depending on what graphic you give it) and rename the clue to "Empty!" or "Stolen!" You might also generate a new objective of "Find who stole the Power Crystal" here.
I like the Warrior/Banished Pantheon battles you have set up. You might want to add more of them; as it stands it seems like there are a LOT more Warriors than BP in this cave, which is supposed to be a BP base.
I found Fearon, a BP boss with some zombies escorting him. I tried dragging him over a nearby Warrior spawn, hoping they'd fight each other, but they seemed to ignore each other. You may want to set them up to be mutual enemies (perhaps setting one of the groups to be Rogue).
I ended up fighting Fearon and he ends up saying:
[NPC] Fearon: Warriors still remain in the Cave, why are you attacking me?
...which is a little ironic considering I tried to get him to attack Warriors and he wouldn't. Why did I have "Defeat Fearon" as an objective anyway? The Contact Hologram told me it was okay to leave the BP in possession of the artifact.
I found it a little odd that none of the named Warrior bosses were in this mission; wouldn't an important Strike Force be led by at least one of them?
None of the Warriors have any dialog in this mission at all. You might want to have a patrol or a boss or something that says something about what the Warriors are doing here.
The mission complete clue, "This is terrible news, the Power Crystal is gone" seems redundant with the earlier "Power Crystal" clue. You may want to consolidate them into one clue. Also "missing from it's vault" should be "missing from its vault".
Debriefing: seems a little short. Also, Contact Hologram says "We can't give the remaining Warrior Assault Force too much of a headstart". But I defeated all the Warriors in the Assault Force, as far as I can tell.
It also sounds like he assumes some of the Warriors stole the crystal and got away before I showed up; if this is what you're going for, add some clues to the mission that say this! Perhaps add a named Warrior boss in charge of a rear guard, that tells you when defeated that "You're too late.... Soandso has already made off with the crystal!"
Mission 3
Briefing: A previously unmentioned fourth Warrior Boss is apparently responsible for stealing the Power Crystal and is leaving by ship. How do we know any this? The fourth boss needs some foreshadowing, and there needs to be a plausible way for us to know that we need to catch his ship.
The Contact Hologram also somehow senses the Power Crystal has released mystical energy into Axxe (presumably the name of the fourth boss; this maybe should be made more clear), with the effect of powering him up.
No one seems to have any dialog in this mission except Axxe. You might consider adding a patrol or something with some dialog just to make this mission seem more lively.
Axxe is in his own faction called "WarriorBoss1"; he should probably be in "Warriors". He also doesn't have a description (he has the default Boss description instead).
[NPC] Axxe: We've been made, Attack!
This line seems awfully similar to what Shiv says in the first mission, you might change it a little to mix it up.
[NPC] Axxe: So close to contol of the Warriors
"contol" should be "control" here, and this needs a period at the end. I think you should rephrase this to something like: "Noooo! I was so close to control of the Warriors!"
Despite defeating Axxe, the mission, which is titled, "Defeat Axxe", doesn't end; since I still need to "Clear final Room". You might rename this mission to something like "Stop the Warriors Ship" or "Recapture the Power Crystal" or something suitably more general, that would make sense even after defeating Axxe.
The mission complete clue is named "Axxe Effectively Defeated", which is a little awkward sounding; I suggest "Axxe's Defeat".
"By Defeating the 4th Warrior Boss, the MU mages can siphon the energies of the Power Crystal out of Axxe and restore the Power Crystal" sounds a bit awkward; we know the 4th Warrior Boss's name, so may as well use it, and saying "Power Crystal" twice is a little clunky. In any case, maybe it makes more sense to tell this information in the mission debriefing; the contact could tell you about how the Mu mystics are draining the power out of Axxe there.
Did we ever actually find the Power Crystal? We never got a clue saying so. May want to explicitly say that it's found, or maybe add a glowy to this mission where you steal it back.
Debriefing: Some nice explanation of the aftermath of the previous mission. But I am not sure it makes sense for the Mu mystics to return the Power Crystal to the Banished Pantheon. Why wouldn't the Mu simply keep it for themselves? The contact said in the first mission that the Mu had been collecting artifacts, and he made his disdain for the Banished Pantheon pretty clear.
"We've received word from out contacts" should be "We've received word from our contacts". "there is a shake-up" should be "there has been a shake-up".
This actually seems a natural end for the story, but it continues on.
Mission 4
Briefing: The briefing explains that the contact is sending you on this mission because he is "feeling a bit peckish"; this seems a pretty weak motivation. Try and come up with a better reason for this. Anyway, I'm to steal a completely different Crystal from the Banished Pantheon, as part of a plan to give the Warriors...a different Crystal than they expected. One that sucks power out of them instead of gives power to them, apparently.
Second part of briefing: Seems too short, and somewhat inaccurate, because "Witches" makes me think we're about to go after the Cabal, but we're going after the Banished Pantheon.
Mission entry popup: this again refers to banished Pantheon as "witches", which isn't right.
Mission objective: "1 Crystal Curio" should probably be "Steal the crystal". I'm not sure why it is necessary to defeat the Spirit to complete this mission; the contact seemed only interested in the crystal. Perhaps the briefing could be rephrased a bit to explain why the Spirit needs to be eliminated.
Map choice: a warehouse is a weird place to find Banished Pantheon. Consider using a cave or a graveyard for them instead.
Found the crystal in a wall safe, which is kind of a weird thing for Banished Pantheon to be using. I think a display case or a treasure chest would make more sense.
Upon clicking the safe (which was named "Crystal Curio" but should probably be named "Safe" or whatever the glowy you end up using is), I get two clues: one from the glowy itself, and one from mission complete. Both clues are named "Xyphon Crystal" and provide pretty similar information; I think you should consolidate these two clues into one clue. "containor" should be "container", though. "Odysseus will be shocked when this shows up in place of his Power Crystal" seems to imply the Power Crystal belongs to Odysseus, which isn't strictly true. Maybe "in place of the Power Crystal that he was expecting."
Mission 5
Briefing: So now I'm to sneak into a Warrior hideout and deposit the fake, trapped crystal in their vaults. Then the crystal will act like a Trojan Horse and steal all of the Warriors' magic and deliver it to the Mu.
This is an interesting evil plan, but seems fundamentally flawed: it's already been established that Odysseus has basically fired all four of the Warrior bosses that came to the Rogue Isles to steal the Power Crystal. So how is it supposed to be believable that the (fake) Power Crystal ends up in his vaults anyway? Where is it supposed to have come from, since all the Warriors who went after it, never came back? It seems like Odysseus should instantly see through this plan.
Second part of briefing: too short, seems only half a sentence. Add more text here. The sentence you do have here needs a period at the end.
Mission title: "Find the Vault" should probably be "Steal the Warriors' Magic" or "Sabotage the Warriors' Vault" or something like that, since Finding the vault is just the beginning.
Mission objective: "Artifact Vault" should be "Plant the Crystal in the Artifact Vault".
No one in this mission seems to have any dialog. Maybe add some named Warrior bosses, patrols, or whatever, with some lines that they say, to make this mission a little more lively.
Considering this is supposed to be the Warrior's secret vault full of artifacts ... there should be some extra (optional) glowies representing artifacts here. Maybe the player could steal some of them.
After finding the artifact vault and clicking it, I got a clue saying "You hear approaching warriors".... although this is a nice clue, I think it should also mention that I successfully planted the Xyphon Crystal.
I now have "Defeat Shiv" as an objective; but why? Shiv is supposed to be in Mu Mystic custody, officially removed from the Warrior power structure in the earlier shake-up. Seems to be a continuity error.
Shiv's description, "weilds" should be "wields". He does mention that he was sprung from the Mu jail in an attempt to explain why he's here.
Thump's objective, "Thump" should be "Defeat Thump". In his description, "Super Strenght" should be "Super Strength".
"Midnight Visage" clue: "prision" should be "prison". Apparently this amulet let the Warriors Three escape, because it lets them alter their appearance. But there's only one amulet, and three Warrior bosses? I think the one amulet could only explain how Shiv escaped.
"Xyphon Crystal placed, Warriors Defeated again" is a little too long for a clue name, it overflows the normal text box. It does give some explanation for how the Warriors Three made it to here, though it doesn't explain why Odysseus likes them now (it was previously established that they were on the outs with the official Warrior power structure). "posession" should be "possession". "Gangwar" should be "gang war".
Debriefing: "We drained the magical abilities of the those three buffons" has an extra "the" and "buffons" should be "buffoons". "Odyssues" should be "Odysseus". Thinking about it, it is rather weird that the contact is trying to drain magical energies from the Warriors; I don't think most of them are magical at all! Though they may come into possession of magical artifacts, for the most part they seem like normals with medieval weapons.
The involvement of the Midnight Squad here is rather mystifying and is never clearly explained. They haven't been introduced as an interested party at all before this. Maybe there should be some foreshadowing for their involvement.
Overall
I like the use of the Warriors and Banished Pantheon, who you don't see all that often. But I confess that I am not sure what my motivation in this story arc is supposed to be; I'm helping the contact out, but what am I actually getting out of it? Why should I be doing this?
The pacing of the arc is a little strange to me, with the toughest fight being an EB in mission 3; the final mission has a series of boss fights chained together, but overall is a lot easier than the EB in the middle mission. You might want to make it so the hardest fight is in the final mission; or possibly truncate the arc to end right after mission 3, which seemed a logical stopping point.
Plot-wise, I thought it was a little weird that you're sort of both fighting the Banished Pantheon in mission 2, yet helping them by giving their crystal back after mission 3 -- then you steal another crystal from them in mission 4. This seems somewhat mixed up. I think it would make more logical sense if you just stole from them and/or killed them, and kept everything (or had the Mu guy keep it). Also, I wonder if CoT would be a more logical group to steal magical crystals from than BP; consider the St Martial SF, which is all about magic crystals and the CoT who are using them.
I found the last two missions a little hard to believe. This is partly because I think having the Power Crystal mysteriously show up in the Warrior's Vault would be unlikely to fool them (considering all the people sent after the Power Crystal were already fired for failing), and partly because I don't really think Warriors are magical enough that draining their magical power would do anything.
It seemed like there were a number of loose threads, too. The toughest bad guy, Axxe, showed up for one mission without any foreshadowing, then vanishes after that one mission never to appear again; I think you may want to tie him more strongly into this story, if you're going to use him. The use of the Midnight Squad to break all the Warriors out of jail comes across as something of a deus ex machina to explain why we can let the other 3 Warrior bosses appear in the final mission.
Anyway, with all that in mind, I felt I could only give this story arc 2 stars, sorry! I hope you think that is fair!
I now owe a review to:
@Stormsurge - Of Liberty and State Pt1 218636
@Citizen Razor - 195149
@Dalghryn - Consequences of War #227331
MrCaptainMan - The Audition Pt1 221240
@NullGeodesic - The Superadine Withdrawal Blues 205046
@jjac - The History of Statesman 219484
MrCaptainMan - The Audition Pt2 221242
FoundBoy - Threefold Rule 197183
@Bubbawheat - Matchstick Women #3369
airhead - Captain Dynamic 190069
@anachrodragon - The Next War on Drugs 245042
@baler - A Close Encounter 233720
@Cain Lightning - 41646
ArrowRose - 221702 (In Pursuit of Liberty)
mrNebs - "Release the Dragon" (arc#229358)
FredrikSvanberg - #1152
Geek_Boy - Speeding Through Time #51728
- space open -
FredrikSvanberg - #114284
@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 PW...I'll tweak it up and improve the flow. Appreciate the feedback.
Some of the comments are "AE mechanics" that I'm still struggling with honestly. I try to build in the same clue a couple of places...mob commentary, clues, etc. I'd rather repeat than someone miss something.
Thanks.
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
Came across your arc earlier and decided to pipe in here, though you didn't ask for it...
[ QUOTE ]
Speeding Through Time
Arc ID: 51728
Length: Long
Morality: Heroic
Description: A man claiming to be a former member of the Freedom Phalanx insists he needs your help to combat a menace you've never heard of. Is this just a delusional old man or are you really about to save the world from a threat that time has forgotten? Come for the story, not the XP. EB's and allies abound.
[/ QUOTE ]
Fun arc. I know I shouldn't like an arc with zillions of EBs, outdoor hunts, and mass-EB ambushes, time travel, and the "strongest hero ever to exist", but somehow it all comes together pretty nicely. The sheer number of EBs in the third mission might be a little much, but just taking away that fulcrum shift and build up would make me feel more like the hero than the spectator. All in all, I'd call the arc a mess of usually bad things that end up coming out splendidly. Four stars from me, only because the Blur's somewhat overpowered power picks (and "presence", if you know what I mean.) made me feel like just sitting back and watching him do the work.
I'd play it again.
QR
Weatherby_Goode - "Heck, Carrion Creepers negates the knockdown from Carrion Creepers."
[ QUOTE ]
Fun arc. I know I shouldn't like an arc with zillions of EBs, outdoor hunts, and mass-EB ambushes, time travel, and the "strongest hero ever to exist", but somehow it all comes together pretty nicely. The sheer number of EBs in the third mission might be a little much, but just taking away that fulcrum shift and build up would make me feel more like the hero than the spectator. All in all, I'd call the arc a mess of usually bad things that end up coming out splendidly. Four stars from me, only because the Blur's somewhat overpowered power picks (and "presence", if you know what I mean.) made me feel like just sitting back and watching him do the work.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks! I wasn't going for "strongest" so much as "most selfless" since he'd honestly be a bit of a pansy in a one on one fight (at least for my EB killers he would be). I keep rebalancing things (even though it's set to "final" I don't think it ever really will be unless I get Dev's Choice and locked or something) to show off how important the player is to the whole thing, but that third mission is just so over the top that people either love it for it's chaos or hate it because they have some thing against having NPC's stealing their kills.
I've played plenty of arcs where they got this wrong, and while you might argue that I did too, I think it's deliciously so.
I'll submit my arc for review, if you don't mind. The relevant search information is in the signature link.
*points below*
It's more that they munch XP up like no other, but you gave sufficient warning, and like you said, it's too over-the-top not to enjoy.
QR
Weatherby_Goode - "Heck, Carrion Creepers negates the knockdown from Carrion Creepers."
[ QUOTE ]
Celebrity Kidnapping
Arc ID: 1388
Length: Medium
Morality: Villainous
Description: Boy, does Willy Wheeler have a deal for you! A celebrity heiress has been sentenced to jail for drunk driving. The plan is to break her out of the Zig with the help of some thugs, then hold her for ransom for immense profit! What could go wrong?
[/ QUOTE ]
I tried this one. I like it. My only criticism (if it really even is one - more like just opinion) is that I wish there were more paparazzi. That encounter took me by surprise and gave me a smile.
If you have time, try the arc in my sig. I'll try your WWII one when I have some more time on.
Larry Jablonski
Infinity Server
Arc Name: Old Folks Home
Arc ID: 261041
Synopsis: The Octogenician can control minds, but only of people over 80. He's taken an old folks home hostage. Beat up old folks screaming about the good ol' days to defeat the Octogenician!
A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force. #260284, @PW
This was a remarkably polished and interesting story (especially considering it had no plays!) until an anachronistic ambush made it impossible for me. Unrated.
Heroic, high level, 4 unique maps and a small one. That's a lot of unique maps, but the maps work mostly (the third is rather large). It says challenging. That's an ill omen, I usually wouldn't bother. AVs, EBs, custom powers. I'll just go as far as I can. I don't get to see the Chimera Ninjas very often.
I send in Aehaed, level 50 purpled mind/forcefield controller on level 1 difficulty.
My contact is Flower Knight. Ask about this contact doesn't show any description has been set in the Story Settings. Flower Knight normally hangs out with the Menders in Ouroboros. But this time she's interested in another dimension, which usually means Portal Corporation. It makes me wonder how she came to know that Pi Omega 4-4 resembles her dream. In the send-off, Flower Knight says "we don't know much about that dimension", not sure who 'we' is.
Good objectives to start with that lead from the pop-up, do some good and figure out where I am. Enemy descriptions suggest I'm in a place called Perogan, ruled by Lord Kumo of the Spider Clan. I definitely smell the alternate reality here. Very cool cross-referencing throughout.
The Arquebusier has a nice unique description. Spider Bushi and Spider Archer descriptions are identical.
Nice gravestone! I think it spawned an ambush, but there was no warning or battlecry. Quite funny, one of the ambush can't seem to get over an embankment, so is just jumping up and down.
The patrols say the same thing. If you have some space, you could add some variety.
Fujineko's description says Setaetsemun, gravestone says Setaetsemon.
Jinkenzo's description says he's met "mysterious superheroes from another dimension". Is that just me, if so, why plural?
Fun to beat samurai on a slope and watch them body surf down.
Lord Aion in the second mission is very cool. Gives the game away nicely. So far, going along swimmingly. Hopefully some surprise twists in Mission 3.
I imagine I'll discover it's the Oracle that has been giving Flower Knight her dreams (doesn't pan out).
Mission 2 is inside-out, good map choice for that.
The third mission features the unfortunate war walls. I guess there's no cure for that. Lord Chimera was a great battle, very close. Then the long, slow glowie hunt for the last glowie. The rock-like object happened to spawn among rocks, oh well.
One more mission, an all-in brawl, let's go get the generals. At least the map's much simpler, and it's daytime. Thanks for that.
Black Scorpion is much easier to mez than Chimera, but he takes a lot of pummeling to go down.
The battles seem lopsided in favour of the hawk clan. I don't see the spider clan winning any.
Gaki-Onna was pretty scary. Took out me and my 3 samurai minions and very nearly Flower Knight too before I rezzed and won.
I pulled Mako into a cluster of hawk samurai which turned out to be a great idea. He mezzes well too. The battle I'd feared wasn't too hard at all.
Another tight battle with the Oracle of Wind.
The general battles are surprisingly interesting. I barely win using accolades on my purpled-out controller. I imagine different ATs will find different generals to be difficult.
The arachnos ambush on Lord Kumo seems completely unecessary. He's wearing a suit sent to him via Chimaera, he's not an Arachnos. How did the Arachnos cross dimensions? This makes no sense and cost me my ally. I make a couple more tries, and I give up. I was just scraping by before the ambushes.
This was a really well written adventure that lost itself in an unbeatable finish for me, so I can't vote.
Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
Arc: Coming Soon: The Incarnate Shadow Shard of Fire and Ice Mender Rednem needs you!
Massively.com opinion poll: Please Help Save CoH!
[ QUOTE ]
The arachnos ambush on Lord Kumo seems completely unecessary. He's wearing a suit sent to him via Chimaera, he's not an Arachnos. How did the Arachnos cross dimensions? This makes no sense and cost me my ally. I make a couple more tries, and I give up. I was just scraping by before the ambushes.
[/ QUOTE ]
Oooh, I wish I could get rid of this. I'm sure you must've guessed Lord Kumo was a thinly disguised Lord Recluse. The Bane spiders that show up when he's low on life aren't an ambush, they're one of LR's innate powers. I tried to counter this, to some degree, by spawning a "friendly" ambush at 25% life (which I think is when he also summons Banes), but friendly ambushes are not working very well as-implemented, so you generally only see one of those guys show up. If you have any other thoughts on how to mitigate this ambush, I'd be happy to consider them! I would totally replace him with a custom model except that you can't make a custom model that looks like Lord Recluse.
Thanks a ton for playing through this. I'll definitely incorporate as many of your suggestions as I can.
@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 ]
For those interested in going through an arc that is relatively new and less polished, I have a new story arc that I've published:
A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force
Arc ID: 260284
Keywords: Challenging, Save the World, Magic
Length: Very Long
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 45-50
Description: Samurai and ninja battle for honor in a faraway realm. But someone has introduced firearms to the land, tilting the balance of power towards the evil Lord Kumo and the Spider Clan. Will you journey there to restore the balance? SFMA, Asian fantasy, L5R, wuxia, dimensional travel. Warning: AVs!
The final mission is fairly challenging, including several AVs and several allies. I'd particularly like input regarding game balance of that mission. I was able to solo it on a level 40 katana/willpower scrapper (the theme of this arc is squarely aimed at katana scrappers), but it may be quite tough for squishy characters.
It's had very little critical review so far, so any feedback would be most appreciated!
[/ QUOTE ]
Okay, here goes. I think I was the first person to play this arc (nearly) all the way through, though my SG-mate who had to quit partway through seems to have been the first to rate it. Oh, well. 
Note that this review will contain massive SPOILERS for those those haven't done this arc. You Have Been Warned.
Because the most appropriate character I had for this, a little tengu katana scrapper, is only in his teens at the moment, I played this arc mostly solo with my level 48 PB, Mr. Foudroyant, on Tenacious (difficulty 2, so I get bosses and EB's). I find PB's work well for testing things because they have a lot of unique tricks, yet they still capture some of the "squishy" feel.
[u]Mission 1[u]
Flower Knight, of the hero tutorial and Ouroboros, asks me to investigate a dimension recently discovered by Portal Corp. based on a series of dreams she's had. This sounds goofy written up here in this thread, but it works very well in the arc itself. Incidentally, Flower Knight is written well throughout the arc; she has a distinctively earnest voice without sounding like an annoyingly incompetent child.
The mission accept text is in the form of a complete sentence, but it's lacking a period at the end. All the mission accept text seems to have this issue.
The mission takes place on one of the Croatoa outdoor maps, which is pretty and appropriate, if somewhat difficult to navigate. The custom group in here, the Spider Clan, has nice designs and bios. I particularly like the ashigaru arquebusiers.
One (very) minor problem is that the Spider Bushi (minions) and the Daimyo (bosses) look very similar except at close range. Ideally, you could find a way to put something resembling a samurai banner pole on the Daimyo. We don't have banner poles, but maybe you could try a cape to simulate one.
This mission has several goals. First, I locate and lead out Fujineko, a female samurai of the Hawk Clan, who are apparently the good guys in this dimension. Ordinarily, I'm not a fan of escort missions, but this one does have one advantage. After leading Fujineko to the door, she continues to follow me around the map without needing to be in "sight" range, which helps when playing a character who's flying around this somewhat difficult to navigate map looking for objectives. One additional, very small suggestion for Fujineko is to use the Onimochi Warrior overlay for her outfit, to make those neat dragons on the back show up more clearly. I notice that you did this on the Spider Clan samurai.
Second, I have to rescue a couple of oppressed peasants, and there are related patrols of Spider Clansmen discussing how they're going to oppress people. I love these goals. They capture the medieval feel of the arc well, and they're just fun in a kind of campy way. The emotes and text used by the captives and captors are perfect, too. One minor suggestion is to have the peasants perform /e bow (the Japanese-like one) when rescued. This goes for Fujineko, too, for that matter.
I also located a gravestone, a Defendable Object. Clicking on it gives some interesting information. I recommend putting this in a clue rather than the object's description, since I don't think many people would think to check the information for the object itself.
While wandering around this mission, I notice that the dimension is known to its natives as "Perogan." I pronounce this aloud using my sketchy knowledge of Japanese transliteration, recall that I'm fighting the Spider Clan, and I realize that this seemingly pseudo-Japanese dimension is an analogue of Paragon City. I love this conceit, and it's followed pretty well throughout the arc, but it raises a couple of confusing features in later missions, as discussed below.
By the way, it just occurred to me that given this motif, maybe the Shugenja, mages who use Fire powers, should use Electrical powers instead.
Finally, I have to fight Jinkenzo, who's just a named Daimyo. He's a recurring character, who I just realized is the samurai equivalent of a prominent CoV NPC (duh!), and his dialogue throughout the arc is great. You can't help feeling sorry for this guy. That said, since finding and defeating him on this big map is an objective, I think you might want to make him more visually distinctive than a typical Daimyo. I'm not sure how best to do this or if you even have the arc space to do it, but with bosses spawning more frequently now, it would be helpful for players who are trying to find those objectives.
[u]Mission 2[u]
I return to Perogan to investigate some dimensional travel weirdness that seems to be connected to those arquebuses that the Spider Clan have suddenly acquired. This mission takes me through a Cimeroran caves complex, which is a good choice of map, and has some fun dialogue from Jinkenzo and a new, named Daimyo, Ohanko. Note that this is the same as the named Huntsman in "Oh, Wretched Man." I'm honestly not sure what having Ohanko in here adds, although I have nothing against including him, either. However, if you're pressed for arc space, I'd suggest cutting him rather than some of the other elements. (It didn't help that his dialogue refers to Jinkenzo's dialogue, which was slightly odd in my play-through, which spawned Ohanko first, then Jinkenzo.)
At the back, I face Lord Aion. No, no relation to the new NCSoft MMO; this one is a feudal Japanese mad scientist. Yes, he's as goofy-looking as he sounds, which provides a needed touch of lightness to the arc and reinforces the Peragon/Paragon connection.
I was surprised not to get a clue for confiscating all the matchlocks in here, but I'm not sure one would really add anything to the story. Unfortunately, the arquebuses look like high-tech blasters because we don't have an "arquebus rack" collection detail. Oh, well.
While fighting Aion, an ambush of ninja (Chimera minions) appears. Nice touch. I had figured these were supposed to be Peragon ninja, but my clues and, when I return to her, Flower Knight, tell me they are indeed Chimera's minions. Interesting.
[u]Mission 3[u]
Flower Knight sends me to see Sister/Lady (her title changes depending on context) Sayaki, a Peragon noblewoman who's become the "Oracle of Void" (shades of Legends of the Five Rings). For some reason, she lives in a cave, which the entry text of the mission treats in exactly the right way. The map's empty, so I'm expecting ambushes. At the end of the map, I find Sayaki guarded by some Chimera ninja.
Rescuing her is easy, but getting her out is tough, since the map is now populated with Chimera's minions. Even though she's an EB, due to several bosses spawning close, the ninja's caltrops take her hit points dangerously low. Fortunately, I have Glowing Touch. I suggest giving Sayaki flight, like Sister Psyche and Sister Solaris of Cimerora.
An odd thing happened in this mission with enemy names. Some of them were designed Cockatrice, Basilisk, and Gorgon, like ordinary Chimera ninja. Others, however, were "Jonin" and "Shinobi." I have no idea why this is or if it means anything; just though you should know.
I also get two great clues in this mission, a piece of poetry and a prayer, which add nicely to the samurai-era ambience. I am a little confused by this point, though. According to the clues, Sayaki was romantically involved with Chimera. Huh? Praetorian Manticore and Peragonian Sister Psyche? The context implies that this relationship happened a long time ago and that it's been over for quite a while (years, maybe), which was even more confusing, given that the Praetorians only recently seem to have acquired transdimensional travel. Also, what was Chimera doing in Peragon for all that time? All these questions are more or less answered in the next mission, but I did find it pretty bizarre here in this one until I got the clarification. I was wondering for a while if you'd mixed up the dimension where Chimera comes from; it could be read that way.
[u]Mission 4[u]
With the contact text and the clues in this mission, my confusion about Chimera is cleared up. Now I'm storming his fortress in Peragon, which is a graveyard like the one he hangs out in in Praetoria. There are several glowies here, more weapon racks and a crate.
The crate gives an interesting but potentially problematic clue, a note from Black Swan to Chimera about the armor of "Sir Recluse," who is apparently supposed to be the Praetorian Lord Recluse, a hero slain by Tyrant. Now, this is fine at the moment, it's well-written, and it explains the final boss in the next mission, but I question whether you want to refer to such a potentially important NPC when anything you create is likely to be invalidated in 6-12 months in the Going Rogue expansion.
I also get to destroy a neat-looking portal to Praetoria and read a note from Tyrant explaining how Chimera got tangled up in this Peragon place to begin with, which resolves a lot of my story confusion. (That said, what ever happened to Peragonian Manticore?)
Aside from the glowies, I also have to defeat Chimera. There's nothing special to report about this fight. He has fine dialogue, and he's not too difficult. When I read his defeat clue, I'm shocked to learn that after I defeated him, Chimera killed himself! He declaims a nice little haiku, which I found to be a great touch.
However, I'm not sure if you want to write a character who your players may face later in their careers out of the game world. Additionally, there's the same problem of getting invalidated by Going Rogue as mentioned above. That said, it did perfectly fit the mood of the arc and added a nice touch of pathos.
Upon mission completion, I get a clue called "Kharmic Connection." Spelling- should be "Karmic," I believe. Anyway, it tells me that Sister Sayaki has flung herself off a tower. I assume this is meant to be in response to Chimera's death. This fits the mood of the arc, but I found it jarring. Let me explain why with some Creative Writing terminology.
City of Heroes can generally be said to take place in the visual equivalent of what writers call "third-person limited omniscient voice." Your character doesn't address you, but you know the thoughts of your character and what you can observe from that character's viewpoint. However, you don't know what any other character is thinking or doing unless they tell your character. Suddenly getting a clue like this switches the authorial voice to "third person (full) omniscient," meaning you as "reader" have access to all characters' thoughts and perceptions, not just those of the one you're playing. Just as in literature, this kind of sudden shift in viewpoint, especially halfway through an arc, is very jarring.
I'd rather see this handled by an explanation from Flower Knight (she does mention it when you exit). If you want to leave it as-is, I think you should make clear that Sayaki has sent you this vision telepathically for some reason. This may have been what you intended all along. If so, it needs to be clearer, and Sayaki needs some reason, however trivial, to do it.
Mission 5 has enough issues, good and bad, to deserve its own post. Stay tuned! 
Edit: Fixed number.
"Bombarding the CoH/V fora with verbosity since January, 2006"
Djinniman, level 50 inv/fire tanker, on Victory
-and 40 others on various servers
A CoH Comic: Kid Eros in "One Light"
continued . . .
[u]Mission 5[u]
Things sort of fall apart here. The idea is good, and I like the variety of objectives and details, but it needs tweaking.
Now I finally get the chance to take down Lord Kumo, and Flower Knight will be coming with me. I enter the mission and discover I'll need to fight four generals, who I correctly figure will be analogues of the Arachnos patrons, as well as meeting Flower Knight.
This map is packed with Hawk Clan vs. Spider Clan battles, which are a nice touch, but they can cause some trouble. First and most obviously, Fujineko and the supposedly dead Sayaki reappear several times each. They need to be set to "do not spawn," I think.
A more insidious problem appears on my first fight with a general. The first general I face is Lord Mako, a Dual Blades EB whose only connection with his Arachnos counterpart seems to be his name and a few aspects of personality. With the assistance of Light Form, I get him down to 1/4 health, at which point he runs off and talks about how I killed him, even though one of the Hawk Clan spawns did the actual work.
I recover Flower Knight easily enough, with the help of a nearby battle spawn. She turns out to be quite handy throughout the mission, with one critical exception.
I can't say as much for the Hawk Clan Yojimbo who appear unguarded to assist me. Unlike the Hawk Clan Bushi doing most of the fighting in the battles, these guys seem fairly flimsy. Black Scorpion killed both of mine in one attack.
Later, I face Black Scorpion, who's identical to Mako except for dialogue and bio. Flower Knight and I easily thrash him.
I was disappointed that Mako and Black Scorpion weren't unique characters. Again, I don't know what your arc space is like, but I think they might benefit from some differentiation. Perhaps their armor could be identical, but Mako could use Dual Blades while Black Scorpion uses Super Strength. Additionally, this is just my opinion, but I think Mako's armor ought to use Samurai type 3 because it looks like waves to me (I use it on my aquatic character).
I also face Scirocco, renamed and re-bio'd as the "Oracle of Wind." I can see why you didn't change him. His powers and weapons fit fine with the Peragon milieu. That said, I found it odd that two of the four generals were reworked Arachnos Patrons while the other two were "stock" Spider Clan types. I'd usually expect them to be all one or all the other.
Finally, Flower Knight and I beat down Gaki-Onna (great name!), Ghost Widow recolored. Her bio is still Ghost Widow's and needs to be changed. She's tough, but several purple inspirations take care of her.
Her defeat spawns Kumo himself, I suppose because something has to trigger it. The clue mentioning it is nicely atmospheric. I know from the clue in mission 4 that I'll be facing Lord Recluse, so I stock up on inspirations and get ready.
I tried to take him down three times, using multiple purple inspirations, my Light Form (a clone power of Unstoppable, which includes massive +recovery), and a couple of obliging spawns of Hawk Bushi and Sisters Sayaki. I just couldn't do it. I could take him down to about 1/3 of his health before his electrical attacks drained my endurance past my ability to recover it. That, combined with his ability to call Bane Spider bosses, made short work of all the allies as well as me. I finally gave up, a bitter end to an otherwise great arc.
I really don't think Recluse makes sense here. Yes, there's an AV warning, but Recluse is in a class by himself. The rest of the arc was easily soloable by me, a pretty lousy player, if truth be told. Having the difficulty jump like this is just as jarring as the shift in point of view I mentioned above. Further, while you've provided an acceptable explanation for why Lord Kumo is dressed like a modern mastermind with spider arms and electric powers, why does he have Bane Spiders appear to assist him? Arachnos, as such, has played no role at all in the arc up to this point, so these things are really out of left field. I don't see how you can fix that issue without using something other than Recluse.
If you still want the fight to be unusual or unusually difficult, I recommend taking a look at another "parallel Recluse," Romulus from the ITF. Part of the challenge of Rommie is the Nictus trio that spawns with him. Maybe you could do something similar for Lord Kumo, making a special "bodyguard" group that makes him stronger. (For an example from an MA arc, check out my "Heart of Talos," arc #175660, which features what is essentially an unarmored debuffer AV supported by bodyguards with a power designed to prevent melee characters from running roughshod over the AV.)
All in all, as I mentioned in my feedback tell, I'd give this about 4 stars as-is. It can easily reach 5 if you fix some of the outstanding mechanical and stylistic issues. Goodness knows it's a good story; I really love these "Elseworlds/What If . . .?" kinds of things. Thanks for writing it and for reading this review!
Edit: Like the reviewer above, I didn't actually give a rating, since I couldn't finish. I'm a fellow inhabitant of Liberty, so if you want any assistance in testing, please let me know.
"Bombarding the CoH/V fora with verbosity since January, 2006"
Djinniman, level 50 inv/fire tanker, on Victory
-and 40 others on various servers
A CoH Comic: Kid Eros in "One Light"
Thanks for the feedback on A Warrior's Journey - The Flower Knight Task Force! Based on the feedback so far, it sounds like Lord Recluse is way too hard. (I'm a little surprised everyone was able to handle Ghost Widow pretty easily though.)
Following Olantern's suggestion, I am trying to adjust the Lord Kumo encounter as follows:
- "Lord Kumo" changed from using Lord Recluse model (AV) to Crab Spider Webmaster model (Boss). The Crab guy doesn't look quite as much like Lord Recluse, but is better than nothing.
- Lord Kumo's escorts are now a custom group called "Spider Clan Hatamoto", which exclusively spawns dark blast/pain dom corruptors intended to buff and heal Lord Kumo.
- Lord Kumo's group size increased to "hard", hoping to spawn a lot of these healers.
- These guys won't spawn for any other encounter, they are solely meant to make this one single encounter a little harder, since I'm afraid downgrading him from an AV to a boss may make him seem underwhelming.
- Removed "Shugenja" from the main Spider Clan group in order to make room; repurposed their model to be the "Maho-Tsukai" that are Lord Kumo's bodyguards.
- Changed "Daimyo" model to have a lot more gold trim, to hopefully be more visually distinctive.
- Hawk Clan group should be fixed so they won't spawn multiple Fujineko and Sister Sayaki mobs (I hope).
- With the removal of Lord Recluse, I removed the "Challenging" keyword, replacing it with "Custom Characters".
I plan to work on the stylistic and writing changes a bit later; I rushed through the above gameplay changes since the final encounter's difficulty seems to be a showstopper for everyone who has tried so far. 
I'm a bit worried it may be too easy now, but I'll try it this way for a bit to see what happens.
Thanks VERY MUCH for the detailed feedback!
@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!"
Reviewed "Celebrity Kidnapping" in game (@cruise) - will get to the newer arc when I have a bit more time.
Can I request my arc be added to the list at some point? I'm looking for critical feedback, so feel free to be as pedantic as you like :P
A Falling Angel
Arc ID: 133390
Length: Long
Morality: Villainous
Description: A curious offer from a less-than-perfect "hero" leads to a plot years in the making threatening the Rogue Isles and beyond.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Psychoti
"....so I headbutted the blind chick."
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[ cruise / casual-tempest.net / transference.org / xenogamous.com / wytedragon.net / quantam sufficit ]
Thanks for the comments, I'll note the typo issues and get them cleaned up. As I said last night, if you had a good time, that's better than getting five stars. I actually have answers to most of your questions, so lemme spam your thread:
erverted::decent:loving symmetry. It was probably a stretch.
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The contact, "Betty the AI", does not really look tech-y or cyberpunk-y enough to be an AI.
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My alpha draft of the mission text actually went into detail on how she was created in the 1950s as one of Alan Turing's last experiments, making her reasonably mature. I think I was trying to avert making a "sexy AI goddess", and that if there was a conscience or guardian angel of the internet, she'd look like your Granny and not like someone from Tron. Just a stylistic choice, really.
Actually, I think her critter text that I put in the MA Creator actually mentions her origin. Not that you can see that ever in the game.
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The caption for the briefing...should perhaps be in a larger font or different color...
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That was on the patch queue a long, long time ago and it got buried. I'll need to change it.
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It's a little strange that a Freakshow would be the boss of these Goldbrickers...
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His critter-info text explicitly mentions how out of character this alliance would be.
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You might consider giving the Goldbrickers some dialog....It might also be fun to have several starving Third World children chained to computers farming gold...
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Both excellent ideas. Before i15, the arc was pushing 99%, so text was getting pared down a lot. I think it is down to 95 or so now, so these are both excellent ideas.
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Mission 2
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Mission 2 was the mission I knew was the weakest on the "fun" level. It's really an extended series of fetches, which was kinda grating even when I was testing it. I never got really any serious commentary on it when I was testing it and few people have mentioned it on the review threads - so I was never really clear on how to improve it.
I think you've got some good ideas here, so I might overhaul the mission to include them.
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You might consider adding some clues (maybe attached to optional glowies) that contain sample flames and diatribes about politics (both left and right wing), religion, telling new posters to read the darn FAQ, and Hitler (who inevitably is mentioned in flame wars).
[/ QUOTE ]
This was the HARDEST part of writing the mish. How do you represent flamers in a game with content restrictions on profanity and making bigoted remarks (which are pretty much a flamer's bread & butter)? I didn't want someone to get peeved and flag the mish. I suppose I could swap things around and make generalized summaries of the posts. ("This is just a long list of derogatory slurs" or "This is a reeling post about how Positron was really born in Paraguay as 'Chinualomogo Ramirez Y Levi' and thusly is an illegal immigrant and...frankly you stop reading after the first sentence.") I'm not sure, it might drag the lightheartedness of the whole thing of course if I'm sticking in Strawmen Politicals.
Concern's dialogue text has him call the player a fascist at 25% health. This was a nod to Godwin's Law, as it's the last thing he says before you defeat him. I was going to make a flamer boss named Godwin, but I ran up against the spawn limit for the bosses.
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You might consider making the mission map a little smaller...
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Right now it's set on medium and random. I'll have to change this because 50% of the time the map is too short and all the objectives get jumbled up & 50% its just a freaking grind (like you mention here). It'll be put on the patching queue.
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"slimy, perverted creature unfit to walk the world beside to decent, loving people" doesn't quite scan. Maybe "slimy, perverted creature unfit to associate with decent people".
[/ QUOTE ]
You're probably right. I was trying to go with the slimy
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...can porn really be "blasphemous"? I suppose certain types could, but not generally, I'd think.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, you have naughty nuns and lustful priests in porn, which is technically blasphemous. But Betty's kinda going on a tear here. She is a literal Net Nanny.
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The Scrapyarder ambush is a little weird though? I guess they're mad at me stopping the live broadcast?
[/ QUOTE ]
That's the essential thrust (haha) of the ambush. I mean, all those big, sweaty men working day in & day out, in close proximitygetting dirty..taking their shirts off... no girls around...
*catches breath*
Um, yeah, so they need some prawn! Or else something horrible (-y sexy) might happen.
FYI, they were supposed to be Dockworkers - as an obscure reference to one of the fake PSAs you can hear on "The Cape" (a CoX player-run internet radio station based on Virtue). But there isn't a Dockworker group in the MA Creator - even in the game they are just reused Scrapyarders.
[ QUOTE ]
have a pizza?
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I was running out of ideas. What do you expect to get after cleaning up all that prawn? Hmm. Hand Sanitizer. And maybe some triple-strength antibiotics. And Brain Bleach, which was supposed to be one of the clickies, but was cut in the alpha stage of designing this level.
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I am not sure why any of them are here; they don't seem to be related to the Mapserver goal.
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Mission four pretty much is intended to break the Fourth Wall (or at least bend it a whole lot).
Originally the spot held by "Maybe Nemesis" (OR IS IT?) was held by that weird Dancing Bartender from your ally's ubiquitous video (not gonna spoil who that is). But since he was a custom critter, he wrecked the arc's file size up to 99.9%. Since he was a one-note joke, I dumped him, added a lot more humor content in the various missions. I put "Maybe Nemi" in so I could still point out you could save an Ally as an optional objective, and relate why there were Nictus in the Mapserver's level. Plus, you know, cheap shots at Nemesis Plots...I really don't think even he knows what he's doing.
Positron is there, 'cause plenty of the players complain that it's his job to fix problems like the mapserver errors, when it really isn't. The prawn are basically porn files on this supposed computer system. As I mentioned in my PM, several people wanted to see more Prawn (surprise, surprise :P) so I let them make the ED & Nictus/Tentacle Prawn jokes.
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This is a fun thing for a patrol to say, but I think "Yus" should be "Yes".
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"Yus!" is totally taken from real chat in the game.
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The Mapserver is actually quite a tough fight...
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I intended it to be tough, but on my tests it spawned as an EB every freaking time. I ran it on diff 1 & 3, with up to a trio and he always spawned as an EB (he was designed as a AV). He's supposed to have one ambush, but that might be bugged from the last patch update, so I'll check.
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...logically, shouldn't killing the Mapserver actually disconnect everyone from the Mapserver?
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Sure, and logically smacking your television set or your toaster should break it even worse than it was, but it always seems to help, doesn't it?
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Shouldn't it also give you a free pass to all Prawn sites?
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Well, this is Betty we're talking about. Prawn seems to be her berserk button. But I'm the author of this Arc! I say, the Key to the Internet must do this. Will amend!
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...how did the Nictus get "digitized" into the computer realm?
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Energy beings get energized?
"...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