I'll try yours if you'll try mine

Don't sell your own "Professionalism" short, Airhead. Aside from the first time you reviewed one of my arcs - the one where I laughed myself silly as you flayed me - you set a very similar example.

I'd like to put a request in your queue for a review of:

Astoria in D Minor, 41565
@The Cheshire Cat

I ran Celebrity Kidnapping ages ago but that doesn't really count so I'm giving the Flower Knight TF a go right now.

*edit* finished! Sent my feedback via in-game.

The Key and the Chain review
Arc ID: 193451
No keywords
Morality: Heroic
Level range: missions are 40-54, but the author description says 22+.
Warnings: AVs, EBs

Premise appears to be helping the Legacy Chain stop the Banished Pantheon from awakening some great evil. I played a 29 archery/dev blaster on difficulty 1. Contact is a Legacy Chain person.

Mission 1
Briefing: Good introduction of the contact, explanation of the Banished Pantheon and their motivations. The contact sends me to recover an artifact that the BP need to awaken a great evil. There's an extra space between "As yet" and the following comma.

I like the "Seize the Spirit Key before the cultists can" mission title. I almost think it should be a timed mission with a name like that.

The briefing says this is a Mu ruin beneath the Rogue Isles. The Oranbega map is full of Banished Pantheon; maybe it would make more sense to have CoT here, with BP invaders (battles or patrols)? (Not required - just an idea.)

Found the Legacy Chain agent that was sent here ahead of me; it's Virgil Tarikoss? Isn't he an evil villain? Although he maybe was once in the Legacy Chain, he doesn't seem like someone they would've sent to check this out. IIRC the Legacy Chain in the Cap SF even warn against him.

I get the "Tarikoss speaks" clue for rescuing him, which is nicely written; I like that it connects to Mr Bocor, another canon magical villain, who has apparently stolen the artifact.

Found the glowy and clicked it to get two clues: "The Key is gone!" which I think was from the glowy itself, and "More difficulties" which I think was the mission completion clue and gives a good explanation of what's going on so far, which I like.

Debriefing: A good debriefing, aside from the contact thanking me for rescuing Tarikoss (which still seems a little weird).

Mission 2
Briefing: A good briefing; the contact wants me to stop a BP ritual and rescue the sacrifice victims. He so strongly emphasizes the time urgency of stopping the ritual that I wonder if this should be a timed mission.

Second part of briefing: "you will need rescue the captives" should be "you will need to rescue the captives".

Nice mission entry popup, does a good job of establishing some atmosphere for the mission.

Rescued 4 hostages; all had identical appearance and dialog. This is okay, but if you have space, consider mixing them up a little for variety.

Initially I thought Adamastor might be too tough for a level 22+ arc. He spawned as an EB for me. Managed to defeat Adamastor through a combination of trip mines, arrows and griefing him onto the friendly ambush (which luckily spawned close by). So maybe he's fine. Fairly good looking Legacy Chain mobs; I want to say they're custom minions but can't tell for sure (if they ARE custom, they're a good match).

Debriefing: hits the high points, but seems a little short (only 2 lines of text). Perhaps mention what happens to the rescued hostages or reiterate that the BP ritual has been interrupted.

Mission 3
Briefing: Good introduction of Mr Bocor and explanation of the stakes. I like the reference to battles between the Legacy Chain and "his agents". Missing a space after "infiltrate the office," and before "you may wish".

Inside the mission: I think it's a little strange that CoT seem to be working for Mr Bocor in this mission; Bocor actually sends player villains against CoT on one of his missions. Maybe needs some explanation. I did run into a few Arachnos mobs too, not sure what they were doing here.

Rescued "Epiphany of Thought" from Arachnos, who became an ally. I thought his dialog:

[NPC] Epiphany of Thought: You realize a hero will come for me, don't you?

...was a little trite, your mileage may vary. (Perhaps he's just trying to be genre-savvy.) He did explain what Arachnos is doing here; apparently making some sort of deal with Bocor. Though this kind of makes the following line:

[NPC] Tarantula: What were you doing snooping around Arachnos property?

...not make as much sense, because isn't this Bocor's base? Or if it's actually Arachnos property, maybe it should use an Arachnos base map. Also, the ally's clue, "The Legacy Chain's agent", refers to him as "archmage of Thought" but the ally's name is Epiphany of Thought. (Admittedly, this is nitpicky stuff.)

I did really like these lines though:

[NPC] Arachnobot: Everyone says Bocor's so "genial," but, come on! The guy sucks out people's souls for fun!
[NPC] Tarantula: Yes, but he does it in a polite, cheerful manner.

Found and fought Bocor, who was represented by a pretty good looking custom mob with reasonable powers (necro/dark I think?). He was fairly tough for me, but I managed to beat him with some heavy inspiration use. His dialog and his clue end up telling me that

[NPC] Mr. Bocor: Really, Arrow Girl, you should be ashamed of yourself.
[NPC] Mr. Bocor: You've been had . . .

....revealing that Tarikoss basically lied about everything and had kept the artifact for himself. I think it is a little unfair to script the player into being fooled by Tarikoss, especially considering Tarikoss is recognizably a villain so should obviously be untrustworthy.

Debriefing: the contact seems incredulous at the idea that Tarikoss might not be a nice guy. (Still seems inconsistent with how Legacy Chain normally act towards Tarikoss.)

Mission 4
Briefing: So now I'm being sent after Tarikoss after all. It's explained that Tarikoss doesn't need a spirit vessel like Adamastor for his ritual, because he can just sacrifice more people to make up for it. Although this explanation helps some, this seems inconsistent with how the ritual was portrayed in mission 2. Mission 2 portrayed it as important for me to take down Adamastor, but if the ritual works as described in mission 4, why couldn't the BP have just sacrificed more people instead of messing with Adamastor?

Second part of briefing: Tarikoss's rituals apparently involves destroying obelisks, another difference from how the BP were using this ritual. Based on the plot so far, though, I think it would be more consistent if the two rituals (which I think are supposed to be the same ritual) were treated as identical? Or are they really different in some fundamental way?

Inside the mission: neat map choice. The map is full of Legacy Chain enemies; although the mission briefing describes these as "foolish and hot-headed mages", I find it hard to believe that so many Legacy Chain are willing to go along with the mass human sacrifice that Tarikoss apparently needs. They're supposed to be a hero group, after all. Perhaps Tarikoss should have his own villain group? Or at least make his minions members of "Rogue Legacy Chain" instead of "Legacy Chain" to distinguish them from the allies. I'd also suggest giving them more dialog to help explain why they're willing to go along with Tarikoss's fairly nihilistic plan; I saw a little of this while rescuing the loyalist mages, but I'd suggest adding more and/or making what they say more fanatical sounding. I think a key motivation of the rogue Legacy Chain is that they feel it's okay to do a little evil in order to stop a big evil (i.e., the ends justify the means) and the dialog should more strongly support this. (Tarikoss's dialog is pretty good in this respect.)

Mission objectives: "Resuce Loyalist of Thunder" should be "Rescue Loyalist of Thunder".

Found and rescued Mr Bocor, who becomes an ally this time because he thinks Tarikoss's plan will end up destroying the world. He spawned as an EB, with lots of pets, which seems pretty powerful for an ally.

Also rescued a lieutenant level (custom) Legacy Chain ally. This completed the "Resuce Loyalist of Thunder", though he was named Stratus of Thunder.

The guards of each Obelisk say:

[NPC] Cirrus of Thunder: By the power of the Key, open the door to the Sleeper!

...which struck me as a little peculiar, because there's just one key, yet there are four obelisks; not all of them could have the key.

I found and fought Virgil Tarikoss, who spawned as an EB; his holds scared me initially, but I managed to break free and beat him up with the help of the allies. I noticed he was stacking Smoke on me, also, which could be pretty rough for some players (I was fortunate to have Targeting Drone for +per).

Where were the hundreds of sacrifices that Tarikoss was supposed to have in order to perform the ritual? I wonder if maybe this mission should be on a "city" map with some civilian hostages representing the hundreds of sacrifices.

Perhaps there should be a glowy or a clue for the Key that is recovered from this mission?

Decent souvenir, but could use some paragraph breaks; currently it's something of a wall of text.

Overall
I liked the overall story, and especially how it connects to some of the canon NPCs and back story. The custom models for the Legacy Chain and Bocor were quite good looking. The premise of the BP wanting to resurrect Mot while the rogue Legacy Chain wanting to travel to Mot and attack him (despite the costs) was interesting.

However, I had a lot of trouble with how Tarikoss was presented as someone that I and the contact initially trust (my first reaction when I saw him in mission 1 was, "Hey, isn't this guy a villain?"), which made being scripted into be "tricked" by him in mission 3 rather hard to swallow. Despite liking the references to canon NPCs like Tarikoss and Bocor, I wonder if it might be better to use an invented Legacy Chain boss rather than Tarikoss, or somehow present the arc as occurring "before" Tarikoss's first betrayal of the Legacy Chain, in order to make it more plausible that the Legacy Chain and the player would fall for this trick. Or alternatively, have the player "see through" Tarikoss's lies much earlier on.

I felt the ritual using the Key was inconsistently portrayed between missions 2 and 4. The story does attempt to explain some of the differences away, but I think it would be more effective if the two missions were more parallel. I also think that having "hundreds of sacrifices" be an adequate substitute for summoning Adamastor raises the question of why the BP didn't do that in the first place. Perhaps some other big undead could be present as a focus for the ritual in mission 4 instead of Adamastor? I'm tempted to suggest someone like Numina or Ghost Widow; or if they're too powerful for the story, a lesser ghost like Kelly Nemmers. This might change your story too much; it's ultimately up to you. But I do think the ritual should be more consistently shown between the two missions.

There was a good amount of stuff to do in each mission, keeping the gameplay interesting. I thought this arc was pretty good overall. I gave it 4 stars.

---

My queue is currently:

@cruise - A Falling Angel 133390
@Bayani - 230100
@Dalghryn - Consequences of War Pt2 #241496
@Tahlana - The Fracturing of Time 171031
@EraserDog - Hooray for Hamster Hell 246464
PoptartsNinja - Wretch 'Trike Force 249890
@Johnny Courageous - Dr Sigler and the Chronojumper 131158
@Venture - Splintered Shields 253991
Zamuel - Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue 163967 (re-review)
EvaDestruction - Freaks, Geeks and Men in Black #161629
twelfth - Inhuman Resources - At Work with IE #298132
@Gypsy Rose - In Pursuit of Liberty 221702 (re-review)
@The Cheshire Cat - Astoria in D Minor #41565

I wouldn't have asked for your opinion on my work if I didn't respect what you had to say. You articulate your thoughts well, go into a lot of detail, and (most importantly) you're fair. I have yet to see any odd hangups in your reviews that you can't seem to get around, which puts you heads and shoulders above some of the reviewers out there.

I really appreciated the info you gave me on my arc and I just wanted to add some more love to this thread. I know I haven't gotten around to doing any edits yet, but soon. Soon.

Arc ID: 318138

For levels: 20-50
Very Long

Halloween: The Return of the Nightmare Lord

3 Mission AE TF

I built this arc just because of coming events. While the AE HUD says very long, it doesn't seem that way in testing.

Mission 1 (Strange Phenomena): Kill All, boss, collect item.
Mission 2 (Protect the Bones): collect item, defend item, boss.
Mission 3 (The Nightmare Lord Returns): 3 Bosses, 1 AV.

I'm working through other ae missions listed here. Hope to share some good critique with the rest of you. One problem I'm having is that I can't test spawn for an 8-man team. I'd really like to examine the arc in that situation first.

...but as it stands, the mission seems balanced.

Thanks for the thoughtful and thorough review. I see my tags (canon-related and magic) still aren't sticking for some reason. Anyone else had similar problems with republishing?

I found some of your suggestions/thoughts about mission 3 particularly helpful; that one's been frustrating me for the same reasons.

I found it interesting that you seemed to be all right with Adamastor. I've never had problems with him, either, even on low-20's characters, and no one's ever complained about him, so I guess he's all right, even with that lazy ambush that never quite seems to make it there to help you.

And yes, the Legacies of Thought and Thunder are custom, with outfits based on existing Legacy Chain. Since you were 29, you might've seen some Legacy of Earth interspersed with them; the Legacy Chain faction I made includes the existing groups, plus the two I added to fill them out up to 50.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PoliceWoman The Key and the Chain review . . . somehow present the arc as occurring "before" Tarikoss's first betrayal of the Legacy Chain, in order to make it more plausible that the Legacy Chain and the player would fall for this trick.

To my surprise, you're the first person who's mentioned the problem of "Isn't Tarikoss a villain?" My thought as I was writing the arc was that yes, it takes place before his betrayal of the Legacy Chain, which is why Aurelius is so surpised by what happens. (In fact, I meant to imply, for those who follow the lore closely, that it IS that betrayal.) On the other hand, I think I mentioned in one of Bocor's clues something about Tarikoss and a demon. I believe I included that just to be on the safe side, in case I'd misread the background on Tarikoss.

Any suggestions on how to demonstrate the timing without making things obvious or alluding to events that haven't happened yet?

Having played your Axis arc and thoroughly enjoying it, I decided now that I felt that my own Arc was ready for more criticism I decided to try out your Papers and Paychecks arc, which I've been eying for some time.

I played the arc with Webmaster Surge, my level 43 Crab Spider.


Overall, I was going to give this arc a solid 4 out of 5, until I got to the last mission and was presented with a specific choice. Having made my decision and being pleased with the results, (And the fact that this was the first of 14 arcs I've played that actually had a choice in it) I decided to give this 5 stars.

What I really liked:

1. Its a breath of fresh comedic air to be a temporary employee of one of the villain groups of the game, and you did a wonderful job presenting just how frustrated the Crey Employees must feel when they are being attacked on all sides during the period they clock in each day until eventually heading home.

2. Jenny the ____ was a really nice touch, and the fact that she showed up in every mission kept me looking for her in the 3-5th just to see where she would pop up. Her dialog was well written, seeing as how I lost track of her a couple times and got to listen to her thoughts on that.

3. I absolutely love it when people place a "team" of heroes in villainous missions to let us try to take on multiple characters at once. Thanks to the limits of the system, its not easy to place four to five unique individuals in the same spawn, but yours worked out just fine, and it was a treat to hold my own against all five.

4. Sometimes it takes my brain a little more to get some jokes, but I did catch most of what was given, with the crates in the first mission, to the photocopier in the second. And with the souvenir being a nod to part of the story itself I found myself commenting aloud that this was definitely a well thought out story.

5. The choice. I'd love to see arcs with more of these. I won't go into detail to spoil it, but I was impressed that such a choice was presented to the player.

As for the little things, English is not my major, so I couldn't really spot out any sort of spelling problems for you, but the story and the message was able to flow perfectly, and I didn't feel confused or see any holes in the plot at any point in time.

So altogether I give 'Papers and Paychecks' 5 stars. And I'll be happy to recommend it to a couple of my fellows who like to run story-driven arcs.


The arc I have in return for you to run is:

A Surprise fit for a Baron
ID: 318352

Its a level 32-50 Heroic arc. Four missions, and I've made several changes to it to improve the soloing experience as well as fill in a couple plot holes that other reviewers have come across. I hope you like it when you get around to it.

A Falling Angel review
Arc ID: 133390
Keywords: Complex Mechanics, Magic, Drama
Morality: Villainous
Level range: 40-54; also tagged [HLMA]
Warnings: AVs, extreme EBs, custom power selections.

The arc description is only 'Sometimes the hardest question is, "Who Am I?" ' (followed by some of the old style [XXMA] tags) which says almost nothing about the premise of the story arc. Consider adding additional text to the arc description; as it currently stands, there's not a lot to hook a player who runs across this arc into trying it.

I played a 50 SS/will brute with a moderate amount of IO bonuses. The contact is a custom female character in a trenchcoat with glowing violet eyes.

Mission 1
Briefing: Title should perhaps be in larger font or bold faced, to stand out.

The contact explains she's a vampire and by an accident of birth became a hero (which makes it somewhat odd that she would be recruiting villains for work). She affects a strong accent that I think is meant to be southern US, but she also says she was born overseas, which would seem inconsistent. Despite the accent, I wonder if "wandering" should be "wondering" here. She wants me to break into an Arachnos base and steal a list of base locations.

Second part of briefing: she clarifies she really only cares about the location of a Mu mystic base, but doesn't really explain why. Oh well, the money's good, right?

Mission objectives: although the title of the mission is "Find Base Locations", oddly, I don't have an objective that seems to match with that. Instead I have "Interrogate Researchers"; not quite sure why, since researchers haven't been mentioned in the story yet. (I guess we're meant to assume they know something.)

Found and rescued a Mu Researcher, who turned into a combat ally that I had to lead to the door; it was a bit odd to see him attacking the other Mu with me. I wonder if he should be noncombat? Leading him to the door, he promptly betrayed and spawned a bunch of new mobs (with nice dialog) and a new objective of "Defeat Security".

It wasn't quite clear how to defeat security, so I ended up backtracking back into the mission. Fairly deep in the mission I eventually found "Head of Security", who I defeated; I rather liked his lines when he got low on life:

[NPC] Head of Security: I am surrounded by incompetents. Do I have to do everything myself?
[NPC] Head of Security: I hate you all.

This then triggered a nearby glowy and a "Find information yourself" objective. Got the "Arachnos Research Locations" clue from this and completed the mission. The clue merely says "This is the information you were hired to find" - I think it would be better for player immersion if it gave some details (even if made up) about the various Arachnos bases, perhaps particularly mentioning the location of the Mu base the contact was interested in.

The sequence of objectives was actually pretty neat; though there was a fair bit of doubling back (needing to find the Mu, then lead him to the door, then go back in deep to find the Security Chief). It helped that the map was one of the smaller ones, though.

Debriefing: a little on the short side but I like that she gives you a suitcase full of cash for doing the job.

Mission 2
Briefing: The accent is growing on me, it helps give the contact a distinct "voice". Some significant phrases are in color; though it's not clear why some are in blue and some in green.

I like the "accept" message and her reply to it. Fun.

Inside the mission, the first mobs I run into are Ebon Angel and some Arachnos guards. Their dialog is fun, but they both mention "zombies", which was rather puzzling until I got further into the mission and found some Banished Pantheon guarding a Mu hostage.

Ebon Angel became an Elite Boss ally, which is a bit overpowered against the generic BP zombies we're fighting.


Mega: I hate these Hare Krishnas.
Ebon Angel: Wait, sugah! Let's ask him if he knows something about my origin story!
Mega: Oops, sorry. I think I broke this one.


The Mu hostage had some good dialog; one of the BP said:

[NPC] Rotting Chamber: You cannot be allowed to understand your powers, Ebon Angel..

which isn't a bad line, except it seems a bit out of place for a zombie to say something so lucid. Also, there's an extra period at the end of that line.

Found and rescued Arachnos Security Patrol Member, who gave me a clue called The "Key". In this clue, "It seem the Banished Pantheon" should be "It seems the Banished Pantheon".

I liked the Mu Librarian's lines, too:

[NPC] Rotting Chamber: Your knowledge is a threat.
[NPC] Mu Librarian: If I act dumb, does that help?

Freeing the librarian spawned an objective to protect some research, which I found in the last room where there were some books as a defendable object, along with the Raid Leader. There were also some more talkative zombies who hinted at some dark destiny that Ebon Angel is fated to fulfill.

Protecting the books and defeating the Raid Leader completed the mission, though I never did find the "key"; though the Raid Leader did monologue that the "key is already in the lock". This seems like a plot point that might be important, since the key was mentioned as significant earlier; perhaps there should be a clue to the effect of "The Raid Leader said they already had the key and were about to use it" in case the player misses the dialog.

I did get an "Unbanished Pantheon" clue (which maybe is what the key is being used for, but doesn't explicitly mention the key) and "An Ancient Scroll" which describes a ritual for dimensional travel. In the "Unbanished Pantheon" clue, "interferring" should be "interfering".

Debriefing: a little on the short side. The contact says the BP are trying to start "Armegeddon" (should be "Armageddon"); is this actually definitely stated anywhere? The clues just say they're trying to "break free". Maybe have the contact explain just how this leads to Armageddon? (I'm guessing they'd be trying to release some cosmic horror into the world?)

Mission 3
Briefing: The contact says "the Mu bigshot" is going to be used by the BP as part of their ritual. Although "The Mu Leader" clue does say the BP were after the chief Mu Researcher, the last mission didn't make it clear that the Mu Leader was actually successfully captured by the BP. (The Raid Leader's dialog hints at this, but I think it should be made more clear.)

The contact says she doesn't care about the Mu leader but does want to "chat" with the BP (which I guess would be to defeat some of them) about her personal issues, but the mission title is "Prevent Portal Opening", which differs from what the contact asked. Maybe she should mention that we want to prevent the portal opening because, well, you know. Armageddon.

Inside the mission, I immediately link up with Ebon Angel, who wants me to beat up one of her supergroup "friends". This seems rather unheroic of her, but she's been established as not being particularly heroic as heroes go (her SG label is even "Gray Area"), so maybe is okay.

Rescued "Captured Mu Mystic". In his description, "This the Mu leader who was kidnapped" should be "This is the Mu leader who was kidnapped". Puzzlingly, upon rescuing him I get a clue that says he wasn't needed for this ritual at all. Hmmmm! Danger sense is tingling. Maybe they really want to sacrifice Ebon Angel?

Found my contact's SG-mate, Harlequinne, who Ebon Angel happily helps me defeat. Harlequinne was just a boss, while Ebon Angel was an EB, which didn't seem a very fair fight, especially with me helping. Wondering if Ebon Angel should be downgraded to a boss.


Mega: Good old rock. Nothing beats rock.


Defeating Harlequinne caused the "Prevent Portal Opening" objective to spawn; we knew about the portal being here even before fighting Harlequinne, though, so it's not really clear to me why these two objectives would be linked.

I promptly found Adamastor (my lucky week for encountering him!); he spawned as an EB and had a good monologue about Ebon Angel's dark destiny. One thing I particularly noticed was that he was a bit too tall for the office we're in. Thinking about it, an office building is a weird place for the Banished Pantheon to conduct this ritual; consider choosing a more moody setting, like a graveyard or a cave?


Mega: Watch me 1-shot this EB with a KO Blow to the groin!
Ebon Angel: Umm... undead don't have vital areas, you know that, right?
Mega: Dammit!


Adamastor says stuff like:

[NPC] Adamastor: We knew you would follow us, for we have watched you a long time, Ebon Angel.

I am guessing maybe Ebon Angel is an EB so she can't easily be killed, because she's supposed to be present for dialog like this; but, the player could actually outdistance her and leave her behind, which would cause this dialog to make rather less sense. You might consider rephrasing this so that the mob is talking to the player (who will definitely be there), instead of to Ebon Angel (who might not be there).

Defeating Adamastor caused the mission to complete, so apparently prevents the portal from opening. But it's not clear to me why this would prevent the portal from opening; it didn't seem like Adamastor was actually trying to open a portal. Perhaps needs some explanation, or a separate goal for destroying a portal or defeating a boss shaman that is doing the ritual to open a portal.

Mission exit popup: Oooh, it appears I didn't actually stop the portal from opening, as one is described as opening as I exit. This needs to be made clearer during the actual mission.

I looked back in my clue journal at this point and "The Secret Revealed" indicates the BP were after Ebon Angel all along (which did seem to have some foreshadowing). The phrase "Everything you've done so far has been working towards what they wanted" kind of rubs me wrong, though; it suggests the BP tricked the player into doing this, but truthfully it didn't seem like the BP were actually manipulating me into doing this. It was more like Ebon Angel's curiosity about her own origin drew her into this trap. You might consider rephrasing the clue along those lines or something similar.

Debriefing: it's to the point and kind of works, but a two word debriefing feels much too short to me. Perhaps add some "out of character" text saying something like, As the portal opens and the vortex swallows up Ebon Angel, she says with a startled expression: "Um. Oops?"

Mission 4
Briefing: "Save the World" is a rather weird caption for a villainous mission, but I guess it beats the alternative.

I actually thought Ebon Angel fell into the portal or something, but maybe I misunderstood the exit message in the last mission, as she is giving a briefing here.

She seems happy to have figured out how her powers work, but as an afterthought reminds you how to stop Armageddon by using the ritual from the scroll we found earlier. Though, reviewing my clue journal, I see that "An Ancient Scroll" actually tells how to open a portal, not how to close one. Seems a possible continuity error.

Second part of briefing: I think it's rather funny how little she cares about the Banished Pantheon problem she's created. Wow, she's self-involved! It fits her characterization so far, though.

Mission title: "Close Portal" should perhaps be "Close the Portal".

Inside the mission: it's a huge algae-covered office. I have the objective of 4 rituals to stop.

I eventually figure out that the rituals are the ones with the Spirit masks, partly because they have some dialog; the Spirit masks can't actually do a "magic" looking animation, though, so it is a little hard to tell that they're really the rituals. I wonder if 4 defendable objects might be more suggestive of rituals?

The map is pretty big and it takes me awhile to find and stop all 4 rituals; once I do it, though, the mission is immediately over. This was a little anticlimactic compared to the earlier missions; compare to mission 1, which has a complex sequence of triggered objectives; or mission 3, which has linked objectives, a special boss and an EB.

Debriefing: Ebon Angel seems mildly enthused about the fact that I've saved the world, and she promises to owe me a favor sometime in the future. Not bad, but not super-exciting either. (Maybe another suitcase of money would help. ) "ins't" should be "isn't" here, and there should be a period after Ebon Angel grins at you

Also, despite the fact that we've foiled the current BP plot, now that it's known that Ebon Angel can be used to open portals to evil dimensions, won't she be an obvious target for future Banished Pantheon and maybe CoT plots? It may be worth mentioning how Ebon Angel plans to deal with that - maybe a throwaway line about how she'll be on her guard for that now, or some explanation for why it's a one-time-only sort of thing.

Overall
I liked the way Ebon Angel was characterized; she wasn't exactly likeable, but she definitely had personality! The way the linked objectives were used in the first three missions was pretty good and made those missions more interesting than normal (despite requiring a little backtracking). Although it was a little weird to have zombies with speaking lines, the dialog overall was pretty good.

Although I found the first three missions pretty strong, I thought the final mission (which had much less content, spread over a bigger map) was a bit underwhelming by comparison. The focus was clearly on Ebon Angel's back story (I think this justifiably could use the "origin story" keyword), and the final mission ended up feeling like something of an afterthought. I'd recommend adding some more material to make it more of a "grand finale", or else possibly cutting mission 4 and having mission 3 (which is much more dramatic) be the finale (with minor changes so you don't destroy the world as a side effect).

I felt having Ebon Angel be an EB ally was a bit overpowering against the opposition we faced; though possibly your intent is to make sure she stays alive to "fulfill her destiny". I also found it a little hard to believe Ebon Angel is a hero with how casually amoral she is about having you beat up her SG-mate and how indifferent she is to the danger caused by her personal issues; but there's a lot of groundwork laid for this in her description and early dialog, so I think this actually works.


Anyway, with all that in mind, I thought this was an interesting story (despite it really being focused on Ebon Angel and not on the player) with a lot of good elements. I gave it 4 stars.


---

My queue is currently:

@Bayani - Pagkagising ng Kaluluwa 230100
@Dalghryn - Consequences of War Pt2 #241496
@Tahlana - The Fracturing of Time 171031
@EraserDog - Hooray for Hamster Hell 246464
PoptartsNinja - Wretch 'Trike Force 249890
@Johnny Courageous - Dr Sigler and the Chronojumper 131158
@Venture - Splintered Shields 253991
Zamuel - Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue 163967 (re-review)
EvaDestruction - Freaks, Geeks and Men in Black #161629
twelfth - Inhuman Resources - At Work with IE #298132
@Gypsy Rose - In Pursuit of Liberty 221702 (re-review)
@The Cheshire Cat - Astoria in D Minor #41565
@Baron von Doffen - A Surprise Fit for a Baron #318352

Pagkagising ng Kaluluwa ("Awakening of the Soul") review
Arc ID: 230100
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Custom Characters, Origin Story
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 40-54
Warnings: Custom power selections

The premise is to "Challenge the Filipino martial arts masters of the Limang Paaralan". I'm not really sure what Limang Paaralan is, but this sounded like a job for a 50 MA/SR scrapper on difficulty 4.

The contact is a custom character in a business suit.

Mission 1
Briefing: The caption for the briefings should perhaps be in larger font, bold, or a different color, to stand out a little more from the rest of the briefing.

The contact introduces himself as an instructor for Limang Paaralan, which turns out to be a martial arts school in the Philippines. The briefing does a good job of explaining the situation and what the various Tagalog terms mean. He offers to let me take the "Pagkagising ng Kaluluwa", which is the martial arts academy's most difficult test. As a martial arts scrapper, of course I'll try it!

Second part of briefing: the contact explains it's just a simulation programmed into Architect Entertainment, and it reproduces a particular test taken while some rebel martial artists were trying to take over the martial arts academy. Hmmm. Seems a little different than what I signed up for, but we'll see where it goes.

Inside the mission are a large number of good looking custom martial artists with descriptions that are both good and fairly educational (I now know a lot more about Filipino martial arts). I have a lot of glowies to click as part of "searching" the base, and need to defeat the leader of the rebel martial artists.

It's awfully quiet in here so far, though; you might consider inserting a patrol or two, or some static boss spawns or something, with some dialog to help establish the setting.

Searching the 3 crates that are in the objectives, the first one gave me the "Mysterious metal parts" clue, but the next two don't seem to add much more. The third one did trigger an ambush though.

I found and beat up Guro Kulog, who seemed a decent evil martial artist (albeit elec melee/storm based), and eventually found the whiteboard that revealed that someone was assembling the metal parts into some kind of weapon. This triggered a new objective, to defeat Kapitan Remalante.

Kapitan Remalante was in True Limang Paaralan, which seemed weird as he is clearly working with Dahon and Kulog, and all the other mobs are in Rogue Limang Paaralan. Remalante is also not mentioned in the briefing where the important members of the "splinter group" are described, which seems a little odd because he acts like he can give Kulog orders, and Kulog is important enough to get mentioned.

I like how defeating Remalante gives you a "keycard" that opens a secret door (in the clues, anyway). A neat way to bridge to the next mission.

Debriefing is pretty good and explains a lot of what's going on.

Mission 2
Briefing: Does a good job of explaining what happens next. The arc is using the idea that you are re-creating (in Architect Entertainment) historical events surrounding a power struggle between instructors at this martial arts school. This style initially struck me as strange, but I think the way it's presenting the story is working.

Inside the mission: Defeating Guro Dahon was my only objective, so I simply ran past all the other martial artists until I found Dahon. She had some decent dialog, then surprised me by whipping out pistols and shooting at me. I thought this was a quite weird thing for a martial arts master to do, but she had a pretty detailed description that helped explain it.


Olivia Q: You won't get away with this, Dahon!
Guro Dahon: Let me demonstrate the ancient Filipino martial art of ... GUN FU!


Defeating Dahon triggered an objective to rescue Guro Niyebe, one of the other martial arts masters Dahon had kidnapped. No problem! I eventually found Niyebe (and I liked how she spawned deeper in the map than Dahon, thus requiring no backtracking) and freed her.


Olivia Q: Is rescuing the martial arts instructors part of the standard test?
Guro Niyebe: Not exactly. It's more like extra credit.


Surprisingly, this caused a bunch of Arachnos to spawn; I think one ambush and a Fortunata Chapman somewhere that I now need to defeat, along with escorting Niyebe out of the mission.

I ran into and fought some bosses called "Espada" who were in the "True Limang Paaralan" yet were still aggro. Since they're working for the bad guys, I wonder if they should be in "Rogue Limang Paaralan"?

The Arachnos have some dialog that seems inconsistent; the Arachnos ambush after freeing Niyebe says:

[NPC] Fortunata: Chapman says the meeting's been compromised. We've been instructed to eliminate all targets.

...but when I get down to the ground floor again and find Chapman, she says:

[NPC] Fortunata Chapman: Where is Dahon? Tardiness for this exchange is inexcusable. All squads report in as soon as you find out what exactly is going on here.

If Chapman told the ambush to come in and eliminate everyone, it seems like she should know more about the situation than the above dialog (her "unaware" dialog) would imply.

I like the rest of Chapman's dialog. Though I think you have an extra space between "Eliminate them" and "immediately!"

This mission did a good job of handling triggered objectives; the placement of the new spawns were such that I didn't feel like I had to backtrack at all.

Debriefing: The contact does a good job of explaining why Arachnos showed up to help the rogue Limang Paaralan; apparently it was a part of Dahon's deal to sell special weapons to Arachnos (something that was foreshadowed earlier).

Mission 3
Briefing: It seems that I've foiled the plans of all the bad guys, but to actually pass the Pagkagising, I have to defeat the final martial arts master. This sounds about right for a martial arts test. I think there is an extra space after "defeat" and before "Guro Magsasaka" in the briefing, but I could be wrong.

Inside the mission: I promptly ran into Guro Dahon, who swears to avenge herself on me. This was a pretty nice grudge match and she had good lines. This time she used dual blades instead of pistols and thugs (so I think she was actually a different model) which was a nice touch. She did say the line:

[NPC] Guro Dahon: I will redeem myself in the eyes of Arachnos...starting with destroying the challenger for his meddling.

....which is awkward because my character is female. (I think this is her unaware message; you may need to make it gender neutral, as $hisher won't likely work if she hasn't seen me yet.)

Near the end of the mission I found Guro Magsasaka and fought him for the title. This was a pretty good fight and defeating him completed the mission and the arc.


Olivia Q: I'm ready for the final exam! I can even spell Pagkagising now! Bring it!


Debriefing: A pretty good debriefing where the contact talks a little more about the Pagkagising and the people who prove themselves by passing it.

Overall
This arc did a good job of creating a sense of immersion. Despite the enemies having disparate power sets (not just martial arts, but lots of guys with elemental powers handwaved as "chi" abilities or something), they still felt like part of the same group due to good costumes and background info. Triggered objectives were very effectively used, especially in mission 2. I liked the additional subplot of Dahon going rogue and selling weapons to Arachnos while trying to overthrow the "good" Guros. I also learned an immense amount of info about Filipino martial arts that I never knew before.

Problems I found were mostly nitpicky. Some mobs described as working for Dahon were in "True Limang Paaralan" faction and probably should have been "Rogue Limang Paaralan". Mission 3 felt a little lighter on content than the earlier two, but having Dahon try to get revenge and then having to battle ultimate master Magsasaka was pretty fun nevertheless.

I thought this was a well-written martial arts epic. I gave it 5 stars.

---

My queue is currently:

@Dalghryn - Consequences of War Pt2 #241496
@Tahlana - The Fracturing of Time 171031
@EraserDog - Hooray for Hamster Hell 246464
PoptartsNinja - Wretch 'Trike Force 249890
@Johnny Courageous - Dr Sigler and the Chronojumper 131158
@Venture - Splintered Shields 253991
Zamuel - Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue 163967 (re-review)
EvaDestruction - Freaks, Geeks and Men in Black #161629
twelfth - Inhuman Resources - At Work with IE #298132
@Gypsy Rose - In Pursuit of Liberty 221702 (re-review)
@The Cheshire Cat - Astoria in D Minor #41565
@Baron von Doffen - A Surprise Fit for a Baron #318352

I haven't finished your Teen Phalanx arc yet- just the first mission. I *love* the concept! It's a very creative idea. The character dialog was terrific for creating the appropriate "atmosphere" of the arc and I thoroughly enjoyed being a "teen Werpan" again. I'm looking forward to playing the rest!

If you can get to it, I'd appreciate any comments you may have on my first arc:

Trick or Treat?
Arc ID: 320225
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 1-54
Warnings: Custom power selections, custom enemies, including bosses and EB (in the final mission). Solo-able, but the EB in the last mission is a tough cookie to crack alone.

Arrite. Played Papers and Paychecks. Feedback'd. Loved it, even if the "good" ending is less satisfactory in comparison. Added it to the earlier love for Teen Phalanx Forever! and Warrior's Journey. Any hope of tossing #232308 - Sky Kings' Ransom onto the list? It's a shorter than not 20-24 heroside.

The Consequences of War - Part II review
Arc ID: 241496
Keywords: Challenging, Canon Related, Drama
Morality: Neutral
Level range: 40-54
Warnings: AVs, EBs, extreme bosses, extreme lieutenants

The continuation of "The Consequences of War - Part I" (arc 227331). The premise is working with a team of heroes to battle Rikti during the Rikti war. I played a heavily IO'd 50 AR/dev blaster on difficulty 1. The contact is a custom hero, the (new) leader of the SG that the story follows.

Mission 1
Briefing: Does a good job of describing the situation without relying too much on the player having done the previous arc (though I do like the "*As narrated in Part I" footnote, which feels very comic booky). The contact believes someone in Vanguard is feeding defense information to the Rikti and sends me to stop this person.

Inside the mission: not sure if it was chance or intentional placement, but a Rikti Communications Officer being the first thing I ran into was quite fitting for the story; both confirming the contact's suspicions of a Vanguard traitor and fitting the idea that they're transmitting to the Rikti.

Found the Vanguard traitor, who spawned as an EB for me. His description says he's "lucky you're on the heroes' side", but the arc is flagged neutral, so potentially I could be playing a villain.

Fighting the Vanguard traitor, he seemed to be energy blast/force fields and he ran away at low life. I was mostly winning against him, as I'm highly accurate and have web grenade and caltrops to slow down his escape; but then he Detention Fielded me (he did this 3 times over the course of our combat) and ran away while I was "Only Affecting Self", causing me to fail the mission. This was pretty annoying because there's really not much you can do about Detention Field (other than bring more players); you might consider cutting that from his powersets unless it's your intention that he should be able to escape this way.


Police Woman: Hey! What's this bubble thing! That's cheating!
Vanguard Traitor: Feets don't fail me now!!


Fail debriefing: The contact says he sent some Vanguard Rangers that he knows "personally" to intercept the traitor's escape. This seems dangerous considering he already knows at least some of Vanguard has been compromised.

Mission 2
Briefing: The contact says that Vanguard has confirmed the information I "got from the traitor", but since I didn't actually defeat the traitor, this doesn't quite make sense. (Possibly this should be rephrased, or the previous mission could be adjusted so the traitor doesn't run away.) He wants me to go to an abandoned circus to destroy some Rikti devices.

Inside the mission: it's a pretty big outdoor map and as a result I end up stealthing around most of it looking for the devices and the heroic allies.

I destroyed a couple jammers, then found and freed Captain Superior, who monologued a bit about trouble at the hospital (also giving me a clue to that effect, which was a nice touch). Based on his dialog, he should run off to reinforce the hospital, but he just stands there after freed (I believe this is a vagary of how hostage rescues work on outdoor maps).

Found and rescued Billy Bad Boy, who says:

[NPC] Billy Bad Boy: Police Woman, those are some awesome moves, dude. Let's go put some smackdown on the rest of 'em!

...and starts following me, but he also gives the "Billy's Invitation" clue, which says "When we're done helpin' the Capster at the hospital, you and me gotta hang. Gonna split now, though." Looks inconsistent; is he meant to help in this mission (making the clue wrong) or run off to help at the hospital (making the dialog wrong)?

I destroyed 3 jammers and searched the whole (fairly large) map twice and couldn't find the 4th. Not sure if I just missed it, or what. They're pretty big, though; I wonder if one somehow spawned inside a building or something. I ended up resetting the mission to try again.

On my second try at this mission the 4 jammers were much easier to find and I got them all.

Debriefing: Not too bad, but seems a little odd that Captain Superior would debrief us but wouldn't mention what happened with the situation at the hospital that he ran off to take care of during the mission.

Mission 3
Briefing: OK, now Captain Superior starts talking about the hospital battle (though I think he should at least mention this in passing during mission 2's debriefing). The briefing is pretty nicely written; though, I kind of think Captain Superior (who "bailed out" of mission 2 early) should've accomplished something in the time he gained by heading to the hospital before I did? Or perhaps it's the intent that Captain Superior gathered the info in mission 3's briefing in that time. This is maybe nitpicky.

The contact mentions time urgency in the briefing three times ("1000 Rikti minutes away" "Time is too precious" and "quicker you can evacuate, the better"); but the mission isn't a timed mission. Maybe it should be.

Mission entry popup: calls this a "MASH" unit, but I believe this is inappropriate, since the hospital is a permanent building. (M is for "mobile" in MASH.) (Very nitpicky)

Mission objectives: "Find Nurse Turner-Hayes" is among the objectives, but Turner-Hayes has not been mentioned in the story yet, so I'm not sure who this is or why she needs to be found. Also I find it curious that there's no objective like "X patients to evacuate" considering the mission is called "Evacuate the Lower Floors of the Hospital" -- unless "2 Heroes to Find" and "Vanguard soldier" are the objectives meant to represent this. Even if so, a phrase like "X patients to evacuate" might be a little more evocative of an evacuation mission.

Inside the mission: Found a Vanguard Soldier who says:

[NPC] Vanguard Soldier: You may kill me, but I'll take half of you with me first!

But he is in the "surrender" animation (kneeling, hands laced on back of head), which doesn't fit with his bold statement. Should have a "fighting" animation (or else a different line).

Upon inspection, the "Vanguard Soldier" is actually a repainted Longbow (in purple and white) and not in a proper Vanguard uniform at all. Maybe you should be using actual Vanguard models or costume pieces? Their background info does explain that they aren't equipped like modern-day Vanguard, which sort of makes sense, I guess.

Although the Vanguard soldier says stuff like:

[NPC] Vanguard Soldier: If you'll cover me, we can take these shellheads!
[NPC] Vanguard Soldier: I'm glad you got here, Police Woman. The rest of my squad's upstairs, and they need help fast!

...when a Rikti patrol attacked me, he didn't seem to help at all, even if the Rikti got really close to him. His dialog seems to suggest he should help fight Rikti (but he doesn't currently), but the mission objective of "Get the Vanguard soldier to safety" seems to suggest I should just lead him out. This seems a bit inconsistent; you may want to clear up whether he's a combat ally or a hostage to escort out.

Later in the mission I found a battle between "Original Vanguard" and Rikti; I jumped in and helped the Vanguard guys win the battle, but being the remnants of a battle, they wouldn't follow me out like the Vanguard I found earlier. I'm not sure how to reconcile this with my mission to "Evacuate the Lower Floors"; I should be getting these guys out of the hospital, but I don't think there's a good way to convert a battle into something like that. Maybe these should be more Vanguard hostages held captive by Rikti, but both doing fighting animations and dialog (but not actually fighting). Though if you have a lot of these, maybe they should either become allies (who help rescue the rest of the hostages) or else just leave from where they get rescued (instead of requiring multiple hostages to be led to the door).

I also noticed in this mission, Rikti talk intelligibly, while in mission 2 they were still talking in pictoglyphs. This felt a little inconsistent until I noticed "The Rikti Decoder" clue, which apparently was issued to me at the beginning of the mission. Nice connection with arc 1 here also.

I found Energy Blastion and rescued him. Before I rescued him (I think as his "active" text), he said:

[NPC] Energy Blastion: ...Police Woman, good! If you can handle these, I want to go find Empathy real quick before I go help Cap.

This seems a rather unnatural thing to say while I'm in the process of rescuing him. I think this line should be split up between a "before I'm rescued" line and an "after rescue" line; something like:

<before rescue>
[NPC] Energy Blastion: ...Police Woman, good thing you're here!

<fight scene>

<after rescue>
[NPC] Energy Blastion: Thanks for the assist! I've got to get to Empathy! It sounded like they're in trouble up there!
<he runs away>

I rescued Commissioner G in a similar way. (Incidentally, his description, while going into great detail about the way he's dressed, doesn't seem to say much about his history or powers.) I can't help but notice both Energy Blastion and Commissioner G left at the same time as an ambush arrived; it strikes me as a little odd for these heroes to leave me in the middle of a fight like that. Consider not having an ambush triggered by their rescue? Maybe switch the ambush to a different objective.

I had missed Nurse Turner-Hayes on the first floor and ended up backtracking to rescue her and lead her out, which completed the mission.

I like the clues I got from Turner-Hayes (referring to Dr Lexis, who is "upstairs") and from Blastion (referring to Empathy, also "upstairs") which hint at things in the next mission. Commissioner G's "A Quick Breather" clue struck me as a little off-key, though; he says

"Life's too damned short. I think it's time for me to go look up the ex. Maybe take her and my daughter on a cruise or something."

This makes it sound like Commissioner G is deserting (to go off and do these things instead of fight Rikti), which I don't think is your intent. Maybe change "I think it's time for me to go look up the ex" to "After the fighting's over, I think I'll go look up the ex".

Though, thinking about this mission, rescuing the various heroes did not really make it feel like I was evacuating the hospital; not nearly as much as rescuing the Nurse, anyway. You might consider adding some more doctors, nurses and/or patients to rescue (to make it feel more like evacuating the hospital).

You might also think about dropping Commissioner G from this mission; the heroes don't seem that strongly connected to this mission (you basically rescue them and they leave; nurse or doctor NPCs would've worked just as well), and while I think you want at least one SOLUS hero here to "carry the flag", Commissioner G seems a little less connected to the story than does Energy Blastion. Or alternatively, the SOLUS heroes could join up with you to help clear the Rikti out of the hospital. Up to you, though.

Debriefing: Though this is a little short, I like how descriptive it is and evocative of how Captain Superior is locked in combat somewhere.

Mission 4
Briefing: Really good briefing, nicely descriptive of what Captain Superior's forces are up to "outside". Basically I'm asked to evacuate the "upper floors" of the hospital now.

I kind of question why it is necessary to split "Evacuate the Hospital" into two separate missions though? Logically, I'd think evacuating the hospital could be a single mission on the hospital map.

I found Dro'Vidt early on; he spawned as an EB for me and I defeated him in a close battle where he called an ambush. I didn't get credit for completing the "Defeat Dro'Vidt" objective until I cleared another nearby spawn though; you might consider making him "Only Boss is required to complete objective". I also noticed that his model clipped pretty badly with the ceiling on this map; not sure you can easily fix that unless you change which model he uses, though.


Police Woman: You're going down, Dro'Vidt, for what you did to Lazon and the others!
Dro'Vidt: ZAAAAAAP!!


Dro'Vidt's dialog about "Eliminate heroes" and "Achieved" is a little ominous, as is his clue.

I found and rescued Empathy, who left as soon as I freed her. I thought her dialog and her clue seemed a bit inconsistent. She says the following:

[NPC] Empathy: I. Have. Had. Enough. If you want to die, be my guest!
[NPC] Advanced Drone: Assistance: Too late.
[NPC] Empathy: Police Woman, they deserve exactly what they gave our friends. Cut loose. I won't stop you.
[NPC] Empathy: If Cap's pulling us, it must be bad. Be careful, Police Woman. I'll see you down there.

...but her clue, "A Reassuring Smile", has her show me a picture and say "This is me, my husband, my son and Captain Superior at Disney World. Aren't they the three handsomest guys you've ever seen?" While each of these scenes is nice on its own, they are both very different in tone, and the fact that they're in such close proximity makes them feel like they don't fit together. I mean, she just said "Kill these scum!" then "Lookit our vacation pictures!" only seconds apart. I'd suggest changing her clue in mission 4 to more closely match the attitude she displays in her dialog; and maybe move the character-building "vacation pictures" clue to a different mission (a quieter one where the heroes have some time to talk about life rather than fight for their lives). This might require her to make an appearance in one of the earlier, calmer missions though.

Found and rescued Dr Sarah Lexis. Her description says something about "she became your contact by default" which is weird because my contact is Captain Superior. After rescuing her, she just stood in place (I kind of expected her to run away like the others). Her clue does say "Go ahead and get down there. I'll join you as soon as I take care of a couple of thing." (should be "things") but a Rikti ambush shows up right after I rescue her, so really she shouldn't stay in place.

Mission exit popup: says "Saving dozens of civilians and injured heroes is great" ... but the mission did not actually have me save any civilians. Perhaps it's meant to be implied; but I think it would feel more like saving dozens of civilians if you can rescue at least a couple civilian hostages.

Debriefing: mentions that "the rest of the heroes on their way to meet Statesman"; unless I missed it somewhere, I think this is the first time Statesman has been mentioned. Since this debriefing is purely the player's own introspection (Captain Superior is still out of contact), maybe this needs to be mentioned in an earlier briefing in order for the player to be able to know it.

The debriefing kind of ominously hints that the hospital building might have just fallen on the SOLUS heroes that were defending it.

Mission 5
Briefing: Well, Captain Superior is still gone, but apparently I decide on my own initiative to go and rescue the SOLUS heroes defending the hospital. Seems reasonable.

The briefing also says I need to "stop Commander Hro'Dath once and for all". I don't think Hro'Dath has been mentioned anywhere before this (unless I missed it); considering this mission is something my character decides to do on her own, it's not clear why I should know this name. He needs to be mentioned earlier (maybe one of Captain Superior's last radio transmissions could mention "OMG! It's Hro'Dath!" - well, paraphrased).

I like the mission title of "Find the SOLUS Heroes and Defeat the Rikti".

Hro'Dath is the first objective I find on the ruined Atlas map. I decide to take a crack at him with no allies to see what would happen. I actually managed to beat him (using 3 purple inspirations), but he ran quite a distance from his original spawn point; killing him didn't actually complete the "Defeat Hro'Dath" objective, I ended up having to go back to his spawn point and clearing the rest of his group (somehow I had managed to pull him away from a Rikti lieutenant he was with). You might want to make him "Only Boss required to complete objective".

Hro'Dath had some more ominous dialog about having destroyed the SOLUS collective. Hmm, thinking about this, I moved over to the City Hall where I found several glowies representing the dead bodies of the various SOLUS heroes. Wow, I guess there weren't any allies to find, after all.


Police Woman: Oh no, not Captain Superior! NOOOOOOOOOOO!


The various clues you get from each one are nicely written. I definitely like the connection between "Blastion's Request" and "Eric Moore's Wedding Band", as well as between "A Reassuring Smile" and "The Moore Family Photograph"; with each pair of clues being linked by an item the player sees during the story arc, I found these to be the most poignant.

In "The Final Moments of the SOLUS Collective" clue, "you move heroic remains to cover" sounds awkward, maybe rephrase to "you move the remains of the heroes to cover". This clue is well written and very sad.

Mission exit popup: "That was easy compared to finding the remains of your six friends." By my count there were only five? (Captain Superior, Billy Bad Boy, Energy Blastion, Empathy, Commissioner G.)

Debriefing: "last six heroes" should be "last five heroes". I'm guessing this is an editing mistake due to cutting a character (maybe Penthouse?) from the story. Good wrap-up of the story though, and epitaph for the SOLUS team.

Souvenir: "last six" should be "last five". "six SOLUS survivors" maybe should also be "five" (not sure if Penthouse got written out of arc 1 too).

Overall
I found the ending tragic and moving. I'm dismayed that destroying the SOLUS SG was the Rikti plan all along (so we were tricked into falling into their trap) but I think the arc had to end this way, so can't really fault it. The little personal touches in the clues were very nice. The writing in the briefings and debriefings was very strong.

Some things I had problems with: In the first mission it seemed way too easy for the traitor to get away; an EB with detention field is going to be able to escape most soloers.

Second mission felt a bit disconnected from the rest of the arc and overly long (though this may be because it's a big outdoor map and I had to complete it twice); the brightly lit circus/city map seemed rather at odds with the grim tone of the later missions. Maybe consider using a different "Ruins" map instead? Also, while destroying the jammers seems important at the time, it seems to have little connection with the plot of the rest of the arc (which is all about the hospital fight). This mission might be a candidate to either be cut, or replaced (maybe with a "downtime" mission where Empathy can logically show you her vacation photos and Commissioner G can talk about how he wants to patch things up with his ex).

Evacuating the hospital (missions 3 and 4) didn't really feel that much like actually evacuating a hospital. I think I'd be happier if there were more civilians to rescue (like Nurse Turner-Hayes and Dr. Lexis); as it is, I actually rescued more SOLUS characters than patients or medical staff, which didn't seem quite right. Also, the SOLUS heroes did not actually participate that much in the earlier missions; they seemed more like cameo appearances. I basically rescued them, then they took off (though most gave some nice clues for the trouble). I initially was thinking they should be written out (and replaced with civilian hostages) but since they are important in the final mission, maybe they should be given a bigger role in the earlier missions. Perhaps make some of them allies to help out, but have it mentioned in the debriefing that they go reinforce Captain Superior?

I gave this arc 4 stars; it was tempting to give more (I really liked the ending) but I did have some issues with earlier missions.

---

My queue is currently:

@Tahlana - The Fracturing of Time 171031
@EraserDog - Hooray for Hamster Hell 246464
PoptartsNinja - Wretch 'Trike Force 249890
@Johnny Courageous - Dr Sigler and the Chronojumper 131158
@Venture - Splintered Shields 253991
Zamuel - Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue 163967 (re-review)
EvaDestruction - Freaks, Geeks and Men in Black #161629
twelfth - Inhuman Resources - At Work with IE #298132
@Gypsy Rose - In Pursuit of Liberty 221702 (re-review)
@The Cheshire Cat - Astoria in D Minor #41565
@Baron von Doffen - A Surprise Fit for a Baron #318352
Gryfyn - Trick or Treat #320225
SkarmoryThePG - Sky Kings' Ransom #232308

Yes! Well... No! Well...

Yes... this is exactly why I've been looking forward to your review of this arc - extremely professionally presented and absolutely laden with very good insight on where there are weaknesses and how to shore them up. Just as your crit of Part 1 made that arc stronger (and I hope you get to re-run it sometime to see), this review will definitely make Part 2 better.

No... Another "4." Dang the luck! Of course, after reading this I certainly can't argue. I'm happy that the last mission redeemed the first issues enough to get it to a four. I was really afraid it'd be lower.

That said, here is the inevitable reply:

Quote:

The Consequences of War - Part II review Mission 1 ...Found the Vanguard traitor, who spawned as an EB for me. His description says he's "lucky you're on the heroes' side", but the arc is flagged neutral, so potentially I could be playing a villain.

The first of many really good spots. You're right, I ran through a series of bigger edits at one time and simply missed some of the obvious errors. Changing the alignment from "Heroic" to "Neutral" was one of them. I'll fix this ASAP.

Quote:

Fighting the Vanguard traitor... you might consider cutting that from his powersets unless it's your intention that he should be able to escape this way.

Okay, I give. This is the complaint that broke the camel's back. In an attempt to vary some of the types of technical aspects, I really wanted him to have the ability to run, but it's either replace him with a different revamped Longbow=Original Vanguard E/B (and I'm not certain there is one, though I did "buy" some other models recently), or dump the running. Consider him hobbled, at least for now.

Quote:

Fail debriefing: The contact says he sent some Vanguard Rangers that he knows "personally" to intercept the traitor's escape. This seems dangerous considering he already knows at least some of Vanguard has been compromised.

Since the point will be moot once I make the aforementioned correction, no harm, no foul. I will make a change to this dialogue should I find a different model and choose to re-instate the running.

Quote:

Mission 2 Briefing: The contact says that Vanguard has confirmed the information I "got from the traitor", but since I didn't actually defeat the traitor, this doesn't quite make sense. (Possibly this should be rephrased, or the previous mission could be adjusted so the traitor doesn't run away.) He wants me to go to an abandoned circus to destroy some Rikti devices.

Again, moot for now, but fixed if the runner returns.

Quote:

...found and freed Captain Superior, who monologued a bit about trouble at the hospital (also giving me a clue to that effect, which was a nice touch). Based on his dialog, he should run off to reinforce the hospital, but he just stands there after freed (I believe this is a vagary of how hostage rescues work on outdoor maps).

Yep, it's an MA problem. I reworded some of his dialogue in the first arc to account for this. I'll look at some constructive change here, too.

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Found and rescued Billy Bad Boy, who...starts following me, but he also gives the "Billy's Invitation" clue, which says "When we're done helpin' the Capster at the hospital, you and me gotta hang. Gonna split now, though." Looks inconsistent; is he meant to help in this mission (making the clue wrong) or run off to help at the hospital (making the dialog wrong)? Debriefing: Not too bad, but seems a little odd that Captain Superior would debrief us but wouldn't mention what happened with the situation at the hospital that he ran off to take care of during the mission.

I'll give these another look and try to clarify them better. As for the map, I've considered changing it, then unconsidered changing it. Jury's split 50/50 on it being great or sucktastic. For now, I'm leaving it pending further thought and input.

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Mission 3 Briefing: OK, now Captain Superior starts talking about the hospital battle (though I think he should at least mention this in passing during mission 2's debriefing). The briefing is pretty nicely written; though, I kind of think Captain Superior (who "bailed out" of mission 2 early) should've accomplished something in the time he gained by heading to the hospital before I did? Or perhaps it's the intent that Captain Superior gathered the info in mission 3's briefing in that time. This is maybe nitpicky.

I'll tweak it.

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The contact mentions time urgency in the briefing three times ("1000 Rikti minutes away" "Time is too precious" and "quicker you can evacuate, the better"); but the mission isn't a timed mission. Maybe it should be.

You're in the minority on this one... or rather we are. I was still inclined to just up the time from 45 minutes to an hour or so, but there was an MA glitch that auto-failed missions with rescues, so I just cut the timer completely. If that glitch has been fixed, I'll re-instate the timer.

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Mission entry popup: calls this a "MASH" unit, but I believe this is inappropriate, since the hospital is a permanent building. (M is for "mobile" in MASH.) (Very nitpicky)

Mobile, true, but mobile units did use existing buildings at times. I may look at a tweak here, just because it's you that brought it up.

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Mission objectives: "Find Nurse Turner-Hayes" is among the objectives, but Turner-Hayes has not been mentioned in the story yet, so I'm not sure who this is or why she needs to be found. Also I find it curious that there's no objective like "X patients to evacuate" considering the mission is called "Evacuate the Lower Floors of the Hospital" -- unless "2 Heroes to Find" and "Vanguard soldier" are the objectives meant to represent this. Even if so, a phrase like "X patients to evacuate" might be a little more evocative of an evacuation mission.

Agreed. This mission has seen on again, off again tweaks based on earlier criticism about escorts. I also ran out of memory. Because I eliminated Penthouse from both arcs (ggod catch later on, BTW) I now have the memory to add rescues (versus escorts), but I don't think the map will allow me to add them. I'll double check and tweak something to fix it one way or the other.

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Inside the mission: Found a Vanguard Soldier who says: [NPC] Vanguard Soldier: You may kill me, but I'll take half of you with me first! But he is in the "surrender" animation (kneeling, hands laced on back of head), which doesn't fit with his bold statement. Should have a "fighting" animation (or else a different line).

Fighting animation, coming right up!

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Upon inspection, the "Vanguard Soldier" is actually a repainted Longbow (in purple and white) and not in a proper Vanguard uniform at all. Maybe you should be using actual Vanguard models or costume pieces? Their background info does explain that they aren't equipped like modern-day Vanguard, which sort of makes sense, I guess.

This was a point specifically pointed out by one of your peers... Vanguard back then didn't have the tech they have now, because the tech came as a result of the ending of the war. Thus, I created the retro-Vanguard. Comments have been very positive about them, so I think I'll stick with 'em. You can't be 100% right, you know.

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Although the Vanguard soldier says stuff like: [NPC] Vanguard Soldier: If you'll cover me, we can take these shellheads! [NPC] Vanguard Soldier: I'm glad you got here, Police Woman. The rest of my squad's upstairs, and they need help fast! ...when a Rikti patrol attacked me, he didn't seem to help at all, even if the Rikti got really close to him. His dialog seems to suggest he should help fight Rikti (but he doesn't currently), but the mission objective of "Get the Vanguard soldier to safety" seems to suggest I should just lead him out. This seems a bit inconsistent; you may want to clear up whether he's a combat ally or a hostage to escort out.

I'd prefer he was an ally. Players, however, are very unforgiving of allies. tend to agree with you, but I'll have to think on it. Something will be tweaked, though.

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Later in the mission I found a battle between "Original Vanguard" and Rikti; I jumped in and helped the Vanguard guys win the battle, but being the remnants of a battle, they wouldn't follow me out like the Vanguard I found earlier. I'm not sure how to reconcile this with my mission to "Evacuate the Lower Floors"; I should be getting these guys out of the hospital, but I don't think there's a good way to convert a battle into something like that...

I'll tweak some dialogue. I need the battles to help re-inforce the intensity of the fight. Battles and patrols are critical to the ambiance.

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...found Energy Blastion and rescued him. Before I rescued him (I think as his "active" text), he said: [NPC] Energy Blastion: ...Police Woman, good! If you can handle these, I want to go find Empathy real quick before I go help Cap. This seems a rather unnatural thing to say while I'm in the process of rescuing him. I think this line should be split up between a "before I'm rescued" line and an "after rescue" line; something like: <before rescue> [NPC] Energy Blastion: ...Police Woman, good thing you're here! <fight scene> <after rescue> [NPC] Energy Blastion: Thanks for the assist! I've got to get to Empathy! It sounded like they're in trouble up there! <he runs away> I rescued Commissioner G in a similar way. (Incidentally, his description, while going into great detail about the way he's dressed, doesn't seem to say much about his history or powers.) I can't help but notice both Energy Blastion and Commissioner G left at the same time as an ambush arrived; it strikes me as a little odd for these heroes to leave me in the middle of a fight like that. Consider not having an ambush triggered by their rescue? Maybe switch the ambush to a different objective. Commissioner G's "A Quick Breather" clue struck me as a little off-key... makes it sound like Commissioner G is deserting (to go off and do these things instead of fight Rikti), which I don't think is your intent. Maybe change "I think it's time for me to go look up the ex" to "After the fighting's over, I think I'll go look up the ex".

Good points (again). Will do.

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Though, thinking about this mission, rescuing the various heroes did not really make it feel like I was evacuating the hospital; not nearly as much as rescuing the Nurse, anyway. You might consider adding some more doctors, nurses and/or patients to rescue (to make it feel more like evacuating the hospital).

I tend to agree, but this map has some MA limits that won't allow more evacs. I'll think on it some and see if I can come up with something.

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You might also think about dropping Commissioner G from this mission; the heroes don't seem that strongly connected to this mission (you basically rescue them and they leave; nurse or doctor NPCs would've worked just as well), and while I think you want at least one SOLUS hero here to "carry the flag", Commissioner G seems a little less connected to the story than does Energy Blastion. Or alternatively, the SOLUS heroes could join up with you to help clear the Rikti out of the hospital. Up to you, though.

If you ever get a chance to re-run the revised Part 1, you'll see why G's here. I may look at making him a little more solid in this arc, but overall... well, you'll weep for him, too.

Mission 4

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I kind of question why it is necessary to split "Evacuate the Hospital" into two separate missions though? Logically, I'd think evacuating the hospital could be a single mission on the hospital map.

Is this a rating point for you? I have it split into two missions in order to give the characters that eventually demonstrate the "Consequences of War" more time to insinuate themselves into an aorta or some other part of your heart so that the ending will have the required punch. It also helps to hammer home the intensity of the battle. Overall, it's played well.

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I didn't get credit for completing the "Defeat Dro'Vidt" objective until I cleared another nearby spawn though; you might consider making him "Only Boss is required to complete objective". I also noticed that his model clipped pretty badly with the ceiling on this map; not sure you can easily fix that unless you change which model he uses, though.

Consider him "Boss only." I've debated the clipping versus the story issue since creating this mission. There's not another Rikti EB I can use... For now, I think he'll stay.

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I found and rescued Empathy, who left as soon as I freed her. I thought her dialog and her clue seemed a bit inconsistent...but her clue, "A Reassuring Smile", has her show me a picture and say "This is me, my husband, my son and Captain Superior at Disney World. Aren't they the three handsomest guys you've ever seen?" While each of these scenes is nice on its own, they are both very different in tone, and the fact that they're in such close proximity makes them feel like they don't fit together. I mean, she just said "Kill these scum!" then "Lookit our vacation pictures!" only seconds apart. I'd suggest changing her clue in mission 4 to more closely match the attitude she displays in her dialog; and maybe move the character-building "vacation pictures" clue to a different mission... This might require her to make an appearance in one of the earlier, calmer missions though.

That's something I've been considering. Probably a good idea.

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Found and rescued Dr Sarah Lexis. Her description says something about "she became your contact by default" which is weird because my contact is Captain Superior. After rescuing her, she just stood in place (I kind of expected her to run away like the others). Her clue does say "Go ahead and get down there. I'll join you as soon as I take care of a couple of thing." (should be "things") but a Rikti ambush shows up right after I rescue her, so really she shouldn't stay in place.

She was originally an ally, but I made her a modified NPC in order to recoup some memory. I'll revisit her.

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Mission exit popup: says "Saving dozens of civilians and injured heroes is great" ... but the mission did not actually have me save any civilians... Debriefing: mentions that "the rest of the heroes on their way to meet Statesman"; unless I missed it somewhere, I think this is the first time Statesman has been mentioned...

Let the tweaking begin...

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Mission 5 Briefing: ...says I need to "stop Commander Hro'Dath once and for all". I don't think Hro'Dath has been mentioned anywhere before this (unless I missed it); considering this mission is something my character decides to do on her own, it's not clear why I should know this name. He needs to be mentioned earlier (maybe one of Captain Superior's last radio transmissions could mention "OMG! It's Hro'Dath!" - well, paraphrased).

You did, in the first arc... I thought I slipped him in somewhere, but I'll fix it if I didn't.

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Hro'Dath is the first objective I find on the ruined Atlas map... You might want to make him "Only Boss required to complete objective".

Will do. Though I've included defeat everyones in order to hammer home the whole war thing. I guess it's still accomplished without having to kill everything around the bosses, though.

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In "The Final Moments of the SOLUS Collective" clue, "you move heroic remains to cover" sounds awkward, maybe rephrase to "you move the remains of the heroes to cover".

Gotcha.

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Mission exit popup: "That was easy compared to finding the remains of your six friends..." "...last six heroes..." "...last six" should be "last five..." "...six SOLUS survivors" maybe should also be "five" (not sure if Penthouse got written out of arc 1 too).

Ouch, ouch, ouch... You're absolutely right about both Penthouse being removed and my bad editing. Thanks for the multi-catches.

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OverallSecond mission felt a bit disconnected from the rest of the arc and overly long... This mission might be a candidate to either be cut, or replaced...

It basically ties up the entire jammer thread that runs from the first arc through the first mission of the second arc. I see your points, however. I've done battle with this one in my head for awhile now, so... I'll ponder.

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Evacuating the hospital (missions 3 and 4) didn't really feel that much like actually evacuating a hospital. I think I'd be happier if there were more civilians to rescue (like Nurse Turner-Hayes and Dr. Lexis); as it is, I actually rescued more SOLUS characters than patients or medical staff, which didn't seem quite right.

As I said earlier, MA limitations are hampering me a bit here, but I tend to agree and I am going to look at it.

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Also, the SOLUS heroes did not actually participate that much in the earlier missions; they seemed more like cameo appearances... Perhaps make some of them allies to help out, but have it mentioned in the debriefing that they go reinforce Captain Superior?

I've had a real time trying to balance the complaints of "helping allies" with what I wanted the story to do. Your outlook is very similar to my own, and the arc was written more closely to your suggestions earlier on. I tweaked the allies back because of a few comments. This may be a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" editorial call. In which case, I'll probably do exactly as you suggest.

Thank you very, VERY much, PW. Once the changes are made I'll let you know. Maybe sometime in the future you can re-run them both together and see if I nailed them.

The Fracturing of Time review
Arc ID: 171031
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Non-Canon Story, Sci-Fi
Morality: Heroic
Level range: some 25-54, some 41-54
Warnings: custom power selections

The premise is to "save a doomed world" by repairing fractures in time. The description warns it is surreal and has philosophical elements. Sounds interesting! I played a 50 AR/dev blaster on difficulty 1.

The contact is a custom character that seems to be a featureless black figure surrounded by white fire.

Mission 1
Briefing: very nicely formatted briefing. The contact wants me to save the population of an alien world that is slated for destruction. The way the contact says "tomorrow it is..will be destroyed" is awkward, but seems intentionally so; wondering if that is foreshadowing of something.

Second part of briefing: some nice description that helps explain why the alien world uses an indoors map.

Objectives: "Defeat Worldslayer Krezyrax" is in my objectives list; this sounds cool, but Worldslayer Krezyrax wasn't mentioned prior to this; should maybe be "Defeat Raigaus leader" or else mention him by name in the briefing.

Found and rescued a Kyrdosi Scientist, which triggered an "Activate the Transcendence Device" objective. The Raigaus and the Kyrdosi are pretty good looking custom models with good descriptions.

Found and freed a Kyrdosi Champion, who seemed to be an ally who almost immediately was killed by Raigaus; the Kyrdosi Champion was only a minion, so seemed very squishy. (Maybe this is intentional, though, since they're described as dying to safeguard their species.)

Found "The Transcendence Device" glowy and clicked it, getting the "Transcendence" clue, which I think is beaming the Kyrdosi into energy forms. This is a neat clue; I wish it were possible to have more of a special effect after clicking the glowy, to represent what's happening. In the clue's text, "make the Kyrdosi became only thought and energy" should be "make the Kyrdosi become only thought and energy".


Police Woman fighting a Raigaus


I found and defeated Worldslayer Krezyrax. He has some nice evil archvillain dialog (though, he just spawned as a lieutenant for me - I think because I'm on low difficulty). His threat of:

[NPC] Worldslayer Krezyrax: Impossible! I will see your world BURN for this offense!

...seems like possible foreshadowing.

Debriefing: The contact relates that Kyrdos was destroyed, but the transcendence device somehow malfunctioned, so the Kyrdosi still need help. Seems neat.

Mission 2
Briefing: The contact says something has gone "Terribly, terribly wrong" but seems very vague about the details, saying "I cannot see what has happened to them", which makes me wonder, how does it know something happened to the Kyrdosi? I would guess that it can just sense or feel that something is wrong through some sort of telepathic or mystic ability; consider explaining how it knows. Anyway, it wants me to go to "the border between Time and the Void" to find out what happened to the alien race we were attempting to rescue.

Second part of briefing: refers to the contact as female ("You are considering asking her who she is") but the model used for the contact looks like a male figure to me; seems inconsistent. (It occurs to me at this point that it might be using pronoun substitution and this mysterious figure is actually a future version of my character, which would be neat.)

Inside the mission: I like the mission title of "Discover What Became of the Kyrdosi". It comes with objectives to confront 3 figures.

Echo of the Champion's description refers to "Blood Echoes". I saw some Blood Echo minions nearby, is the Echo of the Champion meant to be a special Blood Echo? It's not totally clear from his description. I ended up defeating the Champion to get "The Strength of the Kyrdosi" clue, which says that he blames me for his destruction.

A bit later I found some Soul Echoes. So Blood Echoes are a subtype of Void Echoes. Is Echo of the Champion actually a Blood Echo too, then? Or something else?

Wandering around I heard one of the mobs say:

[NPC] Blood Echo: Time is like a pretty picture.... I will cover it in blood now, that will be ...pretty.

...which I thought was a really cool line.

Found Echo of the Scientist, whose description refered to Soul Echoes; I'm guessing it's meant to be a special Soul Echo. Her lines were quite good. It seems the transcended Kyrdosi are badly messed up in some way... "fractured" as they put it.

Found some more roaming patrols with creepy (but good) dialog.

Finally found and defeated Echo of the Hero, who had some more good dialog. He gave me "The Leader of the Kyrdosi" clue; in the text of this clue, "threated to destroy your Universe" should be "threatened to destroy your Universe".

Mission 3
Briefing: The contact tells me the insane Kyrdosi are now trying to "burrow into Time" to destroy my universe. This sounds bad. But apparently I have a chance to stop them.

Second part of briefing: I'm now told the Kyrdosi are "lost" and cannot be saved, which seems sad, since the whole goal of this exercise was originally to save them from annihilation.

Inside the mission, I have 4 Fractures in Time to seal, and have to "find a way to stop the Echoes" which sounds like a neat goal.

I found a "Kyrdosi Echo of Action" ... I kind of wonder why this isn't simply "Echo of Action" since, really, all of the echoes are Kyrdosi. The Echo of Action was very nearly the first thing I found and fought in the mission; it seems to be the "boss" of the map, though (it satisfies the "Find a way" objective), so I wonder if it would be more logical for it to be in the "back" of the mission. He gives me the "Kyrdosi Vengeance" clue, which says I've slowed their progress but there's still more out there; this being the case, I'm not sure if this should really count as "Find a way to stop the Echoes". Except in the general sense of shooting stuff dead tends to stop them.

I found a Fracture (a destroyable object) and destroyed it, triggering an ambush. I like their line:

[NPC] Blood Echo: Police Woman is sealing the fractures! We will unmake her!

....using words like "unmake" instead of "kill" nicely contributes to the (rather weird) atmosphere of this story arc.


Police Woman seals a (small) fracture


I find it a little odd that you "seal" fractures by breaking them - normally breaking something will open it, not close it. (This is somewhat nitpicky.) You could perhaps make the fractures some sort of clicky object, but admittedly the dark crystal is a good looking graphic for the fractures; maybe the visual is more important than the logic.

Breaking all 4 Fractures caused the mission to end. Universe saved? I hope.

Mission exit popup: "You have sealed time but you fear your efforts will be for naught." Why do I feel this way? I'm guessing it's because of the Kyrdosi Vengeance clue, but I think it might be worth elaborating a bit to explain why.

Debriefing: the contact says the fractures I closed are just small ones, and to really stop the fracturing of time, I need to become ... One With the Void. This sounds ominous!

Mission 4
Briefing: Nice pseudo-mystical explanation of how easy it is to screw up becoming One With the Void. It seems I need to find my center and become "unstuck in time in space" to truly embrace Nothingness. I do think it is a little odd that the contact now says "I will not ask this of you" when, based on the story so far, the universe potentially will be destroyed otherwise.

Second part of briefing: really rather neat as the contact throws a temper tantrum because I'm about to (mystically?) destroy myself to become Unstuck in Time.

Inside the mission: This is getting seriously weird as I enter a ruined city map and am given objectives to "Destroy your Love, Unmake your Mind, Banish your Hope".

I'm not quite sure that the landscape of my psyche should really be a Ruined Atlas map; I'd almost lean toward some sort of cave instead. The map where you fight Johnny Sonata's soul, or Psymon Omega's personality problems, would be cool, but probably not available.

I find a bunch of fragments of my "fractured self" on the map. The storm elementals are a great visual for this.

Found and defeated Echo of Love, whose dialog was eerily nihilistic. Perfect for the story, though. Destroying Echo of Love gave me the "Echo of Love" clue, which tells me the effects of my destroying love; it's quite evocative. I might suggest you rename the clue to something suggestive of loss, like "Love Destroyed" or "Absence of Love"; since "Echo of Love" sounds too positive.

Likewise Echo of Mind had excellent dialog and gave a good clue. I'd also suggest renaming the "Echo of Mind" clue to something suggestive of loss. Perhaps "Mind Blank" or "Absence of Thought". Also, "lost all that you are and know" sounds awkward to me; perhaps "lost all that you are and all that you know".


To achieve Nothingness, one must destroy Hope


Likewise for Echo of Hope. Perhaps rename "Echo of Hope" clue to "There is No Hope" or "Abandon Hope" or "Absence of Hope". Also, this clue seems noticably shorter and less descriptive than the Love or Mind clues; needs another (depressing, nihilistic, yet descriptive) sentence for the sake of balance. As it stands the Love and the Mind clues are a lot more soul-destroying than the Hope clue. Perhaps something about acceptance, nothingness, and/or despair.

Debriefing: Aha, I was right, the contact IS me! Or ... a pale shadow of me. She/it had tried to talk me out of this because it would prevent her from coming into existence. That's simultaneously twisted and kinda cool.

Mission 5
Briefing: "I" (the contact) tell me that I can now go fully to the other side, into the Void, to stop the fracturing of time. The fractures are too big to be sealed, so I have to "absorb" them. Oh, and this will result in killing myself. Eep.

Mission title: I like the objective of "Save Time", though this could be misread as, well, conserving seconds or something. Perhaps something like "Save the Space-Time Continuum" or "Save the Universe"? Might be too ostentatious though. Up to you.

Map selection: Inside the map, I discover the Void is much like a Cimeroran catacomb. This isn't all that suggestive of the horrible black Void to me; an underground map is good for this, but I might suggest using one of the blue caves, for the darker lighting and more natural caverns. (Maybe nitpicky.)

The goals of absorbing the past, present and future are rather cool.

Found "Echo of What Was", whose info says it was once the Echo of Love. Freeing it, it starts following me. I thought maybe it was the Fracture of the Past and I should lead it out, but taking it to the door doesn't do anything.

A little deeper in the mission I find Fracture of the Past. I end up absorbing it by destroying it. This doesn't "feel" quite right because it's exactly the same way that I sealed the fractures in mission 3, but the story is presenting these fractures as being fundamentally different than the earlier ones.

Freed Echo of What Will Be, who had some dialog about the Fracture of the Future. Hmm, starting to think maybe freeing the echoes might be silently triggering the fractures to spawn (but both echo and fracture have the same objective text). Ran around stealthed a bit and confirmed that this seems to be true; neat technique.

Found and freed Echo of What Is. Thinking about what they're saying, like

[NPC] Echo of What Is: Absorb the Fracture of the Present and I will use its energy to preserve your Mind.

....I'm thinking that maybe these Echoes are saying that this mission is survivable after all, and that they'll somehow preserve my sense of identity despite what "I" (the contact) said earlier.

The mission complete clue, "The End of Police Woman", is pretty neat. I'm a little sorry that the Echoes of the Kyrdosi could not be redeemed, but "released at last from their agony" is an improvement on their status, at least.

Debriefing: Ooh, I really like this ending, where the contact (a fragment of "me") is about to go back to eternal torment, but I manage to just barely save her in time. Gives an elegant sense of closure.

Souvenir: well written. Minor quibble: "The Fall of the Kyrdosi" is in the place where normally the story arc title would be, i.e., "The Fracturing of Time", which you have in the place that the name of the souvenir normally would be. Perhaps the souvenir should be "A Fragment of Your Identity" or something symbolizing the Fractured One that you re-absorbed?

Overall
I found this story arc very moody and nihilistic. It evoked a strong sense of doom and despair and it was seriously creepy to be destroying parts of my own identity in order to empty my psyche enough to be translated into the horrible black Void. I liked the eventual reveal of the contact's identity and her final redemption.

I didn't like that the whole problem seems to be of my own making, to some extent, because my traveling to Kyrdos and activating the Transcendance device is very nearly the root cause of the universe being destroyed. For this reason I feel bad that we never actually get to save the Kyrdosi, but I don't think the story really allows it. The arc does try to assure me that it isn't really my fault, which is nice; you might consider adding some more foreshadowing to the Kyrdosi Scientist's dialog and/or clue, to the effect that the Transcendance device is still experimental and it's not certain what will happen.

I kind of wonder why the contact has me try to rescue the Kyrdosi in the first place? Based on who the contact turns out to be, it seems like she would have foreknowledge of what happens after the Transcendance device is activated and could avoid the whole situation by simply allowing the Kyrdosi to be genocided.

That complaint aside, I found this arc to be very strong in establishing a sense of atmosphere. I don't think everyone would actually enjoy this story (due to the sense of nihilism and despair), but the story really grabbed me, the dialog was excellent, the writing in the briefings/debriefings very good, and the gameplay all worked pretty well. I rated this arc 5 stars.


---

My queue is currently:

@EraserDog - Hooray for Hamster Hell 246464
PoptartsNinja - Wretch 'Trike Force 249890
@Johnny Courageous - Dr Sigler and the Chronojumper 131158
@Venture - Splintered Shields 253991
Zamuel - Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue 163967 (re-review)
EvaDestruction - Freaks, Geeks and Men in Black #161629
twelfth - Inhuman Resources - At Work with IE #298132
@Gypsy Rose - In Pursuit of Liberty 221702 (re-review)
@The Cheshire Cat - Astoria in D Minor #41565
@Baron von Doffen - A Surprise Fit for a Baron #318352
Gryfyn - Trick or Treat #320225
SkarmoryThePG - Sky Kings' Ransom #232308

I could not find "Hooray for Hamster Hell" (arc 246464) or any other arc by @EraserDog when I looked. So I ended up moving on to the next on my list.



Wretch's 'Trike Force review
Arc ID: 249890
Keywords: Canon Related, Comedy, Drama
Morality: Villainous
Level range: mostly 20-30 with some 35
Warnings: EBs, enemies with custom power selections

The premise is to help Wretch foil some sort of plot against Ghost Widow. I played a 29 db/ninj stalker on difficulty 1. The contact is Wretch.

Mission 1
Briefing: Nicely formatted, if a little short on detail, though truthfully it makes sense for it to not be that detailed considering the contact's diminished mental capacity. Basically I'm helping Wretch stop "bad mans" from hurting Ghost Widow.

Mission accept briefing: This displays as "So, someone's after Ghost Widow again, huh Wretch? What will you give me I&nbsp". Seems misformatted.

Second part of briefing: this part of the briefing has some more details, which is nice. It's a little awkward to read through Wretch's dialog, but despite that it's pretty funny. "help wretch find bad mans" should have "Wretch" capitalized though.

"Encrypted Wyvern PDA", I'd suggest replacing "Wretch gave you this PDA, it's encrypted, but..." with "Wretch gave you this PDA. It's encrypted, but..." (Admittedly nitpicky.)

Mission entry popup: This says I'm in a Longbow base. But as I get further into the mission, although there's Freedom Corps insignia hung all over the place, the base is actually full of Wyvern. Seems inconsistent.

"Encryption Codes" mission objective should have a verb, e.g., "Steal Encryption Codes".

Found "Out-of-place computer desk" which, after clicking, satisfied the "Encryption Codes" objective. You might consider also adding a clue to the clue journal at this point.

Found "Base Commander Aerrow", who is a decent-looking custom Wyvern boss. His description and dialog try to suggest that he's fairly inexperienced in combat; the lines aren't anything special but do help define his character some.


Kashira: So, you think you know Kung Fu!
Aerrow: Um, actually, no, I don't. Not even a little.
Kashira: Time for a lesson then!
Aerrow: Um...can we do a lesson that doesn't hurt quite so much?


All three of the bomb glowies are named "Bombs1", should maybe just be "Bomb".

Clicking the last bomb glowy completes the mission, giving me the "Decrypted Wyvern PDA" clue; I kind of think this clue should be awarded after clicking the computer, though, since setting the bombs shouldn't really help decrypt the PDA.

Debriefing: Wretch gives me a fairly incoherent debriefing, but it kinda makes sense for him.

Mission 2
Briefing: Following up the clue from the last mission, I'm sent to "smash all bad mans on boat".

Mission objectives: "Find chief conspiracist!" should probably not have an excalamation point (there's a second objective listed too, and the exclamation point looks weird with a comma right after it) and perhaps "conspiracist" should be "conspirator". Or if you're purposely mangling language to be more Wretch-like at this point, conspiracist probably should be something with fewer syllables.

This seems to be a defeat all on the cargo ship map; a defeat all on a moderately big map is unfortunately rather tedious.

I found and fought Arcanist Crowley, who was in a group called "Legacy Chain?" and escorted by an archer in Wyvern. The rest of the ship is filled with a group called "Conspirators", though, which seems to be a mix of Legacy Chain and Wyvern. I'm a little puzzled at why there are separate "Legacy Chain?" "Wyvern" and "Conspirators" factions in this mission; I kinda think you should either have them all be "Conspirators" (including Crowley and his escort), or else keep them separate as "Legacy Chain" and "Wyvern".

Crowley does monologue a bit about the evil plan to take down Ghost Widow before I defeat him. I also got the "Crowley's Final Taunt" clue; in this clue, "posessions" should be "possessions" in that clue. Also, "Perhaps he was arrogant enough to assume you wouldn't bother to search his body" sounds really weird; I have a hard time believing anyone would think "She'll probably kill me, but she would never actually search me!"

I finally cleared the whole ship of Conspirators. Despite having to fight the whole map, only Arcanist Crowley really had anything interesting to say or do. You might consider adding some more mission details? Perhaps some patrols or static spawned bosses with some extra dialog.

You might also consider dropping the "defeat all" requirement and having the "Island Coordinates" clue come from some other source -- perhaps defeating the ship captain or the navigator (i.e. a boss), or maybe stealing it from a computer (i.e., a glowy). Though, the story seems to want this to be a defeat all, so if you think it makes more sense that way, you could leave it like that; but bear in mind some people will be annoyed by defeat all missions on medium-large maps.

Debriefing: still seems awfully short. Makes some sense for Wretch to talk this way, but you're left with pretty large areas of blank space in the briefings and debriefings. Maybe you could add more "internal monologue" of what the player is "thinking"?

Mission 3
Briefing: something of an incoherent non-briefing where Wretch wants me to go hurt more "bad mans". This time, traveling to an island identified by a clue in the previous mission.

Inside the mission: the "island" turns out to be a tech lab, which seems a strange choice of map for an island.

The enemies in the mission are a mix of "Crowley's Base Defenders" and "Legacy Chain". It looks like "Crowley's Base Defenders" has some (Vanguard/Legacy Chain hybrid?) custom mobs, plus standard Legacy Chain mobs mixed in. As a result, the two groups are so similar that I'm not sure why there is a distinction; I'd suggest making all of them be in the same group. (It's actually possible to make a custom "Legacy Chain" group that appears to have the same tag as standard Legacy Chain, to make it seem more seamless.) The custom mobs do look quite natural with the standard mobs though; their costumes blend right in.

Possibly I got lucky, but the very first glowy I found (Computer) completed the mission; I didn't actually have to find 6 transmission records. This being the case, you may want to change the "6 Find Transmission Records" to just "Find Transmission Records" (with no 6).

In "A Plan of Action" clue, "legacy chain" should be "Legacy Chain" (note capitalization). "Lady Gray" should be "Lady Grey". The appearance of the Vanguard/Legacy Chain hybrids does kind of hint at the Lady Grey connection; I wonder if you could get one of them to utter some dialog that further foreshadows this? Perhaps a static "Boss" using one of them, that has some dialog.

You might consider changing the mission title ("Help Wretch Attack Island") which doesn't seem to match the actual mission; although it's explained as being an island, it doesn't look like an island, and since you can click a glowy to complete the mission, you don't really have to attack anyone.

Mission 4
Briefing: This is kind of a non-briefing as the plot has baffled poor Wretch and he has no idea what we should be doing (which kind of makes sense considering how brain damaged he is, but still makes this something of a non-briefing), but my character realizes we should be beating people up in RWZ to find out information.

Mission title: "Help Wretch Find Clue!" is kind of funny.

Inside the mission, I find tons of Vanguard/Rikti battles. Although the mission accept dialog suggested I would be "busting heads", I leave these battles alone because my objective is "Seek Clues". Also saw some more of the Vanguard/Legacy Chain hybrids, though this time they're (correctly) in the Vanguard group.

I roamed around the map for awhile looking and eventually found a Rikti named "C'lue", which did get a laugh out of me. C'lue says:

[NPC] C'Lue: Self: Greatful: Allies' Assistance.

"Greatful" should be "Grateful" here.


Kashira: You will tell me all your secrets, C'Lue!
C'Lue: Just try me!
Kashira: It was Miss Scarlet in the Dining Room with the Wrench!
C'Lue: Wrong again!!


I fought C'Lue and beat him up; actually, his Vanguard escorts were much nastier than he was, despite being only minions. (Vanguard is just mean like that.) Some of his dialog does not seem to be in the standard Rikti "Noun: Phrase" format:

[NPC] C'Lue: ... Wretch? You: Serve?
[NPC] C'Lue: Ghost Widow... Self... Afraid...

Defeating C'Lue gives me the "C'Lue: Statements: Cryptic" clue and changes my objective to "Defeat Vanguard Leader". You may want to add some text about the Vanguard Leader to the actual clue, to help explain why it is now necessary to find the Vanguard Leader. Also "anymore" should be "any more", and you might want to make it clearer that C'Lue is worried about Ghost Widow in particular; maybe "a real, life ghost" should be "an actual ghost, like Ghost Widow".

Minor nitpick: "Seek Clues" maybe should be "Seek Clue" since there was only one C'Lue to find; or maybe "Get a Clue".

After some more searching I found Sorcerer Ragan. His description says "If anyone knows the location of the Rikti Traditionalist's bases, it's him". "Traditionalist's bases" should perhaps be "Traditionalist bases". I guess I'm looking for the location of these bases? Needs to be made clearer in either the objectives or C'Lue's clue. Though, thinking about it, wouldn't an actual Rikti Traditionalist make even more sense to interrogate for a base location?

Ragan has some good dialog about how my beating up C'Lue has messed up relations with the Traditionalist faction and may provoke a feud between the Traditionalist Rikti and Arachnos. So actually, my actions are increasing the danger to Ghost Widow. Oops. Nevertheless beating him up gives me a lead to the Rikti base.

Mission 5
Briefing: seems awfully short. Wretch basically wants to smash the Rikti.

Second part of briefing: suddenly switches from Wretch speaking, to me thinking or talking to myself. You may want to change the way the text looks (italics, different color, something like that) to emphasize that it's not Wretch talking any more.

Mission objectives: "Rikti Leader" should perhaps be "Defeat Rikti Leader" (the way it's written currently is "Save Wretch, Rikti Leader" which makes it kind of sound like you save them both). "2 Other Leaders" should be "2 Other Leaders to Defeat".

The mission is full of "Ghost Widow Task Force", a custom faction containing a mix of Vanguard, Longbow and Rikti. I'm not sure this is the best name to use, though, as "Ghost Widow Task Force" implies it's a task force assigned by Ghost Widow, not a task force to take down Ghost Widow. Compare to: Statesman Task Force (to defeat Recluse), Lord Recluse Strike Force (to defeat Statesman), etc. Also I found it a little weird that the Rikti in the GWTF faction have descriptions like "The Rikti have come to stand for everything humans hate and fear" while the Vanguard have descriptions of "Everything they do is centered around containing the Rikti menace" when clearly they are working together.

Also it doesn't quite fit that Vanguard is here to help take down Ghost Widow, because Ragan's dialog in mission 4 actually said Vanguard needs to keep good relations with Arachnos, and they had been trying to prevent the Traditionalist Rikti from going after Ghost Widow.

Found "Officer Igon" who was in Longbow (should he also be in Ghost Widow Task Force?). His description says he "leads the longbow contingent here"; "longbow" should be "Longbow" (note capitalization). For what it's worth, all the RWZ content seems to suggest that Longbow and Vanguard actually don't get along very well at all, so it is a bit odd for them to be working together.

Igon says, while fighting:

[NPC] Officer Igon: Intruders!
[NPC] Officer Igon: This doesn't look good!
[NPC] Officer Igon: Xela's plan... drew this much attention?

"Intruders!" is kind of an odd thing for a Longbow officer to say while in a Rikti base; it's normally something you'd say when in your own base. I think this is the first reference I've seen to "Xela"; perhaps the person behind this whole plot.

Deeper in the mission I found Kebert Xela; s/he is in the "Rikti Traditionalist" faction instead of the GWTF (not sure if this is intentional or not) and has some interesting dialog about his/her fear of ghosts. I liked this line:

[NPC] Kebert Xela: Who: You: Call?

....I almost think he should have more Ghostbusters references, like "Ghosts: None: Afraid of", though this wouldn't quite work because he clearly IS afraid of them. I'm guessing Xela was the big bad guy of this arc; you might want to give him a clue that he drops when you defeat him, and/or rearrange objectives so he's one of the last things in the mission that you do.

Found and defeated Sorcerer Mareth, who is apparently the Vanguard leader here. She's in the Vanguard faction, but I wonder if she should be in the GWTF faction?

In the mission objectives, once you defeat one of the optional leaders, it changes from "2 Other Leaders" to just "Other Leaders" (shouldn't be plural).

Due to the vagaries of the map layout, I found Wretch last, long after defeating Xela and the 2 other leaders. It seems like it would be more dramatically appropriate if you found Wretch early on, and then he helped you fight the other leaders. You might consider rearranging the spawns to allow that (perhaps putting Wretch as a "front" spawn; I suspect the Longbow leader is currently "front" and could be moved back) or picking a more linear map to increase the chance that the player runs into the objectives in the order you planned.

Wretch was guarded by a small group of Longbow; I wonder if he should be guarded by a group from the GWTF instead?


Kashira: Why are they all looking at me? Taunt, dammit!
Wretch: Wretch brute. No take taunt. Taunt for sissies.
Kashira: Argh!


After rescuing Wretch, I now have an objective to "Save Ghost Widow!" I'm not really sure how Ghost Widow ended up here - did they kidnap her somehow, or did she follow us here, or something else? Also, considering I've already defeated the 3 enemy leaders, does she really need saving any more? Could use some explanation. I did get a "Help Wretch..." clue from rescuing him, but this clue really doesn't have enough information; "You've found Wretch. Now to save Ghost Widow!" doesn't tell me enough, IMHO. Perhaps elaborate on just how it is that Ghost Widow got lured here and why she needs to be saved?

Exploring some more, I found Seer Marino and rescued her from some Rikti. They had the following dialog:

[NPC] Improved Drone: Future: Unforseeable. Information: Give: Ghost Widow!
[NPC] Seer Marino: I forsee much agony in your future.
[NPC] Improved Drone: Development: Unexpected!
[NPC] Seer Marino: I forsaw your arrival, as well as the presence of my brother.
[NPC] Seer Marino: Ghost Widow is safe, the Rikti Traditionalists won't attempt something like this again.

"Unforseeable" should be "Unforeseeable" or perhaps just "Unknown". "forsee" should be "foresee". "forsaw" should be "foresaw", though I think "Your arrival was foreseen" would sound a little more mystical.

I like how the arc hooks in Seer Marino, who is connected to Wretch's story. Though, how did she get here? Did she get captured somehow? I guess the Rikti are interrogating her for Ghost Widow's location, but the location of Ghost Widow's tower seems like it is pretty well known (it's the place Seer Marino's story arc sends you). Perhaps the Rikti don't know, though. Anyway, how Seer Marino gets here and what's going on with her could use some more explanation.

Rescuing Marino ends the mission for me.

I like the mission exit popup: "You've saved Wretch (from himself), saved Wretch's sister (also from Wretch), and potentially saved Ghost Widow as well. Now, to collect your reward!" This seems so true, most of the events in this arc happened due to Wretch.

Debriefing: pretty short debriefing, with not a lot to it. Wretch gives me his "favorite thing", which proves to be the story arc souvenir: a "Half-Eaten Rat". Wow, that kind of came out of nowhere. There were no rats (half-eaten or otherwise) during the story arc, so this is a rather puzzling souvenir. In the text for this, "posession" should be "possession". I like how it describes the story arc as "you'll never forget the day you helped the big oaf into (and back out of) a jam of (mostly) his own making."

Overall
The arc gives a nice tour of the various anti-Arachnos and RWZ factions, and the Vanguard/Legacy Chain hybrids were an interesting concept with good costuming. There were some good bits of humor also. I did think the ramp-up in difficulty from the Wyvern enemies to the Vanguard enemies was a bit sharp (Vanguard are much tougher, and managed to drop my little stalker a couple times). As a result, someone who gets exp just fine in the early 20-30 missions can run into trouble during the later 35-35 missions with Vanguard.

I was of two minds on the writing in the briefings and debriefings. I felt they were all really short and uninformative, which hurts the story, but it's also perfectly in character and makes sense that Wretch would talk that way and not know much. I'd really like there to be a little more content in these areas. Perhaps you could preserve Wretch's dialog, but add some more "internal monologue" text (perhaps in italics or a different color) where "the player" fills in some of the gaps from her "own" knowledge (much like the "mission accept" messages currently are written).

I'm afraid I don't really like that almost all of the problems posed by this story arc are self-inflicted; basically the whole situation is caused by helping Wretch, and at the end of the arc all you've done is to get back to where you started. This kind of gives the feeling that the player would've done better to not agree to help Wretch in the first place. I think I'd prefer a plot where you accomplish things despite Wretch being dumb, and maybe end up with a better reward than a half-eaten rat. This might change your story too much, though, so up to you.

I liked the idea of some of the "combined" factions, where you had several special groups which drew from multiple standard groups. The actual usage of them was a bit inconsistent though; there were a couple missions where there were a lot of the combined faction, but then spawns here and there of the original groups they were drawn from. I think if you use them more consistently (make everyone be in the combined group, or everyone be in their individual groups, but not both) it would look a little more polished.

I did like the humorous bits you had in the arc; I think you could benefit by adding more. More Ghostbusters references and/or info about Xela's weird ghost obsession (perhaps some foreshadowing of this in an earlier mission, or optional glowies that are Rikti surveillance of Numina and Kelly Nemmers, maybe a custom Rikti "ghostbuster" mob, etc); maybe elaborate on the C'lue joke (have him die with the line "Colonel Mustard: Conservatory: Candlestick" and have the Vanguard leader be named Colonel Mustard), little bits like that.

I thought the defeat all in mission 2 was a bit onerous; I think this is actually a common sentiment towards Defeat All missions. I'd suggest reworking the objectives to make the mission a bit more interesting overall.

Anyway, with all that in mind, I gave this story arc 3 stars. Hope you think that's fair!

---

My queue is currently:

@Johnny Courageous - Dr Sigler and the Chronojumper 131158
@Venture - Splintered Shields 253991
Zamuel - Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue 163967 (re-review)
EvaDestruction - Freaks, Geeks and Men in Black #161629
twelfth - Inhuman Resources - At Work with IE #298132
@Gypsy Rose - In Pursuit of Liberty 221702 (re-review)
@The Cheshire Cat - Astoria in D Minor #41565
@Baron von Doffen - A Surprise Fit for a Baron #318352
Gryfyn - Trick or Treat #320225
SkarmoryThePG - Sky Kings' Ransom #232308

Wow, I'm really not sure how my factions got all messed up. The arc was originally created before you could custom name boss factions etc--it almost looks like it reverted to one of my previous versions without my noticing.

I was hoping for a better score, but I can understand how it might be frustrating. I just wish there was a more reliable way to get Rikti into a lower-level mission. >_>

I'm also really not sure what happened to the bombs (in my last revision, they were all 'A Bomb').

I'll have to rethink the kill-all on the boat, I picked the smallest one and if people still find that annoying I think I'm simply going to eliminate the kill-all objective from any subsequent arcs. I felt it made sense, since the boat IS how you smash in the doors to the secret island base, but I may re-work that.

Dr. Sigler and the ChronoJumper review
Arc ID: 131158
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Sci-Fi, Drama
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 45-54, 40-54, 38-40

The arc description says this story is "about the consequences of messing with forces you don't understand", which says very little about what this arc is about. Maybe could use some more descriptive text to try and entice players into trying it. I do like the arc title though, sounds very pulp adventure.

The contact is a white lab coated scientist. I played a 50 AR/dev blaster on difficulty 1.

Mission 1
Briefing: Nicely formatted, contact does a good job of introducing himself and explains he wants me to test a device he's invented that apparently will "put an end to all the sufferings of humanity".

Second part of briefing: his invention turns out to be a time machine. His plan is to have me time travel back into the past and "correct" things. First up is stopping a robbery. What Could Go Wrong?

Mission entry popup: Love the description here, both wondering about whether it's a good idea to help Sigler, and about the 80s era stuff in this mission.

Mission title: "Arrest all the thieves" is a bit redundant with the objective "Arrest all the robbers" ... you might consider changing the mission title to something like "Stop the Robbery".

"RavenThorn" is in my objective list, but should have a verb, like "Defeat RavenThorn". Though, I don't know who RavenThorn is (he wasn't mentioned by the contact), so maybe it should just be part of the "Arrest all the robbers!" objective. Or perhaps "Defeat lead robber".

Found and fought RavenThorn, who said:

[NPC] RavenThorn: Fool! You cannot beat one who can forsee your every move!

...hinting that he's a precognitive, which is cool. I like that the fact that I'm a time traveler messes his precognition up, though. "forsee" should be "foresee".

In RavenThorn's description, "unkown" should be "unknown". He's in a group called "The Corruptors"; but all the other robbers are "Family". Should they maybe be in the same group? Or at least there should be some explanation for why they're working together.

At mission completion, I get the "RavenThorn talks" clue; but I actually completed the mission by defeating the last Family guy. Maybe you should award the "RavenThorn talks" clue when you defeat Raventhorn instead? Nice ominous warning he gives. I think there may be an extra line break at the very end of the clue. (Minor nitpick.)

In my chat window I got the message

Before RavenThorn loses conciousness, he gives you a somewhat cryptic message...

"conciousness" should be "consciousness".

Debriefing: great debriefing. The contact reveals he actually had you save the life of his wife; I can understand wanting to do that. "There's just one little complication" certainly sounds ominous, though.

Mission 2
Briefing: nicely written briefing. Turns out stopping the robbery ends up having a butterfly effect causing a supervillain to go on a murderous rampage in Kings Row. Fortunately, being time travelers, we can fix this! (I can see where this is going... )

"traficking" should be "trafficking" in the briefing.

Found and rescued Billy Thurman, a decent looking custom model with a good description. He was in the "Ally" group, which was a little puzzling as he immediately left after being rescued. I wonder if he should be in a "Civilian" group instead.


Police Woman versus Fire Phoenix


Found "Fire Phoenix", another member of "The Corruptors", hmm. The mission title, mission objectives, and his own description, all call him "FirePhoenix" but the name he's given is "Fire Phoenix" (note space); should be made consistent. The clue I get on defeating him is interesting ... why am I portrayed as coughing now? This can't be good...

Debriefing: Nice debriefing. I like the reference to Brass Monday and Nemesis's historical attacks.

Mission 3
Briefing: Another nice briefing, with more butterfly effect stuff as our rescuing the kid and stopping the villain accidentally results in nerve gas wiping out much of Kings Row. So now we have to go back further in time to prevent Nemesis from stashing this nerve gas here in the first place.

Second part of briefing: "those PPD members all those peoples will not have died" doesn't quite scan, should maybe be "the police officers and all those other people will not have died".

Mission objectives: "Defeat Colonel Pritailleur" is in my objectives, but Pritailleur wasn't mentioned in the briefing, so I'm not sure I would know who he is; maybe should be "Defeat Nemesis leader", or else mentioned by name.

I beat up Pritailleur (who turned out to be a sniper who could see through my stealth) and clicked the various cannisters. When down to only one cannister left, the objective becomes "neutralize the final cannister"; "neutralize" should probably be capitalized. (Minor nitpick)

Mission exit popup is very ominous after coming back from this mission, it seems Arachnos has somehow conquered the world!

Debriefing has some nice writing in it.

Mission 4
Briefing: It appears that stopping Colonel Pritailleur has somehow prevented Statesman from being born, and as a result, Lord Recluse has conquered the world. Hmm, mission 3 must've been further back in time than I realized, since Marcus Cole served in WW1; now that I think about it, I think it WAS mentioned that the mission was in 1889.

I like the mission accept message of "This is getting out of control. You'd best be right this time."

Now the contact wants me to destroy the scroll that gives the directions to the Well of the Furies, so that Lord Recluse can never drink from it. Unlike the earlier missions, this strikes me as a pretty obviously bad plan since Arachnos would still exist even without Lord Recluse (he actually took it over from The Weaver) and it would also prevent Marcus Cole from ever drinking from the Well and becoming Statesman.

Mission title: "Destroy the scoll with the directions to the Well of the Furies and stop The Triad!" is a neat mission title, but kinda long. "scoll" should be "scroll". I wonder if you could summarize the mission in a shorter description? Like "Prevent Lord Recluse's origin" or "Conceal the Well of Furies".

Inside the mission: Ran into what appear to be some custom zombie mobs; is it necessary to have new types of zombies? There are a lot of existing zombie mobs already.

Dark Zombie Servant's description, "infused with the the magic" should be "infused with the magic".

Found "Zurial the Destoryer", who said:

[NPC] Zurial the Destoryer: What sorcerery is this, that you can resist me?

"Destoryer" should be "Destroyer". "sorcerery" should be "sorcery".

While fighting him, I got ambushed by a group of mobs in a group called "Zuriel ambush" (should maybe be Zurial?); I don't imagine there should be a faction of enemies purely devoted to Zuriel's ambushes, so these should probably just be in regular Circle of Thorns or some similar group.

Likewise there are several other enemy groups that seem to be named after their purpose, like "Dead patrol", "Mistress patrol", "Onorius guards", "Glaxar guards". Probably these should all be in the same villain group.


Police Woman vs Glaxar the Magnificent...ooops! Should've brought break frees.


I found and fought Glaxar the Magnificent, who managed to beat me up via holds and an ambush (which belonged to the "Glaxar Ambush" faction). Upon killing me he says:

[NPC] Glaxar the Magnificent: You should feel honored to feel such exquisitness of pain at my hand, trespasser.

"exquisitness of pain" should be "exquisiteness of pain", or maybe "exquisite pain".

Tried to hospital and ended up in a CoT jail, which I broke out of.

Lots of nice dialog in this mission from the various mobs. I overheard a minion saying:

[NPC] Zombie of Onorius: Lord Onorious plans to visit The Well again soon - we must prepare for the journey.

"Onorious" should be "Onorius" based on the way it's spelled elsewhere in this arc.

I found the right glowy that gave me "The scroll of The Triad!" clue. "unidentifyible" should be "unidentifiable".

Found and rescued some hapless Cimerorans from the CoT, and they became allies and helped me, which I thought was a nice touch for the time travel thing. I eventually beat up all three of the named mages to complete the mission.


Rematch against Glaxar! Only now with some manly Romans to help out!


Mission exit popup is funny. Now Paragon City has been utterly destroyed. Pesky time travel.

Debriefing, also funny. Now the contact is totally sorry he had me destroy the scroll.

Mission 5
Briefing: Nicely written. Now that I've undone Recluse's and Statesman's origins, the Rikti basically are destroying the world and genociding humanity because no one can stop them. The contact is basically crying DOOM and doesn't know what to do.

I like that the mission accept message has "me" taking control and "deciding" how to fix things.

Second part of briefing: "ChronoStiblizer" should be "ChronoStabilizer". "inital" should be "initial".

I like the mission title and the list of objectives (a LONG list of objectives; I like this, but some people might feel it's too much). Good mission entry popup also. I've basically gone back in time to ... prevent the contact from inventing a time machine. This is paradoxical, yet sort of makes sense as the best way to fix everything.

It's a little awkward that this mission exemps me down to level 40 when all the other missions went up to level 50, but I assume this is because of level limits on the Security Guards.

Found a glowy that gave me an "Early Protoypes found" clue. Should be "Prototypes".

I like that you encounter "Young Dr. Sigler" in the mission and get to confront him, sort of. He's in an "Ally" group, probably should be "Civilian" or "Scientists". In his dialog he says:

[NPC] Young Dr. Sigler: Let's see....maybe if I reverse the polarity fo the flux capacitor.....

"fo" should be "of" in that line.

Found a destroyable object called "Dr. Siglers Chronojump early stage prototype"; "Siglers" should be "Sigler's". Though I actually think this object's name is too long; maybe call it something shorter like "Prototype Chronojumper"? Destroying it gave me a clue called "The ChronoJumper protoype". "protoype" should be "prototype", both in the clue title and clue text.

Finally found and destroyed all the notes and computer files and completed the mission.

Debriefing: good wrap-up of what ended up happening in the "final" timeline after the arc. It's a little sad that we've basically ruined Sigler's career and never did save his wife, but at least we prevented the genocide of the human race.

Souvenir: nice synopsis of the arc. "your fight and broken" should be "your fight had broken". "neighborood" should be "neighborhood". "troops primary mission" should be "troops' primary mission". "Statement" should be "Statesman".

Overall
Normally I don't really like plots where the story scripts you to make a mistake at the beginning, then you spend the rest of the arc trying to fix it. But the way this was presented was really quite good. I liked the descriptions of the results of each of the timeline adjustments, and especially the throwaway references to the fate of various in-game characters. I thought Sigler was a well-written character with a noble purpose in mind for his invention, and it's clear that each time (except the last) that he's sure that he can fix things, if he could only apply his invention the right way.

On the downside, there were quite a lot of typos scattered throughout the text, and while the first three missions had pretty reasonable initial goals, I thought the plan for the fourth mission was a little too obviously self-destructive (I mean, it seems pretty obvious to me that undoing Recluse's origin also undoes Statesman's?). I'd suggest tweaking the writing a bit to make it seem a more plausible action.

I felt bad that the net result of the arc is that we've ruined Dr Sigler and no one has benefited, so really I would've been better off not getting involved at all. I kinda would've liked a happier ending (would've been nice if at least his wife survived even if his career is ruined), but that probably would blunt the moral of the story, so maybe this is the best way to end the story.

Despite those misgivings, I thought this was a really good story about how good intentions aren't always enough. I gave this arc 5 stars.


---

My queue is currently:

@Venture - Splintered Shields 253991
Zamuel - Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue 163967 (re-review)
EvaDestruction - Freaks, Geeks and Men in Black #161629
twelfth - Inhuman Resources - At Work with IE #298132
@Gypsy Rose - In Pursuit of Liberty 221702 (re-review)
@The Cheshire Cat - Astoria in D Minor #41565
@Baron von Doffen - A Surprise Fit for a Baron #318352
Gryfyn - Trick or Treat #320225
SkarmoryThePG - Sky Kings' Ransom #232308

I found it very interesting how nervous and anxious I was all week now that it was my arc next in the queue...guess that speaks well for your reviewing capabilities.

Typos - that's why you always get someone else to review your work. I went over all that text so many times, and I still missed all those. Fixed 'em all, thank you.

[At mission completion, I get the "RavenThorn talks" clue; but I actually completed the mission by defeating the last Family guy. Maybe you should award the "RavenThorn talks" clue when you defeat Raventhorn instead?]

I've noticed lately that clues given upon defeat of an enemy don't pop up until the enemy "fades", and same for some mission completions. I don't recall it being like that at first in AE. Or am I overlooking something in one of the settings? Anyone else experiencing this?

I'll have to pay more attention to naming my enemy groups. I didn't realize the group names could be viewed while examining the enemy's description in game. I was just using simple names for organizational purposes. I'll start changing that.

[...and while the first three missions had pretty reasonable initial goals, I thought the plan for the fourth mission was a little too obviously self-destructive (I mean, it seems pretty obvious to me that undoing Recluse's origin also undoes Statesman's?). I'd suggest tweaking the writing a bit to make it seem a more plausible action.]

Yeah, that one was a tough one for me. I needed to eliminate Recluse, but not bring back Statesman, in order to get to the mission 5 conditions. I added another line of text, "Thus, Arachnos should be kept well in check by the world's heroes, even without Statesman". I'll try to think of more ways to smooth that transition out without launching into a complex ramble about the paradox of meeting and stopping yourself while time travelling. Not that paradox doesn't abound already!

Thank you again for your thorough review and your clean-up notes. I believe I have them all incorporated now. I have another arc I'd like to submit soon, but I still need to do some tweaks (and try to catch more typos up front!).

Splintered Shields review
Arc ID: 253991
Keywords: Challenging, Canon Related, Drama
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 45-54
Warnings: AVs, EBs, higher level villains appearing at lower levels (how do you get this at 45-54? I guess some 50+ only AVs?), enemies with custom power selections.

Description is something about an Arachnos agent raiding Paragon City; I don't get much idea what the premise of the arc from this, though. You might consider adding more description to give more of a "hook" for players to want to try it.

The contact is Captain Dietrich of Longbow. I played a heavily IO'd 50 AR/dev blaster on the difficulty formerly known as Heroic (now "+0/x1").

Mission 1
Briefing: Nicely formatted. The contact gives a brief introduction and says she needs my help to stop an Arachnos attack led by an Operative Kobushi. Seems like a pretty mundane objective, but let's go with it.

Inside the mission: some nice looking Longbow vs Arachnos battles. But wait...the Longbow are hostile? Huh? Is this intentional?

I overheard a Longbow patrol uttering some dialog about how they're worried about a hero showing up:

[NPC] Longbow Eagle: We are so screwed! Not only are the bugs here, but I heard a hero's inbound!
[NPC] Longbow Minigun: Uh...the datalink's out, just say we couldn't ID him, thought he was with the bugs.

I think this is the explanation for why they're shooting at me. I originally thought "him" was maybe Operative Kobushi, but later I figured out that it was meant to be me ("him" and "he" threw me as my character is female). I'd complain about the pronoun trouble, but arguably they might not know exactly who is being sent here. Consider making the dialog even more clearly damning, though, like inserting "we'll wax him" or something similar in there.

I examined a couple of the glowy boxes, which were labeled as optional objectives. They don't seem to do much, but they have some text in the chat box about smashed drug ampules. Maybe they should additionally give a clue? It's easy to miss messages in the game text spam box.

I found and fought Operative Kobushi, who had some interesting dialog hinting that the Longbow here were dirty somehow and he was....doing something heroic to them? Hmmm, wonder why an Arachnos operative would be doing good deeds? He assumes I'm with the dirty Longbow, of course.

Found and clicked a computer console that gave me the "Computer Files" clue (hinting at some sort of drug-related Longbow misdeeds) and completed the mission.

Debriefing: Nicely written. Dietrich acts like she doesn't know anything about the misdeeds of the Longbow at this base, and insists she will investigate it.

Currently the debriefing includes "Dietrich is visibly upset when you return" as descriptive text; you might consider making this a different color or enclosing it in parentheses or something to make it more clearly not part of her dialog, considering some of her actual dialog is also in italics.

Mission 2
Briefing: Nicely written. I like that she holds a press conference to apologize for the "friendly fire" incident. The contact wants me to interview the commanding officer of the Longbow involved in the incident. He's apparently performing a drug bust - which seems fitting based on the evidence in mission 1. Though it does make me wonder, is drug enforcement actually within Longbow's jurisdiction? (I wouldn't think so, but they're something of Ms Liberty's private army, so probably could do anything she wants them to.)

I like the dossier that she gives me on Livingston. "US infantry" is a weird term though, maybe should be "US Army" or "as an infantry officer in the US Army".

Inside the mission: some Longbow vs Family battles. Looks like the Longbow are actually friendly this time. I think I instantaneously got "An apology" clue upon entering the mission; I think this was meant to be awarded when I found Livingston, but maybe was immediately awarded because he was an ally who didn't have any guards. (Or perhaps the battles wiped out whomever was guarding him.)

Found and fought Victor Praetorius, a robotics MM. He triggered Kobushi, who I had to backtrack some distance to find. Kobushi had some more heroic (?) dialog about how he was disgusted with my actions and I obviously didn't care about how many lives the drugs ruin. I'd explain that it's all a misunderstanding, but I kind of have to shoot him full of bullets and stuff, in self-defense.

He gives me the "J'accuse!" clue, where he accuses me of colluding with Livingston for some unspecified nefarious activity.

Defeating him also ends the mission, giving me the "Livingston's Story" clue, where he admits some (?) of his men are dirty, re-selling confiscated drugs and such. But he wants me to give him "a little more time" so he can do his own investigation. Yeah, right.

Debriefing: nicely written. The contact doesn't believe Livingston's story either, and gives some more background info about Kobushi (who apparently is a "defender of the people" type who just happens to work for Arachnos) and Praetorius, which helps build up both of them as characters.

Mission 3
Briefing: Nice briefing with a lot of details, explaining what Dietrich thinks Livingston is up to. Now we have to check some of the evidence gathered during the last mission, which has been "transferred to a PPD evidence warehouse".

The briefing provides some technobabble about a gizmo to "check" the evidence without actually contaminating it.

Inside the mission: I rather like that you actually get to meet some (friendly) PPD officers in this mission, as you check out the evidence.


Police officers discussing the evidence


The first crate I check gives me the "Stolen Drugs" clue, confirming that Livingston is involved in stealing the confiscated drugs. There's 6 crates though, and the additional crates don't seem to reveal anything new - until the last crate, which spawns a KoA boss with some minions! I thought this was an ambush at first, but I think it just happened to spawn right on top of my head. Or maybe it was a boss AND an ambush or patrol; they had several lines of dialog.

I love that the PPD get involved in the fight and have lines that are triggered when they start fighting! Minor nitpick:

[NPC] Psi-Captain Kincaid: I'm glad I sent the civilans home!

"civilans" should be "civilians" here.

Debriefing: good writing here. A few awkward phrases: "Aside from your findings" sounds weird to me, maybe should be "In addition to your findings".

"only swiped the X, K or such, the stuff that only kills the users" sounds awkward to me; maybe "only swiped the X, the Special K, and other drugs that only kill the users". The "or such" is the bit that seems awkward to me.

Mission 4
Briefing: We have an arrest warrant for Livingston now, but he's fled the country for the Rogue Isles. We're going after him though; Longbow doesn't care about little things like national boundaries. Ironically, we're going to try and save Operative Kobushi from a revenge attack from Livingston. I'm to check out base 1 while Dietrich checks out base 2.

Objectives: My only objective is "Hack into the base's network", but this was actually something Dietrich asked me to do only if I couldn't find Livingston; this immediately gives away the fact that I'm not going to find Livingston here (unless he somehow gets triggered later). You might consider having this objective named something like "Find Livingston" or something similar to preserve the illusion that he might actually be here, but since he's not actually here, clicking the computer would ACTUALLY satisfy that objective. This is a little deceptive, though; so, I could see arguments against doing it, too.

Some good dialog from the various minions that inhabit this map; some are wondering where Livingston is, some talk about what Kobushi's up to. I like how this helps establish the story, even though it's looking like I won't see either of the bosses in this mission.

Deep inside the mission I find the "Main Console" glowy and click it. It completes the mission, but oddly doesn't give me any sort of clue. I do think it should immediately give a clue, even if it gets repeated during the debriefing.

Mission seemed a little too simple considering I could just stealth in and click one glowy and be done. The dialog generated by all the mobs that I stealthed past did help with making the mission feel like it had more content, though.

Debriefing: kind of terse compared to the rest of the writing thus far. We still don't know what was actually on the computer I clicked, but she's going to try and decrypt it. I think I would've preferred to just plain get the info in the clue and/or debriefing rather than postpone it until mission 5's briefing.

Mission 5
Briefing: Turns out Livingston wasn't in the Rogue Isles at all, but has somehow turned himself into a Longbow Ballista and is applying to join the Malta. Is there really a "process" for turning into a Longbow Ballista? I've never heard of such a thing, I thought they were just supers of various sorts that volunteered to join.

Dietrich says she gets orders "from the Joint Chiefs", but I don't think this is strictly correct - to my knowledge, Longbow is an organized militia, and not a branch of the US military at all. The real leader of Longbow (Ms Liberty) probably is too heroic to issue a "dead or alive" order like Dietrich says she's received.

Mission entry popup: "So are two rogue cops" - is this meant to be Kobushi and Livingston? Neither one are, strictly speaking, cops.

Objectives: "Defeat Operative Kobushi" is among my objectives, but based on the background story so far, I'm not terribly clear on why this is necessary. It seems like Kobushi wants to take down Livingston just as much as we do, and has been portrayed as having good intentions (for an Arachnos operative).

The mission is full of "Malta RDF", who seem to be custom characters representing advanced Malta mecha and upgraded sappers (!). They seem to be ALL custom characters; consider mixing in some standard Malta minions to make them feel a little more authentically Malta?

I found and rescued Captain Dietrich. I like her dialog where she brags about the player, and how intimidated her guards are when I show up. It's good to be a hero.


Police Woman rescues Captain Dietrich and Operative Kobushi from Malta v2.0


I found a body bag labeled "Operative Kobushi"; apparently he got ganked by Arachnos assassins (who had a brief line of dialog when I entered) before I got here. I kinda felt sorry for him, but upon clicking the body bag, it turns out he's not quite dead yet and we can medevac him.

I like Operative Taggart's (brief) cameo appearance. It warms the heart to have him say:

[NPC] Operative Taggart: Lord Recluse has long desired your death, Police Woman!

It's good to know you annoy the right people.

I also ran into "Omega 12 4-9-0", a Malta boss; I think his name is ever so slightly wrong for a named Malta. Normally they are named something like "<Random Word> <Random Color> #-#-#". So "Omega Red 4-9-0" would work. (Minor nitpick)


Uh oh. He looks mad.


Found and fought the new and improved Livingston; I totally thought he was going to be a Longbow EB, but he turned out to be a custom nrg assault/nrg armor EB, who I managed to defeat (though I ate a lot of inspirations to keep from getting energy melee'd out). Got the "Too Much, Too Fast" clue from defeating him.

Debriefing: the contact is rather unsympathetic about Livingston's demise, but this fits her character from what I've seen so far. She's rather nicer about Kobushi's "death", but this kind of works for me.

Souvenir: pretty nicely written, though I still think calling an Arachnos Operative a "cop" is stretching it. Rogue Island Police are cops; Arbiters might be considered cops. I don't think Operatives can be counted as such.

Overall
This was a nicely written story of an investigation into corrupt Longbow. The briefings and debriefings had a lot of good writing in them, and I thought the dialog overall was good and helpful for supporting the story. I liked the characterization of both the "main" cast (Livingston, Kobushi and Dietrich) and the minor bit players, who I thought were nice additions to the story.

The gameplay overall was decent; I particularly liked mission 3, the police evidence mission (though I might be biased on that ) and mission 5, where a lot of minor characters got to put in a brief appearance. On the other hand, mission 2 required some backtracking that didn't seem strictly necessary for the story, and mission 4 seemed a little too easy (just needed 1 glowy click).

I do think the story arc description needs to be a bit more descriptive to make players interested in trying this story. I also kind of question some of the Longbow background info that is used; I don't think they count as cops, serve the Joint Chiefs, and I'm not sure they really have a super-soldier serum for generating Longbow Ballistae.

It's a good story overall, though, and my gripes weren't all that substantial. I gave this story arc 5 stars.

---

My queue is currently:

Zamuel - Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue 163967 (re-review)
EvaDestruction - Freaks, Geeks and Men in Black #161629
twelfth - Inhuman Resources - At Work with IE #298132
@Gypsy Rose - In Pursuit of Liberty 221702 (re-review)
@The Cheshire Cat - Astoria in D Minor #41565
@Baron von Doffen - A Surprise Fit for a Baron #318352
Gryfyn - Trick or Treat #320225
SkarmoryThePG - Sky Kings' Ransom #232308
@GlaziusF - Backwards Day 329000

Rider's Ribs Restaurant Rescue re-review
Arc ID: 163967
Keywords: Custom Characters, Comedy
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 20-25
Warnings: custom power selections

This is a story arc about the rivalry between two restaurants. I played a 22 elec/SR scrapper on +0 x1 difficulty. Since this is a re-review, I'm mainly checking to see if the issues I raised earlier were addressed.

Mission 1
Briefing: "sabotoge" should be "sabotage".

I like the added food references in the mission. I think Tyrone's line:

[NPC] Tyrone Rider: Tira must have sent you to rescue me.

...is a little awkward; most people wouldn't naturally say something like that.

You might consider giving the KCCC employees a little more dialog in mission 1 to help set the atmosphere; maybe add an (optional) static boss or patrol that has a few lines talking about that they're up to.

I like the "Fresh Coupons" clue you added, that mentions King Colonel's Chicken & Cake.

Roaster's description seems awfully short and doesn't really describe her (unlike the other mobs whose powers are explained as being relevant to their fast food jobs). Maybe add a little text.

Mission 2
I like that there are some warehouse employees to rescue now.


Thunder Girl: You're free now, Mr. Warehouse Worker! You can go back to work!
Worker: Umm. Sure. Right after my coffee break.


One of these encounters generated the dialog:

[NPC] Sweetener: If you could just show us where the supplies are, we'll be on our way.
[NPC] Forklift Driver: Wow, this has been a crazy day.

These lines are okay, and the KCCC is here to steal supplies, but the lines are also kind of generic. I think it'd be more fun if you could give them lines that are either food-related (to strengthen the "restaurant" theme), or funny (since this is labeled a Comedy), or both. (Likewise for the other hostage.)

As an example, some other mobs in the same mission said:

[NPC] Dicer: I prefer the Explosive Chicken combo meal.
[NPC] Pulverizer: I think the fries are best with the glowing BBQ sauce.

...which is much better because it's both food-related (strengthening the "restaurant rivalry" theme) and somewhat silly.

Random idea: maybe all the KCCC employees should have the logo of their restaurant (maybe a golden K, or one of the bird symbols) as their "chest symbol", to make them seem more like uniformed fast food employees? (Not required, just a suggestion.)


Mission 3
Inside the mission, I find Tira Rider and rescue her. One of Tira's guards says:

[NPC] Chiller: Just because King Colonel is a little jealous of Rider's Ribs doesn't mean he's delirious.

I'm really not quite sure what this line is supposed to mean; maybe it could be made a little more funny. Or perhaps he could say something relating to Tira.


Thunder Girl: Tira! I'm here to rescue you!
Tira: Aren't you a little short to be a stormtrooper?


Rescuing Tira gives me the "Poorly thought out master plan" clue. Love the name of this clue; the plan itself isn't all that exciting though (King Colonel is stealing some recipes) and could stand to be made more funny and/or more outrageous. And would using some of Mr Rider's recipes really require kidnapping him?

I found and fought King Colonel, with Tira's help. I liked some of his lines:

[NPC] King Colonel: My culinary superiority shall infect your soul!
[NPC] King Colonel: Your Kentucky fried justice is no match for me!

...but some of his other lines seemed a little too generic:

[NPC] King Colonel: You worthless Scrapper. Die!
[NPC] King Colonel: You'll never beat me, Thunder Girl.
[NPC] King Colonel: Don't think you've won, Thunder Girl. You'll never escape!

...by which I mean, any boss could probably say those lines; while the first two are more uniquely "King Colonel" lines.


King Colonel: All I wanted was for people to like my fried chicken!
Thunder Girl: Your chicken is radioactive, you crazy freak!
King Colonel: Yes, of course! That's what gives the chicken that zesty flavor!


Poor Tira fell to the ambushes of fast food employees, but I fought past them to rescue Tyrone Rider, then led him out, fighting Disasta Recipe on the way out. One of her lines:

[NPC] Disasta Recipe: Uncle Tyrone's ribs may be good but they are no match for King Colonel's Chicken & Cake

needs punctuation (a . or a ! ) at the end of it.

The debriefing isn't bad but I think it could use a little more writing.... perhaps describing KC and Disasta cooking in the Zig, or the reopening of Rider's Ribs, or other wrap-up of what happens beyond "it's finally over", to give the arc a little more sense of closure.

I still like the Golden Spork souvenir.

Overall
I could see where you made improvements and I like the additions that were made. I definitely think it is better for them.

The main thing I'd suggest working on at this point is improving the writing and making the dialog more funny (since the arc is labeled "comedy"). There's certainly some good lines already, but there's also a lot of lines that were a little generic that could be reworked to be both funnier and better connected to the food theme. I'd suggest trying to make just about everything tied into the restaurant rivalry; especially the dialog and the clues, but maybe also add some more text to the briefings and debriefings.

I do think the arc is definitely improved though, and so I rated it 4 stars.

---

My queue is currently:

EvaDestruction - Freaks, Geeks and Men in Black #161629
twelfth - Inhuman Resources - At Work with IE #298132
@Gypsy Rose - In Pursuit of Liberty 221702 (re-review)
@The Cheshire Cat - Astoria in D Minor #41565
@Baron von Doffen - A Surprise Fit for a Baron #318352
Gryfyn - Trick or Treat #320225
SkarmoryThePG - Sky Kings' Ransom #232308
@GlaziusF - Backwards Day 329000

Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black review
Arc ID: 161629
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Canon Related
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 41-54
Warnings: enemies with custom powers

The premise appears to be to help some heroes against some kind of shadowy conspiracy involving the Malta. I played a heavily IO'd 50 AR/dev blaster on +0 x0 difficulty.

The contact is a Freakshow juicer.

Mission 1
Briefing: Nicely formatted and quite a funny intro that does a good job of explaining why your contact is a Freak and helps define his character. Apparently he's a reformed salesfreak whose shop is being attacked and he needs a hero's help. I especially like the line "The owner's probably got ninja insurance or something" to explain why you only need to save the hostages.

Inside the mission: the contact told me in the briefing that there are 3 salesfreaks to rescue, but the mission objectives only list "2 employees to find". This seems inconsistent initially. I did find an "employee schedule" with a clue saying that one of the salesfreaks left work early; perhaps that should count as an "employee to find" just to make the total add up to 3.

Clicking the desk satisfied the "find clues" objective, and my spam box says "You found some clues on the desk; you can check them out later, ninja chicks are trying to kill you!" but strangely, this did not give me a clue in my clue journal. I'm guessing I will get a clue on mission complete, but based on the way this is presented, I think I should get some sort of clue (though maybe an incomplete one) at this time.

Found a couple body bags that satisfied "2 employees to find" and completed the mission. Aww! Poor salesfreaks.

Finishing the mission did indeed give me the "Pwnzinator's Desk" clue. This clue is well-written with lots of little details.


This clue is just awesome.


During the mission, some of the KoA said:

[NPC] Mercenary: They said three. We're missing one.
[NPC] Mercenary: Not our problem. Our job is to eliminate everyone here and erase the evidence, so start erasing.

I think their count is slightly off. By my count, there are actually four salesfreaks: Robert, Mike, Trevor, and Pete. The KoA have ganked Mike and Trevor, so if they're here to eliminate "everyone", they should still be missing 2, Robert and Pete.

Debriefing: nicely written.

Mission 2
Briefing: "zig" should be "Zig". Otherwise a good briefing asking me to make sure Pete is okay at the nightclub he went to.

I like the mission entry popup and it's over-the-top description of the music they play here.

The irony of the contact telling me Pete is "a guy with a pink mohawk and a metal arm, he kinda stands out" becomes apparent as I find the nightclub is full of hostile Freaks.

Found and clicked a body bag labeled "Club Patron"; it didn't seem to do anything (no objectives satisfied, no clues). There's a message in my spam box about the patron's injuries; consider adding a short clue to that effect also, since it's easy to miss messages that appear in the Global window.


Sorry, guys. The party's over when police arrive.


There is a lot of good dialog in this mission, from the Freaks, the KoA assassins and the newbie heroine that you rescue. I like how both the Freaks and the KoA are after Pete here, and the general "We're here to kill someone and to party!" attitude the Freaks have, while the KoA display utter disdain toward the Freaks.

Mission 3
Briefing: another nicely written briefing. "I" decide to check out this address I found in that clue earlier, to find Pete (and apparently Kat, the newbie heroine).

I somehow find it hilarious that Kat's hero name is "Darkfire Avenger"...that's so stereotypical! Yet it kinda works considering how darkity-dark she's portrayed. I like the line from the Malta holding her hostage:

[NPC] Operation Engineer: Shouldn't you be out killing Skulls? Or can't you resist a man in uniform?

Rescued Kat and Pete and Pete tells me that some big shot ambassador is mixed up in the conspiracy that he read about on the Internet. Soon after, I find a body bag with "the body of an African man in the remains of an expensive suit" (according to the spam message window). Uh oh, is Pete helping a Nigerian prince move his millions of dollars out of the country? You might consider adding a clue to the clue journal for the body bag, also.


How do I keep ending up on these pickup teams?


"laptop" glowy should be "Laptop" and maybe give a clue. The spam box says something about Longbow personnel files; should maybe put this in the clue journal also.

Found "Ambassador Keyes" who turned out to be an evil duplicate posing as the ambassador, who called a sapper ambush onto me (ick). Managed to beat the Ambassador and the ambush.

My objectives now are "Find the real Ambassador Keyes", which makes sense, and "Defeat liquidation team Alpha"; but the dialog actually announces:

[NPC] Ambassador Keyes: Legion Black 3-6-3 requesting assistance. We have an MHI in progress, repeat, MHI in progress.
[NPC] Sapper: We read you, 3-6-3, initiating MHI protocols.
[NPC] Sapper: Liquidation team Gamma reporting. All quiet over here.
[NPC] Tactical Operative: Liquidiation team Beta reporting. Looks clear.
[NPC] Ambassador Keyes: Operation compromised. Requesting liquidation team.

....so why doesn't team Alpha report in, and why do I particularly have to defeat Alpha but not team Beta or team Gamma?

I did find and rescue the real Keyes (I hope! I didn't fingerprint him or anything) and defeated a boss named Legion Black 3-5-3 who seemed to count as Liquidation Team Alpha; though he doesn't have "Team Alpha" in his name or anything, so I'm not sure how I know he's Team Alpha. As his attack message, he says:

[NPC] Legion Black 3-5-3: This definitely qualifies as a security breach. Take 'em down.

....there seem to be some extra spaces immediately before "This definitely".

Got "The Malta Warehouse" clue at the end of the mission, with a lot of interesting detail about a plot against West Libertalia.

I like the bits of dialog the "real" (I hope) Keyes is given. He isn't on stage that long, but the writing definitely portrays him as being very idealistic and principled (for a politician).

Mission 4
Briefing: nice briefing explaining what happens to the ambassador. The mysterious text messages from Pete's phone are revealed to be from someone else, but we think this mysterious someone has been helping us, so we decide I should go save whomever it is.

Inside the mission there's a mix of Malta and "Crey Security" who at first glance look like real Crey, but I think were actually custom assault rifle/martial arts models that look a lot like Crey security agents, with a few power tanks mixed in. (I realized this after I noticed they were level 51 and I remember from using Crey in a couple story arcs that nearly all Crey models only go up to 45.)

"Security Chief" is in the regular Crey faction, while all the other Crey are in the Crey Security faction. I think maybe the Security Chief should be in "Crey Security" as well.

Found "Computer" and clicked it, which told me about a mysterious transaction that was scheduled, and satisfied the "seek clues" objective and triggered a "Find the buyer" objective.

Found Target242 and rescued him. Wow, it turned out to be a real person! I was half expecting it to be an alias of "The Doctor".

It seems Target242 is a disgruntled former Crey employee who invented an illusion device.

I found and destroyed a Shipping Crate, which gave me the Portable Holographic Imager clue. It describes me as turning on the little device. I actually would've thought destroying the shipping crate would destroy the device, though; if you're meant to capture it, maybe it should be a clickable glowy instead. But, later on, the mission exit popup says "The holographic emitters...you destroyed most of them." So did I capture a device or did I destroy it? Seems inconsistent.

I found and fought Legion Chrome 0-3 and killed him, but a nasty Malta ambush jumped me right after, with a sapper that drained all my END; fortunately defeating the boss completed the mission and I quickly punched out.

Legion Chrome 0-3 says:

[NPC] Legion Chrome 0-3: You promised ten units by the end of the day. We have two. First your brain-dead cyborgs tip off a hero, now you can't deliver on a simple shipment...you're not exactly inspiring confidence here.

I think you have an extra space between "your" and "brain-dead". Also, do they really have two? The mission exit popup says "one is unaccounted for". Did the fake ambassador have the other one? In that case, why didn't we find it when we beat the fake ambassador? Perhaps defeating the fake ambassador should give a clue describing a busted device or something.

Mission 5
Briefing: fun briefing. I like the interplay between the Zapmasta and Target242 and how Target242 compliments the player on her fight with the Malta.

Target242 says we only have an hour to stop Operation Requiem, but the mission actually has no timer on it (nitpicky, maybe).

It looks like we think Operation Requiem is an assassination attempt. Inside the mission, I have the objective of "Rescue Ambassador Alwani" ... but the briefing says that Ambassador Keyes is here too, why don't I need to rescue Keyes too? Do I know he's not a target somehow?

Oh, I like the "SWAT Officers" from the "Steel Canyon Police" that are present. They have some great dialog too. I can't help but notice they're level 30 but the Malta here are level 50; this makes sense though, they need a hero to help out. I see some friendly Longbow also,

I found these lines pretty funny too:

[NPC] Sapper: If those meta-noobs show up again, I got dibs. They're starting to tick me off.
[NPC] Tactical Operative: Did you just say "noobs?"

I ran into "Target", who seems to be Target242 repainted as a newbie hero and he started following me around as an ally; later I also found Darkfire Avenger and Pwnzinator again, too. I didn't really want to have to clear the whole map (being the outdoor Steel Canyon map, it's quite large) so I ended up leaving the allies behind.

I beat up Legion 3-6-1 and rescued Officer Chavez; neither of these seemed required objectives, but I liked that they were there; it made the big map feel like more stuff is happening on it. Some of the other Longbow had dialog referring to Chavez and how he wasn't responding, which was a nice touch.

Ooh, I found an "Officer Chavez?" also, who turned out to be an impostor. Managed to defeat him, and it satisfied the "defeat the assassin" objective. His dialog does hint that Keyes hasn't arrived yet, helping to explain why he's not an objective. I like how the "Longbow personnel files" foreshadowed this development, too.

After searching Steel Canyon for awhile, I finally found Ambassador Alwani held captive behind one of the buildings and rescued him, which finished the mission.

Debriefing: a nice wrap-up where Keyes thanks me for all the work I've done.

Fun souvenir as well. The last paragraph is particularly fun.

Overall
This was an entertaining conspiracy theory story. The writing in the briefings and the clues was very good. The characterization was excellent, with each of the NPCs having their own voice and personality. It wasn't really a comedy arc, but there were bits of humor that worked well. I liked the map selections in general; it was nice that most of them were on smaller maps that were just big enough to tell the story; except perhaps the final map, which did require some searching to find the objectives. But it wasn't too bad and there was a lot of stuff in that mission to keep it interesting.

I liked all the non-required side objectives, but I did think some of the glowies should award a clue rather than just a message in the chat box. Sorry to keep harping on this, but messages in the Global window are easy to miss, and if you're on a team, other teammates won't see that message at all. So if it's either important to the story, or interesting enough that you'd like the players to see it, it should probably be a clue.

Despite that, I thought this arc was very well done. I gave it 5 stars.



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My queue is currently:

twelfth - Inhuman Resources - At Work with IE #298132
@Gypsy Rose - In Pursuit of Liberty 221702 (re-review)
@The Cheshire Cat - Astoria in D Minor #41565
@Baron von Doffen - A Surprise Fit for a Baron #318352
Gryfyn - Trick or Treat #320225
SkarmoryThePG - Sky Kings' Ransom #232308
@GlaziusF - Backwards Day 329000

Thank you for the review, and for pointing out some nitpicky little things that I missed.

I had one of those point-by-point replies all written out and then the power flickered and my computer rebooted, thus sparing this thread my long-winded reply. The short version:

Mission 1: The bulletin board is supposed to be included in the "employees to find" objective. I tested it after reading this post, and it worked fine. Don't know why you got "2 employees to find"....bug?

Mission 3: The issues with the liquidation teams are probably due to a recent change in the map used, since my original map was rendered unusable with the i16 addition of "middle" spawn points in front of the door and way in the back. On the original (slightly larger) map one or both would usually spawn outside of "trigger patrol dialogue" range. Might have to tweak them somewhat. Will tweak Legion Black's dialogue to indicate that he leads team Alpha.

Mission 4: Crey do go up to 50, but after 45 they are all tanks. These are annoying and tedious, so I added a couple of less-tedious customs. I had to call the group "Crey Security" since just calling them "Crey" made my customs not spawn. The crate is a destructible since when the arc was published you couldn't do chained blinkies, and it remained so because of some wonkiness with blinky spawn points on this map, and to allow guard dialogue. Might have to tweak the clue to incorporate the fact that you destroyed all the emitters but one, which is currently indicated only in the Global message. Fake Keyes does have a clue, or at least he's supposed to.

Mission 5: It should be timed. It was timed. Then they introduced a bug that made the timed mission auto-fail when the captive escaped, so I had to take the timer off. The briefing text field is maxed out, so there is no room for "This mission is supposed to be timed but there is a bug that causes it to auto-fail, it's been around for months, pester the devs to fix it!"

I've been seriously considering making Alwani an escort instead (barring the bug that makes escorts stick around and follow you, even if you set them to leave the mission) but I'm not sure if that would be too annoying, since he has a 2/5 chance to spawn on the opposite end of a fairly large map.

General comment on clue-less objectives: There are a lot of clues already, and the arc is pushing the file size limit. I had to pick and choose which objectives warranted clues. Some of the optional objectives didn't make the cut. The body bags in mission 2 are just there for flavor, to show that the freaks aren't messing around, and the one in mission 3 is referenced again in Keyes' rescued dialogue; the laptop might get a clue though.

Again, thank you for the review.

PW, since I'm next on the list, I wanted to relink to the arc thread since the Arc has a very particular set of goals and usage in mind. Thanks for taking the time to look at it regardless.