I'll try yours if you'll try mine

Frozen_Northman · 04-11-2009 01:56 AM

I thought I'd also take the opportunity to give some public kudos to PoliceWoman on Arc 1388, "Celebrity Kidnapping."

While it's a short, three-mission arc, it really works well for the story that it tells. It makes excellent use of existing CoH maps and enemy groups, with a judicious sprinkling of Custom Enemies.

The first mission, which involves a breakout on the Zig map, is very well-crafted to set the atmosphere. There are roving bands of Prisoners who fight roving groups of Paragon Police and Longbow. This is a really great touch that makes for a much more immersive mission.

The identity of the Celebrity prisoner is a fun, satirical jab at a modern-day celebrity, and that style of humor really works for me. (Humor is hard to do well, and I greatly respect it when it works.) Furthermore, her "rescue" triggers an ambush of Paparazzi custom enemies, and the choice of low-level Illusion powers to simulate photography flashes is a marvelous inspiration.

The second mission was straightforward and quick - not mind-blowingly memorable, but a fine transition between the first and third missions, where the real meat of the story and humor are found.

The third mission involves the inevitable falling-out between the kidnapping factions. It takes place on a short map, and yet accomplishes a good deal on said map. There's a nice use of animation choices, here, and some humorous bits of dialogue.

Grabbing the celebrity kidnappee simultaneously triggers another paparazzi ambush, as well as spawns some PPD bosses along the return route. I suspect this is why the small warehouse map is such an excellent choice, as it pretty much guarantees a series of fights on the way back to the entrance, to keep things interesting. And... it also has a guest-star appearance by PoliceWoman, the author, as a custom Boss. (PoliceWoman showed up as the last Boss that I had to fight on the way back to the entrance, which I presume was a fine example of choosing her spawning point to be near the Front of the mission.)

And, of course, the final debriefing with good old Willy Weaver brought comforting closure like a soft, warm blanket.

Nice job on this one! Definitely earned five stars.

Train_Wreck · 04-11-2009 09:01 AM

PW,

I ran Celebrity Kidnapping yesterday.

Those photographers were more powerful than I would imagine! I like how you used a kidnap placement to have the reporter follow you around.

Lots of fun,
TW

My Arcs:
Unbearable Funk #3573
Tale of the Creatures From Another Forbidden Planet #97983

My Deviant Art Page

Olantern · 04-11-2009 09:10 AM

Greetings, fellow Libertyite. I'd appreciate it if you could take a look at "The Love Talker: a City of Heroes Faerie Tale," Arc ID 30242, when you get a chance.

I played "Axis and Allies" this morning and enjoyed it immensely. (There should be a feedback tell from @Djinniman waiting for you.) I particularly liked the map choices. I was, however, disappointed that Gen. MacArthur did not have his trademark pipe (okay, a cigar, since he can't have a pipe).

"Bombarding the CoH/V fora with verbosity since January, 2006"

Djinniman, level 50 inv/fire tanker, on Victory
-and 40 others on various servers

A CoH Comic: Kid Eros in "One Light"

Servercat2 · 04-11-2009 09:17 AM

I did Celebrity Kidnapping was pretty fun I'll right down my thoughts as I play

Part 1: During the prison break, the dialogue from the Ppd vs prisoners was a little repetitive. Though I guess thats more a limitation of the architect in spawning the PPD vs Prisoner battles. Would be something to look at if you had some space left.

The rescue dialogue made giggle Paris a destined one? Hah the world shudders!

Part 2: Short and to the point. Felt a little too brief and the Tsoo as squatters? Might make more sense for one of the gangs or Freakshow but not the Tsoo.

Part 3. Again the rescue dialogue made me giggle and I loved the reporter and paparazzi.

All in all the Arc was fun, I think you reallly hit your stride on part 3, just shame it was over

Be sure to check out my

Arc 31599: Who is the Master?
@Servercat

I'd appreciate it, if you would post your thoughts in my thread. Can always use the bumpage
Who is the Master

GlaziusF · 04-11-2009 10:27 AM

[ QUOTE ]

1. Post here with your story arc name and number, and your global name.

[/ QUOTE ]

"Bricked Electronics", ID: 2180. @GlaziusF

[ QUOTE ]

2. Run through one of my story arcs, give it a rating, and leave me a note so that I know you did it. You don't have to give me a good rating, but if you want to give me a bad one, please give me suggestions!

3. You don't have to do one of my story arcs before I will do yours. But, once you do one of my story arcs, I'll "owe" you a review, and give your arc higher priority to look at.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's your feedback, then. Ran through "Celebrity Kidnapping". Overall nice setup, good use of maps, not entirely sure you wanted the second mission that short, as there's something to be said for chasing down a giant pile of money through an abandoned office. Not complaining about that, though.

Complaining about this: they throw somebody in the Zig, superpowered cold cell central, for drunk driving? I mean, have you SEEN how people drive in Paragon City? How would you tell? I'd have liked the celebrity guest villain better had I not teamed up with like half a dozen people with that exact concept and regretted most of it.

My advice: come up with somebody who's only loosely tied to a real-world celebrity and have her put in the Zig after she blows up on reality TV. Like, actually blows up. People, houses, puppy orphanages, whatever. The arc works fine aside from that little quibble.

PoliceWoman · 04-11-2009 04:36 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Neutrality and Brutality
Arc ID 16338
Length: Very Long
Morality: Villainous
Description: It's time to defend your right to be a villain! The UN has decided to step in and "restore order" in the Rogue Isles

[/ QUOTE ]

Neutrality and Brutality review

Played on 50 SS/elec brute, Ruthless difficulty

Mission 1

Briefing: "nuetral" should be "neutral". "retore order" should be "restore order". Ellipses (...) a bit overused.

Interesting premise, repelling a United Nations invasion from Mercy Island. It's a defeat all, but a small map.

I think the enemy faction "Marshalls" should be something more like "UN Peacekeeping Force". Marshals are a US federal thing.

Both the Peacekeeper minion and Squad Leader lieutenant could use a description in their info; that would help explain why they have robots and force fields. Thinking about it, for a military invasion, I actually would've expected mercenaries MMs.

It looks like the lieutenants are robot/FF and the minions are robot/dev; that's quite a lot of robots running around. I had to wade through a lot of robots; it wasn't too bad for me while soloing, but on a big team it might get pretty crazy, and FF lieutenants plus protector bots may give the bad guys too much defense. I eventually found a "Colonel" boss who seemed to be robot/rad; neat combination. Awful lot of robots though! You might consider making the minions use a different primary power so there aren't quite so many robots.

I didn't see any bosses or dialog or clues or anything during this mission, just beat up minions and stuff. I think it could benefit from having a UN or Longbow commander on the scene, with some dialog about bringing justice to the Rogue Isles.

Debriefing could use a little more, it was very short and did not say much.

Mission 2

Briefing: for some reason the arbiter now thinks I'm suggesting that we frame the UN. Not sure how he got that idea.

"But you must be absolutely certain to succeed or our ruse fail- and Arachnos does NOT accept failure" is an awkward sentence; suggest maybe "Be certain to succeed. Arachnos will NOT tolerate failure."

"Here are the bombs. and the fake security tape" ... should be "Here are the bombs and the fake security tape."

Once I got in the mission I see that it's a Longbow base that I'm bombing. Faking a blue-on-blue incident is a pretty good plot, but if you want to make it even more villainous, you might have them fake an attack on a civilian installation; maybe a building full of contaminated. Even better, a widows & orphans faction, and somewhere in there you can have a shocked Westin Phipps telling everyone how brutal UN peacekeepers stormed in and started killing widows & orphans. That would be a lot more damning for world opinion.

Or another target for accidental UN bombing would be a Spetznaz commando installation, triggering an international incident with Russia, who is a UN Security Council member. Just some ideas.

The clickies here are called "Bombs" .. I think you may want to just call them each "Bomb" to avoid confusion with respect to the "4 Bombs" objective. Those tiny sticks of dynamite are crazy hard to see, also; but not sure there is much you can do about that.

I think it might be cool if you added some allies who were Arachnos operatives dressed up like UN Peacekeepers also, and those allies shot up some of the Longbow/widows & orphans/Spetnaz/whatever. It would add to the feeling that you're staging a fake attack.

I think it'd be neat if you could plant videotapes on the WSPDR map and have the TV station broadcast the fake footage of the UN atrocities. Adding a whole mission might be too much though; it might be enough to just mention in the debriefing that WSPDR broadcast the fake footage and world opinion was shocked.

Mission 3

OK, faking that the Marshalls are Rikti infiltrators and getting Vanguard to attack them sounds like a good plot. It's especially good because Vanguard has more respect for villains (since villains can join) than other factions, and so they can even be allies to you; might be worth mentioning that in the briefing.

The glowy in this mission is called "Find the Email Server", but I think it should just be "Email Server" or even "Server".

After clicking this glowy I got a clue called "Evidence Planted!" with a description of "This should stir a hornets nest among the UN....". I think this clue should explain what you did in more detail, like "You've planted suspicious emails linking the Marshalls with the Rikti".

The mission ended as soon as I clicked the one glowy; this was a little anticlimactic. I had half expected Vanguard ambushes to show up and start beating up the Marshalls.

This map was so big I think you need more to do than just click one glowy in this mission, which seems a little too easy. Maybe add a few more glowies, or a boss to fight; or you have to destroy a firewall before you can hack into the other computers. Something like that.

Also, I'm not totally sold on the idea that Vanguard would attack the United Nations peacekeeping force just based on a few emails; maybe if you planted some physical evidence, also, or faked that they were transmitting info about Vanguard dispositions to the Rikti mother ship or something. You could still have the same method (clicking glowies) for all these though.

Mission 4

Briefing: "trechary" should be "treachery". "vigillantes" should be "vigilantes". Also "patriotic vigilantes" does not make sense for a UN force, since the UN is not a country and so you can't be patriotic towards it.

I see now that part of the premise of this mission is that Longbow and Vanguard are attacking the Marshalls base, which does make it so that mission 2 needs to be a friendly fire incident against Longbow. (I still kinda like the idea of faking civilian collateral damage and pinning it on the Marshalls, though.)

I'm not sure that breaking in and stealing data from the UN computer makes sense at this point; the goal of this entire story arc so far has been to kick the Marshalls out of the Rogue Isles, and since you've hacked into their security once or twice already, stealing data seems moot at this point. So I'm not sure I buy that uploading a virus to the UN computer makes sense; I mean, you could've done that in mission 3 already, since you already planted fake emails on their system there.

Kind of a neat 3-way battle going on in the warehouse. They all seem to hate me, though. I guess that is OK.

Cool, this mission actually has some dialog from the peacekeepers and vanguard and other mobs! I think that was lacking from some of the earlier missions.

Found the glowy and the mission immediately ended.

Debriefing: "invaulable" should be "invaluable".

Overall:
I like the basic premise of repelling the UN invasion and framing the invaders in order to get them to back off. The new enemy group has decent costumes, but I think they need more description and dialog; I never heard any of them say anything until the final mission, and I think some dialog and description could really help flesh out the new enemy group. They could also benefit from having more named bosses, which would give you another chance to add some dialog.

I think the last 3 missions, which are all purely glowy clicking at the moment, could stand to be spiced up a bit by adding more stuff to do. Maybe you could lead Arachnos operatives disguised as Marshalls to attack the Longbow base, or drag some captured and reprogrammed Rikti Drones into the Marshalls base, to help support the faked attack on Longbow and faked Rikti affiliation.

You might consider inventing a UN general who is commanding the whole invasion, who is referred to through the first few missions and in the final mission, Arachnos sends you to assassinate the enemy general in the confusion, partly to put an end to the invasion and partly as a personal vendetta from Lord Recluse. I think that might make more sense than stealing data from the mainframe.

Anyway, I like the basic premise but I think the enemy group and missions need a little more fleshing out! Gave it 3 stars, hope you won't mind.

-------

I owe a review to:

@Mylia Stenetch
@Train Wreck
@Djinniman
@Servercat
@GlaziusF

@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"

Vox Populi · 04-11-2009 05:00 PM

Here's my arc, I'll go play yours now.

The Freakshow Phalanx
Arc ID: 33843
Length: Long
Morality: Heroic
Description: Why has Paragon City's premiere superteam joined the cyber-anarchist Freaks? Are you up to the challenge of the Freakshow Phalanx??

Gwalkmaur · 04-11-2009 06:46 PM

I'll bite:

End the Deadstorm
Arc ID: 4066
Length: Long
Morality: Heroic
Description: An unearthly storm has just rolled in, causing havoc with those of the recently dead. But it's just a storm, you can ride it out.....right?

StratoNexus · 04-11-2009 08:29 PM

I ran Axis and Allies with some SG mates and put my feedback in that thread.

My arc is in my signature.

Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.

PoliceWoman · 04-11-2009 09:41 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Arc Name: Midnight Bells Toll
Arc ID: 12217
Faction: Villain
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Mylia Stenetch

[/ QUOTE ]

Midnight Bells Toll review

Played on a 50 fortunata.

Mission 1
Briefing: "I know it is not what you like" - not sure why the contact thinks he knows what I might like or not like.

"She is known as the old lady, the Cimerorans are after he we need her alive" - very awkward sentence, should rephrase. The old lady is a pretty generic handle; maybe give her a catchier nickname? Or at least capitalize to "The Old Lady". Maybe something like "She is known as the Old Lady. We need to make sure she is alive; but be careful, the Cimerorans are after her too."

Entrance popup, "The Cimeroran do know how to pick their caves, lets clean it up for them", kind of an awkward sentence. Suggest you rephrase it.

One of my objectives is "Lead the old Lady Out"; probably should be "Rescue the Old Lady", then switch to "Lead the Old Lady out" once you free her.

As I rescue the Old Lady, she says: "I sence death for you soon minions". I think this should be "I sense death approaches for you, minions."

When I get too far from her, she says "I require your escout"; escout should be escort.

The clue at the end of the mission:
"You not sure why you had to save this old lady for. The only two things that came from this women was that the Cimerorans were instilled with fear even thinking about her. Also once you met up with this women she had the stentch of feel of death all around her."
....is very awkwardly phrased. I suggest something more like:

"You're not quite sure why you were sent to save this old lady. The Cimerorans were terrified of her, though, and the foul stench of death seemed to surround her."

You may also want to have some of the Cimeroran minions have dialog that shows that they are really scared of her.

Debriefing: "Excellent she will keep you in good grace for quite a while" is awkwardly phrased. Not quite sure what you want to say here.

Mission 2

Darrin now says "Now we need to find the Nekromanteia". The Nekromanteia hasn't been mentioned before here; I think you need either an explanation of why this is needed, or some foreshadowing or clues from the previous mission that show why you need it.

"One of them should have the some information on it leave not Circle unturned" is awkwardly phrased. A more natural sentence would be something like, "I'm sure one of them knows something about this. Question them all if you need to."

Entering the mission I find it's a Defeat all CoT in Oranbega! Aaack. Consider making it not Defeat All, but just defeat a boss (who has the clue) and with nav tool text "Find a CoT who knows something".

Met a boss named Scyrying Lord ... I think maybe he is supposed to be Scrying Lord. In his dialog he says "What Mayday, must not interfere!", should maybe be punctuated "What?! Mayday?! She must not interfere!" (Where Mayday is my character's name)

Clue "Last Word", maybe should be "Scrying Lord's Last Words". "All you heard from the scryer from his last breath was raid at midnight" maybe should be "With his last breath, the scryer told you of a raid at midnight."

Mission 3

I'm afraid the briefing doesn't make sense to me at all. I think you mean to say we're going to stop the raid on the Midnight Squad headquarters though. Also the briefing says we'll take the Nekromanteia, but I thought mission 2 stated that we had destroyed the Nekromanteia; this seems to be a continuity error.

The CoT vs Midnight Squad battles are pretty cool looking. The "Knowledge Warriors" faction suddenly appeared here; there needs to be some explanation for their appearance, I think. When they show up you really have no idea who they are. Also, the Fledging Student should probably be Fledgeling Student, and needs a description.

Nekromanteia clue: "You found the Nekromanteia as it cool feeling rushes through you hands" should probably be "You've found the Nekromanteia. A cool feeling rushes through your hands." I think you need more verbiage here explaining how horrible/ancient/evil it is, also.

I found the Nekromanteia on the very first artifact I searched, but the mission didn't complete even though the mission is "Find the Nekromanteia". I still have "5 Artifacts to search" as my objective, too.

Your glowies are called "Artifacts to Search" but should probably simply be named "Artifact". "Artifacts to Search" is good for in the nav tool though.

When I click a dummy artifact (not the Nekromanteia) it says "you begin to search the artifact"...it should really say something like "You don't find anything special" (the result of the search).

After clicking the last dummy artifact, my objective changed to Defeat Mental Crush; it's not clear why she needs to be defeated though, I think you need to have some explanation for why, or some of the NPCs should have some dialog saying that Mental Crush is coming to get you. Mental Crush is in the All Custom Characters faction, but should probably be in Midnight Squad. She needs a description for her info, too.

Mission 4

I'm very confused by this final mission. I've found the Nekromanteia (twice, it seemed to me) which was the main maguffin. Now I need to go bust up the Kings Row High School Prom? OK, so the Knowledge Warriors are there, and I like the mission title ("Crash the Party!"), but...this still does not seem very well connected to the main plot.

Maybe if the Knowledge Warriors were introduced earlier on and it was better explained how they were this teen superhero group that is really annoying you, then it would make more sense that you want to bust up their high school dance. But having seen them in only one mission where they didn't seem that dangerous, I'm not sure I feel strongly motivated enough to attack their prom night. Needs some build up to have this make sense, I think.

I like the map you picked, the rave warehouse is perfect for a dance party. I'm still not sure why we need to beat up Electra Flame; I think you need to write more story that makes Electra important earlier on, and causes the player really hate her, so that showing up at her dance and ruining her dream date makes sense.

I'm not sure it makes sense to have Longbow standing around at the high school dance. I'd probably just put hall monitors, teachers, or maybe police. Though, I guess King's Row IS a tough neighborhood.

OK, I found Electra Flame .. I see that she's actually a teacher and not a schoolgirl. This makes "ruin Electra Flame's dreams" make a little less sense; if she were a schoolgirl, her prom would definitely be a dream date and such. But as a schoolteacher, she's probably just a chaperone, so breaking up the school dance would not be nearly as traumatic. Electra does have a decent background story at least.

The Fledging Students in their kilts and bowler hats look right in the Midnight Squad base, but look very out of place at the dance rave. There seem to be no students at all at this high school dance, only Longbow, kilted scotsmen, and the teacher Electra Flame; I think you really need some more normal looking high school students here, to make it look like a dance.

The "2 Set Trap" glowies are a little out of place looking also; a computer cabinet seems an odd thing to have in the dance hall. It's not clear what kind of trap it is, either; I think some more explanation would be good. When I set the second trap, an ambush was triggered, but nothing really traplike seemed to occur; I kinda would've expected something bad would happen to the dance party. So I didn't really feel like the trap objectives worked for me.

Debriefing: OK, it seems the trap somehow is to ruin the dreams of a girl named Mylia, who never appears in the story arc. I think if the ultimate goal was to cause trouble for Mylia, she needed to be introduced earlier in the story arc; at this late date, the player has no idea who she is and why it is important to ruin her dreams.

Overall:
I found this story arc very confusing. It felt like there were three separate stories going on here: 1. Rescuing the Old Lady, who seems to be someone important and scary, but you never really find out more about her after rescuing her in the first mission. 2. Stealing the Nekromanteia from the Midnight Squad. This plot had some continuity problems because it seemed like you found it in both the second and third mission. And 3. Attacking the High School Dance. This felt pretty unconnected to anything that had happened before, and did not feel very well executed.

I think maybe you need to rethink the story for your arc; preferably, focus on just one of the stories you are trying to tell, then have all your missions support that story. As it is, the different themes seem to fight each other resulting in a dissonant mess.

You may also want to get a friend to help proofread some of your dialog; the sentence structure you use makes me think you might not be a native English speaker, and having the text written properly will help make your story arc make a better impression.

I do feel like you put a lot of effort into this and had some interesting story ideas in mind, and the missions were overall pretty doable. But with the other problems I didn't feel like I could rate this higher than 2 stars.

-----

I owe a review to:

@Train Wreck
@Djinniman
@Servercat
@GlaziusF
@Vox Populi
@Reska
StratoNexus

@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"

Cavatina · 04-12-2009 01:26 AM

I'll bite as well.

I have two arcs, wouldn't mind a review on either. especially the second since the first I have quite a bit of feedback on already. Plus this gives me a good excuse to try some hopefully good content.

Agnes Marksovich , Scientist Extraordinaire and the Lost Staff of Kimbotoo
ArcID 1324
Heroic Aligntment
Very Long

Melissa Marksovich, Hero of the Rogue Isles, and the Return of Dr Widget
ArcID 20319
Heroic
Very Long

theyre sequentially in the same storyline, both dealing with the family of mutant superscientists that my lvl 50 corrupter belongs to, and their steampunk-themed adventures against a mad scientist and his robotic army, both contain custom mobs and a custom AV, as well as special guest appearances in arc 2 by the Axis Americans.

Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!

Arc ID 58363!

HolyEvilAoD · 04-12-2009 09:46 AM

Man, I could have sworn I posted this last night, but I guess I didn't.

I sent in reviews to you for both your arcs.

So, if you'd be so kind to please check out mine, they're arcs 1571 (The Council's Good Graces), 1579 (The Council's Long Con), and 1831 (The Sad Story of Silas Gritch). The global name is the same as the forum name, HolyEvilAoD.

Thanks in advance.

PoliceWoman · 04-12-2009 01:52 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Unbearable Funk
Arc ID: #3573
Faction: Neutral
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Train Wreck
Difficulty Level: Medium, Arc contains 2 EBs and 0 AVs
Estimated Time to Play: Four missions on small to medium maps. I would estimate 0.5 to 1 hour to play.
Synopsis: Mr. Igor's master hasn't been himself lately, and it is really starting to worry him. Help Igor improve his boss's mood while sabotaging a rival mad scientist's work.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unbearable Funk review

Played on 50 AR/dev blaster

Mission 1

Igor's speech pattern is a cute idea; but I think maybe he should only have trouble with soft "S" sounds and not "Z" sounds, to keep it from being too overdone. (e.g. Greetings, my name is Mithter Igor.) I think it's neat, but I fear that if you make his text too unreadable, some people will quit right then and there.

Briefing: prediciment -> predicament. athithtance -> athithtanth (maybe?)

I like the name of the mission, "Peculiar Present". It makes me think Igor has creepy romantic feelings towards his mathter. Err, master. "5 more corpses to borrow" is a cool objective, too. Though I am starting to think you should label this as "villainous" morality and not "neutral".

I ran into a "Zombo" who I think should be a "Zombie". It's a female Zombo, but her description is "all he wants is your brainsssss"...pronoun trouble. She has a very healthy looking tan skin color, I suggest you make her skin color either paler or more greyish to look more sickly and undead. I like that she tried to hit me with a big bone though!

It's a little unclear why I couldn't get my 5 corpses by knocking down the moving zombies and carrying their corpses back to Igor, instead of being limited to clicking the glowy body bags. Maybe Igor's briefing could explain why this is.

You might be able to save some disk space by reusing Vahzilok zombies (not sure if we have access to zombie apocalypse zombies) and using one of the mortificators as a mad scientist or something. They are really close to what you're looking for here (zombies created by weird science). Using one of the existing sets of zombies (and there ARE a lot of them already) would let you conserve space to add more custom characters somewhere else in the arc, while simultaneously tying your story closer to the existing CoH canon.

I don't think I understand why the Bone Head zombies have grav control powers. Maybe dark miasma or dark armor would make more sense?

Ran into an "Infected" undead also; may want to rename him slightly, there is already an "Infected" villain group that he could get confused with.

Consider using Mother Mayhem's sanitarium map for this mission? The Banished Pantheon cave isn't bad, but I wonder if the creepy looking hospital would work even better for a place you're stealing bodies from. Try it and see what you think, either way probably works.

Mission exit popup, "Good thing you got out of there before lost your sense of smell permantently"; insert a "you" before "lost" and change "permantently" to "permanently".

Nicely macabre mission debriefing. I wonder if you can add the line "I'd be happy to lend you a hand" somewhere in there.

Mission 2

Briefing: Igor's lisp is starting to grate...I do suggest you tone it down a little.

We're stealing from Dr Weirdthrum again it looks like; is Igor's mad scientist completely a plagiarist?

Love the mission title, "Borrow Doomsday Device" and the objective "Swipe WMD". I think it would be a funny and biting commentary if there actually *were* no WMD, but making the mission impossible would be uncool, of course.

Okay, I like the Remade undead, the zombie with cybernetic parts grafted to it. Now that's a mad scientist minion! Consider giving him one of the targeting optics combat auras too, I think it would be a good touch.

I was able to stealth this mission by simply clicking the wooden crate labeled "Doomsday Device". Seemed a little too easy, I wonder if you could add something more; either Dr Weirdstrum himself or a horrible robotic monstrosity boss or something mad scientist like. Or maybe another glowy or two; maybe plutonium to power the Doomsday Device and the instruction manual for the Doomsday Device, something like that.

I think you should use one of the more techy looking objects instead of a wooden crate though; a doomsday device should look more cool!

Mission 3

The set up for this mission sounds cool! Get the remote control for the super mutant, then kidnap it.

I found the super mutant controller and clicked it and it vanished and changed my goal; I recommend you add a "Super Mutant Controller" clue explaining what happened.

I ran into a "Sarge" undead. In this description, "enterprizing" should be "enterprising", "Troopres" should be "Troopers" and "apetite" should be "appetite". Also the mad scientist found it was too expensive to hire living guards, so he animated some guards...I think it would be funnier if you somehow explained that he originally hired live guards, but when they asked for a raise (or his government grant got cut or the economy had a downturn), the mad scientist killed them and re-animated them.

Found the Super Mutant; the zombies got to say "Braiiinnnsss" here, which was good. I saw a couple earlier mentions of "Braiiinnsss" in ambush dialog (and descriptions); they don't get to say it often enough though (IMHO), you might want to add a patrol or two to each mission where their dialog is also "Braiiiinnsssss". Super Mutant didn't say anything at all; I think he should say something or react somehow, but not sure what he should say. Maybe just "RAWRRR" or some other noise. I think he should also have a glowing green aura, too, since he is "radioactive". Maybe give him some dialog when you get him to the exit, also.

Ran into Splatter House, who I assume is the Base Guard in "Defeat Base Guard" .... I'm not sure why he suddenly became an objective, you may need to give a clue or dialog to indicate he now needs to be killed. I also think his costume is a little too ordinary, and needs some tweaking to look more mad scientisty; maybe give him some robotic limbs, cyborg armor, targeting optics or other stuff.

The popup on mission exit: "Monstrocity" should be "monstrosity" (I think?).

Debriefing: maniacle -> maniacal.

Mission 4

Briefing: Igor lost the lisp for two sentences! IT'S ALL AN AFFECTATION! LOL! Great touch.

The briefing for this mission is a little weird; I guess Igor is actually going on the mission, but he immediately fails it and we need to go bail him out?

We still haven't actually ever seen Igor's master yet .. I'm starting to wonder if this is a Norman Bates scenario where we're going to find out Igor's master is actually dead, and Igor is in denial and just thinks his master is "losing interest" in his normal activities.

Objectives: "get the heck out of dodge.," has an extra period at the end of it.

Wow, Igor is an elite boss! Why is he henching for a minor mad scientist? I think he may be too powerful as an EB.

Also Igor says "Dr. Wierdthrum" (should probably be Dr. Weirdthtrum) .. Weirdstrum's name is inconsistently spelled Weirdstrum and Wierdstrum throughout, pick one and stick with it.

I freed Igor but still have "Help Igor abduct Dr. Weirdstrum and get the heck out of dodge" as an objective. This objective also sounds somewhat redundant with "Kidnap Dr. Wierdstrum".

OK, I found Dr. Wierdstrum and I love his description and dialog, great stuff! I especially liked "Engaging back up power.... oh yah, I haven't installed that yet..." I've had days like that. Dr. Weirdstrum was just a boss though, so Mr Igor quickly schooled him with a little help from me. I'm not sure how we are kidnapping him though, we seem to have KO'd him; but the "Kidnap Dr. Wierdstrum" objective went away. Maybe you need a clue here after defeating Dr. Wierdstrum saying that you've captured him, stolen his notes and experimental devices, or whatever.

Thinking about the mission's premise, I think your clue after defeating Dr. Wierdstrum should be simply "Dr. Weirdstrum's Brain" and the objective "Kidnap Dr. Wierdstrum" should be changed to "Extract Dr. Weirdstrum's Brain".

Dr. Wierdstrum calls out to Igor, which is cool, but if I didn't have Igor with me (due to stealthing to Wierdstrum first) it wouldn't make sense. Unless Dr Wierdstrum is prevented from spawning until after you've freed Igor, maybe.

So I guess "Help Igor abduct Dr Weirdstrum and get the heck out of dodge" actually means to lead Igor to the door; I wonder what would've happened if I took Igor to the door first? I think it might cause problems for your story structure; probably nothing devastating, but just would generate continuity issues.

I notice Igor can fly, that seems kind of strange and unexpected for an average henchman. Unless you give him rocket boots, maybe; but that should be the prerogative of full mad scientists. Maybe give Dr. Wierdstrum rocket boots and flying ability? Igor killed Wierdstrum a little too quick for me to tell what Dr Wierdstrum's powersets were. Based on the story so far though I think it would be cool if he were both a robot MM and a zombie MM at the same time, though I dunno if the architect would allow that.

Debriefing: Squicky and wrong but very appropriate for the end of this arc. Based on Igor's speech patterns, I think "preathence" should maybe be "prethenthe" and "thill" should be "thtill" (2 separate places). "Murmering" should be "Murmuring" and "exthperimenth" should be "experimentth" (?). "thandth" should be "thtandth".

Overall:
I really liked the mad scientist theme. Igor's lisp was extremely annoying and I think needs to be scaled back a little (some words and phrases were practically unreadable, such as "thmathing thuctheth" for "smashing success") but I got a good laugh out of when he briefly forgot to use it.

I kind of feel like we have an AWFUL lot of zombies in the game already, so I thought adding another zombie faction was a little redundant; consider directly adding some of the standard zombies to your custom undead faction maybe? I really liked the look of the "Remade" technozombie, though.

I think the first two missions both needed a little something more to spice them up; both are fairly straightforward glowy hunts with nothing but generic low level minions in them. Maybe some patrols of zombies saying "Braiiiinnnsss" or some sort of weird science boss. I also think having Igor be an elite boss in the last mission is a bit overpowering; after I freed him, all I had to do was get near some enemies and he would smash them flat with only a little help from me.

I had a good time though and thought it was a fun story. I gave it 4 stars.

-----

I still owe a review to:

@Djinniman
@Servercat
@GlaziusF
@Vox Populi
@Reska
Stratonexus
@Cavatina
@HolyEvilAoD (2 arcs)

@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"

Gwalkmaur · 04-12-2009 03:05 PM

Just a note on your latest review: Apocaplyse Zombies aren't available, and Vahzilok Zombies are too low level.

Lazarus · 04-12-2009 05:10 PM

[ QUOTE ]

Celebrity Kidnapping
Arc ID: 1388
Length: Medium
Morality: Villainous
Description: Boy, does Willy Wheeler have a deal for you! A celebrity heiress has been sentenced to jail for drunk driving. The plan is to break her out of the Zig with the help of some thugs, then hold her for ransom for immense profit! What could go wrong?

[/ QUOTE ]

I already did this one a while back. The story was quite amusing though I did wonder why Paris had fire powers. The Amanda Vines interview in the last mission was hilarious.

I don't remember if you did one of mine already, but here's all three.

Arc Name: MacGuffin Delivery Service
Arc ID: 1567
Faction: Family, Tsoo, Circle of Thorns, Carnies, Freakshow, Council, Paragon Police
Morality: Villainous
Difficulty Level: Easy-Medium
Synopsis: A routine late-night pawn shop robbery turns into a major ordeal when you pick up a mysterious little statue that everyone seems to want for themselves. You don't know what it does, why it's so important, or why you can't seem to just get rid of it.
Estimated Time to Play: 30-45 minutes

Arc Name: The Amulet of J'gara
Arc ID: 1709
Faction: Tuatha de Dannon, Circle of Thorns, Void Demons
Morality: Heroic
Difficulty Level: Easy-Medium
Synopsis: A pair of Midnighters have disappeared while on a mission to Croatoa. What begins as a rescue leads to an assault on the Midnight Club itself and a battle for your own mind and soul. (AV present, Allies are provided.)
Estimated Time to Play: 30-45 minutes

Arc Name: The Portal Bandits
Arc ID: 3326
Faction: Crey, Rikti, Nagan Hegemony
Morality: Heroic
Difficulty Level: Medium-Hard
Synopsis: A mysterious group has invaded a Portal Corp lab and sealed themselves within. The PPD has been unable to get inside and a hero is needed to enter the lab, defeat the invaders, and discover their intentions. (AVs are present, an Ally is given each time. May be challenging.)
Estimated Time to Play: 45-60 minutes

doodaa · 04-12-2009 05:40 PM

As some other people said, "I'll bite!"

I ran Axis and Allies, and I thought it was a fantastic arc. Not much could be done to improve it, 5 starred it and left a short comment, from @Detective Big. For my arc...

Arc Name: Poaching the Lion
Arc ID : 1841
Faction: Freakshow, Custom Group
Morality: Heroic (though a Villain wouldn't feel to out of place)
Difficulty: Mostly Easy, a tad Medium at most
Synopsis: A terrorist group, Codename Lions, have made their business known in Paragon City. The government has sent for you to help them sabotage their operations, and hopefully send them packing back to where they came from.
Est. Time to Play: Anywhere between 25-45 mins.

PoliceWoman · 04-12-2009 06:27 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Greetings, fellow Libertyite. I'd appreciate it if you could take a look at "The Love Talker: a City of Heroes Faerie Tale," Arc ID 30242, when you get a chance.

[/ QUOTE ]

The Love Talker: A City of Heroes Faerie Tale

Played on a 50 AR/dev blaster.

I'm a little iffy on the premise, going after a faerie creature called the "Love Talker". I'm afraid "Love Talker" does not sound very scary as villain names go.

Mission 1

Briefing: Salmanca -> Salamanca. Sixteen women being murdered in 2 weeks sounds like quite a lot! More than one per night. Maybe it should be fewer? Even 5 being murdered in 2 weeks would be plenty enough to send police into a panic.

"Some of the women left notes mentioning that they were going to meet a handsome young man they'd just met" ... this strikes me as rather implausible; I don't picture most people writing a note to themselves about a date they're going to have. More believable would be if they confided in a friend over the phone or IM, or maybe writing in a diary (though this is very old fashioned now; maybe a blog now, though that's not very thematic for a faerie tale).

I think Skipper is too quick to jump to the conclusion that a "Love Talker" is involved. It would be better storywise, IMHO, for the hero to get sent on a mission to investigate the mysterious deaths without initially knowing what caused the deaths. Then after finding some clues (such as the diary or rescuing a friend of one of the victims who gives testimony), at that point Skipper would think of the legend of the Cancanagh.

In the mission, met a Captive Soul. Very creepy. I like the dialog she had.

It's not clear to me that shooting the Captive Souls is actually "rescuing" them as the objective states, since the captive souls monologue about how they'll never be free.

Good descriptions and dialog on Cancanagh. Good debriefing.

Mission 2

Very nice mission briefing! Good explanation and exposition without being too preachy and it logically leads to the next mission to talk to Katie.

The map for this mission totally reminds me of the Katie TF. Which makes perfect sense, of course.

Rescued Katie and got a clue at the same time a new objective appeared, to Defeat Snotgurgle. I found and defeated Snotgurgle and as he died he said "All right, I talk!" and I got another clue. I liked how this worked, the mission logic really worked well here.

Debriefing: Skipper's unrequited crush on Katie is really cute.

Mission 3

Another excellent mission briefing. It's neat that you've set this up to be totally stealthable, but the clues are each interesting enough that I didn't just breeze right through it stealthing (my normal complaint about missions where you just click a glowy or two).

The patrols also made stealthing a bit iffy, I did have to fight some while clicking glowies. The patrols had interesting dialog as well, that I suspect is foreshadowing.

I like the Cimeroran skeleton clue. It's not for the mission objective but really helps set the mood of the mission.

I like the "An Ancient Journal" clue as well; it's rather evocative and is a good clue as to what is going on.

Found "The Dagdha"; he has a very cool costume and description. I was a little scared to attack him; it just didn't seem like it would be a good idea to attack the "High King of the Tuatha" even though he's only a boss in my mission.

Aha, the name on the inscription matches the name mentioned by one of the patrols. Nice touch!

The clue of the coin from the chest was also very nice and fey-seeming.

Debriefing: Awesome! I love the description of how a week passed in the "real world" when less than 2 hours did in the mission; very faerie! Minor quibble: the purple font used for part of the dialog here was very hard to read.

Mission 4

I really like the structure of this mission, where you have to free the ghosts of the women before the boss will spawn. The dialog of the captive souls and their captors is wonderful; I love how the captive soul is initially entranced by the glamor, then confused, then angry.

I found I couldn't keep the Captive Souls alive, they kept aggroing Aillen's Followers and getting themselves killed. Oh well, that's pets for you.

In Aillen's dialog, he says "No matter. she is no match for one such as me" .. "she" should be "She". (I think $Heshe instead of $heshe.)

Otherwise, Aillen's megalomaniacal monologue as you fight him is excellent.

Aillen nearly got me with his Dreadful Wail (and did get my last Captive Soul with it) but I narrowly managed to squeak out a win against him in EB form.

Skipper's debrief for this mission is terrific. Crytonuminology Illustrated Swimsuit Edition indeed! I'm not sure Crytonuminology is a word though; maybe you meant Cryptonumerology?

Overall:
I thought this was a great story. The briefings from the contact, the dialog, and the clues all worked well to set up a very nice mood for the story arc. There were lots of little touches that made things seem more fey and spooky, along with giving Skipper some fun personality quirks. The missions used the linked objectives to excellent effect, making each of the missions very interesting.

I still think "Love Talker" is kind of a silly sounding name for a villain, which might put off some people. I might suggest trimming the story arc name to just "A City of Heroes Faerie Tale" or "A Dark Faerie Tale".

Overall I thought it was very well done. Gave it 5 stars.

----

I still owe a review to:

@Servercat
@GlaziusF
@Vox Populi
@Reska
Stratonexus
@Cavatina
@HolyEvilAoD (2 arcs)
Lazarus

in queue:

doodaa

@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"

Olantern · 04-12-2009 09:18 PM

Thanks for the feedback, PW! It's nice to read a more thorough analysis than someone can fit in the Feedback Tell box, and, of course, I'm happy you enjoyed it. Two notes of interest: "Love Talker," and, indeed, a lot of the first mission, are sort of relics of the original form of the story (it's from a Kid Eros comic script I haven't gotten around to shooting yet). I wanted to go into detail about how Skipper deduced the creature's identity based on Bridget's note and the fact that the Cancanagh smoked a cigar, but I was banging up against the text limit as it was, and the player's already bombarded with information as it is. I like the idea of a blog or text message as a clue. I wanted to work the Irish saying, "She who meets the Love Talker must weave her shroud soon," into the arc description, but it wouldn't fit. Second, I find it interesting that the Souls got themselves killed when you ran it. When I tested the arc, and when I've done it on teams, the Souls seem so powerful that I feel like the players have nothing left to do. In fact, that's why I gave Aillen Dreadful Wail. All told, the variety in performance probably means the Souls are Working As Intended.

More importantly, I wanted to mention to anyone reading this thread that I also ran "Celebrity Kidnapping," and it's wonderful! Aside from being hilarious and well-plotted, it has what's probably the most interesting use I've seen so far of a chained Escort goal in the second mission. In fact, someone who hasn't created any missions might not even notice that that's what it is. One small suggestion: since "Holiday Inn" is a real chain, you might want to change the celebrity's last name. Maybe you could spell it "Holliday." I sort of like the idea of naming her something like "Vacation," but that's just my weird sense of humor . . . At any rate, all of you readers out there should play it (and Axis & Allies, too).

"Bombarding the CoH/V fora with verbosity since January, 2006"

Djinniman, level 50 inv/fire tanker, on Victory
-and 40 others on various servers

A CoH Comic: Kid Eros in "One Light"

Train_Wreck · 04-13-2009 06:29 AM

PW,
Thanks for taking the time to do a detailed review of my arc. I think I fixed all of the spelling errors some of them didnt take the first time I republished :S

I decided to use my own zombies because the Vahz are far too low, I wanted an arc for levels 1-50. If we could use the apoc. zombies I would happily switch out some of my minions to them, unfortunately they are not available. I have two custom bosses, however I may cut them, cut one bone head, one zombo, and make a robot group for the final mission still not sure though.

I intentionally made the missions simple; the goal for the arc was to have a short, easy, fun ride. Its a shame you didnt see more zombies using dialog, I have patrols in every mission. Because of that I have increased the number of patrols.

I used two of my actual toons in this arc, Mr. Igor and Splatter House. That is why Igor can fly and Splatter House is kind of plain (originally, Splatter was an homage to slasher movie antagonists like Jason and Freddy). In the mission that Splatter is found, Igor tells you to defeat the base guard that shows up on your way out.

For the last mission, I toned Iggy down to boss level. Weirdstrum is supposed to spawn as an EB and runs when his health gets low, which is why I made Igor an EB as well. I had a problem with him running at 25% health because the mission ended if he hit the elevator, so I made him run at 5% instead. Also, Weirdstrum does not spawn until you rescue Igor, which prevents you from stealthing to the boss and killing him first.
Unfortunately you cannot create a custom character that has two MM primaries, I would have loved that.

Again, thank you for the very detailed review. I am terrible about spelling and grammar errors and every little bit helps.

TW

My Arcs:
Unbearable Funk #3573
Tale of the Creatures From Another Forbidden Planet #97983

My Deviant Art Page

PoliceWoman · 04-13-2009 10:47 AM

I want to thank everyone who has gone through my story arcs and given me comments! (Yes, even the person who hated seeing a "thinly veiled Paris Hilton"!) I hope you all had fun doing them.

Here's my thoughts on some of the things people have written so far:

Axis and Allies

[ QUOTE ]
You need to make one of two things happen in your final mission I think. Either your allies need to become EB/AV's, or you need to create a custom hero instead of using Statesman. While anybody at high level shouldn't have a huge problem, anybody below level 40 getting bumped up hurts way to much. All of your missions up until the last one were designed for all levels in mind, the last one being designed for 40+ sorta throws off the flow of the story completely.

While Statesman is an optional boss, he ended up right next to the mission objective for me and so I had no real way of actually getting to the objective once he one-shot both LT allies.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really feel like meeting and hopefully defeating Statesman and Maiden Justice is necessary for the final mission of the story; I'm hoping this gives the player the feeling that they have crushed the last hope of the good guys, and so at that point they deserve to have "conquered the world".

I've waffled between using the full AV version of Statesman and Maiden Justice, and the "signature pet" version which is significantly weaker. I've gotten a lot of good feedback on both versions. Pretty much all teams of 4 or more players smash the pet versions in mere seconds, but pretty much all soloers have no chance beating the full version of Statesman even when he's downgraded to an EB due to being solo and heroic.

I've settled on using the signature pet version for both. Teams still smash them flat, but they are still very challenging for a soloer. Statesman, even as a pet, is still pretty hard for a soloer because of his Unstoppable. I've had some people give up on soloing Statesman (even the pet version) but I've had a lot more people successfully beat him after a hard fight. I've considered swapping Statesman for an easier hero (Maiden Justice, based on Ms Liberty, doesn't seem nearly as hard for people to beat) but there's just a certain something about beating the game's signature hero.

[ QUOTE ]
Also, Stalingrad is evil. Plain evil. Took 20-30 minutes to fly around the city and find the two people I was supposed to kill.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, sorry about that. The Russian generals have some stealth from Arctic Fog; but often you can see the fog special effect and they have a little dialog to give away their position. I know the map I used is a little large but the look and feel was too perfect for a burned out, war-torn city.

[ QUOTE ]
In the final mission, the dialogue for General MacAurthur comes up like this:

"I hear the $name is planning to attack us. I'd sure like a piece of $himher!"

[/ QUOTE ]

Sometimes this chat worked and sometimes it didn't; I think it has something to do with the perception radius of the mob. I fixed this by changing the dialog to not use the special symbols for substitution.

[ QUOTE ]
Also.. might I suggest for the French at Dunkirk giving them Kinetics? Makes it easier for them to run away lol!

[/ QUOTE ]

I changed the French officers to use kinetics as suggested. I tried adding "run away at 25% life" but this made it possible to fail the mission if Weygand ran away, which caused some logic headaches, so I removed that again without publishing it.

[ QUOTE ]
And also.. I started playing after the Council takeover, so I never got to see any of the cool 5th Column Maps- so seeing the Wolf's Den was a treat!

[/ QUOTE ]

Cool! You can find this map in-game also, in one of the Ouro TFs where you overthrow the 5th Column.

[ QUOTE ]
I was, however, disappointed that Gen. MacArthur did not have his trademark pipe (okay, a cigar, since he can't have a pipe).

[/ QUOTE ]

Hah, yeah, I wish I could've given him a corncob pipe! I just may add a cigar to the costume, though. Both MacArthur and Patton share the same model so they'd both get one, but that's probably okay.

Celebrity Kidnapping

[ QUOTE ]
The second mission was straightforward and quick - not mind-blowingly memorable, but a fine transition between the first and third missions, where the real meat of the story and humor are found.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Short and to the point. Felt a little too brief and the Tsoo as squatters? Might make more sense for one of the gangs or Freakshow but not the Tsoo.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
not entirely sure you wanted the second mission that short, as there's something to be said for chasing down a giant pile of money through an abandoned office.

[/ QUOTE ]

I kinda want to spice this mission up, but am not quite sure what to put here. The story structure I wanted to use for this story arc was that of a classic heist movie: a crime is committed, but once they get away with the money, all the crooks start double crossing each other to try and get the whole pot for themselves. So in my "storyboard" I needed a place where someone goes and gets some of the ransom money, so that there's something to fight over. Unfortunately this isn't a super interesting mission; you pick up the money and go.

I considered adding some police ambushes to this mission, but it doesn't make sense for the police to try to nab the villain before the kidnap victim is freed, and anyway as soon as you click the glowy you can punch out of the mission before the ambush hits you. Giving the "squatters" a boss didn't seem to make a lot of logical sense.

Even thought about deleting the middle mission, but getting the money is necessary for the plot, and I feel like the interlude between the jailbreak and the chaotic final shootout was helpful for the pacing.

Also, as to why Tsoo: originally I wanted to make these Contaminated, but I didn't think people would like exemping down to level 1, so I made them Skulls. This still forced people to exemp down to level 14, and I got multiple comments that having the mission levels go from 38 to 14 to 40 felt awkward to them. So I changed them to Tsoo, since they go up to level 40.

I kinda agree that Tsoo might not be the best fit though. Possibly I should just create my own "Squatters" custom faction for this mission.

[ QUOTE ]
During the prison break, the dialogue from the Ppd vs prisoners was a little repetitive. Though I guess thats more a limitation of the architect in spawning the PPD vs Prisoner battles. Would be something to look at if you had some space left.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, this is an artifact of how I constructed the mission. Basically I have three types of patrols: something like 6 prisoner patrols, 3 longbow patrols and 3 police patrols. They all hate the player, of course, and the prisoners and the good guys hate each other too; so after roaming around a little bit they start fighting. I found this worked pretty well for setting up a "prison riot" looking situation. Each patrol can only get one set of dialog though. I could maybe add more flavors of patrols but I'm not sure it would be an efficient use of mission space.

[ QUOTE ]
Complaining about this: they throw somebody in the Zig, superpowered cold cell central, for drunk driving? I mean, have you SEEN how people drive in Paragon City? How would you tell?

[/ QUOTE ]

Haha, that's a fair comment. But CoH is a world of overreaction to a lot of things; one of the first things you do at level 2 is to "arrest" muggers with katana slashes and assault rifle bursts. So I'm thinking this is okay.

[ QUOTE ]
I'd have liked the celebrity guest villain better had I not teamed up with like half a dozen people with that exact concept and regretted most of it. ... come up with somebody who's only loosely tied to a real-world celebrity and have her put in the Zig after she blows up on reality TV. Like, actually blows up. People, houses, puppy orphanages, whatever. The arc works fine aside from that little quibble.

[/ QUOTE ]

Using her is meant to give kind of a "ripped from the headlines" relevance to the story, as well as giving the player a certain instant recognition of her "archetype". Yes, she IS a silly person though.

[ QUOTE ]
The story was quite amusing though I did wonder why Paris had fire powers.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why fire powers? So she can say "That's hot!"

@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"

PoliceWoman · 04-14-2009 07:02 AM

Just a brief update... I had much of my Monday night eaten up by a Sister Psyche TF, then had some ideas for a new story arc that I really wanted to implement, so I fell a bit behind on arc reviews.

I did start Servercat's "Who is the Master?" arc, though, and am about one mission in. Will post more soon.

@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"

PoliceWoman · 04-14-2009 08:07 PM

Who is the Master?

This was described as a villainous martial arts contest; I decided to play it on an 18 db/ninj stalker.

Mission 1

Briefing: "your some sort of bad [censored]" your should be "you're". "SHo'nuff is the baddest around", SHo'nuff should be Sho'nuff.

Sho'nuff wants to prove that he's the master martial artist, and consequently he sends...me...to beat up the World Martial Arts Council? This plan seems to have a logic problem.

"Go get that belt and might let you join my posse" should be "Go get that belt, and I might let you join my posse"

Mission is titled "Get the Dragon Star"; I'm guessing the Dragon Star is the belt that was mentioned, but maybe this needs to be made more clear.

Lots of ninja inside. Clearly I have picked the correct ninja, I mean villain, to play this arc with. So the whole World Martial Arts Council is ninja? I suppose that actually makes sense in a comic book world. Ninja are pretty overused though, I might suggest you mix them up with some more normal looking karateka or judoka?

Kabuki Trainee's and Novice Kabuki Ninja's descriptions each need a period at the end of the sentence.

Novice Kunoichi's description, "has only fledgling understanding" should be "has only a fledgling understanding".

I like the model used for the Dragon Star Case. I seemed to trigger mad ambushes breaking into it though; looked like 5 or 6 ninja attacked, maybe 2 ambushes combined. Got beat up attempting to fight this group twice; possibly I should've run away though.

Eventually broke open the Dragon Star Case. The Dragon Star clue has "unfortunatly", should be "unfortunately". And I don't know that most people know what KI Symbols are; I eventually figured out that I need to get these from the other two named bosses, but I think some explanation (in the clue maybe) would be helpful.

Superstar's bio looks like it's meant to be a trading card or something; you should format it a bit using line breaks between each vital statistic. Maybe give a few more statistics and/or a brief bio as well. You might spice up SuperStar's dialog a little also; it's functional as is, but I think you could give him a little more character here. Same comments for The Machine, who has a similar bio and also talks in words with only 2 or 3 words at a time.

An idea to make this seem more like a martial arts competition: initially, have only 1 objective, Defeat EasyBoss. Have a new objective triggered off of EasyBoss's death, Defeat MediumBoss. Have another objective triggered off of MediumBoss's death, Defeat HardBoss. This would feel a little more like a martial arts tournament as you face a series of increasingly difficult opponents.

Consider also setting up a few "battles" between NPC martial artists, to make it look like other people are fighting in the tournament, too, and they're not all just fighting you. (Until you aggro them, of course.)

The tech lab is a little bit of an odd choice for a martial arts competition full of ninja. You might try to find the warehouse with the Tsoo shrine in it (not sure if this is in MA, admittedly), or one of the Oranbega maps. Warehouse maps might work too, if these are meant to be urban ninja types.

The popup at the end of the mission "Winner. Kashira Dragon Belt Status: Complete" (where Kashira is my toon's name) has rather odd punctuation. I might suggest you rephrase it to something like "The winner: Kashira by knockout! The Dragon Belt is yours!"

Debriefing: Sho'nuff acknowledges I won the tournament and got the belt, but then insults me, saying I wouldn't last a minute in Harlem. Seems pretty rude! Why am I working for this guy again?

Mission 2

Ohh, so now I get to fight Sho'nuff after all his insults! OK, it's on!

I like the Harlem Shogunate minions and lieutenants, their look has a lot of attitude. Surprised you didn't use more of the "Afro" and "Supa Foxxy" hairdos though; maybe bell bottomed pants, too! As long as we're going blaxploitation, let's go all the way!

I think it's pretty whack for Sho'nuff to challenge me to a fight and then hide behind all these minions, but we'll be teaching him some manners REAL soon now.

So I'm too wimpy to join Sho'nuff's posse but these mere minions can? Logic flaw, I think.

Harlem Brawler's description: "dispopable" should be "disposable"

Harlem Moll's description: "disposal" should be "disposable". Also her description is exactly like Harlem Brawler's; maybe should be slightly different?

Sho'nuff's description: "The Shogun of Harlem" ... needs to be more detailed IMHO considering how much build up you've given him as being a badass. Give him more adjectives, describe some of his feats, his back story...anything really, just to give him more back story.

Not sure why Harlem Moll is wielding a shovel; I kinda think a baseball bat or a wrench is more likely a weapon for a street ganger.

Sho'Nuff's dialog: "Bring it chump!" should be "Bring it, chump!" "Kashira ! Who is the Master!?!" should probably drop the space after the player name and replace "!?!" with "?!" since it's a question.

I suggest you also have him taunt, "Say my name!" interspersed with the "Who is the Master?" taunts. Maybe a "Fo shizzle!" or a "That's right!" after "I am the Master."

"ah..my hand!!!.. ow!! Lemme go!!!! Lemme go!" should be written a little more jive, or otherwise more similar to the rest of his speeches, for the sake of consistency. I get that he's scared when you get him down to low life, but I think he should still talk kinda the same.

Debriefing: "You are the master." I'm torn between thinking this needs more text and thinking the brevity here is just right.

Overall:
The missions functionally work fine, but I think the story has some logic problems. It doesn't make sense that Sho'Nuff would send you to this martial arts tournament in the first place if he has so little respect for you. I might suggest you change the contact to be some wise old Asian guy, a Mr Miyagi type, who is preparing you for the Ultimate Fighting Tournament (Mission 1), then after you win that he tells you that the feared Shogun of Harlem has issued you a challenge (Mission 2) to determine "Who is the Master".

I also think Mission 1 could use some spiffing up to make it look more like a proper martial arts tournament.

Mission 2 seems to have the sole objective of beating Sho'Nuff in a fight, but has a big map full of minions that are essentially irrelevant to the mission. The Harlem Shogunate minions actually seem pretty cool though, so I wouldn't suggest getting rid of them. Instead, maybe set up a structure similar to when the protagonist in a martial arts movie decides to confront the evil martial arts master in his lair: first a bunch of mooks say "Who the hell are you?" and jump you (maybe an ambush or patrol), then you face some lieutenants or intermediate level bosses; maybe you have to fight Sho'Nuff's heavyweight lieutenant and/or his matched set of ninja girl enforcers, or something like that, before Sho'Nuff decides you are "worthy" to be faced by the Master himself (ie make it so Sho'Nuff doesn't spawn as a boss objective until after you beat his main lieutenant or something).

I think the story arc kinda breaks down if the player is not soloing (since a team winning the martial arts tournament is a little silly, and a team beating up Sho'Nuff doesn't prove who the "master" is). But I see no way to get around that.

Just a few thoughts. Overall the arc was okay, I just think there are a few logic problems and you could add some more stuff to make each mission more interesting. Gave it 3 stars.

----

I still owe a review to:

@GlaziusF
@Vox Populi
@Reska
Stratonexus
@Cavatina
@HolyEvilAoD (2 arcs)
Lazarus
doodaa

@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"

Servercat2 · 04-14-2009 08:29 PM

Thanks for the review. I'm a bit disappointed I missed all the typo's,I thought I was doing better then that

My original plan for mission 1 was supposed to be more of a nod to the TV show WMAC Masters. In the Final episode, a masked ninja interrupts the title match between SuperStar and The Machine.

Unfortunately I Just could not get it function properly, no matter how I hard I tried, I kept getting multiple copies of Machine and SuperStar. Made for a real challenging fight taking on 3 Machines and 3 SuperStar's simultaneously, but for really bad balance.

About he description for SuperStar/Machine, this was somethign that was driving me crazy. Maybe you know what I was doing wrong. Anytime I tried to add line breaks, in-game the code would appear. For my sanity's sake, I took the appreciated form.

In any case, while I had mainly intended the Arc as a brief test of what could be done in AE and a nod to my favorite childhood movie/show. I want to try to make quality work, would you be willing to take another look in few days? Assuming your list doesn't get even longer ^_^

PoliceWoman · 04-15-2009 05:59 AM

Here's my attempt at a heroic story arc, to give you all something else to check out, if you're interested:

Arc Name: Teen Phalanx Forever!
Arc ID: 67335
Faction: Vahzilok, Clockwork, Freakshow, Rogue Robots
Creator Global/Forum Name: @PW / PoliceWoman
Difficulty Level: Moderate; there is one AV/EB per mission, but they are intentionally easy AVs/EBs (NOT customized), and allies are present to help.
Synopsis: The Teen Phalanx is on a recruitment drive, and they've extended an invitation to a teen version of your hero to try out! Do you have what it takes to join Paragon City's most prestigious teen superhero team?
Morality: Heroic
Estimated Time to Play: 4 missions, estimate 60-90 mins.
Level range: 15-20, 20, 20-25, 29-30 (mission levels gradually increase to "level" you up)

It's intended to be a rather character-driven story, as well as being an homage to teen superhero team books. Things I'm worried about in this story arc are: is the teen concept "too cute"? are the boss encounters too easy/too hard? am I throwing too much text at the player to read? is it actually fun for other people?

The arc hasn't had many people see it yet, so could probably stand some constructive criticism. I'll certainly count any reviews of this story towards the queue of people I owe a review to.

I'll be doing more reviews tonight, too. Thanks all!

----

I still owe a review to:

@GlaziusF
@Vox Populi
@Reska
Stratonexus
@Cavatina
@HolyEvilAoD (2 arcs)
Lazarus
doodaa

@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"

Scuzzbopper · 04-15-2009 07:18 AM

I'll trade (will try to hit your new one tonight):

Arc Name: What Price Victory?
Arc ID: 58307
Creator Global: @Scuzzbopper
Faction: Heroic
Difficulty: Medium
Style: Serious/Tragic
Estimated Time To Play: 30-40 minutes
Enemy Groups: Freakshow, Rikti
Level Range: Best for 30+

CoH Codex : Demo Models/FX/MOVs : Demo Info

Arc 111022: "Doctor Geist and the Scientific Method"