I'll try yours if you'll try mine
By
5th_Elemental,
Posted on: 2009-04-10 13:04 in Mission Architect
Thanks Police Woman for reviewing my storyarc. Im sad that you couldnt complete the 4th mish, but I did warn you. In the 5th mish Agent Six help you. I changed the first mish and added some patrols and an EB/AV. I noticed that when you did the arc the 4th mish map was the Large Rikti one. I changed it later to a medium one and reduced the stasis tubes number.
Quote:
Originally the clue did have a longer explanation, but it was quite long and the AE Program dind't let me put it. So I was stuck with a shorter one. Either way, in the last mish Agent Six tell you more about the Serpents.
|
Originally Posted by PoliceWoman
[b]
[-0.1] Writing: the revelation that the Zeta Reticulans are working for a race of Serpents feels very dry, it could stand to be written to be a little more immersive. Additionally, there should be other clues or foreshadowing that also support the idea that the Reticulans are a client race of these mysterious Serpents. |
I just played through Papers and Paychecks with my Dominator. I quite liked it, but I had a few quibbles that I mentioned in the review comments I sent to you.
I'd appreciate it if you could review my (@Dsarvess Rientel) arc, Serpent's Scheme (Arc I.D. #363206)
Requesting a re-review of "Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together)" (#347029). It's undergone massive rewrites and people seem to be enjoying it a lot more now.
A Taste for Evil review
Arc ID: 349034
Keywords: Canon Related, Sci-Fi, Drama
Morality: Villainous
Level range: 10-20
Warnings: EBs, higher level villains appearing at low levels
The premise is that the player has been "volunteered" to test out a new, experimental flavor of "NutriPaste" (some kind of synthetic food?), in order to discover any "unexpected side effects". This immediately makes me think of Paranoia (the game) and Soylent Green (the movie).
The author notes indicate this is "designed for VEAT play". Both of my VEAT characters are level 50 and heavily IO'd out, so didn't seem a good match for a level 10-20 arc. I played a 19 mace/shield brute (on +1 x0 difficulty) instead. The contact is Marshal Brass.
[5.0] points at start.
Mission 1
Briefing: the contact gives a briefing like a drill sergeant, telling me to report to Doctor Aeon for my "mandatory duty" to perform "voluntary field testing".
Clearly "mandatory duty" cannot be "voluntary", but I figure this is stated in this way for the irony.
Also, the canonical Marshal Brass contact doesn't speak like this. But considering the arc assumes the player is an Arachnos soldier, this can probably be justified, so going to let that slide.
[-0.1] Map selection: the burning abandoned building? This seems a very odd place to find Dr. Aeon in.
I quickly locate Dr. Aeon, who is being held captive by some Snakes. They say:
[NPC] Viper Blade: What have you monssster done with our eggsss?
Huh, I have a bad feeling about what NutriPaste is made of. Well, I suppose that's no worse than Soylent Green, at least.
[-0.01] Typo: "monssster" -> "monsssters"; or perhaps "Monssster! What have you done..."
When I arrive on the scene, Dr. Aeon says:
[NPC] Dr. Aeon: Oh that's right - I requested some volountary subjects from Brass earlier. You are just in time!
[-0.01] Typo: volountary -> voluntary
After I free him, my objective changes to "Clear the way to the NutriPaste" (I like the little trademark symbols) and Dr. Aeon says:
[NPC] Dr. Aeon: I'm afraid the lab is in a bit of disarray today. Clear the way and I'll give you your samples.
Maybe a tech lab would be a better map for this? (The burning tech lab if you really want the place to be in ruins - though it might be a little big.)
Finding my way to the top floor, I locate a refrigerator containing NutriPaste, which gives me the "NutriPaste Sample Tube" clue, triggers Dr. Aeon to say some dialog (nice!) and ends the mission. I also see some Snakes guarding Giant Eggs, but they don't seem to be required.
Debriefing: this sounds a lot more like the Marshal Brass I'm used to. He again refers to the mission as having been in a "laboratory".
[4.88] at end of mission 1.
(At this point a friend dragged me off to a team. by the time I got back, I was level 21. Rushed through mission 1 to catch up to where I was.)
Mission 2
Briefing: I like the food-oriented theme in the "Part 1" and "Part 2" sub-captions to the mission briefings so far. The contact wants me to pick up some kind of academic study on the effects of NutriPaste.
Map selection: I'm a bit surprised at the office map; based on the briefing, I thought this would be the university. The office isn't unreasonable, though, so didn't mark off points.
The mission has Vahzilok in it; I'm not quite sure why, maybe this will be explained later. The map connects to caves, and the caves connect to the sewers, where I find a Student held captive by the Vahzilok, along with a named Eidolon called Esophagus.
Esophagus has some interesting things to say about the test data; the "get the data" objective isn't fulfilled until I defeat Esophagus and some of the Vahzilok near him, at which point the objective is completed, I get the "Soiled Data" clue, and the mission ends. (Some other nearby Vahz, part of the Student's guards, weren't needed.) You might consider making him "only boss required".
I also freed the Student.
[-0.01] Missing text: Student needs some dialog for when you free her.
[-0.1] Don't understand: What were the Vahzilok doing here anyway? Needs some motivation. (Esophagus does say what she wants to do now that she's found the data, but what she was doing there in the first place wasn't clear.)
[-0.01] Missing reference: the mission was titled "Beef" but beef was never mentioned in the mission (unlike "chicken" in mission 1). Maybe give one of the Vahz a line like "I'll carve you like a side of beef!" or similar.
Also, what happened to observing me for side effects? I'm surprised the contact didn't ask me if I had noticed any side effects from the NutriPaste.
[4.77] at end of mission 2.
Mission 3
Briefing: the contact assigns me to guard a local warehouse full of NutriPaste. Seems simple enough; What Could Go Wrong?
[-0.01] Default "Accept" text is a little dull, may want to make it more interesting.
Send-off message: aha, the contact does remember to ask me to watch for side effects.
Map selection: I was initially surprised at the choice of an Arachnos base (thought it would be a warehouse based on the briefing) but it made more sense when I got to the last room, which was on fire, matching the story. That last room looks quite good actually.
Apparently the warehouse got lit on fire before I ever got there, so I never get a chance to "guard" it.
The mission is full of Luddites for some reason; unclear why, at least initially. A bit deeper in the mission I find a Raid Leader who gives me the "Luddite Crusade" clue.
[-0.01] Typo: "NutriPaste" is missing TM symbol (second time it appears in Luddite Crusade)
If they set all the NutriPaste on fire, I'd kind of expect there to be some sort of horrible smell throughout the map. Perhaps worth mentioning something like that in the mission entry popup, or as part of the dialog.
There's also an extra space at the start of Raid Leader's line that goes "Your precious NutriPaste..". (nitpicky)
I also rescue Operative Jenkins, who has some funny lines.
Having defeated the Raid Leader and gotten a clue from him and freed Jenkins, I still haven't satisfied the mission objective "Find some answers". I would've thought getting the clue from the Raid Leader would do it. I end up searching the rest of the complex.
I noticed some Luddites were spawning on the ceiling on this map; not sure you can do much about it. But I can't find anything else in the mission except for the guys stuck in the ceiling.
I manage to knock one of them free and kill him, but the other one is stuck and can't be killed. Exiting the mission, I look at the arc's description in the AE tool, and it does say mission 3 is a "Defeat All" mission. I definitely did not get the idea it was a "Defeat All" from a "Find some answers" objective, though; that text makes me think I should find clues.
[-0.1] Mission objective text doesn't match actual objective. (You might want to either make it more clearly "Defeat all raiders" or else make the mission complete after finding the raid leader's clue.)
I really can't complete the mission at this point. I decide to try and reset the mission to see if I can get them to spawn better. Second try I manage to defeat all and complete the mission. I've noticed these Arachnos bases sometimes have problems with mobs falling out of the accessible geometry; you might try testing this mission some to see if this happens a lot. If it does, you probably won't want it to be a Defeat All. Did not deduct points for this as I believe this is a problem with the map, not the story arc, and the map isn't that large, so a defeat all isn't unreasonable.
Debriefing: less than 2 lines and doesn't say a lot; I'm in trouble? For what? I assume the warehouse getting torched (though, this wasn't on my watch, since it happened before I arrived).
[-0.1] Missing text: debriefing is too short; needs more writing.
[-0.01] Missing reference: The mission is titled "Kippers" but no reference to kippers was found during the mission.
[4.54] at end of mission 3.
Mission 4
Briefing: the Luddite uprising continues, and the contact wants me to go protect a hydroponics plant, since it produces ingredients for NutriPaste.
[-0.01] Phrasing: "Havoc At the Aeon Hydroponics" should be either "Havoc at Aeon Hydroponics" or "Havoc at the Aeon Hydroponics Plant" (in mission title)
The mission is full of Luddites again. This time there are a number of "Body" glowies. There's a lot of them, but they don't seem to do anything.
[-0.1] "Body" glowies should do something (produce a clue, be an objective...something) or else there should be fewer of them (at least 7 that I saw, none of which do anything except produce a brief message in the spammy general chat box).
I rescued some NutriPaste ingredients, each of which draws a Luddite ambush onto me (one of which actually defeats me, due to me running out of END and having my defense toggles drop).
Found some NutriPaste samples, which gave some fun clues. I liked the Willy Wonka reference. Is Vegemite indeed the "Taste of Evil"?
[+0.1] Fun optional clues.
Deep in the mission, I find Luddite Crusader (presumably the leader). He delivers a terrific monologue:
[NPC] Luddite Crusader: Our brothers are already gathering at the accursed NutriPaste factory, preparing to strike against the source of the corruption. No longer will the citizens of the Rogue Isles be forced to eat themselves, or worse! There will be hunger. There will be starvation. There will be riots and chaos, it's true! But out of the ruins of an old evil empire, a new order will rise, pure and strong. Our order, brothers. Our order.
[+0.1] Great monologue.
Defeating him gives me "The Luddite Leader Rants" clue and completes the mission.
[4.63] at end of mission 4.
Mission 5
Briefing: so now I need to save the NutriPaste factory. I need to destroy the Luddites' caches of explosives?
[-0.1] Out of character: Luddites are so anti-technology that they won't even use guns; I have a hard time believing they'd use explosives.
I quickly locate and, uhh, disarm some explosives.
Why do they always send the girl with the big hammer to disarm bombs?
After that I find and rescue Dr. Aeon, who becomes an EB level ally that I'm supposed to lead out.
Dr. Aeon fights Luddites that get near. I ended up leading him to the door so he would stop following me, but I could've kept him around to smash all the Luddites if I had wanted to.
[-0.1] Play balance: EB ally seems much too powerful for the opposition in this mission (nothing bigger than a boss).
Found a "Luddite Arsonist" with some dialog. Thought he might count as a saboteur, but wasn't sure; after fighting and defeating him, it didn't decrement the "3 Luddite saboteurs" objective, at least until I killed some other nearby Luddites.
Likewise I found a "Luddite Sapeur" who I defeated on a catwalk above the factory. Being on a catwalk, the rest of his spawn was quite a distance away.
[-0.1] Confusing objectives: the combination of the arsonist and sapeur not being named "saboteur" and requiring the whole group to be defeated is confusing and may result in player frustration (especially if they are scouting out the map, which is large and outdoors, for saboteurs). I'd suggest that you either use the same word for the objective name and the mob name, and/or make the objectives "only boss required".
I also thought using the French spelling of "sapper" was rather odd considering all the other Luddites use normal English names, but with the Luddite leader being French, I decided to let that go.
Eventually found the third saboteur, who actually IS named "saboteur", adding to the confusion. 
The rest of his spawn was separated from him by a wall.
Ran across a few random Goldbrickers that had no lines, but looked wounded; maybe leftovers from a battle. Hit level 22 wandering around the NutriPaste factory (I ducked out of the mission long enough to get Stamina, but didn't slot SOs yet).
Found the second explosives cache pretty quickly, but had to search for quite awhile to find the last one. After about 15 minutes of searching I eventually find it in a back alley. Destroying the last cache ends the mission.
There was never a big, climactic moment to the final mission; possibly because there is no "big bad guy" (instead we fight 3 lesser bosses) that we end up fighting. Instead I spent most of the last mission flying around searching for objectives, which was not as dramatic and exciting as I'd like the end of a story arc to be.
[-0.1] Ending feels anticlimactic.
Considering this is a NutriTaste factory, I think it should have some optional objectives related to NutriTaste. Maybe something like body bags, toxic waste barrels and/or snake eggs, all labeled "Ingredients"; or a series of cauldrons each containing a different flavor of NutriTaste. Maybe some factory workers as hostages, with some dialog, would make it seem more like a live factory.
[-0.01] Typo: Marshall -> Marshal (in mission exit popup)
[-0.01] Missing reference: Mission is "bacon" but bacon is never referenced.
Debriefing: contact criticises me for saving Dr. Aeon? Seems odd, since he told me to save him.
I'm glad to get some closure to the "testing new flavor of NutriPaste" plotline, though the execution and resolution were a little underwhelming; it didn't feel like this subplot really went anywhere. Would've liked some clues or dialog hinting that the player does observe side effects (or perhaps imagines them), or perhaps some follow up from the university study.
[-0.1] Plot: "testing experimental new flavor" subplot seemed underdeveloped, particularly considering it was the initial hook for starting the story.
[-0.01] Typo: volounteer -> volunteer (in souvenir)
[-0.01] Capitalization: snakes -> Snakes (in souvenir)
[-0.01] Inconsistency: "flavour" (in souvenir) but everywhere else in the story it's spelled "flavor"
[4.08] at end of mission 5.
Overall
[+0.1] Fun concept: NutriPaste was a fun theme to center the arc around.
Fun concept overall; felt very cynical to be protecting the future of this foodlike substance. Enjoyed the "flavor text" details about NutriPaste in mission 4, would've liked a few in mission 5. Mission 5 could use some work to make it a more dramatic finale. I would've liked more development of the "taste test" subplot as well.
[4.18] final score; I gave this arc 4 stars.
----
My queue is now:
Circuit_Boy - The Hero of Kings Row #230187.
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 01 #47143 (played, need to write up notes)
@Gypsy Rose - In Pursuit of Liberty #344916 (re-review)
The_Cheshire_Cat - Ignition of the Machine #318983
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 02 #11728
Tangler - A Penny For Your Thoughts #348691
The Hound - The Alient Tyrant #357388
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 03 #174352
Dsarvess Rientel - Serpent's Scheme #363206
Lazarus - Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together) #347029 (re-review)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 04 #269714
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290
@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!"
Hey PW, if it's okay with you I would also like to throw Mercytown (6017) onto your queue as well.
A Penny For Your Thoughts #348691 <- Dev's Choice'd by Dr. Aeon!
Submit your MA arc for review & my arcs thread
Thanks for the review. I'll just reply quick to some of your comments.
Quote:
NutriPaste is canon, of course - what else when it's me? It's the only readily available food source on the Rogue Isles: cheap, nutritious, abundant. A plaque in Cap Au Diable near the tailor explains this much.|
Originally Posted by PoliceWoman
The premise is that the player has been "volunteered" to test out a new, experimental flavor of "NutriPaste" (some kind of synthetic food?), in order to discover any "unexpected side effects". This immediately makes me think of Paranoia (the game) and Soylent Green (the movie).
|
Quote:
|
Mission 1 Briefing: the contact gives a briefing like a drill sergeant, telling me to report to Doctor Aeon for my "mandatory duty" to perform "voluntary field testing". Clearly "mandatory duty" cannot be "voluntary", but I figure this is stated in this way for the irony. |
Quote:
| Also, the canonical Marshal Brass contact doesn't speak like this. But considering the arc assumes the player is an Arachnos soldier, this can probably be justified, so going to let that slide. |
Quote:
| [-0.1] Map selection: the burning abandoned building? This seems a very odd place to find Dr. Aeon in. |
Quote:
| Maybe a tech lab would be a better map for this? (The burning tech lab if you really want the place to be in ruins - though it might be a little big.) |
Quote:
| Debriefing: this sounds a lot more like the Marshal Brass I'm used to. He again refers to the mission as having been in a "laboratory". |
Quote:
|
Mission 2 Briefing: I like the food-oriented theme in the "Part 1" and "Part 2" sub-captions to the mission briefings so far. The contact wants me to pick up some kind of academic study on the effects of NutriPaste. Map selection: I'm a bit surprised at the office map; based on the briefing, I thought this would be the university. The office isn't unreasonable, though, so didn't mark off points. |
Quote:
| [-0.01] Missing text: Student needs some dialog for when you free her. |
Quote:
| [-0.1] Don't understand: What were the Vahzilok doing here anyway? |
Quote:
| [-0.01] Missing reference: the mission was titled "Beef" but beef was never mentioned in the mission (unlike "chicken" in mission 1). Maybe give one of the Vahz a line like "I'll carve you like a side of beef!" or similar. |
Quote:
| Also, what happened to observing me for side effects? I'm surprised the contact didn't ask me if I had noticed any side effects from the NutriPaste. |
Quote:
| [-0.01] Default "Accept" text is a little dull, may want to make it more interesting. |
Quote:
| Send-off message: aha, the contact does remember to ask me to watch for side effects. |
Quote:
| Map selection: I was initially surprised at the choice of an Arachnos base (thought it would be a warehouse based on the briefing) but it made more sense when I got to the last room, which was on fire, matching the story. That last room looks quite good actually. |
Quote:
| Apparently the warehouse got lit on fire before I ever got there, so I never get a chance to "guard" it. |
Quote:
| The mission is full of Luddites for some reason; unclear why, at least initially. A bit deeper in the mission I find a Raid Leader who gives me the "Luddite Crusade" clue. |
Quote:
| [-0.01] Typo: "NutriPaste" is missing TM symbol (second time it appears in Luddite Crusade) |
Quote:
| If they set all the NutriPaste on fire, I'd kind of expect there to be some sort of horrible smell throughout the map. Perhaps worth mentioning something like that in the mission entry popup, or as part of the dialog. |
Quote:
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Having defeated the Raid Leader and gotten a clue from him and freed Jenkins, I still haven't satisfied the mission objective "Find some answers". I would've thought getting the clue from the Raid Leader would do it. I end up searching the rest of the complex. I noticed some Luddites were spawning on the ceiling on this map; not sure you can do much about it. But I can't find anything else in the mission except for the guys stuck in the ceiling. I manage to knock one of them free and kill him, but the other one is stuck and can't be killed. Exiting the mission, I look at the arc's description in the AE tool, and it does say mission 3 is a "Defeat All" mission. I definitely did not get the idea it was a "Defeat All" from a "Find some answers" objective, though; that text makes me think I should find clues. [-0.1] Mission objective text doesn't match actual objective. (You might want to either make it more clearly "Defeat all raiders" or else make the mission complete after finding the raid leader's clue.) |
Quote:
| Debriefing: less than 2 lines and doesn't say a lot; I'm in trouble? For what? I assume the warehouse getting torched (though, this wasn't on my watch, since it happened before I arrived). |
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[-0.1] Missing text: debriefing is too short; needs more writing. [-0.01] Missing reference: The mission is titled "Kippers" but no reference to kippers was found during the mission. |
Quote:
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Mission 4 Briefing: the Luddite uprising continues, and the contact wants me to go protect a hydroponics plant, since it produces ingredients for NutriPaste. [-0.01] Phrasing: "Havoc At the Aeon Hydroponics" should be either "Havoc at Aeon Hydroponics" or "Havoc at the Aeon Hydroponics Plant" (in mission title) |
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The mission is full of Luddites again. This time there are a number of "Body" glowies. There's a lot of them, but they don't seem to do anything. [-0.1] "Body" glowies should do something (produce a clue, be an objective...something) or else there should be fewer of them (at least 7 that I saw, none of which do anything except produce a brief message in the spammy general chat box). |
Quote:
| Found some NutriPaste samples, which gave some fun clues. I liked the Willy Wonka reference. Is Vegemite indeed the "Taste of Evil"? |
Quote:
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Mission 5 Briefing: so now I need to save the NutriPaste factory. I need to destroy the Luddites' caches of explosives? [-0.1] Out of character: Luddites are so anti-technology that they won't even use guns; I have a hard time believing they'd use explosives. |
Quote:
|
I quickly locate and, uhh, disarm some explosives. After that I find and rescue Dr. Aeon, who becomes an EB level ally that I'm supposed to lead out. Dr. Aeon fights Luddites that get near. I ended up leading him to the door so he would stop following me, but I could've kept him around to smash all the Luddites if I had wanted to. [-0.1] Play balance: EB ally seems much too powerful for the opposition in this mission (nothing bigger than a boss). |
Quote:
| [-0.1] Confusing objectives: the combination of the arsonist and sapeur not being named "saboteur" and requiring the whole group to be defeated is confusing and may result in player frustration (especially if they are scouting out the map, which is large and outdoors, for saboteurs). I'd suggest that you either use the same word for the objective name and the mob name, and/or make the objectives "only boss required". |
Quote:
| I also thought using the French spelling of "sapper" was rather odd considering all the other Luddites use normal English names, but with the Luddite leader being French, I decided to let that go. |
Quote:
|
There was never a big, climactic moment to the final mission; possibly because there is no "big bad guy" (instead we fight 3 lesser bosses) that we end up fighting. Instead I spent most of the last mission flying around searching for objectives, which was not as dramatic and exciting as I'd like the end of a story arc to be. [-0.1] Ending feels anticlimactic. |
Quote:
| Considering this is a NutriTaste factory, I think it should have some optional objectives related to NutriTaste. Maybe something like body bags, toxic waste barrels and/or snake eggs, all labeled "Ingredients"; or a series of cauldrons each containing a different flavor of NutriTaste. Maybe some factory workers as hostages, with some dialog, would make it seem more like a live factory. |
Quote:
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[-0.01] Typo: Marshall -> Marshal (in mission exit popup) [-0.01] Missing reference: Mission is "bacon" but bacon is never referenced. Debriefing: contact criticises me for saving Dr. Aeon? Seems odd, since he told me to save him. |
Quote:
|
I'm glad to get some closure to the "testing new flavor of NutriPaste" plotline, though the execution and resolution were a little underwhelming; it didn't feel like this subplot really went anywhere. Would've liked some clues or dialog hinting that the player does observe side effects (or perhaps imagines them), or perhaps some follow up from the university study. [-0.1] Plot: "testing experimental new flavor" subplot seemed underdeveloped, particularly considering it was the initial hook for starting the story. |
Thanks again for the review, this will be very useful when I get back to working on this arc.
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
The Hero of Kings Row review
Arc ID: 230187
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Canon Related, Drama
Morality: Heroic
Level Range: 1-14
Warnings: extreme bosses
The premise is a missing persons investigation, looking for some high school students. I played a newly created level 3 grav/sonic controller on the default +0 x0 difficulty. The contact is a custom character, a student at the high school.
[5.0] points to start.
Mission 1
Briefing: the contact wants me to look for some of his fellow students, who he thinks are in an abandoned office.
Inside the mission, I quickly find an ally named "The Emancipator" (apparently a newbie hero) who I rescue from some Hellions, giving me "M.1: The Emancipator, Pt. 1" as a clue. The Emancipator also seems to be looking for the missing students.
[-0.01] Game balance: The Emancipator spawned as a level 3 minion for me; this seems too weak to me (a minion ally will die very easily).
Found "Secretary", the secretary of the Student Council, guarded by Hellions. I think you should give him a personal name (like "Bob" or something) instead of a title; it would be unusual to call a high school student "Secretary". (Nitpicky)
The Secretary has some dialog that hints that he's up to something, and gives me the "M.1: Student Council Secretary" clue, which also suggests that something is going on.
Next I found "Treasurer" who seemed to be paying off the Hellions, and gave me the "M.1: Student Council Treasurer" clue.
The "Vice-President" also seemed to be involved in a deal with the Hellions, but also pretended that the Hellions were mugging her. She gave me the "M.1: Student Council Vice-President" clue.
Finally found the "President" who also was in on the Hellion conspiracy. He gave me the "M.1: Student Council President" clue and completed the mission.
Mission exit popup and debriefing do a nice job of restating that the player should now doubt whether the Student Council were really being held hostage.
[4.99] at end of mission 1.
Mission 2
Briefing: the contact now wants me to rescue his girlfriend from Hellions.
[-0.1] Plot: what happened to following up with the plotline with the corrupt student council? I suppose it is possible that this is connected, but it seems like I am ignoring the leads I already have.
After I accept the mission, I find that it has a 30 minute time limit. The send-off message does mention "there's no time to spare", but this is after I've already accepted it.
[-0.1] No warning of a timed mission with relatively short timer.
The map is already on fire when I get there. I like the objectives; some people to rescue, and "Find Out Who's Responsible".
Some Hellions and police immediately exchange dialog as I enter; probably unintentional (I haven't gotten in line of sight of them yet), but they have decent lines. The police warn that the firefighters can't get in here while Hellions are blocking them.
I quickly run into Miss Rosa Marshall and rescue her from some Hellions. She gives me the "M.2: Miss Rosa" clue, with an interesting hint about the perpetrators.
The Emancipator is here again, this time as a level 3 lieutenant. I rescue him from the Hellions and he gives me "M.2: The Emancipator Pt. 2", mostly flavor text from the Emancipator.
(leveled to 4 at this point while fighting Hellions; I didn't bother training as I planned to get an ally buffing power.)
Rescued Samuel Washington, Octavio Brown, Selma Montgomery, some more hostages. They each give me a clue with a little flavor text; not sure if these clues are needed, as they don't seem relevant to the plot or especially fun, but they don't hurt.
At the end of the map I find the President, who turns out to be the one responsible. He spews some pretty good hate dialog about racial purity (interesting! I didn't get a good look at all the hostages but they may very well have all been people of color) and a Council ambush shows up to help him. When the President goes down, he gives me the "M.2: Student Council President" clue, and also "The Student Council President's notebook." (mission end clue?), and also spawns some police who yell:
[NPC] PPD Cop: Thesia cleared the way for us! Let's get in there and rescue these people!
[+0.1] Nice touch, really gave me the feeling that I cleared the way for emergency workers.
[-0.01] Formatting: the name of this clue is too long to fit in the standard width of the clue journal.
[4.88] at end of mission 2.
Mission 3
Briefing: the contact asks questions like "why was the President of our Student Council there?", but this seemed pretty clearly explained in the President's dialog in mission 2, which I heard, even if the contact didn't. Since the contact mentions the President's notebook, clearly he should know that I had to fight the President.
[-0.01] Continuity problem: we already know the President is a bad guy and he revealed some of his motivation in dialog; Doug's dialog doesn't quite make sense in this context. (Kind of a minor quibble though, so I only marked off -0.01.)
The contact wants me to check out the coordinates in the President's notebook.
Send off message: the contact says that I figured out that he's the Emancipator. I confess I hadn't actually figured that out until he blurted it out, though after the President spouted his hate speech I did look the Emancipator over very closely to see if I could tell what color his skin was, in case it was relevant (but I couldn't, it's all covered).
[-0.1] Needs foreshadowing: need a clue or two that foreshadows this reveal. Perhaps "Emancipator Pt 2" could have him unusually concerned about Selma, or "Selma Montgomery" clue might have her eyes widen a little in recognition of the Emancipator.
[-0.01] Typo: "I'llp" -> "I'll" in send-off message.
Inside the mission, there's some nice dialog from a Council patrol.
I quickly locate the "Secretary" who has some incriminating dialog which also appears in the "M.3: Student Council Secretary" clue. Based on this clue I wonder if maybe I should have a triggered objective to find these "records" that the Secretary mentioned?
[+0.1] Symbolism: I'm suddenly struck by the parallel between the name of the "Student Council" and the "Council" enemy group.... not sure if that is intentional or not, but it's cool.
Found the Emancipator again, who is a boss this time and not wearing the hood he had before (just a domino mask now). His dialog and his "M.3: The Emancipator, Pt. 3" clue warn me that the Council is recruiting high school students.
[-0.01] Phrasing: "he's revealed himself to you to be Doug" is awkwardly phased, suggest you reword this. (In Emancipator's description)
Defeated the Treasurer and got the "M.3: Student Council Treasurer" clue.
[-0.01] Phrasing: for this and all the other clues you get for defeating people/rescuing people, I think it would be a little more involving if you wrote them like dialog. For example, instead of "She said the Student Council paid the Hellions, on behalf of the Council" you could write the actual words she says, like "Yeah, we paid off the Hellions. It was part of the agreement to get us into the Council". (This is more of a stylistic nitpick so only marked off -0.01, but I think it would help make the story more immersive.)
Defeated the Vice-President and got the "M.3: Student Council Vice-President" clue.
[-0.01] Continuity problem: "burning the Kings Row Community Center to the ground was their initiation" in the "M.3: Student Council Vice-President" clue, but the Secretary and the Treasurer both ask "Is our initiation tonight?" in their dialog. I think maybe this is just phrased wrong and you mean to say burning the community center was required before they could be initiated.
Beat up the President and got "M.3: Student Council President" as a clue.
[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: "You find the name 'Von Brunn' and more GPS coordinates Row written in his notebook" ... but I already had his notebook from mission 2? Or did he drop ANOTHER notebook? (I don't think he should drop two notebooks, each with GPS coordinates to the next mission...that seems awfully coincidental.) Also "coordinates Row" probably should be "coordinates in Kings Row".
Nice debriefing. I like the contact's dismay at the Student Council's betrayal.
[4.73] at end of mission 3.
Mission 4
Briefing: so, we're following up to the next set of GPS coordinates. Seems awfully convenient that they leave GPS coordinates of their bases lying around as clues.
[-0.1] Missing text: send-off message is much too short (barely half a line).
[-0.01] Phrasing: "I'm going in, $name" should probably be "I'm going in with you, $name" or something similar (in send-off message).
[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: mission is now "Find the Emancipator", but I was just with him starting the mission; how did we get separated so much that rescuing him is now the primary mission? I think this could work, but it needs some writing to better explain that the Emancipator went on ahead without you, if that was your intent. Either that or the mission could be "Investigate Council base" and one of the objectives could happen to be "Find the Emancipator".
[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: mission entry popup says "Statesman steps up to the podium" ... huh? There is no Statesman here. This might make sense if this mission was a high school graduation ceremony with Statesman as the keynote speaker, but I'm in a Council base and Statesman is nowhere to be seen.
I immediately find "Paragon City High Student Council President".
[-0.01] Inconsistent: why is he named "Paragon City High Student Council President" here, but named "President" in all previous missions? It's clearly the same guy. Pick a name and use it consistently. I'd suggest something in between, like "Student Council President". Just "President" sounds like it should be the national president, while "Paragon City High Student Council President" is just way too long.
[-0.1] Missing text: Paragon City High Student Council President has no dialog.
The Student Council minions wearing T-shirts with the Council logo are kind of fun. Despite being custom mobs, they seem pretty doable at level 4. Their DPS is maybe a little too high for low level; giving them both assault rifle and martial arts (I think) gives them a lot of possible attacks to cycle through, more than most level 4 mobs will have.
I soon find a body bag labeled "The Emancipator".
[-0.1] Missing text: no text on progress bar for "The Emancipator" glowy.
Looking in my clue journal, I see that I have "M.4: The Emancipator's Eulogy Pt. 1" through "Pt. 3" at this point. With this as context, the mission entry popup mentioning Statesman makes a little more sense, but I still think it's in the wrong place. I suggest you move the bit about Statesman to the beginning of "Eulogy Pt. 1"; that'll make the text flow a bit better.
I normally would've expected to find a clue referring to the Emancipator's body, maybe with some info about what happened to him; but it looks like this mission is structured to give various parts of the Eulogy as individual clues attached to various objectives. Each individual part of the Eulogy doesn't make sense as a clue, it's just a sentence or two of the Eulogy. I also got a few of them out of order; for example, I got Pt 6 before Pt 4. As a result, I'm not quite sure this works for me.
I soon find out why the first Council President had such a long name, as I run into the Steel Canyon High Student Council President, who also looks just like the earlier Student Council President. Still think this name is a bit too long.
[-0.1] Missing text: Steel Canyon High Student Council President has no dialog.
Found and defeated Archon von Brunn, who was a level 4 lieutenant for me. He could perhaps use a custom description.
[-0.1] Missing text: Archon von Brunn has no dialog, despite having some foreshadowing in earlier missions as being an important boss.
[-0.1] Missing text: the Student Council ambush he spawns has no dialog. This means the ambush shows up completely by surprise.
I defeated Archon von Brunn, but didn't get credit for "Defeat the Council Mastermind", because I didn't defeat all his minions. His ambush defeated me before I could. You might consider making him "Only boss required".
I hit the hospital and run back, and defeat von Brunn and his minions. This doesn't actually "Defeat the Council Mastermind", which was a bit unexpected to me; I actually thought von Brunn was the big bad guy? Now I'm not sure who I'm looking for.
Found and fought the Galaxy City High Student Council President. He counted as completing "Defeat the Council Mastermind" and I get "Eulogy Pt 7" and "mission complete". Huh?
[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: Why is the Galaxy City Student Council President the Council Mastermind and not Archon von Brunn?
[-0.1] Missing text: Galaxy City Student Council President has no dialog.
[-0.1] Incomplete clues: the mission completes with me only having Eulogy Pt 1, 2, 3, 6, 7. Apparently Eulogy Pt 4 and 5 are either missing or not required objectives. This leaves me with an incomplete eulogy.
Looking at the MA tool after the mission, it actually says mission 4 is a "Defeat All Enemies" which makes me even more puzzled as to why I am missing Eulogy parts 4 and 5 if I defeated everything.
Debriefing: a sad ending for the Emancipator as a funeral is described. But I'm left with a lot of questions.
[-0.1] Lack of closure: what happened to Archon Brunn and all the Student Council after they got defeated?
[-0.1] Don't understand: why did the Emancipator run on ahead without me, when I clearly was present to help, and get himself killed? Why did the Student Council decide to kill him? (Presumably due to his race, but it would be nice to see them say something about it, or to have the clues hint at how or why he met his end.)
[-0.1] Player is marginalized: In the earlier missions, the player is helping Doug Frederick against the Hellions and Council, but in this final mission, the story is all about the Emancipator and the player is completely sidelined.
[-0.01] Continuity: I don't think Statesman has Hero 1's cape, so he wouldn't be able to drape it over the Emancipator's coffin. Statesman used his own cape to commemorate the loss of Hero 1.
[3.31] at end of mission 4.
Overall
I liked the earlier missions and the struggle against the Hellions and the Council. I liked the parallel between the "Student Council" and the actual "Council", and the revelation of the corruption of the Student Council.
The final mission didn't work for me, though; the custom enemy group was fun, but none of the (many) special bosses had any dialog, the mission objectives didn't seem to quite make sense, and Emancipator got himself killed (unnecessarily, in my opinion - don't see why he would run ahead when I was right there to help him) and caused the story to suddenly completely focus on him.
I liked the plot of the Student Council trying to stir up a race war in the missions leading up to the last one; but I'd recommend working on the last mission a bit. Just adding dialog to the bosses and straightening out the mission objectives a bit would improve it a lot without too much effort. I think your story needs the Emancipator to die, but the way it's presented it seems like he just ran off to this mission without me (which seems not very smart); if you could spin his death slightly differently (perhaps they kidnap him and mission 4's briefing has Selma ask you to find Doug, or some other method where the Council kills him but it's not because he simply rushed in blindly), I think it would work a lot better.
Rounding 3.31 off, I gave this arc 3 stars. Hope you think that is fair!
----
My queue is now:
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 01 #47143 (played, need to write up notes)
@Gypsy Rose - In Pursuit of Liberty #344916 (re-review)
The_Cheshire_Cat - Ignition of the Machine #318983
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 02 #11728
Tangler - A Penny For Your Thoughts #348691
The Hound - The Alient Tyrant #357388
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 03 #174352
Dsarvess Rientel - Serpent's Scheme #363206
Lazarus - Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together) #347029 (re-review)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 04 #269714
@Frija - Mercytown #6014 (assuming Tangler/@Frija plays one of my arcs)
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
The Galactic Protectorate - 01 review
Arc ID: 47143
Keywords: Challenging, Custom Characters, Save the World
Morality: Neutral
Level range: 40-54
The premise is to help an alternate version of Synapse with ... something. Not sure what. I ran through with a 3 player team, made up of:
50 MA/SR scrapper (heavily IO'd)
42 fire/fire blaster
25 plant/emp controller
Being on a team, my notes are a little more sketchy than usual. Hopefully having 3 people play the arc will make up for that.
[5.0] at start.
[-0.01] Typo: threatnens -> threatens (in arc description)
Mission 1
Briefing: We need to help Synapse with some unspecified task.
Send-off message: Synapse clarifies that we need to rescue some people.
[-0.1] Objectives list a lot of names of people we have to save; but none of these names were mentioned by Synapse, and I don't know anyone on this dimension, so how do I know these names? Maybe could address this by accumulating these objectives into "4 people to rescue" or something.
The mission is full of GP - Division 0 mobs.
[-0.5] Game balance: GP - Division 0 has way too many support minions. I think I saw minions that had: empathy, storm, rad emission, kinetics, sonic dispersion, force fields, thermal and pain dom. Pretty much every minion had some kind of buff/debuff set, which made this enemy group too powerful, especially against a team. As a scrapper with soft capped defense, I was mostly ok against these; but any time any of them even looked at one of my squishy teammates, they would get vaporized. I'd recommend having fewer support mobs; no more than half of the possible models, if that.
My blaster teammate noted that all the GP - Division 0 models were female models, and got utterly fixated on this.
We rescued Mayor Bruckenmeier; he didn't give us a clue, which I thought was rather surprising.
[-0.01] Continuity: Celestial Guardsman's description says that he is in the 12th Division, but she's in the "Division 0" enemy group, so this is inconsistent. (Some of the other mobs clearly state they were transferred from another division; this one wasn't.)
[-0.01] Punctuation: Terrestrial Tech. has an extra . in its name
We found and rescued Nurse Perkins; the model for her did not look very much like a nurse (see above - lady hostage in dark business suit). (Didn't mark off points as this is pretty nitpicky.)
[-0.1] Needs clue: No captives stopped to tell us about the Resistance? Shouldn't these hostages tell us a little about the situation in this strange dimension? I don't think I ever saw an explanation of the Galactic Protectorate or what it is in this mission.
We got a "Discarded Newspaper" clue. The picture shows the whole Freedom Phalanx [i]except[i] for Positron; I'm not sure if this was an accidental or deliberate omission.
[4.27] at end of mission 1.
Mission 2
Briefing: we're sent to infiltrate a GP base.
[+0.1] Some useful progress report "clues" about the invasion help alleviate my earlier complaint about not learning anything about the GP in the previous mission.
[-0.01] Doesn't make sense: Why would aliens use the names of Greek gods as month names?
[-0.01] Phrasing: "capable repelling" -> "capable of repelling" (in Celestial Guardsman description)
[-0.01] Typos: "it's inner workings" -> "its inner workings", "transfered" -> "transferred" (in Solar Singer description)
We get the "Progress Report: Diplomacy" clue.
[-0.01] Phrasing: "representative of the forces" seems ambiguous, should perhaps be "representative of the Earth's forces" (in Progress Report: Diplomacy)
This clue also makes me wonder if Synapse and the Resistance are actually acting against Statesman, since Statesman appears to have given his word that Earth forces would cease hostilities?
[-0.01] Typo: agression -> aggression (in Progress Report: Aftermath)
(Our empath had to quit at this point)
We found the "Base Classified Orders" clue.
[-0.1] Don't understand: why would orders for another base be in THIS base? Also how do I know it's orders for another base, when it's apparently in code?
Debriefing: Synapse seems disappointed in our results so far. I wonder why he didn't talk about Statesman's diplomatic mission? That seems like an important plot point.
[4.22] at end of mission 2
Mission 3
Briefing: we're sent to rescue Manticore from being executed by the Galactic Protectorate.
[-0.01] Typo: Mantiore -> Manticore (in send off message)
[-0.01] Typo: provide -> provides (in Equator Engineer's description). Also, it's rather odd to use "miles" in an alien being's description, to describe a location on an alien's homeworld.
When we get close to Manticore, the following dialog goes off:
[NPC] Mind Medic: I know what our orders are, but doesn't this violate our agreement with the planetary resistance?
[NPC] Manticore: Heh... is this what you people call "honoring your word"?
[NPC] Mind Medic: Darn it, there's no time for this! We have an intruder!
[NPC] Manticore: Who are you? A member of the Human Resistance?
[-0.01] Doesn't make sense: actually, the clues so far suggest the GP are justified in executing Manticore, since the Resistance previously promised to cease hostilities. (I only marked off -0.01 for this because of course humans are always right and aliens are always wrong. )
We end up saving Manticore without too much trouble.
We got the "Record of the Last Battle of Arachnos" clue which was rather interesting.
[-0.01] Typo: Stephan -> Stephen (in Record of the Last Battle of Arachnos)
Aha a reference to Positron!
[-0.1] Dangling plot thread: the Fall of Arachnos is mentioned several times and seems to be significant to the story, but this plot thread doesn't end up going anywhere (at least in this installment of the Galactic Protectorate).
[+0.1] On the other hand, the "Fall of Arachnos" subplot actually intrigues me enough to want to know what happens next.
Nice debriefing with decent, definite ending (especially for a part 1).
Decent souvenir.
[-0.01] Typo: begain -> began (in Souvenir)
[4.17] at end of mission 3
Overall
I thought this was a neat start to a story of alien invasion; the alternate history presented for this other dimension was very intriguing as well. Despite being a "part 1", it did have a logical beginning and end, which was nice. I would've liked to learn a little more about the situation in mission 1 (where you rescue the resistance fighters), but a lot of that was cleared up in mission 2. The actual custom group was neat, but the power selection made them too difficult due to the synergy between all their buffs/debuffs.
I gave this arc 4 stars.
----
My queue is now:
@Gypsy Rose - In Pursuit of Liberty #344916 (re-review)
The_Cheshire_Cat - Ignition of the Machine #318983
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 02 #11728
Tangler - A Penny For Your Thoughts #348691
The Hound - The Alient Tyrant #357388
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 03 #174352
Dsarvess Rientel - Serpent's Scheme #363206
Lazarus - Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together) #347029 (re-review)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 04 #269714
@Frija - Mercytown #6014 (assuming Tangler/@Frija plays one of my arcs)
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
The lack of dialogue in the final mission is intentional. I was trying for a "silent mission" narrative there, where once enough of the eulogy has dropped, it should be pretty obvious to the player what's happened.
I did set the last mission just to defeat Archon von Brunn and his personal retinue of minions. I'm not sure why the Galaxy City High Student Council President triggered the mission complete for you--MA's a little buggy on that point. I had something similar occur when I was running through, but it was because the minions of the various bosses had gotten intermingled. Easily changed to just beat up von Brunn.
All of the eulogy is there--I was careful about that. The first and last parts of it drop on entry and exit, respectively. Two more parts are linked to the required objectives (Archon von Brunn and the body bag). The other three parts are linked to bosses you may or may not find; I didn't want to annoy players by REQUIRING they get all seven parts when, in reality, they'll get the point if they just charge through, beat up Archon von Brunn, and find out what happened to Doug.
Doug rushes in because he's impetuous and headstrong. I thought that's somewhat clear from the start--he charges headlong into burning buildings with no super powers. He's already there in each mission when you get there.
The GPS thing was shoehorned in after another critique. I guess I should write that out a little better; what I was thinking was that Council bases aren't exactly going to have addresses. They're underground bunkers. But every kid has a cell phone, and many have GPS in them, so it would make sense for the Council to give these kids the GPS coordinates of their bunker entrances.
In a sidenote, I teach college-level English and have for over ten years now. I once toyed with a numerical grading system, but it has some very, very definite drawbacks. For example, let's say I decide to take off 1% for each run-on sentence. That seems fair, right? For most students, this wouldn't be that much of an issue--it's a common issue, but three run-ons in an essay is the typical upper limit for the average student. However, I've had the rare student who writes otherwise decent papers that are chock full of run-ons and comma splices (really the same issue except to extreme grammarian nit-pickers)--let's say she or he writes twenty run-ons in an essay. Let's say the content is B-level (80% range), but because there are twenty run-ons and my policy was knocking off 1% for each run-on, I'd have to knock it into the D-level (60% range). In reality, it's the same issue repeated over and over, and I quickly came to the realization that strictly adhering to some kind of numerical values could become grossly unfair to my students. It's a reason I dropped using numbers except for bookkeeping purposes (the other major reason being I hate quibbling with students over 2%).
I bring this up because you knocked off 0.1 points six times, for a total of 0.6 (more than half a point), due to a style choice (the "silent mission" narrative). I'm not sure if it speaks more to a weakness in my style choice or a weakness in your evaluative structure.
40062: The World's Worst PUG
84008: Jenkins's Guide to Super-Villainy
230187: The Hero of Kings Row
No H8 - 08.04.10
@Circuit Boy - Moderator - Pride global chat channel
Quote:
I guess I can see that; but I think his dying due to (essentially) overconfidence and scrapperlock makes his death a little less meaningful than otherwise (for example if he made a conscious sacrifice).| Doug rushes in because he's impetuous and headstrong. I thought that's somewhat clear from the start--he charges headlong into burning buildings with no super powers. He's already there in each mission when you get there. |
Quote:
| I once toyed with a numerical grading system, but it has some very, very definite drawbacks. ... I bring this up because you knocked off 0.1 points six times, for a total of 0.6 (more than half a point), due to a style choice (the "silent mission" narrative). |
@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!"
It's really a matter of the limits of the MA itself.
Given my preference, Doug would fall right in front of your eyes, but I can't figure out how to make that happen with the tools we have available. I'd also like to do the last mission sepia-toned like the Ouroboros mission, to suggest that this has already happened, but again, limitation of the tools we have.
The "silent mission" idea may just have to be scrapped. Too many people aren't catching it, and I don't want to have to announce that's the idea, because that seems like it'd be too much authorial voice interjecting. It's funny, because the concept of that mission is what drove me to write the entire arc in the first place.
I tweaked von Brunn so he has his own description. I hope it comes through--I had to use a Random Boss for him, because there are no Council Bosses that span the entire level range of the mission (except a Warwolf, which would be wholly inappropriate). I also reconfigured it so you only have to beat him. I figured out what the problem there was--he wasn't always placed in the final room, so he wasn't the "final boss". Easily and quickly fixed.
Just a sidenote about the second mission: It turns out that the map is so small, the PPD/Hellion Battle (which produces the dialogue you heard) spawns on mission entry and you're close enough to "hear" them. The Hellions are considerably more powerful than the PPD, so by the time you actually reach them, the PPD have been defeated and their bodies despawned. This was not intentional on my part, but I thought it worked out well to cement the sense of urgency required by that mission.
You're right about "over-clueing"; I've been trying to figure out how to rewrite those, or just lump them together somehow to reduce the "clue spam" the arc produces. That might actually help focus things in the last mission.
40062: The World's Worst PUG
84008: Jenkins's Guide to Super-Villainy
230187: The Hero of Kings Row
No H8 - 08.04.10
@Circuit Boy - Moderator - Pride global chat channel
Thanks for the great review of my first "Galactic Protectorate" arc, PoliceWoman
I always find it interesting how every reviewer I've submitted these arcs to has a different interpretation of the story, and it's nice to see that you've picked up on all the little details several other reviewers have missed
I notice you took a fraction of a point off for the "Greek gods as months" reference, citing it "didn't make sense". Keep in mind that this is just the first part of a mult-arc storyline, so not everything will be explained right away. If it's something that honestly bothers you, I don't blame you for taking off a fraction of a point (it's not that much in the long run, really), but I just thought I'd mention that in case you catch some other references which seem "out of place" when you play my other "Galactic Protectorate" arcs. 
Anyway, I look forward to your review of "The Galactic Protectorate - 02"!
Supplemental Galactic Protectorate Fanfic
Note that the way I do re-reviews has changed, so bear with me; I'm now focusing mainly on seeing if my previous comments have been addressed. I will occasionally make new comments, but will try to limit myself on those. I hope this new format works. We'll see.
In Pursuit of Liberty re-re-review
Arc ID: 344916 (formerly 221702)
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Custom Characters, Canon Related (changed?)
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 45-54
Warnings: EBs, Extreme EBs, Extreme Bosses, Extreme Lieutenants, Enemies with custom powers
First I'm going to try and convert my previous re-review into numeric values. Note: all these comments are from the previous review, on the previous arc - not the current version of the arc.
[5.0] to start.
Mission 1
[-0.01] Out of character: Ms Liberty rambles, doesn't make sense for her.
[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: Ms Liberty warns "there's not much time!" when we're about to travel back in time.
[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: Why doesn't Ms Liberty save the girl, since she's a hero?
[-0.1] Confusing: too many people named "Liberty" in the story.
[-0.01] Rephrase: Vito's description needs work.
[-0.1] Don't understand: why does the Family have "Family Tree" in their safe when "Note to Vito" has MAL saying that Vito doesn't need to know why the child is important?
[-0.1] Debriefing too short; also a little immersion breaking for contact to remind you to read your clues.
[4.48] at end of mission 1.
Mission 2
[-0.01] Mission title: "Find the Treasure" seems an unheroic objective, primary motivation should be to save the girl.
[-0.1] Mission needs more details.
[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: how would stealing someone's costume would prevent them from being a hero?
[4.27] at end of mission 2.
Mission 3
[-0.01] Mission title: "Find the Book" is an odd choice; main goal should be to save the girl.
[-0.1] Don't understand: briefing implies book isn't important, but mission title and objectives make it required.
[-0.01] Glowy's graphic: display case is an odd choice for a book (should be a bookcase?)
[-0.1] Don't understand: why would Miss Liberty's diary have a prophecy about Liberty Rose? Miss Liberty doesn't have precognition or prophetic powers.
[+0.1] Neat mix of enemies in "Evil Garden Dwellers" custom group.
[4.15] at end of mission 3.
Mission 4
[-0.1] Don't understand: Liberty Rose is grown up now and becoming a hero, why doesn't she get her own swords?
[-0.1] Gameplay: Rogue Fortunata spawning at 42 instead of 50
[-0.01] Glowy's graphic: why a coffin to represent swords?
[-0.01] Dialog: Statesman's dialog (telling me where the swords are) doesn't make sense if I find the swords first.
[-0.1] Out of character: Statesman does not seem worried that all of Paragon City has been destroyed around him and occupied by evil villains.
[3.83] at end of mission 4.
Mission 5
[-0.1] Game balance: big bad guy was only a boss, but ally was an EB, so final fight seemed too easy.
[3.73] at end of mission 5.
Overall
[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: why would Ms Liberty, Miss Liberty and Statesman all forget about Liberty Rose and not rescue her for 7 years, until I go back in time to help?
[-0.1] Plot problem: if Liberty Rose is destined to defeat MAL, why is it that the player ends up finding all of her stuff, rescuing her, and then ultimately defeating MAL? Seems to undermine the prophecy that Liberty Rose will do these things.
[-0.01] Plot problem: MAL clearly is trying to stop Liberty Rose's origin story; but what IS her origin story (pre-MAL messing it up)?
[+0.1] Nice custom group: Anti-Liberty League.
[3.62] at end of arc. (New system, old review.)
-------
On to the re-review. Ran through the arc on a 32 elec/elec brute (an alt that was not the right level or morality, but needed exp and tickets ). Going to check to see which of these were addressed in the current version of the arc.
[5.0] to start. I will mark new comments with "NEW" but will try to mostly focus on old comments.
The contact was formerly Ms Liberty, now replaced by a custom character, Mender Wells of Ouroboros.
[+0.1] NEW: Like the H. G. Wells reference.
[-0.01] NEW: Typo: Mendor -> Mender (in Mender Wells' description, two instances)
Mission 1
[FIXED] Out of character: Ms Liberty rambles, doesn't make sense for her. (replaced by Mender Wells)
[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: Ms Liberty warns "there's not much time!" when we're about to travel back in time. [Still present, albeit rephrased to "I am wasting valuable time".]
[FIXED] Doesn't make sense: Why doesn't Ms Liberty save the girl, since she's a hero? (replaced by Mender Wells)
[-0.1] Confusing: too many people named "Liberty" in the story. (The story did get rid of Ms. Liberty, but still has Agent Liberty, Liberty Storm and Liberty Rose)
[-0.01] NEW: Typo: "Investigate the the Anti" -> "Investigate the Anti" (in Agent Liberty's Top Secret Mission Briefing)
[FIXED] Rephrase: Vito's description needs work. (Seems fine now.)
[FIXED] Don't understand: why does the Family have "Family Tree" in their safe when "Note to Vito" has MAL saying that Vito doesn't need to know why the child is important? (Makes more sense the way the clues are written now)
[FIXED] Debriefing too short; also a little immersion breaking for contact to remind you to read your clues. (Debriefing much improved)
[4.88] at end of mission 1.
Mission 2
[-0.01] Mission title: "Find the Treasure" seems an unheroic objective, primary motivation should be to save the girl.
[-0.1] Mission needs more details. (Could use a patrol or an optional boss with some dialog, to make mission seem more lively.)
[FIXED] Doesn't make sense: how would stealing someone's costume would prevent them from being a hero? (Seems better explained now.)
[4.77] at end of mission 2.
Mission 3
[-0.01] Mission title: "Find the Book" is an odd choice; main goal should be to save the girl.
[FIXED] Don't understand: briefing implies book isn't important, but mission title and objectives make it required. (Briefing explains this better now.)
[FIXED] Glowy's graphic: display case is an odd choice for a book (should be a bookcase?) [glowy now describes opening a case to get the book, which seems fine]
[FIXED] Don't understand: why would Miss Liberty's diary have a prophecy about Liberty Rose? Miss Liberty doesn't have precognition or prophetic powers. (Clue was rewritten to make a lot more sense)
[+0.1] Neat mix of enemies in "Evil Garden Dwellers" custom group.
[4.86] at end of mission 3.
Mission 4
[-0.1] Don't understand: Liberty Rose is grown up now and becoming a hero, why doesn't she get her own swords?
[FIXED] Gameplay: Rogue Fortunata spawning at 42 instead of 50 (didn't happen on my run)
[-0.01] Glowy's graphic: why a coffin to represent swords? (still a coffin, not sure why)
[-0.01] Dialog: Statesman's dialog (telling me where the swords are) doesn't make sense if I find the swords first.
[-0.1] Out of character: Statesman does not seem worried that all of Paragon City has been destroyed around him and occupied by evil villains.
NEW: I think this mission could use more stuff to do on it, it's a very big map with only two items of interest. (Did not mark off points as I didn't mention this in previous reviews.)
[4.64] at end of mission 4.
Mission 5
[-0.1] Game balance: big bad guy was only a boss, but ally was an EB, so final fight seemed too easy. (Still spawned like this.)
Mille Volt and Liberty Rose versus MAL
NEW: I like the way Liberty Rose's flower-like symbol chest detail is colored to make it look like a small, inverted star - neat costuming trick.
[4.54] at end of mission 5.
Overall
[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: why would Ms Liberty, Miss Liberty and Statesman all forget about Liberty Rose and not rescue her for 7 years, until I go back in time to help? (Even though the contact is different now, Liberty Rose is STILL related to all these other superheroes, one of which surely would've saved her even if I didn't.)
[FIXED] Plot problem: if Liberty Rose is destined to defeat MAL, why is it that the player ends up finding all of her stuff, rescuing her, and then ultimately defeating MAL? Seems to undermine the prophecy that Liberty Rose will do these things. (Prophecy story element appears to have been replaced by a sort of Mender predestination thing...for some reason I found this more believable.)
[FIXED] Plot problem: MAL clearly is trying to stop Liberty Rose's origin story; but what IS her origin story (pre-MAL messing it up)? (Seems better explained now.)
[+0.1] Nice custom group: Anti-Liberty League.
[4.54] at end of arc. Rounded this up, I gave the arc 5 stars.
----
My queue is now:
The_Cheshire_Cat - Ignition of the Machine #318983
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 02 #11728
Tangler - A Penny For Your Thoughts #348691
The Hound - The Alient Tyrant #357388
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 03 #174352
Dsarvess Rientel - Serpent's Scheme #363206
Lazarus - Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together) #347029 (re-review)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 04 #269714
@Frija - Mercytown #6014 (assuming Tangler/@Frija plays one of my arcs)
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290
@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!"
Thank you so much for taking the time to play my arc yet again and giving me such a detailed review.
Sadly my computer where all my custom files are has died, and in the past when I edited and republished an arc on my laptop, I had problems because the customs are not present.
Hopefully the computer or at least the data can be saved and I will fix the issues you pointed out then.
I am so happy that you liked it better
@Gypsy Rose
In Pursuit of Liberty - 344916
The Vigilante - 395861
Suppression - 374481 - Winner of The American Legion's February 2011 AE Author Contest
My First Review
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?
Anyway, hope this sounds interesting! Looking forward to trying some stories.
Played on a Rad/Pain Corruptor, Level 32
I enjoyed this arc a lot, the kidnapee (is that a word? Oh well I guess it is now) was actually quite fun to listen to and managed to be airheaded without being irritating.
Willy sounded just like Willy, and left me once again with the urge to punch his lights out.
The bums in mission two were fun, especially 'Marlon'.
The Paps were an interesting touch, always getting in the way.
The final mission though felt a bit crowded, the cops, paps and family all turning up at once at one corner made for a confused melee. I'm not sure how easy it is to cure that though.
I'm guessing PW is a Hitchcock fan?
In any case it was a fun arc and deserving of it's recent accolade.
Feel free to play my Arc
47949
A Demon's Vengeance.
Neutral
A demon hires you to get even with the Wizard who marooned him on this plane.
Ignition of the Machine review
Arc ID: 318983
Keywords: Challenging, Origin Story, Drama
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 25-32
Warnings: AVs, EBs
The premise is to help a scientist test out a new android. The arc description warns that it is hard. The contact is a scientist in a white lab coat by the name of Dr. Shelley. The name makes me instantly think of Dr. Shelly Percey, but it's not the same person at all. Perhaps his name is meant to be suggestive of Mary Shelley. I played a 32 kin/sonic defender on default difficulty.
[5.0] initial points.
Mission 1
Briefing: I like the way Dr. Shelley introduces himself, it's quite amusing. I also like the Philip K Dick reference in the mission title; particularly topical for a story about androids. The contact seems to want me to protect him in case his new creation goes berserk.
[+0.1] Fun initial briefing.
[-0.01] Capitalization: "portal corp" -> "Portal Corp"
Inside the mission I find Dr. Shelley, guarded by a couple Council soldiers.
Dr. Shelley and uninvited guests
They seem confused as to why they are present. I'm not quite sure why they're there either. I guess they are there for mechanical reasons (to prevent Dr Shelley from instantly being freed upon entering the mission) but they still seem out of place.
[-0.1] Don't understand: Why are Council here guarding Dr. Shelley?
Searching the mission I find an Activation Console; clicking it ends the mission. I think it spawned "Shell" and an objective of "Find Shell" flashed across the navigation dialog, then instantly completed as Shell spawned right next to me. Shell utters a few lines and gives me the "Shell" clue.
[-0.01] Grammar: "She seems to regard both you and the doctor as a curiosity" -> "She seems to regard both you and the doctor as curiosities" (in "Shell" clue)
[-0.01] Typo: "peculuarities" -> "peculiarities" (in debriefing)
[-0.01] Capitalization: "portal corp" -> "Portal Corp" (in debriefing, two instances), also "(After myself" -> "(after myself".
I had wondered if "Shell" was intentionally named similarly to "Dr. Shelley", and liked that it was confirmed by the debriefing. I also thought perhaps Shell should have a seashell as chest logo (instead of the tech hole symbol) but it's not a big deal. Since Shell is a female robot, perhaps she should be named "Shelly"? (Maybe too similar to Dr. Shelley though.)
[4.96] at end of mission 1.
Mission 2
Briefing: the contact wants me to escort Shell around town, to gather data for her expert systems or something.
[-0.01] Typo: "ordinance" -> "ordnance" (in briefing; not the same thing at all)
Found myself on the Steel Canyon outdoor map and having to look for Shell. The map is full of Council robots for some reason.
The robot philosopher
Upon rescuing Shell she says
[NPC] Shell: I step over the bones of my brothers to greet you.
...which is a rather creepy thing to say. Doesn't quite match the very mechanical way she was talking in mission 1, but considering she's a learning machine, this probably makes sense. Shell joins me as an ally and now I have 4 Hostages to Rescue and an Invasion Leader to defeat.
Shell is an EB ally; initially I thought this was too strong, until I ran into Archon Burkholder (an EB enemy at my difficulty). Fortunately SBing and Fulcrum Shifting my ally allowed me to beat him easily. Defeating him and his group completed "Defeat Invasion Leader" and gave me the "Burkholder's Invasion" clue.
Searching for hostages on a large outdoor map with Shell in tow rapidly becomes tedious; I basically have to clear everything while she's with me, and the mission doesn't appear to have any items of interest other than Burkholder and the hostages (who all have identical dialog). After rescuing 2 hostages this way, I end up ditching Shell and running around looking for the last two hostages on my own. This is contrary to the spirit of the mission (since I'm supposed to be sidekicking Shell for exp) but it does complete the mission.
[-0.1] Gameplay: finding 4 hostages on large outdoor map seems tedious. Suggest remedying with fewer hostages, smaller map, and/or adding more items of interest to the mission.
[-0.1] Don't understand: just what were Burkholder and the Council Robots trying to accomplish in Steel Canyon? I don't buy that they were after Shell (they were capturing human hostages, and no one really knew we were going there except Dr. Shelley). What were they up to? Maybe they need some kind of crime in progress that Shell and the player interrupt.
Debriefing: can someone actually be described as "quiet and existential"? Hard to imagine.
[-0.01] Typo: quizically -> quizzically (in debriefing)
Would've been nice to have some sort of human interaction with Shell during this mission (since one of the goals was to give Shell some human experience) rather than just rescuing her and fighting robots. Not quite sure how best to pull that off, though.
[4.74] at end of mission 2.
Mission 3
Briefing: suddenly Council are attacking Dr. Shelley's lab! The briefing and send-off message are on the short side, but this sort of makes sense based on the way they're presented.
[-0.01] Mission Title: "Save Dr. Shelley's Lab" ... shouldn't the main goal actually be to save Dr. Shelley himself? Saving a person should be more important than saving the place he works.
I kind of wonder why Shell didn't stop this attack, since she's quite powerful. Hopefully we'll find out.
The mission map for the lab in this mission is different than the map used in mission 1, but this is explained away in the mission entry popup as due to "renovation".
The map is larger than before, and full of Council. I sneak past them; there don't seem to be any items of interest other than Dr. Shelley as a hostage, who I find in the very back.
After rescuing him, he tells me that I need to find Shell. Since I'm at the very end of the mission, this requires me to backtrack.
[-0.1] Gameplay: extensive backtracking required to find mission objectives.
While backtracking I find a computer with the "Strange Console" clue. Not sure if it was there before I found Dr. Shelley; I might have overlooked it.
Backtracking to the start of the mission, I still haven't found Shell. I do notice "The Big One", a Council robot EB (probably Bulwark).
Darla vs the Big One
Using a couple purple inspirations, I manage to beat The Big One, who gives me the "Robot Memory Core" clue and completes the mission.
[-0.01] Continuity: story jumps from "I think they're after Shell! You have to find her!" (Shelley's dialog) to "you were able to extract the location of the Council base where Shell was taken" (in Robot Memory Core). I think you need a clue or line of dialog somewhere in between, that actually says that Shell has been captured. You can infer this from these two lines, so I only marked off -0.01; but I think it would be more effective to discover Shell's empty rack (or something), so you know she's missing, then finding out where she was taken.
[-0.01] Don't understand: why is this mission called "Vengeance and Curiosity"? None of the characters seem to demand vengeance or act curious. Is this the name of a book, like some of the other mission titles? I'm not familiar with this phrase.
[4.61] at end of mission 3.
Mission 4
Briefing: the contact wants me to rescue Shell from the Council base.
[-0.01] Characterization: the contact is very serious here talking about important stuff, and yet, for the first time, he does not use his catch phrase "That's not important. What is important is...." (Minor, so only marked off -0.01)
[-0.1] Characterization: the contact says "You know she can be so much more than that" when talking about Shell, and the briefing is trying to motivate the player to care about Shell due to the player's interactions with Shell so far. But so far Shell has very minimal characterization -- just a couple lines in missions 1 and 2, none of which are very humanizing -- IMHO, not enough for the player to really care about her. If you're going for "Shell is a person that the player should care about" here, she needs more build-up as a person.
Inside the Council base there are some battles between Council and Council Robots. I wonder if maybe the latter would be more correctly labeled "Rogue Robots" (the existing enemy group).
Found a computer that gave me the "Computer Terminal" clue. I'm guessing these are pleas for help from Shell.
[-0.01] Formatting: the clue has lots of formatting in it but is not very suggestive of a computer readout. For instance, "He-h-hee-lh-e-lp", while a reasonable thing to say aloud when confused, is not what a garbled computer message should look like. I'd suggest inserting random decimal or hexadecimal digits, using ALL CAPS, and/or BREA KING UPWO RDSI NTOB LOCK SFOU RCHA CTER SLON G. For example, "0011 56HE LP9M E12S 0C0L DAND DARK". You don't have to do exactly that; I just don't think the dashes and the different colors work for this purpose.
Found Shell and rescued her from some Council guards that were tormenting her. She's now a minion instead of an EB, and has lots of pieces missing due to the Council partially disassembling her.
Is it my imagination, or do all of this author's arcs have a creepy flayed model in them?
She says upon rescue:
[NPC] Shell: *It stares at you wordlessly, each step it takes it seems like it will fall apart*
[-0.01] Phrasing: This sentence is awkwardly phrased. Suggest you rephrase to something like "with each step it takes, it seems about to fall apart". I notice you now refer to Shell as "it" instead of "she" -- unsure if this was deliberate.
My objective switched to getting Shell out in one piece. I deliberately let the Council kill Shell, since I figured that was probably less tested and I was curious to see if I could break something. This caused the mission to fail and ended the story arc.
Debriefing: a decent conclusion for the "fail" path.
Souvenir: pretty interesting bit of extra story. Reminds me a bit of The Adolescence of P-1, another book where the AI appears to die at the end.
[+0.1] Neat (though surreal) souvenir with some extra story in it.
[-0.1] Don't understand: what was the point of the Council disassembling and torturing Shell? Clearly it was important for them to capture Shell; what did they gain by flaying and tormenting her?
[-0.1] Dangling plot thread: I thought maybe Shell was controlling the Council robots that attacked the other Council, but never found anything further to support this idea.
[4.38] at end of mission 4.
Overall
An interesting story about the creation of an artificially intelligent android. I would've liked a bit more characterization and humanization of Shell, before she gets beat up in the final mission; I think the idea of your story is that Shell becomes alive and the player should be sad that the Council hurts her, and glad that she transcends her "Shell". Shell needs a little more build-up as a person to make the player care more strongly about when she gets mistreated. (This does make me curious as to the "success" branch of mission 4... I'd guess that even if you lead Shell out, her personality is too damaged to recover, hence why Shell becomes an "it" after torture.)
I also felt that the Council needed more motivation for their actions; I could totally believe that Burkholder and/or Vandal were trying to steal the Shell android to cannibalize for their own robots, but there's not many clues that really explain what they're up to. As presented, it seems like the Council is there purely as bad guys, without a lot of purpose beyond that.
I gave this arc 4 stars, but it was pretty close to the line; it wouldn't take much to improve my opinion of the arc overall.
----
My queue is now:
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 02 #117281
@Frija - Mercytown #6017 (moved up to replace A Penny for your Thoughts, which I suspect no longer needs feedback)
The Hound - The Alien Tyrant #357388
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 03 #174352
Dsarvess Rientel - Serpent's Scheme #363206
Lazarus - Breaking the Barrier (And Putting it Back Together) #347029 (re-review)
Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 04 #269714
Gruntle - A Demon's Vengeance #47949
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 05 #304290
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Mirror_Man - Galactic Protectorate 06 #304290
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
Thanks for the review! A lot of your points sort of tie into the same thing, which is why I think feedback is so valuable for my writing process. Essentially the way I write an arc is I'll get an idea and try to fill it out as much as possible, but typically my initial version of an arc is more of a story outline. After having a few people run it they'll (Hopefully) leave feedback which will help give me ideas about how to flesh out the story a bit more.
Quote:
Yeah, the name is meant to reference Mary Shelley (Hence the unusual spelling of Shelley) for the obvious Frankenstein link. I didn't want to go with something quite as obvious as "Dr. Frank" or something.|
Originally Posted by PoliceWoman
Ignition of the Machine reviewThe premise is to help a scientist test out a new android. The arc description warns that it is hard. The contact is a scientist in a white lab coat by the name of Dr. Shelley. The name makes me instantly think of Dr. Shelly Percey, but it's not the same person at all. Perhaps his name is meant to be suggestive of Mary Shelley.
|
Quote:
| They seem confused as to why they are present. I'm not quite sure why they're there either. I guess they are there for mechanical reasons (to prevent Dr Shelley from instantly being freed upon entering the mission) but they still seem out of place. |
Quote:
| I had wondered if "Shell" was intentionally named similarly to "Dr. Shelley", and liked that it was confirmed by the debriefing. I also thought perhaps Shell should have a seashell as chest logo (instead of the tech hole symbol) but it's not a big deal. Since Shell is a female robot, perhaps she should be named "Shelly"? (Maybe too similar to Dr. Shelley though.) |
Quote:
| Searching for hostages on a large outdoor map with Shell in tow rapidly becomes tedious; I basically have to clear everything while she's with me, and the mission doesn't appear to have any items of interest other than Burkholder and the hostages (who all have identical dialog). After rescuing 2 hostages this way, I end up ditching Shell and running around looking for the last two hostages on my own. This is contrary to the spirit of the mission (since I'm supposed to be sidekicking Shell for exp) but it does complete the mission. |
Quote:
| [-0.1] Don't understand: just what were Burkholder and the Council Robots trying to accomplish in Steel Canyon? I don't buy that they were after Shell (they were capturing human hostages, and no one really knew we were going there except Dr. Shelley). What were they up to? Maybe they need some kind of crime in progress that Shell and the player interrupt. |
Quote:
| [-0.01] Continuity: story jumps from "I think they're after Shell! You have to find her!" (Shelley's dialog) to "you were able to extract the location of the Council base where Shell was taken" (in Robot Memory Core). I think you need a clue or line of dialog somewhere in between, that actually says that Shell has been captured. You can infer this from these two lines, so I only marked off -0.01; but I think it would be more effective to discover Shell's empty rack (or something), so you know she's missing, then finding out where she was taken. |
Quote:
| [-0.01] Don't understand: why is this mission called "Vengeance and Curiosity"? None of the characters seem to demand vengeance or act curious. Is this the name of a book, like some of the other mission titles? I'm not familiar with this phrase. |
Quote:
| [-0.01] Characterization: the contact is very serious here talking about important stuff, and yet, for the first time, he does not use his catch phrase "That's not important. What is important is...." (Minor, so only marked off -0.01) |
Quote:
| [-0.1] Characterization: the contact says "You know she can be so much more than that" when talking about Shell, and the briefing is trying to motivate the player to care about Shell due to the player's interactions with Shell so far. But so far Shell has very minimal characterization -- just a couple lines in missions 1 and 2, none of which are very humanizing -- IMHO, not enough for the player to really care about her. If you're going for "Shell is a person that the player should care about" here, she needs more build-up as a person. |
Quote:
| Inside the Council base there are some battles between Council and Council Robots. I wonder if maybe the latter would be more correctly labeled "Rogue Robots" (the existing enemy group). |
Quote:
| [-0.01] Formatting: the clue has lots of formatting in it but is not very suggestive of a computer readout. For instance, "He-h-hee-lh-e-lp", while a reasonable thing to say aloud when confused, is not what a garbled computer message should look like. I'd suggest inserting random decimal or hexadecimal digits, using ALL CAPS, and/or BREA KING UPWO RDSI NTOB LOCK SFOU RCHA CTER SLON G. For example, "0011 56HE LP9M E12S 0C0L DAND DARK". You don't have to do exactly that; I just don't think the dashes and the different colors work for this purpose. |
Quote:
| Is it my imagination, or do all of this author's arcs have a creepy flayed model in them? |
Quote:
| [-0.01] Phrasing: This sentence is awkwardly phrased. Suggest you rephrase to something like "with each step it takes, it seems about to fall apart". I notice you now refer to Shell as "it" instead of "she" -- unsure if this was deliberate. |
Quote:
| My objective switched to getting Shell out in one piece. I deliberately let the Council kill Shell, since I figured that was probably less tested and I was curious to see if I could break something. This caused the mission to fail and ended the story arc. |
Quote:
| [-0.1] Dangling plot thread: I thought maybe Shell was controlling the Council robots that attacked the other Council, but never found anything further to support this idea. |
Quote:
| (This does make me curious as to the "success" branch of mission 4... I'd guess that even if you lead Shell out, her personality is too damaged to recover, hence why Shell becomes an "it" after torture.) |
Quote:
| I also felt that the Council needed more motivation for their actions; I could totally believe that Burkholder and/or Vandal were trying to steal the Shell android to cannibalize for their own robots, but there's not many clues that really explain what they're up to. As presented, it seems like the Council is there purely as bad guys, without a lot of purpose beyond that. |
Astoria in D Minor, a horror arc. Arc ID: 41565 - The Beating Heart of Astoria: A Play in Five Acts. Arc ID: 170547 - Ignition of the Machine, a story with robots. Arc ID: 318983
Captain Skylark Shadowfancy and the Tomorrownauts of Today. Arc ID: 337333 - Signal:Noise, where is everybody? Arc ID: 341194
@The Cheshire Cat - Isn't it enough to know I ruined a pony making a gift for you?
12 second horror stories - a writing experiment.
Captain Skylark Shadowfancy and the Tomorrownauts of Today. Arc ID: 337333 - Signal:Noise, where is everybody? Arc ID: 341194
@The Cheshire Cat - Isn't it enough to know I ruined a pony making a gift for you?
12 second horror stories - a writing experiment.
Not sure exactly how this thread works, but I'd love to play anyone's mission (especially if they can give me feedback on mine ^_^ )
Here's a quick Description, to see if anyone's interested.
'Save the Villain'- Comedy - Hero or Villain - Short - The dangerous-in-his-own-mind villain Lord Kill Them All has built an army of robot minions to take over the city... only to have them go haywire and take him hostage. Rescue the inept lord, and his two henchmen on the way. Custom Robot Villains.
"Shadow of the Red Death" - Pulp/30s - Hero - Short - A gritty Golden Age story. Can you save the District Attorney and his family from the untouchable mobster, Don Prospero? All the while, be careful to avoid the deadly avenger, the Red Death! Family Villians w/ Custom Bosses.
"Betrayal in Rome" - Roman/Barbarian - Villain - Very Long - A three part/story mission, involving you double-crossing the roman guard even as Rome is sacked around you. (Inspired by a new Super Villain Group I joined, with a Roman theme.) Custom 'Vandal' Villians in Mission 1 & 2, with Cimareon villians in Mission 3.
Quote:
Really helps to read the first post in the thread.
|
Originally Posted by StyrofoamKing
Not sure exactly how this thread works, but I'd love to play anyone's mission (especially if they can give me feedback on mine ^_^ )
|
Ah. My apologies.
That being said, my offer is to anyone... PoliceWoman, as detailed and constructive as her reviews are, is only one person. I am extending a similar offer to anyone, whether it is policewoman or not. As I'm sure you have guessed, I'm a bit wet behind the ears, but that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy a good story, nor am unable to recognize a good one when I see it.
Again, if a player would prefer to have me test theirs first before they test mine, I am completely willing and trusting.
Quote:
Hiya! Yes, currently I ask that someone plays through one of my story arcs before they secure a spot on my queue to review. This is to prevent my queue from getting overwhelmed. |
Originally Posted by StyrofoamKing
PoliceWoman, as detailed and constructive as her reviews are, is only one person. I am extending a similar offer to anyone, whether it is policewoman or not. As I'm sure you have guessed, I'm a bit wet behind the ears, but that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy a good story, nor am unable to recognize a good one when I see it.
Again, if a player would prefer to have me test theirs first before they test mine, I am completely willing and trusting. |
You don't necessarily have to give me a good rating, just an honest one, preferably with comments about what you liked or didn't like.Bear in mind that I don't promise to 5 star every arc, so use caution asking me for a review if you think you will feel very unhappy if I don't give a 5 star rating. I have been trying to be very transparent about how I actually come up with the final rating, though, hoping to make my method appear as fair as possible. Usually my goal is to try and offer feedback on how I think an arc could be made better (at least, in my opinion).
@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!"
No, that is absolutely fair. I didn't realize until after I posted the first time that I was hijacking your personal thread, and I apologize.
I'm itching to try one of your WWII threads mentioned in the "Golden Age" thread... I love a classic story! Unless, of course, you have a newer one you want opinions on.
And of course, I don't ask for a 5 star rating... constructive feedback is the best I could hope for.
I tried out Destroyer of Worlds, and had a blast playing it. (If you still want me to review a newer one of yours, I'd be delighted... you write a great mission.)
Mission 1: A dynamic way to start off the arc, and a fantastic choice of mission map. It was hard to prevent the Indiana Jones theme music from sweeping into my head as my Tank tip-toed around the U-Boat dock. Not to mention that I had to laugh out loud at the great character name, Schadenfraude.
I particularly like the clues you added to each of the 'secret weapons'. I was expecting over the top 'comic book' weapons, but the use of realistic plans from the Axis grounded the story some... a foreshadowing of the "reality" that was to come later. Also, the Yellow Cake was a great segway to the next section.
Mission 2: Again, the mix of real life history with the fancficul sci fi was an intersting touch. Personally, I wouldn't mind actually have the Scientists named after Oppenheimer and another scientist (I don't know... Fermi?) rather than just scientist 1 & 2. Also, I generally found the level a tad easy (not a normal reaction), so I easily think that a boss or an ambush linked to the meteorite wouldn't be out of the question.
Mission 3: The return of Schadenfraude (just like she promised). The use of Arachnos coptors as an american airfield is not quite ideal, but I know what we have to work with, so good job none the less. As with mission 3, I felt it a little easy. Perhaps have a second version of Schaden (same model as last time, but stronger power set?) A time limit might also work, but I've never tested with a 'failable' mission 3/4 through an arc... I'm assuming it lets you retry if you fail, no?
Mission 4: A clever and unconventional level, that sends the arc way into the drama category. After playing, I really enjoyed the bittersweet feeling of it, but my initial reaction when going in was to look around for baddies. Finding known lead to initial confusion... I don't know if a line about that in the briefing would help clear it up, but it was unexpected at first. The only flaw is that the lack of "action" made it slightly anticlimatic... nothing against a wonderfully written story, but we're just naturally trained as story readers to expect the big action at the end. I suppose you could add a timer to the last mission ("detonate it within X time"), but I like the fact that was the hero is running around, they stumble upon the very citizens that are about to die. Rather than ruin the final mission, I recommend that you up the Baddy from Mission 3, thus giving a final, teeth-clenching battle. This way, their hearts are racing with the falling climax of 3, and 4 is almost a tragic epilogue.
As you can probably tell, I gave it a 5! Marvy work!
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Thanks for taking a look at this!| I tried out Destroyer of Worlds, and had a blast playing it. |
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| Mission 2: ... I wouldn't mind actually have the Scientists named after Oppenheimer and another scientist (I don't know... Fermi?) rather than just scientist 1 & 2. |
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| Also, I generally found the level a tad easy (not a normal reaction), so I easily think that a boss or an ambush linked to the meteorite wouldn't be out of the question. |
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| Mission 3: ... The use of Arachnos coptors as an american airfield is not quite ideal, but I know what we have to work with |
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| Mission 4: A clever and unconventional level .... but my initial reaction when going in was to look around for baddies. .... the lack of "action" made it slightly anticlimatic... |
I tend to agree that there may be a problem here; not quite sure how to address it, so far. A "teeth clenching battle" against the 5th Column or Imperial Japan would certainly make it more exciting, though I'm hesitant to place such a battle over Hiroshima itself (not quite sure I can explain why...it just seems like that would be a little TOO anachronistic). Perhaps I could cut the last mission entirely and make the fight at the airfield a bit tougher, turning it into the final mission? Then the player rescues Colonel Tibbetts and he flies the Enola Gay mission as historically occurred (albeit off-camera).
Anyway, thanks much for your comments.
@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!"
No problem, PW.
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No H8 - 08.04.10
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