I'll try yours if you'll try mine

Sisterhood review
Arc ID: 123426
Keywords: Challenging, Custom Characters, Kid Friendly
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 40-54
Warnings: AVs, EBs, extreme AVs, extreme EBs, custom powers.

The premise is to stop an enemy organization intent on stamping out all superpowered people. (Not Malta, some new organization.) With extreme AVs, I played a heavily IO'd 50 broadsword/shield scrapper on +0 x8 difficulty (bosses OK, no AVs). The contact is a custom heroine called Power Lass.

[5.0] points to start.

Mission 1
Briefing: the contact very briefly introduces herself and says her friends have been kidnapped by an organization known as ALONE.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "I am the of Sisterhood" should probably be "I am of the Sisterhood"

[-0.01] Formatting: "A.L.O.N.E" should probably be either "A.L.O.N.E." (note period after E) or just "ALONE" ... i.e. all letters should have a period after them, or none.

[-0.1] Don't understand: who are the Sisterhood and ALONE? These names are mentioned in the briefing with no background info at all. Should explain at least a little more in the briefing what Sisterhood and ALONE are.

[-0.01] Mission accept message is just the default "Accept", would be nicer if customized to fit the mission.

Send-off message: the contact says ALONE has some files in a cave.

[-0.1] Don't understand: how does she know they keep files in a cave?

[-0.1] Phrasing: the contact says to "leave no witnesses". This makes it sounds like she wants the player to kill everyone there, which for most heroes would be very unheroic.

Inside the mission there are a large number of custom enemies in a group called "A league of No Enhancements".

[-0.01] Capitalization: "A league of No Enhancements" should probably be "A League Of No Enhancements" (capitalizing the ALONE initials) or just "A.L.O.N.E." or even "ALONE".

[-0.1] Gunner has no description.

[-0.1] Enforcer has no description.

[-0.1] Robot Maker has no description.


Wait...remind me, why do they call you guys ALONE?

[-0.01] Costuming: Gunner and Enforcer costumes look so similar that I thought they were identical until I got very close. Even if ALONE has a standard uniform, it would be a good idea to mix up their facial features, hair, helmet, other stuff, just to make them look a little less like clones.

[-0.1] Power selections: Enforcers and Robot Makers all seem to be masterminds and are the only lieutenants and bosses in the ALONE group that I ran into. As a result, every fight they summoned a massive number of pets. This is likely to be unfun for players. I'd suggest using MMs in moderation; perhaps only the bosses, or mix in some other lieutenants and bosses so not every one of them summons pets.

[-0.01] Objectives: "3 Search computers" should be phrased more naturally, like "3 computers to search".

I found and rescued Power Lass from some ALONEs. In their dialog they say:

[NPC] Gunner: Hey! Do you hear something.?
[NPC] Power Lass: Oh yeah? I think you are way off!

[-0.01] Punctuation: "something." should omit the period.

[-0.01] Don't understand: Power Lass's line seems like she is replying to the Gunner, but it doesn't make sense in this context.

[NPC] Power Lass: Thanks, now lets get that list!

[-0.01] Punctuation: "lets" should be "let's".

Found a desk named "Search computers".

[-0.01] Objective: "Search computers" really should be labeled just "Computer", since it is an object when the player encounters it in the game.

Clicking the computer gave me the "Heroes lotections" clue. For what it's worth, I got this clue on the first "Search computers"; the other two "Search computers" did nothing. (I think this is a long-standing Mission Architect bug. You may want to just have one computer to search to avoid this problem.)

[-0.01] Typo: "lotections" -> "locations" in clue name.

[-0.01] Typo: "Golory-Girl" should be "Glory-Girl" in clue body.

[-0.1] Phrasing: "It seems that they do not have Telek, Golory-Girl and Shocking Child are held in a base" does not scan. Do you mean they don't have them in this base? Or maybe you mean they are in ANOTHER base? The way it is phrased doesn't quite work and I am actually confused as to what it is supposed to be telling me.

Ended up getting overwhelmed and killed by huge swarms of pets; this plus the defeat all objective made me rethink running this at +0 x8 (which I can totally handle against typical PvE content). I quit the arc, changed difficulty to +0 x1 and restarted, rescued Power Lass again and got the 3 computers again.

After the third computer, an ambush spawned, saying:

[NPC] Gunner: That not yours!!

[-0.01] Typo: "That not yours" -> "That's not yours"

[-0.5] Gameplay: even though I've found all the other objectives in the early part of the map (all 3 computers and Power Lass spawned right near the door), I still have to Defeat All on a fairly large map. There is not really a lot to do in the rest of the map except kill the custom mobs. This feels tedious and unnecessary; many players will be unwilling to finish this mission.

I was feeling pretty stubborn so I went ahead and cleared the map, though I was glad that I had dropped back down to +0 x1.

Debriefing: much too short, just one line that basically says nothing.

[-0.1] Debriefing needs more writing. I'd suggest reviewing the events of the first mission and/or the clues that were found.

[3.47] after mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: much too short, just four words that basically says nothing.

[-0.1] Briefing needs more writing; for all practical purposes, it's completely missing. I'd suggest explaining what to expect in the mission ahead, what the objectives are.

[-0.01] Mission accept message is just the default "Accept", would be nicer if customized to fit the mission.

Send-off message: here the contact talks a little bit more about what she was planned. She makes telepathic contact with Telek and finds out where she is, and she wants me to find Telek and help her.

[-0.01] Typo: "Circle of Thron's" should be "Circle of Thorns"

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: if Power Lass can telepathically communicate with Telek to find out where Telek is, why didn't she do that in the first place, instead of sending me in mission 1 to find clues as to Telek's location?

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: it was previously established that ALONE captured Telek. How did she get into the hands of the CoT?

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: how did the Well of Knowledge get involved in this story? What is ALONE's interest in it? Needs some foreshadowing and/or explanation.

Inside the mission, I find I'm in the blue-colored Oranbega map.

[-0.01] Objectives: Most of the objectives make sense, but "Get past Baphomet" does not. Baphomet wasn't mentioned by the contact, so why would I think I need to do this? (Can fix by explaining this is necessary in the briefing.)

I found Telek and rescued her from the CoT. She says:

[NPC] Telek: I must ask The Well of Knowledge a question. "Why does the leader of A.L.O.N.E hates super powers"?

[-0.01] Typo: "hates" -> "hate" (in Telek's dialog)

[NPC] Telek: Thanks, now lets find The Well of Knowledge.

[-0.01] Typo: "lets" -> "let's" (in Telek's dialog)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "But her powers allow her to see, you know what everyone is feeling, so know who is coming, she knows when to run." I think this sentence is trying to explain Telek's powers, but it didn't quite make sense to me. Need to rephrase it. (In Telek's background story.)

[-0.01] Pronouns: "One night when he was 10 she saw..." should be "One night when she was 10 she saw..." (in Telek's background story)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "she didn't want her parents get kill" should be "she didn't want her parents to get killed" (in Telek's background story)

[-0.01] Typo: "She helpped Haily" should be "She helped Haily" (in Telek's background story)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Then they break Kelly free" should be "Then they broke Kelly free" (in Telek's background story)

[-0.01] Typo: "taking oders" should be "taking orders" (in Telek's background story)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "save the city powered beans" I *think* should be "save the super powered beings" (in Telek's background story)

Found the Well of Knowledge, which gave me the "A.L.O.N.E's leader childhood" clue.

[-0.01] Phrasing: clue title should probably be "ALONE leader's childhood".

[-0.01] Typo: ctiy -> city (in "A.L.O.N.E's leader childhood")

[-0.01] Typo: poeple -> people (in "A.L.O.N.E's leader childhood", two times)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "The she made her own army know as A Luague of No Enhancements" should be "Then she made her own army, known as A League of No Enhancements" (in "A.L.O.N.E's leader childhood")

[-0.01] Typo: become Lady Atom -> became Lady Atom (in "A.L.O.N.E's leader childhood")

Found an elite boss named "Well of Knowledge Guardian", whose description identifies him as actually being Baphomet. He says:

[NPC] Well of Knowledge Guardian: No one shall look into The Well of Knowledge!

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: actually I've already found the Well of Knowledge and looked into it at this point, so his line here doesn't make sense. Possibly it would make more sense for the Well of Knowledge to be an objective triggered by defeating the Well of Knowledge Guardian, which would force the player to defeat the Guardian before they could look into the Well.


This is me stabbing Baphomet in the toenails. Demons have very sensitive toenails.

Very deep in the mission I find and rescue Power Lass, who then says:

[NPC] Power Lass: Thanks, now lets find Telek.

[-0.01] Typo: "lets find" -> "let's find"

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: She says we should find Telek, but actually, I've already rescued Telek at this point. Telek spawned closest to the door and Power Lass farthest. Easiest way to fix this is to not have the dialog imply finding objectives in a specific order.

Rescuing Power Lass completed the mission.

Debriefing: only one line. At least it addresses the fact that we found something out during the mission. But it's still much too short.

[-0.1] Debriefing needs more writing.

[2.59] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: only a line and a half, much too short.

[-0.1] Briefing needs more writing.

[-0.1] Inconsistent: briefing calls the villain "Lady Star" but the "A.L.O.N.E's leader childhood" clue calls her "Lady Atom".

[-0.1] Don't understand: the contact wants to save Glory-Girl and Shocking Child at this point, but so far we have had no clues indicating where they are, so I don't see how we can do this.

[-0.01] Typo: "awnsers" -> "answers" (in Send-off message)



At this point my running total has the score at 2.28. I don't like to give a 1-star rating to a story arc that makes at least some attempt at having a story, so I decided to stop here rather than continue on and find more problems that might lower my score any further.

While there is the frame of a story here, I think it needs some work. The motivation behind ALONE's attack is initially portrayed as a mystery, but even when revealed seems a little weak. The logic behind how you find the various missing heroines needs some work also; it struck me as particularly strange that Telek can talk to Power Lass telepathically, but for some reason Power Lass doesn't think to do that until mission 2, where she uses it to find Telek's location. If she could do that, she should've done that from the start.

The custom ALONE group needs a little more personality; right now they seem rather bland and without a strong theme. Having to defeat an entire map of them in mission 1 is likely to be a turn-off for players also.

Several briefings and debriefings felt like they were too short and needed more writing. Of the writing that was there, much of it could be improved with some proofreading.

I felt I could give this arc only 2 stars. It could improve with some effort, but right now I do think it needs some work. Sorry about that!

----

My queue is now:

@Peregrine Falcon - The Hidden Hand #374410 (H30-54)
@GlaziusF - Malta Impossible #378274 (H46-50)
@MrCaptainMan - Storming Citadel #379488 (H5-10)
@Beyond Reach - Look Closer #382760 (H5-30)
@WillT - War Against the Undying One, Part 1/3: Challenge of the Dwarves #91044 (H27-50)
@Dalghryn - Casualties of War #241496 (H40-54)
@LaserJesus - Made To Wave the Flag #384776 (H45-54)
@Aracade - 30 Minute Hero #386310 (H10-20)
@K'aji - The Star-Dwellers #380417 (N6-14) (since you said #117678 is best with a team)

Ok, thanks for trying it I will fix it!! Telek can talk telepathically, Power Lass can't. Telek can reminds from far away if she trys and know where she is. I will fix it and make it better : D

Nice outfit!

Ok, I fix it I am going to do Two Tickets to Westerly

Think you can do it again ; ) It is easyer and better : D

The Hidden Hand review
Arc ID: 374410
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Canon Related, Mystery
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 30-54
Warnings: none

The premise is to retrieve some mind control gadget that was stolen, along with the scientist that was working on it. I played a 42 fire/regen scrapper with minor IO slotting (about +25% recharge, no defense or other cool stuff) on default difficulty. The contact is supposedly Janet Kellum, but a much better dressed version than the one I'm used to. This makes more sense than her normal costume, though, considering she's a federal agent.

[5.0] points to start.

Mission 1
Briefing: The Freakshow have somehow robbed the FBSA vaults and stolen some gadgets. The contact wants me to go after them and get the stuff back, and find out how the Freakshow were able to pull this off. Kellum specifically mentions two items by name, the Neural Transducer and Formula 13.

[+0.1] I like how the list of stolen items references the items you commonly are sent to recover in police radio missions.

[-0.01] Objectives like "Bank Gun" and "Formula 13" should be rephrased to include a verb, e.g., "Recover the Bank Gun" and "Recover Formula 13". Possibly you might want to accumulate them into "4 items to recover", but then again seeing their actual names is kind of fun.

Found some Portacio Industries Nanodisintegrators that looked interesting, but clicking them didn't seem to do anything (does not update objectives or give a clue).

[-0.01] Confusing: I assume the Nanodisintegrators are among the stolen items, but if so, why isn't it an objective like the other stolen items? (Only marked off -0.01 since their presence here does seem plausible due to the large scale theft from the FBSA vault.)



In the back part of the map, I found and defeated Mekanik, who satisfied an objective and gave me "The Freakshow Heist" as a clue.

Found Formula 13, the Bank Gun, another tube of Nanodisintegrators, and the Neural Transducer. Capturing the Neural Transducer ended the mission.

[-0.1] Don't understand: I still have "Fyrewyre Virus" as an objective, but the mission has ended? For a moment I thought maybe the Fyrewyre Virus was either intentionally missing (as a hook for the next mission) or maybe involved multiple tubes of Nanodisintegrators, but it's never really explained. The contact doesn't seem to notice that Fyrewyre was never recovered.

[-0.1] Confusing: mission exit popup message appears to depict a villain somewhere talking with a henchman, and doesn't involve my character at all, so initially is very confusing to the reader. If you need to show this scene, I think you might consider putting it in an "end of mission" clue and/or adding a line before the dialog to the effect of "MEANWHILE, IN EVIL VILLAIN'S UNDERGROUND LAIR:" to establish the scene.

[4.88] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: "I" decide to go question Clamor Boi, who Mekanik supposedly works for. The contact still wants me to find out "how they did it."

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: Mekanik actually "did it", isn't he the logical person to question on "how they did it"? And Mekanik is already in custody. Clamor Boi should be the person we ask "why they did it".

Inside the mission, I find and defeat Clamor Boi, giving me "The Crey Agent" as a clue and ending the mission. (Then he rezzes and I defeat him again.)

[-0.01] Doesn't quite make sense: "The Crey Agent" says Clamor Boi wouldn't talk, and I get this info from "one of his crew". But I get this clue from defeating Clamor Boi. Would make more sense if you had a minor named lieutenant that gave up this clue instead, or Clamor Boi actually did talk. (Nitpicky, so only marked off -0.01)

[-0.1] Gameplay: this mission seems too simple (defeat the boss, the end), too much like a radio mission. Only the boss had any dialog or clues. Maybe he called an ambush, not sure (I drew a lot of aggro). Could use some additional objectives (even if optional) with some more dialog; patrols, minor bosses, whatever.

Confusing: Same complaint about the mission exit popup depicting a scene not including the player (but already marked points off for this earlier).

[4.67] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: the scientist working on the Neural Transducer has been kidnapped and set off a rescue beacon summoning me to a Crey lab.

[-0.1] Script forces player to make bad choices: the mission exit popup message from mission 2 makes mission 3 clearly a trap. But we have no choice but to go anyway. I guess a player might consider mission 2's exit popup to be "out of character" and pretend not to know what's going to happen, but that is a lot to ask of a typical player. Would be better if the previous popup didn't have such an obvious spoiler for this mission, or if the story allowed the player to be a little smarter about this.

Found Doctor Hughes almost right away and rescued him. One of his guards says:


[NPC] Vigilant: We have a Super! Take him down!

...but I'm playing a female character, so this is wrong.

[-0.01] Needs to use correct pronoun substitution (dialog from Doctor Hughes' guards)

Liked the patrol with the dialog foreshadowing the agent in charge.



Deeper in the mission I found Agent Lavallee and defeated him. This didn't finish the mission, but clearing his group did. (You might consider making him "only boss required", but this was also fine as-is.) Got "The Memo!" as a clue, leading to Security Chief Roberts.

Mission exit popup basically says the memo is a forgery and Roberts is being framed, while the debriefing basically confirms that "we" think Roberts did it.

[-0.1] Story requires the player to go along with being "fooled" by evidence that we "know" is planted.

[4.46] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: We're sent to arrest Security Chief Roberts, who our clues currently point to as being the culprit.

[-0.01] Objectives: "Security Chief Roberts" should have a verb, like "Defeat Security Chief Roberts" or "Arrest Security Chief Roberts".

I run past most of the Crey and find Roberts on the second level, where I battle him. He calls an ambush, and the ambush says:

[NPC] Crey Voltaic Tank: Response team enroute!!

[-0.01] Typo: "enroute" should be "en route" (in ambush dialog).

Meanwhile, Roberts says:

[NPC] Security Chief Roberts: Ah... right on time.

...when he attacks, and then

[NPC] Security Chief Roberts: Just tell me why...

....when he falls.

[-0.01] Inconsistent: It seems like he is expecting me in the "Ah... right on time" line, but doesn't understand why I'm here in the second line. (This is rather nitpicky so I only marked off -0.01 but I found it a little confusing; my guess is that he's being framed here, so should NOT be expecting me.)

Defeating Roberts doesn't actually complete the "Security Chief Roberts" objective, I end up having to clear the group that was with him; though, which mobs are in his group gets a little muddled because of the ambush. You might consider making him "only boss required", but it is not a big deal and also works OK as-is.

Defeating Roberts' group gives me "The Security Chief's Plan" as a clue and completes the mission.

[-0.1] Gameplay: This mission seemed too simple? There was nothing to do except defeat the boss, then the mission is done. Only the boss (and his ambush) had any dialog. Could use more mission details (even if optional); like maybe a patrol with some dialog, or a computer glowy that gives the incriminating evidence in "The Security Chief's Plan", something like that. Considering this is the "finale" of the story arc, it needs a little more excitement.

The mission exit popup again shows a vignette of some villains interacting, revealing what "really" happened. Then the debriefing shows the "cover story" of what the player and the FBSA are supposed to think happened.

[-0.5] Story greatly diminishes the player: at the end of the story, the player has basically been used as a pawn; the script forces her into being tricked into colluding with the master plan of the AV who is really behind the plot.

[3.83] at end of mission 4.

Overall
The main plot (the recovery of stolen items) is pretty reasonable and straightforward, though taken on its own (removing all the "hidden hand" elements) felt a little on the mundane side. The behind-the-scenes villain plotting was the added element to make the story more than just a recovery of stolen goods.

The way the villain subplot was presented in the mission exit popups was an interesting technique that I think could work, but had two problems (IMHO). First, it was initially confusing, because the mission popup is normally specifically addressed to the player, but the little scenes it showed were not about the player. I think you can address that by adding some text to each of the villain-side vignettes to the effect of "MEANWHILE, in a secret villain base:" or something like that to establish the scene. Second, the villain scenes end up giving huge spoilers that the player is really being tricked, but the story expects the player to go along with the AV's master plan anyway, despite having (perhaps OOC) knowledge that it's actually a trick. I'd try to make the villain scenes a little less spoilerific of what's about to happen, maybe.

I see in your souvenir text that the intent of the story is for the "bad guy" to win, and I can appreciate where you're coming from on that, but the way it's presented, I feel like the ending will be very unsatisfying the player, who has been scripted into being played for a fool. I don't think this would leave most players with a good feeling at the end of the arc, and that's probably when you most want the player to feel good about the story, since that's when most people rate the arc. So, although I don't think you should necessarily change the fact that the bad guy "wins" (since that's the whole intent of the arc, I think), I do think you need to at least make the ending more "fun" for the player.

Anyway, I liked the idea behind recovering the various radio mission items, and the actual writing was pretty good and error-free. A couple of the missions could use a little more to do in them and/or some more mission details (even if optional) to add some color.

Rounding 3.83 up, I gave this arc 4 stars.

----

My queue is now:

@GlaziusF - Malta Impossible #378274 (H46-50)
@MrCaptainMan - Storming Citadel #379488 (H5-10)
@Beyond Reach - Look Closer #382760 (H5-30)
@WillT - War Against the Undying One, Part 1/3: Challenge of the Dwarves #91044 (H27-50)
@Dalghryn - Casualties of War #241496 (H40-54)
@LaserJesus - Made To Wave the Flag #384776 (H45-54)
@Aracade - 30 Minute Hero #386310 (H10-20)
@K'aji - The Star-Dwellers #380417 (N6-14)

Malta: Impossible review
Arc ID: 378274
Keywords: Challenging, Canon Related, Save the World.
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 46-50
Warnings: AVs, EBs, custom powers.

The premise is to help Crimson do some "hard and often plain terrible tasks". I played a 50 AR/dev blaster on default difficulty (+0 x1 no AVs). The contact is...a desk with a laptop on it.

[5.0] score to start with.

[-0.1] Arc description: it immediately strikes me that the description of the arc is extremely forbidding, using the words "terribly", "hard", "plain terrible", and "can you endure?" to describe it. To say nothing of the words "Malta" and "Impossible" in the arc name itself. As a result, the description seems uniformly negative, and I think it will scare away most players from even trying the arc. Even if the arc actually is "terrible" and "hard", I think it would be a good idea to describe a few things that are cool about the arc in the description; something that might entice a reader into actually trying it.

Mission 1
Briefing: I get a secret message that I spent some time trying to authenticate. It shows Crimson saying that he desperately needs me to raid the MAGI vaults in order to save Paragon City. But he won't explain any details.

[-0.01] The briefing should (briefly) introduce Crimson, for players who might not know who that actually is. ("About the contact" doesn't help here since the contact is not Crimson.)

[-0.1] Motivation: even if I believe this message is genuinely from Crimson (which remains questionable), why should I, a hero, perform an obviously criminal act merely on his say-so? I don't believe "Paragon City is in danger!" with no explanation of how raiding MAGI is connected, is enough motivation for such an action.

A little more info is provided in the send-off message but it only details the particulars of the crime...err...mission....not the motivation. He also wants me to fight Longbow.

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: the secret message was encoded in a Longbow format. It seems rather contradictory that I would be sent to fight Longbow as a result?

[-0.01] Typo (I think): "Rosario" should be "Rosary", throughout. (Not 100% sure on this since I am not Catholic.)

The send-off message also tells me "You can still walk away", and it's rather tempting, because so far I don't really buy that a hero should be willing to do this (unless very gullible). I haven't seen much of the story yet, though, and his parting line of "But you were my first choice" is a nice touch that guilt trips me into it.

[+0.1] Like the writing so far (even though I'm a little iffy on the plot).

Inside the mission, I end up having to fight Longbow. I first run into "Mind Magus Aeranda", who appears to be a recolored Warden. She initially thinks it's a training exercise, but soon realizes I've turned evil (muhaha...wait, did I really turn evil? It probably looks like it).


This is no training exercise!

There's a lot of renamed Shadow Shard CoT that are supposedly magical Longbow.

[-0.01] Not sure I fully buy into the CoT members being "Arcane Longbow". Maybe if you recolored them to be the red & white Longbow colors?

I rescue (sort of?) a Longbow Technician who apparently I am "creating" as a witness.

[-0.1] Don't understand: the send-off message does say I should let civilians go, so they'll escalate security to "something I can destroy", but I really don't understand why I would want to make them increase security on something I'm after.

Freed 2 more Longbow Techs with the same dialog. This seemed to trigger the "Defeat security on the Rosario" objective. I do think this needs to be either better explained (or not triggered). Perhaps you have to question the Techs for the location of the Rosario, or security starts moving the Rosario once you free 3 Techs, or something.

Found "Collected MAGI Research, vol. 1270", a glowy that gave me the "M1) Rosario Notes, 3/3" clue, giving a little info about the Rosario.

A little deeper in, "Collected MAGI Research, vol. 929" gave me "M1) Rosario Notes, 2/3".

Finally "Collected MAGI Research, vol. 417" gave me "M1) Rosario Notes, 1/3". This clue seems the least informative of the bunch; we knew it belonged to Henri already, after all. Would've also been nice to find these in the correct order (perhaps could increase the chance of this happening by using front/middle/back settings) but I know it's largely random, so this isn't a big deal.

Deep in the building I find an Archdemon EB guarded by Praetorians?? Huh? These didn't obviously match either "a way to escape" or "security on the Rosario", so I initially left them alone, until I overheard a patrol talking about the creepy artifact security. So these demons must be the security detail.

[-0.01] Demons are in "Infernal Demon" and "Praetorians" enemy groups, but I'm not sure this is right. Perhaps they should be in an "Artifact Security" enemy group or something similar.

I go after the demon EB and am narrowly defeated on my first try, but it was my poor play, I think; I should've used more inspirations. On my second try I use 3 purples before attacking and manage to beat him, though had a few hairy moments as a Longbow patrol wandered in, and the Archdemon fled into another Longbow spawn. Still, got him and triggered "Find the Rosario" as an objective.

There's an "Artifact Storage" glowy nearby, but it proves to be a false glowy. The third "Artifact Storage" glowy I find gives me "M1) Henri's Rosario" as a clue and satisfies an objective.

[-0.01] Don't understand: why couldn't I stealth past the security detail to nab the rosary without fighting the demons? (i.e. why is it triggered?) This is kind of nitpicky though, so only marked off -0.01. Could stand to have at least a handwaved explanation for why you can't sneak by the demons.

[-0.1] Don't understand: my one remaining objective is "Find a way to escape". But I can just walk out the front door, why doesn't that count as a "way to escape"?

Backtracking a bit, I find "Prototype Shrouds" which give me "M1) A Spirit Shroud" as a clue. These are described as "cloaking devices". Ironically, as a dev blaster, I literally have the "Cloaking Device" power already even without this.

Debriefing: Now that I've committed myself, Crimson confides a little more info to me. Apparently he thinks Malta want to "turn" me to their side. This actually kind of makes sense for my character (natural origin with a gun, no real powers) but I don't think it would make as much sense for the more "superpowered" characters, since Malta are against superpowers. Going to wait and see before I judge whether that works or not, though. [Edited later: further investigation reveals that Malta are only against supers that they don't control.]

[4.55] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: so now the contact wants me to commit a bank robbery, and to fight the Paragon Police Department and Sunstorm in the process....to try and convince Malta I'm on their side. I'm also to siphon billions of dollars to offshore accounts as part of the robbery.

[-0.5] Motivation: As a hero, how can I possibly justify robbing a bank and fighting the police? (I marked this as -0.5 because this seems glaringly unheroic.) I think this could be justified with sufficient explanation for why this is necessary, and how it won't cause the player to suddenly be on the FBI 10 Most Wanted. I do sort of get a "Spy Who Came In From the Cold" vibe from the ideas presented here, but I really think the player needs a reason strong enough that it would justify framing herself as a villain. Right now the story has really not presented enough argument that there is a "Greater Good" that all these criminal activities are really working towards. I mean, "you need to do this to save Paragon City!" was mentioned, but without any explanation of why, this doesn't feel like enough motivation. (For example, Alec Leamas in The Spy Who came in from the Cold was given very clear motivations to stage his defection to the East. Of course, they were all lies...but still....)

Inside the mission, the police are talking about the news about how my character has "gone bad". I like that the police and Sunstorm don't believe it. Unfortunately, the story seems to require that I kill them. Err, arrest them. Something like that.

I really like Sunstorm's dialog as I fight him. I feel guilty to have to kill him.


I feel pretty bad about having to kill this guy right after he says such nice things about me.

[+0.1] Good dialog.

I feel a little less guilty after he beats me up the first time (those photon seekers do more damage than I realized), but after I pop an awaken and recover a bit, I manage to drop him on my second try. This gives me "M2) Perihelion Fades" as a clue (which foreshadows that this was a lot less harmless than my contact implied) and triggers "Open the master key vault". I'm about to go do that when Sunstorm rezzes and attacks me again. I manage to beat him up a second time.

[-0.1] Inconsistent: Henri's Rosary is supposed to shut down Kheldians for a week; having Sunstorm self-rez completely contradicts the story. (Not quite sure what the best thing to do would be; you could change which AV is here, but the whole first mission relies on Sunstorm being a kheldian, so that doesn't seem a great option.)

Found the Master Key Vault glowy nearby; clicking it gave me "M2) Master access codes" as a clue and triggered "Find an open terminal and make the transfer".

Going back up the elevator, I find an Open Terminal glowy; clicking it gives me the ominous "Stealing billions of dollars" message as a progress bar and the "M2) Billions of dollars" clue.

Debriefing: Crimson talks a bit about an old hero who went bad that I supposedly inherited a large amount of debt from (or maybe that's the cover story that is being told to Malta). Crimson supposedly has been faking emails from "me" to Malta, and supposedly Malta now believes I will be defecting to them shortly.

[4.05] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: another message capsule, with some back story about Pyrefly. Somehow I have inherited his massive debts, by acquiring his old supergroup base? Apparently this SG base is now crawling with Longbow (presumably due to my evil actions), and the Malta want to meet me there.

[-0.1] Don't understand: Just when/how did I acquire Pyrefly's old base and all his debts? I imagine this is part of "Crimson"'s cover story, but it's not really explained well enough for me to really "get it".

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: why would Malta arrange a covert meeting at a location that is currently known to be under surveillance?

My first objective is to find the camera console, in order to "spot the Malta as they come in". Wouldn't it be more logical to just meet them as they come in? (Didn't mark off further points as I've already noted that meeting here doesn't quite make sense.)

Searching the abandoned base, it seems quite large. I stealth past a lot of Longbow and find "Financial Archives Computer" which gives me "M3) Financial Records" as a clue. This helps explain why I've supposedly been driven to crime.

Found 3 "Archives Computer" glowies that didn't do anything, apparently false glowies.

I like the dialog from the roaming Longbow patrols, helps make the mission seem more lively.

Quite deep in the mission I find the "Camera Control Computer" which gives me "M3) Live Footage" that shows "Crimson" entering the base and triggers an objective of "Head for the base entrance and "defeat" Crimson". Apparently I'm supposed to fight Crimson and make it look good.

I find my way back down to the first level and spot Crimson there, clear some of the Longbow out near him and then get to fighting him. He stealths, but I have good perception, so am OK; not sure how a low perception AT would fare against him. As I battle him, his dialog is quite good and "friendly" Malta ambushes show up and help me gank Crimson, which completes the mission. This is actually a pretty awesome scene.


"Crimson" "falls" into "my" (and Malta's) trap

[+0.1] Very cool fight. Either I was very lucky on spawns or the fight choreography was very good.

Debriefing: nice writing here. Not sure "reclaimators" is a word, but will chalk it up to technobabble.

[3.95] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: so now I've infiltrated the Malta. Crimson wants me to assassinate a recent Arachnos turncoat, Operative Carver. Or, strictly speaking, to KO him and teleport him to captivity.

[-0.1] Don't understand: why do I need to take out Carver? He was not mentioned earlier and does not obviously jeopardize the mission. (Granted, I still have no idea what my mission is...sigh...)

[-0.01] Typo: "Marshall Blitz" -> "Marshal Blitz"

Inside the mission, my first objective is "Locate Requisitions Officer".

[-0.01] Don't understand: What does this have to do with eliminating Carver? I conjecture maybe this person has the parts to this "emitter" I'm supposed to use on Carver, but that's just a guess. Maybe needs to be clearer. (Initially I marked this as -0.1 but it makes sense after I rescue the requisitions officer, so I downgraded it to -0.01; would still be nice to have the reason more clearly explained.)

I find the Requisitions Officer; freeing him triggers the "Find the weapons shipment" objective. A Council Supply Crate guarded by some Council vampires is nearby. I kill the vampires and find the crate is a destructible object. Considering there is equipment that I want to use inside it, I'm not sure it makes sense to destroy it to recover the emitter parts? This is kind of nitpicky though.

Destroying the crate triggers "Find the Arachnos raid leader" as an objective and causes the Requisitions Officer to betray; I beat him up. I also get the "M4) Drone Blaster" clue.

[-0.1] Don't understand: why is the Arachnos raid leader is the next objective? Now that I have the weapon, shouldn't I be looking for Carver in order to eliminate him? Neither the briefing nor the clues seem to explain this.

I end up searching the whole map only to find Mistress Giana spawned pretty close to where I destroyed the crate, I just went the wrong direction. Defeating Giana triggers "Locate Malta Defense Unit" as an objective and gives me the "M4) Giana's warning" clue. I'm still not clear on why Giana was necessary, but this is a neat clue, and clearly foreshadows something ominous.

[+0.1] Liked Giana's warning, and the symmetry of my situation with that of Operative Carver.

Not sure why the Malta Defense Unit is needed (I still think we should be going after Carver directly) but I figure I've already marked off enough points for not understanding how all these objectives are chained together.

Going up an elevator, I find a Data Integrity Unit WR-23 robot which proves to be the Malta Defense Unit. Rescuing it, it becomes an ally, gives me "M4) Mainframe Schematic" as a clue, and triggers "Remove the Malta mainframe" as an objective. I'm mostly stealthing though, so I leave the robot behind.

I find a row of lockers that turns out to be the (disguised) mainframe. Clicking it gives me "M4) Malta records" as a clue. From the sound of it, WR-23 just betrayed me also, so I'm glad I left it behind. This also triggers "Locate Personnel Officer" as an objective.

Through good luck or good planning, the Personnel Officer spawned in the same room as the lockers. When I freed him, Carver and a group of Malta immediately spawned next to me and attacked...the Personnel Officer.


My new Malta buddy takes a bullet for me.

The Personnel Officer being killed by Malta bought me enough time to lay some damage on Carver, who proves to be remarkably tough...I think he was a custom EB (downgraded to a boss for me, but still tough). After I defeat him, a ton of friendly Malta show up suddenly and ... claim credit for saving the Malta base (according to the "M4) Malta First Response" clue). That's actually pretty funny.

I would normally complain about the high number of chained objectives here, but either through good design or pure luck, they all spawned in approximately the right order, from the front of the map to the back, so it required very little backtracking (except some self-inflicted backtracking due to me not noticing an objective).

[+0.1] Nice game mechanics for chained objectives.

Debriefing: so now I'm suspicious that these little messages aren't actually from Crimson. This seems like a very late date to start wondering about that.

[3.93] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
Briefing: apparently "Crimson"'s secret agenda for infiltrating me into the Malta Group is to get me on a mission to raid Black Scorpion's secret lab, then I'll steal the macguffin for Longbow instead of Malta. He gives me "M5) Longbow Datachip" as a starting clue.

[-0.01] Needs foreshadowing: this really came out of the blue. Could use some hints earlier on that this is the ultimate goal. (I only marked off -0.01 instead of -0.1 since, well, it is a secret black ops mission.)

[-0.01] Typo: "hanger" -> "hangar" (in briefing)

Send-off message: Crimson describes a very complicated Mission: Impossible plan that would probably never work in RL but is somehow fitting for the genre.

[-0.01] Typo: "glorfied" -> "glorified" (in send-off message)

Inside the mission, I set one of the bombs, then run into Mistress Giana again. She doesn't look required, but I'm curious as to her reappearance, so I fight her. She gives me "M5) The Carver Report" as a clue. She seems to think it is important, but its significance isn't immediately obvious to me (so he copied my cover story? so what? I suppose maybe he is also working for fake Crimson).

I found a Sister Lachesis, a member of the "Knives of Lachesis", described as a KoA splinter cell. She becomes a lieutenant-class ally and triggers an objective of "Rescue Dr. Manfred".

Now that I'm officially a Malta and a KoA, I decide to change into my KoA costume Lachesis and I start clearing Scorpionids and Arachnos mobs and eventually find Dr. Manfred. He's guarded by more Knives of Lachesis, but these are hostile and Lachesis ends up fighting her own troops.... which seems rather weird but both briefing and NPC dialog support this.

[-0.01] Typo: "Scorpinoid Tech" -> "Scorpionoid Tech" (mob name)

Rescued Sister Atropos, leader of the "Knives of Atropos", yet another KoA splinter cell. Wow, there's a lot of splinter factions. She also joins up with me, and triggers "Defeat Black Scorpion" as an objective. With two allies in tow and a large number of objectives, I end up having to clear most of the (largish) map.

I set a few more bombs. When I get down to the last one, my objectives become "Set the last bomb!, Find the last Sister, Lead Dr. Manfred out, Defeat Black Scorpion".

[-0.01] Punctuation: "Set the last bomb!" should probably omit the exclamation point since it looks odd with a comma right after it.

Found and rescued Sister Clotho, leaders of the "Knives of Clotho"; yes, another KoA splinter cell. She triggers "Find the surveillance hub" as an objective.

Rescued a Frightened Scientist who didn't seem required, but seemed happy to be saved.

I lead Dr. Manfred out and Sister Lachesis gets mad and betrays me.


Can't take these girls anywhere without trouble breaking out. (I'm the one in green.)

Clotho, Atropos and I beat up Lachesis. Meanwhile, an ambush (or maybe a patrol? it had 2 lines of dialog) spawns somewhere and says:

[NPC] Mercenary: Beginning objecive sweep.

[-0.01] Typo: "objecive" -> "objective" (ambush dialog)

After some fairly extensive backtracking (I must've walked two circuits of the whole map) I eventually find Black Scorpion (an EB for me) in the southmost room. (I had checked this room on my first circuit, but he didn't spawn until after I found Atropos; the map is something of a circle so it's not guaranteed you will encounter all the objectivs in order.) I manage to beat Black Scorpion, but both Atropos and Clotho are killed by him. Defeating Black Scorpion gives me "M5) Scorpion's Slag" as a clue and triggers "Recover the Scorpium" as an objective.

Clicking a nearby safe gives me "M5) Scorpium", satisfies "Recover the Scorpium", and triggers "Send the alloy to Longbow" as an objective. It also spawns a patrol that aggros on me; this patrol also talks about "objecive" (should be "objective").

Found the Surveillance Hub which gives "M5) Doctored footage" as a clue and spawns another patrol with more "objecive" (should be "objective") dialog.

The numerous wastebaskets scattered around the map seem to be activated now. Clicking the first has no effect. I start a third circuit of the map looking for the right wastebasket; this is very tedious. The seventh wastebasket proves to be the right one.

[-0.1] Gameplay: having to search the map repeatedly for numerous objectives that are triggered in a certain order is tedious. The wastebasket drop is a cute idea and very spy-like, but having to click tons of wastebaskets to find the right one feels anticlimactic after having beaten Black Scorpion.

Circled the map a few more times (even had another player come to help look) and finally found the last bomb, which finished the mission.

Pretty neat souvenir which has a little more story. I have mixed feelings about it:

[+0.1] Cool extra story that recruits you to Crimson's black ops team.

[-0.1] Continuity: if taken at face value, your career as a hero is basically over, which won't work for most players.

[-0.1] Dangling plot thread: what was the deal with Carver? He was built up to be so important in mission 4 and his infiltration of Malta was perfectly symmetric with my infiltration of Malta, but then his subplot seemed forgotten thereafter.

I really liked how action-packed all the missions were. There was a ton of stuff to do in every mission, and most of it seemed to work.

[+0.1] Overall: lots of action & detail in each mission.

[3.77] at end of mission 5.

Overall
A very neat spy story that fits the "Mission Impossible" concept. I had issues with how much it destroys your hero's back story; this would've work fine for my "Spy Girl" but doesn't work for "Police Woman" and I don't think would work for most hero concepts. It's likely to be a dealbreaker for a lot of players. May need some clearer warnings of this, so no one ragequits over their character concept being abused.

I felt many of the criminal actions the story assumes you're willing to do, needed a bit more justification than "Crimson made me do it". In general I would've liked some clearer explanation of what is happening each step of the way; the overall story and the narrative for each mission is very complicated, and I think clearer explanation is needed in order to keep the player from getting lost.

Infiltrating Malta was actually pretty neat. The subplot about Operative Carver was neat, but kinda came out of nowhere then was suddenly forgotten; needed better integration with the plot.

The game mechanics for missions 3 and 4 were very impressive (or maybe I just lucked into a good spawn sequence); mission 5 had a lot going on in it, but somehow didn't come together for me quite as well. I think defeating the AV should perhaps be the climactic moment of mission 5, that finishes the mission and the story arc -- and not clicking the last glowy on a lengthy glowy hunt.

Rounding 3.77 up, I gave this arc 4 stars.

----

My queue is now:

@MrCaptainMan - Storming Citadel #379488 (H5-10) (played, need to write up notes)
@Beyond Reach - Look Closer #382760 (H5-30)
@WillT - War Against the Undying One, Part 1/3: Challenge of the Dwarves #91044 (H27-50)
@Dalghryn - Casualties of War #241496 (H40-54)
@LaserJesus - Made To Wave the Flag #384776 (H45-54)
@Aracade - 30 Minute Hero #386310 (H10-20)
@K'aji - The Star-Dwellers #380417 (N6-14)

OK, PW, I'll bite... do you sleep?

Storming Citadel review
Arc ID: 379488
Keywords: Easy, Solo Friendly
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 5-10

The premise is to help Citadel somehow. I played on a 7 MA/ninj stalker with basically no enhancements (I think I maybe have 3 TOs slotted) on default difficulty. The contact is Positron.

[5.0] points to start.

Mission 1
Briefing: the contact meant to teleport in Blue Steel, but accidentally got me instead. So now he's going to miniaturize me send me...inside Citadel's brain! To conduct some kind of repairs.

[+0.1] Very cool story concept!

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: wait, he can't even operate his teleporter correctly, but now I'm expected to trust him to miniaturize me and inject me into a killbot that's gone haywire? What Could Go Wrong?

Ack! Massive long send-off message with only 10 minute time limit!

[-0.1] How is the player expected to read the huge send-off message when under a 10 minute time limit?

[-0.01] Typo: "youve" -> "you've" in send-off message.

I'm down to 8:42 by the time I've read the send-off message and written down these notes. Uh oh. 30 seconds to zone ... I'm inside! 8:03 to go!

[+0.1] Very cool Citadel internal defense mobs!



Killed a storm elemental, then the kill-switch it was guarding. 6:12. Luckily my stalker can stealth past many of the defenses. I find I have to hit the things guarding the kill-switch before I can actually hit the kill-switch, but this is just how destroyable objects work. After the first switch I stopped actually killing the guard mobs since they were slowing me down, just tagging them long enough to let me target the switch. Needed to use a purple and a green to survive the aggro.

Found and killed the third kill switch with 4:03 to go.

Ran to Cycloid Inhibitor and clicked it ... 3:32. Whew. Wait .... Oh no! A villain to defeat! Backtracked quickly ... oh wait, there he is, closer than I realized.



Defeated him with 2 minutes left on the clock.

Exited and there's a message about "It's going critical!" and there's suddenly an explosion!

[+0.1] Whoa! How did you get Positron to explode?! (Later: found out from the author this is a bug, that he couldn't figure out how to get rid of so he wrote it into the story. This worked well.)

[-0.01] Typo: Momento -> Memento (souvenir)

[5.08] at end of mission 1.

Overall
What a cool story concept. Loved the Citadel internal defense mobs, a good repurposing of standard mobs. The time limit was very scary (especially with the huge info dump in send-off message AFTER the clock starts) but doable. A very fun and quick mission.

Rounding 5.08 off, I gave this 5 stars.

----

My queue is now:

@Beyond Reach - Look Closer #382760 (H5-30)
@WillT - War Against the Undying One, Part 1/3: Challenge of the Dwarves #91044 (H27-50)
@Dalghryn - Casualties of War #241496 (H40-54) (re-review)
@LaserJesus - Made To Wave the Flag #384776 (H45-54)
@Aracade - 30 Minute Hero #386310 (H10-20)
@K'aji - The Star-Dwellers #380417 (N6-14)

Woohoo! 5-stars from PW! I consider myself humungously honoured!

It's amazing how no matter how absolutely certain I am that there aren't any typos, there are! lol cheers for those catches.

The 'massive' send-off (it's only two paragraphs lol) with instructions does have the important points highlighted in a different colour, but yeah, it probably adds to the sense of impending doom. In defence of the whole thing, almost everyone who's succeeded has done so with 2-3 minutes spare, so if i altered it so that the 2-mins you experience in the briefing was removed, it'd probably clock at around 6 mins ave to complete. This would leave 4 mins left, which isn't as nail-biting as it currently seems to be hitting Players (I think the send-off actually adds to the urgency).

As for the Positron bug, I don't know why he does what he does when the Player exits, but it's indeed a really cool and fitting ending to the mission. If and whenever they get around to fixing it, I'll have to alter the ending of course, but this is one bug I hope doesn't get fixed anytime soon!

Thanks v much, PW. Very happy that you liked it, and I'll frame that 5.08 and hang it on my wall!

Eco.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

LOOK CLOSER review
Arc ID: 382760
Keywords: Complex Mechanics, Canon Related, Drama
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 5-30
Warnings: custom power selections.

[5.0] points to start.

I cannot tell what this arc is about based on its description, which advises the player to "look closer" at things but does not actually say what the story is about.

[-0.1] Description: needs more of a hook to attract players; a little more detail about the story and why it is interesting. If a casual player were browsing through the MA interface and ran across this arc, what would draw them to play this arc instead of one of the others?

I'm a little dubious about the 5-30 level range which seems it would be hard to balance a custom enemy group for. I decided to test this by playing a character near the lower end of the range, a level 8 MA/ninj stalker on default difficulty. The contact is a custom character, a dark fairy type.

Mission 1
Briefing: nice intro of the contact. The contact wants me to help a woman but is very vague about who this woman is or what kind of peril she is in.

[+0.1] Nice introduction of contact.

The contact talks with way too many ellipses, but this may be just her manner of speaking.

[0] Phrasing: "a hero's guise" is a pretty unusual expression for this genre; consider rephrasing to "a colorful costume" or something more normal. (Very nitpicky, didn't mark off points.)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "carried by the butterfly wings that rest upon her back" - does not make sense as she cannot be carried by the wings if they are resting on her back.

[-0.1] Diminishes the player: the contact basically says this isn't important enough for her to do, but the player should do it. This really makes the player feel inconsequential, which is probably not what you want to do. Consider rephrasing this in a more positive way.

[-0.01] Confusing: initially I thought the contact told me nothing about the woman she wants me to help, where she lives, or what kind of trouble she's in. Only somewhat later did I notice "The L.anguished Woman" as a "mission begins" clue. May want to add something to the briefing or send-off message hinting that the Grimm Fairy actually tells you where to go, and you start heading there and learn more, something like that.

[-0.01] Punctuation: "L.anguished" has an extraneous . in it. Possibly this is intentional, but it looks like a typo.

[-0.01] Typo: "what could only only be described" has the word "only" doubled in it.

[-0.1] Don't understand: why isn't Abigail my contact instead of the Grimm Fairy? Abigail is telling me what needs to be done, whereas the Grimm Fairy didn't really say anything of substance.

The mission is full of Lost, which makes sense based on the info so far. Deep inside the mission I find James, a named Lost boss. I "interrogate" him as per the objectives.



Defeating James completes the objective and completes the mission. I simultaneously get two clues, "The Fate of Isaac Waters" (presumably from the boss) and "The Words of the Teacher" (presumably the mission complete). Since the mission completes on defeating the boss, it seems like you will always get these clues simultaneously; you might want to either merge them into one clue or have "The Words" come from something else, like picking up a glowy. (Very nitpicky.)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "written through a typewriter" is awkward sounding, suggest replacing with "typewritten" (The Words of the Teacher)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "this title clearly used as their deity rather than themselves because of the similar context to the others" is awkward sounding, suggest something like "In this context, the 'Lost' seems to be referring to some sort of deity."

There were some Makeshift Shrine glowies nearby and I checked them out even though the mission was over. The first one gave me "The Shrines" as a clue.

[-0.01] Phrasing: mission exit popup is six lines of text that are all one very long, run on sentence. Suggest you rephrase to either make this shorter, or break this up into a couple sentences.

Debriefing: I meet up with the contact and she takes all my clues and says she'll tell Abigail, and quite likely will never see me again. (Which seems disingenious considering this is mission 1.)

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: Abigail sent me to check out Isaac's fate, why is Grimm Fairy taking my news back to Abigail instead of me? Abigail even said that she had never heard of the Grimm Fairy.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "carrying the cold" sounds awkward, like she's some sort of disease carrier. May want to rephrase this. Perhaps "Warmth gradually returns to the area as the Grimm Fairy's presence fades" or "a cold wind carries the Grimm Fairy up into the sky".

[4.53] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: the Grimm Fairy returns with some more info from Abigail. This reinforces my thought that maybe Abigail should be the contact, rather than have Grimm Fairy relay Abigail's info to me.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Suddenly you are struck with a sudden blast of chill" totally makes it sound like the Grimm Fairy is attacking me with an ice blast or something. Consider rephrasing this.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Ishmael may very well be the Isaac that is supposedly dead" doesn't scan as a sentence; reword to something like "Ishmael is probably the one responsible for Isaac's death".

[-0.1] Writing: the story treats Isaac's death rather coldly; the writing does not show any reaction to his death from the player, the contact or from Abigail, all of whom should care, considering we promised to help Abigail find her brother, and instead discovered his death. Instead, Abigail looks at the clues and gives a handwriting analysis that gives us our next lead. I feel this lacks a certain emotional impact that ought to be present. I'd recommend touching on this a little more in the writing -- or, alternatively, have Isaac not be dead, but merely missing, possibly a captive of Ishmael (which would require less emotional response).

[-0.1] Inconsistent: in mission 1, Grimm Fairy was too busy to help find Isaac. Now she's available to go to the very place that she didn't have time to check out in mission 1?

[-0.01] Phrasing: "You wonder to yourself whether she is smiling at you beneath that barrier of obsidian, perhaps enjoying her ignorance for just a second to the fact that you are unable to see it." I'm afraid I have no idea what this sentence is trying to say? Rephrase to be a little more clear.

[-0.01] Confusing: she told me to check out the Monorail Station, but when I enter the map, I find I'm in some sewers. Perhaps she meant to say that I should check out the sewers below the Monorail Station.

Inside the mission I find an "Anathema (Early Transformation)" being held captive; I rescue him. His guards say:


[NPC] Scrounger Slammer: Just ignore it's cries. The Teacher has taught us that only through pain can you find your way home.

[-0.01] Punctuation: "it's cries" -> "its cries"

This also gave me "The Experimentation" as a clue.

Rescued "Anathema (Late Transformation)" as well, which gave me "The Transformation" as a clue.

[-0.01] Punctuation: "rate of it's mutation" -> "rate of its mutation" (in "The Transformation")

Apparently I am meant to be offered the choice to give the Anathema a "mercy-killing" here, but I decide to let it go. (It doesn't seem attackable anyhow, but perhaps there's some way to get it to betray.)

[+0.1] Mood: I felt the underground setting and the tormented semi-anathema begging for death conveyed a good sense of ambience.

This map is crazy large for a level 8 mission, though maybe reasonable for a level 30 one.

Found a suspicious looking "Heavy Rusting Barrel" that I clicked, getting "The Contents" as a clue.

"The Contents" is a very generic sounding clue, I'd suggest rewording to something more evocative like "A Grisly Find". (Nitpicky, didn't mark off points.)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "the array parts of barely fitting within the container" doesn't scan, suggest rewording. Perhaps "the torn flesh and shattered bone horribly crushed to fit within the confines of the barrel". (in The Contents)

[-0.01] Punctuation: "it's brain" -> "its brain" (in The Contents)

When I get close to Ishmael, he gives a pretty good mad-prophet speech.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "It is only I that knows how to bring us all to our salvation." is awkward sounding, suggest rewording to "Only I know the path to...SALVATION!"

Ishmael has had a lot of build-up in the story so far; he may be deserving of a custom bio (currently he has the default Aberrant Eremite description). Defeating Ishmael completed the mission and gave me "The Device" as a clue, and "Extracts from the Diary of Isaac Waters" as a mission complete clue.

"Extracts" says "Read after you return" and claims to be something the Grimm Fairy found and gave to me; then gives more instructions for when I'm allowed to read more of the "diary". I feel this is a little awkward in terms of story structure, but it's not that big a deal (it's common to get the results of interrogations and other post-mission stuff here) so I'll let it go. Not quite sure how this clue is useful for my investigation, but it has some good in-character craziness in it.

[+0.1] Pretty good crazy cultist ranting in "Extracts" and from the Lost in general so far.

[-0.1] Don't understand: mission exit popup says "Ishmael got away", but I clearly defeated him, even took "the Device" from him.

Debriefing: the contact reports she found nothing, but this seems to contradict the fact that she gives me the diary and discovered that the Lost can spoof her psychic abilities.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "a hint of annoyance, uncharacteristic of her usual melancholic voice" is very awkward sounding. I think I'd just leave it at "a hint of annoyance." I appreciate the attempt to be more descriptive, but I think having too much purple prose is likely to be distracting from the story.

[4.33] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: so the contact psychicly locates Ishmael again and we're going after him.

Accepting the mission gives me "Extracts from the Diary of Isaac Waters Pt.2". Seems to be more ranting, but the very last bit seems to be connected to the actual plot - it sounds like Isaac actually became Ishmael?

Inside the mission, I quickly find the Grimm Fairy and she links up with me as a Boss ally.

[-0.1] Don't understand: "Rescue John" is in my objectives, but I have no idea who John is or why I need to rescue him. I don't think he has been mentioned in the story thus far.

I end up leaving Grimm Fairy behind to look for the various objectives by stealth.

I found and rescued three hostages who say:

[NPC] Hostage: Thankyou so much!

[-0.01] Typo: "Thankyou" -> "Thank you" (hostage dialog)

You might also consider putting the hostages in a "captured" animation (right now they are just standing there nonchalantly).

I just now noticed that the mobs in this mission are in a custom faction called "Losts" (possibly all of them have been in this faction up to this point, not sure). They should probably be in "Lost" or maybe "The Lost". (Nitpicky.) It's not immediately obvious to me why they are in a custom Lost faction instead of the default one; there must be some reason though. Maybe to get rid of the Rikti mobs or something.

Ran across "Ezekiel", a boss who says the prophet (Ishmael?) has escaped. Defeating him satisfies the "Find Ishmael" objective. While we're fighting, Ezekiel says:

[NPC] Ezekiel: You will find my strength can rent more than flesh.

[-0.01] Typo: "rent" -> "rend" (Ezekiel dialog)

Defeating Ezekiel gives me "The Pariah's Words" as a clue.

[-0.01] Phrasing: Ezekiel refers to "you two" in "The Pariah's Words", but it is not at all certain that there will be two people fighting Ezekiel. I imagine you assume it will be a soloer and Grimm Fairy, but in my case I was solo (no Grimm Fairy) and quite possibly a team may play this arc and have more than two present. Suggest dropping "two" and just making it "left you a gift".

[+0.1] I like the number of extra optional objectives in this mission (and in the previous ones); it helps the missions feel a little more "alive".

After searching awhile, I finally find "John" who looks like an ordinary homeless person with a fairly generic description.

[-0.01] Wrong faction: "John" is in the "Shadow Shard Native" group, but I'm pretty sure that's not intentional.

Like the other hostages, John says:

[NPC] John: Thankyou...

...instead of "thank you". (Not marking off for this again as I already noted this typo though.)

Rescuing John gives me "The Hostage's Story" as a clue, "The Final Note" as a clue and finishes the mission.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "They just bundled me and the guys of the street and into this van" has an extraneous "and" right after "street" (in The Hostage's Story)

[-0.01] Typo: "King's Row" -> "Kings Row" (once in The Hostage's Story, and twice in The Final Note)

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: "The Final Note" shows "The Pariah" doing a final action, but this actually doesn't work because I got the clue when I rescued John, not when I defeated Ezekiel.

No mission exit popup? I kinda expected an action movie style "leaping out of the building right before it explodes" based on "The Pariah's Words". Ahhh, this scene appears in the debriefing. The building collapses or something, but the Grimm Fairy rescues the player.

[4.17] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: Ezekiel taunts us from above. Then falls and dies (again?).

[-0.1] Continuity error: "The Final Note" states that Ezekiel died before our eyes. Also, the debriefing implied that the building collapsed and we fell a long way; there shouldn't be anything Ezekiel could be standing on up there, and I wouldn't think he'd be close enough to taunt us anyway.

You might consider making the "you get to live for another thirty minutes" a different color text, to emphasize that a timed mission is coming up.

In the send-off message, the building collapses again and the Grimm Fairy rescues the player again.

[-0.1] Diminishes the player: having the Grimm Fairy scripted to repeatedly rescue the player from falling rubble and stuff tends to make the Grimm Fairy the hero and not the player. If this is a "partner cop" sort of story, having her rescue the player occasionally would be fine, but the player should get to rescue the Fairy sometimes or do cool stuff, too. Also, what if the player were a stone or invuln tanker, or a FF defender, who wouldn't be hurt by falling damage or would be able to put up their own bubbles?

[-0.01] Phrasing: the final paragraph of the send-off message spends four lines of text describing Grimm Fairy's right eye, which is (IMHO) a bit overboard on purple prose. I recommend you trim this down a bit.

Inside the mission, I notice Losts fighting CoT (not quite sure why). There are also some bombs to disarm.

[-0.1] Confusing: there are some bombs that are glowing and some that are not (I imagine there must be two waves of "bombs" objectives). This is visually very confusing for a player trying to find the right bombs to click.

The first glowing bomb that I click gives me "The Bombs" as a clue, then Grimm Fairy telepathically tells me she needs me to get the other bombs for her. I think.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Although, I think I can move them, if not affect their fuse" -> not sure what this sentence is trying to say, please rephrase to be more clear.

Defusing the second bomb suddenly triggers another "2 Bombs to Find". Why isn't this just "4 Bombs to Find" at the very start?

The first bomb of the second wave gives me another clue called "The Bombs", with more telepathic text from Grimm Fairy. I think she now wants to use these bombs to blow up the building and kill the Lost and CoT, which seems a bit mean.

After getting the second bomb of the second wave, now I have "4 Bombs to Plant" as a new objective.

Found and freed two hostages, but "the exits are sealed" so not sure if that helped. This triggers "2 Remaining Hostages to Find" as a new objective. Why isn't this just "4 Hostages to Find" at the very start?

[-0.5] Frustrating: this mission seems to have excessive chained objectives that don't serve an obvious purpose. Having them be triggered objectives requires the player to backtrack and search in areas that have been previously cleared, in case the new objectives spawned behind her. This is particularly frustrating in a mission on a short timer.

Planted 4 bombs.

Found Mroegath, a CoT boss, who monologued some, but left him alone (he didn't seem required).

Found and freed the Grimm Fairy. Her encounter seemed rather sparse on dialog, only the Fairy herself said anything, and only after rescuing her.

I ended up running out of time before I could find the "2 Remaining Hostages". (Partly this is because I spent a lot of time writing notes, but I also gained some time by stealthing around a lot.)

Fail debriefing: the orange text here basically tells me that my character should be dead now. Umm, no.

[-0.5] You can't have your story arc tell the player "You are dead". That just doesn't work. The player's character is still plainly alive and talking to the contact in the debriefing. No player will be able to suspend their sense of disbelief enough to treat their character as having been killed.

Currently the fail message is written in a way that if you fail before a certain point "You are dead" but if you fail after some certain point (which I don't think I reached) then it has some meaningful text. I think this mission either needs to not be timed (and thus not failable) or else the fail dialog needs to make sense in all cases.

[-0.01] Typo: "Kings' Row" -> "Kings Row" (in fail debriefing)

[2.84] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
Briefing: so now the contact wants us to kill Ishmael. Except, she doesn't have the stomach to do it. So she wants me to kill him.

The mission title is, simply, "Kill Ishmael".

[-0.1] Many heroes will have a code against killing that will not allow them to go along with this development in the story.

Inside the mission, I've apparently infiltrated a factory and found Ishmael's secret hideout.

[-0.1] Don't understand: how did I get here? We've been tracking Ishmael for the whole story arc, but no clues lead to a factory. Not sure why I need to destroy transmitters or "Strike the Final Blow" either. (Maybe this is all more obvious if you succeed at mission 4. However, if you allow mission 4 to fail, you need to consider the possibility that the player will continue the story from there, so the story still needs to make sense.)

Just inside the mission I find a Transmitter which I destroy and get the "Whispers in Your Mind (04)" clue, which seems to be part of a lengthy villain monologue. Would be more effective if they appeared in order, but it's not easy to do that, so oh well.

Found a computer giving me "The Atlas Park Facility" as an (optional) clue.

[-0.01] Typo: "continuining" -> "continuing" (in "The Atlas Park Facility")

Found and defeated Trist'an and Ca'leb, who counted as 2 of Ishmael's lieutenants. They gave me "Whispers in Your Mind (01)" and "Whispers in the Mind (02)" as clues.

[-0.01] Inconsistent: "Whispers in the Mind (02)" should probably be "Whispers in Your Mind (02)" to match the other clues in this sequence.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "you were the ones who plied them apart" ... I don't think "plied" has the meaning you want here. Not quite sure what is intended though. (in "Whispers in the Mind (02)")

Found a Mainframe that gave "The Psychic Transmitters" as a clue, that helps explain what the transmitters are used for in this mission. (Perhaps the Transmitters should be triggered from this objective.)

Destroyed the west transmitter, getting "Whispers in Your Mind (05)".

[-0.01] Phrasing: "When are given a new purpose" -> "When we are given a new purpose" (in "Whispers in Your Mind (05)")

Found Sy'rus and defeated him; he was the last of the lieutenants.


[-0.1] Confusing: deep in the mission I find both "Ish'mael" and "Ishmael the Prophet". Huh? Why are there two Ishmaels?

Defeating Ish'mael suddenly causes 9 mobs all named Isaac Waters to show up and surround me, and now I have a triggered objective to Kill Isaac. This is rather surreal!

As I start attacking the various Isaacs, they all run away. None attack (maybe they don't have attacks) and they aren't worth exp. Apparently I have to find the right one and kill it. I manage to find one that looks different than the others and has actual dialog; this guy turns out to be the right one.



[+0.1] This is actually a pretty neat story mechanic (despite being worth 0 exp).

Defeating Ishmael the Prophet completes "Strike the Final Blow". I kind of wonder if Ishmael the Prophet was supposed to be triggered from Isaac Waters, who was triggered from Ish'mael. That would make more logical sense, anyhow.



I got Whispers in Your Mind (08) at some point (maybe from Ishmael the Prophet).

[-0.01] Typo: "wilful" -> "willful" (in "Whispers in Your Mind (08)"). Actually, that whole phrase "where no longer does wilful ignorance exist" is rather awkward and maybe should be "where willful ignorance no longer exists".

Searching the base some more, I finally found the south transmitter and destroyed it, giving me one of the Whispers in Your Mind clues (I've kinda lost track of which one I was missing... maybe it gave me 06) and completing the mission. This also gives "The Aftermath" as a mission ending clue.

[-0.1] Don't understand: how did Grimm Fairy get injured in "The Aftermath"? She wasn't even here!

[+0.1] Very cool "grand finale" mission.

[-0.01] Mission exit popup is just "Read the clues" which kind of breaks the sense of immersion.

[-0.01] Souvenir is named "Lily Fairblanc" but clearly you would not keep "Lily Fairblanc" as a souvenir. It should be named something like "The Memory of Lily Fairblanc".

[-0.01] Typo: "Postiron's taskforce" -> "Positron's Task Force" (in souvenir)

[-0.01] Typo: "insignifcant" -> "insignificant" (in souvenir)

[+0.1] Interesting premise (Ishmael's story overall)

[2.65] at end of mission 5.

Overall
I thought this was an interesting exploration of the story of Ishmael, a villain we otherwise know only from scattered history plaques. I liked the number of side objectives and optional clues that were sprinkled throughout all the missions. The final mission was particularly neat.

I had a lot of trouble with the ideas behind mission 4. The way objectives triggered other objectives that were basically identical felt very frustrating, and I couldn't accept the story telling me "You are dead" at the end of the mission; the "fail" branch of the story never really dovetailed with continuing on to mission 5, which I think caused me to lose some story. I think I'd recommend simplifying the objectives in mission 4 some, and maybe removing the timer, making it impossible to fail the mission; or alternatively, developing the "fail" decision branch a bit more so that it still works with the rest of the story.

Although I liked the insane ranting of the Lost leaders overall, the amount of description in certain briefings and clues crossed the line into purple prose in a couple places, which I felt was distracting from the story. In several places, I felt simpler language would've more effectively carried the message you wanted.

The Grimm Fairy was an interesting character that initially seemed pretty cold, but kind of grew on me. I think that was probably your intent. She gets an awful lot of spotlight though and I'd suggest you try to balance the number of times Grimm Fairy saves the player versus the player saving her, so as to make it a more equal partnership.

Anyway, rounding 2.65 up, I gave this arc 3 stars; I liked parts of it and felt other parts could use some work. I hope you think that's fair.

----

My queue is now:

@WillT - War Against the Undying One, Part 1/3: Challenge of the Dwarves #91044 (H27-50)
@Dalghryn - Casualties of War #241496 (H40-54) (re-review)
@LaserJesus - Made To Wave the Flag #384776 (H45-54)
@Aracade - 30 Minute Hero #386310 (H10-20)
@K'aji - The Star-Dwellers #380417 (N6-14)

I played Axis and Allies, the only one of your arcs I had not played. You need to write another one fast so I can seek more reviews from you.

I put off playing this because I am not a big fan of war stories, but I am really glad I played it. While this arc was not as fun as some of your others, in some ways it may be your best. The choice of maps, the mood you set and the attention to detail was amazing!

And what do I ask you to play in return? Ironically, my least serious arc:

Don't Freak
ID: 384769
@Gypsy Rose

Though this arc on the surface may seem silly, it is not all fluff. I used it to make fun of what to me is a serious issue. I work in IT and many of my co-workers have lost jobs due to outsourcing. The souvenir touches on this.

As an aside, the bios of the custom enemies are based on composites of actual people I have worked with.

Enjoy (I hope )

Can I just say before I begin, that my arc seems to have somehow been corrupted. I mean, it's there, but I now have 5% more data than I did before and a number of the chains seemed to have been broken since the last person played. I saw it had 5% more a few days ago but I thought that was general MA antics randomly adding and taking away data, but now that you tell me what you experienced - especially in the last mission - it sounds like something's wrong. There were some updates I made after the last guy played which I made sure to get the message "LOOK CLOSER has been updated" on, and are still there. Still, some of your experience was still from the arc that he played so I'll get into that:

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Originally Posted by PoliceWoman I'm a little dubious about the 5-30 level range which seems it would be hard to balance a custom enemy group for.

As you will have noticed playing the arc, that I used a number of custom groups of Lost. This was originally for story purposes as I wanted the arc missions to go up in level range at the very inception - this was about eight months ago mind you - of the arc, but that idea was scrapped, and has since been replaced with just omitting certain Lost boss enemies (the Eremites and Anchorites, the type of Pariah and Aberrant Ishmael is).

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The contact talks with way too many ellipses, but this may be just her manner of speaking.

I tried to characterise her as someone who's voice has a general sombre and almost uninterested, yet not tone. And I thought the best way to do that was through frequent pauses, as if it took her time in between phrases to gather the vitality to speak again.

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[-0.01] Phrasing: "carried by the butterfly wings that rest upon her back" - does not make sense as she cannot be carried by the wings if they are resting on her back.

Oh I see what you mean, I was a bit confused there at first, you're saying that she can't be carried by them if they're just resting there motionless on her back. I was just struggling to find the proper verb to put in there, lie and sit just aren't right...

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[-0.01] Punctuation: "L.anguished" has an extraneous . in it. Possibly this is intentional, but it looks like a typo.

[reversed change]

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[-0.1] Don't understand: why isn't Abigail my contact instead of the Grimm Fairy? Abigail is telling me what needs to be done, whereas the Grimm Fairy didn't really say anything of substance.

I can't change contacts Well...even if I could I wouldn't :P The Grimm Fairy is the heroine in this story, it is ultimately about her (well, it is about Ishmael and Neglect as well, but just as much about her) - apologies for heroes who like things to be about them :P - and put simply Abigail isn't anywhere as near an interesting a character as The Grimm Fairy. Of course, they are complete fabrications of my own - well, the name The Grimm Fairy isn't mine - but Abigail is a footnote at the beginning, a facilitator to the greater tale. And I would argue that what The Grimm Fairy says is far more important than what Abigail says. Sure, Abigail helps you find Ishmael, but it is The Grimm Fairy who gives you an introduction to the main theme surrounding this arc "Neglect".

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(Which seems disingenious considering this is mission 1.)

metagaming! :P

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Abigail sent me to check out Isaac's fate, why is Grimm Fairy taking my news back to Abigail instead of me? Abigail even said that she had never heard of the Grimm Fairy.

The Grimm Fairy feels more involved in this story than you know. Plus, she volunteered to deliver news of the Abigail's brother's death to her, would you really argue to keep that macabre task?

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"carrying the cold" sounds awkward, like she's some sort of disease carrier.

I suppose in a way she is. I thought "carrying" was appropriate here because it's supposed to represent how this cold surrounding her is a burden that she is constantly bearing with her, rather than a light unintentional aura.

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"Suddenly you are struck with a sudden blast of chill" totally makes it sound like the Grimm Fairy is attacking me with an ice blast or something. Consider rephrasing this.

Consider this, an aura of bitter cold surrounds The Grimm Fairy, and she is moving at such a speed that this aura strikes you like a strong wind. I didn't want to use the word 'wave' because the elongated vowel sound damages the speed I am trying to communicate.

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[-0.01] Phrasing: "Ishmael may very well be the Isaac that is supposedly dead" doesn't scan as a sentence; reword to something like "Ishmael is probably the one responsible for Isaac's death".

No no no no no no....Isaac didn't die. Well, Isaac metaph- just screw metaphors for now they're only confuse matters XD Isaac didn't die. He became Ishmael. The Words of the Teacher tell you you found a bunch of writings on the Lost at this tenement, three typewritten one handwritten I seem to remember. The Grimm Fairy took these to Abigail. She identified the handwritten as Isaac's. If Ishmael wrote these words, that means Ishmael is Isaac. James told you that Isaac died because in a sense he did, they believe that the human part of you dies when the change overcomes you, which happened to Isaac, at an exponential rate - though that is elaborated on later.

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[-0.1] Inconsistent: in mission 1, Grimm Fairy was too busy to help find Isaac. Now she's available to go to the very place that she didn't have time to check out in mission 1?

Missing person evolves into crazy Lost prophet rousing the Lost to tear apart the established order. It therefore moves up her priority list :P Not to mmention the fact that this time The Grimm Fairy actually went to meet Abigail. I could tell you stuff that I don't actually mentiond directly in the story at all because I didn't have the space, but that would be pointless XD (*cough* The Grimm Fairy knew about Ishmael before she sent you anywhere *cough*)

Quote:

"You wonder to yourself whether she is smiling at you beneath that barrier of obsidian, perhaps enjoying her ignorance for just a second to the fact that you are unable to see it." I'm afraid I have no idea what this sentence is trying to say? Rephrase to be a little more clear.

Ok, this does refer to a rather complicated thought process, but I have very complicated thought processes, so I'll try to explain: The Grimm Fairy has a mask that covers her entire face. I refer to this mask as a barrier of obsidian - purely because I think it sounds cool, I do that sometimes - and you are wondering whether she is smiling at you beneath it. But, smiling at you would be an almost pointless action seeing as you can't see her smile. However, she is enjoying her wilful (it is wilful in English (U.K.) btw) ignorance for a moment to the fact that she knows that you can't see her smiling. Errr, yeah that is the simplest way to describe it I think...Ok: She is purposefully ignoring the fact that she knows you can't see her smile so she can smile at you for a second. I think that might make more sense? Put simply, it's complicated. It's just another little mention of human nature's tendency to wilfully delude itself, and underlying theme in this arc.

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[-0.01] Confusing: she told me to check out the Monorail Station, but when I enter the map, I find I'm in some sewers. Perhaps she meant to say that I should check out the sewers below the Monorail Station.

She said she was going to search the sewers beneath the tenement, and you should search those beneath the Monorail Station. At least, that's what I wrote.

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[-0.01] Punctuation: "it's cries" -> "its cries"

I have a punctuation thing. Except in academic essays, I refuse to bow to contradictory punctuation method of not putting in the apostrophe indicating ownership in it's.

Quote:

Apparently I am meant to be offered the choice to give the Anathema a "mercy-killing" here, but I decide to let it go. (It doesn't seem attackable anyhow, but perhaps there's some way to get it to betray.)

If I can fix my arc and cut it down a bit I'm going to create a custom enemy that you will be able to kill.

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This map is crazy large for a level 8 mission, though maybe reasonable for a level 30 one.

:s It's only a Medium.

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Ishmael has had a lot of build-up in the story so far; he may be deserving of a custom bio (currently he has the default Aberrant Eremite description).

That's something that got changed without me touching it. He did have a custom bio for a while now.

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Not quite sure how this clue is useful for my investigation, but it has some good in-character craziness in it.

Well when the well-educated CoH player plays this arc they already know the result, so this arc is much less about the investigation, and much more about 'why?'

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[-0.1] Don't understand: mission exit popup says "Ishmael got away", but I clearly defeated him, even took "the Device" from him.

The Device should say that it broke off during the combat. And the system text says that he disappeared in a flash of light you recognise as teleportation after you defeated.

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"a hint of annoyance, uncharacteristic of her usual melancholic voice" is very awkward sounding. I think I'd just leave it at "a hint of annoyance." I appreciate the attempt to be more descriptive, but I think having too much purple prose is likely to be distracting from the story.

You're misinterpreting what the story is about :P It isn't about the investigation and defeat of this evil Lost mastermind :P

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[-0.1] Don't understand: "Rescue John" is in my objectives, but I have no idea who John is or why I need to rescue him. I don't think he has been mentioned in the story thus far.

I was a bit uncertain about this myself. I wanted a personal single hostage to get information from and the rest optionals, but I wasn't sure how to represent that in the objectives - what do you think of "Speak with the Hostages" as an objective instead?

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You might also consider putting the hostages in a "captured" animation (right now they are just standing there nonchalantly).

Unfortunately these mobs don't have captured animations so I gave them "Bum Slump", the closest thing, but that seems to be another of the things that hasn't stuck.

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[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: "The Final Note" shows "The Pariah" doing a final action, but this actually doesn't work because I got the clue when I rescued John, not when I defeated Ezekiel.

This is a flaw, which I tried to rectify by putting his spawn at the Front. Didn't seem to have worked though.

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[-0.1] Continuity error: "The Final Note" states that Ezekiel died before our eyes. Also, the debriefing implied that the building collapsed and we fell a long way; there shouldn't be anything Ezekiel could be standing on up there, and I wouldn't think he'd be close enough to taunt us anyway.

He appeared to die before your eyes. And it doesn't say he's standing, you fell through a certain section of the floor, not the entire floor cleanly fell through. He is lying down because he is still near-death, just peeking his head over the side.

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Also, what if the player were a stone or invuln tanker, or a FF defender, who wouldn't be hurt by falling damage or would be able to put up their own bubbles?

The Grimm Fairy thought quicker than you :P And I can't exactly write "If you have this powerset you do this" so this is the easier way. But although I will mention this again at the end, point taken.

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Phrasing: the final paragraph of the send-off message spends four lines of text describing Grimm Fairy's right eye, which is (IMHO) a bit overboard on purple prose. I recommend you trim this down a bit.

I like my prose, which has been called a number of different things by reviewers, I can remember purple from you and flowery from another off the top of my head but I'm sure there were some other descriptions :P I'll take a look at it and see if I think there is anything extraneous, but I like my purple-flower-prose

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Inside the mission, I notice Losts fighting CoT (not quite sure why). There are also some bombs to disarm.

I thought the Mission Intro mentions this - anyways I assume you noticed through their dialog why this is.

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[-0.01] Phrasing: "Although, I think I can move them, if not affect their fuse" -> not sure what this sentence is trying to say, please rephrase to be more clear.

Uhh :S I mean The Grimm Fairy thinks she can move the bombs but can't defuse them.

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Defusing the second bomb suddenly triggers another "2 Bombs to Find". Why isn't this just "4 Bombs to Find" at the very start?

Text space. If I had 600 characters in there it could be one objective, but I don't so I have to make do unfortunately in order to explain the plan. I'll look over it regardless.

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The first bomb of the second wave gives me another clue called "The Bombs", with more telepathic text from Grimm Fairy. I think she now wants to use these bombs to blow up the building and kill the Lost and CoT, which seems a bit mean.

Nooooooooes! She is saying that she has an idea of how to get out. I mentioned in briefings and clues that a barrier has been erected around the building and you can't escape. But, The Grimm Fairy has a plan to move the bombs into the caves beneath the building and blow a way out where there isn't a barrier. However, she believes that this will have the unfortunate side effect of causing the building the collapse in on itself (there is an optional way out)

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Found and freed two hostages, but "the exits are sealed" so not sure if that helped. This triggers "2 Remaining Hostages to Find" as a new objective. Why isn't this just "4 Hostages to Find" at the very start?

You should have found a clue from them which will explain :S Unless bad stuff happened to that as well. But yeah, they aren't really you just freeing, it's you finding them so you can escape with them. I think here it isn't text space, it's the progression of the discovery of information. I think, again I'll look into it.

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[-0.5] Frustrating: this mission seems to have excessive chained objectives that don't serve an obvious purpose. Having them be triggered objectives requires the player to backtrack and search in areas that have been previously cleared, in case the new objectives spawned behind her. This is particularly frustrating in a mission on a short timer.

I thought 30 minutes is a slightly too long timer personally, but I guess it depends on the person.

Quote:

[-0.5] You can't have your story arc tell the player "You are dead". That just doesn't work. The player's character is still plainly alive and talking to the contact in the debriefing. No player will be able to suspend their sense of disbelief enough to treat their character as having been killed.

If a building collapsing in on your character won't kill them then by all means they aren't dead, I mentioned that - but if you fail without putting up the psychic inhibitors the building collapses in on you. And The Grimm Fairy, she is also lost to this world. It is 'GAME OVER' in the arc. I'm not intending to be just stubborn and obstinate, but this is a scenario that threatens your character's life. If when the building collapses in on you you and The Grimm Fairy miraculously survive regardless, that would be a bit cheap, wouldn't you agree?

Quote:

Currently the fail message is written in a way that if you fail before a certain point "You are dead" but if you fail after some certain point (which I don't think I reached) then it has some meaningful text. I think this mission either needs to not be timed (and thus not failable) or else the fail dialog needs to make sense in all cases.

There was optional objectives that you would have been informed about by saving the hostages. (Oh and now that I recall there are supposed to be 3 hostages in total, not 4) If you had completed them the barrier would have been disrupted, you would have escaped with the hostages and the Lost and CoT would have been ticketyboo. If it isn't failable I can't put in the optional objective, which is supposed to be another instance in which your character's morality is tested - like to a lesser extent in Mission 2 - basically posing the question: would you condemn a gang of The Lost to death in order to make certain you escaped, when there was another option.

Quote:

[-0.1] Many heroes will have a code against killing that will not allow them to go along with this development in the story.

Yes, but how far will that code stretch? Ishmael's constantly growing mutation gives him the potential to grow to immeasurable heights in which he would be unstoppable in his domination of the world. You have the option to kill him now while you have the chance. If you ignore this chance he will succeed. If you attempt to capture him you will give him the opportunity for his power will grow to a point where he cannot be contained. What would you do?

Quote:

[-0.1] Don't understand: how did I get here? We've been tracking Ishmael for the whole story arc, but no clues lead to a factory. Not sure why I need to destroy transmitters or "Strike the Final Blow" either. (Maybe this is all more obvious if you succeed at mission 4. However, if you allow mission 4 to fail, you need to consider the possibility that the player will continue the story from there, so the story still needs to make sense.)

You found a number of clues pointing to a "Kings Row Facility" which has been pointed out to you on a map you found in Ezekiel's hands. Strike the Final Blow is due to my arc getting corrupted and the transmitter objectives are like the hostage objectives, I never mentioned there were actually hostages in there. But that's what you find.

Quote:

[-0.01] Phrasing: "you were the ones who plied them apart" ... I don't think "plied" has the meaning you want here. Not quite sure what is intended though. (in "Whispers in the Mind (02)")

I just discovered that that is not what I intended. Sorry, that was a mistake. I meant as if they are separated apart slowly and intentionally.

Quote:

Found a Mainframe that gave "The Psychic Transmitters" as a clue, that helps explain what the transmitters are used for in this mission. (Perhaps the Transmitters should be triggered from this objective.)

I originally had it this way, but I prefer it without the chaining, so you see the transmitters there, and if you don't know why you are supposed to destroy them and are interested you can find the optional clues which will inform you.

Quote:

Defeating Ishmael the Prophet completes "Strike the Final Blow". I kind of wonder if Ishmael the Prophet was supposed to be triggered from Isaac Waters, who was triggered from Ish'mael. That would make more logical sense, anyhow.

Isaac Waters is triggered by Ishmael being reduced to 75% Health, and the ambushes come from 50% and 25%. Ishmael the Prophet is triggered by his death.

Quote:

[-0.01] Typo: "wilful" -> "willful" (in "Whispers in Your Mind (08)").

It's wilful, though I think I mentioned that before.

Quote:

[-0.1] Don't understand: how did Grimm Fairy get injured in "The Aftermath"? She wasn't even here!

System text! System text! System text!

I appreciate you playing my arc, even if the 3 Stars did sting a bit! If I have completely ignored or left unaddressed any of your comments it's because:

A) I have completely taken them into account.

B) They were self-confessed as nitpicky and I didn't agree with them ultimately.

or C) I had addressed a similar or identical point earlier.

I hope you think my arguments are fair, and I will try to recover my arc from the corrupted stage you played it in XD I just hope nobody plays it before I'm able to fix it, because I can't even edit in a disclaimer into the description because it's over the maximum data and I wouldn't be able to republish the change.

War Against the Undying One, Part1/3: Challenge of the Dwarves review
Arc ID: 91044
Keywords: Custom Characters, Non-Canon, Magic
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 41-41
Warnings: EBs

The premise is that I need to save a fantasy world from an army of undead, by recruiting some dwarves. I played a 43 mace/shield brute on +1 x1 difficulty (no AVs). Although not technically a hero, I figure she looks like a fantasy barbarian warrior girl, so oughta fit in. The contact is a really small custom character in a tunic and cape.

[5.0] points to start.

Mission 1
Briefing: the contact introduces himself and tells a tale of the armies of the evil overlord who are conquering the northlands. He wants me to convince some dwarves to join an army of good guys to oppose them. The contact is banished from the dwarven kingdom, though, so wants me to represent him.

[-0.01] Formatting: the caption for the mission briefings should be in larger type, bold, or a different color, to make them stand out from the rest of the briefing.

To get to the kingdom of dwarves apparently I need to take some sort of magical key and attune it to the warding spell. I start with the "Rune Key" clue.

Inside the mission: I find myself in a cave, and quickly find an "Ancient Dwarven Monument" that gives me the "Monument: The Battle of Uthen" clue, containing some lore about the back story.

I run into some "Creatures of the Deep" in the caves, and fight them; a snake and a fungus man.


Kill 10 snakes quest

Then I encounter "Warder of the South Gate" and some dwarves, they are very good looking axe & shield custom characters. I like how they are stocky and short. I end up beating these up.

[+0.1] Cool costuming: dwarves.

A little deeper in, I run into "Flora of the Deep", recolored thorn tree vines that work really well in this setting.

More "Creatures of the Deep", this time an arachnoid and some crystal people and a Rularuu eye.

[+0.1] Nice repurposing of normal mobs to make a fun mix of fantasy monsters in "Creatures of the Deep" and "Flora of the Deep"

Past these, I find the Way Marker, which completes the mission and gives me "The Dwarves" as a mission end clue.

Debriefing: much too short (only 1 line). Needs some more writing here, IMHO; perhaps a recap of the mission, some discussion of the lore of Bodern Hold or some talk about what is to come.

[-0.1] Needs writing: debriefing

[5.09] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: so the contact wants me to go negotiate with King Bodern, by which he means, beat the King up until he listens to me.

[-0.01] Objectives: "King Bodern" is just the default text. It should really have a verb in it, e.g., "Defeat King Bodern"

I encountered a Disgruntled miner and beat him up. Searching the tunnels a bit, I eventually found King Bodern and beat him up, which ended the mission. It sounded like he tried to call an ambush (when he calls for the guards) but I never saw it.

[-0.1] Gameplay: this mission really seemed too simple; basically, beat up the boss, then mission complete. I did a cursory search of the tunnels after defeating the King and didn't find anything more; the Disgruntled miner seemed to be the only other mission detail. I'd suggest adding more details to make this mission more interesting. Bodern is a King, he should have: heaps of dwarven treasure, dwarven courtiers and diplomats from other fantasy realms currying his favor, a dwarven royal guard, maybe a dwarven queen and dwarven princes and princesses. Or perhaps there could be more miners doing "digging" animations to extend the dwarven tunnels.

[-0.1] Debriefing again too short (a line and a half). Needs more writing.

[4.88] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: Bodern agrees to help the contact's cause and to "spread the word amongst the other dwarven kings". But to help the dwarves out, apparently I need to beat up their ancient enemy, the goblins, and take back some loot that they stole.

I like how this mission is foreshadowed by the King's dialog in mission 2, which mentioned a goblin raid on their armory.

Inconsistency: Sidus initially said (in mission 1) that he could not progress on his plan (and thus needed my help) because he was banished from Bodern's Hall. But if there are other dwarven kings besides Bodern, why couldn't he go talk to them instead (since he's presumably not banished from their kingdoms), and have them talk Bodern around? (Initially I marked this -0.1 but in this briefing Sidus says he is "forbidden from traveling in dwarven lands" so maybe he is banished from all dwarf lands. So didn't mark any points off, but maybe make this clearer in mission 1.)

Inside the mission I have a lot of armor and weapons to recover. I encounter some neat looking goblins and some more Creatures of the Deep.

I kind of wonder why none of the dwarves I encountered are helping with this raid, since I am helping to get their stuff back. (Nitpicky.)

I notice that smashing a Bedrock (in the "Creatures of the Deep" group) causes it to break into "Rubble" underlings that still belong to the "Devouring Earth" enemy group. I'm guessing there is nothing you can do about that, but I thought I'd mention it.


Phat l00t!

Every single glowy (both armor and weapons) seemed to spawn in the same room for some reason (the second room you come to if you go straight from the entrance); not a big deal but I was surprised at how concentrated they were. After clearing that room, I only had the Warlord left.

I found the Warlord and fought him.

[-0.01] Typo: "obgoblins" should probably be "Hobgoblins" (in Warlord's description).


Hey! I'm not just a piece of meat!

Defeating the Warlord triggered "Find 'Valentin'" as an objective. Warlord Blacktooth does call out to Valentin on death; you might consider also adding a clue suggesting that you need to find Valentin (for the sake of players who might not be in range to hear Blacktooth's dying line).

Valentin is nearby and proves to be a zombie mastermind in the "Servitor of the Undying One" group. He has some fun dialog and gives me "Czarodziej Valentin" as a clue. I thought it was interesting that he cursed me in the name of Koschei and has a Russian sounding title.... could the Undying One be Koschei the Deathless? Hmmmmmm.

Debriefing: a better debriefing, that explains what a czarodziej is and how Valentin's presence will persuade the dwarves to help.

[4.87] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: more goblins have apparently been seen by some temple that I need to go protect now.

[-0.1] Plot: this new development kinda comes out of the blue; would be nice to have found some clue (perhaps in the previous mission) that leads us to go after the Scarpaw goblins, or that warns us that the Temple is in danger, rather than having the contact just relay this info.

[-0.01] Doesn't make sense: Desiccated Husk (a zombie) is in the "Scarpaw Goblins" enemy group. But it's not a goblin, or even an undead goblin, so this seems peculiar. (Only marked this -0.01 as this is rather nitpicky and arguably they might be undead under the control of the goblins or something like that. But still seems odd.)

This temple seems packed with Scarpaw Goblins (including zombies) and Creatures of the Deep; aren't there any normal priests or monks who live in this temple? I suppose it might be an abandoned temple that happens to be full of magical power....

Found and defeated Czarodziej Leftri, that satisfied an objective, and broke up an ritual right near him that gave me "The Scarpaw Purpose" as a clue and satisfied another objective.

[-0.01] Typo: "templte" -> "temple" (in "The Scarpaw Purpose")

Moving near a pile of rocks, I was quite surprised when the "Avatar of Balt" (a...Quarry?) stood up and started beating up goblins. That was actually quite neat.


Whoa!

[+0.1] Rescuing the Avatar of Balt was quite cool; I can clearly see how having it corrupted by the bad guys would be a really bad thing, and having it hop up and start beating up bad guys was a very neat visual.

Warlord Scarpaw spawned nearby as an elite boss minotaur. I defeated him with some help from the Quarry. This completed the mission.

[-0.1] Debriefing is too short (only 2 words). Needs more writing.

[4.75] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
Briefing: a goblin invasion attacking Bodern's hold! And I need to stop it.

[+0.1] Continuity: I like that this mission references the magical ward I had to bypass in mission 1; there's a certain elegance to coming full circle with the Way Marker that was the gateway into this realm.

[-0.01] Typo: "Dispell" -> "Dispel" (in objectives)

I quickly find and rescue King Bodern, who becomes an EB ally. We fight our way past lots of "Undying Minions" which seem to be a mix of goblins, zombies and elementals, and we help some other dwarves who were battling these bad guys.

Found and defeated Czarodziej Robistin, who counted as one of the invading leaders. I think he was a lieutenant. He died really quickly, especially considering I have an EB ally. Maybe he should be stronger. (Possibly he is a boss at higher difficulty settings.)

[-0.1] Dialog: Robistin had no dialog at all? Needs some dialog.

Eventually found Nimus, an EB cyclops, who was a much better fight.


Let go of me you stupid cyclops!

His last line is:

[NPC] Nimus: ... don let them maninate me body... please...

[-0.01] Typo: I think maybe this should be "don't let them marinate"?

Clicking the Way Marker completed the mission and gave me "Clearing the South Bore" as a clue.

[-0.01] Typo: "harrass" -> "harass" (Clearing the South Bore)

[-0.01] Typo: "stronger foe are hampered" -> "stronger foes are hampered" (Clearing the South Bore)

Good wrap-up in the debriefing.

[-0.1] Souvenir: seems incomplete, it begins telling the story but ends at "you captured King Bodern and forced him to read documents Sidus provided" (i.e. mission 2). Needs some writing for missions 3 through 5.

[4.61] at end of mission 5.

Overall
A pretty nice fantasy adventure using the tools provided by CoH's mission architect. I particularly liked the creative re-use of existing CoH enemies.

I think mission 2 could use some spiffing up, and some writing could be added to the debriefings. I thought the Czarodziej in the final mission seemed a little weak compared to the cyclops, but this could be due to my difficulty settings. The story could perhaps use some more emotional impact, but not sure where that would really fit into this framework. From a technical standpoint, everything worked quite well, though.

Rounding 4.61 up, I gave this arc 5 stars.

----

My queue is now:

@Dalghryn - Casualties of War #241496 (H40-54) (re-review)
@LaserJesus - Made To Wave the Flag #384776 (H45-54)
@Aracade - 30 Minute Hero #386310 (H10-20)
@K'aji - The Star-Dwellers #380417 (N6-14)
@Gypsy Rose - Don't Freak #384769 (H20-54)

Nimus' line is obviously him mangling the word "animate", and is probably intentional.

Heh, yes, 'maninate' is intentionally mangled 'animate.' Cyclops am not smartee.

I'm hoping I've tinkered with balance/settings enough that I can concentrate on fleshing out some of the writing, particularly in mission 2.

The recovery of weapons/armor all spawning in the same place started as an accident, and then I realized it made perfect sense as 'this is where we store the loot'/armory kind of thing.

The czarodziej are a little on the weak side presently, but they've been tinkered with a lot. They are stronger if they have a good solid group with them. The problem is that dark powers can quickly veer between 'push over' and 'OMFG I can't hit... dead! DANG IT'

I could make the czarodziej EBs. mMmm. But in the later arcs they are standard bosses... maybe make two versions? Well, that's one reason there's generally two bosses; the czarodziej in the first arc aren't very tough enemies, just informative/story ones. Their danger is more organizational. (Oh no! Middle managers!)

The desiccated husks are property of the Scarpaw Goblins, is what I meant by it. Perhaps I should change the group name to 'The Scarpaw'?

Thanks for spelling/typo notes!

Other notes:
Yeah, I can't do anything about the boulder > rubble, rubble being DE thing. At least, not that I'm aware of.
I wanted to have more 'dwarves digging with pickaxes' in 1&2, but unfortunately weapons screw it up -- a mob that has a weapon will toggle 'drawing the weapon,' thus interrupting any other animation. This is very annoying.

Some more comments on LOOK CLOSER

Quote:

Originally Posted by BeyondReach The Grimm Fairy is the heroine in this story, it is ultimately about her (well, it is about Ishmael and Neglect as well, but just as much about her) - apologies for heroes who like things to be about them :P

While this is one approach you can take, I personally believe a story arc will be more interesting to players if you make the player the hero (or at least a hero) of the story. For this reason, I talk about (and grade on) "involvement" of the player, and "diminishing" the player's role. Having strong characters is definitely a good thing, but I think it is dangerous to have them dominate the story too much; my experience has been that a story which clearly designates the author's character as the main protagonist is usually not as well received as a story that gives the player a higher degree of involvement.

Quote:

The Grimm Fairy feels more involved in this story than you know. Plus, she volunteered to deliver news of the Abigail's brother's death to her, would you really argue to keep that macabre task?

My feeling is that, since the player has made a personal commitment to Abigail to investigate what happened to her brother, the player character should feel some responsibility to report the bad news personally. To abdicate this duty to the Grimm Fairy could be considered cowardly. Also, Abigail doesn't know the Grimm Fairy and consequently doesn't have a lot of reason to trust what the Fairy has to say.

Quote:

Consider this, an aura of bitter cold surrounds The Grimm Fairy, and she is moving at such a speed that this aura strikes you like a strong wind. I didn't want to use the word 'wave' because the elongated vowel sound damages the speed I am trying to communicate.

Here, I merely mean that the words chosen suggest that the Grimm Fairy is attacking you via ice blasts. I don't think that's the impression you mean to give, so that's why I suggest rephrasing it.

Quote:

Ok, this does refer to a rather complicated thought process, but I have very complicated thought processes, so I'll try to explain: The Grimm Fairy has a mask that covers her entire face. I refer to this mask as a barrier of obsidian - purely because I think it sounds cool, I do that sometimes - and you are wondering whether she is smiling at you beneath it. But, smiling at you would be an almost pointless action seeing as you can't see her smile. However, she is enjoying her wilful (it is wilful in English (U.K.) btw) ignorance for a moment to the fact that she knows that you can't see her smiling. Errr, yeah that is the simplest way to describe it I think...Ok: She is purposefully ignoring the fact that she knows you can't see her smile so she can smile at you for a second. I think that might make more sense? Put simply, it's complicated. It's just another little mention of human nature's tendency to wilfully delude itself, and underlying theme in this arc.

Okay, I respect that some very complicated thought process is going on behind the scenes here. Nevertheless, this will not be apparent to the casual player who is reading through this text; I'd recommend using somewhat clearer language so that your message gets across.

Quote:

I have a punctuation thing. Except in academic essays, I refuse to bow to contradictory punctuation method of not putting in the apostrophe indicating ownership in it's.

Well, this is an interesting point of view. It is true that English is inconsistent in many places. But, I'm afraid most people who read this text will not realize that this is a principled stand against the basic inconsistency of English punctuation. They will simply think that the author doesn't know the difference between "it's" and "its".

Quote:

You're misinterpreting what the story is about :P It isn't about the investigation and defeat of this evil Lost mastermind :P

While I think it is cool that there is this sub-theme of the Grimm Fairy's growth and death, I do think that "investigate and defeat Ishmael the Prophet" is a valid interpretation of the story.

Quote:

I was a bit uncertain about this myself. I wanted a personal single hostage to get information from and the rest optionals, but I wasn't sure how to represent that in the objectives - what do you think of "Speak with the Hostages" as an objective instead?

I like the idea of having one particular hostage that gives this clue. The fact that we had to rescue "John" as a specific objective stuck out as being odd, though. I'd recommend accumulating him with the other hostages as part of "4 hostages to rescue" or something, even though he's a separate detail from the generic hostage encounter. Then when you rescue "John" it would give you the clue and decrement the hostage count.

If you do this, I might also name all the hostages using the same style; e.g., if you have John, give the first name of the other hostages also. Or if you prefer to just use generic "Hostage" for the other guys, rename John to "Scruffy Hostage" or something.

Quote:

He appeared to die before your eyes. And it doesn't say he's standing, you fell through a certain section of the floor, not the entire floor cleanly fell through. He is lying down because he is still near-death, just peeking his head over the side.

This could work, but the writing that currently describes this scene doesn't covney this info effectively; it totally makes it sound like the same guy died, twice. I think you can address this by making the first scene not quite so suggestive that the Lost boss has died.

Quote:

Text space. If I had 600 characters in there it could be one objective, but I don't so I have to make do unfortunately in order to explain the plan. I'll look over it regardless.

I'd really recommend not having 2 bombs trigger 2 bombs trigger 4 bombs; I found that frustrating and confusing and my feeling is that other players may feel the same way. I don't think it's worth doing this just to squeeze extra characters into your clue text.

Quote:

I thought 30 minutes is a slightly too long timer personally, but I guess it depends on the person.

I compared notes with another review of this arc; I think I may have taken extra long for this mission because (a) I was taking notes during the mission, the other reviewer was not and (b) my character was at the low end of the 5-30 level range, other reviewer was at the high end. It seemed to me like there was a lot of stuff to do in a short period of time, but it's possible that my experience isn't typical.

Quote:

if you fail without putting up the psychic inhibitors the building collapses in on you. And The Grimm Fairy, she is also lost to this world. It is 'GAME OVER' in the arc. I'm not intending to be just stubborn and obstinate, but this is a scenario that threatens your character's life.

I'm sorry, but I just don't think this works within the mechanics of mission architect. Is it your expectation that the player quit your story arc at this point, without finishing it? If not, then they go on to mission 5 and the story stops making sense.



Anyway, I hope this all helps. Best of luck!

The Casualties of War re-review
Arc ID: 241496
Keywords: Challenging, Canon Related, Drama
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 38-54

The premise is working with a team of heroes to battle Rikti during the Rikti war. I originally reviewed this here, under the "Consequences of War - Part II" name. I like the change in name that makes it less obviously a sequel.

First I'll attempt to re-format my old review into the numerical format that I've switched to; then I'll check what's been addressed in the current version of the arc.

Old review, converted to numeric score

[5.0] to start.

Mission 1
[-0.01] Inconsistent: Vanguard traitor's description calls the player a hero, but arc is neutral so player might be a villain.

[-0.5] Gameplay: elite boss detention fields the player, then runs away to cause mission to fail. Frustrating.

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: contact sends Vanguard to intercept the Vanguard traitor in the fail message, despite knowing Vanguard has been compromised.

[4.39] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
[-0.1] Continuity: mission 2 briefing mentions "info I got from the traitor", does not match up with mission 1's fail debriefing.

[-0.1] Inconsistent: Billy Bad Boy's dialog ("let's smack down Rikti") doesn't match his clue ("help Capster at hospital")

[-0.1] Map selection: brightly lit circus map seems sharply at odds with the tone of this story arc.

[4.09] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
[+0.1] Nicely written briefing.

[-0.1] Don't understand: why is Nurse Turner-Hayes an objective? Not previously mentioned in story.

[-0.01] Inconsistent: Vanguard Soldier's dialog is defiant, but his pose is the surrender animation.

[-0.1] Confusing: I'm supposed to be evacuating the hospital but most Vanguard guys I find want to fight it out.

[-0.01] Energy Blastion's dialog is awkward, he wants to go off to find Empathy even before he's rescued.

[-0.01] Phrasing: Commissioner G's clue makes it sound like he's leaving instead of staying to fight, probably not the intent.

[-0.1] Rescuing heroes did not feel like evacuating the hospital. Needs more civilians to rescue and evacuate.

[3.86] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
[+0.1] Nicely written briefing.

[-0.1] This mission seems to be redundant with mission 3? Both are to "evacuate the hospital", just different floors.

[-0.1] Inconsistent: Empathy's dialog (kill kill kill!) and clue ("A Reassuring Smile") don't match up.

[-0.01] Seemed weird that Dr. Lexis just stood there after rescue, should run away.

[-0.1] Mission exit says we saved lots of civilians, but it does not feel like we evacuated the hospital, since we did not actually rescue any civilian hostages.

[-0.01] Don't understand: debriefing (which is actually the player's own introspection) says the other heroes are off to meet Statesman, but he wasn't previously mentioned so why do I think this? Needs foreshadowing.

[3.64] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
[-0.1] Don't understand: why is defeat Hro'Dath an objective? Was not previously mentioned.

[+0.1] Nicely written clues: Eric Moore's Wedding Band, The Moore Family Photograph

[+0.1] Nicely written clue: The Final Moments of the SOLUS Collective

[-0.01] Phrasing: "you move heroic remains to cover" -> "you move the remains of the heroes to cover"

[-0.01] Continuity: "remains of your six friends" should be "remains of your five friends" (mission exit popup)

[-0.01] Continuity: "last six heroes" should be "last five heroes" (debriefing)

[-0.01] Continuity: "last six" should be "last five", "six SOLUS survivors" should be "five" (souvenir)

[+0.1] Ending is tragic and moving.

[3.80] at end of mission 5.

-------------

Re-review

Replaying on a 44 katana/willpower scrapper, mostly SO slotting with a few IOs (2x 4 Kinetic Combat, 1x 4 Smashing Haymaker, 2x 4 Reactive Armor, Steadfast Protection RES/+3 DEF for a total of +14.88% lethal DEF; with tough, 52.6% lethal RES; but Rikti don't use that much lethal so may not help that much). Set difficulty to +0 x1, bosses OK, AVs not OK.

Looking primarily at the comments I made before.

[5.0] to start.

Mission 1
[FIXED] Inconsistent: Vanguard traitor's description calls the player a hero, but arc is neutral so player might be a villain. (description changed)

[FIXED] Gameplay: elite boss detention fields the player, then runs away to cause mission to fail. Frustrating. (did not detention field, did not run this time)

[N/A] Doesn't make sense: contact sends Vanguard to intercept the Vanguard traitor in the fail message, despite knowing Vanguard has been compromised. (can no longer fail this mission)

[5.0] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
[N/A] Continuity: mission 2 briefing mentions "info I got from the traitor", does not match up with mission 1's fail debriefing. (can no longer fail mission 1)

Friendlies rescued Billy Bad Boy before I arrived. (Not sure if this is intended.)

[N/A] Inconsistent: Billy Bad Boy's dialog ("let's smack down Rikti") doesn't match his clue ("help Capster at hospital") (Billy no longer appears to give a clue)

[FIXED] Map selection: brightly lit circus map seems sharply at odds with the tone of this story arc. (now uses a RWZ map)

[5.0] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3

NEW: mission seems completely rewritten. Discarding previous notes on mission 3.

Rescued Energy Blastion, got "Blastion's Request" clue.

Rescued Billy Bad Boy, got a clue with a blank title.

[-0.1] NEW Missing text: Billy Bad Boy's clue has no title.

Rescued Commissioner G, got "A Quick Breather" clue.

Seems like a dozen or more "Rikti Body" glowies that are not required and don't give clues? Possibly just for ambience though.

Rescued Captain Superior, got "Upping the Ante". He says:

[NPC] Captain Superior: From the looks of all the Rikti bodies, Alistair McKnight must not be far ahead of us.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "looks of all the Rikti bodies" should be "look of all the Rikti bodies".

Rescued Alistair McKnight, gives "McKnight's Priorities" as a clue and triggers "Protect McKnight's Obelisk".

[-0.1] NEW: McKnight's Priorities says "Alistair glances at Billy", but it's not guaranteed that Billy will be present when this clue is received.

Protected an obelisk, completed the mission.

[4.79] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
[+0.1] Nicely written briefing.

[N/A] This mission seems to be redundant with mission 3? Both are to "evacuate the hospital", just different floors. (Mission 3 is now different.)

[FIXED] Inconsistent: Empathy's dialog (kill kill kill!) and clue ("A Reassuring Smile") don't match up. (though still rather different in tone, an extra sentence has been added to the beginning of the clue which makes it make more sense to me)

[FIXED] Seemed weird that Dr. Lexis just stood there after rescue, should run away. (now she helps as an ally)



[-0.1] NEW Don't understand: Why does Empathy leave and Dr Lexis stay to help the player? Wouldn't it make more sense the other way around, since Empathy is the hero and the character we are supposed to build up (pardon the expression) empathy for, while Dr Lexis is a civilian?

[FIXED] Mission exit says we saved lots of civilians, but it does not feel like we evacuated the hospital, since we did not actually rescue any civilian hostages. (Now you rescue a civilian and a wounded soldier.)

[FIXED] Don't understand: debriefing (which is actually the player's own introspection) says the other heroes are off to meet Statesman, but he wasn't previously mentioned so why do I think this? Needs foreshadowing. (Now mentioned by Billy Bad Boy's clue in mission 3)

[4.79] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
[FIXED] Don't understand: why is defeat Hro'Dath an objective? Was not previously mentioned. (Stah'dak now mentions him in mission 2) (Captain Superior mentions him in mission 3 and 4)

[+0.1] Nicely written clues: Eric Moore's Wedding Band, The Moore Family Photograph

[+0.1] Nicely written clue: The Final Moments of the SOLUS Collective

[FIXED] Phrasing: "you move heroic remains to cover" -> "you move the remains of the heroes to cover"

[FIXED] Continuity: "remains of your six friends" should be "remains of your five friends" (mission exit popup)

[FIXED] Continuity: "last six heroes" should be "last five heroes" (debriefing)

[FIXED] Continuity: "last six" should be "last five", "six SOLUS survivors" should be "five" (souvenir)

[+0.1] Ending is tragic and moving.

[5.09] at end of mission 5.

Overall
A well-polished, well-written and moving story. Everything I had commented on critically before seems fixed; found a few quibbles with some of the new material, but nothing serious.

Rounding 5.09 off, I gave this arc 5 stars on re-review.



----

My queue is now:

@LaserJesus - Made To Wave the Flag #384776 (H45-54)
@Aracade - 30 Minute Hero #386310 (H10-20)
@K'aji - The Star-Dwellers #380417 (N6-14)
@Gypsy Rose - Don't Freak #384769 (H20-54)
@Niklarus - A Scandal in Paragon City #392334 (N20-26)

I fixed my mission all up can you try Sistherhood again?

Number 123426

PW, thank you very much for your kind words. Not to be dismissive of other reviewers, but this 5.09 means an awful lot. I'll fix the Billy Bad Boy clue title, Cap's clue, and McKnight's glance at Billy ASAP. As for this...

"Don't understand: Why does Empathy leave and Dr Lexis stay to help the player? Wouldn't it make more sense the other way around, since Empathy is the hero and the character we are supposed to build up (pardon the expression) empathy for, while Dr Lexis is a civilian?"

Both characters are super-powered with an empathy base. Empathy is the last surviving member of the SOLUS Collective that can keep her teammates healed. Her place is with her teammates and husband and she understandably leaves to be with them once the cavalry arrives. Dr. Lexis is the MASH unit coordinator and her place is with the unit, seeing to the evacuation. She'll stay with the sinking ship.

In any case, thank you... again... very much. Your input has been more valuable than you know.

I played "Teen Phalanx" and "Flower Knight Task Force" today.

It would be great if you could review "The Warburg Connection" (#364832) and "Arena" (#390921).

Thanks!

Made to Wave the Flag review
Arc ID: 384776
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Horror, Drama
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 45-54
Warnings: EBs, custom power selections.

The premise is that you are on a hero team trying to escape a Malta facility. Had a false start on a 44 katana/willpower scrapper, but after finding out what the arc's concept was, I switched to a 50 fire/thermal controller with moderate IO slotting (mix of +range DEF and +rchg bonuses totalling +24% range DEF and +21% rchg). This was mostly for concept reasons; my controller is a patriotic themed character whose origin story began in a lab, so seemed a good fit for this story. Set to +0 x1 difficulty, no AVs. The contact is a computer.

[5.0] points to start.

Mission 1
Briefing: it appears that I've been captured and am under heavy sedation in some sort of medical lab. But some kind of crisis has disrupted the routine, giving me an opportunity for escape.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Ah, it's stirring" -> "Ah, $heshe's stirring" (I wondered if maybe the player is intentionally referred to as "it" to dehumanize her, but I think it would be more involving to use the correct pronoun.)

Send-off message: a hero appears to have rescued me and fills me in on the situation.

[+0.1] Writing: really cool introduction to the scenario. Love the "Escape from Sector 17!" mission title too.

Inside the mission, I soon encounter and rescue Beachhead from Malta. He gives me the "Beachhead explains the situation" clue and becomes a boss level ally.

Found and rescued Professor Improbable. I like the lines he's given, they fit well with his concept. Actually, all the dialog so far has been pretty good.

[+0.1] Like the dialog of both the Malta and the prisoners.

[-0.01] Typo: "Founder's Falls" -> "Founders' Falls" (in Professor Improbable's description)

Found and rescued War Shaman.

[-0.01] Typo: "chose Nathaniel as it's host" -> "chose Nathaniel as its host" (in War Shaman's description)

Found Labyrinth Black 1-0-1, who says:

[NPC] Labyrinth Black 1-0-1: I want this placed locked down now! Security teams, get moving! I want all subjects in custody ASAP!

[-0.01] Typo: "this placed locked down" -> "this place locked down"

Defeating Labyrinth Black 1-0-1 gives me the "Security codes" clue.



Backtracking a bit, I found and rescued Corona, which finished the mission. On mission complete I get the "We're not even human to them." clue, which is nicely written.

[+0.1] Writing: "We're not even human to them" clue.

Debriefing shows a neat scene where the heroes are regrouping after the mission.

[-0.01] Involvement: the scene describes all four of the NPC heroes interacting, but never mentions the player character, who is theoretically also present. I think it should involve the player (though maybe in a small way, though, to avoid angering players who hate character hijacking). I only rated this -0.01 as it is rather nitpicky.

[5.25] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: wait, what? I'm strapped to a table now? What happened to our escape?

[-0.1] Confusing: this briefing does not seem to logically follow from the previous mission. (Written later: after playing it, the flashback does seem cool, but the story needs to more smoothly transition to the flashback.)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "the restraints making only making the sensation worse" -> "the restraints only making the sensation worse" (drop one of the uses of "making") (in send-off message)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "you think you can hear the National Anthem play" -> "you think you can hear the National Anthem playing"

In the mission, I have the nebulous goal of "Save America from fascism". I guess we'll see what this means. This still does not seem to logically follow from mission 1; I assume it is a flashback of some sort.

The mission is suspiciously empty. Exploring a bit, I find a couple of level 4 5th Column in the "Nazis" enemy group, guarding a hostage named "World War II" that is in a "Doctor O'Brien" group. I trivially crush the 5th Column due to being level 50 and "World War II" becomes a lieutenant level ally. This also triggers "Save America from communism" as an objective.

In a similar manner, my fire imps tear apart some level 16 Spetznaz Commandos, which rescues a hostage named "The Cold War" who praises me for destroying Communism and becomes a new lieutenant level ally. This also triggers "Save America from alien invaders" as an objective.

I then smash some level 40 Rikti to rescue "The Rikti Invasion". Interestingly, this triggers "Save America from the Malta Group". A hostile Doctor O'Brien spawned right next to me and my fire imps immediately aggro'd on him, causing all the allies I had rescued up to this point to betray and attack me. An ambush of more Doctor O'Briens shows up to attack me at the same time. Very surreal.

Defeating the boss Doctor O'Brien completes "Save America from the Malta Group" and the mission.

[-0.1] Needs some clues: This is a cool sequence but is somewhat baffling. Could use at least one clue explaining what the player should make of this; perhaps one clue when the player "decides" to Save America from the Malta Group, maybe another one on mission complete.

[-0.1] Gameplay: killing grey mobs is too easy and awards no exp. Is there any reason we can't use level 50 5th Column and Rikti? I know there's no level 50 Spetnaz, but perhaps a custom character or a recolored Council/Council Empire would work for them. I realize this arc is not really about fighting mobs, but I still think you will get players who will complain if they have to fight grey mobs.

An idea, not sure if you can work it in: after the player Saves America from the Rikti Invasion, perhaps she should have the objective to Save America from Meta-Humans. Then perhaps there's an encounter with a hero being guarded by Malta, and theoretically Dr. O'Brien wants you to gank the hero, but "you" decide "this is all wrong!!" and kill the Malta, free the hero, and then trigger Save America from the Malta Group. Anyway, just a thought.

Mission exit popup confirms that the entire mission was a flashback to a Malta conditioning session.

Debriefing: the other 4 heroes are arming themselves with assault rifles, except some that refuse to use guns. Still think the player should be more involved with these vignettes.

I was quite confused as to why the 4 NPC heroes were de-powered but the player character (me) was not. Re-reading my clues and trying to remember the mission 1 briefing I suspect that maybe they were about to depower me, but got interrupted. This still could use some more clarification though.

[-0.01] Confusing: need a little more explanation for why I have powers and the NPC heroes do not. I originally marked this -0.1 but there's enough little bits that I kinda can guess at the reason, but I still think it could be made more clear, preferably in the clues, for people who don't catch that earlier.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Beachhead's assault rifle makes a clicking sound as he loads it" is rather awkwardly phrased; "a clicking sound" is insufficiently dramatic. Suggest you rephrase this. Perhaps "Beachhead loads his rifle and chambers a round with a loud CLACK."

[-0.01] Capitalization: "Everyone, Move out!" should be "Everyone, move out!" or "Everyone! Move out!"

[4.90] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: Beachhead goes into extensive exposition about the info we found in the security console.

[-0.1] Don't understand: why isn't Beachhead the contact instead of the computer? Possibly Dr. O'Brien would make sense as contact, too. We have very little interaction with the Lab Terminal, really, while Beachhead gives us tons of info in the "main timeline" missions and O'Brien has all the dialog in the "flashback" missions.

[-0.01] Involvement: would be a little better if the exposition Beachhead gives here was actually part of the clues gathered from the security console. Then the player could learn this info on their own rather than receiving an info dump from Beachhead.

It seems the plan is for the heroes to split up. What Could Go Wrong? Beachhead and I are going after the main generator, while the others go after a sub to use as an escape vehicle.

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: why wouldn't we all go after a sub, rather than splitting up like this? What benefit do we gain by taking out the power generators? (It's not like they are running a tractor beam, right?) I'm also kind of dubious about our prospects of linking up with the others after causing an explosion that generates a lot of rubble and turns off all the lights. Unless this is a suicide mission, which I suppose it could be.

[-0.01] Phrasing: I initially read "A- anyhow" as "A minus anyhow" which was a little confusing. Perhaps delete the space to make it "A-anyhow" or just make it "Anyhow".

Inside the mission, "I" decide to deviate from the plan by gathering evidence to use against Malta later on. Seems risky to go off mission if our friends are counting on us to take out the power generators, but I'll go with it for now.

I quickly find Beachhead (he had no guards) and he links up as a Boss ally.

We locate a backup generator and destroy it. Or rather, I destroy it; Beachhead is following me but doesn't seem to help. (I think he's on defensive, I opened with an AoE stun so none of the Malta hit us; he helped in a later fight where some Malta shot at me first.) Destroyed a couple more backup generators after that.

Found a "Spare chemical storage" glowy which gave me "Anti-meta drug" as a clue.

Found a "Database terminal" glowy which gave me "File on Metahuman Assets" as a clue.

Found the last backup generator and destroyed it.

Found an "Active Terminal" glowy which gave me "Notes on captured metahumans" as a clue.

[-0.01] Inconsistent: capitalization of "Database terminal" and "Active Terminal" isn't consistent (terminal vs Terminal). I suggest you pick one way you prefer to capitalize the names of things and use it consistently. Likewise "Notes on captured metahumans" versus "File on Metahuman Assets" are capitalized differently. (Somewhat nitpicky, admittedly.)

Found Subject 36 and defeated him. He was actually quite an interesting encounter with good dialog. I particularly liked the way "File on Metahuman Assets" foreshadowed his appearance. 36 was only a lieutenant for me, no doubt due to my low difficulty settings.



[+0.1] Cool encounter: Subject 36 (good foreshadowing, dialog, concept)

Defeating 36 completed the mission. This was a little puzzling to me as I thought we were supposed to rig the main generator to blow up; I guess it is implied that we do so, but it still feels awkward considering we actually blow up the backup generators, but do nothing specific for the main generator.

[-0.1] Need some sort of objective to represent rigging the main generator to blow, beyond just defeating the boss. (Written later: later briefings/debriefings show Beachhead trying to rig the generator to blow up, but this wasn't clear to me at the time mission 3 completed. Needs to be more clearly explained.)

[4.67] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: apparently I space out and have another flashback. Wow, I'm really flaky. I blame the sedatives. Dr. O'Brien tries to tell me that civilians are evil. I always suspected there was something evil about civilians....I still remember how they just push me out of the way when walking on the sidewalk....grrrr!

[-0.01] Wording: "Sometimes they are implicit in the crimes" -> "Sometimes they are complicit in the crimes" (implicit is something else) (in briefing)

[-0.01] Typo: "Its only a matter of time" -> "It's only a matter of time" (in send-off message)

Inside the mission I'm in Atlas Park, apparently programmed to assassinate a senator. From my zone in point I can see a number of Doctor O'Brien clones named morale boosting things like "Your one true friend in this world" and "A friend you can trust". I like the red color coding for all the info I presumably am getting as a result of brainwashing.

After some searching I find a Traitorous Civilian guarded by Longbow. I'm actually trying to think of some way I can let the Traitorous Civilian go (resisting the Malta brainwashing), but alas, my fire imps have a different idea in mind. They end up mauling the senator, which causes the mission to fail. I think maybe I was supposed to lead her out. Oops. Curse you, fire imps!!

[-0.1] Gameplay: This mission really didn't have enough to do in it. There were some Dr O'Brien's goading me, sure, but ultimately it was just a single spawn on a medium-sized outdoor map. Needs more to fight, more to do ... more something.

Debriefing: I snap out of the flashback and Beachhead is there again. He sends me to reinforce Corona down by the ship. He's going to stay behind to guard the generator...which we've rigged to blow. I still don't get why this is necessary, but already complained about that enough.

[-0.01] Doesn't make sense: wouldn't it make more sense for me to stay and guard the generator and get blown up? Since I'm the one that still has super powers, and can probably use my powers to avoid dying. Or I could at least insist on staying with him so I can rez the poor guy. (Only marking off -0.01 instead of -0.1 since Beachhead is making a heroic sacrifice for story reasons.)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Thinking about what they did you you again?" -> "Thinking about what they did to you again?" in mission fail dialog.

[4.53] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
Briefing: I arrive at Corona and Improbable's location and there is a lengthy scene where it's revealed that Beachhead has perished and War Chief has "rushed on ahead" and maybe got himself killed.

[-0.1] Continuity error: this briefing twice mentions a character named "War Chief", but in previous missions this character was referred to as "War Shaman". (Marked off -0.1 instead of -0.01 because this is the name of a major character in the story.)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Corona shoots a sharp glare at him" very awkward phrasing considering it is right after she says "I don't want to shoot anyone anymore." Rephrase to something not involving shoot, like "Corona glares at him sharply."

[+0.1] Writing: This is a really good scene.

Inside the mission, the mission is called "Secure the submarine port and escape the island!" but my only objective initially is "Find out what happened to War Shaman".

[-0.1] Don't understand: Finding out what happened to War Shaman sounds meritorious, but why don't I have objectives like "Secure submarine" or "Escape", or even "Find Corona, Find Dr. Improbable"? They all seem like logical things I should be doing.

Found War Shaman (not War Chief) guarded by some Malta.

[-0.01] Animation: War Shaman should be in a captured animation; currently he looks like he's in a default animation.

After rescuing him, War Shaman joins me as a Boss ally and triggers "Find the lockdown code" as an objective.

Found Labyrinth White 2-0-2, a named Malta who says:


[NPC] Labyrinth White 2-0-2: That damn screen even plays on backup power? That Recluse guy is sure full of himself. Why haven't we gotten rid of that thing yet?

[-0.01] Minor continuity error: we blew up both main and multiple backup power generators. There should be no backup power to run the Recluse screen.

Defeating Labyrinth White 2-0-2 completed the "Find the lockdown code" objective; it's not immediately clear why until I notice the system text on defeating him.

[-0.01] Could use a clue representing lockdown code (much like we got "Security codes" in mission 1). (Kinda nitpicky, so only marked off -0.01)

Clicking the computer satisfies "override the lockdown" but then triggers "Defeat Doctor O'Brien". Again, some system text appears mentioning Doctor O'Brien but it is very easy to miss this.

[-0.01] Could use a clue mentioning Doctor O'Brien at this point. (Kinda nitpicky, so only marked off -0.01)

Doctor O'Brien spawned very close by with one Malta lackey and I beat him up with fire imps. This didn't satisfy the "Defeat Doctor O'Brien" objective. Searched around a bit and found a second Malta lackey hiding about fifty feet away; killing him completed the objective and the mission and gave me the "War Shaman speaks" clue. Consider making Dr. O'Brien "only boss required", the funky nature of the final room of this map is likely to make his spawn get spread out too easily.

[+0.1] Continuity: Liked that Subject 36 isn't forgotten, and is mentioned as being carried out with us in the mission exit popup.

Debriefing: we make our escape and are picked up by Agent Indigo.

[-0.1] Ending a little underwhelming: "We've been watching this base, good work escaping"?? This seemed a little anticlimactic for the end of the story. Not quite sure what to suggest, but it feels like this needs something more.

Souvenir is pretty short but I kinda like it.

[+0.1] Souvenir: Liked the line about "ready to fulfill a promise".

[+0.1] Good characterization: Really liked the characterization for the NPC heroes, Beachhead, Corona, Dr. Improbable and War Shaman/War Chief. They each had their own voice and personality.

[4.58] at end of mission 5.

Overall
I thought this was a really neat story about escaping a secret Malta prison/lab. It had great characters and writing. Missions 2 and 4, and maybe 5, could use more action (i.e. fighting) and the ending could use a little work. The first transition to a flashback scene was a little awkward, but I thought alternating between current time and flashbacks to re-education was actually pretty cool; the transition just needs to be made a little more seamless.

Rounding 4.58 up, I gave this arc 5 stars.

----

My queue is now:

@Aracade - 30 Minute Hero #386310 (H10-20)
@K'aji - The Star-Dwellers #380417 (N6-14)
@Gypsy Rose - Don't Freak #384769 (H20-54)
@Niklarus - A Scandal in Paragon City #392334 (N20-26)
@Delightful Dolly - Sisterhood #123426 (H40-54) re-review
@FredrikSvanberg - The Warburg Connection #364832 (V30-40)
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@FredrikSvanberg - Arena #390921 (V40-54)

Thanks for the review! Now the obligatory explanations:

Places where there really should be clues: I agree. There actually were more during the process of making the arc, but I bumped up against the space limit hard. Damn formatting. The last mission especially had me cursing the filesize limit as I left it woefully under-detailed. When the filesize gets increased, this is the first thing that I'll be addressing for sure.

Inconsistencies: I'll level with you and say that this arc was written over the course of 6 months. Many things were probably forgotten by me over that period of time. I'm really embarrassed by the War Shaman gaffe though.

Grey-cons: The idea there is that the weak enemies are a metaphor for Malta's worldview, specifically the idea that nothing can beat America. They would have you believe that World War II was won with no effort on the part of the American military, and that the Soviets were defeated by the Americans as a matter of course.

The traitorous civilian cons grey because in order to get a civilian that doesn't have insane glowing eyes, psychic powers, claws, Nemesis guns, etc, I have to use the Crazed. Speaking of her, I did not even think of how pets would affect that fight. The "real" objective is to lead her out, at which point you get a new objective to break free of the conditioning, in white, which is a boss spawn of the Doctor O'Brien figment surrounded by his Lt. and Minion versions, who has speech indicating his increasing frustration with his inability to break you, followed with a pop-up on mission exit describing him giving you repeated electrical shocks out of anger. The return dialogue is the same for both succeeding and failing.

That mission was also supposed to have way more friendly Doctor O'Brien spawns, by the way. They were the first to get axed when I ran out of space. They were originally surrounded by full spawns of Doctor O'Briens named "Your Friend" but the color formatting in descriptions apparently doesn't work unless it's in a specific boss spawn.

Power Generator: The idea is that the redundant generators are all part of the same "main generator" system. It's not that you're taking out 3 backup generators and 1 main generator, it's that you're taking out 4 cells of a main generator. The first 3 can just be smashed because you just want them to not work so the base's computer can't offload the energy overload to the other cells. Each area of the base will have its own smaller generator to run backup power.

The reason for doing it was to create a distraction so the escape would be easier. Obviously splitting up is a terrible idea, but if everything went smoothly there'd be no tension. There's also the fact that writing dialogue for 4 characters at once in such a small area is mind-numbingly difficult, and having the player haul around 4 boss level allies (even ones who just have brawl, that hits a lot harder than you'd expect when a boss uses it) could easily frustrate people.

Contact: The idea is that the Lab Computer is just a piece of scenery that's a touchstone for all of the missions, instead of an object that you're physically interacting with. The idea is that there is no contact, just events happening in real time (excluding flashbacks). The computer looks much nicer than the default green circuit man, in my opinion.

All in all, I'm glad you enjoyed the story, and really happy you felt the characters were fully fleshed out. That was one of my two major concerns, the other being how well the presentation worked. The second one needs work, but I was wholly expecting that to happen. Completely throwing away the standard method of storytelling in the game and trying something completely different is bound to have some hurdles to get over.

Thanks for the feedback!

30 Minute Hero review
Arc ID: 386310
Keywords: Challenging, Solo Friendly, Sci-Fi
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 10-20
Warnings: EBs

The arc description is just "Sometimes, 30 minutes can last a life time." I cannot tell anything about the story based on this; maybe it has a lot of timed missions? Anyway, I played a level 15 MA/ninj stalker at default difficulty.

[5.0] points to start.

[-0.1] Arc description: needs to be more descriptive. Currently it tells nothing about the story. You need to have something here that says something about the story, some sort of hook to make casual players who read the description curious enough to try the story arc.

The contact is a recolored civilian by the name of Dr. Ryga.

Mission 1
Briefing: a mysterious woman runs up to me and begs for help, then collapses.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Get her out the road" should be "Get her out of the road" (mission accept message)

Accepting the mission gave me the "Dig Site Address" clue.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "In all likely hoods" should be "In all likelihood" (send off message)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "There are people endanger" -> "There are people in danger" (send off message)

I kinda wish I knew more about what I was getting into, but the woman did gasp out that people were being attacked at this dig site, and I suppose that is really enough to get a hero to help.

[-0.01] Objectives: "3 Survivors to find..." should omit the trailing ellipsis, it doesn't work with the comma right after it.

Inside the mission, I find it is full of Gold Brickers. I rescued Digger Daniels from some of them; he counts as one of the survivors.

I found 2 Researcher Body glowies; each one counted as a survivor, but they are actually dead bodies.

[-0.01] Objectives: "3 Survivors to find" maybe should be "3 Diggers to find" (since some are already dead, so can't count as a Survivor)

Clicking a patch of debris labeled "Broken Artifact", I got the "(Optional) Broken Artifacts" clue.



Found and defeated Raid Leader, who gave me "Odd Compass" as a clue and completed the mission. The description of the compass makes me immediately wonder if it's an alethiometer.

Debriefing: doh! it's not an alethiometer, it's a time machine! And I'm stuck in a time loop.

[4.85] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: the events of mission 1's briefing repeat, but with slightly different wording and the woman says a little more before collapsing.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "It was all happening again all the way down to the paper yet. In your hand was not only the paper but the compass from before." is awkwardly phrased; suggest rephrasing to something like "The woman hands you the paper with the address on it again. It was all happening again, just like before...except this time you have the odd compass in your hand."

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Before she couldn't say more her exhausted body finally gave out on her" is awkwardly phrased (and kinda makes it sound like she dies); suggst rephrasing to "Before she could say any more, she collapses from exhaustion."

[-0.01] Spelling: "interrorgation" -> "interrogation" (in briefing)

[-0.1] Don't understand: why is there a time limit on this mission? We have a time machine now, after all.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Get her out the road, again" -> "Get her out of the road, again" (mission accept)

Inside the mission, it appears it's identical to mission 1, with exactly the same objectives, only with a 15 minute time limit.

[-0.01] Typo: "the sent of blood" -> "the scent of blood" (in mission entry popup)

This time I find a different hostage, Dr. Alexander.

[-0.01] Typo: "Has a bit of and anger management problem" -> "Has a bit of an anger management problem" (in Dr. Alexander's description)

I end up rescuing him. I clicked a "Rubble" glowy that did nothing, then an "Ancient Tablet" glowy that gave me "(Optional) Short History of The Angel's Compass" as a clue.

[-0.01] Formatting: "(Optional) Short History of The Angel's Compass" is too long a title to fit in the default clue title bar. Suggest you make it shorter, e.g. "(Optional) A History Lesson" or something similar.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "700 Years ago give or take a few years." is not a complete sentence and is a little awkward anyway. I suggest you rephrase it and combine it with the next sentence, e.g., "700 years ago, a woman people believed was an angel..." I think you can drop the "give or take a few years" part, people understand that about dates 700 years ago. (in (Optional) Short History of The Angel's Compass)

Found another Rubble glowy that did nothing.

Rescued Digger Daniels and Dr. Ameila Stride. Stride says:

[NPC] Dr. Ameila Stride: Thank you, thank you.... I will forever worship the ground you stand... THANK YOU!

[-0.01] Phrasing: "I will forever worship the ground you stand" -> "I will forever worship the ground on which you stand" (in Dr. Ameila Stride's dialog).

The name "Ameila" boggled me and I spent some time researching whether it was a valid name (I thought maybe it was a misspelling of Amelia). It does seem to be, but I forgot about the time limit while I was doing this, and ran out of the time, failing the mission.

Fail debriefing: decent summary, suggesting maybe I missed out on some info, but this time the people got saved instead of killed.

[4.66] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: still stuck in a time loop. This time I only have 10 minutes to do the mission?

[-0.1] Don't understand: why does the time limit keep getting shorter? I think there must be some reason for this, but it's not clear to me why. The story claims that "I" notice I only have this much time left, so I definitely should know why.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Grabbing her and setting her to the side to rest." is not a complete sentence. Should be something like "You grab her and set her to the side to rest." Or merge with the previous sentence to make "you didn't wait for her to collapse, instead grabbing her and setting her to the side to rest."

[-0.01] Phrasing: "take note of the amount of time" should be "you take note of the amount of time"

Send-off message: for some reason this reads like the first time; I look at the paper, I find an address, it's where the dig site is located, etc. But I know all this already, so this doesn't seem right.

[-0.1] Continuity: Send off message doesn't seem right considering this is my third iteration of the time loop.

[-0.01] Typo: "its where the dig site is located" -> "it's where the dig site is located" (in send off)

[-0.01] Typo: "people endanger" -> "people in danger" (in send off)

Rescued Dr. Alexander again, seemed to have the same dialog.

Rescued Digger Danials again.

[-0.01] Typo: "Danials" -> "Daniels" (think it was "Daniels" in previous missions)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "I will forever worship the ground you stand" -> "I will forever worship the ground on which you stand" (Stride's dialog, again)

Found and defeated Raid Leader, completing the mission.

[-0.1] Repetitive: This mission seemed exactly like the last one, only with a shorter time limit? I'm not at all clear on why it was necessary to do this again? I don't *think* I've learned anything new on this iteration of the time loop.

Debriefing: "one problem dealt with"? "rush to reach the meeting point"?

[-0.1] Don't understand: the debriefing doesn't make any sense in this context.

[4.20] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: we have 5 minutes left to do....something? I now think maybe we completed mission 3 so fast in order to squeeze in whatever we're doing in mission 4. Something to break the loop.

[+0.1] Cool premise: OK, now that I understand what is going on, this IS a neat idea. (Still needs more explanation earlier on.)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "a cave that rest at the edge of city limits" -> "a cave that rests at the edge of the city limits" (in Briefing)

[-0.01] Typo: "ageing" -> "aging" (in Briefing)

[-0.01] Objectives: "Defeat the Magi" ... how do I know a Magi is responsible? In the mission briefing I only had "stop what or whoever is causing this loop in time". I suggest you make your objective simply "Stop whatever or whoever".


You have gained a point of skill in Monologuing!

Inside the mission I find Arch-Mage Chronas. There's tons of neat looking glowies surrounding him, but conscious of the 5 minute time limit, I focus on beating Chronas, and I manage to beat him before time runs out. I did sneak some time in to look at Chronas' description.

[+0.1] Chronas has a very cool background story. (I like the various glowies giving clues that help explain the full story too.)

After the fight I took some time to inspect the Urn (gives Destroyed Urn clue), Rubble (gives Destroyed Statue clue), Sealed Case (gives Imprisoned Voice clue), Chest (A Torn Wing), Strange Altar (Repeating History), Pile of Books (The Angel's Gift).

[-0.01] Phrasing: "makes it impossible to for you to open" -> "makes it impossible for you to open" (in Imprisoned Voice)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "All that gathered energy erupted but not as a flash of light but as a beam into the air and into a ripping a large hole in the fabric of reality" is very awkwardly phrased (in mission exit popup). Suggest rephrasing to something like "All the gathered energy erupts into a glowing beam that momentarily rips a hole in the fabric of reality."

[-0.01] Unresolved plot element: A hole just got torn in the fabric of reality? That can't be good. (Should maybe state that it naturally closes or fades away.)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "found away to control time" -> "found a way to control time"

[-0.01] Phrasing: "There is no telling the ending result of the Mage" is awkward, suggest "There is no knowing what became of the Mage".

[-0.1] Unresolved plot element: what ended up happening to the unconscious woman that started the arc by asking for help? And the various people encountered at the dig? What was the story with the Goldbrickers, were they hired agents of the mage? Need some closure to these loose plot threads.

[4.22] at end of mission 4.

Overall
I started off with the feeling that this was Yet Another Time Loop story, but I really liked the back story of Chronas and the Angel, though ultimately nearly all of that is found out only in the very last mission. Of the time looped missions, mission 2 seemed different enough from mission 1 to feel worthwhile, but mission 3 really seemed repetitive (though maybe that was the point of a time loop). It took me awhile to figure out why we're trying to do the time loop faster and faster each time; time travel is kind of confusing, and I think this could benefit from some more explanation so the player can follow what is happening. I liked the end of Chronas's story, but would've liked to know what happened to the various other characters we encountered, too.

Rounding 4.22 off, I gave this arc 4 stars.

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My queue is now:

@K'aji - The Star-Dwellers #380417 (N6-14)
@Gypsy Rose - Don't Freak #384769 (H20-54)
@Niklarus - A Scandal in Paragon City #392334 (N20-26)
@Delightful Dolly - Sisterhood #123426 (H40-54) re-review
@FredrikSvanberg - The Warburg Connection #364832 (V30-40)
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@FredrikSvanberg - Arena #390921 (V40-54)