I'll try yours if you'll try mine

I played your arc "Attack of the 50 Foot Villain". It was tons of fun and very creative. For anyone who has not played and wants a really fun one mission arc, I highly recommend it.

I could not find a thread for it so I posted here.

In return, I would like you to review a my new version of The Greater Good. I am not sure if you ever reviewed the previous version. I couldn't find it in your thread. This arc was written for the first Aeon challange, and as such had an extremely limited audience that might enjoy it. Because of that I decided to take my framework and redo it in a way that I hope more people might enjoy. It could really use your input.

It is not the one in my signature. When you get a chance, please review my new arc:

The Greater Good
395861
@Gypsy Rose

Thanks

Thank you for the review, higher then what I was expecting.

Spelling and Grammar have never been my strongest subjects.

It's hard trying to establish that all this is happening in a 30 minute frame. That and the Compass doesn't control time but allows the holder to go uneffected by it. IF there was a way to link missions under a single a timer I would do that but I'm pretty much limted to what I could mention in text form.

It's 4/10/2010, and it was a year ago today that I started this thread and started doing arc reviews. A year is a pretty long time and I think I'm ready for a break.

I feel like I've accomplished my initial goals for creating this thread, which were:
* To get some people to try my story arcs and get useful feedback for them.
* To find some fun story arcs for me to try out.
* To help other people make their story arcs more cool.

With that in mind, I'm going to be closing my queue to further submissions. I'll finish reviewing the arcs already in my queue, however. After that, I'm thinking of starting up some new (but different) MA project. (I do still like MA, after all.)

Thank you for your work, and being one of the high points of my MA experiences.

The Star-Dwellers review
Arc ID: 380417
Morality: Neutral
Level range: 6-14
Warnings: AVs, EBs, custom power selections

The premise is a 1930s adventure with the Midnight Squad investigating a mad pulp author. I played a level 9 archery/em blaster at default difficulty. The contact is a custom character, a distinguished looking man in a formal suit.

[5.0] points to start.

Mission 1
Briefing: the contact affects a pretty good English manner of speaking, and asks me to help a member of the Midnight Squad, a writer who has "run afoul of the local hooligans" by failing to pay his bar bill.

[+0.1] Fun briefing.

[-0.01] Typo: "suprise" -> "surprise" (send off)

[-0.01] Typo: "cux of the problem" -> "crux of the problem" (send off)

This doesn't seem particularly epic as tasks go, but it's a low level arc, so I'm willing to go with it.

Inside the mission, I confront Nicky Fingers, who apparently is running this speakeasy.



[-0.1] Continuity error: Nicky Fingers (and all the other Mooks) appear to have the default Mooks description, which refers to Governor Marcone and Guido 'the Mooch' Verandi. This description can't work for this story arc, which is set in 1931, Prohibition-era America. Possibly they should have enemy group and background story to match their role as members of the "Trillo mob".

Found and rescued Philip Ashton Howard. He says:

[NPC] Philip Ashton Howard: I am a scholar and bookseller - what pittance do you expect me to use to pay this debt?!
[NPC] Philip Ashton Howard: AAAAH! Help me!!
[NPC] Philip Ashton Howard: Thank you for your help. I don't think they're done, though - they'll probably head to my shop!

I like the first line, but the second and third lines really need to be written in the rather antiquated style affected by H.P. Lovecraft (or perhaps R.E. Howard), to be a little more evocative. (Very nitpicky.)

Rescuing Howard completed the mission and gave me the "Act 1" clue, which seems to better match the Lovecraft style.

Debriefing seems neat too.

[4.98] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: the contact wants me to pick up an old book at Howard's shop, to keep it from falling into the hands of the Mooks (err, Trillo mob). What could go wrong?

[-0.01] Objectives: one of my objectives is "Defeat Bald Tony" but Bald Tony isn't mentioned in the briefing at all, so not quite sure why I know this is needed. (Suggest either mentioning him or rephrasing to "Defeat Mook boss" or something similarly generic)

I beat up some mooks and clicked on some Bookshelf and Bookcase glowies that didn't seem to have the right book.

(Got dragged off to a team at this point. By the time I got back, I was a level 12 arch/em blaster. Reran mission 1 quickly to get back to where I was)



Beat up Bald Tony and found the safe containing the "Act 2: Cuirach Manuscript" clue.

Debriefing: the contact seems extremely happy that the manuscript has been recovered....suspiciously gleeful, I might say.

[4.97] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: some pages are missing from the Cuirach Manuscript; the pages have some especially dangerous info on them, so we need to find them.

[-0.1] Don't understand: "Most likely, we can find them at a dockside warehouse"? The narrative lost me here; what makes us think the missing pages just happen to be in a warehouse?

Inside the mission, ten lines of dialog instantly appear as I zone in. Battles between Mooks of the "Trillo mob" and Cultists of "Circle of Thorns - 1931", it seems.

Found a Box that seemed to be a false glowy, and a couple Crates that counted towards the pages objective.

From a distance I heard Ma Trillo speaking some lines of dialog; she called an ambush before I even got to her. When I found Ma Trillo (a +0 lieutenant for me), she was slightly wounded. I think she must've somehow tangled with some CoT that fought her group. While I fought her, she called another ambush, this time of CoT.


So then I shot the little old lady. She was a mob boss, I swear!

[-0.1] Inconsistent: Ma Trillo first fought some CoT, then talked about working with them, then summoned a CoT ambush. Are the Mooks and CoT friends or enemies? Seems to be both in this mission.

Leveled to 13 fighting Ma Trillo and her ambushes.

Found 2 desks that each gave me another page, then another crate that gave me the last page and completed the mission. Got "Act 3: The Lost Pages" at the end of the mission, that mentions something about the names of stars taken from the evil tome.

[4.77] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: so supposedly everything is all taken care of now and we're just going to the club to have some tea. Yeah, right.

[-0.01] Typo: "Cruiarch Manuscript" (in briefing) should be "Cuirach Manuscript" (to match earlier spelling)

[-0.01] Typo: "Mighnighters Club" -> "Midnighter Club"

Seems weird to call Philip Howard just "Phil" in this briefing (he is called Philip everywhere else), but this is very nitpicky.

They really have the same password in 1931 as they do in 2010? Well, I suppose it could be traditional.

[-0.01] Inconsistent: mission entry popup describes a huge crowd of people socializing, but the map is actually quite empty of people and Sir Bradford even says "Such a low turnout". (I do eventually run into a patrol of Midnight Squad with some dialog, but the place still seems pretty low population compared to the popup dialog.)

[-0.1] Objectives: "Retrieve the Cuirach Manuscript from storage" is in my objectives, but was never mentioned in my briefing and nothing I know suggests that I should steal it (or take it for safekeeping). So why is this my objective? Based on the briefing, I should be looking for Sir Bryce to have some tea.


Nice place you've got here.

In the conference table room, I do find Sir Bryce and he has some dialog when I get near him, which was nice. Near him is a big display case labeled "Cuirach Manuscript" which I suppose I should be taking.

[-0.01] Missing text: the progress bar when clicking the Cuirach Manuscript is completely blank.

After clicking the manuscript, I now have the objective "Gather the lost Manuscript pages".

[-0.1] Don't understand: why do I need to gather the lost pages again? I just did that in the previous mission. Maybe this mission is making me the person who actually repairs the book? If so, this needs to be clearer. Needs more explanation. Perhaps add some clues, or make it clearer in the briefing that he expects me to restore the book. (The briefing does mention repairing the book, but didn't give me the impression I was supposed to do it.)

In one of the side storerooms, I find a box labeled "Lost Pages".

[-0.01] Missing text: the progress bar when clicking the Lost Pages is completely blank.

Once I get the Lost Pages I now have an objective called "Restore the Cuirach Manuscript". There is no clue as to how I should do this, so I end up just searching around the Midnighter Club looking for something new.

This objective chain is requiring a moderate amount of backtracking, though the area of the map that everything occurs in is relatively small, so it isn't too bad.

Back in the conference room I find a "Restoration Desk", which I click.

[-0.01] Missing text: the progress bar when clicking the Restoration Desk is completely blank.

After clicking the desk, I hear some dialog from Cultists and Ma Trillo and now have "Fight off the attackers!" as a goal. Sir Bradford and I battle a CoT patrol that roamed up to me and I can hear Ma Trillo fighting that Midnighter patrol.

Heading back a bit further, I find Ma Trillo, this time a boss with some summoned zombies. While fighting her, she summons a Mook ambush, also, but I narrowly manage to defeat her. In her dialog she expositions that she's already learned a lot from Baron Zoria.

Completing the mission gives me the "Act 4/Intermission: The Restored Cuirach Manuscript" clue.

[-0.01] Clue name is much too long, it doesn't fit in the text box (on my screen it gets cut off at "Cuirach Man").

[-0.01] Phrasing: "the names' importance is clear" should be "the names' importance are clear", or perhaps "the importance of the names becomes clear". (in Act 4/Intermission clue)

[-0.01] Typo: "dwel" -> "dwell" (in Act 4/Intermission clue)

[-0.01] Typo: "Midnighters' Club" -> "Midnighter Club" (in mission exit popup)

Hey, I never got that cup of tea, either! Aww. (Nitpicky)

The idea of restoring the manuscript (in a downtime mission) and then battling the CoT invaders is kind of neat. I think it needs to be a little better explained, though.

[4.47] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
Briefing: The CoT have kidnapped Philip, and Sir Bradford wants me to help perform some ritual to find him.

It's a little confusing that this is labeled "Act IV" when it's mission 5, but mission 4 was the intermission, so I suppose this works.

[-0.01] Typo: ephermal -> ephemeral (in send-off)

[-0.1] Confusing: Sir Bradford performs a "Ritual of Seeking", then the mission title is itself "Stop the Ritual!" Am I supposed to be stopping Sir Bradford's Ritual? Or some sort of CoT ritual? My guess is that I'm here to stop a CoT ritual, but the briefing mentions the Ritual of Seeking and never mentions a CoT ritual (our ostensible purpose is to rescue Philip), so it's presented in a rather confusing way.

Inside the mission, I found Sir Bradford Bryce, only with glowing white eyes, guarded by CoT. He has some cryptic dialog as I rescue him. I'm guessing he's been possessed by the demon he summoned. His description reinforces this idea. "Sir Bradford" joins me as a Boss ally.

Found and defeated the 3 Ritual Casters, who ominously said something about "losing control" and "They are coming." Then we found Philip Ashton Howard and rescued him, which triggered "Lead Philip out to escape the Star-Dwellers!" and "6 cosmic horrors to escape from (combat not necessary)".

[-0.01] Objectives: "Lead Philip out to escape the Star-Dwellers!" should omit the trailing ! as it looks wrong with a comma right after it.

I was a little curious as to the nature of the cosmic horrors we were escaping from, and soon got to find out as we ran across a giant monster that promptly ate Sir Bradford.


Don't do it Bradford! Nooooooo!

I tried to run away with Philip but ran smack into another giant monster, which killed me.

I think you may have some players ragequit here because of the unfairness of putting 6 giant monsters in a level 6-14 mission. However, this encounter really felt true to the Cthulhu mythos genre to me. It actually WAS pretty horrifying to realize I had no chance at facing down the monster and I not only couldn't save Bradford (since he was solidly aggroed on the monster) but I had to run away with Philip. Admittedly this is not very heroic, but it fits the story. So I'm going to give it credit for

[+0.1] Good representation of cosmic horrors, evocative of the Cthulhu Mythos genre

....but, you may have other players who think this encounter is utterly unfair.

Returning from the hospital, I load up on lucks and use them liberally to get back to where Philip is and lead him past the cosmic horrors. This was NOT easy; I had to grab him from between two of the cosmic horrors, then running back out I lost him once in the caves and had to go back for him, braving the cosmic horrors once again. The monsters spit at me repeatedly, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to make it without eating those 3 lucks.

[-0.1] Too difficult: even avoiding combat, it's going to be crazy hard to get Philip out. I had to run past a gauntlet of 3 giant monsters, and they all seemed to have pretty good perception. Maybe it could be made easier to escape by lowering the number of cosmic horrors? It could be just bad luck that I ran into so many, but it didn't really seem like I had a chance until I ate 3 lucks.

Debriefing: a nice wrap up of the story and explanation of what possessed Sir Bradford. A few final notes:

[+0.1] Nice "retro" atmosphere; I liked the 1931 theme of the arc.

[-0.1] Hard to believe: the secret of how to summon the cosmic horrors was in the Cuirach manuscript, split between at least 6 pages that were torn out of the book. I prevented any of them from being captured by the CoT. How did the CoT summon the cosmic horrors? The story claims they get the info out of Philip Howard. But I find it hard to believe that a drunk who is clearly terrified of the cosmic horrors ("We haven't a chance" he says) would be willing and able to recite 6 pages of ritual from memory.

[-0.01] Dangling plot thread: what happened to the Cuirach Manuscript at the end of the story? After I repair the manuscript, it is never mentioned again. But based on the story's premise, it is easily as dangerous as a nuclear weapon, so I'm uneasy at not knowing what becomes of it.

[4.34] at end of mission 5.

Overall
I liked the 1931 setting and the "Call of Cthulhu" feel of the story. I think you could make it even more immersive by adjusting some of the writing to be more like the stilted, obscurely worded Lovecraft writing style, as well as changing the descriptions of the Mooks to be more "in theme" (like the CoT - 1931 and Midnighters - 1931 factions you've made). The final encounter with the Star-Dwellers was quite neat but I think was a little too hard, even if you don't fight them.

Rounding 4.34 off, I gave this arc 4 stars.

----

My queue is now:

@Gypsy Rose - Don't Freak #384769 (H20-54) (played, need to write up notes)
@Niklarus - A Scandal in Paragon City #392334 (N20-26)
@Delightful Dolly - Sisterhood #123426 (H40-54) re-review
@FredrikSvanberg - The Warburg Connection #364832 (V30-40)
@Gypsy Rose - The Greater Good #395861 (H45-54)
@FredrikSvanberg - Arena #390921 (V40-54)
---not accepting further submissions at this time---

Thanks for reviewing "the Star-Dwellers", PW - I heartily appreciate the comments, and plan to adjust the arc to eliminate the confusions you mentioned - Tightening up this particular story is top on my agenda.

In mission 3, I was trying to give the impression of the other groups' actions having direct impact on the story at the same time as the PCs' - namely, the Circle's attack pushing Ma Trillo to capitulate. Kind of difficult, with both groups being hostile, and this is generally the clumsiest part in the arc. However, it's also been consistently the roughest mission for those that have played it, so some simplification might be in order - and it would free up arc space that I could use to clarify things elsewhere.

Mission 4 will be easy enough to retool, adjusting dialogue so the restoration of the manuscript is a clear goal.

Mission 5's briefing/acceptance, I want to keep in - but it is a little disjointed, agreeing to help a ritual and then having to -STOP- one. Perhaps I can change the accept message entirely, and adjust the rest accordingly. As for the mission itself - I have a lot of dialogue in thre with Philip and the mage that is gibberish-words, now. I can change that, and allude to some magical means they used to get Philip to talk.

As for the Cuirach Manuscript, I'd actually rather find a way to -HEIGHTEN- the fact that that plot thread is dangling. . .

Don't Freak review
Arc ID: 385769
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Custom Characters, Drama
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 20-54
No warnings.

The premise is to fight Freaks who are attacking an office building. Sounds simple enough. I played a 45 mace/shield brute on +1 x1 difficulty. The contact is a custom character, a female office secretary.

[5.0] points to start.

Mission 1
Briefing: the contact wants me to help rescue her friends in an office building invaded by freaks.

[-0.01] Capitalization: "freaks" should probably be "Freaks" throughout (in 2 places in the briefing, 2 places in the mission accept, 3 places in send-off) since this is the customary capitalization for Freakshow.

Found and rescued USaid Help who seems to be a PPD ally. USaid and his guards say:

[NPC] Metal Smasher: OK maybe you will. Now I am freaking!
[NPC] USaid Help: DON'T STAND THERE FREAKING. HELP!
[NPC] USaid Help: ASSISTANCE APPRECIATED. FREAKS CURRENT STATUS: FREAKING.

[-0.01] Dialog: I think this is meant to be funny, but could use some work (IMHO). Just using the word "freaking" a lot doesn't seem funny enough (to me, anyway ... different people may feel differently).

Found a "bulletin board" glowy.

[-0.01] Capitalization: the glowy's name should be capitalized ("Bulletin board") to match the usual convention for glowy names.

Clicking the bulletin board gave me the "Items posted on the bulletin board" clue which was well-written with good descriptions, but it's not immediately clear to me how this clue connects to the story. (Later on after I found more clues, this clue made more sense, with the defaced Efficiency Inc flyer.)

Ran into a patrol that said:

[NPC] Metal Swiper: There's got to be at least one working copy machine in this building. Let's keep looking.
[NPC] Juicer Freak: No way. There never is. Let's stop wasting time and take another coffee break.

I didn't understand this initially, but it was explained later on.

Found a glowy that looked like a desk but was named "Memo" and gave me the "Memo from Efficiency Inc." clue. Possibly this glowy should just be named "Desk" and you find the memo on it (but this is really nitpicky, didn't mark off score for it).

The memo itself is funny, with the consulting firm recommending that workers should be replaced with Freaks.

Found "Bomb 3" and clicked it. (Not sure how I know it's Bomb 3 and not one of the others, but this isn't a big deal.)

Found Jenn Hardinson, an office hostage being guarded some custom characters purporting to be Freaks; a Gossip Freak, a Geek Freak and The Freak N' Boss.



[+0.1] Like the names and bios for the custom Freaks.

[-0.1] Costuming: the custom Freaks don't look anything like the other Freakshow; they just look like normal people. Shouldn't they have cybernetic limbs and spikes and stuff like the standard Freak models?

Found and rescued Dwane Simon Krute IV, and Scott Michaels.

Found FreaKing and fought him. He seemed to just be an ordinary Freakshow boss? While fighting, he says:

[NPC] FreaKing: You think you are freaking now? Just wait!
[NPC] FreaKing: Lol. That tickles.
[NPC] FreaKing: OK maybe it pinches.
[NPC] FreaKing: You have no chance against the master. Ha!
[NPC] FreaKing: Ok maybe a chance.
[NPC] FreaKing: Alright now I am freaking.

[-0.1] Disappointing: the story does a good job of building up FreaKing as the leader and an important figure in the story, but having him turn out to be a typical Freakshow boss feels much too ordinary. Especially after encountering the custom freaks we've seen up to this point. I think he needs to be more special somehow. Perhaps "the FreaKing Boss" would make more sense as the big boss.

[-0.1] Dialog: FreaKing's dialog is very mundane. Needs to be funnier (if you're going for comedy) or more interesting somehow.

Took some searching time and some backtracking to find the last 2 bombs; this was mostly my fault for just not seeing them earlier. The last bomb I found gave me the "Freaking Bomb" clue.

Debriefing: the contact explains the whole story, that the regional manager was trying to replace all the workers with Freaks in order to cut costs and increase profits.

[-0.1] Don't understand: Why were there bombs planted in the office? I understand the regional manager outsourcing all the work to the Freaks, but it doesn't seem like bombing the office fits into the plot; it certainly wouldn't make the company more money.

[-0.5] Not enough is done with the basic idea of replacing the office workers with Freaks. I rated this as -0.5 because this is really the core concept of the entire story arc, and I feel like it needs more material to support it. I think you need to show a few examples of Freaks attempting to do office work and failing miserably for various freaky reasons -- to illustrate the pitfalls of outsourcing (sure, they work for cheaper...but they are totally incompetent). I did see the patrol that was looking for the copy machine, but there needs to be more. For example, you could have a group of Freakshow destroying the copy machine, protecting the water cooler or coffee machine, destroying some vending machine that won't give them a candy bar, etc., with dialog that illustrates how ill-suited they are to working in a normal office. Maybe some customers of the firm who the Freakshow are trying to "help" but the customers are totally freaked out by them (so they are hostages in-game, but a lost sale in terms of the story, further contributing to the regional manager's downfall).

[4.17] at end of mission 1.

Overall
I like the office setting (not sure why this is marked "drama" instead of "comedy" ... perhaps it is intended as a cautionary tale against outsourcing) but I think you need to do more with the basic idea of Freaks replacing the office workers and why that just won't work. I also think the big boss encounter could stand to be spiffed up a bit, maybe given a special custom model and some more interesting dialog.

Rounding 4.17 off, I gave this arc 4 stars.

----

My queue is now:

@Niklarus - A Scandal in Paragon City #392334 (N20-26)
@Delightful Dolly - Sisterhood #123426 (H40-54) re-review
@FredrikSvanberg - The Warburg Connection #364832 (V30-40)
@Gypsy Rose - The Greater Good #395861 (H45-54)
@FredrikSvanberg - Arena #390921 (V40-54)
---not accepting further submissions at this time---

A Scandal in Paragon City review
Arc ID: 392334
Keywords: Custom Characters, Non-Canon, Mystery
Morality: Neutral
Level range: 20-26
Warnings: AVs, EBs, extreme Bosses, custom powers

The premise is that an up-and-coming hero asks me to steal an incriminating video. The contact is a male custom character in a suit. I initially played a 40 empathy/pistols defender, mostly because she has a trenchcoat & fedora costume to match the "detective noir" feel of the first briefing.

[5.0] points to start.

Mission 1
Briefing: the contact claims to represent a certain hero who wants me to steal a video of his indiscretions with a certain villainess.

[+0.1] I like that my hero instantly sees through this and identifies the contact as the actual principal.

Send-off message: wow, quite a sordid tale. I quite like it though. (Silver Mantis...uh oh...I have trouble fighting her on my scrappers...)

[+0.1] Interesting premise. (OK, inspired by Scandal in Bohemia; still a good premise.)

Inside the mission, the map is full of custom "Dewey Cheatham and Howe Law Firm" enemies. I was planning on stealthing the mission, but the temptation to kill some lawyers ends up being too great, so I fight some.



[-0.1] Game balance: Law Clerk, a martial arts lieutenant, has build up. This makes him hit REALLY hard for a level 26 enemy. I'd suggest dropping that from his power set.

Snuck past most of the other lawyers and found "Senior Partner Howe's safe". Clicking this completed the mission and gave me the "One of Silver Mantis' metal thorns" clue; basically Your Princess Is In Another Castle.

This mission ended awfully quickly, so I scouted around a bit more until I found Senior Partner Howe, who was an optional objective. She did have some fun dialog, but she also spawned several rooms past the safe that I opened, so most people would probably complete the mission before finding Senior Partner Howe and thus never get to see her.

[-0.1] The "Senior Partner Howe's safe" objective seemed to spawn a lot closer to the mission door than Senior Partner Howe herself; as a result you can complete the mission after exploring only about half the map, which potentially wastes some of the content you've placed here. I'd suggest making the objective spawn in "back" if it isn't already. (Note - I did this mission twice and this happened both times.)

The map also felt a little too big for the amount of content (from what I could tell, 1 collectible, 1 optional boss, 2 patrols). There were at least 4 mission details, though, so I didn't mark any score off for this. You might consider either using a smaller map or adding more items of interest (perhaps more lawyers with dialog, false glowies with details about unrelated cases, something like that).

Debriefing: I'm a little surprised that I'm now wanted by the police, but I suppose it makes sense for attacking a law office.

[5.00] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: hmm, so now we're going after blackmail material to use against the assistant DA in order to get him to drop charges against me?

[-0.1] Plot: what happened to recovering the sex tape? Shouldn't finishing that job still be our top priority, then clearing the charges?

[-0.5] Unheroic: battling the police and acquiring blackmail material against an assistant DA seems conspicuously unheroic to me. I realize this is a "neutral" arc, but taking this action doesn't seem to make sense for a hero at all. Perhaps it should be "villainous"? Even so, Howling Patriot, who is a hero, seems to be endorsing this action, which doesn't quite make sense. (Granted, he does have some self interest here.)

[-0.01] Doesn't make sense: Mission entry popup says "Maybe you should have borrowed somebody's stealth suit" ... but actually I was running the Stealth power the whole time I was there, so this text doesn't really make sense. (Kinda nitpicky.)

[-0.1] Difficult to believe: the writing suggests that Howling Patriot is getting the PPD to put up just enough fight to make it "look good" but this seems rather unbelievable to me. One or two crooked cops, maybe; a whole map full seems hard to believe.

[-0.01] Objectives: "Find useful blackmail material." should omit the trailing period, since it looks odd when immediately followed by a comma.

Stealthing around in the mission, I eventually find "Sergeant Kablowski", presumably the optional PPD Sergeant. He says when I get near:

[NPC] Sergeant Kablowski: I heard the sound of fighting. Howling Patriot's agent must be here. Good. Let's get this over with.

....but actually, I haven't fought anything in this mission yet, so there was no sound of fighting to be heard.

[-0.01] Dialog: Kablowski's dialog assumes that fighting has occurred. Should perhaps reword to something like "I heard something" and even if someone stealths, it can be assumed that the sergeant overheard a footstep or something. (Nitpicky.)

Found a desk glowy called "A 2 GB Memory Card". This seems kind of odd, should perhaps just be called "Desk".

[-0.01] Missing text: when I click the "2 GB Memory Card" the progress bar is completely blank. Should have some words there.

This gives me the "A 2 GB Memory Card" clue, which suggests I should find a computer to read it. I have to backtrack quite a ways before I find the computer that it's linked to.

[-0.01] Doesn't make sense: why can't I just take the memory card to my home computer, rather than use one here? (Somewhat nitpicky.)

Found the computer which is labeled "A.D.A. Jacobson's Dirty Secret". Should probably just be labeled "Computer", though, and give a clue named that, since you shouldn't be able to see that it's a Dirty Secret until you actually access the computer and the memory card.

[-0.01] Missing text: the "A.D.A. Jacobson's Dirty Secret" glowy has no text on the progress bar.

Clicking this glowy completes the mission and gives me "A Disturbing Set of Pictures" as a clue. The description of the nature of these pictures seems so over-the-top as to just be silly; not quite sure what tone you are going for in this arc, though, so maybe this is okay.

[4.24] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: so I get a note from Silver Mantis saying how impressed she is with my evil actions. She challenges me to a showdown.

[-0.1] Player involvement: it does not feel like the player has really contributed to solving this mystery; we didn't uncover clues that led us to Silver Mantis's secret base, we never found the film on our own. Basically Silver Mantis just hears I'm looking for her, and calls me out. I think I would've liked more "detective mystery" elements (following clues, etc.); as presented, it feels like the player is just reacting to events that happen around her.

Inside the mission, it's an Arachnos base filled with Arachnos mobs. A wandering patrol has some fun dialog helping to establish Silver Mantis's character. Not a lot else seems to be in this mission except for Silver Mantis herself, who spawns as a +0 EB for me.



I fight her for a bit (chomping lots of lucks to stay alive) but can't outpace her regen (perhaps not surprising for a solo empath defender). Some Arachnos mobs add into the fight; either the patrol I passed before, or an ambush with no dialog (not sure which; if it's an ambush, it should really have a line to say, to cue the player that an ambush is incoming).

I decide to clear all her minions before my lucks run out, then ran away (and out of the mission) to buy another load of inspirations. Silver Mantis regens to full health, of course. Second try, she defeats me through 3 lucks. Third try, I get her down to about 60% health before she kills me. Watching my combat stats, I see that her attacks actually debuff my defense so that the lucks don't really help all that much.

It did not seem like it would really be fair to complain about an empath defender being unable to solo an AV, so I quit the arc and switched to a damage dealing character. I considered switching to a level 50 scrapper or blaster with IO sets, but felt this wouldn't be a fair comparison considering the arc is level 20-26; instead I brought on a 28 rad/nrg blaster with SOs slotted.

Re-run of mission 1: Used stealth+superspeed to find the glowy, which finished the mission. This time the glowy safe spawned on the 1st floor but the senior partner again was in the very back of the 2nd floor. You may want to adjust the glowy to spawn in "back" if practical (or use a smaller map), in both my runs through this mission I would never have seen Senior Partner Howe if I hadn't specifically looked for her.

Re-run of mission 2: found the 2 GB Memory Card glowy in the very back, then had to backtrack a little to find the Dirty Secret glowy. For what it's worth, I didn't have to fight anything to complete either of the first 2 missions (mostly just time hunting glowies).

Re-run of mission 3: wow, what a difference a blaster makes. 3 lucks, aim/build up, some blasting and some blapping, and I beat Silver Mantis. She has pretty fun dialog as she, uhh, goes down.



There wasn't an ambush this time, so the extra mobs I encountered while playing my defender must've been the patrol.

[+0.1] Fun dialog: Silver Mantis, and also the roaming patrol who talks about Silver Mantis.

Defeating Silver Mantis completes the mission and gives me "The infamous tape" as a clue. This clue suggests I should make a copy of it and blackmail Howling Patriot with it.

[-0.1] Unheroic: while this clue completely makes sense for villains, it doesn't ring true for a hero who might be playing this "neutral" arc.

Debriefing: Howling Patriot seems very grateful for my destroying the tape and returning it to him. (I think it might be a little more believable if I gave him the tape and he destroyed it, so he can confirm the tape's authenticity, but this is very nitpicky.)

[-0.01] Typo: "relived" -> "relieved" (in debriefing)

The souvenir is quite well-written, but I might suggest that instead of "An Engraved Invitation" as souvenir, you get "Silver Mantis's Phone Number". The souvenir makes it a little more ambiguous as to whether you made a copy "for insurance" or not, which works better for me than what's currently in "The infamous tape" clue.

[4.13] at end of mission 3.

Overall
Liked the premise, writing style and dialog. Some things portrayed seemed conspicuously unheroic even for a neutral arc; this might make more sense as an outright villainous arc (that just happens to have a hero as a contact), or else it should be adjusted so a hero could reasonably do it. Mission 2 to blackmail the assistant DA seemed off-track from the main plot. Would've liked more investigation of clues (since Mystery is one of the arc's keywords), and to have the player's efforts lead to finding Silver Mantis, rather than her just showing up and challenging the player.

Rounding 4.13 off, I gave this arc 4 stars.

----

My queue is now:

@Delightful Dolly - Sisterhood #123426 (H40-54) re-review
@FredrikSvanberg - The Warburg Connection #364832 (V30-40)
@Gypsy Rose - The Greater Good #395861 (H45-54)
@FredrikSvanberg - Arena #390921 (V40-54)
---not accepting further submissions at this time---

Okay, some things I'm gonna agree with and some I'm gonna disagree with. No shock there, I'm sure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PoliceWoman [-0.1] Game balance: Law Clerk, a martial arts lieutenant, has build up. This makes him hit REALLY hard for a level 26 enemy. I'd suggest dropping that from his power set.

I'll look into that. I had some trouble finding the balance between "too easy" on the customs and "Dude, no. Just no." I rather thought that they were close to right in the current version, but I'll give them another pass-through.

Quote:

[-0.1] The "Senior Partner Howe's safe" objective seemed to spawn a lot closer to the mission door than Senior Partner Howe herself; as a result you can complete the mission after exploring only about half the map, which potentially wastes some of the content you've placed here. I'd suggest making the objective spawn in "back" if it isn't already. (Note - I did this mission twice and this happened both times.)

Yeah, spawn placement on the glowies in this mission and the next one was a right pain. No matter what my settings, it seems to just spawn wherever it wants to. I may go with a smaller map after all, but not too small.

The glowie spawn in the second one...Oy, the second mission. I initially had it set for the first to spawn in the middle and the second in the back, but they spawned in reverse order. Then I tried front and middle and got back and front. Then I tried both in the middle and got completely random. Then I threw my hands up in the air and said "Oh, bugger it."

Quote:

Debriefing: I'm a little surprised that I'm now wanted by the police, but I suppose it makes sense for attacking a law office.

Well, if the glowie placement is close enough to Howe that you get to fight her, you get two ambushes during the fight. The first is the Paragon Police trying to arrest you for the break-in and assault on the law firm.

Mission 2

Quote:

Briefing: hmm, so now we're going after blackmail material to use against the assistant DA in order to get him to drop charges against me? [-0.1] Plot: what happened to recovering the sex tape? Shouldn't finishing that job still be our top priority, then clearing the charges?

I'm gonna disagree here on a couple bases. First, it's kinda hard to find anything if you're either in prison or hiding away in somebody's safe house, so getting those charges taken care of is essential in regaining the freedom of movement you need to finish the case. Secondly, from my personal storytelling perspective, the climax of the story should be the recovery of the tape. If Mission 2 and Mission 3 get switched, then that would (in my view) wreck the beat of the story.

Quote:

[-0.5] Unheroic: battling the police and acquiring blackmail material against an assistant DA seems conspicuously unheroic to me. I realize this is a "neutral" arc, but taking this action doesn't seem to make sense for a hero at all. Perhaps it should be "villainous"? Even so, Howling Patriot, who is a hero, seems to be endorsing this action, which doesn't quite make sense. (Granted, he does have some self interest here.)

Gonna disagree here, too. I think Howling's actions do make sense within the context of the story. Don't forget, he's had every opportunity since Silver contacted him to come clean to the Phalanx about his past as a gigolo, the existence of the tape and Silver's blackmail attempt. If he'd done that, he probably coulda gone the Tiger Woods route. A quick press conference, a public apology, a few talk show appearances and a lot of 'spin' to make himself look good. Instead, he hired you to steal the tape from the lawyers that Silver had stashed it with and now the long arm of the law is reaching for you. This was the act of someone who, while an acclaimed publicly-registered hero, is possessed of a rather fuzzy sense of morality to begin with.

He appears, in the Mission 1 debriefing, to regret getting you into legal trouble and this is his idea for getting you out of it and back into action before Silver's deadline runs out. (Does he really regret it, considering the greyness of his actions in sending you there in the first place? Only he knows the answer to that.)

As to the 'villainous' nature of blackmailing the A.D.A., that would depend greatly on your point of view as Obi-Wan might say. Yes, threatening to expose the misdeeds of a public servant unless he drops the charges against you certainly looks bad. On the other hand, you've just exposed one of the most prolific, successful Defense Attorney's in Paragon City as a close relative of one of Arachnos' most deadly agents. But instead of pursuing her and that connection, Mr. Moralism (not his actual name ) is trying to somehow score 'tough-on-crime' political points by coming after you. Then your contact finds out that A) the A.D.A. may have some moral failings of his own B) he's got on-duty cops guarding his own personal office (at the very least some kind of ethical breach hinting that the evidence of whatever he's hiding is located there) and C) those cops don't like him very much and may be amenable to helping you out. In those circumstances, I'd call active self-preservation through shady means to be more grey than evil. That's my personal point of view on the matter, which may not match anyone else's anywhere.

Quote:

[-0.01] Objectives: "Find useful blackmail material." should omit the trailing period, since it looks odd when immediately followed by a comma.

I'll get that fixed right off.

Quote:

[-0.01] Dialog: Kablowski's dialog assumes that fighting has occurred. Should perhaps reword to something like "I heard something" and even if someone stealths, it can be assumed that the sergeant overheard a footstep or something. (Nitpicky.)

Sure, that'll work.

Quote:

[-0.01] Missing text: when I click the "2 GB Memory Card" the progress bar is completely blank. Should have some words there.

This and the other glowie progress bar have already been fixed as of sometime on Sunday. I'll check again to see if the changes are still there, just to make sure.

Quote:

This gives me the "A 2 GB Memory Card" clue, which suggests I should find a computer to read it. I have to backtrack quite a ways before I find the computer that it's linked to.

As mentioned earlier, I just couldn't get the glowies to spawn in the proper location order and eventually gave up trying.

Quote:

Found the computer which is labeled "A.D.A. Jacobson's Dirty Secret". Should probably just be labeled "Computer", though, and give a clue named that, since you shouldn't be able to see that it's a Dirty Secret until you actually access the computer and the memory card.

Works for me.

Quote:

Some Arachnos mobs add into the fight; either the patrol I passed before, or an ambush with no dialog (not sure which; if it's an ambush, it should really have a line to say, to cue the player that an ambush is incoming).

There's no ambush in her fight, so it's just an unlucky appearance of the patrol.

Quote:

Defeating Silver Mantis completes the mission and gives me "The infamous tape" as a clue. This clue suggests I should make a copy of it and blackmail Howling Patriot with it. [-0.1] Unheroic: while this clue completely makes sense for villains, it doesn't ring true for a hero who might be playing this "neutral" arc.

As I said earlier, I think a policy of C.Y.A. when it comes to Howling is probably pretty wise based solely upon the actions he's undertaken in the arc. It's been established that he doesn't have much in the way of qualms about performing illegal acts to maintain his reputation. While he may be grateful for your help now and willing to reward you well, there's always a chance that he'll someday come to see you as a threat and perform illegal acts on you at that time. I see wondering if you should make a copy and keep it for insurance (not actually blackmailing him at this time -- the clue perhaps needs to be a bit clearer on that) as a pragmatic consideration rather than a villainous one.

I'll rewrite the clue so that's more clear. You're not supposed to be blackmailing him no matter what side you're running this on. You're supposed to be carefully considering what might keep you safe if he decides you're a threat to his status.

Quote:

[-0.01] Typo: "relived" -> "relieved" (in debriefing)

I'll get that fixed next time I'm logged in.

Quote:

The souvenir is quite well-written, but I might suggest that instead of "An Engraved Invitation" as souvenir, you get "Silver Mantis's Phone Number". The souvenir makes it a little more ambiguous as to whether you made a copy "for insurance" or not, which works better for me than what's currently in "The infamous tape" clue.

I'll give that some thought.

Thanks for taking the time to play and review the arc. Whatever my agreements or disagreements with your comments, I do appreciate the effort you put into it.

More on Scandal in Paragon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Niklarus I had some trouble finding the balance between "too easy" on the customs and "Dude, no. Just no." I rather thought that they were close to right in the current version, but I'll give them another pass-through.

No problem. I could see Build Up being appropriate in some cases, but between the 20-26 level range and the fact that it's a Law Clerk and not some kind of elite martial artist, I thought it was a bit excessive. If you do give it another pass-through for balance, may I suggest you try testing with a relatively squishy character?

Quote:

I'm gonna disagree here on a couple bases. First, it's kinda hard to find anything if you're either in prison or hiding away in somebody's safe house, so getting those charges taken care of is essential in regaining the freedom of movement you need to finish the case. Secondly, from my personal storytelling perspective, the climax of the story should be the recovery of the tape. If Mission 2 and Mission 3 get switched, then that would (in my view) wreck the beat of the story.

To your first point, I think I could buy this explanation. However, the story doesn't actually depict the player going out and doing legwork to find the video and/or Silver Mantis, so the story itself doesn't feel like it lines up well with this explanation (at least to me).

To your second point, I think you're right, the fight with Silver Mantis (and recovery of the tape) should be the climax of the story. So yeah, don't switch the order. The visit to the DA's office does feel like a diversion from the main plot to me, though; personally, I think I'd like to see the player finding or following up on clues in mission 2, that eventually lead to the final mission. It's up to you, though.

Quote:

I think Howling's actions do make sense within the context of the story. ... he hired you to steal the tape from the lawyers that Silver had stashed it with and now the long arm of the law is reaching for you. This was the act of someone who, while an acclaimed publicly-registered hero, is possessed of a rather fuzzy sense of morality to begin with. ... As to the 'villainous' nature of blackmailing the A.D.A., that would depend greatly on your point of view...I'd call active self-preservation through shady means to be more grey than evil.

I'll grant that Howling's actions in the story do establish him as being an unscrupulous type, so I'm OK with the way he's portrayed. I have more of a problem with how the story depicts the player's actions and thoughts. It works perfectly fine for a villain or a mercenary type, but I think even most shades-of-grey heroes will balk at attacking uniformed police officers and blackmailing an assistant district attorney (barring excuses like "it was a misunderstanding" or "it's for the greater good"). I do think tagging the arc "Neutral" gives you some latitude on ethical issues like this, but this felt outright villainous to me. (Your mileage may vary.)

I'd have no real objection if the arc were tagged "Villainous" rather than "Neutral". Changing mission 2's objectives or maybe even changing mission 2 to have Private Security Guards instead of PPD would probably help some too, at least from my perspective. It's up to you, of course.

Anyway, it was a neat arc. I hope this all helps.

Thanks for your review of my Freak arc. I appreciate the time you take to do such detailed reviews.

Sisterhood re-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 MA/SR scrapper on +0 x0 difficulty (bosses OK, no AVs). The contact is a custom heroine called Power Lass.

Since this is a re-review, I'm going to focus on my previous comments, for the missions I played through. I'll add new comments if/when I get to later missions.

[5.0] points to start.

Mission 1
[FIXED] Phrasing: "I am the of Sisterhood" should probably be "I am of the Sisterhood" [i]

[-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. (Still present)

[FIXED] 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. (The briefing now gives some explanation of this.)

[FIXED] Mission accept message is just the default "Accept", would be nicer if customized to fit the mission. (Now customized; though I think it is strange for me to call a SG leader "little girl")

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? (Still not explained; she just knows?)

[FIXED] 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. (Rephrased to "make sure they don't follow you", which kinda works.)

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

[-0.01] NEW: Typo, "witch base" -> "which base" (in mission entry popup). I guess this message is meant to explain how Power Lass knows the file is here, but I'm afraid "lucky guess" or "Telek told her" still don't seem like enough explanation to me. I think I'd rather have Power Lass say, in the briefing or send-off message, "I've uncovered the location of one of ALONE's bases; maybe some clue could be found there?" (Rather than just happening to know that there are files kept there.)

[-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". (Faction name is still like this.)

[-0.01] NEW: Typo, "Enegry Lt" -> "Energy Lieutenant" (mob name)

[-0.01] NEW: Typo, "poeple" -> "people" (Gadget Girl description)

[FIXED] Gunner has no description.

[N/A] Enforcer has no description. (Did not see this mob, maybe removed or renamed?)

[N/A] Robot Maker has no description. (Did not see this mob, maybe removed or renamed?)

[N/A] Costuming: Gunner and Enforcer costumes look so similar that I thought they were identical until I got very close. (Did not see Enforcers)

[N/A] 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. (Did not see Enforcers or Robot Makers)

[-0.01] Objectives: "3 Search computers" should be phrased more naturally, like "3 computers to search". (It's still like this)

[N/A] Punctuation: "something." should omit the period. [i](Didn't see Power Lass in this mission, think she was removed.)[/]

[N/A] Don't understand: Power Lass's line seems like she is replying to the Gunner, but it doesn't make sense in this context. [i](Didn't see Power Lass in this mission, think she was removed.)[/]

[N/A] Punctuation: "lets" should be "let's". [i](Didn't see Power Lass in this mission, think she was removed.)[/]

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

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

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

[FIXED] 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.

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

[FIXED] 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. (no longer a defeat all)

[-0.01] NEW Punctuation: "you can find Power Lass friends" -> "you can find Power Lass's friends" (in mission exit popup)

[-0.1] Debriefing needs more writing. I'd suggest reviewing the events of the first mission and/or the clues that were found. (There IS more writing here but it still doesn't really say anything...this should be a place you put some explanation of the clues that were found and their significance, and maybe get a hint of what is going on.)

[-0.01] NEW Phrasing: "will my friend Telek told me telepathy" -> "well, my friend Telek told me telepathically". Also, this info would make more sense in the briefing rather than the debriefing. (in debriefing)

[-0.01] NEW Typo: "Shes" -> "She" (in debriefing)

[4.71] after mission 1.

Mission 2
[FIXED] 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. (some more writing has been added)

[-0.1] NEW Plot problem: this really doesn't logically follow from mission 1? Mission 1 gave us a clue with the location of Glory-Girl and Shocking Child, who are captured by ALONE, but now mission 2 has us go after Telek and the CoT instead, mostly because the contact happens to be wondering about Telek and Telek sends her a telepathic message at exactly that time. Seems a little too coincidental; hard to believe.

[FIXED] Mission accept message is just the default "Accept", would be nicer if customized to fit the mission. (Message is now customized)

[-0.01] Typo: "Circle of Throns" should be "Circle of Thorns" (still present, but now this text is in the briefing)

[-0.1] NEW missing text: send-off message is now just 4 words, "OK, I am ready!"; needs some more writing here.

[FIXED] 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? (Telek is no longer established to be captured by ALONE; but, see Plot problem, above)

[FIXED] Doesn't make sense: it was previously established that ALONE captured Telek. How did she get into the hands of the CoT? (Telek is no longer established to be captured by ALONE; but, see Plot problem, above)

[-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. (still unexplained)

[-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.) (still unexplained)

[-0.1] NEW Doesn't make sense: mission entry popup now says "You wonder why is a 6 year old the leader, and why would Telek need a Well help." But, we have not yet discovered that the leader of ALONE is 6 years old, so this would not make any sense to a player just entering this mission for the first time.

[-0.01] Typo: "lets find" -> "let's find" (still present in Power Lass's dialog)

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: She says we should find Telek, but it is possible to rescue Telek first. (could still happen)

[-0.01] NEW Typo: "was save by him a few times" -> "was saved by him a few times" (in Power Lass's description)

[FIXED] 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. (Baphomet now triggers the Well of Knowledge objective)

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

[FIXED] 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) (still present)

[-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") (still present)

[-0.01] Typo: become Lady Atom -> became Lady Atom (in "A.L.O.N.E's leader childhood") (still present, though now she "become Lady Star")

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

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

[-0.01] Typo: "lets" -> "let's" (in Telek's dialog) (still present ... also, awkward as this time I found the Well of Knowledge before I found Telek)

[-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.) (still present)

[-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) (still present)

[-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) (still present)

[FIXED] 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) (still present)

[FIXED] 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) (still present)

[-0.01] NEW Typo: "Anwers" -> "Answers" (in title of "Anwers to All Your Questions" clue)

[-0.01] NEW Typo: "Then are some questions not even I can anwer" -> "There are some questions not even I can answer" (in "Anwers to All Your Questions" clue)

[-0.1] Debriefing needs more writing. (still only one line)

[3.95] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
[FIXED] Briefing needs more writing. (now there is some writing here; but I think it is a little confusing, see below)

[-0.1] Inconsistent: briefing says "I need to find out who this Lady Star is", but in mission 2, we already found out that Lady Star's real name is Jennie Star.

[-0.1] Don't understand: "Telek says Lt. Software is in the same base." Lt. Software has not previously been introduced, so I have no idea who this is. This briefing should explain who he is and why he is important to the story.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "She says he knows Lady Star have a close ally, we must get some answers out of him." This sentence doesn't make sense; perhaps it is meant to explain who Lt. Software is. Try to rephrase it, maybe mention something about what Lt. Software is like, what his known powers are, what kind of reputation he has, stuff like that.

[FIXED] Inconsistent: briefing calls the villain "Lady Star" but the "A.L.O.N.E's leader childhood" clue calls her "Lady Atom". (Now she is called Lady Star throughout.)

[FIXED] 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. (Now we have some info from mission 1.)

[FIXED] Typo: "awnsers" -> "answers" (in Send-off message) (this word no longer present)

(This is where I stopped last time, so everything after this is new.)

[-0.01] Confusing: mission title is "Make Lt. Software talk", but shouldn't our main goal be to rescue Glory-Girl?

The very first objective I find is, in fact, Lt. Software. He has the same description as an Enegry (sic) Captain. Since he is a special boss, possibly he should have a custom description (even though you are using one of your normal models for it).

[-0.01] Typo: "Enegry" -> "Energy" (twice in Lt. Software's description, and presumably in Enegry Captain's description too)

In his dialog he says:

[NPC] Lt. Software: You are strong, but I will never tell you my Lady's scerets!

[-0.01] Typo: "scerets" -> "secrets" (in Software's dialog)

Defeating Lt. Software gives me the "General Atom" clue.

[-0.01] Inconsistent: Lt. Software says General Atom is "in a warehouse" in his dialog; this should also be stated in the clue, since it is important to the plot.

[-0.01] Phrasing: first sentence of General Atom clue is much too long (5 lines long), should be broken up into several smaller sentences.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "they meant around 6 or 8 year old" probably isn't what you mean; I think you mean "they met around 6 years ago".

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: "Telek believes General Atom is hiding something that Software nor Lady Star knows". This doesn't make sense for two reasons: first, Telek is not here (I have not found her yet), and second, General Atom is not here, so how would Telek know he is hiding something even if she is a telepath?

Also, I have now captured Lt Software and "made him talk", but the mission is not over (still other objectives left), despite being titled "Make Lt. Software talk". You might consider titling the mission something more general that covers all the required objectives. For example, "Investigate ALONE base".

I kind of think you might be better off not having the contact explicitly tell you to take out Lt Software in the briefing, and have the defeat Lt Software objective be named something more vague like "Find a clue as to what ALONE is up to". That would make it seem a little more mysterious.

I found Telek; she and her guards had dialog of:

[NPC] Gunner: Help! PLease put us down!!
[NPC] Telek: I know you are lying, I"ll just wait for my friends.
[NPC] Gunner: We will do anything, just don't kill us.
[NPC] Telek: I enjoy holding you up in the air.

[-0.01] Animation: based on dialog, I think Telek's guards should probably be in a "floating captured" animation, but they were just standing there normally.

[-0.01] Typo: "PLease" -> "Please" (note capitalization; in Telek's guard's dialog)

[-0.01] Typo: "I"ll" -> "I'll" (in Telek's dialog)

When I rescue Telek, she says:

[NPC] Telek: Thanks, now lets find the others.

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

I found and rescued Glory-Girl. One of her guards says:

[NPC] Gunner: We have captured the strongest of The Stisterhood.

[-0.01] Typo: "Stisterhood" -> "Sisterhood" (in Glory-Girl's guard's dialog)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "the A.L.O.N.E" should be "A.L.O.N.E." with no "the", since it already starts with "A League" (you wouldn't say "The A League of No Enhancements"). (twice in Glory-Girl's description)

[-0.01] Typo: "Gracie punch the bully" -> "Gracie punched the bully" (in Glory-Girl's description)

Finally found and rescued Power Lass, which completed the mission.

[-0.1] Game balance: this mission has 3 EB level allies in it, but the "boss" mob is only a lieutenant. As a result, the allies really seem much too powerful for this mission. (I didn't mind the EB allies in the previous mission because you had to fight Baphomet, but there is no one that tough in this mission).

I thought this mission felt a little bland; basically fighting more of the ALONE guys and rescuing some allies. It could use something to make the mission a bit more exciting. I didn't mark off points for this as there are several mission details in the mission. But it felt to me like this mission needed something more.

[3.41] at the end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: the contact warns me General Atom is going to be a big fight.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "General Atom have some tricks up his sleeves" -> "General Atom has some tricks up his sleeve" (in briefing)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "Telek think he has powers, I think she is right, and it isn't because she a dang mind reader" -> "Telek thinks he has powers. I think she's right, and not just because she's a dang mind reader" (in briefing)

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: Lady Star has been established to hate everyone who has superpowers -- so much so that she's created a private army to fight superpowered people. It doesn't make sense for General Atom, her "best friend", to have superpowers.

Send-off message: the contact outlines a plot to trick General Atom into using his powers on camera and admitting he's behind everyone who attacked Lady Star.

[-0.1] Plot problem: so far there has not been any clue, nor any hint, that General Atom was responsible for people attacking Lady Star. If the "real story" is that General Atom created Lady Star's original problems, then there needs to be more foreshadowing, more hints leading up to this, rather than having Power Lass just suddenly tell us that this is what she thinks happened.

[-0.01] Typo: "Gerenal" -> "General" (in send-off message)

[-0.1] Don't understand: "They all so lucky you are not a villian then again Telek know your every move" (in mission entry popup) ... what makes me think about being a villain? This message doesn't seem connected to the story or what is currently happening.

[-0.01] Typo: "villian" -> "villain" (in mission entry popup)

[-0.01] Typo: "Telek know your every move" -> "Telek knows your every move" (in mission entry popup)

Found and rescued Power Lass. She says:

[NPC] Power Lass: Thanks goodness you came. Lets find my team and get General Atom!

[-0.01] Typo: "Lets find" -> "Let's find" (in Power Lass's dialog)

Found and rescued Telek. Then I found and rescued Shocking Child.

[-0.01] Typo: "the A.L.O.N.E" should be just "A.L.O.N.E." (in Shocking Child's description)

[-0.01] Phrasing "took her to her secret base a protect her" -> "took her to Telek's secret base to protect her" (in Shocking Child's description)

Found and rescued Glory-Girl.

Found a Computer which "turned on the cameras" and triggered "Defeat General Atom".

General Atom spawned as a Boss for me, relatively close by. With 3 EB allies, we make short work of him, completing the mission.

[-0.1] Game balance: this mission has 4 EB allies, but the boss of the mission is only a Boss. As a result, the allies seem much too powerful. Consider making them weaker (maybe Bosses) and/or making the opposition stronger (maybe an AV).

[-0.1] Missing text: General Atom just has the default "Boss" description. Since he is a special character who is important to the plot, he should have a description.

[-0.01] Typo: "villian" -> "villain" (in General Atom's description)

[2.82] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
Briefing: It's just a sentence fragment, barely half of a line. Needs some more writing here. At the very least, I think the contact should explain that you need to convince Lady Star to view the tape, but the only way she can be convinced is by force.

[-0.1] Missing text: mission briefing is too short.

[-0.01] Typo: "to far ahead" -> "too far ahead" (in mission accept message)

[-0.01] Typo: "freind" -> "friend" (send off message)

[-0.01] Typo: "you are awsome get get them" -> "you are awesome, go get them" (mission entry popup)

[-0.01] Typo: "Convines" -> "Convince" (mission title)

[-0.01] Inconsistent: "Lady Atom" should be "Lady Star" (mission objective)

Found and rescued Glory-Girl, an elite boss ally. She says:

[NPC] Glory-Girl: See, it was uneeded Olivia Q and the Sisterhood were right behind me!

[-0.01] Typo: "uneeded" -> "unnecessary,"

Found and rescued Telek. One of her guards says:

[NPC] Gadget Girl: We should have knew Olivia Q would come!

[-0.01] Phrasing: "should have knew" -> "should have known"

Found and rescued Shocking Child. She says:

[NPC] Shocking Child: Thanks! Now lets get Lady Star!

[-0.01] Punctuation: "Now lets get Lady Star" -> "Now let's get Lady Star"

Found and rescued Power Lass, who says:

[NPC] Power Lass: Thanks, now lets get the others!

[-0.01] Punctuation: "now lets get the others" -> "now let's get the others"

There were at least a couple ambushes that were triggered due to rescuing the heroes.

I found and fought Lady Star, who was a custom assault rifle elite boss for me (not sure what secondary).

[-0.1] Missing text: Lady Star really needs a description, especially since she is the final boss of the arc.

While fighting her, an ambush spawned and said:

[NPC] Gadget Girl: Stop in the name of A.L..O.N.E!!!

[-0.01] Punctuation: "A.L..O.N.E" -> "A.L.O.N.E." (in ambush dialog)

then Lady Star said:

[NPC] Lady Star: I will wripe all of you out! Even if it means unleashing a monster!

[-0.01] Typo: "wripe" -> "wipe" (in Lady Star's dialog)

Defeating Lady Star and her group gave me "The Turth" as a clue.

[-0.01] Typo: "Turth" -> "Truth" (clue name)

[-0.01] Phrasing: "She has saw the tape, she called her raid of" -> "She has seen the tape and called her raid off" (in "The Truth")

[-0.01] Phrasing: "At least until she think of a way that the tape could have been fake, or General Atom escape and controls her" -> "At least until she thinks of a way that the tape could have been faked, or until General Atom escapes and controls her" (in "The Truth")

[-0.01] Phrasing: "You have stop the war" -> "You have stopped the war" (in mission exit popup)

The debriefing is kind of on the short side (just two lines). I'd recommend making it a little longer, to give the story a more fully detailed ending. Possibly some of the info in "The Truth" could be moved to the final debriefing.

[-0.1] No souvenir.

[2.37] at end of mission 5.

Overall
I do think this arc is improved over the last time I tried it, and I got through the whole thing this time. The way you find the lost heroines makes more sense now, though now the CoT kidnapping one of them seems rather unrelated to the ALONE plotline.

I still think the story could use some work. Perhaps the biggest and easiest improvement you could make would be to fix the various typos and improper uses of English; normally a few typos are no big deal, but there were so many that it was very distracting. Also, adding some writing to the missing or mostly empty text blocks would help a lot.

I still kind of think the ALONE custom group is a little on the bland side. I like that you got rid of the mastermind powers, but they still seem to be rather generic guys in purple uniforms. They could really use a little more theme or something to make them more memorable as enemies.

I found it somewhat unbelievable that Lady Star hates superpowers, yet her best friend has superpowers. I think this could be made to be believable, but it would require some writing explaining how General Atom has concealed this from Lady Star all this time.

Rounding 2.37 off, I still could only give this arc 2 stars. I feel like it is better than before, but still could use some improvement. I hope some of this helps you out!


----

My queue is now:

@FredrikSvanberg - The Warburg Connection #364832 (V30-40)
@Gypsy Rose - The Greater Good #395861 (H45-54)
@FredrikSvanberg - Arena #390921 (V40-54)
---not accepting further submissions at this time---

Ok, thanks for playing it! The CoT didn'/t catch Telek, she went there to see the Well but the CoT didn't let her by
I had them floating in that one mission at one point, I guess I clicked something to turn it off :P

Thanks for the review!

The Warburg Connection review
Arc ID: 364832
Keywords: Canon Related, Drama
Morality: Villainous
Level range: 30-40
Warnings: AVs, EBs, high level enemies at lower level than intended

The premise is doing some sort of espionage and assassination in Warburg, that leads to something else. I played a 23 MA/ninj stalker, mostly for thematic reasons (this is my "spy" themed character). The contact is Alan Desslock, one of the normal VEAT contacts.

[5.0] points to start.

Mission 1
Briefing: the contact asks me to check out a lab in Warburg that was used for Project FURY. I'm supposed to meet up with a contact of his.

[-0.01] Formatting: caption for mission briefing should be in larger type, bold, or another color, to distinguish it from the rest of the briefing.

[-0.1] Needs explanation: Alan never actually explains who his contact is, or how I should recognize him/her.

Got "Warburg" as a starting clue.

[+0.1] Great map choice for this mission, the twisted metal and the big jars with humanoid figures are a good match with the story.

Inside the mission there are a few Rogue Arachnos with some dialog providing some nice exposition. Apparently their boss (Blitz?) is also planning on profiting from Project FURY.

[-0.1] Don't understand: my only objective is to rescue Alan's contact. Based on the briefing, shouldn't I be looking for remnants of Project FURY to sell off?

I found Traitor Hamilton being guarded by a Rogue Arachnos. I actually found her quite hard to find because she was in a Rogue Arachnos uniform, so blended right in (though, this seems to make sense based on the story); ended up searching the whole cave before I found her near the entrance (admittedly, my fault for stealthing). Her description implies that she's working for Alan Desslock. Rescuing her satisfies the "Alan's contact might be in trouble" objective, gives me the "Rogue Fortunata Hamilton" clue and triggers "Traitor Franken must die!" as an objective.

[-0.1] Don't understand: Why do I need to kill Franken? The clue says "This information will be of no use to you if Traitor Franken is allowed to leave this laboratory alive", but I don't understand this. What info? The fact that Hamilton has gone rogue? Clearly that info is still useful even if Franken escapes. Or is it something else, something to do with Project FURY? Anyway, I don't get why Franken must die.

Searching the cave again, I eventually locate Traitor Franken, who appears to be a Crab spider. Apparently he also knows Hamilton is a double agent, which is a better explanation of why Hamilton wants him dead. (Hamilton still needs to explain this a bit better when she asks you to do this though.)



Defeating Franken doesn't complete his objective, I end up having to kill a random Rogue Tarantula (apparently part of his group) to achieve the objective and complete the mission. You might consider making him "only boss required" (not a big deal though).

Completing the mission gives me "The Auction" as a clue. It also basically says that Hamilton makes sure Franken is dead; I actually ditched her and solo'd Franken, but since this is the end of the mission, I assume Hamilton catches up with me and Franken after the mission or something.

Debriefing: basically the mission is a bust aside from safeguarding Hamilton's treachery. Oh well.

[-0.01] Inconsistent: Franken's dialog seems to suggest he has "this last piece of Project FURY research data", but I didn't get a clue to that effect, and Desslock basically says we didn't get anything. Seems like I should've been able to take whatever piece of Project FURY that Franken had; or perhaps his dialog should be different.

[4.78] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: Alan Desslock says an auction will be held, or maybe has been held, for the Project FURY info. Crey either will win, or has won, the auction, and is sending Hopkins to pick up the goods. So Alan wants me to steal both the FURY data and the payment Hopkins is bringing.

[-0.01] Confusing: The briefing is rather confusing as to whether the auction is still to come, or has already happened. Based on the writing, it seems like it would make the most sense if Crey has already won the auction, and that's why Hopkins is being sent.

This seems unnecessarily complex (wouldn't it be smarter just to steal the FURY data, either before or after the trade, so we only have to fight one faction?) but hey, it's good to be ambitious. So going to let that go.

Inside the mission, I find it full of Crey. Sneaking by Hopkins (who has some dialog explaining what he's buying Project FURY with...how random) I steal the Refrigerated Crate, which gives me the "Hero Samples and Files" clue. This triggers "Blitz's representatives have arrived! They have Project FURY" as an objective.

I also saw a Captain Grool of Vanguard being held captive by the Crey right near Hopkins. He didn't seem to be required; I rescued him just to see what would happen, but he simply ran off. Apparently he was a failed bidder for Project FURY.

I fought Hopkins just for fun (he was optional), got him below 25% health and he ran. I couldn't finish him off before he made it to an elevator and escaped.

Backtracking to the first floor I find Traitor Ackbar, a Rogue Arachnos who I don't think was there before.



[+0.1] Having Traitor Ackbar shout "It's a trap!" got a chuckle out of me.

Ackbar also mentions something about a deal with Malta. Defeating Ackbar gave me the "Project FURY Files" clue and completed the mission.

Debriefing: Alan Desslock sheds some light into why Blitz wanted the Hero DNA, and the deal with Malta. Seems to fit together nicely.

[4.87] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: suddenly Alan wants me to rescue some old army buddy of his?

[-0.1] Plot: rescuing Alan's buddy doesn't seem to have any logical connection to the plot of the story so far.

Inside the mission is full of Longbow. I find Traitor Hamilton guarded by some Longbow. Could she be Alan's friend? He never said who I was looking for!

[-0.1] Don't understand: who am I looking for here? Alan really should've said.

Rescuing Hamilton satisfies the "Create a diversion" objective and triggers "Release prisoners to cause diversion". She also mentions "Deathstalker", who maybe is Alan's friend.

[+0.1] Neat side objectives in this mission.

[-0.01] Inconsistent: in this mission when I ditch Traitor Hamilton she says:

[NPC] Traitor Hamilton: The web of fate is unraveling. I can't follow you.

but in mission 1 she says "unravelling" (with two L's). I didn't flag this before as unravelling is a valid UK spelling, so is fine to use, but it should be consistent.

Deep in the mission I find Deathstalker, who looks quite a lot like a Malta gunslinger, but he's actually in a "Scorpion Gang". The longbow guarding him say they know he's looking for Project FURY. Hmm, is he tied in with the plot after all?

Rescuing Deathstalker triggers "Rogue Arachnos are attacking!", "Lead Deathstalker to safety" and "Defeat Longbow Ballista to escape" as objectives. Whew!

This map is gigantic, and I stealthed by everything along the way, so I end up having to clear the whole way out with Deathstalker. The temptation to get him killed to avoid leading him out is strong.

Some Longbow do shoot at him, though, and he says:

[NPC] Deathstalker: It's just a fleshwound.

[-0.01] Typo: "fleshwound" -> "flesh wound" (Deathstalker's dialog)

I nearly have Deathstalker to the door, though he's fairly beat up from stray Longbow aggro (he was just a lieutenant for me, so pretty squishy). But when I reach Fortunata Hamilton again, she suddenly betrays me and kills Deathstalker. Huh? I thought she was working for Desslock.

[-0.1] Don't understand: why does Hamilton suddenly turn against me? The only thing she said was "Once again our destinies are entwined" which doesn't really sound like a betrayal line. Also, it's been solidly established that both I and Alan Desslock have massive blackmail info on her.

Deathstalker's defeat causes the mission to fail, though the mission exit popup has me meet him again at the Arachnos hospital.

Debriefing: Desslock is justifiably suspicious that I might've purposely got Deathstalker killed.

Still not sure what this mission had to do with the plot though.

[4.65] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: So now we're using the Project FURY files to try and grease Deathstalker's way into the Malta Group. Alan Desslock goes on for a bit about why he is doing this (an indirect sort of revenge) but I have to agree with the accept message, "What does that have to do with me?"

In the send off message, Desslock says something about how Deathstalker will be able to give me access to Malta weaponry, but this doesn't really add up. If I have the Project FURY stuff that Blitz was going to trade to Malta, we could just as easily trade the Project FURY files for Malta weaponry directly.

This arc is intended for VEATs; if I were a Soldier of Arachnos, should I really be helping Arachnos defectors join the Malta Group? I'm thinking probably not.

[-0.1] Motivation for doing this mission feels a little thin.

Inside the mission, it's mostly empty with a few Scorpion Gang NPCs with some dialog.

Deep in the submarine base part of the mission, I find a "Refridgerated Crate".

[-0.01] Typo: "Refridgerated" -> "Refrigerated" (in glowy name)

Clicking the crate triggers the "Crey has discovered the base! Hopkins has arrived" objective.

Leading the various Scorpion Gang members around, I wipe out most of the Crey patrols and beat up Hopkins.



[+0.1] I like that Hopkins expositions about a tracking device in the crate, that perfectly explains why they just happen to bust in at this time. (Also, nice Get Smart reference.)

Debriefing: Desslock can't believe he fell for the tracking device trick, then blames Hamilton for triple crossing us, I think.

[-0.1] Inconsistent: how can Desslock admit he fell for this trick due to sheer neglect, yet he insists that Hamilton falling for this must be enemy action? I really think we need to find a clue or something that points more directly to Hamilton being the culprit.

[4.54] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
Briefing: so now Desslock wants me to help with housecleaning by eliminating Hamilton. Huh? What happened to Project FURY, Deathstalker, and so on?

Send off message: OK, so we're telling Arbiter Daos that the Scorpion Gang stole Project FURY, so that Hamilton can't claim that we gave them Project FURY for free (since that is apparently unbelievable.... which I agree with).

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: The story thus far is that Desslock has been trying to help Deathstalker and the Scorpion Gang up to this point; why would he double-cross them at this point? I don't have a problem with villains double-crossing other villains, but what's the motive for it? It doesn't seem necessary to implicate the Scorpion Gang in order to incriminate Hamilton, we have plenty of dirt on her already. (This became clearer later on - see below.)

Inside the mission, I find and rescue Arbiter Daos.

[+0.1] Dialog: I like Arbiter Daos's dialog, and how it addresses the codeword Desslock gave me and hints at his appointment with Hamilton.

Rescuing Daos gives me the "You Told Arbiter Daos about Project FURY" clue and triggers "Display evidence on computer" objective.

Clicking the computer gets Arbiter Daos to say another line, giving me permission to take out Hamilton, and also spawns "Fortunata Hamilton has arrived" as an objective.



I fight Hamilton and defeat her; her dialog is also great, contradicting herself mid-fight. This gives me "Hamilton Takes A Fall" as a clue and completes the mission.

[-0.01] Mildly confusing: "Hamilton Takes A Fall" contains dialog, which I initially assumed to be from Fortunata Hamilton (since it's her name in the clue title), but after reading it, it sounds like it should be from Arbiter Daos. Suggest you clarify this.

Debriefing: OK, this fully explains why Desslock betrays Deathstalker.

[+0.1] Good explanation for why Desslock sells out the Scorpion Gang, and good ending.

Good souvenir that linked to one of Arbiter Daos's canonical story arcs.

[+0.1] Good tie-ins to the official canon.

[4.73] at end of mission 5.

Overall
This was a good espionage themed arc, with lots of hidden motives, double agents and double-crossing. I liked what Desslock's master plan ultimately turned out to be. Excellent connections with canon NPCs and plotlines. I also liked the dialog, both of the main characters and even the stray patrols who helped further the story with their lines.

My main objections are: what motive does the player have to help Desslock do all this? The player never gets much of anything out of it. Also, there weren't enough clues to lead the player to believe Hamilton double-crossed us; deciding she was betraying us felt like too much of a leap of logic.

Rounding 4.73 up, I gave this arc 5 stars.


----

My queue is now:

@Gypsy Rose - The Greater Good #395861 (H45-54)
@FredrikSvanberg - Arena #390921 (V40-54)
---not accepting further submissions at this time---

The Greater Good
Arc ID: 395861
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Save the World, Drama
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 45-54
Warnings: EBs

The premise is that a mysterious organization is recruiting heroes, and you have the opportunity to join them. I played a level 50 AR/dev blaster, heavily IO'd for +recharge and +max HP. The contact is a custom female character in a white outfit.

[5.0] points to start.

Mission 1
Briefing: an old mentor recommends you to this new organization, the "Greater Good".

[-0.01] Presumes too much about the player: I think it is a little much to assume that the player was mentored by Captain Courageous. Some players may have very detailed back stories that don't allow for this. Perhaps have Captain Courageous be a hero you worked with (not necessarily your player's mentor), or make the mentor un-named so that it can fit with any player's back story. (This is rather nitpicky, so only marked off -0.01.)

[-0.01] Accept message of "I am not really sure I want to do this" is rather indecisive (i.e. unheroic sounding), particularly considering the story presents the player as approaching Angela Goodheart, and not the other way around. If you don't want the player to immediately jump on board, consider rephrasing to something like, "Can you tell me a little more?"

Send-off message: the contact asks you to "play along" and to rob a bank. She recognizes this isn't especially heroic but justifies this with "this bank is a rich man's bank" and "he has so much money, and he does nothing to help anyone but himself."

[-0.5] Motivation: as a hero, I really cannot justify robbing a bank and fighting innocent Longbow who happen to be guarding it. I appreciate that you've tried to describe this organization as "modern day Robin Hoods" and the bankers as being selfish rich people, but it is still stealing and very difficult to see this as heroic.

Inside the mission, the bank is guarded by Longbow. Some of them have some dialog expositioning that I'm not the first hero to break into this bank.

I end up stealthing past all the Longbow and just clicking the 3 safes. The first safe gives me the "Crumpled piece of paper" clue. Clicking the 3 safes completes the mission.

Debriefing: the contact says "give me the money, and trust me it will be used for the greater good." Somehow this sounds rather suspicious to me. Is she perhaps related to Westin Phipps? Maybe I'm just being paranoid.

[4.48] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: the contact says the money I stole helped a lot of people, so I should feel good about that. That is a nice touch. Now the contact wants me to find her brother, who also joined the Greater Good. So she wants me to infiltrate the Greater Good, to "get someone on the inside". Wait, isn't the contact herself a member of the Greater Good? Checking her info, it does say she's a recruiter for the Greater Good.

[+0.1] Like that the contact does go to the effort to claim that the stolen money was used for good.

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: Angela is herself a member of the Greater Good, why would she need me to infiltrate the organization? She's already a member, and as a recruiter, she probably has better access to personnel files or other stuff that would help track down a member. I did see that Angela said she joined the Greater Good only to help find her brother in mission 1, but this still could use some explanation for why she needs me to help.

Send-off message: I'm to break Mr. Worthington, the founder of the Greater Good, out of prison. "Naturally, he was framed" and "No doubt you will have to take on some members of the Paragon Police".

[-0.5] Motivation: fighting the police and breaking someone out of jail seems really unheroic. The motivation presented for doing this feels pretty thin; the only reason we are doing this is because the contact said so. I think a lot of heroes would have a problem with breaking someone out of jail. (This would probably be fine, however, if this were a "Neutral" arc.)

I sneak past most of the guards and find Mr. Worthington in one of the holding cells. Defeating the police guarding him, I free Worthington, which completes the mission and gives me "Another crumpled piece of paper" as a clue.


This is going to be difficult to explain to the police chief.

[3.98] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: the contact wants me to kidnap the banker's daughter. I'm not exactly sure how this contributes to finding Angela's brother; I'm guessing it's to get me fully into the Greater Good organization.

Inside the mission, at least this time I'm fighting Family.

I find a wastebasket with "Yet another crumpled piece of paper" as a clue.

Found an urn and a painting that didn't do anything, but they kinda make sense for decoration in a rich mansion.



In the very back of the mission I find Nikki Richardson being guarded by some Family; after I free her, she starts following me. Though it doesn't look like I have an objective to lead her out.

[-0.01] Inconsistent: Nikki Richardson is in the "Richman Family" enemy group; I think she should be in "Richardson Family".

At this point I'm still missing the "See what you can find" objective; backtracking to the first floor I find a desk that I missed, which gives me the "Appointment book" clue and completes the mission. The clues appear to point towards some sort of collusion between Richardson and Worthington.

Debriefing: so we're holding Nikki for ransom for more "fundraising" for the Greater Good. (This again seems rather unheroic but I've probably marked off enough points for this already.)

[-0.01] Characterization: Angela is depicted as changing from "starts to cry" to "smiles brightly" in the same debriefing; this is too quick a change in mood, IMHO.

[-0.01] Punctuation: "help!." should be "help!" in the last sentence.

[3.95] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: so the final mission is to attend a party where I'm formally inducted into the Greater Good.

Send-off message: the contact finally realizes that Worthington isn't really a good guy, and maybe has something to do with her brother disappearing. She's planted some canisters of anti-mind-control gas in the mission that might free some of the other heroes from Worthington's control. I think the idea is to attend the party, free what heroes I can, then battle Worthington.

[-0.1] Don't understand: why is my objective to "Find the desk"? Angela did not mention anything about a desk. I thought maybe I should be releasing cannisters of gas.



Ran into some people partying, with a drum and dancing. Nice for background color. It would be nice if they had some dialog also. Same for the people holding hamburgers later on, the lady giving a speech on a soapbox, and so on; they look nice, a little dialog would be good, if reasonably practical. They should be congratulating me on being inducted to the Greater Good or something, since this party is, technically, in my honor. (Later I found they only get dialog if something aggros them; that may just be how friendly spawns work, not quite sure.)

I quickly locate the desk. It gives me the "Contents of desk" clue and triggers "Find the Computer" as an objective. I'm still not totally clear on my objectives (i.e. why I need to get the computer).

[-0.01] Capitalization: "desk" should be "Desk" to be consistent with how other glowies are marked.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "for at least 2 years and are their job is to train new recruits" -> "for at least 2 years, and their job is to train new recruits" (in Trainer description)

I had to explore most of the map before finding the computer in the very last room.

[-0.01] Capitalization: "computer" should be "Computer" in the glowy name.

Clicking the computer gives me "Contents of Project Robin Hood File" as a clue, and triggers "Find Mr. Worthington" as an objective.

Mr. Worthington is nearby and I battle him. I wonder if he should belong to "The Greater Good" faction instead of the "Worthington Family"?

When Mr. Worthington starts to run, he encounters the Greater Good trainees who are drinking tea. This actually does trigger their dialog (I guess they DO have dialog but it only goes off if they are aggroed) and they attack Mr. Worthington and help defeat him.

[-0.1] Don't understand: if Mr. Worthington has all these Greater Good people mind-controlled, why would they say "They are attacking our guest. Stop them!" and attack Mr. Worthington himself?

Defeating Mr. Worthington gives me a "List of Targets" clue and triggers the "5 canisters of gas to release" objective. I click one of the canisters and some of the Greater Good people start fighting each other (not sure if this was intentional or a leftover ambush from Mr. Worthington that finally reached me).

I end up having to backtrack over the whole map to look for the remaining canisters.

[-0.1] Gameplay: having to backtrack over the whole map to look for the triggered canisters is a little tedious. (It would be OK to have to explore the whole map the first time for the canisters, but having to re-trace my steps makes it a little tedious.)

More ambushes spawn and end up aggroing the various partygoers, with both friendly and hostile Greater Good mobs fighting each other. This is a little confusing but seems consistent with the story so far. I think I might like if the "friendly mobs" had dialog suggesting that they've been freed of the mind control effects of the chemical; I think that would help support the story a little better.

After some searching for canisters, clicking the fifth canister completes the mission.

[-0.01] I think it might be a little more dramatic if you flipped the objectives around so that defeating Worthington is the climax, rather than having the mission complete on a glowy click. Fighting the Big Bad Guy is a bit more exciting than combing the base for the last glowy.

Debriefing: pretty good explanation of the aftermath. I like that we find out what happened to Victor in the end; though it might be a little more evocative if the player actually gets to rescue a hostage named Victor sometime during the mission, rather than have him only appear in the debriefing.

[+0.1] Liked the final debriefing and the wrap-up of what happened to the various characters after the arc.

[-0.01] Don't understand: "it seems he tried to warn Worthington that something was wrong" doesn't quite make sense for Victor to do; if Victor found out that Worthington was the culprit, why would he try to warn Worthington? Perhaps you mean that Victor tried to confront Worthington and got captured as a result.

[-0.1] Dangling plot thread: after the player robs a bank and busts a convict out of prison, she should totally be wanted by the police, or there should be some explanation of how the player is ultimately exonerated for these crimes. Basically, the consequences of the criminal acts are never addressed in the story arc.

[3.60] at end of mission 4.

Overall
I like the basic story structure of Angela trying to get you to investigate the Greater Good organization and look for her brother. I found the set up to be somewhat implausible, however; I don't think there is enough justification presented that would make an average hero willing to do some of the criminal acts that are portrayed.

If the Greater Good is out robbing banks, kidnapping heiresses and breaking people out of jail, I actually think they would pretty quickly be labeled a villain organization and not a hero organization. Right now, the way the Greater Good is presented, I think the player would have to be pretty oblivious to not realize that these are not good guys.

I think I would find it more believable if the Greater Good were some shadowy vigilante supergroup, technically wanted by the law, but supposedly helping people. Perhaps Angela could have gone to the police after Victor's disappearance, and then Angela (and the police) ask the player to "go undercover" infiltrating the Greater Good. This would then explain away why the player has to rob the bank, etc., and why the player doesn't permanently get in trouble for these actions.

Also, a random unrelated idea: consider having Mr. Worthington be somehow related to Niles Worthington, the guy who sells out the Vendetti in a CoV mission. There's already sort-of a Family connection in the arc. You don't have to do much with this, but it would be a nice nod to in-game canon.

Anyway, rounding 3.60 up I gave this arc 4 stars.

----

My queue is now:

@FredrikSvanberg - Arena #390921 (V40-54)
---not accepting further submissions at this time---

PW - Thanks so much for taking the time to review my Greater Good arc.

Since the last mission is heavily impacted by the last MA patch, I will probably wait and see what is done to fix the fix before I make too many modifications.

As always you have provided me with lots of useful input, which I will use when I make my updates.

Thanks

Arena review
Arc ID: 390921
Keywords: Complex Mechanics, Drama, Romance
Morality: Villainous
Level range: 40-54
Warnings: AVs, EBs

The premise is that the player is an Arachnos soldier assigned to handle security for a sporting event held in St Martial. I played a 50 fortunata on default difficulty. The contact is Amanda Vines.

[5.0] points to start.

Mission 1
Briefing: I like the "newscast" style of the briefing. It seems the sporting event is the pseudo-PvP gladiator matches, a "purely cerebral display of skill". I like how it smoothly introduces my role as "security" for this event; the initial clue also reinforces this. The mission accept message and send-off message tie in nicely, as well.

[+0.1] Neat initial briefing.

Inside the mission my goal is to "Stop the Freakshow rampage". I find B4nKbUsTah who...starts speaking in rhyme. Okayyy. The lines make sense at least.

I beat up B4nKbUsTah, who admits in dialog that this was all a publicity stunt by Pohsyb.

I also rescue Mrs. Thales from some Freaks, she also suggests Pohsyb is trying to cheat to win this competition, in rhyme. (Though "lunatic" doesn't really rhyme with "tricks".)

Either defeating B4nKbUsTah or rescuing Mrs. Thales triggered the new objective "Pohsyb finally showed up/Make sure he's safe" (not quite sure which, both happened at close to the same time).

I rescue Amanda Vines and The Arbiter, and they each have some fun lines that might be foreshadowing. We'll see.



[-0.01] Typo: "profesional" -> "professional" (Amanda's dialog)

There's an extra period at the end of The Arbiter's description, but I believe this is his standard description, so didn't mark off for it.

Rescued Krylov and Castle. They also had good dialog.

Deep in the mission, I found Pohsyb as a hostage.

[-0.01] Typo: "excentric" -> "eccentric" (Pohsyb's description)

Puzzlingly, he is guarded by the Family instead of Freakshow. Their dialog does explain this, though. Rescuing him completes the mission.

[-0.1] Needs some clues: the various hostages said an immense amount of plot-relevant information in their dialog, about how Pohsyb was behind the Freak attack and is crazy and robbing the casino, and so on. I think some of this info should appear in the clue journal, for later reference and/or for players who aren't in range of the significant dialog when it occurs.

[+0.1] Nice use of hostages. They all were relevant to the story and had good dialog that provided useful exposition.

[-0.01] Wrong form of address: "Mr Krylov" should be "Dr. Krylov" in the debriefing (note punctuation also)

Krylov speaks in broken English in the debriefing, but I assume this is deliberate. Basically the Americans accuse Pohsyb of staging the whole thing (which may, in fact, be true) but Pohsyb and Krylov deny everything.

[5.07] at end of mission 1.

Mission 2
Briefing: some good exposition of the fallout from mission 1 and the first gladiator match that is apparently occuring in mission 2.

Although the briefing hints at how to get into the arena, it's a little confusing why the mission has me "Infiltrate the Arena", at least until I read the mission accept clue, which explains it all. I feel this is a little awkward but with the clue explaining the actual mission, I didn't mark any points off for this. Apparently I'm being sent to try and bribe Castle to throw the game. Failing that, I'm to meddle with the game's results.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "What the nanites do?" -> "What do the nanites do?" (in mission begin clue)

I quickly locate Castle, guarded by Rikti drones (curse their high perception!). Rescuing him from the Rikti (err, "Castle's Gladiators"), Castle ungraciously refuses my bribe. Stupid heroes and their stupid ethics!! This triggers an objective to "Seal the arena/Use the control panel".

I do like how Castle's dialog (as I move away and close to him again) depicts him waffling and considering the bribe. Neat trick.

[+0.1] Nice dialog.

Exploring the map further I find some battles between Castle's gladiators and Pohsyb's gladiators, which does a good job of illustrating the "gladiator match".

I eventually find the Arena Control Panel; clicking it triggers a "The Arbiter has arrived/Force a stalemate" objective. Apparently I force a stalemate by attacking the Arbiter. I believe attacking an Arbiter in the Rogue Isles is a death sentence, but the clue assures me "nobody can see what happens", so...what the heck.

I find the Arbiter again. Interestingly this time he has a custom description that is missing the punctuation error from mission 1. (OK maybe that's not so interesting...maybe I obsess over typos too much...)

I decide the best way to fight the Arbiter is to train him onto Pohsyb, who then begins helping me fight the Arbiter. This also implicates him in my crime in case he is tempted to reveal that I ganked the Arbiter. Or at least that was my reasoning....

While fighting the Arbiter he says:

[NPC] The Arbiter: You dare strike me? I'm the Arbiter, my word is law! What do you mean you "have orders"?

[-0.01] Formatting: there's an extra space between "What do you" and "mean you" (in the Arbiter's dialog).

[-0.1] Logic problem: if activating the control panel "seals the arena shut", how is it that the Arbiter is able to enter afterwards? Perhaps he has the access code, just as I did, but then the arena would not be "sealed shut" and I could not "have the Arbiter trapped in the sealed arena" (since he could use the same code to leave).

Debriefing: the Arbiter emerges, presumably under the mind-control alluded to in the mission begin clue, and gives a lengthy speech declaring the game invalid.

[-0.01] Confusing: what does all this stuff about "Chanting gurus, walkie-talkies, walkouts, hypnotists" mean? (Apparently this is a direct quote from the musical, so only marked this -0.01 rather than -0.1, but this will still be baffling to people who don't know that.)

[-0.1] Don't understand: if we have the Arbiter under mind control at this point, why don't we simply disqualify Castle and proclaim Pohsyb the winner? I don't understand how we benefit from invalidating this game and simply scheduling a rematch. This would make more sense if Pohsyb was losing the current game. But Castle's dialog suggests that this isn't the case.

[-0.01] Inconsistent: the initial orders were to "force a stalemate", but having the game declared invalid by the judge is not the same as a stalemate. A stalemate is still a valid game. (Nitpicky, so only marked off -0.01.)

[4.93] at end of mission 2.

Mission 3
Briefing: The contact expositions to the camera that the contestants are meeting to schedule a new game.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "A vehicle pulls up now" -> "A vehicle is pulling up now" (in briefing)

Another mission begin clue gives me my actual mission briefing. Now it seems we are going to throw the game to Castle, in exchange for him releasing a prisoner. Hmmm

Was I actually trying to make Castle win in game 2? I thought I was trying to bribe him to lose, but now I'm a little confused.

[-0.01] Typo: "Zigg" -> "Zig" (more typical spelling) in "The Deal" clue

Considering Castle already declined a bribe offer from us in mission 2, I'm not sure why my superior officer thinks he would accept one this mission, but I'll go with it for now.

The map is very small and I quickly locate Castle and rescue him from some Family. Castle seems more willing to deal now. Rescuing Castle triggers Krylov's appearance; Krylov threatens to inform on me, but I beat him up and basically Castle agrees to betray his ideals and Krylov agrees to betray his buddy and we're all very happy and villainous.

[+0.1] This actually does feel pretty perfidious. Good stuff for a villainous arc.

The mission was very short (all the action occurred within sight of the mission door), but I thought this was fine.

[-0.01] Form of address: "Mr. Krylov" should be "Dr. Krylov" (in debriefing)

[-0.01] Character voice: Krylov's dialog here has lost the broken Russian/English thing that he was doing earlier in the arc (in debriefing)

[-0.01] Typo: "completly" -> "completely" (in debriefing)

[-0.1] Confusing: Mrs. Thales is talking like Castle is leaving her. This isn't otherwise hinted at before this, unless it's meant to be implied that Castle is ditching Mrs. Thales as part of defecting to the Rogue Isles (this isn't clear, if so).

[4.88] at end of mission 3.

Mission 4
Briefing: apparently Castle had a change of heart and is now preventing the Arachnos breakout from the Zig. What happened to his heroic ethics? He took the bribe, he should stay bribed! Bah.

[-0.01] Typo: "Ziggursky" -> "Zigursky" (twice, once in briefing, once in send-off)

[-0.01] Typo: "satelite" -> "satellite" (twice, once in briefing, once in mission accept)

"one night in Brickstown can make a hard man humble" -- groan.

[-0.01] Typo: "Zigg" -> "Zig" (in mission objectives)

Breaking into the Zig, I slip past the PPD and through the tunnels to get inside, and I quickly free Mrs. Vines from her jail cell. Apparently Castle did arrange for her to be transferred to the low security cell block, after all?



This triggers "Lead the prisoner to the flier" and "Defeat Castle to escape" as objectives. I think some Longbow may have spawned too.

I wonder if Mrs. Vines should be in a "Prisoners" or "Spies" faction instead of "Civilian"? (Just a random thought.) Getting Mrs. Vines to the flier causes her to mention that she's Amanda Vines' mother.

[-0.1] Continuity: this appears to conflict with the "Kidnap Amanda Vines' Family" mission given by Westin Phipps, which places Amanda Vines' mother as a civilian in the Rogue Isles, not a spy who has been in the Zig for the past 7 years.

I go to confront Castle to "escape" and his dialog (recognizably from One Night in Bangkok - I know the song from when it was popular, but hadn't seen the musical) makes it clear that he's still selling out to us. Great.



Defeating Castle completes the mission.

Debriefing: back in St. Martial, Amanda Vines continues her intrepid reporting as we show up with Castle in tow.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "It's going down next to the casino" makes it sound like the flier is crashing. Suggest rephrasing to "It's landing next to the casino".

[-0.01] Phrasing: "The chopper's setting down on the helipad and the doors open" -> "The chopper's setting down on the helipad. The doors are opening!"

Amanda's reaction to seeing Mrs. Vines is very interesting. I'm quite curious about that subplot now.

[+0.1] Intriguing subplot.

[4.83] at end of mission 4.

Mission 5
Briefing: Amanda approaches me and she claims Castle told her everything about how I bribed him and he turned Mrs. Vines loose and all.

[-0.1] Doesn't make sense: why would Castle confide all his dirty laundry to Amanda Vines, a reporter?? Revealing his wrongdoing seems unwise considering it would probably get him kicked out of the hero profession and removed from the championship title.

[+0.1] Good writing: I liked the way Amanda asks after her mother, then offers several possible bribes. This worked for me.

I'm scripted to decline all the bribes and so she says I need to meet up with Castle to get his thanks. The mission begin clue tells me a little about what Mrs. Vines' fate ultimately will be.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "we must make certain of what is true and what is mere propaganda imprinted on her mind through the primitive and destructive brain-washing techniques our enemy is likely to use" -- I couldn't figure out what this was supposed to mean. On the face of it, it sounds like "we" are going to use the techniques of "our enemy", but this doesn't make sense. (In "Endgame" clue.)

Castle wanting to "thank me properly" sounds pretty ominous to me, but I go in the mission anyway.

[-0.01] Typo: "accomodations" -> "accommodations" (in mission entry popup)

The mission is full of Arachnos who are apparently hostile to me ... I'm not quite sure why. Then I overheard some dialog from "The Arbiter"...uh oh. That must be why. Some patrols also exposition about the Arbiter making sure no one can meddle with the championship.

[NPC] Tarantula: He takes that game way too serious if you ask me.

[-0.01] Phrasing: "way too serious" -> "way too seriously" (in patrol dialog)

[-0.1] Don't understand: I have the objective "What is Krylov doing here?" but Krylov is not in sight, so I don't know why I should be wondering this. Instead it forces me to search for Krylov, which seems counterintuitive to the spirit of a "What is Krylov doing here?" objective.

Found the Arbiter, he's back to the default Arbiter Sands description with the extra period. I wonder if you should standardize his description for all of his appearances in this arc, to add the custom text about arbitrating the championship games. The Arbiter didn't seem to be required, so I left him alone.

I eventually track Krylov down and he monologues about how all the gladiator players now hate me for various reasons.


Hey, I was just following orders, buddy.

I beat Krylov up. This triggers the "Pohsyb thinks you robbed him of his title/Defeat him" objective.

[-0.01] Pohsyb's description is unchanged from his earlier appearance, but I must point out that "He is the current undisputed Arena gladiator champion of the world" is no longer correct, at this point in the story arc.

Pohsyb has an arena gladiator with him. I thought this was odd; I am not sure whether arena gladiators are able to leave the actual arena. Couldn't find anything that said they couldn't, though.

Defeating Pohsyb triggers an objective called "Castle regrets what you made him do/Send him packing".

I found Castle and fought him. He uttered the lines:

[NPC] Castle: They all think they see a man who doesn't know which move to make, which way to go, whose private life caused his decline wrecked his grand design. Some are vicious, some are fools, and others blind -- to see in me one of their kind.

[NPC] Castle: Nothing you have said is revelation. Take my blues as read; my consolation?
[NPC] Castle: Finding out that I'm my one true obligation!
[NPC] Castle: And so you're letting me know how you've hated my success.
[NPC] Castle: And every poisoned word showed that you never understood. Never!
[NPC] Castle: Is there no one in my life who will not claim the right to steal my work, my name?
[NPC] Castle: My success, my fame -- and my freedom!

[-0.01] Dialog: While these are the apparently lines from the musical, it didn't feel like they fit the situation in the story arc. It just felt like he was reciting lines from a play. (I only marked this -0.01 since it is intended as a reference. But it still felt somewhat out of context.)

Gameplay: Chasing down triggered spawns on an outdoor map was mildly annoying, but the sequence of objectives was only 3 links long and the map wasn't that large, so letting that go.

Debriefing: a good wrap-up of the story, telling a little bit about what happens to the major characters.

[-0.01] "Mr. Krylov" should be "Dr. Krylov" (in debriefing)

[-0.1] Dangling plot thread: Arbiter Sands and Arachnos in general wanted me dead during mission 5, how did I get out of that?

[-0.1] Don't understand: why was Amanda Vines crying at the end of mission 3? I thought it had something to do with her mother, but she clearly was surprised by her mother's appearance at the end of mission 4, so it couldn't have been.

[-0.01] Formatting: souvenir title is too long to fit in the default width text box. I can only read "Arena Gladiator World Championship Promotio" before it gets cut off.

[-0.01] Typo: "Ziggursky" -> "Zigursky" (in souvenir)

[-0.01] Continuity: "forcing the first match...into a stalemate" - actually it was declared invalid by the Arbiter, not a stalemate (in souvenir)

[-0.01] Continuity: the souvenir says Krylov revealed that Pohsyb is agoraphobic, and this was used against Pohsyb. This never occurred during the actual story arc. I saw where it was stated that Castle won, but it seemed to occur off-camera between mission 4 and mission 5.

Although Castle has some good motivation for regretting his choice even as presented, I think it would be just a little stronger if you made it clearer that Castle regrets losing his wife as well. It seemed like Mrs. Thales vanished at the end of mission 3 and was never mentioned again.

[+0.1] I thought the whole premise of this arc was really quite cool.

[4.53] at end of mission 5.

Overall
I thought this was a neat story about the rivalry between the two players and how Arachnos wanted to use this to further their own goals. I liked the idea that it was an adaptation of a musical; though in places using the exact lines from the musical didn't feel like it quite fit. The way all the briefings and debriefings were written as reporting by Amanda Vines, with a few lines interjected by the player, was really well done. I liked the way supporting characters and dialog were used to further the story. I liked that there was a lot going on, with several subplots; though I felt some of these subplots needed more closure.

Rounding 4.53 up, I gave this arc 5 stars.

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

That's it for (formal) reviews from me, for the time being. Thanks everyone, for all your support!

I just saw this thread, and it only seems fair to give you a review about Teen Phalax Forever!

I tried this mission for the first time when I just arrived in Atlas. Now I guess this would be obvious, Vazhalok gave me a good smacking. I left the mission alone for a while and tried again at level 27.

Now seeing as I'm still pretty new too the game, I don't know if there is a real cannon Teen Phalax or not, but I thought that the layout of the group (character, powers, looks) was fantastic.

I'm not too picky about little exp, if in return I get a good story out of it, and I sure did! The AE mechanics were used in their full right, making for some great missions. (Loved the Camera duty in the TP base.)
I also really liked how Baby started calling the Freaks sick for eating his lunch, after you just ate it.

There was one thing I would have loved and that was instead of having:
World of Clockwork, it would be World of Clockcraft. But that's just me.

Last, but not least. I loved how you play a junior version of yourself (sidekick).

In overall, a very enjoyable story arc, and one that's certainly worth it's 5 stars.

---

If you are interested, why not give my story a shot? The link's in my description. Although it seems like a pretty dark subject at the start, it's in overall pretty lighthearted. Arc is mostly made for telling a story, and I've been looking for feedback.

-Maps are mostly small or medium, with plenty of progression per map. (You complete an objective and it triggers events.)

-Plenty of enemies, from custom to standard. Plenty of descriptions and clues giving you a bit of background info.

-A Architect Souvenir that gives you a readback, as well as the final option of the story. So be sure to give it a read.


Edit: "Quote: "That's it for (formal) reviews from me, for the time being. Thanks everyone, for all your support! "

Oops, seems I'm too late! Well hope you still like my tiny review of TPF.