I'll try yours if you'll try mine
By
5th_Elemental,
Posted on: 2009-04-10 13:04 in Mission Architect
Nice review, you picked up a lot of things I missed and that so far nobody has mentioned or pointed out.
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"Hello $name, it's been awhile." Even if I were blue side, a 27 wouldn't have ever gotten to talk to Buck before since he's a 30+ contact.
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Oversight. Maybe I'll just replace him with Montague or something but my options were limited as there are only two Midnight members in Croatoa, which is were this was meant to be taking place.
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Luis is acting like an ally; he can use some background info beyond the default Midnight Squad boilerplate. He spawned as a minion for me, which made him incredibly fragile (he got KO'd by a Tuatha's thrown branch before long); that's fine if it was intentional, but I'm not sure if it was.
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Yes, Midnight Spirit Masters are minions. He doesn't get a background as there is nothing special about him, we don't give backgrounds to every single named boss and ally after all.
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"Find Jeremiah Jones" felt rather bait and switch to me; I searched the whole cave for him hoping not to have to clear all, but he was nowhere to be seen, and it turned out defeating the named boss, Sitrix, completed the "Find Jeremiah Jones" objective instead.
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I have a hard time "idiot-proofing" things. I figured it wouldn't take long for people to figure out "Hmm, the CoT were holding this one guy, the other is nowhere to be found and there is a CoT boss standing there." I suppose i can make it more obvious.
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It also seems a little odd that Buck would be so alarmed at this text when this Amulet is already in his hands, in the Midnighter's Vault. As an NPC he should be supremely confident that the amulet is safe there. Not quite sure what the plot requires, but I wonder if it would be better if the amulet were buried in some crypt under no one's control; that would help justify him being worried about it falling in the wrong hands, and later he can send the player spelunking for it.
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The idea was to give the impression that they didn't know what the Amulet even did until now or that someone might be after it. I guess I need to word it much better.
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Accept mission: "Yes" is too short, suggest you replace with "Rescue Jeremiah".
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I treat that Accept text as your actual response to the contact. Hence why the briefings tend to end with a question.
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Found Jeremiah, he could use a description (other than the default Midnight Squad boilerplate).
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Once again, he's not important enough to have one in my opinion.
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Interestingly, Buck told me Jeremiah would help "fight your way back out", but I don't seem to have "lead Jeremiah out" as a goal; in fact, Jeremiah is helping me fight my way deeper in. May want to reword Buck's briefing or add a "lead Jeremiah out" as a goal. Preferably the former, having him die and force the mission to fail probably would mess up the plot. Jeremiah DOES seem very helpful in a fight, with earth control's -def doing a good job of canceling the annoying -acc dark melee effects from ghsots.
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Idea was you were supposed to just rescue him, but Jeremiah refused to leave right away after he tells you what's going on.
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Found Polentes' Journal; the info there seems a little redundant with the Polentes Gloats and Jeremiah Jones' Story clues though.
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Except for the last line.
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Briefing needs to be a little longer and more descriptive. I know it may seem clear from the mission 2 debriefing, but if you're not the team leader, you won't have seen that, so reiterate here that the CoT have launched a huge attack on the Midnight Club.
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I could shift some of the previous mission debriefing over.
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It's a defeat all, but the map isn't too big, so it's not too bad.
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This is one of those times when you're not allowed to complain about a Defeat All. In fact it wouldn't make any sense to not defeat all of the CoT inside that little area.
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Although this is described as a pitched battle between CoT and Midnight Squad, there's no actual fighting that I can find; it's all CoT standing around in static spawns. Suggest you set up several "battles" between CoT and Midnight Squad, and maybe a patrol or two of each, to add to the chaos. Flag the Midnight Squad as being friendly and the heroes can jump into these fights to beat up the CoTs and save the Midnight Squad people.
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If you've never worked with that map before, you might be surprised that it only allows 4 details total. Chris also tells you that you've missed most of the action.
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if the Living Armor must be silent, have the CoT fighting it at least say something
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Actually they do but it's nothing important so you probably forgot it.
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I'm actually surprised you don't have an object you need to rescue from the CoT in this mission, representing the Amulet of J'Gara. Consider adding one.
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Not going to happen, because Mindskewer already states twice (in the unaware, and attack dialogs) that she already has the amulet. I also cannot control the location of a glowie so it could very well spawn after her, only telling you what you already know, that she has it.
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Debriefing: Huh? Buck starts talking then is cut off by (I assume) Mindskewer, who claims she had the amulet in her possession already and was using its powers. This is not hinted at during the actual mission; with the Amulet being portrayed as being so dangerous, and something the bad guys are so hot to get at, if Mindskewer had already captured it, there should definitely be a clue to that effect.
Also Mindskewer claims that I never left the Midnight Club. If this is to be taken at face value, there is no reason Buck should even get one sentence of dialog here, since you never should even get to him. Maybe you could delete Buck's dialog and instead open with something like,
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That's because it's Mindskewer screwing with you. She likes to play with her food, apparently.
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I like the list of mission goals in the nav tool of this mission, very cool sounding. Not sure what the blue color means, if anything, though.
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Meant to signify "optional" since space is already limited.
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I like that Nomaris is so desperate that he asks you for help, AND you get to actually save him. I'm a little puzzled why Nomaris and Chris McNeil are here though. I guess we're not inside my subconscious, but somewhere inside Mindskewer herself?
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They're there to make sure the arc stays levels 25-33. For some reason the Devs didn't think being able to set a level range was a feature worth having in issue 14.
Also think of it if you had a team, you're all in the same place. Mindskewer's powers are so amplified that she cast an epic mass sleep, hold or something on you all and you're sharing the same delusion. However the two-way nature of the amulet is letting you fight back once you realize that.
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It's in "Animus and Anima" faction instead of "Void Demons", is that intentional? Avatar of Strength is in "Animus and Anima", guessing that faction is meant to be "your" traits?
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Don't know what you saw because I went into MA and confirmed that Pain Elementals are in the Void Demons group.
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Avatar of Strength and its guards should have some dialog as you come up on them; even someting small, like "Avatar of Strength: Must...stay...strong...!" while the demons taunt it with "Shadowman: Your strength is useless now!"
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The captors do talk, I don't know how you keep missing these dialogs to be honest.
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Avatar of Initiative buffed Avatar of Strength with clear mind, increasing his perception by a lot, making him Leeroy into mobs even pretty far away. It's OK if that's what you want, but not sure if that was intentional or not. The fortitude she's giving out is REALLY nice though!
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Because Empathy is the only buffing set that friggin' works right now on Allies really. She was originally a /Thermal but she was ridiculously stingy with the buffs unlike she is with /Empathy. I tested Cold and Pain as well and had the same issues.
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Wow, Mindskewer in this mission seems to be a nearly completely different mob, even being one rank higher (spawned as EB for me). I nearly got fried by her alpha strike but some quick inspiration popping kept me in the game until my 3 allies started helping, letting me beat her.
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Well the impression should be that she was feeding off of you and the captured Avatars represent that. May also mean that the previous fight only seemed to be so easy because you didn't finish it on the physical plane. You also noticed that her appearance completely changes in this mission? Did you get a chance to read her description as well?
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I really like the set up for the last mission, with the smoky map and fiery prisons and the murky shadow demons it is VERY moody and atmospheric, and I thought rescuing your various positive attributes, which then buff you, was a cool mechanic.
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This arc was designed backwards. I took that map in the last mission, designed the Void Demons specifically for it, put Mindskewer in there, then had to come up with a reason for the player to be there and worked backwards to the beginning.
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Debriefing: Maybe have a brief note here saying that you come to and you're talking to Buck now, like normal. (Maybe this is implied by the normal font, but I think making it clear would be good, since you weren't talking to Buck the last time.)
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Well he talks to you like nothing odd happened and asks why you look all shaken up. It's implied that the entire last mission happened in a span of seconds during the fight in mission 3. I guess I can try to make it more obvious.
Council's Good Graces arc
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I think you can maybe drop the "Defeat warehouse manager" text from the nav tool as that is implied by the "Wipe out everyone inside".
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You can't. If there's no text there, the nav bar will simply say "Warehouse manager".
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Try unchecking him as a required objective (making him non-required) and erasing his nav bar text. The player will still be forced to kill him as part of "Wipe out everyone inside" though.
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Briefing: "Colonel Brimley under the 5th Column" should be "Oberst Brimley under the 5th Column".
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No. He was a Colonel. The 5th Column used military ranks. Like Colonel Burkholder. And many of their named bosses. Pretty much all of their named bosses used military ranks, not simply "Oberst" or the like.
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Oops, I stand corrected; I was thinking of the generic "Oberst" bosses, but I'd forgotten about Colonel Burkholder, Lt. Ubelmann and those guys that use American sounding ranks.
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I was uneasy at how in-the-dark this story kept me for most of the arc. Maybe it makes sense for Galdi's motivations but it makes the player feel like a tool, which is a little less fun.
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Well, aside from the first mission, Galdi's as in the dark as you are. You are uncovering a conspiracy, after all.
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That's cool, but I think the clues maybe could've told you a little more info earlier on, to help reinforce the direction you're taking the story. For most of the arc, I was very paranoid that Galdi was actually going to turn out to be a double agent for Longbow who was sending me to take out legit Council bosses. .... I've been working for Willy Wheeler too long, I guess.
Amulet of J'gara arc
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"Hello $name, it's been awhile." Even if I were blue side, a 27 wouldn't have ever gotten to talk to Buck before since he's a 30+ contact.
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Oversight. Maybe I'll just replace him with Montague or something but my options were limited as there are only two Midnight members in Croatoa, which is were this was meant to be taking place.
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It actually makes sense to use Buck Salinger since this is set in Croatoa; but maybe change the dialog so Buck doesn't necessarily act like you've worked with him before.
Though I confess I initially wrote down "Hey, Buck was a contact before the Midnight Club even existed! He can't be a Midnighter!" until I looked up his actual back story on ParagonWiki, which shows he's been in the Midnight Club all along.
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He doesn't get a background as there is nothing special about him, we don't give backgrounds to every single named boss and ally after all.
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I personally think it adds a little to the immersion of the story to have a little description (even if brief) for each named character. It is admittedly gold-plating that isn't strictly necessary, though.
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"Find Jeremiah Jones" felt rather bait and switch to me; I searched the whole cave for him hoping not to have to clear all, but he was nowhere to be seen, and it turned out defeating the named boss, Sitrix, completed the "Find Jeremiah Jones" objective instead.
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I have a hard time "idiot-proofing" things. I figured it wouldn't take long for people to figure out "Hmm, the CoT were holding this one guy, the other is nowhere to be found and there is a CoT boss standing there." I suppose i can make it more obvious.
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I made this comment because most of the canon PvE game has trained the player to treat a "Find Jeremiah Jones" objective as meaning you need to physically find the hostage in this mission, or at least a body bag representing his dead body; this previous training would actually hamper the player from completing your mission as written. If you change the objective to "Find out the fate of the last Midnighter", I think this makes it much clearer that you don't necessarily find Jeremiah, you might just find out what happened to him. I know this may sound like a very nitpicky distinction and maybe 4 out of 5 players will figure it out exactly as written, but you don't want that fifth player who can't figure out what he's supposed to do to rage-quit your arc and give you a low rating.
So yeah, I think as a general philosophy making things as clear as possible ("idiot proofing" if you must think of it that way) is better for keeping players interested in happy.
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Don't know what you saw because I went into MA and confirmed that Pain Elementals are in the Void Demons group.
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Hmm, when I ran through the mission I did see a Pain Elemental in the "Animus and Anima" group. You might check to make sure you set the faction right in the published mission itself, not in the "custom groups" interface? I've noticed that sometimes these differ. Otherwise it might be a bug, I've heard of problems with the enemy group of captives and captors getting mixed up.
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The captors do talk, I don't know how you keep missing these dialogs to be honest.
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I thought I was watching for those but did not see them for some reason. The last two maps are in pretty cramped quarters, possibly they generated their initial dialog when I was close by but actually looking at a different spawn at the time.
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Wow, Mindskewer in this mission seems to be a nearly completely different mob, even being one rank higher (spawned as EB for me). I nearly got fried by her alpha strike but some quick inspiration popping kept me in the game until my 3 allies started helping, letting me beat her.
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Well the impression should be that she was feeding off of you and the captured Avatars represent that. May also mean that the previous fight only seemed to be so easy because you didn't finish it on the physical plane. You also noticed that her appearance completely changes in this mission? Did you get a chance to read her description as well?
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Sorry, I didn't mean for my comment to sound negative - it's actually cool and makes sense that Mindskewer looks different and is more powerful "on the psychic plane" or wherever this final fight is occurring. I do think her description makes it clear what is happening; it seems my comment was unclear on whether it was a good or a bad thing. 
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This arc was designed backwards. I took that map in the last mission, designed the Void Demons specifically for it, put Mindskewer in there, then had to come up with a reason for the player to be there and worked backwards to the beginning.
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This makes sense for what I saw. I felt that the last mission was definitely the most cool mission of the arc; the first couple missions maybe could use some refinement to keep the overall quality up. But if you have to have an awesome mission and several more vanilla ones, having the awesome mission be the finale is definitely the best for dramatic value.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
I'm game. I'll try your missions tonight!
Here's mine, when you have a chance...
Arc Name: Little Boy Legacy
Arc ID: 59608
Creator Global/Forum Name: @DarthGM
Length: Very Long (barely)
Difficulty Level: Not sure of any rating on this, but there's the potential for 4 Elite Bosses and one Arch-Villain. They have spawned as bosses with only 1-3 heroes on normal difficulty
Synopsis: A trio of seemingly unrelated events may spell doom and atomic destruction for Paragon City, and heralds the arrival of a new group of mutant supremacists.
Estimated Time to Play: 1-2 hours
Recommended Level: Best level range is 30+
I'll give one of your arcs a try ASAP, and would more than welcome constructive feedback on mine.
Arc Name: The Oblivion Lens
Arc ID: 91897
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: Mr Beatdown/GahLakTus
Difficulty Level: Difficult, not impossible. Does contain an archvillian and may be difficult to solo for team-optimized characters.
Synopsis: What starts out as a battle against the Circle of Thorns turns into something far more dire when a mysterious artifact is recovered.
Estimated Time to Play: 45-60 minutes (figuring conservatively)
Poaching the Lion review
Missions were 1-54, 1-54, 25-34 and 1-54, heroic. Played on a 50 AR/dev blaster.
Mission 1
Briefing: "Codename Lions" I think should be "Codename Lion" based on your arc description.
Second part of briefing: put a comma after "Thanks to clues from undercover agents". "Paragon" should be "Paragon City".
Mission title: "Collect Drugs (for Government)" does not sound like a very heroic mission, but maybe you intend it to sound ironic. Consider changing mission title to "Bust Drug Dealers" if you want it to sound more heroic.
Assassin Trainee's description: "Assasin" should be "Assassin". Wow, his faction really IS "Codename Lions", but his description says "Lion organization" and the story arc description says "Codename Lion" -- pick which one you want (Lion or Lions) and use it consistently throughout your story arc.
Assassin's description: "Assassins" should be "Assassins". "Tacker Mask" maybe should be "Tracker Mask"? Not sure what you meant to say. "he alone is a formidable force" should probably be "he is a formidable force even when alone".
Scientist description: "They all have electrons in their suits that generate small bursts of electricity" -- "electrons" should be "electronics"
Lookout description: "serving as basic posts and lookouts". I don't think "posts" makes sense in this context. Maybe you mean "guards".
Tech Enforcer description: "Almost every part of his body replaced with machine" .. should maybe be "Almost every part of his body has been replaced with machines".
I was able to complete the first mission by clicking the 2 glowies and not fighting anything; not sure whether this was your intention. I think a more typical "drug bust" should involve arresting the ringleaders of the gang; so you might consider adding a named boss and requiring defeating the boss to complete the mission.
Mission 2:
Briefing is really pretty thin (2 lines?), I suggest you put more detail here. Maybe something about where this hideout is and what the player is supposed to do, maybe some info on the names and jobs of the "senior members" that the player is going in to bust, some flavor type details like that. Also "buisness" should be "business".
Second part of briefing: "especially the seniors" maybe should be "especially the senior members". The way it is phrased now, it sounds like I'll be busting septagenarians.
Mission objectives: Needs more detail, the way it is shown now I thought I had to arrest Special Agent Trosal as being one of the senior Lion agents, but when I found him, turned out he was a hostage. Mission briefing does not mention him at all, either, so not sure why I am rescuing him. Meanwhile, Adam Fong has his objective in exactly the same format but is someone I'm supposed to fight. I suggest you change your objectives to "Rescue Special Agent Trosal" and "Defeat Adam Fong", or maybe "2 undercover agents to rescue, Arrest Lion leadership".
Entry popup: You hear screams? Who is supposed to be screaming here?
Found Special Agent Trosal. "Assasin" should be "Assassin" in his description. If he's an undercover Assassin Trainee, why isn't he dressed as one? Also, his faction is "Scientist" which doesn't make sense for a spy, and his background says the Lions are determined to kill him, but the Lions near him are just holding him prisoner while he looks at his watch, which seems at odds with that.
After rescuing him, Trosal is helping me with psy powers and crossbow, but his only dialog is "Thanks" and there's not any explanation of who he is, how he got captured, what he found out while undercover, or anything like that. You may want to give a clue about the Lions organization as a result of rescuing him.
Adam Fong's description has "He runs most of the intelligence branch of the Lions, along with dealing." Dealing what? Think you need to add a word there. "It would be a great strike to the Lions to lose him", probably you want to say "It would be a terrible blow to the Lions to lose him."
Scientist guarding Rogers: "You aren'tcoming out of here alive, Police Woman." Should add a space after aren't. Also, a more natural expression would be "You aren't getting out of here alive, Police Woman!" The guard also says "You think you would get away with sending e-mails? They search all of them, in and out!" which is a little awkward sounding, maybe should be reworded to "You thought you could get away with sending intel via e-mail? All e-mails are monitored, in and out!"
I'm afraid this mission did not seem very involving to me; I'm rescuing 2 allies and defeated 1 boss, but didn't seem to learn much from doing so. I did get a clue from Fong (in which "buisness" should be "business") but it does not have much detail on what's going on. As a result the Lions organization has still not made much of an impression on me; I get that it's some kind of criminal organization but we just aren't told enough about them or what they're doing for it to feel important to stop them.
Debriefing: The contact tells me that I failed because Fong escaped and both his agents were discovered. But I clearly have in my scrollback "You have defeated Adam Fong" and both undercover agents had already been discovered before I even got to them, so I thought getting chewed out by the contact was extremely unwarranted. The sarcasm and rudeness in his debriefing made me want to quit the story arc, and I wouldn't be surprised if other players actually did quit it here.
Mission 3:
Briefing: "buisness" should be "business". Now the contact wants to send me to arrest some random Lions and Freakshow.
The mission title is "Defeat Codename Lions and Freakshow" but there are no Lions here. Also I imagine you won't defeat all of Codename Lions here, so you may want to have this as "Defeat Lions Agents and Freakshow". The only objective seems to be to defeat PwNz0r, though.
PwNz0r's dialog: "Maybe Fong already got taken care of by this thing." Should probably be "Maybe $heshe is why Fong never made it!"
"rAt least the Lions can't reach me in prison" .. "rAt" should be "At"
I was able to complete this mission by only defeating PwNz0r and his group, and never saw any Lions in the mission at all. So the briefing is actually incorrect, and the mission title probably shouldn't mention Lions at all. This mission probably needs more to do in it; simply killing one boss doesn't seem exciting enough to devote a whole mission to.
"Fong's Possible Locations" clue, "remeber" should be "remember". Also, if PwNz0r knows where Fong is, why is his dialog written as if he doesn't have any idea where Fong is? Continuity error. You also have a "Fong's Location" clue that I got at the same time, which seems redundant with the first clue.
Debriefing: "The Lions didn't show? Well, I kind of expected that, they aren't stupid." If he expected that, why did he send me on this mission? Doesn't make much sense.
Mission 4:
Briefing: This mission briefing (about 1.25 lines) is way too short and gives basically no info. I think you need to write more here. Something about the location, what Fong's up to, details about the mission.
This mission, "Defeat Adam Fong", feels rather redundant as I already defeated him in mission 2. I think I would've preferred the story arc treating Adam Fong as having really been defeated, but maybe interrogation led to a bigger boss higher up in the Codename Lions food chain, who you defeat here. The way it is now, the plot is kind of railroading the player into appearing incompetent for letting Adam Fong "escape" despite having beat him in the earlier mission; I don't think this is how you want to make your player feel, however.
I was able to finish this mission by just killing Adam Fong and nothing else. This mission probably needs more to do in it; simply killing one boss doesn't seem exciting enough to devote a whole mission to.
Fong mentions "The Mane" as someone he has to warn, but the arc ends right after that mission; perhaps this is a reference to a future sequel, though.
Debriefing: The contact seems very excited about my having defeated Fong and expositions about what a highly feared member of the Lion organization he is, but I never quite got that impression from the writing.
I think you maybe need to spend more time building up Fong as a villain rather than just have the contact *say* he is highly feared; perhaps sprinkle some clues in earlier missions about what Fong has been up to. Fong's description just says he does intelligence and dealing, which does not sound all that criminal and evil. Maybe introduce some horribly evil plot that Fong has been working on that endangers a lot of people, that the player has to foil, before finally leading up to arresting Fong? That would help define Fong as being more villainous.
Also in the debrief, "tranquelized" should be "tranquilized" and "reccomend" should be "recommend".
Overall:
I'm afraid this story never really gave me a feel for who "Codename Lions" really were; they were somewhat generic as villains go, and it felt to me like you could directly substitute the Sky Raiders or Family for the Lions and you wouldn't really notice. I think you need to think about what makes Codename Lions special and different from the other villain groups, and highlight that in your story.
I also felt that Adam Fong was not sufficiently built up as a Big Bad Guy, and I think I'd actually prefer you add a different Big Bad Guy who Adam tells you about, rather than have Adam Fong reappear in two different missions, having "gotten away" from the player. I also felt the contact yelling at the player for something the player had nothing to do with was uncalled for, and will make people playing through your story unhappy.
The mission gameplay seemed too straightforward also; the last two missions required only killing one boss in each, which felt too simple. I think you need to add some more stuff to do in each of your missions.
With all this I didn't feel I could rate this arc higher than 2 stars. Sorry about that! Hope some of these suggestions help you out though.
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I owe a review to:
@Scuzzbopper - What Price Victory? 58307
GlaziusF - 2nd arc
@Cryfire - 1 of 2503, 1651 or 1638
@Vanden - Knights of Rularuu 75386
@icerose - Operation: Doolittle 58609
@squeakersman - The Environmentalist 47796
Pippy - The Paragon Caper 65246
@Sakura-kishi - The Prisoners from the Land of OZ 49326
@Wrong Number - Death to Disco 84420
@Mr Beatdown - The Oblivion Lens 91897
in queue:
WynterPhrost
Baron_Rufus
You can make me owe you a review if you run through and review one of:
Axis and Allies (1379)
Celebrity Kidnapping (1388)
Teen Phalanx Forever! (67335)
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
I'll give it a go.
Arc Title: Yellow Submarine-Save Pepperland
ID# 92780
Length: Medium
Levels: 1-54
Alignment: Heroic
Global: Leaf Cutter Ant
Maps: outdoor maps (at this time)
Faction: Custom
Length: Medium 2 missions at this time
Difficulty: Set on Heroic bosses will be LTs should be soloable for most ATs (have not tried it with a blaster yet) All Mobs are 1 primary 1 secondary. No EBs/AVs
Contains: Destructable objects; Free ally, 1 boss
Arc Description: The Blue Meanies have taken over Pepperland! The Meanies have captured the The Band, John, Paul, Ringo and George. Old Fred needs you to help free them and save the people of Pepperland.
Contains only Part 1 & 2 at this time
Pinnacle-Pale Spectre 50 Kat/Regen/Dark Scrapper
Spectre of the Gun 50 Thugs/Dark/Soul Mastery MM
MA Story Spectre of the Gun's Search" ID #352424
Spectral Darque 50 Dark/Dark Scrapper
I'll bite as well PoliceWoman. I'll play two of yours sometime tomorrow evening, and I'll try to give some feedback. I haven't selected which ones I'll be doing yet.
Here are two of mine:
The Missing
ArcID: 37636
Faction: Heroic
Global: @Shadow-Rush
Level Range: 1-50
Difficulty Level: Moderate
No. of Missions: 3
Estimated Time to Play: 20-30 minutes
Synopsis: What starts out as a missing person case turns into something more sinister.
Notes: Story-Driven. Mystery. Solo-friendly, only contains one standard-level EB. An optional Ally is also provided.
Pandas vs. Rikti
ArcID: 68930
Faction: Heroic
Global: @Shadow-Rush
Level Range: 30-50
Difficulty: Moderate
No. of Missions: 4
Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes
Synopsis: In a parallel universe, Earth is populated by sentient pandas. They've been invaded by Rikti, and they are losing. Using an ancient device to interface with our Architect system... they are asking for your help.
Notes: Story-driven. Adventure. Some Comedy. A bit text heavy. Solo-friendly. Only one EB. Contains Allies. Also fun for teams.
Bleh. Wrong thread. My bad.
Pick your poison:
@jjac
A Tangle in Time - 2622
Eclipse Over Paragon - 64609
The Other Heroes review
@Scuzzbopper PM'd me suggesting I try out this newer arc of his, instead of the one he originally submitted.
Stated level range is 1-14 blue side, so I played a level 10 inv/SS tanker.
Mission 1:
Briefing: I like Susan Davies as a contact, been awhile since I've seen her! The central idea seems to be that Arachnos is attacking Atlas Park and Susan checked with 3 A-list heroes who were all busy or uninterested in helping, so she's now asking me. This is a little demeaning, but hey, I'm level 10. A level 50 hero exemping down to 14, though, probably would have a problem with Susan saying "I know you're new to the game" though.
I really like the stray Longbow, police and Hellions you've distributed around the map, in addition to the Arachnos spawns; they give the city more of a feeling of life. The hellion complaining about losing his purse snatching victim was pretty funny.
The guards on the transmitters and the control unit have nice emotes and dialog, but I'm still rather in the dark as to why I'm destroying them (though I guess anything Arachnos sets up in Atlas Park can't be good). I was quite puzzled until the Attack Leader gave up his clue, which was well placed (I was just thinking "I think this mission should give me some sort of clue as to what is happening"). Having Dr Geist be the evil mastermind is an inspired choice! I like that this ties the story closer to the CoH canon, and Geist is really underused and about the right level for this.
Debrief: The mission popup says you wonder if Susan will know who Geist is, but Susan's debrief doesn't mention Geist at all; seems like you would've mentioned the name to her. Continuity issue.
Mission 2
Briefing: OK, Susan starts talking about Geist here. But I think it would be more logical for her to have mentioned him in mission 1's debrief, either instead or additionally. Nice briefing though.
When you accept the mission, the mission title instantly changes to "Stop the Prison Break", which is kind of a spoiler for what happens in the mission. It's minor, but consider changing the mission title to "Interrogate Arachnos Prisoner", but keep the subgoal "Stop the Escaped Arachnos Prisoner". Then you won't know it's a jailbreak until you enter the zone, which I think would be a little more dramatic.
The Damned boss's dialog was pretty funny. His fire damage was quite nasty to me as an invuln (only 5% fire resist so far) but I was able to beat him.
I think there should be some actual police officers in this police station; right now it's all Arachnos and that one Hellion that I assume was to lower the level range. Maybe have a few PPD as hostages or allies that the hero needs to save?
Decently written clue from beating up the escapeee.
Debriefing is a little thin, but functional. Maybe add some text to it.
Mission 3
I notice this mission is 1-54 while the others are 1-14; not sure if this was intentional.
Pretty good briefing with lots of detail. Though with all sorts of things crawling up out of the sewers, I almost wonder if the player should be helping with that? Maybe have Susan explain that stopping Geist is more important or more time critical.
Second part of briefing implies that Geist actually was behind the prison break at the jail; but this isn't evident from the clues from the second mission. Maybe make that clearer, perhaps the escaped prisoner could mention that some of the Arachnos there were from Geist and not also escapees.
Watching the hydra mauling the Arachnos troops is actually quite funny! I like the panicky dialog from the Wolf Spiders also.
Although the transmitter in this mission is described as "like the ones in Atlas Park", this transmitter is a glowy that is clicky, but I think the ones in Atlas Park were all destructible objects that had to be bashed. Continuity error; they should be the same if they are described as being the same.
I like Geist's dialog also. However, shouldn't his ULTIMATE SECRET WEAPON have the initials USW, not USM?
Mission 4
Briefing: Really needs to be longer and have more explanation. If you're not the leader of the team running this, you wouldn't have seen the debriefing from mission 3 so you don't know that Geist's device is down in the sewers driving everyone out; so I think it would be a good idea if you re-iterate that here.
Possible logic problem with this mission: up to this point, all the transmitters have been described as *attracting* monsters to attack the area the transmitter is in. This mission seems to be to destroy a transmitter that is *repelling* monsters and pushing them out of the sewers. You may want to either fix this inconsistency or make some attempt at explaining it.
Second part of briefing: Wow, Susan is really unenthused about sending me, it seems! I guess that fits with the general attitude so far, though. I would've thought I'd get some points for arresting Geist, though.
I knocked out the transmitter and the mission ended; this made logical sense based on the plot so far, but was a little anticlimactic (I was able to simply fly/run past all the hydra to the final room, then bash the transmitter without having to fight anyone else). Having already beat up the big bad guy in mission 3, this mission didn't feel like it had much left for the player to do; it didn't help that the hydra, of course, can't have much dialog (which was a strength of previous missions). I did see a hellion and a Vahzilok that had a little dialog, though.
Overall:
I liked the plot and especially liked the in-mission dialog. Some of Susan's text is great and some could maybe use some fleshing out. I thought the last mission was rather anticlimactic as all you're doing is destroying one object. I think you could make your story stronger by adding more stuff to the last mission, editing the last mission out, or perhaps better, swapping the order of missions 3 and 4 so you clear the device(s) in the sewers first (and I think I'd put at least 2 and describe them as devices that drive hydra OUT of the sewers, differing from the transmitters that are luring them to certain places), then after that's taken care of, you go after Geist in his warehouse before he escapes.
Anyway, I did enjoy this story but thought it had a few problems that could use improvement. I rated it 4 stars.
---------------------
I owe a review to:
GlaziusF - 2nd arc
@Cryfire - 1 of 2503, 1651 or 1638
@Vanden - Knights of Rularuu 75386
@icerose - Operation: Doolittle 58609
@squeakersman - The Environmentalist 47796
Pippy - The Paragon Caper 65246
@Sakura-kishi - The Prisoners from the Land of OZ 49326
@Wrong Number - Death to Disco 84420
@Mr Beatdown - The Oblivion Lens 91897
@jjac - 1 of A Tangle in Time 2622 or Eclipse over Paragon 64609
@Shadow-rush - 2 of The Missing 37636 or Pandas vs Rikti 68930
in queue:
WynterPhrost
Baron_Rufus
Leaf Cutter Ant - Yellow Submarine 92780
You can make me owe you a review if you run through and review one of:
Axis and Allies (1379)
Celebrity Kidnapping (1388)
Teen Phalanx Forever! (67335)
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
Nice - I'd definitely like to try out a couple of your arcs, and I certainly wouldn't mind the constructive criticism you seem to provide in return. Here's my two existing arcs; I'll go play one of yours in a moment, and will likely get to a second one tomorrow night. Thanks in advance!
Arc Name: The Ideality - Part 1: A New Foe
Arc ID: 42436
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: @parhaius
Difficulty Level: Average
Synopsis: A mysterious and hostile new group is seizing territory all over Paragon City - but for what purpose?
Arc Name: The Ideality - Part 2: An Ideal Plan
Arc ID: 103737
Faction: Heroic
Creator Global/Forum Name: @parhaius
Difficulty Level: Above Average (AV at end)
Synopsis: Ideal's cybernetic thugs return to Paragon City in force. Will the work of just a few heroes be enough to stop their nefarious scheme?
Celebrity Kidnapping review
Stated level range is 20-30 red side, I played a level 24 fire/dark corruptor
Mission 1:
Briefing: Okay, I love Willy Wheeler as the contact, but was Willy ever this confident before? From what I remember, he's a stool pigeon and a wimp, not someone who easily bosses supervillains around. This same comment could stand for the other 2 briefings; so, moving on...
The mission itself is very characterful - there's a mess of mobs wandering around, fighting each other; exactly what you'd expect in a prison riot. One thing took me by surprise, though: Paris has powers. This should have been mentioned in the briefing, as it would clear up why Paris is in the Zig, of all places.
The mission popup at the beginning should maybe be a bit more descriptive. As it stands, yes, you know there's a riot going on. Perhaps a bit of color would work, though; something like: "Sirens wail and shotguns boom; you see prisoners and guards duking it out in the courtyard. You just walked into a full-blown prison riot!" Or something like that; you get the point.
Mission 2:
Briefing: See previous comments about Willy's cojones. Also, why does the Family have Paris now? They weren't even mentioned in the first mission brief; maybe that should be brought up a bit sooner.
As for the mission itself, it's very cut and dry. Nice, straightforward, and short - no mucking about hunting for the glowie. I wonder why the boss is named Terry Wheeler, though; is he supposed to be related to Willy, or was this just a bad naming coincidence? On the more technical side, I ran into one Unemployed Worker in the place - he was on the Scrapyarders team, everyone else was on Vagrants. Shouldn't he be a Vagrant too?
Mission 3:
Briefing: My wonderment at Willy's giant brass ones continues.
The mission itself is excellently designed. Fight in, find Paris, fight out through a different group. I especially liked the inclusion of Amanda Vines - excellent tabloid reporter stuff. Just one question: why are the Photographers and Cameramen so butch? Gah - I'm sure glad I walked in with a whole bunch of Break Free. I also couldn't help but notice you stuck yourself in there. Nice touch.
The final debrief nicely closes the arc, and Willy gets his too. Now THIS is the Willy I remember!
The one other (very minor) gripe I have is that there's no colors included in the mission briefing for the mission title or for the mission "statement". I think it's always a good idea to throw those colors in, but that's just personal preference.
Overall, the story makes a lot of sense, the writing is well thought out, and the mission design is excellent. I ended up giving the arc 5 stars. Well done! Tomorrow night, I try to join the Teen Phalanx!
Thanks, PW!
Good points. I'll try to fix those issues you pointed out.
Doh! on the USM.
CoH Codex : Demo Models/FX/MOVs : Demo Info
Arc 111022: "Doctor Geist and the Scientific Method"
Arc #97358 Shift Awesome!
Morality: Heroic
Length: Medium
Global: @Markus V8.0
Type: Alien adventure!
I am going to try yours right now
Thanks for this detailed review!
[ QUOTE ]
Celebrity Kidnapping review
....
Briefing: Okay, I love Willy Wheeler as the contact, but was Willy ever this confident before? From what I remember, he's a stool pigeon and a wimp, not someone who easily bosses supervillains around.
[/ QUOTE ]
The impression I always got from Willy Wheeler is that he talks big and tries to impress you as being a well-connected fixer, but then he wusses out when things go sour. I'll review his earlier briefings and see if I can inject more weaselly-ness into them, though.
[ QUOTE ]
One thing took me by surprise, though: Paris has powers. This should have been mentioned in the briefing, as it would clear up why Paris is in the Zig, of all places.
[/ QUOTE ]
This does seem to be something people keep commenting on. I'll add a line to the first mission briefing mentioning that Paris has some low grade powers.
[ QUOTE ]
The mission popup at the beginning should maybe be a bit more descriptive. As it stands, yes, you know there's a riot going on. Perhaps a bit of color would work, though; something like: "Sirens wail and shotguns boom; you see prisoners and guards duking it out in the courtyard. You just walked into a full-blown prison riot!"
[/ QUOTE ]
I like this and will directly steal it.
[ QUOTE ]
Briefing: See previous comments about Willy's cojones. Also, why does the Family have Paris now? They weren't even mentioned in the first mission brief; maybe that should be brought up a bit sooner.
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, the first briefing does have Willy saying that he's dealing in some Family goons who provoked the prison riot as a distraction, and you should be able to see some Family guys in the first mission fighting Prisoners..err, Convicts...by the jail cells. It's possible the Convicts might have wiped out the Family before you saw them, though, since as custom characters, even with the weakest powers I could give them they're probably stronger than the original Prisoners (who I really hope they bring back).
[ QUOTE ]
I wonder why the boss is named Terry Wheeler, though; is he supposed to be related to Willy, or was this just a bad naming coincidence?
[/ QUOTE ]
Another reviewer suggested I add a hobo boss here, and I came up with the idea of making the hobo lord Willy's washed up brother, as an instructional lesson in what happens to people who listen to Willy Wheeler. Terry has some extra background in his "info" box, but probably it isn't reasonable to expect every person to read that. I considered adding a clue for when you kill Terry, that would reveal some of his background story; but he's really a very peripheral character to the plot, so this might just clutter the clue journal needlessly. I'm currently leaning towards renaming him "Hobo" or "Bum" or something generic to make his name less distracting, but then if anyone actually DOES check his info, they get the life story of Terry Wheeler as a minor easter egg.
[ QUOTE ]
On the more technical side, I ran into one Unemployed Worker in the place - he was on the Scrapyarders team, everyone else was on Vagrants. Shouldn't he be a Vagrant too?
[/ QUOTE ]
Does seem odd. Most of the Vagrants are repurposed Scrapyarders and Warriors with a few custom guys mixed in; I'll check to see whether I directly used a Scrapyarder boss for Unemployed Worker or used a version from the Vagrants faction.
[ QUOTE ]
Just one question: why are the Photographers and Cameramen so butch?
[/ QUOTE ]
Not sure what you are asking here? Do you mean you think I should lower their "physique" slider?
[ QUOTE ]
I also couldn't help but notice you stuck yourself in there. Nice touch.
[/ QUOTE ]
Like many mission authors, I can't resist occasional author insertion. I like to think I try to limit it to only situations where it makes sense; for example, in this mission, there's a massive PPD presence in the third mission, so Police Woman is mixed in with all the other cops that show up to arrest the protagonist. I've had people say they thought Police Woman was just a custom PPD mob I added to this mission, so I think this has worked.
[ QUOTE ]
Overall, the story makes a lot of sense, the writing is well thought out, and the mission design is excellent. I ended up giving the arc 5 stars. Well done! Tomorrow night, I try to join the Teen Phalanx!
[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks much, I appreciate the feedback and will look into making some changes based on your suggestions!
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
Arc Name: 99 Bottles of Beer
Author: @Canadian Canuck
Publish Number: 100616
Description: i know you like beer, eh? come and find the stolen bottles of beer from Elisnore's Brewery Wall of Fame.
Length: 4 missions
heh, now that i have you drooling why don't you go ahead and do my story. i please send me a tell when you are done and let me know your MArc number so i can do yours and return the favor in stars.
@Canadian Canuck @Canadian Canuck2
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Just one question: why are the Photographers and Cameramen so butch?
[/ QUOTE ]
Not sure what you are asking here? Do you mean you think I should lower their "physique" slider?
[/ QUOTE ]
Haha! No, I was just wondering how they were the most dangerous mobs in the whole arc (at least to me) when fighting against cops, mobsters, convicts, etc.
Probably just my pathetic play style interfering with my good sense again.
[ QUOTE ]
Axis and Allies
Arc ID: 1379
Length: Long
Morality: Villainous
Description: Travel back in time to take over the 5th Column, and lead the Axis powers to win WW2 and conquer the World!
[/ QUOTE ]
I tried out this arc, and I gotta say that I enjoyed it immensely. Not only was the story pretty creative conceptually, but you also made good use of the character creation tools and the maps already in use in the CoX universe. And bonus points for knowing your WWII history.
My only criticism would be that each mission uses an outdoor map, as my natural instinct is to stealth around to find the objective, unless the mission is *shudder* defeat all. But at the same time, the various maps fit your story so well, I really can't complain. Either way, I gave rated the arc 5 stars.
Will you attempt another version for the Pacific Theater? If so, I would definitely play it.
Here's the info for my story arc, when you have time to check it out.
Arc Name: "The Once and Future King Sac"
Arc ID: 99394
Faction: Custom group (The Entropy)
Creator Global/Forum Name: @KingSac
Difficulty Level: Medium to High (depends on how you handle EBs)
Synopsis: A strange temporal anomaly has been detected, and for some reason, it seems centered around the hero, King Sac. A hero is needed to investigate the disturbance before what seems like a harmless ripple ends up cascading across the universe.
Estimated Time to Play: 45-60 minutes (5 missions)
Feedback Link!
Teen Phalanx Forever! review
The arc is for... well... some level range I can't easily identify. I played it with a level 28 db/will scrapper.
I'm not breaking out the briefings or the separate missions as I did in my last review. The briefings were high-quality overall, and I loved the teen versions of some of our favorite heroes, along with the teen-like attitude some of them showed (DON'T CALL ME THAT! Classic.)
I have a very few gripes about the actual mechanics of a couple of the missions, though. Specifically, in mission 2, I ended up fighting the Clockwork King before I ever found Cora or BABy - perhaps you should place all the allies at the front/middle of the instance and place only CK at the back so this doesn't happen? After all, I got the clue that said Cora ran off to see Statesboy "As we're going to fight the Clockwork King" - but this happened AFTER I fought the Clockwork King! It ended up making very little sense.
I was a bit annoyed at having an AV in each mission (though the first mission brief warned me about it), though honestly, they were no challenge at all considering the firepower each of the Phalanx members was packing. I barely did anything and they finished off everything around me without breaking a sweat. Maybe to give the player something more to do, you can tone them down to Lt's instead of bosses?
The only other true complaint I have is about the level ranges for the missions. Yes, I understand its due to the mobs you ended up using, and they make sense for the story, but having my level 28 not have a couple powers available to him in mish 3 and then suddenly "rediscovering" those powers for mish 4, which chronologically takes place immediately after, makes no sense at all. Maybe create your own custom mob and put it in the right faction so it shows up when you want it to?
Overall, though, I loved the storyline and your writing was excellent (as before). I gave this arc 5 stars. Keep up the great work, PW!
Bricked Electronics
Stated level range is 8-20 blue side. Played a 10 inv/ss tanker.
Very interesting premise (IMHO)... Mark Freeman has the power to read data remanence off of electronic devices and he's convinced there's something weird about a refurbished cell phone he acquired and he sends you to investigate it.
Mission 1
Briefing: despite quite a long briefing with interesting text in it, I find that Mark has actually told me almost nothing about what's going on 
but it's just the start of this investigation, so hopefully I'll learn more.
I like the pop-up as you enter, where you hear jetpacks. Helps set the scene.
Goldbricker Swag clue: "The Goldbrickers were probably trying to move fast, and that meant not hitting home base too early." I'm not sure what this actually means? Maybe this is an expression I'm not familiar with. Do you mean to say the Goldbrickers forgot this crate?
Billmark's dialog: "Ggh" needs a vowel in it.
Billmark's clue: "Rogue Isle Protector" should probably be "Rogue Isles Protector", or else use a specific island name. "The flakes of ink in the compartment suggest that he marked it up"... I don't think most people use ink that flakes any more. Maybe "ink smears" instead of flakes.
Debriefing: "A newpaper?" should be "A newspaper?" Also "Dead tree edition, my one weakness" doesn't scan; maybe "Dead trees, my one weakness" would make more sense.
Logic problem: if I brought Mark the jetpack the Goldbricker leader had, wouldn't he be able to divine something from that using his powers? Even if you don't want to give away more clues at this stage, consider mentioning that Mark tries this but doesn't learn much; as I see it, there's absolutely no reason not to bring every bit of electronics that we find to him to analyze.
Mission 2
Pretty good briefing, though still we don't seem to know anything. Another good popup on entering the mission that sets the scene.
You have some clockworks in the "Constructs" faction and others in "JJ's Constructs"; should these be in the same faction or are they intentionally different?
I found a destructible Charging Station 1-A that I destroyed, but it seemed unconnected to any of the objectives; not sure what it's purpose was. Or maybe it's just there for color.
I fought a Tweeter clockwork, a lieutenant with sonic blast; this actually seemed quite dangerous to my 10 tanker (who admittedly is still kinda squishy), due to the stacking sonic blasts. The other custom mobs seemed fine.
JJ's rant: "drek" should be "dreck". "'course they have" should be "'Course they have". "nobody's usin' it any more" should maybe be "nobody's usin' it no more", but the way it's written can work too. Her rant is very good but she never does say where she got the cell phone, which was the whole point of busting up her operation.
Debriefing: Mark is impressed that JJ was able to repair cellphones; but, I would actually think he'd be more impressed that she hotwired Clockwork robots and built a few robots of her own. May want to reword what he says.
Glad he is using his power to look at the cell phones I picked up. If you have a superpower, use it often.
Mission 3
Briefing: Nice touch on mentioning J.J. reformed and got a job. I'm a little puzzled how Mark knows the phones came from a cave; did J.J. tell him or his power tells him somehow? Would like some clarification. If it's his power, though, why wouldn't he have known from the first phone?
Also Mark complains that J.J.'s refurb of the phones wiped out the memory; but I'm pretty sure in mission 1's briefing Mark claimed that erasing the memory doesn't stop his power. I can't definitely check this from where I am in the arc, but if so, that would appear to be a contradiction on how his powers work.
The stuff about robbing a bank just sounds weird. Maybe drop it until later in the story, or else rewrite it to sound more like a mystic vision or psychic reading (i.e. describe it based on vague impressions that Mark psychically sensed).
Second part of briefing: Now Mark expects me to pick up some sort of trash? This wasn't mentioned in the first part of the briefing, which was just "Go check this cave out and have a look around". I think the briefing isn't quite clear on what the player is being asked to do.
Mission title of "Find Mark some fresh discards" is very inglorious sounding. Maybe "Investigate Cave" or "Collect Evidence" ? Both sound more officially heroic, but work out to be the same thing as "Find Mark some trash".
Upon entering the mission, I find it's not a cave, it's a Council base! I suppose a Council base is a type of cave, but I was expecting more of a CoT style cave based on the info. I kinda think Mark should've been able to tell us that the cave was being used for 5th Column loyalists though.
Technological Detritus clue: "netbooks", do you maybe mean "notebooks" or "e-books"? "Most of them are pretty damaged, from the fall if nothing else." What fall? Maybe you mean "Most of them are pretty damaged, apparently from getting dropped down an air shaft."
Now that I've picked up 2 boxes of tech detritus and defeated Archon Targus, a new goal of "3 gas cylinders to destroy" has appeared. However, this does not connect to the mission title of "Find Mark some fresh discards", which has been accomplished already but the mission hasn't completed. May want to rephrase mission title so it makes sense no matter what the humans are actually doing.
Debriefing is cute again refers to Mark having trouble with "wiped" electronics though.
Mission 4
Not a bad briefing, though Mark talking about getting "old files off a system", then suddenly switching gears and saying he got info from pictures taken by the phones, is a little dissonant. Most people don't refer to a phone as a system, so these sound like two different items; maybe rephrase the earlier sentence to also talk about phones.
Second part of briefing: "I tracked down the article Billmark was so interested in." The newspaper was described as something Mark was having trouble making anything of. He maybe should mention whatever it was that caused a breakthrough on learning a clue from the newspaper.
This second part of the briefing is a VERY long exposition on imaginary banking laws; I'm not sure it belongs here, as it is not relevant to the mission. It maybe should be a clue from a banker or a torn-out page of a law book or something. Additionally, I'm quite skeptical of this made-up law; even if you were pronounced missing and legally dead, the bank would be obliged to turn over the money to your legal heir. The financial arrangement described here demands too much suspension of disbelief.
Mission entry popup: Why would I assume that the strange noise is JJ's package? I'm in a villain base, there could be many possible explanations for strange noises other than a robotic gift from a geek girl you just met. It may make more sense to find whatever it is, THEN realize it is from JJ.
Got laptops for Mark but he still doesn't seem to get much off of them despite his technomancy?
Mission 5
I'm not sure that the bank financial stuff makes sense, but this mission does have an interesting structure, with a 10 minute time limit to save JJ from Goldbrickers.
Mission objectives: "Drop the Goldbricker boss" is already covred by the "Arrest all Goldbrickers!" goal.
Rescued JJ; I like that she is now a robots MM.
Managed to complete all the objectives in the 10 minutes allowed, with 2 minutes to spare.
Even after beating the Goldbricker boss and going through Mark's final debriefing, I'm still not quite sure what was going on here. I guess they were trying to steal the contents of one person's bank account before the money was nationalized? But if they are robbing the bank anyway, why not take everyone's money, not just this one person's money?
The Goldbricker boss's insane babbling suggests there is something more, and the reasons behind this particular robbery appear intentionally left a mystery. As a result, I didn't feel a sense of closure at the end of the arc; it still felt like there were loose ends that were never really addressed.
Also, in hindsight now, the original adventure hook of the refurbished cell phone seems a lot less central to the plot than I would've expected; based on the explanation during the story arc, it seems to have just been a phone used a couple times to talk about a robbery, then thrown down an elevator shaft. With all the ghost-in-the-machine type talk I had pictured the secret of the cell phone being much more dramatic for some reason.
Overall:
I like the style and the dialog, but felt the plotting had some problems; in places, I found the story hard to believe, loose ends were never tied up, and the original macguffin, the "haunted" cell phone, turns out to be a lot more mundane than expected. I also felt that Mark Freeman's technomancy powers were portrayed inconsistently; rather than always working the same way, they seemed to be more helpful or less helpful based on whether the plot needed to produce a clue at that moment or not.
On the other hand, I really liked JJ Cartwright's character development; it was very nice to be able to turn her from a villain to an ally and seemingly befriend her. The idea of using Mark Freeman and his techno powers was quite cool (despite my complaint about how he was used inconsistently). I liked the timed nature of the last mission with its laundry list of goals, it gave me a sense of time pressure; though I was tempted to fail the mission just to see how the story arc would handle it. The writing style was pretty good and full of extra detail, and there were a lot of good clues provided.
With all that said, I gave this story arc 4 stars.
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
Hero of Twilight review
I played this on a 3 player team: bs/shield scrapper (me), emp/psy defender, ice/ice blaster.
This story arc's concept seemed to be fantasy based, where you're doing various good deeds and quests for an elf kingdom. Most maps were set in Croatoa to represent this magical kingdom.
Mission 1
Briefing:
"I live and breath the song" breath should bebreathe
"magnatude" should be "magnitude"
"I am deeply in need of your assistance Blond Justice if history.." put a comma after assistance.
In general, I think your briefing should better explain the nature of this magical kingdom that the players are helping to save. Players generally won't have any knowledge of this fantasy realm, so you need to tell them a little about it and its problems.
In the mission:
"curse beserker" should be "curse berserker" or "cursed berserker"
Your mobs are in faction called "Cursed Elves 2". The 2 looks very extraneous. Suggest you rename this faction "Cursed Elves".
None of your mobs have any description; I think putting a few lines explaining them would be helpful for developing a sense of immersion.
The mission gameplay was pretty simple; I fought a bunch of elfy looking characters, freed a captive, then the mission ended.
Mission 2
Briefing: "suprised" should be "surprised". The briefing sounds like fairly generic fantasy questing boilerplate; and it doesn't feel that closely connected to what just happened in mission 2.
In the mission, the Suns Shadow Elves did have a very nice look and were fun to fight. Here's a picture of my character fighting some of the elves:
Blond Justice versus Elves
In the boss encounter, we ran into both Empress Schism (the boss) and Empress Schism 2 (who seemed to be a copy). We weren't sure if this was intentional; they have no description so we aren't sure if the Empress is meant to have multiple bodies or mirror images or something.
Mission 3
"allthou" should be "although"
"during he reign" should be "during his reign"
"Anceints" should be "Ancients"
Pakdi's group says: "This is as far as you get appreantice of Warmaster Kordith!" appreantice should be apprentice.
We ran into another Empress Schism 2 boss, who summoned a crazy amount of illusion effects. Possibly her power level should be toned down a bit.
Now that I mention it, your elf assassins are ninjitsu which could be very dangerous to some players; you may not want to use those powers too often. Also the Rylic bosses semed to be archery/invuln, and had enough invuln to frequently use Unstoppable, making them nearly impossible for us to kill. You might consider reducing the number of invuln powers they get.
We had to save Pakdi before either the King ally or General Grim ver would spawn. But there is no obvious reason for why this is required; we already came into the mission knowing we need to save the King and fight the General, so it's not like Pakdi told us anything new.
When we found General Grimver, I noticed the mob is called Grimver but in text everywhere else (e.g. Mission Title) he's called Grim Ver. Pick one way to spell his name and stick with it.
In the mission debriefing:
dieties should be deities
suprising should be surprising
Temperal should be Temporal
Overall:
I'm afraid this story felt rather generic fantasy. In addition, it didn't really have a unifying narrative that connected all the missions together; each mission seemed its own little scene that was not very closely tied to the other missions in the sequence, other than nominally being in the same kingdom and sharing some of the same mobs. Of those mobs, I think a few may have powersets that will be hard for players to deal with (maybe would be fine if you lowered the difficulty level on their power sets too though), and none of them currently have any kind of description, which would help. I'm not sure if Empress Schism 2 appearing in multiple places is intentional or not, also. In general I think you will want to add some description or explanation of this fantasy world that the heroes are transported to, for the sake of setting up a good background for what is happening.
With no overall story, not much description and some problem mobs, I felt I couldn't rate this arc higher than 2 stars. Sorry, hope you think that's fair!
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
Knights of Rularuu review
Did this on a 4 player team with a bs/shield scrapper (me), ice/ice blaster, emp/psy defender and an ice/storm controller. Being on a team, we were moving pretty fast and as a result I didn't catch as much detail as when soloing.
Based on the story arc concept, it sounds like Justice-Guy is conning us into doing his Agent Indigo and Agent Crimson missions for him.
Mission 1
This mission seemed to be to fight some random Malta.
We rescued a hero named Serras, but she promptly ditched us to go hang out with Justice-Guy off-panel somewhere. She mentioned she'd send someone else to help us out, and we soon rescued Rebecca, who was a Carnie boss. My team was very confused as to why a Carnie was helping us, and I'm not sure we ever got a good explanation for that.
In Rebecca's dialog, "terrorist cell to route" should be "terrorist cell to rout".
The Malta Data clue felt very generic in nature; it basically didn't say anything about what the clue actually was, merely that we should bring it to someone who can tell what it says. Would be nicer if the clue text gave some details about what is actually being learned here; we can still have the contact give us the full picture, but it'd be nice if players reading the clue had a chance to figure it out on their own, too.
Debriefing: Bizarrely, Justice-Guy spends most of the debriefing talking about some mission he did while we were gone. This would be okay for a throwaway line, but he actually spends more time talking about himself than about the mission my team just completed, which seems wrong.
After the first mission the empath had to log off, leaving me with a team of 3.
Mission 2
Started off normal, then got weird with Rularuu. We all thought the custom models for the Rularuu were very cool; they fit right in and we only really could tell because they were more humanoid looking than the other Rularuu.
I didn't notice anything especially wrong with this mission, other than it has Malta and Rularuu -- two nasty villain groups, together.
Mission 3
Joan's clue: santuary should be sanctuary
Debriefing: "funhouse - slash - prison - for - a - deity" is very awkwardly punctuated. Maybe "funhouse/deity-prison". Maybe add paragraph breaks to make this text more readable, also.
Mission 4
I like how the hostage was linked to the dimensional stabilizer. We were able to confront the AV and beat him with 3, but it was close at points.
Here's a picture of my character fighting some Rularuu (one of the customized ones is dead in the lower left):
Blond Justice vs Rularuu
Overall:
My team liked the special Rularuu models and the last two missions with the Rularuu; but felt the Malta subplot at the beginning and not-very-serious Justice-Guy and the Carnie didn't seem to mesh well with the more serious Rularuu subplot. I think you could tighten up the plot of your story arc by trimming the first mission or two, which mainly focus on the Malta group, who don't really seem important in the last 2 missions; then the players would directly launch into action against the Rularuu right away. Either that or rework the first couple missions to be more similar in tone to the last two, which have a darker and more serious tone due to the Rularuu and their various captives; maybe even switch out Justice-Guy as contact for one of the Firebase Zulu NPCs. As it is now, it seems like the Malta part of the arc and the Rularuu part of the arc are actually separate stories.
As a result of all this, I gave this story arc 4 stars.
----
(Reviewed Operation Doolittle, but since someone asked me to look at that arc in game and not on this forum, I'll send comments on that arc via PM instead of posting here.)
---------------------
I owe a review to:
@squeakersman - The Environmentalist 47796
Pippy - The Paragon Caper 65246
@Sakura-kishi - The Prisoners from the Land of OZ 49326
@Wrong Number - Death to Disco 84420
@Mr Beatdown - The Oblivion Lens 91897
@jjac - 1 of A Tangle in Time 2622 or Eclipse over Paragon 64609
@Shadow-rush - 2 of The Missing 37636 or Pandas vs Rikti 68930
@parhaius - 2 of Ideality Part1 42436 or Ideality Part2 103737
@Markus V8.0 - Shift Awesome! 97358
@KingSac - The Once and Future King Sac 99394
in queue:
WynterPhrost
Baron_Rufus
Leaf Cutter Ant - Yellow Submarine 92780
@Canadian Canuk - 99 bottles of Beer 100616
You can make me owe you a review if you run through and review one of:
Axis and Allies (1379)
Celebrity Kidnapping (1388)
Teen Phalanx Forever! (67335)
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"
[ QUOTE ]
Bricked Electronics
Stated level range is 8-20 blue side. Played a 10 inv/ss tanker.
Very interesting premise (IMHO)... Mark Freeman has the power to read data remanence off of electronic devices and he's convinced there's something weird about a refurbished cell phone he acquired and he sends you to investigate it.
Mission 1
Briefing: despite quite a long briefing with interesting text in it, I find that Mark has actually told me almost nothing about what's going on but it's just the start of this investigation, so hopefully I'll learn more.
[/ QUOTE ]
It's... the start of an investigation? Hmm. More on this later.
[ QUOTE ]
I like the pop-up as you enter, where you hear jetpacks. Helps set the scene.
Goldbricker Swag clue: "The Goldbrickers were probably trying to move fast, and that meant not hitting home base too early." I'm not sure what this actually means? Maybe this is an expression I'm not familiar with. Do you mean to say the Goldbrickers forgot this crate?
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, Billmark's talking about "stop 4 on the itinerary" and "I knew we should have dropped this stuff off". The idea is they're making a lightning-fast sweep around targets of opportunity and grabbing tech to fence.
Could probably stand to trade "hitting home base" with "going back to base".
[ QUOTE ]
Billmark's dialog: "Ggh" needs a vowel in it.
Billmark's clue: "Rogue Isle Protector" should probably be "Rogue Isles Protector", or else use a specific island name. "The flakes of ink in the compartment suggest that he marked it up"... I don't think most people use ink that flakes any more. Maybe "ink smears" instead of flakes.
[/ QUOTE ]
It should be. It isn't. But for plot purposes I don't really have to have the jetpack cook off all of Billmark's markups. Will remove. (the newsprint is fine because villains have flaming hands)
[ QUOTE ]
Debriefing: "A newpaper?" should be "A newspaper?" Also "Dead tree edition, my one weakness" doesn't scan; maybe "Dead trees, my one weakness" would make more sense.
[/ QUOTE ]
Man, curse this infernal versioning weirdness! I could swear I found and fixed that yesterday. Will take another look.
Dead tree edition is hacker talk for a printed copy.
[ QUOTE ]
Logic problem: if I brought Mark the jetpack the Goldbricker leader had, wouldn't he be able to divine something from that using his powers? Even if you don't want to give away more clues at this stage, consider mentioning that Mark tries this but doesn't learn much; as I see it, there's absolutely no reason not to bring every bit of electronics that we find to him to analyze.
[/ QUOTE ]
Looking up information on the Goldbricker jetpacks, it doesn't seem like they're built to "know" anything. There are mentions of a security measure that'll burn them out without an authorized user but that's contradicted in the mission where it appears.
Probably could fit in something about how their jetpacks and weapons are "high tech, but it's all hard-wired. No memory. Well, no USEFUL memory. They save self-diagnostics, but you can't plan with those."
[ QUOTE ]
Mission 2
Pretty good briefing, though still we don't seem to know anything. Another good popup on entering the mission that sets the scene.
You have some clockworks in the "Constructs" faction and others in "JJ's Constructs"; should these be in the same faction or are they intentionally different?
[/ QUOTE ]
Original Enemy Group bug: if I want the allies in mission 4 to be "JJ's Constructs" they have to be that enemy group, which means any chatty fights also betray their true origins.
[ QUOTE ]
I found a destructible Charging Station 1-A that I destroyed, but it seemed unconnected to any of the objectives; not sure what it's purpose was. Or maybe it's just there for color.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ding ding ding.
[ QUOTE ]
I fought a Tweeter clockwork, a lieutenant with sonic blast; this actually seemed quite dangerous to my 10 tanker (who admittedly is still kinda squishy), due to the stacking sonic blasts. The other custom mobs seemed fine.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ran through this whole thing on a level 6 shield scrapper. Shield's a "weak defense set", right? I don't even keep track anymore.
[ QUOTE ]
JJ's rant: "drek" should be "dreck". "'course they have" should be "'Course they have". "nobody's usin' it any more" should maybe be "nobody's usin' it no more", but the way it's written can work too. Her rant is very good but she never does say where she got the cell phone, which was the whole point of busting up her operation.
Debriefing: Mark is impressed that JJ was able to repair cellphones; but, I would actually think he'd be more impressed that she hotwired Clockwork robots and built a few robots of her own. May want to reword what he says.
[/ QUOTE ]
Regional variant. I'll clarify what Mark's impressed about - building a robot defense force is a personal project, doing the microelectronics work to repair a cellphone means you can operate to someone else's spec.
[ QUOTE ]
Glad he is using his power to look at the cell phones I picked up. If you have a superpower, use it often.
Mission 3
Briefing: Nice touch on mentioning J.J. reformed and got a job. I'm a little puzzled how Mark knows the phones came from a cave; did J.J. tell him or his power tells him somehow? Would like some clarification. If it's his power, though, why wouldn't he have known from the first phone?
[/ QUOTE ]
I'll try and reword the text, I think he said that JJ pointed him to the cave?
[ QUOTE ]
Also Mark complains that J.J.'s refurb of the phones wiped out the memory; but I'm pretty sure in mission 1's briefing Mark claimed that erasing the memory doesn't stop his power. I can't definitely check this from where I am in the arc, but if so, that would appear to be a contradiction on how his powers work.
The stuff about robbing a bank just sounds weird. Maybe drop it until later in the story, or else rewrite it to sound more like a mystic vision or psychic reading (i.e. describe it based on vague impressions that Mark psychically sensed).
[/ QUOTE ]
I'll see what I can fit into the first sendoff. Something like...
"You want some specifics about this ghost? Yeah. I do too.
"It's like... trying to piece together a line drawing when all you see are the corners. Your brain gives you an idea of the shape, but it could be anything.
"The only thing that'll tell me more is another piece of tech with a similar past. My inner techie wants me to share my ideas, pass 'em around for comments, but... I can't. I guess that's just part of being a mutant; being the only person on the planet who does what you do how you do it."
As for the refurb, well, there are different levels of wiping out data. I'll try and make it clear that JJ's doing the high-class time-consuming one.
[ QUOTE ]
Second part of briefing: Now Mark expects me to pick up some sort of trash? This wasn't mentioned in the first part of the briefing, which was just "Go check this cave out and have a look around". I think the briefing isn't quite clear on what the player is being asked to do.
[/ QUOTE ]
I thought the first part of the briefing was okay about that - the cave is where JJ picked up the junk to repair in the first place. I'll take another look.
[ QUOTE ]
Mission title of "Find Mark some fresh discards" is very inglorious sounding. Maybe "Investigate Cave" or "Collect Evidence" ? Both sound more officially heroic, but work out to be the same thing as "Find Mark some trash".
[/ QUOTE ]
It's supposed to sound a little inglorious. That's why he apologizes to you after you take the mission.
[ QUOTE ]
Upon entering the mission, I find it's not a cave, it's a Council base! I suppose a Council base is a type of cave, but I was expecting more of a CoT style cave based on the info. I kinda think Mark should've been able to tell us that the cave was being used for 5th Column loyalists though.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, all he has to go off is JJ's description at this point. I'll try and make that a little clearer. It doesn't really occur to him to check it out because he thinks that, y'know, she'd let on about something like a secret base run by a nutbar with nerve gas.
[ QUOTE ]
Technological Detritus clue: "netbooks", do you maybe mean "notebooks" or "e-books"? "Most of them are pretty damaged, from the fall if nothing else." What fall? Maybe you mean "Most of them are pretty damaged, apparently from getting dropped down an air shaft."
[/ QUOTE ]
Nope. Netbooks. I'll try and be a little less cute about why they're damaged if I've got space for it.
[ QUOTE ]
Now that I've picked up 2 boxes of tech detritus and defeated Archon Targus, a new goal of "3 gas cylinders to destroy" has appeared. However, this does not connect to the mission title of "Find Mark some fresh discards", which has been accomplished already but the mission hasn't completed. May want to rephrase mission title so it makes sense no matter what the humans are actually doing.
Debriefing is cute again refers to Mark having trouble with "wiped" electronics though.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, the idea is that an actual hero in his actual base is the straw that breaks Targus's mind, and halfway through the battle (which is actually when the objective shows up, not that you're looking up there at the time) he barks an order to gas the city.
Naturally, you're not about to sit back and let that happen.
I'll definitely make it clearer about how he's not just gassing the base, but I kind of want there to be a feeling of this tiny little errand turning into you saving thousands of people.
[ QUOTE ]
Mission 4
Not a bad briefing, though Mark talking about getting "old files off a system", then suddenly switching gears and saying he got info from pictures taken by the phones, is a little dissonant. Most people don't refer to a phone as a system, so these sound like two different items; maybe rephrase the earlier sentence to also talk about phones.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, yeah. Most people. Mark's a tech-head, and I can't think of a way to spell out that your modern phone has its own file/operating system without coming off as talking down to someone who may have built their own power armor.
[ QUOTE ]
Second part of briefing: "I tracked down the article Billmark was so interested in." The newspaper was described as something Mark was having trouble making anything of. He maybe should mention whatever it was that caused a breakthrough on learning a clue from the newspaper.
[/ QUOTE ]
I do pick up this thread a little earlier on, and it'll probably make more sense if the paper gets found with Billmark's handwriting all over it - Mark turned the paper over to the police lab, which scans it in using optical character recognition (OCR, which he mentions) and then he can analyze the resulting, basically, text file.
[ QUOTE ]
This second part of the briefing is a VERY long exposition on imaginary banking laws;
[/ QUOTE ]
Permit me to introduce you to my close personal friend, Chapter 33-21 of the Rhode Island General Laws. (tl;dr version: if you don't get in touch with a bank at least every 3 years, whatever you have in any accounts there is considered 'abandoned' and subject to civil seizure)
It's actually good that you think I just made that up, because it gives the editorial in the RIP some credence. I am making a judgment call that in the wake of interdimensional war the state might put a moratorium on civil seizure, but I think it's a reasonable one, and Mark is speaking as someone who has worked on the problem of getting in touch with people.
If there's room I'll have him say something about civil inspection of the bank vaults creating a deviation from standard operating procedure that the Goldbrickers might be able to take advantage of, but the reason I have him spell it out is exactly because it's so hard to believe.
[ QUOTE ]
Mission entry popup: Why would I assume that the strange noise is JJ's package? I'm in a villain base, there could be many possible explanations for strange noises other than a robotic gift from a geek girl you just met. It may make more sense to find whatever it is, THEN realize it is from JJ.
Got laptops for Mark but he still doesn't seem to get much off of them despite his technomancy?
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, yeah. They're people-coded. Like secret agent coded. "In Paris, the cafes are many." "The heavy flag flaps not at night." "Hooray, hooray for the spinster's sister's daughter." And then they walk away and half an hour later a diplomat gets a bullet in the head. There's nothing there for a computer to make sense of.
I should probably file a layer of specificness off the intro dialogue, though.
[ QUOTE ]
Mission objectives: "Drop the Goldbricker boss" is already covered by the "Arrest all Goldbrickers!" goal.
[/ QUOTE ]
Mandatory objectives always put in text, and I'm not sure about how putting an optional boss in would affect a defeat-all.
Also, I want the player to know there's a boss here.
[ QUOTE ]
Even after beating the Goldbricker boss and going through Mark's final debriefing, I'm still not quite sure what was going on here. I guess they were trying to steal the contents of one person's bank account before the money was nationalized? But if they are robbing the bank anyway, why not take everyone's money, not just this one person's money?
[/ QUOTE ]
I'll see what I can put in the description of the block the Goldbrickers are trying to break, and in the welder/boss dialogue, to make it clear they're aware they're operating under some significant time pressure, even without some scrounger kid showing up.
They knew they wouldn't be able to fool everyone forever, and in a city of heroes the safe deposits are going to be crazy reinforced, so they went for the most valuable/important part first, and that's when you come in.
[ QUOTE ]
The Goldbricker boss's insane babbling suggests there is something more, and the reasons behind this particular robbery appear intentionally left a mystery. As a result, I didn't feel a sense of closure at the end of the arc; it still felt like there were loose ends that were never really addressed.
Also, in hindsight now, the original adventure hook of the refurbished cell phone seems a lot less central to the plot than I would've expected; based on the explanation during the story arc, it seems to have just been a phone used a couple times to talk about a robbery, then thrown down an elevator shaft. With all the ghost-in-the-machine type talk I had pictured the secret of the cell phone being much more dramatic for some reason.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, not to talk about. Maybe they took pictures of the bank or the street around it, got a sky view from Google Image Search, sent a text message - something that "the phone would have to remember". Mark's mutant power is to wade into the fragmentary echoes of that data and have something in the back of his head whisper "bank heist".
I'll try to find somewhere to put that.
And part of the, uh, "theme" of this arc is that something insignificant on, effectively, a piece of junk eventually ruins this hyper-secret hyper-important heist the Goldbrickers are planning. And you helped!
I'm not exactly sure what I can do to convey that I'm not making the unclaimed property law up without sounding like I have a law library stuck where the sun don't shine. You're right that the plot hinges on it and if somebody thinks it's BS plot spackle then the plot falls apart, regardless of how real it is.
Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?
My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)
I will try to play one or yours tonight. Here is mine.
Arc Name: A Hero is Made, Not Born
Arc ID: 20863
Faction: Hero
Creator Global/Forum Name: @OverlordIndigo
Difficulty Level: Medium
Synopsis: Updated 4/22/09] Traveling back in time you aid the enigmatic Commander Chronus to inspire the career of a would be hero. (( This is a lower level mission by design and should be soloable for most characters.)) [TAGS: SFMA/LBMA]
Estimated Time to Play: 15 minute timer. 1 mission
Link to More Details or Feedback: Feedback Thread
Link to Movie Poster
All feedback is appreciated.
I had a choice of 3 possible from @Lazarus; I picked the one with the least plays, which was
I'm a little puzzled why Nomaris and Chris McNeil are here though. I guess we're not inside my subconscious, but somewhere inside Mindskewer herself?
Amulet of J'gara
Stated level is 25-33 blue side. Played on a 27 elec/inv brute (yeah, villainous, but wanted exp for her; hit level 28 during mission 2), on Ruthless (level 4) difficulty.
Mission 1.
"Hello $name, it's been awhile." Even if I were blue side, a 27 wouldn't have ever gotten to talk to Buck before since he's a 30+ contact.
Bare minimum of info in the briefing; it's OK, but maybe could be better. Perhaps mention the names of the missing people and the nature of this magical item they were looking for? Why they thought this cave had it? Not strictly necessary, but would be nice to be filled in.
Mix of Tuatha and CoT? Wonder what's going on in here.
Found Luis D'Artier. The ghost guarding him says "We've been found!" while Luis simultaneously says "Someone found me!" - this is a little repetitive, maybe change one of these lines. Luis is acting like an ally; he can use some background info beyond the default Midnight Squad boilerplate. He spawned as a minion for me, which made him incredibly fragile (he got KO'd by a Tuatha's thrown branch before long); that's fine if it was intentional, but I'm not sure if it was.
"Find Jeremiah Jones" felt rather bait and switch to me; I searched the whole cave for him hoping not to have to clear all, but he was nowhere to be seen, and it turned out defeating the named boss, Sitrix, completed the "Find Jeremiah Jones" objective instead. I see that Luis hinted that Jeremiah had been "taken away" which mitigates this some. But, I do suggest you change your mission goals from "Find Luis D'Artier, Find Jeremiah Jones" to be "2 Midnighters to discover the fate of", then have this goal count down once when you free Luis (changing to "Discover the fate of the last Midnighter") and once when you defeat Sitrix (completing the mission). I think this format will be more suggestive to the player as to what is supposed to be done; "Find Jeremiah Jones" makes it sound like you should find a hostage, or at least a body bag.
The clues are well written, but I suggest you add to Luis D'Artier's story a little more info about what became of Jeremiah Jones. Something like "The boss mage took Jeremiah away, and I'm not sure what became of him after that" which would suggest to the player that he needs to go after Sitrix.
Debriefing: OK, now Buck says "Luis has some idea of where they took him." If this is true, Luis REALLY should've said something in his clue. Buck also says "You say they were striking a deal with the Tuatha de Dannon?" Dannon -> Dannan. It also wasn't terribly clear that the CoT were striking a deal; Sitrix did say something but it sounded more Sitrix was about to reward them ("You have done well delivering these Midnighters to us. Now about your reward...") than negotiate a deal with them. Perhaps alter the dialog to make this clearer; something like "You have done well delivering these Midnighters to us. I can see an arrangement between the Circle and the Tuatha will be to our mutual benefit." would make it a lot clearer.
"someone should be able to translate the text" feels very vague, Buck is an expert in this field and should say something like "With some time I can translate this text" or "Let me check some references, I think I can translate this text" or at least "I need to show this to Montague, he's the expert in ancient Croatoan inscriptions and should be able to translate it." Something more specific than "someone can do this, I'm sure".
Mission 2
Briefing: Buck does some exposition about having translated the text and it refers to the Amulet of J'gara and how horrible it is (66 words). Then he tells me what the current mission is, to rescue Jeremiah (15 words), a task seemingly unrelated to the huge paragraph immediately before it. I feel like this doesn't flow well; I can see that you may be setting up some foreshadowing for when the Amulet inevitably gets stolen from the Midnighter's Vault (why not just say Azuria's holding it in the MAGI Vault) which is good, but that part should be much shorter than the part where he tells you about the actual mission, which should be the meat of this briefing IMHO.
It also seems a little odd that Buck would be so alarmed at this text when this Amulet is already in his hands, in the Midnighter's Vault. As an NPC he should be supremely confident that the amulet is safe there. Not quite sure what the plot requires, but I wonder if it would be better if the amulet were buried in some crypt under no one's control; that would help justify him being worried about it falling in the wrong hands, and later he can send the player spelunking for it.
I think you should elaborate on where the Midnighters have divined Jeremiah's location to be (i.e., Oranbega). Also, the debrief for mission 2 said that Luis knows where they took him, so why is divination required? Seems a continuity error.
Accept mission: "Yes" is too short, suggest you replace with "Rescue Jeremiah".
Found Jeremiah, he could use a description (other than the default Midnight Squad boilerplate). Interestingly, Buck told me Jeremiah would help "fight your way back out", but I don't seem to have "lead Jeremiah out" as a goal; in fact, Jeremiah is helping me fight my way deeper in. May want to reword Buck's briefing or add a "lead Jeremiah out" as a goal. Preferably the former, having him die and force the mission to fail probably would mess up the plot. Jeremiah DOES seem very helpful in a fight, with earth control's -def doing a good job of canceling the annoying -acc dark melee effects from ghsots.
Polentes' dialog was a little dull (seemed like pretty standard stuff) but the clues you get from him and freeing Jeremiah are pretty well written.
When you ditch Jeremiah Jones, he says "Where did you go you whippersnapper?" Add a comma after go.
Found Polentes' Journal; the info there seems a little redundant with the Polentes Gloats and Jeremiah Jones' Story clues though.
The exit bubble "The Circle of Thorns are preparing to strike" appears to contradict the Polentes Gloats clue, where he says they are carrying out the assault "as we speak". Continuity error.
Mission 3
Briefing needs to be a little longer and more descriptive. I know it may seem clear from the mission 2 debriefing, but if you're not the team leader, you won't have seen that, so reiterate here that the CoT have launched a huge attack on the Midnight Club.
It's a defeat all, but the map isn't too big, so it's not too bad.
Although this is described as a pitched battle between CoT and Midnight Squad, there's no actual fighting that I can find; it's all CoT standing around in static spawns. Suggest you set up several "battles" between CoT and Midnight Squad, and maybe a patrol or two of each, to add to the chaos. Flag the Midnight Squad as being friendly and the heroes can jump into these fights to beat up the CoTs and save the Midnight Squad people.
The only Midnight Squad mobs I found were Chris McNeil and a Living Armor, both of whom had already been "captured" so were not really fighting. They both became allies; I think both the Chris and the Living Armor encounters needed more dialog (or if the Living Armor must be silent, have the CoT fighting it at least say something) to make them more interesting.
I'm actually surprised you don't have an object you need to rescue from the CoT in this mission, representing the Amulet of J'Gara. Consider adding one.
Mindskewer seemed a good enemy; her dialog was a little bland but she put up a good fight, confusing me several times (I had neglected to bring break frees as brutes rarely use them). Nomaris's parting line as he was defeated was very interesting though; foreshadowing something awful, I'm sure!
Debriefing: Huh? Buck starts talking then is cut off by (I assume) Mindskewer, who claims she had the amulet in her possession already and was using its powers. This is not hinted at during the actual mission; with the Amulet being portrayed as being so dangerous, and something the bad guys are so hot to get at, if Mindskewer had already captured it, there should definitely be a clue to that effect.
Also Mindskewer claims that I never left the Midnight Club. If this is to be taken at face value, there is no reason Buck should even get one sentence of dialog here, since you never should even get to him. Maybe you could delete Buck's dialog and instead open with something like,
"<i>You are walking towards Buck Salinger, but it seems like each step you take moves you no closer to him. He does not seem to notice you approaching, and does not respond when you call out to him. Suddenly you are aware of a malevolent presence, all around you...</i>" (then segue into Mindskewer's diatribe)
I like the list of mission goals in the nav tool of this mission, very cool sounding. Not sure what the blue color means, if anything, though.
Shadowman description: Nice description; subconcious -> subconscious. Same typo in Soul Eater description.
I like that Nomaris is so desperate that he asks you for help, AND you get to actually save him.
Pain Elemental: "it's victims" should be "its victims". It's in "Animus and Anima" faction instead of "Void Demons", is that intentional? Avatar of Strength is in "Animus and Anima", guessing that faction is meant to be "your" traits?
Avatar of Strength and its guards should have some dialog as you come up on them; even someting small, like "Avatar of Strength: Must...stay...strong...!" while the demons taunt it with "Shadowman: Your strength is useless now!" or something like that. Just to build the mood a little. Likewise for Avatar of Initiative and Avatar of Balance. I just think it would be cool if the Avatars had some dialog showing their resolve and epitomizing the concept they represent.
"Shadowman: We will devour thier initiative." thier -> their
Avatar of Initiative buffed Avatar of Strength with clear mind, increasing his perception by a lot, making him Leeroy into mobs even pretty far away. It's OK if that's what you want, but not sure if that was intentional or not. The fortitude she's giving out is REALLY nice though!
Wow, Mindskewer in this mission seems to be a nearly completely different mob, even being one rank higher (spawned as EB for me). I nearly got fried by her alpha strike but some quick inspiration popping kept me in the game until my 3 allies started helping, letting me beat her.
I really like the set up for the last mission, with the smoky map and fiery prisons and the murky shadow demons it is VERY moody and atmospheric, and I thought rescuing your various positive attributes, which then buff you, was a cool mechanic.
Debriefing: Maybe have a brief note here saying that you come to and you're talking to Buck now, like normal. (Maybe this is implied by the normal font, but I think making it clear would be good, since you weren't talking to Buck the last time.)
Overall: Up to the last mission I was mildly positive about the arc, but I thought the last mission was really pretty cool. I do think there are things that could be cleaned up/improved in the first few missions (especially the mission briefing and story logic for the first two) but the cool ending pushed it over the top for me to rate it 5 stars.
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I owe a review to:
doodaa - Poaching the Lion 1841
@Scuzzbopper - What Price Victory? 58307
GlaziusF - 2nd arc
@Cryfire - 1 of 2503, 1651 or 1638
@Vanden - Knights of Rularuu 75386
@icerose - Operation: Doolittle 58609
@squeakersman - The Environmentalist 47796
Pippy - The Paragon Caper 65246
@Sakura-kishi - The Prisoners from the Land of OZ 49326
@Wrong Number - Death to Disco 84420
in queue:
WynterPhrost
You can make me owe you a review if you run through and review one of:
Axis and Allies (1379)
Celebrity Kidnapping (1388)
Teen Phalanx Forever! (67335)
@PW - Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster on Liberty)
TALOS - PW war journal - alternate contact tree using MA story arcs
=VICE= "Give me Liberty, or give me debt!"